Unpopular Movie Opinions You Hold

Deer Hunter was one utterly stupid movie!

Heath Ledger was annoying, affected and incredibly pretentious and overpraised as "The Joker" in "The Dark Knight"....Caesar Romero played the role FAR more effectively.

Oh, and Brokeback Mountain sucked. Heath and Jake had ZEEERO chemistry.

Most Katharine Hepburn movies are unbearable.

Michelle Obama is fucking ugly

The only American who can actually act is Al Pacino.

[quote]Michelle Obama is fucking ugly

3 replies in and we're ALREADY off-topic...that's gotta be some sort of record.

R4 Nothing to do with movies. And no she's not.

Brad Pitt looked like a scrawny rat in "Thelma and Louise".

If I'D seen him walking the highways and byways of America..... honey, I would have just kept on driving.

@ [6] sorry, I'm high as fuck

I loved Halle Berry in Monster's Ball and I'm happy she won an Oscar for her performance.

I dig Julia Roberts.

Halle Berry was transcendent in Monster's Ball.

Billy Bob Thornton was hot in MONSTER'S BALL. He's pretty sexy in general.

Superhero movies suck ass anymore. Where's Kubrick when you need him? I'm thinking of becoming the Xavier Dolan troll. At least you have to think about his films.

I think Tom Cruise is a great actor and his religion has nothing to do with his acting.

The English patient sucked big time!

The trend of superhero movies in 30 years will be seen as one of Hollywood's low points.

Natalie Portman is terrible in everything, and that includes Black Swan.

What should I watch this weekend?

Unpopular opinion among the general public (but probably popular here on DL): there is not enough male nudity in cinema.

I was just about to say that, R18. I hated Black Swan. Some of it was so ridiculous I laughed out loud in the theater.

Many modern films throw around ritualistic Masonic imagery and themes for reasons I don't fully understand including the aforementioned Black Swan, The Revenant (the pyramid and eye dream sequence??), science fiction (Prometheus) and various war recruitment films masquerading as biopics. It definitely doesn't make the movies any better.

I agree with r15.

Jennifer Aniston is not attractive.

A smirk with pursed lips is the extent of Bruce Willis's "acting."

And here's an opinion my mother held: "The Godfather" goes downhill after Sonny is killed.

Beau Bridges peaked early. Way early.

Constant melodrama is not acting. Non-realism is not acting.

This is directed to... every classic movie I've ever seen. Agree with Hepburne (sp? who cares) statement. She was just semi-pretty and jewish in film or whatever she was. She wasn't special, nothing she said was realistic, it was all staged to be unrealistic. Just fake and shitty. But she looked like what stupid housewives and those that think like them wanted to look like so that made idiot a good actress. She was crazy and full of herself. And didn't know how to act in public. NO ONE spoke like she did in public in real life. It was all a contrive full-oif-herself bs act. Just women acting unrealistically like all women during that era. No big whoop at all.

Fucking hate Kevin Hart. Funny guy, but waaay over exposed and cannot act. He's himself in everything, the same character over and over again.

Sounds like Melissa McCarthy too...

I prefer the much maligned 1980s remakes of The Postman Always Rings Twice (with Jessica Lange and Jack Nicholson) and Cat People (with Nastassia Kinski) to the classic originals.

I also enjoyed the wondrously misguided 1990s remakes of Diabolique (with Sharon Stone and Isabelle Adjani) and The Island of Dr. Moreau (with Brando) more than their respective originals.

Kate Hudson could be a legitimate triple threat talent, if she were better at selecting projects.

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) was fucking snooze fest!

Most modern filmmakers' problems started when they moved to digital instead of film. Something ineffable was lost and digital cannot replace it. I am referring specifically to 90s stars like Tim Burton, David Fincher et al.

I like Point of no return with Brigitte Fonda. The original le femme nikita is supposed to be so much better but I have never seen it.

Slumdog Millionaire - was utter crap. It was only popular because a lot of white people wanted to prove they don't have issues with Indians / Muslims (particularly Muslims after 9/11), but of course, they do have issues. It was the tackiest film around. Also, Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction is not cool - he is very annoying - who would really tolerate his little speeches before killing someone? And Freddy Got Fingered is underrated - there I said it.

Meryl Streep can't act. She can only overact.

Alien 3, especially the director's cut was fantastic. It was well acted, great story, highly existential, dark and dreary. You could really feel the hopelessness of Ripley.

In terms of a well made film rank it goes: Alien, Alien 3, and Aliens.

Shakespeare In Love and Crash where both inferior to all the other movies nominated for Best Picture, and yet they each won the category.

Terms of Endearment, The Deer Hunter, Forest Gump, Dances with Wolves, Birdman, No Country for Old Men and The Artist all stink.

Spotlight, American Beauty and Crash were OK, but didn't deserve to be nominated for Best Picture, let alone win.

Comic book superhero movies suck. And they have always sucked.

The Best Animated Feature Oscar is a glorified form of segregation and an excuse not to nominate worthy animated films for Best Picture.

Roadshows never should have gone away, and their death marked the beginning of the end for the concept of showmanship in mainstream American films.

The continued existence of the MPAA is pointless and downright offensive in this day and age. If it weren't for them, we'd probably see more and better gay-themed films coming from the studios.

"Naturalism" is a euphemism for "more wooden than Pinocchio."

The whole world would be a much, much better place if [italic]Song of the South[/italic] were re-released on video everywhere and kept available in perpetuity while that uppity, sanctimonious, narcissistic white bitch umbrella jockey was locked away in the Disney Vault forever instead. Corporate censorship is still censorship, and you can't convincingly argue that taking it away has made the world a better place.

Kathleen Turner's performance in [italic]Serial Mom[/italic] was the best performance given by an actress in 1994, and for the Academy not to recognize it while honoring mediocre performances by actresses who all did better work in other films is despicable but unsurprising.

[italic]Crash[/italic] was just a 30-minute Very Special Episode about racism stretched out to feature length, and if it wasn't for the homophobes in the Cult of $¢iento£og¥ calling in some favors, [italic]Brokeback[/italic] would have taken its rightful place as the Best Picture of 2005, an overall weak year for movies to begin with.

The studios killed independent filmmaking with their faux-indie arthouse labels.

Woody Allen should have retired from filmmaking 20 years ago, and frankly I'm starting to wonder whether we'd all be better off if the Manson family had gone after Mia Farrow instead of Sharon Tate. After all, she was the one who was actually in [italic]Rosemary's Baby[/italic]. And if Sharon hadn't been murdered, Polanski might not have raped that girl and would have had no need to skip the country. And who knows what kind of life their child would have had.

All these remakes and reboots on top of one another are killing Hollywood. If you defend it, it's not because they're any good, it's because you're used to it and have resigned yourself to eating nothing but leftovers.

Many, many films would have been better than they turned out to be had they let the people who actually made them edit them.

Casting Sean Penn as Harvey Milk was no less an egregious act of miscasting than casting Ricky Schroder as Malcolm X would be.

All the new technology in the world is no substitute for good filmmaking techniques. It never has been and it never will be.

Michael Eisner is one of the biggest bigots in Hollywood after that "pretty women aren't funny" comment.

I actually enjoyed Shock Treatment, the Rocky Horror follow-up.

"Once" was a horrible movie.

I hate all animation. And at the local multiplex theater today there are about a half dozen playing.

I don't respect people who hate all animation. Comments like that pretty much guarantee there will be no second date. And if you say you don't like musicals, not only will there be no second date, but the first date is over as soon as you say that, and you're paying for your own transportation home.

O/T: R32 is definitely a Trump supporter.

I hated "Raging Bull".

And "Forrest Gump"

And I detest Jack Nicholson. I don't like any of his films, I get sick when I see a picture of him, and one good thing I can see about him is that we no longer have to see his pompous sunglassed ass front row at the Oscars.

The fact that he is now moaning about wanting some woman to take care of him in his old age is delightful.

What goes around comes around and has apparently bitten his incontinent ass.

Jennifer Lawrence is a bad actress

Chris Pratt is an oaf, Harrison Ford wannabe

Robert Downey Jr. has lost all charm and talent

I had a feeling most of the comments on this thread would be negative. It's easy to trash the popular and acclaimed films and actors, but I'd like to hear more defenses of films and actors who are unfairly scorned.

"All Over The Guy," "Latter Days," "Big Eden," "Trick" and "The Broken Hearts Club" are all pretty good movies, better than 99% of the American indie gay movies that have been released in the last 20 years.

"Prometheus" is a masterpiece.

"Hostel 2" is one of the best horror films of the century.

"Ghostbusters" is mediocre.

"Animal House" is unfunny.

The best thing about "Tootsie" is its theme song.

"The Godfather 3" and "Star Wars - Attack of the Clone Warriors" are good movies.

"The French Connection 2" is a better film than "The French Connection".

"Sin City 2" is just as good as "Sin City".

"Death Proof" is one of Tarantino's best films.

Okay, R47,

Mimi Rogers gave one of the greatest performances of all time in The Rapture, an early 90s release about religious fundamentalism. If Streep had delivered that exact same performance, every single critic who ignored it would have raved it and she'd have been Oscar nominated and it would be held up as further proof that Streep is the best actress that ever lived. But because hype matters more than actual accomplishment, the movie and performance won nothing.

R4, go see a psychiatrist for an obsession you can't even let go of in a thread that has nothing to do with it. Vermin.

Another vote for R18.

"who would really tolerate his little speeches before killing someone?"

Do you actually have a choice in the matter when someone is about to kill you? You're too busy shitting your pants to think about "tolerating" the speech.

Disney has never recovered creatively from the deaths of Howard Ashman and Frank Wells in the 1990s and I have never forgiven and will never forgive them for getting rid of "traditional" animation in the 2000s.

Very few things that are exclusive to Netflix and Hulu are things you'll watch more than once.

[italic]The Godfather III[/italic] would have been a much better film and almost as good as the first two if Winona Ryder hadn't dropped out of it. I blame Johnny Douche, whoops I mean Depp, for that.

Christina Applegate should have played Jennifer Aniston's part in [italic]Office Space[/italic].

