Movies You Can't Stand

[EnriqueH]

Whether they're just plain terrible, (say, Elektra) or just something about them that gets on your nerves, (could be a "great" movie that everyone else loves but you hate or dislike.)

Man of Steel: It's just ok. Nobody seems able to nail this character. Superman Returns was all drama, no action. This was all action, no drama. They want to make him dark, when he's not a dark character.

Lord of the Rings: The first time I saw Fellowship of the Rings, I went with a friend who had already seen it *7* times and dragged me to see it. I couldn't stop checking my watch. It was endless. I went through a brief phase where it grew on me, but once some people started saying it was better than the original Star Wars, I went to WAR with LOTR and haven't looked back. The constant crying, endless walking, forced cuteness and annoying characters. UGH!!!

Inception: I didn't quite understand the high praise. It was a cool concept and everything, but I didn't see it as being that mindblowing. (I might need to see it again and give it one more chance.)

Slumdog Millionaire: There were so many great movies released this particular year. And *THIS* won Best Picture?? I couldn't stand this movie. Far-fetched, melodramatic, horrible.

 

[Relayer1]

Inception was O.K., but nowhere near as clever as it was supposed to be.

E.T. - horrible movie. Unpleasantly saccharine take on American childhood mixed with a cloying tale about a repulsive alien with a fairytale finale. Nauseating crap.

It was around that point I started to realise Spielberg wasn't actually that good...

 

[Amaris]

Just about every evangelical Christian movie ever made. I normally wouldn't mention it, but in this case, they're the movies I grew up with. They're plodding, dull, preachy (obviously), ham handed, poorly directed, and poorly acted. Now, I'm not talking classic religious movies like Ben-Hur, or The Ten Commandments. Those movies are damned good. I'm talking movies like Left Behind, and Omega Code, and all the other saccharin "family" movies I see today.

Aside from that, I haven't really ever found a movie that I didn't get some kind of enjoyment out of, even if I grew tired of it quickly (Transformers).

 

[Avon]

The day after tomorrow. stupid film. stupid characters. stupid science.

 

[Starbreaker]

I saw White Chicks and Nacho Libre at a double feature drive in and I have had a not so irrational hatred of those movies since.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Why would other people's increased opinion of LOTR make your opinion of it more negative? Sounds kind of contrarian.

On the other hand I have the exact same feelings about Kanye West.

This thread is going to turn into a "My chance to tear down films I'm not a fan of that everybody else says is great" thread, isn't it?

My contributions on that note: Half of Godard's catalog. I kind of like Breathless, but Contempt and Pierrot Le Fou I find awful. Godard's films have a kind of ridiculous attitude toward culture that reeks of substanceless provocation. (Hey, like Kanye West!) On a similar note, Jules et Jim.

Some movies from the 50s and 60s also have these portrayals of women as imbecilic victims completely at the mercy of womanizing men who are then morally condescended to. La Strada, The Apartment. I do not take the year it was made as an excuse. Women in the 60s were not imbeciles, it was just more acceptable to show them on film as such, and those who chose to take advantage of that do not get a free pass.

There's also a couple antiwar films that I feel attack the wrong targets and come off as manipulative, like Paths of Glory.

Then of course D.W. Griffith. Birth of a Nation glorifies the KKK, and True Hearted Susie is morally condescending, even more so than the average 1910s movie.

 

[auntiehill]

Pretty Woman. The title says it all. It doesn't matter if you're a whore with no education and poor judgement; just be pretty and you can land the man of your dreams. All that matters is that you're pretty. Great message to send out to young girls. Fabulous.

Grease. You want the boy to love you, even though you're not cool? Easy. Just change everything about who you are. Doesn't matter if he's an insensitive idiot. Just change yourself completely for him. Then he'll love you. Great. Plus the songs are annoyingly idiotic.

And don't even get me started on the Sex and the City movies. There's not enough space on the internet for me to fully complain about the movies, and the TV series that spawned that misogynistic, puerile vomitus.

 

[Melakon]

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. I saw it in a theatre at 31, and definitely outside the target group since I had no kids and saw it alone. I hated it, because at one point I realized how much Spielberg was manipulating the audience. and it pulled me right out of it for the rest of the film. It's well made. Spielberg would have been great at WWII propaganda films.

 

[1001001]

The English Patient.

Elaine Benes was right.

JUST DIE ALREADY!!!

 

[J.T.B.]

