oh yes, all those people overrating ‘chicago’, left right and centre: bastards, they’re everywhere.

yeah. its a pretty retarded list. some of these movies i never even knew were particularly rated to begin with.

When I saw 2001 in 1968, I was occasionally thrilled, often bored, and ultimately mystified that the ending was considered a “trip,” let alone that the movie was an instant classic. But everybody around me was stoned, and not in the mood for close reasoning. Today, the movie comes off as painfully slow and often achingly obvious (the portentous music, the waltz accompaniment to the oh-so-slow rocket sequences, the flatter-than-a-pancake dialogue). And the acting! The acting is . . . nonexistent. At least the apes in the opening Dawn of Man sequence show some passion, but the notion that an ape’s finding that a thigh bone kills led to spaceships that look like thigh bones seems a little pat. Yes, the design of the movie is beautiful and there are lots of great shots. But a coherent story well-told, it is not.—Peter Herbst, Editor-in-chief

I saw Forrest Gump for the first time a few weeks ago. It was on t.v and I decided that I HAD to see it.

How wrong I was.

But a coherent story well-told, it is not.—Peter Herbst, Editor-in-chief

Does this guy think he’s Yoda or something?

don’t think herr kube was rilly going for ‘a coherent story well-told’ — after all, he wasn’t a british playwright of the 1950s.

REBUTTAL: Sure, the characters initially come off as parodistic . . . until Willy Loman forgoes suicide in favor of burger flipping. But the film’s stylish send-up of American suburbia is only surface anyway. Look closer, and you’ll find a layered and humanistic meditation on the universal search for meaning. —Cristy Lytal, associate editor

Fuck you, person who uses film’s marketing mantra as a defense of said film.

Also the reviews of Fantasia and 2001 might as well actually be the same thing. OMG MOVIE HAS NO PLOT *HEAD EXPLODES*

I saw Forrest Gump for the first time a few weeks ago. It was on t.v and I decided that I HAD to see it.
How wrong I was.

— Rumps (rumpie7...), December 1st, 2006 3:45 PM. (later)

No, I guess it had to be seen. It’s not a baaad movie, it’s not good either. But it says a heckovalot about the people who love it and wish life was like that, that we are all innocent people who are being looked after by the people who know best!

ahem.

OK I’m actually getting angry about all of these and I don’t even like half of these movies?? Did the people at Premier actually bother watching these films before declaring their faults?

xpost no, Forrest Gump is a terrible movie.

there are lots of overrated foreign-language films too which they left out. it’s a very ‘premiere’ idea of what films are overrated. and no-one overrates half the movies!!!!!

‘the seventh seal’ is more overrated and less good than ’2001’.

This is one of the signature films of New Wave cinema, but those who have trumpeted it as a delirious tribute to free love and bohemian bons vivants have grievously misjudged it. Let college kids fall for a woman who throws herself in rivers and makes love to best friends under one roof. Ultimately, Jules and Jim was never a celebration of this nutjob arrangement.

Who is this reviewer even arguing with?? Wouldn’t you have to be Forrest Gump to take this movie in this fashion?

Well, it’s like Mrs Doubtfire, I imagined a bad movie that was pleased with itself.

It actually was a reasonably well made movie that was Exceeeeeedingly pleased with itself.

(Robin Williams refuses to voice over cartoon where they are smoking, like that would even happen in real life no it wouldn’t. And so on)

Hey, that one should be on the list! Wow is it so overrated. By someone, I expect!

Hahaha yes, Robin Williams probably.

Nashville slam=Way to piss on a grave folks*

*Altough it was probably written before Altman died. Can’t wait for the printed obit.

Forrest Gump is overrated? I guess so cause you can’t underrate it.

No Heat, no credibility.

I’ve always hated this shit, like even when folks like Chunklet would do their overrated list. “Ah HA! Watch us now trash your sacred cows! They will never survive under assault of our profound wit!”

It’s like the laziest of lazy nihilistic (hipster or not) contrarianism. “Yes, you see what we did here? We showed you how the Beatles weren’t all that!” You can’t figure anything else to write, so you dash out some facile broadside on some pop phenomena.