Carol Burnett owns the role of Miss Hannigan.

Gene Wilder owns the role of Willy Wonka.

Judy Garland owns the role of Dorothy Gale, though Fairuza Balk was actually pretty good in [italic]Return to Oz[/italic].

Helen Reddy should never have quit making movies.

Harvey "Scissorhands" Weinstein should have been pushed out of Miramax and blacklisted from the industry after what he did to Mark Christopher's [italic]54[/italic] and to Richard Williams' [italic]The Thief and the Cobbler[/italic] in post-production.

I think most actors from the 40s and 50s were awful. I've never watched a single movie where they came off as authentic. They all sounded like actors and nothing like whatever it was they were supposed to be portraying.

Godfather Part II was boring and overrated (sorry Al, but unlike Brando you can't carry a 3 hour movie on your own)

Johnny Depp and Robert Downey Jr. are the most annoying actors ever

Hans Zimmer is a hack

Diane Warren's schlagers are really catchy and enjoyable to listen to

Roberto Benigni deserved his best actor Oscar, and so did Halle Berry

I've never seen a Tarkovsky movie and I never will watch one because just reading about them makes me sleepy

F. Murray Abraham was right to call Geraldine Page "the greatest actress in english language"

Lord Of The Rings is crap. There's maybe thirty minutes worth of narrative in TEN FUCKNG HOURS worth of events.

Agree with r50.

Joaquin Phoenix is the most refreshing American actor currently working. I would have liked to have seen him win the Oscar for The Master over Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln.

I hate the stupid movie "Once upon a Time in America." It's a moronic movie stupidly told. It has a feel like it was written by a seventeen year old.

It's the Luke and Laura of gangster pics!

I agree with you R34. Alien 3 stripped away the Hollywood happy ending of Aliens. It is an existential sci-fi action film, and I find it the most moving of the whole franchise.

Audrey Hepburn was a bad actress for the most part. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed her performance in the wonderful Two For The Road, but unfortunately she wasn't very good in most of her other films.

Jane Fonda is one of the most wooden, one-note actors of all time.

Despite its flaws and criticism, I found Eyes Wide Shut to be a fascinating film to watch. And Stanley Kubrick managed to get a restrained and somewhat layered performance from Tom Cruise, one of the worst actors of our time.

Guilty Pleasure:

I liked "Congo".

Some funny parts but mostly because.,,,

I loved seeing favorite Laura Linney come to the rescue, grab the super weapon, arm it, and begin blasting away at the attacking apes as the music soared.

Go, get 'em, Laura!!

Many classic 40s and 50s movies are actually schmaltzy dreck.

Many of the supposedly terrifying "classic horror movies" of that period are particularly lame. "Night of the Hunter" wouldn't scare my granny, "The Haunting" is really The Boring, and both "Frankenstein" and, especially, the sequel "Bride of Frankenstein" are terrifying only in their dullness. I watch "The Innocents" when I want a good nights sleep and it delivers every time!

[quote]Many of the supposedly terrifying "classic horror movies" of that period are particularly lame.

The Bela Lugosi "Dracula" is comically bad.

The Counselor is hugely underrated. I never thought I'd say it, but Cameron Diaz gave a brilliant performance. She was terrifying. The whole movie was very well cast and acted. Unpleasant subject matter, but I couldn't stop thinking about the film for weeks.

"Futuristic" movies set in post-20th century worlds with no out gays or cell phones are beyond idiotic and impossible to take seriously.

[italic]The Simpsons Movie[/italic] could have been one of the best movies of 1997. Too bad it came out in 2007 and had to deal with ten years of "Jerkass Homer" baggage.

Bill Condon should have directed [italic]Chicago[/italic] in addition to writing the screenplay.

Emma Thompson sucks as a writer, an actress, and a human being. Her only talent is for projecting her own lack of talent and outright bigotry onto others. Kenneth Branagh was right to get out while the getting was good.

More irredeemably bad movies have been made since 1995 than all the bad movies in any period before that put together.

Lars Von Trier should be put in a concentration camp and Vanessa Redgrave should be his cell mate.

Leni Riefenstahl should have been executed for making [italic]Lie-umph of the Swill[/italic].

The death of the Technicolor printing process helped accelerate the normalization of ugliness in color cinematography. By comparison, watch practically any color film from the 1930s until the late 1960s, even a bad one. In a pristine print or properly timed HD transfer, it'll look like a dream. Movies could look as good or better than that today if filmmakers had any sense of taste, history, or a clue that some audiences just don't like staring at dull, poorly lit, grayish green images for two or more hours.

[quote] Jane Fonda is one of the most wooden, one-note actors of all time.

Now this I agree with. Bad enough she actually bought into all that Viet Cong propaganda to an extent that dwarfed all other anti-Vietnam War celebrities, but leaving all that aside I've never been blown away by any performance she gave, and she was the least funny cast member of [italic]Nine to Five[/italic] as well. Other members of her own family could act better than she; frankly, even Henry Fonda's ass hairs gave better performances. As for how she managed to win two Oscars when people who can act rings around her have never even been nominated, keep in mind that Alfred Hitchcock has as many directing Oscars as Ed Wood.

George Clooney, Matt Damon, Charlize THeron and Brad Pitt can act, but are at best average. Character Actors In Leading Men Bodies they are not. The much maligned likes of Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts are probably better and have more range.

Ethan Hawke and Woody Harrelson are among the greatest actors of their generation.

Meg Ryan is very talented and fucked her career by pulling a Jennifer Grey on her face and by being a total PR failure.

I have never caught Eddie Redmayne not "acting" on screen.

Anne Hathaway is terrific. Gwyneth Paltrow is much, much better than the terrible roles she chooses.

Robert De Niro has not lost it as an actor.

[quote]Judy Garland owns the role of Dorothy Gale

I wouldn't call that unpopular, r54!

George Clooney drains all the joy off the screen in anything he's in. He was flat-out terrible in ALL his sitcom roles from [italic]Facts of Life[/italic] to [italic]Golden Girls[/italic] to [italic]Roseanne[/italic], and [italic]ER[/italic] was just the Diet Coke to [italic]St. Elsewhere[/italic]'s Real Thing. I tried to watch [italic]Tomorrowland[/italic] recently, but the story is a complete mess, full of faux-profound speechifyin' pretending to be dialogue, backstories taking up the entire first act, pseudoscience (a hair strand being used to identify DNA which is physically impossible) and casual racism (a white girl can shoot and kill a black man in TEXAS but [italic]Song of the South[/italic] is still off limits?), and Clooney-Tunes is constantly angry and pissed off in every scene he's in. "Be optimistic, goddammit!" is the message they're selling, and I'm not buying it because he deep down he doesn't believe in it either, and that's why he's not a good actor. A good actor could make you believe in such a message. A great actor could peddle you total bullshit and make you buy into every word of it. With Clooney, the material just sits there.

He's not even that good-looking.

[quote]ER was just the Diet Coke to St. Elsewhere's Real Thing.

Yesssss.

R66, the movie was awful. The attempt at "depth" was painfully bad.

R70 = Davida

Oh wow. I didn't know DL made sure her name couldn't be mentioned. That's hilarious

Why would anyone wannabe Harrison Ford, R46? He's one of the worst actors ever.

Agree that Woody Allen should have retired years ago. But I loved Interiors.

Anitra was the best model ever on The Price Is right and underrated as an actress.

[quote]The best thing about "Tootsie" is its theme song.

And Teri Garr. I wasn't crazy about Dustin Hoffman and Jessica Lange before Tootsie, but I despised both of them afterward.

Pacino should have retired before Scent of a Woman when I still thought he did not act like a buffoon.

Off all the nasty Hollywood pricks, I am hoping for a Mel Gibson comeback, either acting or directing. APOCALYPTO ruled.

KNIGHT OF CUPS was better than TREE OF LIFE.

[quote]Oh wow. I didn't know DL made sure her name couldn't be mentioned. That's hilarious

You have no idea how much drama preceded that action. It was repulsive.

Jennifer Lawrence is very talented but she is one actor who needed a three-years of classical training at drama school. She had a lot of tics that were exploited by Russell and Lawrence.

I lost a lot of respect for her in the the second HUNGER GAMES film, CATCHING FIRE, when she resorted to a lot of cheap actor tricks to divert attention to herself from her costars.

[quote] I lost a lot of respect for her in the the second HUNGER GAMES film, CATCHING FIRE, when she resorted to a lot of cheap actor tricks to divert attention to herself from her costars.

Interesting - can you elaborate?

Who had respect for Jennifer "Instacunt" Lawrence ever?

Steven Spielberg is overrated

...as is Tina Fey.

Morgan Freeman's body of work does not warrant a Kennedy Center Honor.

The Oscars have been pretty much meaningless since the 80s ended.

Peter Sellers' schtick damn-near ruined "Lolita" (an opinion I proudly share with Robert Osbourne); see Frank Langella in the remake for a correct depiction of Clare Quilty.

Audrey Hepburn was a shit actress. As the folks at "Forbidden Hollywood" said, her "talent" was wearing a hat.

...and for r47:

Ryan Reynolds is very underrated.

[quote]Steven Spielberg is overrated

I've liked exactly two of his movies.

Shakespeare in Love was a complete delight and it deserved its Best Picture Oscar.

I despise Citizen Kane & never thought it the "best film ever made", as many others do.

Rocky IV was the second best Rocky. Rocky bring the best.

Rocky bring the best? Moose and squirrel?

Cybill Shepherd is an underrated actress.

Raquel Welch is more talented than people give her credit for. You don't get critical raves on Broadway if you have none.

Meg Ryan movies ruined the romantic comedy genre and gave us the appalling "Rom-com". Ryan should have stopped them after Seattle with Tom Hanks and then stuck to dramas.

Not necessarily unpopular, but Lucille Ball would have been a great dramatic actress if she had desired to branch out.

I loved Mame. Thought it was well done, hilarious and moving.

Alan Rickman should have been nominated/won Oscars for:

Die Hard. Truly, Madly, Deeply. Close My Eyes. Sense and Sensibility. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.

[quote]As the folks at "Forbidden Hollywood" said, her "talent" was wearing a hat.

