Most overrated movies?

[Nobert]

P.S., Why is this thread here and not in the "Moving Picture" section and don't we already have a bash over-rated movies thread or something like it?

I know there's a thread like that, maybe "Overrated actors" or something. At any rate, I distinctly recall cheerfully disparaging the so-called acting talents of Lauren Bacall for several posts before someone advised me rather grumpily to let it be.

 

[Fading Fast]

I know there's a thread like that, maybe "Overrated actors" or something. At any rate, I distinctly recall cheerfully disparaging the so-called acting talents of Lauren Bacall for several posts before someone advised me rather grumpily to let it be.

I know this isn't a popular view, but I think her looks went faster than any actress ever, but for a long time, it seemed everyone kept acting as if they were still there. In the late '40s, in movies like "Key Largo" and "Dark Passage," she has a sharp-edge arresting beauty, but, IMHO, by the mid '50s it was gone and she looks like a victim of a seven-pack a day drive-by where her sharp edge has hardened into a premature smoker's haggardness. Even by '53's "How to Marry a Millionaire" they look gone to me.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

I thought Bacall was a rather handsome older woman in "Harper" (1966). That was a movie full of veteran character players and deserves to be better known.

 

[tonyb]

I thought Bacall was a rather handsome older woman in "Harper" (1966). That was a movie full of veteran character players and deserves to be better known.

If Ms. Bacall went to any extraordinary lengths to disguise the effects of aging, it wasn't at all apparent to me. And I mean that in a flattering way.

It's certainly understandable how a person whose stock in trade is her good looks would resist the inevitable fading of that beauty. But I'm alternately saddened and repulsed by the sight of the surgeons' ministrations some one-time sirens have subjected themselves to.

 

[Nobert]

I actually haven't seen Bacall in that many movies, although one of them was the 1980s film Mr. North, in which she was definitely past her arched-eyebrow-sex-appeal period. I don't remember much about that movie, except that she played a sort of vivacious old lady, and seemed to do well enough at that.

My own judgement came pretty much from Key Largo, and had nothing to do with her looks. To be fair to her, it might have been a bum script or lousy direction. I'd have guessed that half her lines in the script simply contained the stage direction: (Smolders). Her delivery at times is so impassive that it seems as though the scenery is chewing her. Except towards the end, when she is allowed to really open up as an actress and belabor Edward G. Robinson about the head with some feminine pelting. It's a performance as mechanical as one of those toy monkeys that bangs cymbals together, but less nuanced. It could just be that the studio system looked upon a woman who looked like she did as someone who was meant precisely to be looked upon, and little else.

 

[2jakes]

If Ms. Bacall went to any extraordinary lengths to disguise the effects of aging, it wasn't at all apparent to me. And I mean that in a flattering way.

I agree.
And with the one exception of that Buster Brown hair from "Double Indemnity"...

I find her wickedly delicious!

 

[Just Jim]

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, in conjunction with the "80s" thread. With the exception of maybe three films, most of the decades production is--at best--banal, if not an outright waste of film. Growing up in that decade is probably why I've never been a big fan of watching movies in the theatre.

 

[Fading Fast]

I agree.
And with the one exception of that Buster Brown hair from "Double Indemnity"...
View attachment 99974
I find her wickedly delicious!

I believe that ⇧ is Barbara Stanwyck an actress who aged incredibly well and still looked striking as a mature woman in "The Big Valley" much later in her career. Back to Bacall, I wasn't relating her looks to her acting ability (which I'd put at a B - there are much better actresses and there are much worse) or, two, trying to make her all about her looks. It was just an off-the-cuff comment that I thought her looks - that moment of youth and beauty - went away incredibly quickly.

 

[HudsonHawk]

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, in conjunction with the "80s" thread. With the exception of maybe three films, most of the decades production is--at best--banal, if not an outright waste of film. Growing up in that decade is probably why I've never been a big fan of watching movies in the theatre.

I think there were some great movies in the 80s...including the best horror film of all time, The Shining, and the best sci-fi film of all time, Blade Runner. And I'd nominate Eight Men Out as the best baseball movie of all time. Throw in some great comedies such as Airplane!, Caddyshack, and This Is Spinal Tap, and it was a pretty good decade, IMHO.

 

[2jakes]

A Christmas Story.
Back to the Future.
Raging Bull.
Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Who framed Roger Rabbit.

These are some of my top favorites made in the '80s.
I don't know if they are considered great films or not but I love them.
The '80s were either good or not, it all
depends on what you experienced and
how you choose to remember it.

And for me... "The Natural" is my top
favorite baseball movie.
Next is "Field of Dreams" and "Eight Men Out".

 

[HanauMan]

Always thought that Dances With Wolves was over rated. I think the film was too long and the message behind it was a tad forced.

The scene with Major Fambrough, just before his suicide, and the performance of Wes Studi saves the movie for me.

 

[Fading Fast]

...

And for me... "The Natural" is my top
favorite baseball movie.
Next is "Field of Dreams" and "Eight Men Out".

