Rules: explain why
Ready player one.
That has to be one of the cringiest movies I’ve seen, is tries so hard, too hard with it’s “WE LOVE YOU NERD, YOU’RE SO COOL FOR PLAYING GAMES AND GETTING THIS 80S REFERENCE” message and the whole “corporation bad, the people good” narrative seems written for toddlers… The fan service feels cheap and adds nothing to the story.
Finally, they trying to make the people believe that very attractive girl with a barely visible red tint spot on her face is “ugly”… Like wtf?
Yet it received decent reviews plus being one of the most successful movies of that year.
Scary Movie and Avengers. I know Scary Movie is a parody but it’s just to much parody for me tbh.
Mortal Engines. I have not read the source materials.
Amazing concept, fantastic visuals, weak story, weak characters. Apparently just accidentally spliced in the end of Return of the Jedi instead of finishing the movie.
Pretty much all of the Avengers films.
They aren’t engaging in any way. The characters are unintelligent and full of self importance. The whole franchise is Just loud noises and shark jumping.
I find nuggets in them. Iron man 3 had issues, but I was fascinated by the portrayal of Tony stark’s ptsd after the battle of new York. Sure, seeing a bunch of robots is fun, but it’s not really engaging. The intersection of everyday life, mental trauma, and super powers and responsibilities is fascinating to me.
I mean they’re silly by default. They are not supposed to be high art. I like half of the MCU. Raimi spiderman Is as silly yet I consider it a masterpiece of a film, 2 even more.
In the spirit of this post, drag doesn’t like Spider-Man 2. The first half of the movie is just watching Peter suck at his life and be punched down down down. It’s torture porn. No wonder he lost his mojo, being Spider-Man sucks. And if Peter isn’t Spider-Man, then people die in burning buildings. Peter’s arc is realising that he needs to intentionally ruin his life and suffer, because the alternative is worse.
It’s maybe a good piece of ethical philosophy and it makes us admire Peter, but it’s just fundamentally unfun and depressing.
My problem is witg cg fights. I feel like I’m just watching a three hour long cut scene.
Kind of agree with you. I liked it until endgame, but it was a downward slope afterwards
I liked the MCU, at first, but it had no business continuing after End Game.
I feel the same. Everything up until Endgame had some entertainment value. Most of what’s after is a low-quality cash grab
With so many a-list actors, they all get different story arcs, and fight for screen time, so there isn’t time to tell a nuanced or interesting story, and when they’re together it’s just an orgy of showing off how cool they are
It makes me feel snobbish to say you have to be literally juvenile to enjoy it. I just don’t get it. There’s no suspense at all, no surprise in anything. They’re all boring, intelligent characters. Even as films aimed at kids they’re bad, but I’m eternally surprised at the traction they get with 20s-30s…
James Cameron’s Avatar series.
Then again… Does anyone actually like it? It seems to have all this online hype when it’s such a boring visual spectacle.
It’s like the opposite of the other Avatar franchise, which wasn’t a commercial hit, and seems less popular on paper, but seems to have a massive cultural impact.
Napoleon dynamite was fucking garbage and don’t think it should have ever existed. No humor and barley anything. Honestly feel like the movie rubber was better
What?!?
What?!?
As an older millennial, that movie was a work of art. I was about 20 when I seen it, stoned, and I couldn’t stop laughing.
Fellow elder millennial that also never understood the appeal of Napoleon Dynamite, still don’t and I’ve watched it stoned as hell
Also elder millennial. I watched half the movie and turned it off. It was horrid.
I just don’t get it. I absolutely loved every second of it. From the opening scene to the credits it was one of my favorite movies ever made and still is.
What about it was so good though? It was incredibly slow. Little to no character plot humor wasn’t even there. It felt like it was just “funny meme haha” kinda movie. Honestly curious, I do enjoy being proven wrong. And no hate on what you enjoy, I just don’t understand why people enjoy it.