And Gerard Alessandrini's "talent" is complaining that it isn't still 1956.

It's enough to say he should have won them, R92.

[quote]Not necessarily unpopular, but Lucille Ball would have been a great dramatic actress if she had desired to branch out.

She actually was pretty good in [italic]Yours, Mine, & Ours[/italic]. Too bad the movie itself covers up for some pretty shitty behavior in real life.

I expected The Artist to be a charming and delightful movie based on the reviews and instead found it dull, dreary, and very overrated. Jean Dujardin is hot to me and certainly recalls the old-time heartthrobs like Fairbanks, but I would not have given him an Oscar for that.

I want Paul Thomas Anderson to do a superhero movie. His way - with final cut.

I thought The Hulk (Ang Lee) was the second best comic movie ever created Batman ('89) and Batman Returns - both tied for first.

I miss Nick Nolte (just re-watched "Life Lessons")

All Christopher Nolan movies are overrated pretentious trash.

Just saw Love & Friendship, the movie is a mess! Why it has such good reviews I'll never understand.

God bless you and your caftan, R91.

Bridget Fonda is a fantastic star and I deeply miss her.

" 'Where Love Has Gone' was a stinking piece of crap that paid for my daughter's wedding."

Avengers Assemble is the best of the genre. Dune is seriously under-rated. I also agree with the poster who rated Cameron Diaz in The Counsellor. Sam Mendes should have made one Bond only.

Supposedly these are the greatest movies:

Citizen Kane (1941) by Orson Welles

Bicycle Thieves (1948) by Vittorio De Sica

Tokyo Story (1953) by Yasujirō Azu

Vertigo (1958) by Alfred Hitchcock

La Règle du jeu (The Rules of the Game) (1939) by Jean Renoir

_______________

I have seen them many times. But, life is short and the ONLY one of these that gives me pleasure now is Vertigo.

Breaking the Waves is an awful film. That ending has to be one of the most manipulative endings I have ever seen in a movie. Oh, but it's "art", so that makes it ok to movie critics.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is better than the tv show. Sheryl Lee should have won an oscar for that role.

Madonna isn't a totally horrible actress, as long as she plays herself. She is good in Desperately Seeking Susan and she is VERY good in Abel Ferrara's Dangerous Games.

I don't find George Clooney, Chris Hemsworth, Liam Hemsworth, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson, Taylor Lautner or Ryan Gosling sexy.

Showgirls is not a horrible movie, except for the graphic rape scene.

I loved Mulholland Drive was an amazing movie when I first watched it, but on repeated viewings, I lose interest in it. You start to notice how, yes, this was made for tv originally, since there are many spaces and pauses that wouldn't be there in a typical Lynch film (there are a lot of moments of silence which I didn't notice as much in Lynch's other movies). Blue Velvet, Eraserhead, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Lost Highway and The Straight Story are all easier to revisit.

Brian De Palma's Femme Fatale is incredibly underrated and only gets better with time.

The Dark Knight is not a great movie.

Wall-E was boring.

That should say "I THOUGHT Mulholland Drive was amazing..."

R25, I'll venture to guess that you've not seen many classic movies. You might want to consider minor details like factual information and basic coherence if/when you strive for gravitas.

Vertigo is a critic created "great movie." It's atmospheric and cheaply psychological, but Novak is terrible and jarring to look at and the movie is kind of boring. It isn't even one of Hitchcock's best films.

Breaking the Waves was a bizarre movie, R107, and I can certainly understand why you hated it, but it also contains a performance by Emily Watson that's one of the best ever to receive an Oscar nomination. Streep could only dream of being that good in anything.

Cher should have played Sally Field's role in Steel Magnolias.

I agree with R110 about Vertigo. I never liked Jimmy Stewart, but I was able to overlook that in some other Hitchcock movies where the other actors were good and the story made it worthwhile. Kim Novak isn't strong enough in Vertigo to help me get past Stewart and there are parts of the movie that go on forever. It feels like Hitchcock showing us how much he loved his own genius.

[quote] Cher should have played Sally Field's role in Steel Magnolias.

Could she even do a Southern accent?

Hot House Studio's Tony Mecelli collection is BETTER than the Spencer Reed Collection.

Black Cock Only 8 is much better than the original or any of the other sequels.

Dawson should have stopped at 40 loads.

R114, details, details.

I want to have a three-way with R98 and R100.

I feel the same way about The Searchers as you about Vertigo. It's a good movie and well worth seeing, but why this universal belief it's John Fords greatest masterpiece and one of the Top Ten or Twenty of all time? Stagecoach and Liberty Valance were better. Even Grapes of Wrath was better.

R111, I agree with you.

[quote] As the folks at "Forbidden Hollywood" said, her "talent" was wearing a hat. And Gerard Alessandrini's "talent" is complaining that it isn't still 1956. —Anonymous

Touche!

The Searchers wasn't close to being one of John Ford's best movies. No idea why it's so overrated when he did much better work.

Gramps at R25 has gotten into the cooking sherry again.

Woody Allen may not be as good as he once was, but he still makes interesting, character-driven movies that are better than most of the dreck that is made today by directors who are more concerned with style over substance.

Meryl Streep is the most overrated actress in movie history.

I loved M. Night's The Village. I loved the acting, story and soundtrack. I love the whole concept of disapearing from society and starting a new one.

Meryl Streep is only hated to the extreme on Datalounge. While she has not had a perfect career (who has?), she is one of the greatest actors, male or female, living or dead, of all time.

[italic]Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird[/italic] was the best movie musical of 1985.

[quote]directors who are more concerned with style over substance.

R124, please name some of those directors.

Leonardo DiCaprio has given the exact same performance in every movie he's made since Titanic. I am shocked by his continued popularity and critical praise.

I agree with r125.

[quote]Leonardo DiCaprio has given the exact same performance in every movie he's made since Titanic.

Oh be fair, at least in [italic]What's Eating Gilbert Grape[/italic] he was trying something different.

Agree with R126, but it was his only good movie. "Ice Storm" was Ang Lee's only good movie. Most directors only have one good movie in them.

Obviously "Silkwood" and "The China Syndrome" were poor movies because the public is still not aware of nuclear power will inevitably due to this nation.

Working Girl should have won Best Picture at the Oscars over Rain Man.

[quote] Working Girl should have won Best Picture at the Oscars over Rain Man.

P-p-p-please! That was my year, but Oscar still didn't want to give a lowly 'toon like me the top prize.

[italic]Good Burger[/italic] has a lot to say about American corporatism.

I also agree with R125. It may be an unpopular opinion, but it's more commonly held than some think.

RAGING BULL is terrible, just obnoxious.

Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg don't know how to direct or photograph women.

I'm not saying Daniel Day-Lewis is not a fine actor, but he does little but vacillate between studiedly intense and goofily cute.

Emma Thompson is a brat.

Kenneth Branagh is not a good director.

Kate Bosworth was excellent in BEE SEASON and BIG SUR.

Jessica Biel can actually act.

Natalie Portman is only regarded an actress by people who want to fuck her or look like her, ever since puberty.

The only men who know how to write for or direct women are gay.

r132, Leo made Gilbert Grape way before he did Titanic. I loved him in Gilbert Grape; I think that's why it's so disappointing to see him do the same thing over and over again when once upon a time he actually showed talent.

Jack McBrayer should make more movies.

I agree with R125 as well. Overrated does NOT mean untalented. It simply means there's a huge disproportion between how much acclaim she gets and how much she deserves.

M's made more out-and-out clunkers than any other actress with a comparable professional reputation.

I did not realize how much I liked Meryl Streep before I discovered Datalounge. Heartburn, Sophie, and Kramer are my favorites.

George Clooney has ZERO range. Everything he does is the same. He coasts on his Cary Grant type of appeal, but hopefully as he ages he will just go away. Doesn't deserve a single Oscar.

It is an insult to compare Clooney to Cary Grant, R146. Look at Cary's body of work: [italic]She Done Him Wrong, Sylvia Scarlett, Bringing Up Baby, The Awful Truth, Only Angels Have Wings, His Girl Friday, The Philadelphia Story, Arsenic and Old Lace, Notorious, The Bishop's Wife, An Affair to Remember, North By Northwest, Charade[/italic]. Clooney has nothing anywhere near comparable to that.

George Clooney sucks. I don't even try to see his movies.

CASABLANCA is a dull movie...so is CITIZEN KANE.

Jodie Foster didn't deserve any of her Best Actress Oscars.

R147, just FYI the comparison to Cary Grant wasn't mine. It's a common opinion, but I never said Clooney was anywhere near as good as Grant, just that he coasted on the suave guy persona. I agree with you, R147.

I know that, R150. But the way the media talks about him you'd think he cured all disease and ended war.

John Waters is the greatest living American director and A Dirty Shame is his best film.

Adam Sandler makes terrible movies but I'd rather sit through any of them than anything with Will Ferrell. Even Ferrell's "good" ones (Anchorman, Elf, Old School) are terrible. He was funny on SNL but he's completely undeserving of a movie career.

R153 I agree. Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell are the two unfunniest men in Hollywood.

Speed Racer was unfairly trashed; I had a lot of fun watching it.

I actually enjoyed WHO'S THAT GIRL with Madonna.

James Cagney was the most talented, dynamic, and sexy male star of the golden age..

I do not, and never will, understand the popularity of superhero comic book movies in which everything explodes.

[quote]Showgirls is not a horrible movie

And Elizabeth Berkley is brilliant in it.......she's not playing a character. She IS Nomi Malone. And she looks fantastic.

I can't stand that David O.Russell uses the same actors in his films over and over.

AL Pacino annoys me cuz he has to YELL in every movie he's in.

If Tom Cruise wasn't a Scientologist he probably would have won an Oscar by now.

If Woody Allen was an accountant he would still be in prison for molesting, then marrying his adopted daughter.

R159, I think her portrayal is probably an accurate one of what a lot of wannabe starlets--and famous starlets--are like.

Showgirls was amazing and Elizabeth Berkley should have been nominated for an Academy Award. Her performance was very, very good.

