I’ll go first. Mine is that I can’t stand the Deadpool movies. They are self aware and self referential to an obnoxious degree. It’s like being continually reminded that I am in a movie. I swear the success of that movie has directly lead to every blockbuster having to have a joke every 30 seconds
Dude I cannot understand the love that movie gets. Even the “scientifically accurate” go-to gets under my skin. I don’t know what it was going for, but it bristles my skin when I see discussion about how great it is.
I think Interstellar has some of the best scenes in film, but it’s definitely not one of the best films overall. If you could somehow package the part about Matt Damon’s character into a 20 minute short film it would be fantastic.
Interstellar is one of my favourite movies, yet I can definitely say it’s not perfect. Hell, it’s got a few massive plot holes and the ending leaves a lot to be desired. Saying that, I still enjoyed it. I love the visuals, the BTS stuff is interesting, but most of all it made me feel. That’s what I value in media. Other people may value a coherent plot, historical accuracy, or a myriad of other things. We all like/dislike things for different reasons, and that’s okay.
Nolan is my favorite director. The Prestige and Memento are absolute genius movies, I cannot rewatch then enough times. Inception is great too. But Interstellar is so boring and pointless, I stopped it after 2 hours of nothing happening on the screen. It’s hard to believe all those movies were made by the same person
I thought Oppenheimer was a mess of half fleshed out ideas and characters you were not invested in…very underwhelming. And I saw it at the proper IMAX.
It’s a movie made for space nerds, and if you aren’t a space nerd I can understand not enjoying it. Part of what made it so amazing is just the black hole simulation, no one had ever rendered one that accurately with such high fidelity.
I’m a huge space nerd. I did also appreciate the visuals and realistic portrayal of time dilation, and should have noted that (though it may have diluted my opinion a bit?). I just didn’t like the actual movie itself.
Lmao, no it isn’t. At best, it’s made for people who are lightly into space/science and also lightly into cinema, so please don’t trot out the “you need a high IQ to enjoy this movie” stuff. If it were made for space nerds, two scientists selected for deep space flight wouldn’t need to stop and explain what E=MC² is to one another.
That’s kind of always been Nolan’s schtick, though, and I guess it’s working out for him because he’s got the a huge, quite passionate fan base. I’ll never understand the hype and find his movies quite mid as cinema, but eh.
That’s not quite right. They hired a theoretical physicist to provide them equations for simulating a black hole. Then, the SFX studio used their Nolan Movie Money to generate it extremely accurately to the extent that it helped spawn further research. It’s not that the studio happened to get it right from research. They were given all the pieces they needed and were able to do something these physicists had a hard time doing likely because they never had that kind of money/equipment: make an exceptional, high-fidelity, cinematic simulation.
It’s part of an ‘extended cinematic universe’ which is apparently a thing these days. So it counts?
Anyway, I love westerns and space fantasy, and The Mandalorian kinda combined them in an episodic way that I could basically watch forever. Although it did fall apart in season 3, despite the well-intentioned efforts to tie back to the larger Clone Wars arc.
Ok, I admit it soon got outmanoeuvred by Andor, which was damn good even if you’re not a Star Wars fan. But Mandalorian paved the way IMO for a good pulpy episodic series with no bloody Skywalkers or Jedi Council BS. So that’s a win, right?
It’s literally a modern western, not a lot happening in each episode is pretty much the western model. There is and should be an overarching plot and goal each season and mandalorian does do that, slowly, like a western should
I wholeheartedly disagree. It’s one of the best things to come out of the universe. Maybe it’s because my son and I watch it together. But there are some great actors in there putting in some stellar performances.
If Pulp Fiction is on, unless it’s been a few years I’ll probably switch the channel, if Django Unchained is on though…I’m grabbing a snack and watching it everytime. This isn’t to say Pulp Fiction sucks, just think Django’s more entertaining.
I could never enjoy Django. It’s not a bad movie, but the way I watch a Tarantino movie you get desensitized by the violence and it becomes part of the humor and charm. I couldn’t do that in Django. The theme was too serious for me. Curiously I didn’t feel the same way in Inglorious Basterds.
Oh, and let’s get this out of the way. I fucking LOVED the Hateful Eight. It’s pure Tarantino.
One of the most recent ones I watched was Whisper of the Heart. It can be summed up as “girl meets a cute guy, girl wants to be an author, writes about a cat in a parallel universe, finds an antique shop, random proposal at the end”, it was like watching a clipshow. I remember reading reviews for Totoro and them trying really hard to beat around the bush with “ah it doesn’t have a cohesive plot, buuuut…” and then the rest of the review, almost like they didn’t care because it was Studio Ghibli. I’ve seen movies panned for that (e.g. Alita Battle Angel or Spiderman 2).
Studio Ghibli today is a pale shadow of what it was in the 80s and 90s.