I got that it’s a movie that subverts expectations, or cheekily thumbs its nose at norms, in a delightful way. It clearly derives its delight from the contrast with… something. I have no idea what those expectations or norms are, so the contrast (and the delight) is lost on me.
Only other Idaho movie is gay af Keanu. Vote for Summer, because she’s hottest girl in Idaho, and a good dairy cow should have 4 nipples tops, and sharp talons.
Whenever I see a mountain range Uncle Rico pops into my head.
how many dollars would you like to wager that I can hurl this pig skin overtop of that mountain range?
Same. But I re-watched it recently and it just aged terribly for some reason.
I wonder… is it because you have little/no experience with small town America? I loved Napoleon Dynamite partly because it’s somewhat nostalgic for me. The movie appeals to people who grew up in the sticks and knew people like Napoleon Dynamite.
I grew up small town America, older Millinial, I’m the demographic for that movie.
I couldn’t finish the movie.
Hard disagree, lol. That’s a classic.
I tried to watch it a couple of times and never finished it. Apparently, it’s a fairly divisive and hard-to-predict pick for recommendation systems as well.
It really was popular because its humor was so “fresh.” This was just before internet/youtube culture took off and most Americans hadn’t seen such a dry, peculiar film about their own culture. I fucking love it but it’s certainly not for everyone, that’s for sure.
I only watched it once and it was just terrible. I would maybe give it another shot, I don’t really remember it much anyway.
Not one comment in here about Lord of the Rings.
Which I agree with. Amazing movies. Glad everyone’s on the same page.
For me, it’s James Cameron’s Avatar. Visually stunning, especially for its time, but the story has to be the most cliche, predictable, boring, lazy piece of writing to ever have existed. It’s like they held an environmentally conscious 11 year old at gun point and made them write a story. The cigar chomping military guy working for corpos wants to pilfer a beautiful planet for its resources with disregard for the native populations that live there. Where have I seen that before? Oh yeah, ALL AROUND ME, EVERY FUCKING GOD DAMN DAY. Get an original idea.
Fuck this stupid piece of shit dumbass movie. It’s intellectually insulting. It’s a disgrace.
/endrant
Marvel movies. Yes all of them. They’re trash. It’s just cgi slop, badly written one-dimensional characters, cliché tropes, formulaic stories, plotholes bigger than meteorcraters and brainless action sequences. A cashgrab.
A saw a couple; I gave them a fair chance. They’re all the same. The appeal is beyond me. Brainrot at its finest.
Ready Player One was so bad, but this is a rare instance where the book is worse than the film. At least the film has visuals the book is just cringe and rememberberries.
The book is straight garbage. Probably the biggest Gary Stu ever. The movie is actually decent by comparison, because it removed a lot of cringe and toned down the main character.
Gary Stu? Is this the male version of a Mary Sue?
Yes.
The thing that baffled me about that movie was how many “startups” used it as reference for what they were trying to create. Like, did I watch the same movie? Real life was so shitty they had entire blocks of people living in trailers mounted to each other vertically. They used the matrix or whatever it was called to escape. And you want to create that for real?
Why don’t we turn the world into a real life Mad Max while we’re at it.
Why don’t we turn the world into a real life Mad Max while we’re at it.
Have you been around the car culture?
Wasn’t it supposed to be bad though? Maybe I misunderstood, but I thought people liked it because it was ridiculous and campy.
Yeah, the book was meant to feel a bit cringey, because the story is told from the perspective of a teenage gamer obsessed with pop culture. It’s the entire reason he wins the egg hunt, because he’s always got these obscure references floating around his head.
Agreed. The movie is just a fun action film wirh no brainpower needed. If you go into it with no expectations it’s fine.
The book? The author insists on yanking you out of the story with listicles of callbacks and references to obscure ‘80s shows or whatever. The main character is just an ass, and is also conveniently capable of meeting every challenge thrown at him despite being an impoverished basement dweller. The book became a slog of contrivances to get from A to B with “Aren’t all these retro references cool?” jammed in at every opportunity.