She may or may not have been aware, but Elizabeth Berkley delivers a pretty good depiction of borderline personality disorder.

Yes, Showgirls has problem and the aforementioned rape scene is very jarring but the truth is ....

it's VERY entertaining,never boring and beautiful to look at. And even though I'm a 100% gay man , the strip scenes are HOT!

[quote]Showgirls is not a horrible movie, except for the graphic rape scene.

"The trip across the Atlantic was not a horrible one, except for that iceberg thingy."

R163, her scene with the fries is a case in point.

R164, yes, it's one of the most interesting films to look at, cinematography wise. I

Showgirls is a comedic masterpiece. People Hated it because they thought it was supposed to be sexy and give them a hard on - it wasn't. Come on, does anyone seriously think Berkley's flopping dolphin dance in the pool was supposed to be erotic and arousing? Verhoeven knew what he was doing. My stomach ached from laughing so hard when I saw it. It's one of the rare movies where pretty much every scene is funny.

I thought The Piano, and its actresses' performances, were a big piece of shit.

Girl, please

It was a flop with critics and audiences but I didn't think the Matthew Broderick version of "Godzilla" was that bad. I don't know what people expected but I thought it was a perfectly fun summer popcorn movie.

Showgirls was definitely not intended as a comedy. And yes, it was billed as being highly erotic. Hence the emphasis on the NC-17 rating at the time of its release.

This movie is similar to The Lonely Lady. An attempt to make a compelling movie and failing every step of the way.

I love everything about the film version of Mamma Mia.

Comedies can't be erotic?

90% of the British actors who do American accents do a lousy fucking job. It's bullshit that they're better trained. If they're playing a tough guy anywhere outside of NY/NJ, they're still doing a NY/NJ accent.

He was all right in INSOMNIA, R78. I found Hilary Swank to be more of an issue in that film.

Pacino is too hammy.

Pacino lost me with And Justice For All

Pacino was excellent in Donnie Brasco and should have won the Oscar for that instead of SoaW. (The winner that year was Nicholson for his smarmy, phoned in non-performance in As Good As It Gets.) unfortunately that's about the only film performance that stands out amid the dross of Pacinos later career.

If I had a weapon when I saw Scent of a Woman and Pacino was anywhere near, I'm not sure I could have restrained myself. I believe a solid argument could have been made for justifiable homicide.

But yes, R177, he was very good in Donnie Brasco.

What an awful title

So where's the controversy in your opinion r270? Isn't that pretty much what everyone thinks?

Phantom Of The Paradise was one of Brian De Palma's best films and Paul Williams should have won the Oscar for the soundtrack.

Eddie Murphy should have been Oscar nominated for TRADING PLACES and THE NUTTY PROFESSOR and should have won for BOWFINGER and DREAMGIRLS.

The much maligned Hilary Swank deserved her Oscar in MILLION DOLLAR BABY. She had the old-fashioned, kitchen sink, WB melodrama role and was better than Imelda Staunton working at the same sort of level in VERA DRAKE and Kate Winslet in the very showy ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND.

Gwyneth is a expert actress.

David O. Russell's JOY was, in part, a very good movie.

Brandon is deservedly the king of gay porn.

Jennifer Lawrence was only good in Winter's Bone because she was only playing herself as backwoods white trash.

The only reason she's made it this far is because she'll whip out her tits and spread those hillbilly legs for a part.

Morgan Freeman is schmultzy and sentimental in all films - I can't stand his 'wise black man' persona. 'Drive' was the most cartoony ridiculous film, Ryan Gosling at his most ridiculous. Carrie Mulligan can't act, very much one note. 'Rachel Getting Married' was longest 'arty' wankfest going around - was it a drama, or an opportunity for the director to get all his arty friends to do their arty shit into the movie? 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' is the most overrated film - how do people think actually like that smarmy Ferris?

Angela Bassett was unconvincing and quite bad in What's Love Got to Do With It. Alfre Woodard would have made the perfect Tina Turner. She wasn't considered sexy enough or box office, but there is nothing Bassett can do that Woodward can't do better.

As fabulous as it is, the "Born in a Trunk" Sequence ruins the Judy Garland version of A Star is Born. Screenwriter Moss Hart and director George Cukor were trying to create a modern musical that would not replicate the look and feel of MGM's Freed Unit musicals. Hart and Cukor were correct in wanting the film's first half to end with Vicki and Norman driving expectantly to Vicki'e premiere. The audience would then have a real Intermission and come back to see the second half begin with the film's audience racing excitedly out of the premiere, leaving Vicki's stellar debut to the real audiences' imaginations.

Had they kept to this plan, the audience would have had greater appreciation for Garland's numbers later in the movie. "Born In a Trunk" is total Freed Unit knockoff and what is worse, it burlesques the beautiful production design of Cukor's movie. Garland and Luft panicked as producers. Thinking they hadn't given Judy enough chance to show off her talent, they shoehorned the overlong "Trunk" sequence into the movie, throwing off its purpose and timing. Watch it sometime and skip over "Born In a Trunk" and you'll see a better movie.

Randy Newman soundtracks ruin a movie, can't stand his smugness and music.

Lord Jesus, another J Law is an untalented whore comment from a ravenous, bitter old queen jealous of her pert tits. Get OVER it. J Law was fantastic in Silver Linings Playbook. She's a class act to have done so much with that part.

"The Searchers" is the fanboy's western. Give me "My Darling Clementine" any day.

Speaking of fanboys, the 2005 version of "Fantastic Four" is not as bad as fanboys think it is. Jessica Alba is woefully miscast but the story and script gives the movie a fun, nostalgic 60s vibe.

Popular movies I detest:

Forrest Gump

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Kramer vs. Kramer

The Goodbye Girl

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

"90% of the British actors who do American accents do a lousy fucking job. It's bullshit that they're better trained. If they're playing a tough guy anywhere outside of NY/NJ, they're still doing a NY/NJ accent. "

Idris Elba in The Wire (I know, TV not a movie) is a perfect example. His take on an "urban" African-American accent was a complete joke. The show is great anyway, but please.

Gwyneth may be a cunt in real life, but she's a decent to very good actress. Maybe not "great" but very good.

I'd rather watch "How Green Was My Valley" than "Citizen Kane" any time.

I'd rather watch "Dances With Wolves" than "Goodfellas" any time.

I loathe Tom Cruise as a person, but he is a damn good actor and I enjoy him in movies.

I only read down to r8 but it was enough to see, only stupid people responding to this thread.

I find Ben Affleck, Nicolas Cage, & Owen Wilson unattractive in the extreme.

Showgirls sucked & Elizabeth Berkley's ass was as flat as a pancake.

David Fincher is the best director working today.

Star Wars is fuckboy shit for the brain dead.

Most Italians movies show what horrid people Italians are.

Elvis Presley's films hold up better than The Beatles' films.

"Steel Magnolias" is one of the worst acted A-list Hollywood films I have ever seen. Runners up include "The Mirror Has Two Faces", and "August: Osage County", but they lack the campy charm of "Steel Magnolias". They might have been better with unknown actors in all of them, just inept filmmaking!

R185 = Hannibal Lecter.

There have been 2 reasonable Marvel movies - IRON MAN 1 and CAPTAIN AMERICA 1. The rest are bankrupt, boring, and ugly to look at.

I'm neither a fan of her nor the movie, but Julia RobertS deserved the Supporting Actress Oscar for AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY more so than any one else in the field especially the winner, but it would have been an scandal of Paltrow proportions had she won.

R152 I agree that John Waters is the best living American director. While I have a soft spot for A Dirty Shame, I think Polyester is so much better. Francine triumphed over adversity, and even the Baltimore Foot Stomper was transformed by the power of art.

All these comic superhero movies are so fake and annoying computer generated crap. They are about as bad as all those save the day movies from the 80's and 90's with Bruce Willis etc. al. Whose Hollywood casting couches did he have to sweat on, to get those parts I wonder?

Elizabeth Berkeley should be ashamed to have flaunted her flat cheeks like that.

Breaking the Waves is a high camp comedy.

SUCH LOVE for R181 for the memory!!! So here are some songs--

-Agreed--Paul Williams should have won

I hated the main character in "Life is Beautiful".

Hilary Swank didn't deserve her Oscars. How hard is it to play white trash? Dykey white trash? Cannibal Holocaust is the best found-footage horror film ever made. The Dark Knight Trilogy sucked hairy donkey balls [progressively got worse] The Empire Strikes Back is the best Star Wars film ever. Anne Hathaway, Julia Roberts, and Natalie Portman are horrible actresses. The only reason Jai Courtney has a career is by letting a group of guys run a train on him.

What a voice on Jessica Harper!

Empire IS the best Star Wars

Now back to the Paradise

don't forget r152 , that Lulu never wanted to use macramé to kill. I still love when that huge black woman bit the car and beat the crap out of Bobo. I still love Female Trouble with all my heart, though.

R213 - please explain about Jai Ciurtney, and why wasn't I invited?

The Muppets Take Manhattan was a sophisticated, highly underrated satire of the "let's put on a show!" film genre. Great songs, hilarious moments, great celebrity cameos (including Ed Koch, Dabney Coleman, and Gregory Hines). It's a shame that its only lasting legacy (if you could call it that) was that Muppet Babies cartoon.

I loved Avatar and Titanic and yall can eat me.

R219, it's not exactly an unpopular opinion to like movies that have set box office records.

Oh yes, I know .... but the supreme irony is that admitting you like these movies is like admitting you knit sweaters out of belly button lint. Titanic is more widely accepted, but Avatar (despite making 2 billion dollars) is rarely talked about, and anyone who admits to liking it is a "flyover frau"in DL standards (and similar, among other groups)

I liked the American remake of 'Shall We Dance?" [original was Japanese] because Jennifer Lopez' ass was in every other shot.

[quote]I loved Avatar and Titanic and yall can eat me.

Why would we want to? Bad taste.

haha

I wish I hadn't read about certain movies at DL, movies I've enjoyed. Having anything in common with their obnoxious rabid fans is something I'd want to change about myself.