But the thing is that, I mean, how many of these movies are actually particularly rated? Winning an award when it came out doesn’t necessarily count, I mean I think there has to be an element of critical over-praise + popularity as well, and I think it kind of has to have been around long enough and STILL get praised regularly. I mean, really, who gives a crap about Forrest Gump? Or FFS Chicago.

True. Half the newer flicks are completely forgettable/forgotten w/in two years of winning their big award.

Who rates ’em? The public at large. There’s alotta people that would claim about half the list among there favorites. The rest is random canon fodder getting taken down a peg.

yeah, but MOONSTRUCK?

what the fuck even is ‘moonstruck’?! i hadn’t noticed it.

Yes, how edgy to take potshots at Gone With The Wind, what will they think of next, etc. SURE SHOWED THEM.

And no, I really don’t believe the public at large rates many of these movies very highly at all cf what kingfish just said.

so loud were the critical hosannas for ‘moonstruck’ that i am deaf to them; so much laudatory white noise...

I don’t think I’ve ever met a person who had a higher opinion of American Beauty than “It was okay, the scene where he describes what he does at work all day is medium funny.” I actually am unaware of a single person I have ever spoken to who actually saw Chicago, for that matter??? Confusing.

haha Moonstruck, Nicholas Cage do not want.

It’s like the “just missed it!” on the list must be Steel Magnolias or some shit.

did people actually like mystic river tho?

“One thing that always irked me about Pretty Woman is that it’s completely illogical. Rich businessmen don’t marry hookers! And that Richard Gere—surely he could find a woman who he did not have to pay. For that matter, has anyone ever seen a hooker that looks like Julia Roberts or Laura San Giacomo? HELLOOOOOO?”

I quite liked Mystic Pizza. Does that count?

Forrest Gump—KwikSave version of Being There with added Zelig

IT IS A FILM!!!

NOT A DOCUMENTARY!!!

(xpost about Pretty Woman. The fact that they altered the ending made the film null and void, more to the point)

I don’t think I’ve ever met a person who had a higher opinion of American Beauty than “It was okay, the scene where he describes what he does at work all day is medium funny.”

But seriously? Like half the people I went to film school with thought u>American Beauty was amazing, and half the twenty-somethings who style themselves film buffs b/c they watch the commentary tracks on DVDs agree.

Come on Premier, less lists, more beats for Guru.

also I’ll defend Nashville tooth and nail. The Lily Tomlin deaf-sons scene is one of my favorite in all of film, ever, unqualified.

more beats 4 xtina agulera more like it

It’d actually make more sense if they did make dumb, illiterate, obvious comments about Pretty Woman because I actually DO know people who enjoy that movie, and I still see it showing up on “top comedies” lists all the time! Unlike Monster’s Ball.

remy, I don’t think anyone here should apologize anymore for the fact that you hang out with a lot of idiots. How about you try looking at ILX film thread re: this movie and its director OH WAIT YOU CANNOT IT IS GONE ;_;

Yeah, but the thing about American Beauty was that it was only big at that time(came out when I was taking film classes, too).

But we’re 7 years later now, and how many of those same folks are still talking about the movie? Kevin Spacey’s been established to the point that its never referred to, Thora Birch is more remembered for Ghost World, and Spiderman-dude and even Donnie Darko-dude has usurped the place that the kid in this one(wes bently, wasn’t it?) had.

(xp)

people I went to film school with

and half the twenty-somethings who style themselves film buffs

OH OH OH I know let’s ask DORKTOR MORBIUS what he thinks, too!

hahaha

monster’s ball is def in my top comedies MAKE ME FEEEEL GOOOOD!!! lol

i wd say that of the list only ‘nashville’, ‘the red shoes’, and ’2001’ have any really major critical standing, and ’2001’ is still quite widely hated.