RPO is bad, yes. But Spielberg is a good director and that’s why the movie is at least entertaining. I hate-read the book, but I still enjoy the movie.
The movie did ruin the Iron Giant, though.
I haven’t seen Ready Player 1, and now I have a reason not to see it.
You don’t disrespect Su-Per-Man.
I am not a gun.
Except when it makes for a cool action movie scene.
Oh hell naw. If you mean that they made him go superweapon, that’s damn near legal cause to burn down a studio
I haven’t actually seen the movie, only a few clips of it. I’m pretty sure they make him use his weapons, but maybe not his superweapon.
Very weird take. Everyone I’ve ever talked to loves that book. I honestly cannot picture any conceivable reality where the movie was better than the book.
ITT: people using the downvote button as an “I disagree” button when the entire point is to name popular movies that you dislike. Sort by controversial for the real answers, I guess.
For me it’s Alien. Maybe because I’m not a horror movie buff, but I do like sci-fi and yet it just didn’t really do anything for me. I somehow found Prometheus to be more engaging.
Oh wow, complete opposite here - I thought Prometheus was hot garbage.
“Hey everybody, let’s just remove our helmets in this totally unvetted environment, we’re all scientists but trust me, this is supes safe!”
“Aw look at the little alien snake, so cute, better get real close!”
“I’m clearly showing symptoms of exposure to some alien pathogen, but let’s just hide it from the entire crew, including my girlfriend, who I will be fucking.”
“Oh, a huge ring is rolling toward me and I’m gonna get crushed, better keep running in a straight line!”
I mean, come on.
I’m clearly showing symptoms of exposure… let’s hide it
After seeing how people acted during the pandemic, that part is probably the most realistic.
See also, every zombie movie ever. There’s always someone who got bitten but decided to say nothing until it was too late.
Both can be true.
I never watched alien growing up, and only half-watched it with a girlfriend (sorry, good movies are great but… Boobs vs stereotypical teenager watching a movie…)
By the time I watched the movie fully, it just held no scare factor for me.
And so many dumb choices were made in Prometheus, it’s hard to take the people seriously when everyone is acting like children who have never been in space or a dangerous situation before.
Aw look at the little alien snake, so cute, better get real close!
The same can be said when in Alien the scientist shoves his face close to what is clearly a moving egg that responded to him as he got closer.
There were no scientists in Alien. It’s a bunch of space truckers and they’re infinitely more competent than the hand picked group in Prometheus.
Ah, shows how much I know about the film, thank you for correcting me
This is Ash erasure, and I won’t have it.
angry upvote
But honestly, fair. Alien is a 50-year-old movie, so when viewed with a modern lens it might not seem to be anything special.
Part of the legendary status of Alien is just how influential it has been. Before Alien, a horror-scifi movie would be some schlock about flying saucers piloted by men in gorilla masks terrorizing Hollywood. Audiences certainly weren’t expecting a psychosexual thriller about forced oral insemination and mpreg.
And the android! Robots in movies were walking vending machines, and yet the robot in Alien is just some guy until he starts to malfunction. Plus in the context of the franchise, it makes you distrust every single android in each subsequent movie, and might even leave you guessing who else in the cast could be a robot in disguise.
Other movies have done it better since then. We all stand on the shoulders of giants after all. And the funny thing is, a lot of the time when you look back at the movies that spawn the tropes, they don’t seem that impressive because they haven’t been totally refined yet.
I have a soft spot for Alien, it’s my favorite in the franchise. It relies so heavily on practical effects, it’s got those retro-futuristic computers which I adore, and the smart woman saves the day (sort of) after all the dumb men tell her she’s wrong. And yet despite what I just said, I don’t think anyone is actually very dumb, the characters are all quite human and I understand and relate to their motivations.