Likewise, r222. I loved the original, but SHALL WE DANCE was charming. I also preferred the American remakes of DEATH AT A FUNERAL and what became THREE MEN AND A BABY and TRUE LIES.

R213, you are a peasant.

[quote] The Empire Strikes Back is the best Star Wars film ever.

"Unpopular"?!

James Cameron is a so-so director who panders to the U.S. with Americana and OOOOOH-RAAH-*beats chest like an ape or lawnmower man*-style. Fuckface is so xenophobic he can't even deal with an English accent.

[quote]Fuckface is so xenophobic he can't even deal with an English accent.

Is that why Sam Worthington had to sound American? It was such a horrid American accent...he sounded Australian about 1/2 the time. I thought the point of him doing an American accent was for clarity purposes as they might worry audiences wouldn't understand him if he used his normal accent.

The Australian made one of the top 3 Bond films ever and it had the best theme song. WE HAVE ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD is magical.

Daniel Craig's Bond films were best in chronological order.

I hate, hate, HATE origin stories. SKYFALL was a load of shit and oddly retrograde - Bond is a landed aristo, killing off female M, making Moneypenny black and such a shit agent she is relegated to receptionist duties. And don't give me that shit about it being true to the novels. Most of SKYFALL wasn't. Thanks to SKYFALL your next Bond will be a milk-feed alumnus of Richard Curtis movies.

But none of that would matter if the film was good.

Also, Sam Mendes' great handle on performances does not make him a great director.

I fucking HATED Skyfall, one of the worst Bond films ever made.

And James Bond does not bloody fucking cry. Not ever.

The latest Star Wars film was a huge letdown and a near carbon copy of the original film as far as plot. The best part about the film was the actual movie going experience and hearing the audience cheer when the familiar characters first appeared on screen. Amongst all the hoopla, however, someone forgot to make a decent film.

Empire Strikes Back destroyed the Star Wars franchise. The first movie was first-rate bubblegum. But Empire coyly suggested that there was something meatier and and more meaningful underneath. It didn't deliver on that promise; it didn't have to. It was the middle chapter, after all. But every Star Wars movie since has suffered for not cashing the check Empire wrote.

Star Wars, Star Trek, and Superhero movies are fodder for soulless individuals who yearn to have spiritual values to provide their lives with some meaning

[quote] The latest Star Wars film was a huge letdown and a near carbon copy of the original film as far as plot.

My six year old niece (who has seen the first 3 SW films) saw the latest SW film and said to her Dad while watching "I've seen this scene with different actors".

But then she's a smart kid. Obviously smarter than the people who made the film.

[quote] that Muppet Babies cartoon.

You mean that Muppet show that actually got more than one season out of a network?

[quote] Empire Strikes Back destroyed the Star Wars franchise. The first movie was first-rate bubblegum. But Empire coyly suggested that there was something meatier and and more meaningful underneath. It didn't deliver on that promise; it didn't have to. It was the middle chapter, after all. But every Star Wars movie since has suffered for not cashing the check Empire wrote.

Imagine how much different the world of [italic]Star Wars[/italic] would be if Gary Kurtz and George Lucas hadn't parted company.

[quote] My six year old niece (who has seen the first 3 SW films) saw the latest SW film and said to her Dad while watching "I've seen this scene with different actors".

Disney is to film studios as Apple is to computer companies; they don't actually create anything, they just try to produce a better (in their opinion) version of someone else's work.

William Friedkin's "Cruising" was a brilliantly evocative mood piece....a chilling, compelling thriller and not the LEAST bit homophobic.

The only thing inaccurate about the way the 70s era leather bar culture was portrayed was the raw, underground rock and funk music score and the barroom sex scenes didn't go far ENOUGH.

I hated the original Star Wars. I walked out before it ended.

R238, I like both Cruising and To Live and Die in LA a lot, far more than The Exorcist and The French Connection.

[quote]The only thing inaccurate about the way the 70s era leather bar culture was portrayed was the raw, underground rock and funk music score and the barroom sex scenes didn't go far ENOUGH.

That's what James Franco was trying to do with [italic]Interior: Leather Bar[/italic]. I have trouble believing the cut scenes from [italic]Cruising[/italic] are gone forever because Warner Bros. was able to restore [italic]The Big Red One[/italic], another Lorimar film from 1980 that got gutted in post-production.

I think Cruising is one of those rare movies where the flaws actually make the movie work.

It's not better than the Exorcist or French Connection though.

All talk, discussion and analysis of comic book and sci fi movies and franchises is silly. They are biblical allegories of good and evil in bad science drag. They present crowded visual escapes for a certain kind of intelligence. And that kind of intelligence has been drip drop slowly cooked like a frog in cold water for the last 40 years.

And they're all in cahoots with the junk food industry, R243. Every last one of them. Look at how many of them appear on breakfast cereal, candy and other nutritionally suspect food-like products sold to kids.

Practical effects are more interesting to look at (and age far better than) CG. Practical effects (makeup, little buildings and spaceships, stop motion animation) is an art form; computer graphics are NOT.

LOTR's CGI for Gollum was great, but the mass battle scenes and Minas Tirith were terrible.

I actually think Kevin Costner is a very good actor and director.

Totally agree R247.

Gwyneth Paltrow was a really talented actress once upon a time. So good I thought she might even be a decent human being off camera. Can't win em all.

I've tried many times and have never been able to sit through any star wars movie.

Most movies are way, way too long. It's out of control. This isn't The Godfather - it's Iron Man vs America Man. No longer than 80 minutes, thanks.

When I am in love with the characters, storying telling and pace, I want the movie to last 3 hours. Magnolia, The Best Years of Our Lives and Schindler's List are three of my favorite films.

You queens keep saying how good Gwyneth is at acting. Not THAT good. Just better than would be expected from such an insufferable cunt.

I think Pialat is the third greatest french filmmaker, just behind Godard and Rivette, and over Renoir, Cocteau, Truffaut, Epstein, Melies, etc...

I think Ozu and Naruse were better than Kurosawa.

I think 'Only Angels Have Wings' is the greatest american film.

I think Bertolucci is a big, giant homosexual.

I find Heath Ledger overrated

R252 is right. The right length of a movie is however long it needs to be to tell its story coherently, whether it's 5 minutes or 500 minutes.

Will Farrell is not funny - at all - EVER

Stanley Kubrick's stuff is just weird and awful.

I officially hate comic book movies. Even though I was excited to find out there will be a Black Panther film, I'm hoping for a round of high-profile box office failures to ruin the genre.

I loved Kubrick's Clockwork Orange (and Malcolm MacDowell was great in it) and also Dr Strangelove. Hated his Shining (and Nicholson's hammyness).

I DESPISE Steven Spielberg and every movie he's made - I blame him for destroying American films ever after. Schindler's List is preachy and poorly acted - everybody's a stereotype except the "hero". Spielberg either hates or fears women - has no idea what to do with them - on anything related to sex, he's a puritanical 12-year-old.

Star Wars was shit too - and whoever's involved with that dreck. Lucas? Just so puerile. So's Lord of the Rings/Hobbit. At least Harry Potter doesn't pretend to be for adults.

Mid 70's Jaws plus Star Wars = when movies became startle-fests and stupid spaceship battles, aimed at 4th graders.

Oh and Ron Howard's movies are all childish shit, as well.

Tom Cruise is a good a actor, annoying as fuck but a good actor.

Space Odyssey is boring, the music is amazing though.

I hate Steven Spielberg's films. All of them.

He is overly sentimental and cheats the audience. His method of storytelling [to make up for a horribly written script] is to manipulate you into feeling what he wants you to feel. He's pretty much condescending because he thinks you can't feel for yourself.

Of course there are exceptions. Douglas Sirk's films of the 40's and 50's were meant to be manipulative and overly dramatic, that was the intention as they were "weepies" aka "women's pictures" Imitation of Life, Written on the Wind, All that Heaven Allows, and other similar films like Now Voyager, Mildred Pierce, and Leave Her To Heaven. Even Todd Haynes takes a page out of the melodrama book and adds it to his modern films.

Tom Cruise, Kevin Costner, Michael Douglas and a lot of the 80s/90s American Man stars are just fun to watch. They know what the fuck they are doing and they do it. I would rather watch them than watch Clooney or Pitt or Depp be try to subvert their good looks in an attempt to be a character actor any day of the week.

L A Confidential should have won the Oscar instead of Titanic. How can Citizen Kane be the best film ever when you don't give a shit about the main character? And I prefer watching pre-digital / wire-work action movies because there were real talented stunt guys doing dangerous stunts which in turn helped you to care about the character - now, because none of it is real there's no peril.

Lady in the Water is best looked at with a childlike appreciation for story telling . I saw the movie as a parody of classic fantasy story telling or something like "Deadpool Tells A Fantasy Story". I say this because the film critic guy (think Farber was his name) breaks the 4th wall kinda and tells which moments foreshadow events and which troupe the characters belong in. It wasn't suitable for consumption for a large audience as a serious thriller/fantasy movie, but I don't think the movie was extremely bad as the reviews suggest .

George Clooney is not hot and his movies suck.

Cher did not deserve to win an Oscar for "Moonstruck".

I'd rather watch "Valley of the Dolls" than "How Green Was My Valley".

Peter Sellers ruined Dr Strangelove. He went too far with the character. Whilst most of the characters are crazy, they are a believe crazy, but not Dr Strangelove. Peter Sellers was a sad try-hard.

Meryl Streep over-acts too and doesn't let a character (or the audience) breathe. And I always detect her smugness coming through - her over-confidence that she's so fucking great.

I don't know if this opinion is "unpopular," but I think either Jon Voight or Dustin Hoffman deserved "Best Actor" over John Wayne.

Gene Hackman was the greatest American actor of his era.

How and when was Gene Hackman unpopular?

Kirsten Dunst is one of our better actresses. As a matter of fact, most comediennes are knock-out dramatic actresses (except Jennifer Aniston).

To all the folks who can't stand Citizen Kane-- Ingmar Bergman agreed with you! He hated it and really trashed Orson Welles's performance.