Most of the new stuff they did has been repeated over and over again to the point that they are no longer ‘new’ to a modern audience. Half of modern Japanese pop-culture, and a significant share of modern Chinese and Western pop culture borrow from their three early films (Cagliostro, Nausicaa and Laputa). Nausicaa is probably the single most influential animated movie in history.
To fully appreciate Totoro, you have to watch Grave of the Fireflies first.
I mean some of them show their age a bit and ok some of them rehash ideas from preceding ones, but it’s hard to think of any Miyazaki movie that did nothing for me at all.
If you ever want to ruin Princess Mononoke, just think "what exactly does the main character guy do to advance the plot?" The answer: almost nothing haha
I don’t think that ruins it for me, rather the opposite. Ashitaka is a member of a tribe far away from the places in the movie. When he gets there he is just an observer to the war between industry and nature and wants to form his own opinion. He gets sucked into it and even if he did nothing the story would have continued almost the same, bar the ending where he then has made up his mind. I’d have to watch it again and spare more than a few minutes before sleepy time to write a better response, but those are my two cents
I mean in general, not really all of them (for example, Spirited Away gets honorable mention on every list). I remember reviewers for Totoro trying their hardest to not spotlight the fact it has such a jumbled plot when movies have been panned for that before. A masterpiece is supposed to impart something onto someone, but except for Spirited Away and arguably Marnie, my main reaction was little more than “well now I can say I saw it”.
Grave of the fireflies left a deep impression with me. I recently saw a bunch of them with my girlfriend and I’ve come to the conclusion that most are nice looking long TV show episodes. Which is fine for what the are.
Being all their ages didn’t change a lot for me (not sure how normal that is amongst those age groups). Except for Totoro which I watched when I was four if I remember correctly, I was roughly a preteen to teen when I watched all of them (or all the ones I watched, which is all but three) up to The Boy and the Heron (which just came out, I’m an adult now) which would only put me out of range with Ponyo and Porco Rosso when I watched those. Most people have a good sense of feeling for a story that adds up. I was little when I watched Totoro and little me had to stop myself from getting distracted from the movie itself.
I don't know...I watched princess mononoke and was pretty impressed by the movie. Only other anime I've watched is ghost in the shell which I thought was alright. I'm not really an anime fan but I'm super glad I watched princess mononoke!
I think Mononoke was easily the weakest of Miyazaki’s movies but it’s the one everyone raves about because it was the first one to see a widespread and non-butchered release in the West on DVD.
The earlier Totoro, Kiki, and to a lesser extent Laputa are all better movies, in my opinion. The former two shine exceptionally by being charming slice-of-life vignettes from a time before that sort of thing was the mega genre it is today, managing to be captivating stories that somehow don’t need or contain any kind of villain, quest, or cliché call to adventure whatsoever.
Laputa does – in spades – but it’s still great. It’s got so many villains that it’s got two sets of bad guys, but one set of bad guys turn out not to be bad guys and basically the entire damn movie is a flying scene of some type or another and it’s fantastic. Castle of Cagliostro is also awesome, and it was arguably one of those pivotal Citzen Kane style moments for the medium that turned out to be surprisingly influential to subsequent works, both animated and not. (And also introduced an entire generation to the only version of Lupin who is not an huge asshole, much to the surprise of everyone who watched this movie first and went on to check out… any… other Lupin III works.) Cagliostro was so influential that Japan’s (former) Princess Sayako based her real life wedding dress off of Clarise’s dress from the movie, and said so.
The ending of se7en makes no sense. All the previous victims were murdered because they suffered from one of the seven deadly sins (gluttony, sloth, greed, lust, pride). But the final two victims - that supposedly would complete the list - did not suffer from these sins, but instead the perpetrators murdered them out of envy and wrath. Gwyneth did not suffer from envy, and Brad did not get murdered for his wrath.
Such a shame because the rest of the movie is great.
that ending was the very first draft of the film. there were multiple other ones but the directer was sent that one by mistake but loved it so much it stayed as that
That’s really interesting! The ending is famous and otherwise well regarded, so the director probably made a good decision - even though I will always disagree :)
Brad suffered extremely for his wrath. As did spaceys character. (who was wrath all along in this movie.)
With envy you’re right. Never thought of that. But the whats in the box scene is so very powerful I kinda never noticed. It is powerfully acted, directed, shot. It cemented the career of everyone who was involved, right there.
Most movies have always sucked. We remember the good and forget the trash, so the past seems better than it was. Social media and other forms of entertainment have changed things, but never underestimate survivorship bias and nostalgia.
Not sure if this counts as unpopular. But man Hollywood really butchered Godzilla and many other iconic movie monsters. Why the hell is Godzilla some kind of anti-hero and don’t get me started on the cast.
That’s what most Japanese Godzilla movies are like if we’re being honest. If you’ve only seen the original, I get why you might think Godzilla is usually a villain, but even the direct sequel had him fight another, more evil monster. Let’s be real, the human characters in most of those sequels were awful and boring. Those movies exist mostly for the monster fights.