So, is it safe to say that “middlebrow” applies to this list?

to be fair a lot of otherwise sensible people do love clerks for no good reason

that wasn’t mean to sound smug TOM, I was just trying to distance myself from the serious film types.

anyway yeah everybody otm at the utter pathetic laziness of making lists trashing “overrated” anything when there are no objective criteria whatsoever for either the rating, over or under, the person(s) doing this “rating” are vague, cloudy concept, perhaps reflected in the 2000 census, perhaps reflected in the authors’ bathroom mirrors after moo tinny martoonies, and not even a semblance of a frame to the debate in time or space. It’s like at least Jay-Z tells us the one problem he DOESN’T have, this type of shit is strictly lazy livejournal horseshit, a bunch of humanities grads bitching about last week’s weather and getting paid for it.

I wish I could get paid for it.

remy you would have to think I was some kind of insane person to think that somebody talking about their fellow film school kids and 20something netflix hobbyists is trying to be smug! Trust me, I know!

xpost google adwords dude

Nashville slam=Way to piss on a grave folks*
*Altough it was probably written before Altman died. Can’t wait for the printed obit.

This list was actually published I think nearly a year ago. Though it’s nice to see a boring list ignored here for once, until now.

i think they meant top 20 corniest movies for middlebrow ironists. gone with the wind and the wizard of oz are horrible, but i think easy rider, clerks, field of dreams, good will hunting and moonstruck are all good movies, and chariots of fire, while not quite great, is elevated above merely good by the performances. american in paris is great. then again, i have a higher tolerance for corn than the average critically-inclined person.

they might have done better to pick an underrated alternative, like cast away >> forrest gump, but they probably don’t like that either

This is my corn. You people are guests in my corn.

wizard of oz is in no way horrible

Thing about Wizard of Oz is that it’s harmless, isn’t it; a bit of deliberate pop entertainment that’s now a cherished tradition wot’s on the TV on certain holidays and in dorm rooms. It ain’t aiming at some modern-era oscar-grabbing middlebrow status(see all the ones on the list made after the mid-90s).

But yeah, having an “underrated” list is a far better use of time & column space.

I really liked Field of Dreams, and Carter Burwell’s music(along with james earl jones & burt lancaster) more than made up for the late-’80s boomer angst grafted onto Malamud’s book.

Uh, the book was written by W.P. Kinsella, and James Horner did the score.

But other than that, I agree with you.

I’ve never heard of Jules and Jim!

Wasn’t the Red Shoes some corny ‘erotic’ drama with David Duchovny?

shit, you’re right. i’m confusing it with The Natural & Miller’s Crossing.

xp

field of dreams = disturbing study of masculine sentimentality

(and constner is an inert gblob)

THAT MOVIES SO OVERRATED

I saw Chicago! I can’t recall much about it though.

replace ‘american beauty’ with ‘road to perdition’, which i still maintain is the most boring film ever made.

I only like the bit where the bag is blowing around in the wind in American Beauty. Damn, that’s so emo of me.

“parodistic”?

This list makes no sense.

road to perdition, yes, possibly most boring ever made.

I LOATHE american beauty. that film made me so angry! so bad on so many levels. saw it with friends at a packed theater @ union station and was yelling at the screen it made me so irrationally angry

that and “bottle rocket” UGH

Haha the critique of Jules and Jim is so biting! “The end’s basically not as great as the great beginning.” Yeah you really stuck it to that flick.

whoa dar1a. u h8 bottle rocket?

Road to Perdition at least has Paul Newman being Paul Newman, more than can be said for American Beauty.

I really, truly hated Jules and Jim, but the exact reasons are fuzzy. But I’ve hated every Truffaut I’ve seen—sooner or later will have to borrow The 400 Blows just to make sure I can write him off completely.

actually, given the quality of movies made from graphic novels since its release, Road to Perdition doesn’t look quite so bad. I’d rather watch it again than Sin City or V for Vendetta.

#1 underrated movie of all time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVH5JxdM-i0

I dunno, see, I thought I hated it but I saw it a long time ago. is it a total pisstake or not?

I don’t think I like truffaut either

road to perdition is so much worse than any other film based on a graphic novel. paul newman sleepwalks through it. i guess daniel craig is pretty good. whatever, it’s horrible.

actually it’s still better than that deadening manga-esque film ‘renaissance’ (which also features daniel craig providing the voice for the lead character...hmm..)

The Field of Dreams thing is the one most perplexing to me, I mean “the sweetness of Ray Liotta”?