Random musings:

Audrey Hepburn is cringe-makingly twee and inept in everything except The Nun's Story. 2001 is the most boring film ever made (not surprising given the contempt Kubrick appeared to have for audiences and humanity in general). Cary Grant is so smug and self-involved as to be unwatchable. The Bond franchise should have stopped after Thunderball. Joan Collins is a better actress than most people give her credit for. Faye Dunaway's much maligned performance in Mommie Dearest is actually brilliant and the most accurate portrayal of a narcissistic parent ever.

George Clooney has only been watchable in films which compromise his alleged good looks with characters who aren't as bright as they think they are. That's when his limitations work for the good of the film: Michael Clayton, Up In The Air, The Ides Of March. (The latter was a good job of direction.) Otherwise, it's as though Troy McClure mysteriously has his pick of leading projects.

I didn't get the rapture over Mad Max: Fury Road - save for Tom Hardy.

Charlize isn't nearly as good in anything without the prosthetics, etc., that she wore in Monster. However, in that film she seemed to be channeling both the devil and Wuornos and it's one of the best performances ever in cinema

Movies fucking sucked before acting became realistic.

I've never understood Jodie Foster's appeal. Earnestness is not the same as great talent.

[quote]I didn't get the rapture over Mad Max: Fury Road

Me either. I was bored out of my fucking mind watching it.

I also really enjoyed Shyamalan's THE VILLAGE. It's a great old-fashioned mystery with a fab cast. Bryce Dallas Howard had a great role and never managed to better it.

"Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" is a terrific movie that has been largely forgotten, despite its 10 Oscar nominations (including Best Picture). From start to finish it is a highly entertaining film which, had it been more successful, would have resulted in sequel films based on Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels. The film turned a profit but did not generate the massive box office that studios typically like in order to justify making a sequel. Russell Crowe was perfectly cast as Captain Jack Aubrey and Paul Bettany was fantastic as Dr. Stephen Maturin. Both of them were wrongly overlooked in the Oscar acting categories.

The Village is an unmitigated piece of crap with a ridiculous premise. One of M.Night's worst films, which is saying a lot given the shit that he's churned out over the years.

R284, I agree. Great film.

Agreed, R284. I'll never understand why a film like that didn't worm its way into the national consciousness, while others like Gladiator did. It's top notch entertainment.

Johnny Depp should have won the Best Actor Oscar for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl over Sean Penn for Mystic River. Both were terrific, but no other actor could have made Jack Sparrow such a funny and memorable character like Depp did. Keep in mind that at the time no one knew what a joke Depp would become in just a few short years or that Pirates would turn into such an obnoxious movie franchise with Depp phoning in his performance. At the time, when it was fresh and new, Depp was brilliant in the very first and only good Pirates movie.

I think the Godfather movies all silly and trite, aimed at little boys. Brando with cotton balls in his mouth is a total joke.

Complaining about the length of movies is a sign of ADHD.

Notorious box-office bomb Heaven's Gate is not a bad film;

F. Murray Abraham in Amadeus - one of the greatest performances ever captured on film;

The Big Lebowski, The Dark Knight, The Shawshank Redemption - good films, but ridiculously overrated

R284, I like to think that 50 years from now, Russell Crowe will be more remembered for LA Confidential and Master and Commander than for Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind.

Crowe was fantastic in Master and Commander.

R285, that is not an unpopular opinion. That is the consensus towards The Village. Saying you liked it and explaining why is answering the OP's question.

"David Fincher is the best director working today. "

You're commenting on the sad state of American filmmaking with this comment, right?

[italic]Bedknobs and Broomsticks[/italic] is the single greatest achievement in the history of humankind.

R290, no - boredom.

Faye Dunaway should have been Oscar nominated for Barfly instead of Meryl Streep in Ironweed.

I prefer Vivien Leigh's Anna Karenina to Greta Garbo's Anna - I don't think Garbo is beautiful or a great actress.

Susan Sarandon didn't deserve her Oscar nominations for Atlantic City (Dunaway should have taken her slot for Mommie Dearest) or for The Client (eye roll).

Joan Crawford's film career is more enjoyable than Bette Davis'. After All About Eve, Davis' films in the 50s were snoozefests compared to the campy fun of Crawford's films in that same decade. And much of Davis' earlier films - Dark Victory, Jezebel, Now Voyager, The Letter, Skeffington, - I find boring.

Meryl Streep is ineffective at playing 'normal' women in 'normal' situations i.e. Falling in Love, Defending Your Life, It's Complicated, Hope Springs etc.

Daniel Day Lewis is over- rated. His three Oscar winning performances - My Left Foot, There Will Be Blood, Lincoln - left me cold.

R297: Another sign of ADHD. Thank you for proving my point.

The best performance given by Julie Andrews in 1964 was in [italic]The Americanization of Emily[/italic].

People who think the acting in old movies is overacting are immature, ignorant philistines whose opinions on this and all other matters should be summarily dismissed without any further consideration.

Why did all actors sound the same, then, R301? I'm not saying anyone was "overacting," but in B&W movies, the actors all talk like actors, acting.

They didn't all sound the same, R302, and you're misremembering it if you do.

Defending Your Life is a normal situation?

I should rewatch some old movies, R303, and hear whether I've changed my mind.

[quote]the actors all talk like actors, acting

As opposed to today where they fry their voices and mumble every line?

I don't see too many movies these days, R306, but I know the mumbling is so bad on TV, I leave CC on most of the time. It's not because I'm deaf, it's because the actors fail to make themselves understood.

Robert Altman is the greatest of american directors.

I think I understand what r302 is referring to. A lot of it has to do with studio acting training. Certain voice types helped to identify characters, especially in terms of class. Think of the mid-Atlantic accent of Katharine Hepburn and many others portraying the wealthy set. It even applied to someone supposed to be educated.

I don't mind it at all, but it lends an air of staginess to the performances, which at that point, were a bit theatrical in other respects as well.

I like to think that there is at least one DL-er sitting in his caftan who has never given up the ghost on the mid-Atlantic accent.

The low dynamic range of 1930s/1940s recording equipment also contributed to that "sound."

Spielberg and what's her name, the one who came up with Star Wars, are guilty of destroying good american cinema forever. Dancer in the Dark is a POS movie directed by a deranged, dangerous, evil man. Tom Cruise has charisma to spare, the one you cannot buy, and an excellent instinct in choosing projects.: he's the last movie star.

Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep and even Jessica Chastain are still movie stars. Tammy is the last Xenu movie star.

I wish they were forced to make an equal amount of adult movies as comic book movies/cartoons. That is what is killing the movie industry (turning cinema into a theme park).

There is nothing inherently juvenile about the medium of animation, but it is unfortunate that it has been allowed to become a propaganda arm of the sugar industry.

It's a full sentence, r274, including the word "greatest." Some might argue for Pacino, e.g.

Louise Brooks is the greatest of silent screen stars.

I don't think Charlize Theron's acting in Monster is particularly good. She's not as bad as Christina Ricci but it's all shake and makeup acting with constant twitching. The movie itself is rather average.

I always thought Johnny Depp was in the Brad Pitt league of talent = next to none at all.

You were right about Johnny, R317. I'm not sure Brad is that untalented, however.

It's not ADHD, A lot of movies today seem to run 20-30 minutes over what they should. (Some comic book movies are especially guilty of this). It's like moviemakers forgot you could make a great movie in under two hours.

Gravity was great because it managed to be flashy and compelling in 91 minutes. There's no reason for a Sex and the City movie to be two and a half hours long.

There's no reason for a SATC movie to be, period.

[quote]It's like moviemakers forgot you could make a great movie in under two hours.

I have seen enough potentially great movies get butchered in post because of this bullshit excuse.

The "cut every 7 seconds" rule needs to die in a grease fire as it has helped enable a great many lazy actors.

Many a great movie they need not be named, right R321?

Of course.

Catherine Deneuve levels everything to watchable. Pure merde rises to watchable and chic. True greatness or wonder, is cut down with a french smug indifference and musky, almost dirty parfum.

R323 has baby tastes and ADHD. Imagine if they had cut [italic]Gone With the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia[/italic] or [italic]The Godfather[/italic] to two hours. They would have turned into confusing, disjointed messes and would have flopped at the box office.

[quote] Imagine if they had cut Lawrence of Arabia to two hours.

I would have preferred it.

[quote] I would have preferred it.

Trust me, you would not be able to follow it if they had done that. Heck, Columbia already tried cutting it without David Lean's input or approval, and it wasn't until the 1980s that they finally restored as much as they could.

Steel Magnolias is a suck-ass movie.

Using "suck ass" as a pejorative is extremely homophobic.

[quote]Why did all actors sound the same, then? I'm not saying anyone was "overacting," but in B&W movies, the actors all talk like actors, acting.

You have to understand and appreciate the evolving filmmaking and acting techniques. Movies made in the 1930s, 1940s, and much of the 1950s were done so under the old Hollywood studio system, where actors were trained by voice and acting coaches with proper diction and a style of acting that was little more than toned down stage acting. The 1950s saw the decline of the studio system, the erosion of the antiquated Motion Picture Production Code, and the emergence of a more realistic style of acting (see Method Acting; Stanislavski, Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner...). As well, the post-World War II population was less naive/idealistic and ready for more realistic, gritty portrayals of life on screen. Add to that the explosion of the highly influential French New Wave Cinema, and the world of film was never the same again.

It's a bit naive and ignorant to criticize films and actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood simply because they're different stylistically from what movies are like today. You have to put it all in context and appreciate it from a completely different perspective.

If it weren't for that so-called "method" acting, Heath Ledger might still be alive today.

Modern mainstream filmmakers spend too much time worrying about physical realism and too little about emotional realism.

All the American "New Hollywood" directors were just pale imitators of French New Wave and Italian Neorealist filmmakers.

R325 What does bringing up movies from forty plus years ago have to do with how most movies today are overlong? Besides, movies like Lawrence and Gone with the Wind were rare in that most movies of that time period were not of that length.

Reading comprehension can be a wonderful thing. You should try it sometime.

Realism is also an affectation, a style of acting and filmmaking that requires technique.

Godfather and Lawrence Of Arabia are perfect lengths. Every Marvel movie is 20-30 minutes too long.