It’s a movie that feels far more modern than it is. You might even forget that it’s fifty years old until you see that explosive finale in gloriously bad 70’s CGI
I also liked Prometheus. It’s not the best in the franchise but it’s certainly not the worst, and it doesn’t deserve as much hate as it gets in the community
I was with you until you implied Prometheus was likeable because at least it’s not the worst.
I loved how Alien brought together horror and science fiction. If it didn’t do anything for you, as you admit that you’re not into horror, then fair enough.
Now, I’ll throw in here that I can’t abide Aliens. To me, it betrayed the horror elements of Alien, making it more akin to some dumb action movie with some added schmaltz thrown in. Unlike many, I actually consider Alien3 the better film than Aliens (certainly not Alien), in that it does try to bring back the horror elements and darkness in a different way. Still, I can understand why many deride that film. The Assembly Cut does make amends, and is possibly worth watching if you didn’t care about the theatrical version.
I do really think the horror is what kills it for me, just not my genre of choice. And it’s not that I’m against things being scary, but I just never vibe with the format of most horror films. Same with horror games.
I also do see all of the faults that people pointed out with Prometheus, and I’m not going to really call that movie “good” either. But I think what makes it appeal to me a bit more is the worldbuilding. Alien is more understated and throws you into a well-imagined sci-fi universe that leaves a lot to be inferred, but Prometheus has a lot more of the “grand worldbuilding” type of atmosphere to it that had me really interested in what I was actually seeing.
FWIW I’m using the downvote button as a “You didn’t explain”, “That’s a band not a movie”, “That’s a show not a movie”, “That’s a genre of animation, not a movie” button ;p I’m definitely clicking it far more often that I typically do =p
It’s wild how many people can write but not read.
Speaking of downvotes, I don’t think comments in a moderated forum should even have a downvote button. Every situation where a comment can be legitimately downvoted, like spam or bigotry or trolling, the comment should just be reported and removed by a moderator, instead.
People’s intuition about downvoting is simply that it’s the opposite of an upvote because that’s how it is presented in the UI. That might make sense for articles, but not for comments.
You didn’t list one of the main uses of a downvote: lowering the visibility of poorly made or unfitting content. If you believe that a post or comment does not contribute to or belong in the community or discussion, your only recourse in most places is to downvote. Yeah ideally mods would remove every such post but that ignores the fact they are few in number, often absent, and generally follow their rules to the letter instead of moderating on vibes.
If it’s poorly made, then you’re supposed to simply upvote other comments if they’re better.
If a comment is unfitting, then it is off-topic and can be removed by mods.
I honestly think comment downvotes should be disallowed, or if that isn’t possible, then the users who downvote each comment should be easy to find, like with a “click to expand and list downvoters” sort of link. I think you’d find downvoters to be mostly trolls and non-participators. Low value accounts.
To me, though, that sounds like calling the police to resolve a mild disagreement. It just escalates situations more than needed and creates drama where things could have otherwise been settled quietly by simply letting the content be buried and ignored.
I believe in using best judgment with downvotes and not simply using it as an “I disagree” button (which is why I did not downvote your comments, as some inconsiderate people seem to have done), but I do believe they have a place. They’re a form of community self-moderation that help keep discussions on topic and civil. I only really use the report button for content that I actually feel is somehow dangerous or detrimental that needs to be removed.
But I also do completely understand the instances out there that do choose to remove the downvote button entirely (check out blahaj.zone for one option if that’s what you’re looking for), and I know that is a preferable way for many to use Lemmy. I have an alt on blahaj myself, but I prefer being on instances with downvotes because it’s nice to see bigoted/heinous content be buried when moderators don’t or refuse to step in.
I think they’re downvoting my comments to try to be funny in this particular situation.
If people used the downvote like you suggest, it would be less of a problem. But speaking of policing, there is no real policing of votes. There’s just a button.
You give people a downvote button, and they’ll simply go through threads going up, down, up, down, up, down. It’s like they double their vote and it drowns out any more ethical downvotes. It hasn’t happened much on Lemmy, but it happens as a matter of course on Reddit. It will eventually be here, too, if Lemmy continues to grow. There is nothing to stop it.