Agree:

American Beauty

Chicago

Forrest Gump

Easy Rider

Nashville

Gone With The Wind

Where’s Saving Private Ryan and Platoon?

Disagree:

Clerks

Fantasia

The Wizard of Oz (calling this crap is daft btw)

2001: A Space Oddyssey

Moonstruck

Mystic River

Also, there should be a 10 year no-fly-zone for a list like this.

no Usual Suspects, no credibility

of course, it’s much easier to make lists of movies beloved by certain people, which we can then mock.

flicks like Fight Club, or Garden State, or...dare i say it...Napolean Dynamite.

I vaguely remember really enjoying Clerks when it came out, I watched it recently (sort of, was playing on internets while roommate watched for first time) and holy crap, the only vaguely funny thing was “Berserker”. Vaguely.

“gone with the wind and the wizard of oz are horrible, but i think easy rider, clerks, field of dreams, good will hunting and moonstruck are all good movies, and chariots of fire, while not quite great, is elevated above merely good by the performances”

this is brain-dead! and then he calls himself a “critically-inclined person”

I don’t think that many Field of Dreams fans consider it a cinematic masterwork—more like “oooh, baseball” and “aww, why wasn’t I nicer to my dad before he died of stomach cancer?”

this is brain-dead! and then he calls himself a “critically-inclined person”

try harder next time!

sorry, this thread is unworthy of me (Premiere wd never piss off Kill Bill fans, huh)

Your obsession with Kill Bill is bizarre—the movie’s two or three years old, time to move on. (Besides, Pulp Fiction is THE overrated Tarantino.)

The Red Shoes is the most glaringly wrong piece of wrongness on this wrong list.

(Even thought it’s all “empty” and all.)

otm

“ actually, given the quality of movies made from graphic novels since its release, Road to Perdition doesn’t look quite so bad. I’d rather watch it again than Sin City or V for Vendetta.

— milo (wooderso...) (webmail), December 1st, 2006 6:23 PM. (milo)”

fuck you

“ #1 underrated movie of all time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVH5JxdM-i0

— milo (wooderso...) (webmail), December 1st, 2006 6:25 PM. (milo)”

FUCK YOU ANY GIVEN SUNDAY IS THE MOST OVERRATED TURD EVER YOU COCKSUCKER

it strikes me that you were probably being sarcastical and whatnot but fuck you anyway imo

i hate a bunch of these films but it’s about the most boring list imaginable—“forrest gump” may have been famous in its date but it’s completely evaporated from the culture: if you said “life is like a box of chocolates” in mixed company i bet half the people wouldn’t know what you were talking about.

“wizard of oz” is the only great movie on this list.

“famous in its day,” i meant.

i like “jules and jim” but it’s out of place in this list anyway, it’s like the only remotely obscure (and not very obscure at that) thing here.

“forrest gump” may have been famous in its date but it’s completely evaporated from the culture: if you said “life is like a box of chocolates” in mixed company i bet half the people wouldn’t know what you were talking about.

haha you don’t live in the south

Holy shit that Chunklet book is awful.

fastest evap from the culture: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

if they had picked Shawshank Redemption the cancelled subscrips woulda sunk em

problem w/CTHD was it was pretty par for the course as far as wire-fu goes and not that special to those familiar with the genre, and those most passionate about it seemed to be those who were unfamiliar with it. it’s a good movie but not awesome (and a cut below those zhang yimou flicks from recent years, too).

I find it hard to dislike a list that points out how much Forrest Gump fucking sucks, because it, well, fucking sucks. For more or less exactly the reason they said, too.

(They’re 100% wrong about a few of those, too: 2001? Wizard of Oz?)

I mean, really, who gives a crap about Forrest Gump?

If anyone thinks there aren’t a lot of people out there who rate Forrest Gump, American Beauty, et al...try taking a look at people’s favorite movies on, say, Match.com sometime. It’s like a Gump/American Beauty/Chocolat lovefest there. And Gump is a permanent part of American popular culture.

