Unpopular movie opinions...

[jamespowers]

Then don't come to my house...

lol lol lol lol
Razbanyi siati benefuchi timiniharogi. That, how do you call it, that froghead, he askee taskaskee, whatifichorsa inginzoben. Gotet something else kiddo?

 

[Lensmaster]

Daniel Craig has been very polarizing.

there's only Connery for me, with Craig a distant second. Moore/Dalton/Brosnan were just embarrassing. still undecided, after all these years, on Lazenby.

not to say that i haven't made a point to see every James Bond film, starting with Moonraker, in the theater....

I like Connery best. I think Brosnan did a good job. My problem with Craig's movies is not the performance as bond it's the writing and directing of the movies. As much as people might say it is closer to the original books, I like James Bond as a bit of escapism, tough but sophisticated. I don't want to see an angry, depressed Bond.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Today's feature films are too long. If you can't tell a good story in 85 minutes, don't think padding it out to 135 minutes is going to make it any better.

 

[Lensmaster]

Mad Hot Ballroom was good, but it wasn't typical: it was a documentary about kids in New York City public schools learning to dance for a competition. I liked Swing Kids, too, and I really expected it to be awful.

I don't like most Golden Era dance movies. I'd rather do my income taxes than watch Fred Astaire.

I love golden era dance movies. What I don't like is the move to movies where the dancing has to be realistic, on stage, at a club, in a "dance off". I like people breaking into song and dance in a movie. My favorite musical of the last thirty years is Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo. It surprised me. After the "realism" of the first movie, this one had people breaking out dancing in hospitals and everywhere. It was the first true musical in years.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Yes. I think Farrell has potential as a light comedy actor but he goes with the money which is stupid broad characters with no character. Can't really say anything good for Jack Black.

The best that can be said about Will Ferrell is that he's elevated anguished or drunken bellowing to an art -- which isn't saying much. And on a somewhat similar note almost every Ben Affleck movie seems to have an obligatory crying scene where he blubbers like a baby.

Today's feature films are too long. If you can't tell a good story in 85 minutes, don't think padding it out to 135 minutes is going to make it any better.

Also special effects is no substitute for a good story and acting. It seems as if SFX has become the star of many of today's movies.

I might have said it before on another thread but I absolutely hate period movies that use modern contemporary music instead that of the era depicted. Two notable examples are Moulin Rouge and Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights. And just as bad are movies whose soundtrack is nothing more than an off-the-shelf compilation of contemporary pop artists.

 

[Lensmaster]

The post-2001 Ocean's Eleven series. I've had friends and family that have sworn by these movies for years, calling them the coolest things they've ever seen and insisting that I am missing out.

The terrible plot elements and unfathomable premise, the awful displays of "high culture" (yeah right) and atrocious, "comical" dialog just about makes me tear up from embarrassment.
The thing I hate the most is the way the characters are portrayed (mostly through the use of the aforementioned dialog) as being so casual, so cool, so bad-ass if you will. Makes me want to barf.

It's a real shame too since I love nearly all of the actors in the films (save for Julia Roberts - I will wholeheartedly side with the earlier comments regarding her). But alas, their potential performances are dashed by the lackluster content.

I probably wouldn't hate the movies so much if I didn't feel like I was the only one. I've literally watched my friends sitting around watching these movies and saying "OMG THIS IS SO COOL!!!", leaving me to walk out of the room shaking my head and wanting to throw a brick through the television screen.

I swear, if I have to sit through one more jazz-tracked bank-rigging montage, I'm going to throw up.

I agree. I love most of the actors. But the movie was just a competent heist movie. They do not rob three casinos, they rob one vault. In the original the security was less high tech but they literally rob five different places simultaneously.

 

[VitaminG]

Today's feature films are too long. If you can't tell a good story in 85 minutes, don't think padding it out to 135 minutes is going to make it any better.

Lawrence of Arabia, Cleopatra, Sound of Music, Gone With The Wind, My Fair Lady.

The Big Sleep was apparently 116 minutes

 

[LizzieMaine]

Lawrence of Arabia, Cleopatra, Sound of Music, Gone With The Wind, My Fair Lady.

The Big Sleep was apparently 116 minutes

All exceptions, rather than the rule. The vast majority of feature films made before 1950 ran less than two hours, and a substantial percentage of those ran less than 90 minutes.

Too many of today's features are insufferably padded. As a projectionist, I'm sorely tempted to run some of them at 25 fps to at least cut down the running time. When we showed "Babel" I was tempted to completely throw out the middle four reels.

 

[HepKitty]

First and foremost, Leonardo di Caprio is a slimy weasel

I hate movies set in other countries with no effort made to represent the respective languages and cultures. Old movies are notorious for this and even newer ones are guilty but they have no excuse. It's not hard to track down the info in this day and age

Which is why I love Inglorious Basterds. European actors, intelligent dialogues in several languages, good translations for the subtitles, and a wicked sense of humor for the whole thing. this is the kind of stuff I've been waiting for

Der Blaue Engel made me scratch my head. I like movies that make me think but that just hurt

3D movies. What a waste of money for a lousy headache

 

[Diamondback]

I'm gonna be a heretic and defend Roger Moore here, just a little.