Besides, apart from your point about essentially unmoderated areas, I think the upvote button is enough to achieve all the goals you listed. And if it’s unmoderated, it’s going to become unusably toxic no matter how people vote.
Downvoted
Disney’s Hercules.
Because it completely butchers greek mythology. Of course, that’s to be expected from a kid’s movie (especially Disney) but I’ve been a greek mythology fan from an early age and this movie really disappointed me as a child.
Zeus being a caring father?
And a loyal husband ha
This was a really popular opinion at the time if I recall.
Counterpoint: it’s one of the better Disney movies IMO. The gospel soundtrack slaps, and Danny DeVito, James Woods, and Susan Egan are all perfect in their roles.
Also, I blame Meg at least in part for my lifelong weakness for skinny dark-haired sarcastic women. But that’s on me.
I’m not sure if you’re saying my opinion was popular at the time- I’ve never met anyone in person who agreed with me, not then and not now either. Occasionally some people say, “ok, I get what you mean” but they don’t really share my opinion. Most of the times I get “what? Hercules? Such a great movie!”.
And fair enough, I’m not saying it’s a bad movie, simply that I was thoroughly disappointed which isn’t the same. Objectively the art direction is really good, the voice acting and animation is solid, and yes the soundtrack was also objectively good but unfortunately not my type, what can I say. It’s just not a movie for me.
The cycle:
Step 1: (as a child) “wow this movie was great, I love Greek stuff!”
Step 2: learns a ton about Greek mythology over the next many years due to interest sparked by the movie
Step 3: (likely as a teenager or older, re-watching it one day) “holy shit this movie is absolutely nothing like Greek mythology, why did I ever think it was good…”
I’ve rewatched some of the old Disney classics and I was thoroughly disappointed by Hercules. I personally don’t care that much about the mythological accuracy of it but it was just kind of meh my memorys of the movie were much better.
Much of this thread be like…
Forest Gump. The 1994 Best Picture nominees were some of the most highly competitive the Academy has ever had, and they went with the one that was just a straight-up terrible fucking movie. It has no value except as nostalgia bait for Americans and propaganda for those who want to believe in the myth of American individual exceptionalism.
Its musical score is also probably the worst thing I’ve ever had the misfortune of performing in an orchestra. Dull and repetitive.
And its most famous line is straight-up bullshit. I’ve heard the book does it differently, but the movie puts “something that kinda sounds deep to a 14 year old” over a level of rationality that stands up to 20 seconds of thought from an average person. A box of chocolates tells you precisely what you’re going to be getting.
A box of chocolates tells you precisely what you’re going to be getting.
This is probably one of the weakest arguments against this movie—and there’s plenty to criticize. Labeling the chocolates was not always a common practice. It’s something mass produced chocolates started to do. There was a time people bought from a confectioner and there wouldn’t be labels. That’s the context of the line. You can criticize this line but the labeling isn’t the problem.
The book is WILD! Gump goes to space, there’s a lot more racism and sexism in the book, and Gump doesn’t come off as a lucky mentally challenged, but overall nice guy. He ends the book looking like a racist asshole, and criminal, IIRC. I read the book as a teenager after seeing the movie and that was the first book that I decided that the movie was actually better.
Can’t help but love that you’re criticizing the line as faux-deep when it was delivered by someone with a mental disability.
Yeah, but a lot of the point is how despite being mentally disabled, he’s supposed to have deeper insight into things. That’s certainly how the cultural perception of the movie is. The problem is that the “insight” he has and which both the movie itself and the cultural memory of the movie treat as genuinely meaningful is actually fucking dumb.
I had listened to the audio book before I saw the movie. The movie is so off the mark on the ridiculous life of Forest Gump. My favorite part of the book is that Jenny leaves him, she doesn’t die, she leaves him because he becomes a major pot head.
she leaves him because he becomes a major pot head.