If you’re unaware, just look up Godzilla’s dropkick to understand what I’m talking about. That scene might be the pinnacle of the silliness, but it was by no means an outlier.
Compared to the goofy trash that encompasses 90% of Godzilla movies, the 2019 Godzilla movie where Godzilla goes super saiyan was one of the best Godzilla films ever made. Big fights, badass moments, and human characters that exist to compliment the monsters. The original Gojira, Godzilla Minus One, and even Shin Godzilla aren’t comparable to or representative of most Godzilla movies.
I think the subtle difference between Hollywood and Japanese cinema is that Hollywood is literally applying the Avengers formula but on monsters. And that really ruined it for me.
As someone who grew up with the goofy Toho movies, I felt like the Americans used that formula more than the Avengers formula.
The human characters have little control over the monsters, relying on Godzilla or Kong to win fights and only being able to help them do what they already wanted to do. That’s fairly in line with what the Japanese movies did.
Marvel movies have more quipy heroes with emotional backstories who rise to the occasion and save the world. There are some comedic human characters, but they’re sidekicks to the monsters and aren’t self aware like in Marvel movies. The monsters sometimes do silly things, but they don’t quip and aren’t sarcastic because they can’t talk. There’s tragedy in them being the last of their kind, but that’s never the focus.
I really think the Monsterverse has carried on the legacy of Japanese monster mashes fairly well. They’ve actually been on the better end of the spectrum.
At the top of every reddit “What movie should never be remade?” thread is the LOTR trilogy. Well… I totally agree the movies are great, but not quite timeless. When I rewatched them a couple years ago for the first time in a long time I couldn’t get over the feeling that it screamed “Filmed and directed in the late 90s and early 00s!” I don’t have the film knowledge to point out exactly what it is but something about the way it is shot looks very dated to me and hasn’t aged as well, in my opinion, as everyone on the internet says it is.
I really do love the music and the art style and sets and casting too. Maybe it doesn’t need a reshoot, but a recut?
I think part of it is that movies are edited differently now. We’ve become used to much faster pacing, much denser storytelling and sweeping drone shots of everything, so older movies generally feel a bit lame now
Tbh I think it’s kind of impressive that the green screen work is the rough part of the ent scenes. Treebeard himself is still really impressive imo. I had some of the eagle scenes in mind though
The CGI is still a bit dated (although somehow The Flash topped that), but there’s far less compositing of solo actors in green rooms, due to forced perspective.
Man, hard disagree. Some of the CGI hasn’t aged especially well but those movies are technical marvels, the likes of which will never happen again because nobody will ever have the passion for the project Peter Jackson did.
CGI definitely doesn’t hold up, that troll in Mines of Moria, various Legolas shots, etc. are pretty rough. But everything else is still great.
On a side note I’ll always hate the people that decided to add all that CGI to 2011 The Thing when they had already filmed everything with practical effects. If I ever meet them IRL I will give them the most well deserved ass punch.
Side side note, still waiting for the practical effects version of 2011 The Thing to be released.
The problem is no one is ever going to put in the work and prep production effort that Jackson and his team did. It could be made better and more modern, but will it in our current environment? No, all the practical effects would be replaced by CGI, all the armor and costumes for the tons of extras would just be CGI, the extras themselves would be CGI, and it probably would be packed with meta commentary and jokes. Just look at The Hobbit compared to Lord of the Rings. It doesn’t work without all the effort and pre-production, and I don’t think we’re getting a studio to ever make that bet again. It was pure luck we got it the first time.
Can’t think of another movie I remember loving as a teen, and liking less as a grownup than this movie. Directing, plot, premise, are just as contrived as a film could be. One out of seven rating (and the one is only because of the rice).
Tho it’s a show and watched only the first season, but Star Trek: Lower Decks is kinda ruining the whole Star Trek world to me.
It’s an OK cartoon, not bad at all. but so not Star Trek to me, at least the first season wasn’t. I get it, it’s the “Go” of the series, the cool and hip genz implementation, you either like it or not, and honestly, I kinda like it, but not as Star Trek.
The writing and direction (the actors were fine!) Of the Kelvin trilogy kinda ruined Trek for me. I refused to give any of the new series a chance. But Lower Decks is reviving my interest. Think I might give Strange New World’s a look soon.
I know what you mean though. It’s been so long since we had a good series.
I like Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks but frankly Discovery can get lost. Oh it’s dark and gritty and special magic flying mushroom aliens that kind of break the setting because they can basically teleport you anywhere, they just ruined the canon. Also it’s set in the past why is it set in the past? The show doesn’t need to be in that time. So they could have set it in the future and actually done something interesting with the franchise.
To me it is clear they didn’t want to make a Star Trek show, so why did they slap the franchise name on it? It would have been fine if they just made an original show.
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