ON OFFENSE: I think he tried to bring too much of "The Saint" over to 007, playing the series as becoming a satire of itself--as he continued to do in his post-007 career, where he even satirized himself. (See Cannonball Run II, IIRC.)

ON DEFENSE: The '70s Bonds must also be considered in light of the time and culture they were written for--Vietnam was just ending, and the time of the serious Badarse Action Hero appeared to be at its end. So Moore may have been nothing great next to his predecessors and replacements--although he did perform a fairly serious gig in For Your Eyes Only, which was too serious for what its contemporary audience was expecting (possible whiplash from the insanely Over The Top duo of The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker)--but at least he helped keep the Bond torch burning until popular tastes changed enough to return to a more traditional 007.

By the profiles, until Craig, Timothy Dalton's Bond was actually the closest to what Fleming wrote, although there is one scene in GoldenEye where you can see what lies beneath...
Natalya (Izabella Scorupco): "How can you be so cold?"
Bond: "It's what keeps me alive."
Natalya: "No, it's what keeps you alone."
The look Brosnan gets on his face in response to this implies a "direct hit" to my read.

 

[Katarina]

First and foremost, Leonardo di Caprio is a slimy weasel

Why do you have to be so mean to weasels? lol

 

[Diamondback]

Why do you have to be so mean to weasels? lol

What I wanna know is what kind of black magic it took to keep Mr. Hughes dirtnapping so he wouldn't rise from the grave and throttle the little [invective of choice here] for sullying his name with The Aviator...

THe guy who plays Neal Caffrey on White Collar is twice anything diCrapio could ever imagine it possible to be, despite their playing a similar game. (Compare WC to Catch Me If You Can--no diss on the real Frank Abagnale intended.)

I was sick and tired of his sorry hide before even leaving high-school, thanks to that sucktacular James Cameron FUBAR of Titanic and the collective obsession with it and him among so many of those whom it was my misfortune to call "classmates"...

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Lawrence of Arabia, Cleopatra, Sound of Music, Gone With The Wind, My Fair Lady.

The Big Sleep was apparently 116 minutes

Add Apocalypse Now to the Snooze Fest Film Fest. Except for the iconic air cavalry attack scene the rest of the film is painfully long and drawn out, beginning with Martin Sheen's protracted delirium tremens scene and ending with Marlon Brando's disjointed mumblings in the last 20 minutes of the movie. Whenever I watch it I breathe a prayer of thanks to the gods of electronics that the Japanese invented Fast Forward and Scene Select.

"The horror! The horror!"

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

THe guy who plays Neal Caffrey on White Collar is twice anything diCrapio could ever imagine it possible to be, despite their playing a similar game. (Compare WC to Catch Me If You Can--no diss on the real Frank Abagnale intended.)

I was sick and tired of his sorry hide before even leaving high-school, thanks to that sucktacular James Cameron FUBAR of Titanic and the collective obsession with it and him among so many of those whom it was my misfortune to call "classmates"...

In my opinion, DiCrappio's role as Frank Abagnale in Catch Me If You Can was bad casting. DiCrappio's Abagnale is totally unbelievable because he looks like a punk kid. In order for the real-life Abagnale to have successfully pulled off his scams -- especially by posing as an airline pilot -- he had to have looked a lot older than he really was at age 16 or 17.

And I do get a big laugh at how DiCrappio wasn't even nominated for an Oscar for Titanic when practically everyone including the Gaffer and Best Boy was! lol

 

[VitaminG]

Which is why I love Inglorious Basterds. European actors, intelligent dialogues in several languages, good translations for the subtitles, and a wicked sense of humor for the whole thing. this is the kind of stuff I've been waiting for

not to mention Brad Pitt's flawless Italian

 

[Chas]

National Lampoons 'Bored of the Rings' is worth a read.

"Benelux, Electrolux, Onward!"

A classic of modern literature. I especially like the orcish: "pushplug tietack kierkegaard!"

 

[Puzzicato]

Today's feature films are too long. If you can't tell a good story in 85 minutes, don't think padding it out to 135 minutes is going to make it any better.

I'll go so far as to say 90 minutes. But then I am usually bored and want to go home. And another big chase scene is not going to save it.

 

[Puzzicato]

Lawrence of Arabia, Cleopatra, Sound of Music, Gone With The Wind, My Fair Lady.

The Big Sleep was apparently 116 minutes

Of those I have only seen SOund of Music, Gone with the WInd and My Fair Lady. And I don't see those as compelling arguments!

 

[HepKitty]

not to mention Brad Pitt's flawless Italian

lol well he obviously can't be included in the list of European actors but yes that was hilarious!

 

[Miss Golightly]

I really don't like My Fair Lady - I find it really, really dull and the same goes for The Sound of Music.