Why do I know wanna see a modern remake of the film where Forrest Gump gets baked and goes on Joe Rogan? Then says some shit that accidentally fixes the Left-Right Divide and leads to Trump being kicked out of office?
that would be spot on!
It has no value except as nostalgia bait for Americans and propaganda for those who want to believe in the myth of American individual exceptionalism.
If anything, Forrest Gump is a satire of The American Dream^^^TM
Only guy to have such a successful life without doing anything unethical is a mentally challenged, politically unaware, and extremely lucky, who does everything he’s told without questioning it.
It’s truly a film about not judging the book by its cover and allowing for that to happen instead of taking the film literally you can see the themes and especially satire/parody of the American dream as described above.
It’s white exceptionalism mixed with conservative narratives about Murican history.
There’s a YouTube video that’s like “What if Forrest Gump took place in modern day.”
And it’s wonderful, he gets beaten up during the George Floyd protests by police and thinks it was because he called for a cab not knowing calling for a taxi was illegal. (The cops misheard him and thought he shouted “ACAB”), then later he decides to go on vacation to the Capitol because he’s a patriotic American and he’s always wanted to see it, he goes there and meets other excited patriots who seem to be having some kind of a party (It’s January 6th 2021)
Some Nolan stuff.
Inception: I understand it, it’s just extremely convoluted and dumb.
Oppenheimer: It’s a movie with 95% dialogue, and he decided to put loud droning music under every conversation so you can barely hear the people talking.
The dark knight trilogy: I just can’t take batman seriously in it. The voice is so silly, and the pointy ears just look really out of place in this very serious take.
Anyway, I do like some of Nolans movies, these are my pet peeves.It’s a movie with 95% dialogue, and he decided to put loud droning music under every conversation so you can barely hear the people talking.
The audio mixing in his movies is genuinely terrible. If you aren’t watching them with subtitles, you’re probably missing half the plot because of background noise.
I guess he refuses to use ADR but also films with an imax camera which is about as loud as a lawnmower. So all the dialogue needs to be extracted from all that noise and it sounds like shit.
Nearly all Nolan stuff. His movies are cold and impersonal, and his characters are just dull (and he can’t write a woman character that’s not one dimensional). I can’t remember the name of any of the characters bar the main ones. I feel like that’s his main job and he can’t do it. Everything else in the movie has a team of people (sound, lighting, design etc) but his area is always the let down.
That Bane movie was one of the most comically bad I’ve ever seen. Terrible acting, ridiculous plot points, dozens of plot holes.
I think Nolan is good at putting things together, but he lacks emotion and depth.
Bane:
Mhhphhm hmmph mugghhh hnnnph!
???
i disagree on atleast one movie: Interstellar. it is absolutely devastatingly emotional, atleast for me.
the scenes where Cooper sees his kids growing up without him after coming from the water planet, and the ending sequence when he goes into the black hole and the tesseract will never not make me bawl out like a baby.
Nolan is so overrated his Batman trilogy sucked except Heath Ledger as the joker. Everything since the WW2 film he did has been overly pretentious.
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I like these threads when people complain that “old classic movie” is formulaic and trope ridden or unoriginal… seemingly forgetting these films set the tropes, formulas and genres that all subsequent film makers hopped-on. That’s why, in retrospect, it appears clunky.
In another similar thread somebody said the band Queen were boring… yeah, maybe now. But fifty years ago when they first released? Not so much.
Harry Potter.
Before JK went mask off, I had dropped the books about half way though for being increasing annoyed with how they ended. Never any change to the status quo except Harry actually regressing in character development. I watched the first movie, but that was around when I dropped the books and never looked back.
I was able to just quietly keep my opinions to myself, but with with JK becoming increasing unhinged with both her tweets and books, I haven’t felt the need to be polite with the “separate the art from the artists” types. Especially when they just assume that you’re a fan if you don’t correct them.