And no, I really don’t believe the public at large rates many of these movies very highly at all

Not Moonstruck or Jules and Jim, no. But American Beauty, Good Will Hunting, Forrest Gump, A Beautiful Mind, they’re like the Four Horsemen of Mediocrity, and they hold sway over a lot of people out there (once you get outside of NYC and DC, anyway).

Let me just say the phrase “a lot of people out there” a couple more times. Maybe if I say it again, Chocolat will magically be un-made.

Friend of mine coming back from seeing American Beauty: “That was the greatest movie I’ve ever seen.”

where’s ‘gladiator’? people give ridley scott more crap for ‘black hawk down’ and ‘kingdom of heaven’, but those movies are actually pretty good. ‘gladiator’ is just a steaming pile.

otm about gladiator

btw awards for gladiator, beautiful mind, and crash, the oscars are worse than the fucking grammys

Is it only in my world where Moonstruck seems to be on everyone’s top ten lists? Few rank it number one, although I have met some who do, but this exchange is really common:

Person 1: “.....[blah blah blah] Moonstruck....”

Person 2: “Oh, Moonstruck! I love that movie, it’s one of my alltime favorites!”

And I don’t really remember too much about Moonstruck, so I’m always a little baffled by it, but I accept it’s one of those movies that people really love that did nothing for me.

The other movie where this happens a lot: The Big Lebowski.

heh. I’ve been resisting posting to this thread because all I have to say is is, “Oh, Moonstruck! I love that movie.” I guess I’m one of a lot of people out there.

It’s a weird list, but I do agree with their choices of 2001 and Jules and Jim—though the reason they don’t like the latter is completely different from mine. I liked the story in it, but not the way it was made, I guess I’m just not a fan of the New Wave aesthetic. Some of Truffaut’s later films are great though. American Beauty and Forrest Gump are mediocre films that were overrated when they initially came out, but not necessarily anymore.

I finally saw Chicago last summer, and was positively surprised, it was actually better than its reviews suggested.

Premiere = most overrated movie magazine ... no, not really even that.

I think it basically qualifies as the Chicago of movie magazines.

I can’t believe that there are still people jabbering that random lonely hearts and “real America” (UH) love, love, love these films and that somehow box office popularity is actually a qualifier for being “overrated” (try reading the actual articles that accompany the list, or is that too hard??), btw. NEXT SACRED COW PREMIERE WILL TACKLE NEXT: TITANIC.

I can’t believe that there are still people jabbering that random lonely hearts and “real America” (UH) love, love, love these films

So what’s your point — that it’s not true, or just that it’s not interesting? If the latter, I can respect that, but if the former, then you’re just wrong.

(“Random lonely hearts”, whatever — what cross-section would work for you, then?)

and that somehow box office popularity is actually a qualifier for being “overrated”

From what I can tell, the list is a hodgepodge of critical and popular/box-office favorites, no? I mean, it’s a mess, but it’s certainly not calibrating solely on “box office popularity” (though I’m not sure that you were saying that).

And again, if you’re arguing that there aren’t a lot of people who rate Forrest Gump, A Beautiful Mind, etc. highly, then you’re wrong. If you’re arguing that those people are somehow irrelevant, then I might like to know who it is you would consider relevant.

The basic question, I guess, is: “Overrated by whom?” And it’s a legitimate question to ask, and it’s legitimate to restrict your answer to “film critics” if you want.

But if you ask “who gives a crap about Forrest Gump?”, then you kinda forfeit the right to wring your hands about it if you get a truthful answer to that question.

Your rights have been forfeited, Ally. By you.

A few Myspace searches; take results with a grain of salt, but:

Results 1—10 of about 250,000 for american beauty.

Results 1—10 of about 199,000 for shawshank redemption.

Results 1—10 of about 197,000 for beautiful mind.

Results 1—10 of about 186,000 for pretty woman.

Results 1—10 of about 163,000 for clerks.

Results 1—10 of about 133,000 for forrest gump.

Results 1—10 of about 10,500 for moonstruck.

Results 1—10 of about 1,472,500 for empire records

Premiere used to be kind of good, didn’t it? Like, in the mid-90’s? or was I just 14?

at the time of its release, my mom’s near pathological love of American Beauty disturbed and saddened me.

Never a grain so salty.