^ "How could you not love that movie?" "How about, it sucked?" My wife agreed completely. I thought it was OK, not great.

I usually don't give much more thought to a movie haven't liked, but one interesting experience was Inglorious Basterds, which I was enjoying until the climax in the theater, when I began to really hate it.

 

[Gaith]

Speaking of double features, I've got one about pregnancies! Hooray! Pass the popcorn!

Knocked Up: because Rogen's character was a directionless asshole, and not for a moment did I buy that Heigl's character would fall for him. But then he redeems himself - by helping build a web site devoted to female movie nudity. That everyone considers a brilliant idea that people will pay memberships for, copyrights be damned. In 2007. What the actual f***?

Juno: Will the healthy white teenage girl find good adoptive parent(s) for her baby? Of course she will; healthy white newborns are in perpetually high demand. She doesn't even have to do anything, any half-decent agency will do a fine job for her. So, what's the actual source of tension in the story? Whether her lame-ass boy friend will still want to hang out with her? Oh, what? This plot point obviously won't be resolved until she gives birth? Which is more than an hour of screen time away? So the movie is just going to spin its sickeningly cutesy wheels for a full hour, during which time the boy will be too cowardly to have a mature chat with her, but when he shows up to the hospital, we're supposed to cheer for their resumed relationship? Huh? Will the dvd please crack and break? Please?

 

[Gov Kodos]

The Dark Knight, tedious, string of action sequences strung together by uninteresting characters and boring plot.

 

[Amaris]

Speaking of double features, I've got one about pregnancies! Hooray! Pass the popcorn!

Knocked Up: because Rogen's character was a directionless asshole, and not for a moment did I buy that Heigl's character would fall for him. But then he redeems himself - by helping build a web site devoted to female movie nudity. That everyone considers a brilliant idea that people will pay memberships for, copyrights be damned. In 2007. What the actual f***?

Mr. Skin. Not disagreeing about the movie, just pointing out that there are websites with that business model that pull in money. Granted, they were around well before 2007.

 

[EnriqueH]

I started watching Shakespeare In Love about a year ago and shut it off after about 45 minutes. I need to give it another chance, but right now, it's going into this thread.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I'm not a fan of Juno, but in its defense, the story was not about whether the baby would find good adoptive parents or whether the boy would stay with her. The story was about her day to day experiences as a pregnant teenager, and how hipster culture responds to things it doesn't want to think about. The 'Sickening cuteness' was her keeping up the veneer of her normal life to guard her real emotions from cultural judgment. And the point of the relationship was to illustrate the way the woman is the one stuck with the consequences whereas the man can choose to just walk away from it.

But yeah, the movie was not that well written.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

@J.Allen: I haven't seen any of those evangelical movies of which you speak, but I have read the Left Behind novels, and I did not much care for them, I admit. And I say this *as* an evangelical Christian (well, a Lutheran, anyway). I don't like how heavy-handed they are, any more than you did.

FWIW.

 

[Amaris]

@J.Allen: I haven't seen any of those evangelical movies of which you speak, but I have read the Left Behind novels, and I did not much care for them, I admit. And I say this *as* an evangelical Christian (well, a Lutheran, anyway). I don't like how heavy-handed they are, any more than you did.

FWIW.

That's cool, I'm just saying why I don't like them. It's nothing against any faith, just that I find the movies are, well, horrible.
Also, I really dislike Kirk Cameron and his Cuddlebuddy-in-Christ Ray Comfort.

I do have a soft spot for Joshua, but I attribute much of its quality to Tony Goldwyn and F. Murray Abraham, who played their roles with such conviction, that I couldn't help but like the film.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I have five usual suspects in this category, in no particular order:

1) E.T., the anti-Close Encounters.

2) Star Trek Nemesis, the death knell of the film franchise in the Prime Universe, and I knew it as I was watching it the first and only time.

3-5) Peter Jackson's hacking up of Tolkien's masterpiece LOTR.

 

[thestrangequark]

Pretty Woman. The title says it all. It doesn't matter if you're a whore with no education and poor judgement; just be pretty and you can land the man of your dreams. All that matters is that you're pretty. Great message to send out to young girls. Fabulous.

THIS. YES. OMG, YES.

That movie is the most steaming pile of tripe, and the reason you gave is just the tip of the Reasons Iceberg.

 

[Amaris]

I didn't know people hated Pretty Woman. I mean, it's got Richard Gere!