I think I might put "Bull Durham" in the number two slot and shift FOD and EMO down one. While I love "That Natural -" like you, it's my number one - there's a better baseball movie still to be made as the style of "The Natural" was perfect, but the story just a bit muddled in key parts.

I also have to give an honorable mention to 1951's "Angles in the Outfield" where Paul Douglas and Janet Leigh have a surprisingly real and enjoyable chemistry together with baseball being a fun backdrop.

 

[2jakes]

"Baseball" by Ken Burns.

Not a movie, but without a doubt this
has got to be my all time favorite with
regards to the sport.

"When it was a Game"
Part one and two.

"A League of their Own"

In that order.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I didn't care for "The Natural" all that much, truth be told -- Redford was way too old for the part, and the soupy rendition of the story seems to miss the darkness at the heart of the book, especially in the way that it completely mutilates the ending to make it happy: in the book (SPOILERS), Hobbs not only doesn't win the pennant for the Knights with a spectacular home run, he strikes out to lose it. At the end of the book, it's a very real possibility that he will face a lifetime ban for accepting a bribe, but this is left up in the air. Bernard Malamud didn't go in much for happy endings shot in diffused sunlight with a gauzy filter on the lens.

I agree with Brother Hawk, though, that "Eight Men Out" is an excellent picture, if only for the scene of Kenesaw Mountain Landis monomaniacally swatting files while the owners try to proposition him.

"42" is a superior baseball-historical, even though it buffs off quite a few of the rough edges in the story for the sake of drama. And a very very underrated baseball picture that few people seem to remember is "The Bingo Long Traveling All Stars and Motor Kings," which captures both the rollicking fun and the casual cruelty of barnstorming "Negro baseball."

 

[2jakes]

The Natural.
I like the look of the movie.
The places, times and clothes.

The actors and how they look,
is secondary.

For me, it's the good feeling that I get
when Dobbs hits that home run and
shatters the lights.

Call it fantasy... but I love it.

That's why I love "film noir".


I sit down to have a good time with
a favorite flick, there's enough realism
in this world as it is.
To each his own.
my 2¢!

 

[Fading Fast]

Lizzie, funny, I saw "The Natural" with my dad and can hear him saying - "Redford's too old for the part" (which might have been his only comment on the movie and all or almost all the words he said to me from when we left the house 'till we got home)

2Jakes, I agree, the beauty in "The Natural" is the beauty of it followed by its fantasy and slightly noirish feel. Also, loved the Burn's "Baseball" doc as well - faults and all, it is amazing. After all the hype, I felt meh about "A League of Their Own" at the time, but have enjoyed it more since seeing it recently.

Neither of you enjoyed "Bull Durham?"

 

[2jakes]

Lizzie, funny, I saw "The Natural" with my dad and can hear him saying - "Redford's too old for the part" (which might have been his only comment on the movie and all or almost all the words he said to me from when we left the house 'till we got home)

2Jakes, I agree, the beauty in "The Natural" is the beauty of it followed by its fantasy and slightly noirish feel. Also, loved the Burn's "Baseball" doc as well - faults and all, it is amazing. After all the hype, I felt meh about "A League of Their Own" at the time, but have enjoyed it more since seeing it recently.

Neither of you enjoyed "Bull Durham?"

You scare me.
I feel like I could've written the above!
Thank You!

I haven't seen Bull Durham, but I will as soon as I get home.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I saw it once, a long time ago, and it struck a bit close to home -- I saw it around the same time that the Red Sox were in the midst of a series of greasy sex scandals swirling around Wade Boggs, so my impressions were that it probably could have been a good bit gamier than it actually was without fully capturing the sleaziness of the millieu. The late '80s were not, in my memory, a good time to be a baseball fan.

I have never been a Ken Burns fan -- with very few exceptions I find his stuff far too precious for words. But I do give him credit for giving Buck O'Neill a long-deserved day in the sun.

My idea of a great baseball movie would be a biographical drama about the life of Hilda Chester. In a few more years I'll be just the right age and weight to play the role myself. GO WAN YA BUMS EATCHA HEART OUT

 

[Paisley]

Overrated to me: An Affair to Remember, The Blues Brothers, and (as an adult) Raiders of the Lost Ark. I know stories require a suspension of disbelief, but come on. From the perspective of how real people think and act, Harry Potter (save for Hermione marrying Ron) was more believable.

 

[2jakes]

Overrated to me: An Affair to Remember, The Blues Brothers, and (as an adult) Raiders of the Lost Ark. I know stories require a suspension of disbelief, but come on. From the perspective of how real people think and act, Harry Potter (save for Hermione marrying Ron) was more believable.

I took "Raiders" as a kid watching a serial
chapter on a Saturday matinee at the theater.

The chase scene from the dessert to the
high mountains all within seconds was obvious that anything could and did happen.
I love Spielberg for taking me on a fantasy trip.
And I confess, I enjoyed, " An Affair to Remember" for personal reasons.