Cher did not deserve an Oscar for MOONSTRUCK. The whole movie was overrated.

[quote]Every Marvel movie is 20-30 minutes too long.

Yet DC is the one cutting 20-30 minutes out of everything to pander to the MPAA and to the low-attention-span crowd, and their movies are flopping.

No, R337, DC is the one writing movies as they go along and desperately cutting the bloat in a bid to summon a plot line. Do NOT blame the audiences.

[quote]desperately cutting the bloat in a bid to summon a plot line.

What they're cutting isn't bloat. It's plot and character development in a movie that needs it even more desperately.

"Story, story, story!" is bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!

To Live and Die and LA is the best action movie I've seen from the past 40 years. It demonstrates the best parts of William Friedkin's technique, along with Cruising. That cinematography is like an upscale version of Miami Vice (yes, that's a compliment). It's probably the slickest movie I've ever seen.

Was that a compliment or a criticism at R324

The Godfather is boring, I've never even finished watching it.

Helen Hunt. The ugliest actress to make it into the A-list in recent memory. I can just imagine the number of man hours makeup Put in to make her somewhat appealing.

Master and Commander was great, but a huge flop with a $150 million budget and only made $200 million. Shame there will be not sequels based on the books.

Maybe it is a good thing that there will be no Master and Commander sequels. The movie was wonderful, but still didn't hold a candle to the books themselves. Patrick O'Brian created such a captivating, complicated friendship set against the backdrop of the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars. I can only shudder to think how the novels might have been dumbed down or sanitized in order to attract a wider audience. Russell Crowe did make an absolutely glorious Captain Aubrey. I cannot recommend the novels highly enough; add Master and Commander to your summer reading list.

I find a lot of Spielberg's movies to be overly formulaic and kind of sanitized. He has really aced his formula, but I don't get any authentic feeling from most of his movies...it's all effects. Schindler's List is a striking exception.

On the other hand, I love 2001: A Space Odyssey so freaking much I want to eat it. And I like Eyes Wide Shut a lot. I don't like Kubrick's The Shining though.

And I think I must really despise whatshisname who does all the movies with Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence because I despise those movies. Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle were not good IMO, and the acting was bad, and I cannot understand Jennifer Lawrence winning any award for either. She can be a really good actor, but those movies...ugh.

Joseph Losey is one of the greatest directors ever and a huge influence on dozens of important filmmakers. His collaborations with Brecht, Laughton, Pinter, Alain Delon, Dirk Bogarde and Stoppard are brilliant. Andrew Sarris called Losey's Don Giovanni an aesthetic masterpiece. When the Paris Opera House closed, Losey--an American--was asked to choose and direct its final opera, Boris Gudonov. Appropriate since Losey had studied with Sergei Eisenstein and Soviet acting innovators in the 1930s and had directed an acclaimed production of Clifford Odets' 'Waiting For Lefty'. Before Losey was due to testify in DC before the HUAC, he and Brecht fled to Europe where Losey remained in exile the rest of his life. Before he left, Losey directed an allegory of political paranoia, 'The Prowler', called by James Ellroy, author of LA Confidential, the greatest film noir ever made. Scorsese is an avowed acolyte and in fact played Joseph Losey's character in Guilty by Suspicion.

As a gay-oriented forum one should note Losey's The Servant...is , well, watch it.

PS Scorsese curated a Lincoln Center retrospective on Losey.

The blacklist was the best thing ever to happen to Hollywood.

Kubrick > Spielberg > Gilliam > Lucas

I can't think of the last movie I saw that I knew was a classic because it was just THAT good. So many television series of that caliber today, though. Movies aren't good anymore. If they are good, they're not great.

Waiting for Lefty staged by Losey using a Moscow factory as his set. Obviously, Losey was a huge Commie.

If it weren't for the country's few remaining repertory houses, I would barely go out to the movies at all.

The Cummings and Pasternack musicals from MGM are more satisfying and fun than the prestige "big" musicals from the Freed Unit.

Paramount is the most interesting studio, far more adventurous and offbeat than Warners, Fox, Universal or MGM.

If Judy Garland had left MGM after MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS she might be alive today.

If Judy Garland were alive today she'd be dead.

Old movies fucking suck. You'd have to be a really stilted obnoxious queen to enjoy that.

R356 is why grease fires were invented and more proof that exposure to [italic]Full House[/italic] and [italic]Friends[/italic] reruns causes brain damage.

Modern mainstream American movies are stupid, choppy trash for people with low attention spans and even lower aspirations and morals.

John Garfield is one of the 2 or 3 greatest actors of the Golden Age.

Comic book movies - lowest common denominator

Their end is soon

What comes next could be even worse.

Philip Seymour Hoffman gave some fine performances, but I find other performances overblown and too mannered. I give him credit for putting his all into his work, but sometimes more restraint was what was needed.

R3111, I digress, but if you missed Tom Cruise lip-synching on "Jimmy Fallon" go to YouTube stat!

Ha! Meant r311.

Scientologists act all the time. That's why they are such good entertainers.

[quote] Scientologists act all the time. That's why they are such good entertainers.

Their whole life is an act.

Moreover, r341, the car chase in "TLaDiLA" surpasses the one in "The French Connection."

R50 I can't believe you wrote that! I loved that movie and that performance! I've seen it many times now and always discover something new. The writer/director later did another movie starring Judy Davis and Peter Weller called The New Age. It was criminally underrated at the time and is now very hard to find. Adam "Batman" West had a supporting role and was so good he should have gotten an Oscar nom. Search it out if you've never seen it.

Paddy Considine is the best British actor of his generation and a great director, too.

I fucking lost it during IN AMERICA when he accidentally says, "Goodbye Frankie!".

That, plus A ROOM FOR ROMEO BRASS, IN AMERICA, MY SUMMER OF LOVE, DEAD MAN'S SHOES, RED RIDING: 1980 (easily the best film in the trilogy, largely thanks to him), THE SUSPICIONS OF MR WHICHER, TYRANNOSAUR, BLITZ and PRIDE.

On the whole, the UK and Europe make better gay-themed films than the US does.

Adam Sandler be a good actor, when he has absolutely no control or influence over the project.

the same to be said of a lot of 'comedic' actors, especially the slapstick variety.

and I liked the revisions made in the Big Hero 5 film.

No matter how many bad names you call me or prejudices you accuse me of, I will never see any of the remakes that are currently in the pipeline from Hollywood. Never, never, never.

I admire you r371. I've been known to give in to curiosity, always to disappointing results.

I seriously think Divine was one of the best American actors of the last 50 years. He could play male and female roles and deliver long takes of bizarre diatribe-like monologues with the utmost believability. Who knows where his career would have taken him if he hadn't died?

Others may have been bigger stars, but Paul Muni was by far the best actor of Hollywood's golden age--see his very modern performance in "I Am A Fugitive..."

Grace Kelly was wildly overrated. She was basically a gorgeous mannequin come to life.

Lili Taylor is wildly underrated. She's one of the best actresses alive and deserves much more acclaim and pick of films than she's gotten. She's delivered more Oscar-worthy performances than anyone who's actually won one.

R375, thanks for mentioning Lili Taylor. Her performances are riveting and who would disagree? She's an Indy queen and not in it for big-screen acclaim.

Six Feet Under ruined Lili Taylor for me for all time.

R376, well she did Ransom, The Conjuring and more recently the Maze Runner movies. I don't fault her for that though--if anything she adds to those films, they don't detract from her stellar filmography.

R368 is posting from an alternate universe or something.

So is R373.

The stuff about old movie acting being stagey is not really true. If you look at a lot of movies from the 70s and 80s, just enough time has passed that the dated aspects of the acting are starting to be noticeable. Look at John Hughes teen movie or any movie of that ilk. The "natural" speech patterns of the actors sound more and more like actors delivering lines.

It's not so much that modern acting is more realistic, it's that we're too close to these movies to notice what is artificial about them, and also that what sounds "real" may just be actors adhering to what was present in most people's speech at a particular moment in time, but which isn't a human universal. One irritating quirk of acting today, as others have mentioned, is vocal fry. But it's more than that. Young and even middle aged actresses often talk in this Valley Girl diction no matter where their character is from. They sound like perpetual teenagers, they sound soulless. And the guys sound simply blank and emotionless.

If you look at an old movie actor like Peter Lorre and how he plays a child killer in M in the 1930s, his acting is frighteningly believable, haunting, and intense. It's not stage acting. And you can find actors playing psychopaths today who are laughably over the top, addicted to cheesy tics and cheap tricks, and unconvincing. it's not the era but the caliber of the actor that is the issue.

Hear, hear, R381.

And praise to R382 for not typing "Here, here".

It's come to that, hasn't it, dear R383?

Any criticism of Judy Garland's performance in "A Star is Born would likely trigger a flame war on DL, so I'll leave it there.

I preferred Samantha Morton's terrific performance to Cate Blanchette's in the ELIZABETH sequel.

"Mike's Murder" is a masterpiece of mood and Debra Winger achieves a Marilyn Monroe-esque level of vulnerability.

I refuse to watch any movie made before the '90s. The graininess kills it.

R388 is what's wrong with mainstream American filmmaking and its audiences today: you care more about physical realism than emotional realism.

Sophie made the wrong choice.

[italic]Tootsie[/italic] is only moderately funny at best, and Dustin Hoffman is the last person with any business lecturing [bold]anyone[/bold] about feminism after he hit M on the set of [italic]Kramer vs. Kramer[/italic].

The end scene of the "Jurassic Bark" episode of [italic]Futurama[/italic] had more emotional resonance and intelligence than the entire running time of [italic]A.I.: Artificial Intelligence[/italic]. Hell, even the Dick Christie-penned episode of [italic]Small Wonder[/italic] where Ted's robot-hating father, who has hated robots ever since he lost his job to one, learns he has a robot granddaughter was better executed than [italic]A.I.[/italic] despite having a fraction as much of a budget.

If he could have, Buck Jarrett probably would have left the hospital to get away from that cold, shrewish harridan of a mother of his.

[italic]Gandhi[/italic] was a snow job and even Dickie Attenborough, future butcherer of [italic]A Chorus Line[/italic], didn't believe it to be the Best Picture of 1982. It could have been had David Lean directed it.

Forget [italic]Citizen Kane[/italic], forget [italic]How Green Was My Valley[/italic], and forget the straightwashed re-remake of [italic]The Maltese Falcon[/italic]; [italic]Dumbo[/italic] was and is the best film of 1941 both then and now.

Mookie did the right thing in [italic]Do the Right Thing[/italic] when he burned down that pizzeria and anyone who believes otherwise is a racist who deserves to have their home burned down with them in it.

The best thing about [italic]Pulp Fiction[/italic] was that it introduced a new generation to the music of Dusty Springfield, one of the greatest singers who ever lived or ever will live.

Ron Miller was the best thing that ever happened to Disney if for no other reason than the fact that he broke their long-standing taboo against adult male nudity in [italic]Never Cry Wolf[/italic], a film that would have won multiple Oscars had any other studio made it.

John Huston's [italic]Annie[/italic] was the last great non-Disney, non-animated film musical of the 20th century, exceeded in quality only by the absolute cream of the crop, and the only reason I can forgive Huston for the way he treated Monty Clift during the production of [italic]Freud[/italic] 20 years earlier.

[italic]All That Jazz[/italic] deserved to win the Best Picture Oscar in 1979.

Final cut is a right, not a privilege.

Film technology is more advanced than it's ever been, yet mainstream movies have never, ever been worse than they are now.

Pauline Kael's addiction to sensation was a form of psychosis, and the art of film is still paying for it.

r391, your use of Small Wonder in critiquing Kubrick/Spielberg is my favorite DL discovery of the season.

So that fruity blond nephew of mine actually got it up once with a girl. But not twice, apparently.

[quote]John Huston's Annie was the last great non-Disney, non-animated film musical of the 20th century

You're a fucking moron. That movie was a steaming pile of dog shit from start to finish.

R391 comes across as an angry person.

R203 I'll never get over Olympia Dukakis as a southerner in Steel Magnolias. She was horribly miscast.

I don't find any of John Carpenter's movies suspenseful or scary. They are way to mechanical and predictable. Halloween is not a great movie by any means.

R395, thank you for proving once and for all that people who dislike that film are people of poor morals and poor taste.

R395/R396, you barely know me yet you called me a "fucking moron" for defending the 1982 version of [italic]Annie[/italic]. That would make half of all film critics 34 years ago morons, including Roger Ebert and Vincent Canby. And then you have the nerve to claim I "sound angry" in your next post? This is a textbook case of psychological projection.

The 1999 and 2014 versions WERE total shit, however, and anyone who attempts to argue otherwise is wasting both their time and mine. And if it's all the same to you, I don't think Martin Charnin actually liked any of them.

THE AGE OF ADALINE should have been a minor hit along the lines of BROOKLYN. It is charming and Blake Lively is lovely.

[quote] Randy Newman soundtracks ruin a movie, can't stand his smugness and music.

I like some of his stuff, but more often than not he spends so much time trying to come up with interesting chord progressions that he often forgets to write an equally interesting melody to go with them.

Al Pacino and Sean Penn are hams who won Oscars for screaming.

I'm honestly disgusted at the hatred for the two Hepburns here.

R111 Sorry I didn't feel a damn thing for Bess and I didn't believe her. It was hilarious and grotesque in equal measures. I felt nothing for a retarded woman who fucks herself to death.

I didn't like The Usual Suspects.

I loved BREAKING THE WAVES and loathed DANCER IN THE DARK

Motion pictures are better enjoyed in the privacy of one’s home.

Blade: Trinity is one of the best vampire movies ever made.

Wesley Snipes and Dominic Purcell are really hot, Parker Posey is quite funny, and Ryan Reynolds is hyper-toned and wisecracking at just a notch below what he did in Deadpool.

It's extremely silly - including a vampire Pomeranian - but at times very witty and pulls off humor and tragedy better than nearly any other horror film that tries to manage this balance.

Everyone else seems to hate this film and many people think it killed Snipes' career, but I maintain it is not only the best of the Blade series, but one of the best vampire movies ever.

The Oscars are bullshit and I don't understand why anyone pays attention to them, other than as a fashion show. A ton of crap gets awarded, actors and filmmakers are often awarded for their least distinguished work, many greats have been overlooked, and many films that eventually became classics didn't even get nominated. Bah humbug!

Death to Smoochy is 3/4 of one of the best comedies of the '00s The last quarter of it goes off the rails but the rest of it shines.

Faye Dunaway gave a brilliant, operatic performance in Mommie Dearest.

Marlon Brando, James Dean, and other "naturalistic" Method actors of the 50s gave performances that were often more mannered than the theatrical style of acting they were rebelling against.

[quote]Faye Dunaway gave a brilliant, operatic performance in Mommie Dearest.

Great line, R412. I'll have to remember it.

"Mad Max: Fury Road" was an ugly monstrosity.

I just saw "Yankee Doodle Dandy" for the first time. I suppose James Cagney won the Oscar for his dancing, not his acting, because it was a pretty standard Cagney performance otherwise.. I think his best performance was in "White Heat".

Paul Thomas Anderson is the most overrated director.

Animation has been ugly since disneys revival of the animated musical. Pixar is the worst.

Tom cruise is a good actor.

R401 I like Age of Adaline, too and thought Blake was great. I didn't like the voice over, though. The weird male voice jarred me out of every scene. I think it would have been even better if Blake had narrated in the first person.

I love THE BOYS IN THE BAND.

I cannot tolerate SINGIN' IN THE RAIN. It is so manic and annoying. The three main characters have zero chemistry and it's not funny.

No chemistry in "Singin' in theRain".....what a bizarre observation, I do not share it. I think it's far more than comic enough to work without the music. It's as good as they say, which is rare.

"Do the Right Thing" is one of the most accomplished movies I've seen. It is simple yet complicated yet is rather like an opera. Spike Lee will never come close, although I thought his "Crooklyn" was incredibly moving.

"Moonstruck" cannot be overrated, it gets better every time I see it.

I LOVE classic 30s-40s films because somehow they seem far more focused in their storytelling technique. They are efficient, rarely exceed 100 minutes, and everything MOVES briskly. I love black and white films, they seem less distracting, if that makes any sense.

The most depressing thing to me is the enduring popularity of "Pretty Woman", It is supposed to be a romantic comedy, and the hooker character as princess is embarrassing and it is shocking so many seemingly bright people LOVE IT, and feel it is appropriate for young people! GARBAGE! "Steel Magnolias" is inept. The only two movies more inept are "The Phantom Menace", and "The Mirror Has Two Faces". For their budgets and available talent involved, there is NO reason they should be that awful!

I think Wynona Ryder is underrated in "The Crucible". Everyone is great in it, but so is she, I was surprised.

Annabeth Gish is astonishingly good in "Desert Hearts". Faye Dunaway is pretty ballsy in "Mommie Dearest". Sure she loses the thread in parts, but again, it is a stylized almost operatic performance. It's a cultural touchstone, even if you think it's high camp.

I enjoyed Spielberg's "Tintin" movie a lot, even though he generally holds little appeal for me.

I think people who get all excited for Star Wars/Lord of the Rings movies are retards who will sit through anything. These same kids say "old movies are boring" yet can sit through "The Fellowship of the Ring", and "Titanic" countless times! ZZZZZZZ.

I think Jennifer Lawrence was excellent in "Joy", which was almost a modern Preston Sturges film. I didn't get the hate.

I found "A Room with a View" extremely disappointing. Mainly, I found both male love interests to be totally irksome.

I can no longer watch movies where the leads look like they're teenagers.

1. Lars von Trier's "Melancholia" is a masterpiece and Kirsten Dunst should've won the Academy Award for her role.

2. Halle Berry was great in "Monster's Ball" and is actually one of very few deserving winners in the Best Actress category in the past 15 years.

3. David Fincher is a hack as is Christopher Nolan. The same goes for David O. Russell.

4. Tilda Swinton is the best actress in the contemporary English language cinema.

5. Jennifer Lawrence is vastly overrated as is Leonardo Di Caprio.

HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY deserved its Best Picture win over CITIZEN KANE

The poorly-directed "Twelve Years a Slave" was as deep as a "Cosby Show" episode. Its Oscar win was the Academy feeling guilty and fearing a backlash.

"Kingsman: the Secret Service" was garbage from start to finish.

I disagree with most of my fellow cineastes in finding HERBIE RIDES AGAIN far superior to THE LOVE BUG.

"The Purge: Election Year" had greater social consciousness and aspirations of art than all of this year's Best Picture nominees combined (with maybe the exception of "Spotlight")

Kevin Bacon's performance in "The Woodsman" should've won every award under the sun that year (2004).

[quote] I disagree with most of my fellow cineastes in finding HERBIE RIDES AGAIN far superior to THE LOVE BUG.

I didn't realize there was a running dispute. I was too busy fighting in the singing flying babysitter wars to notice.

[quote]Animation has been ugly since disneys revival of the animated musical.

Disney's animated movies started to get really ugly in the 1990s around the time of [italic]Pocahontas[/italic], and their live-action films started to get even dumber and dumber than before but with bigger and bigger budgets. Frankly, [italic]Pearl Harbor[/italic] is a much less intelligent film than any of the Merlin Jones or Dexter Reilly films.

I can't really agree with any of the Pixar-bashing, although they have been inconsistent since Disney bought them outright. But their two-faced attitude towards their legacy of 93 years is grating, as are all the remakes. For all the claims that the post-Walt films hewed too closely to Walt, even under Card Walker and Ron Miller they could manage to make the films nominally different from their Walt-era predecessors; under Iger and Alan Horn, they can't even manage that! They just reboot, remake, recycle and re-do because it's safer than taking a chance on an untried and new property.

I believe that Bride of the Gorilla is the best film of the 1950's.

For the 1950's I like Eaux d'Artifice (1953) by Kenneth Anger, a little triffle but it stays with you.

[quote]I LOVE classic 30s-40s films because somehow they seem far more focused in their storytelling technique. They are efficient, rarely exceed 100 minutes, and everything MOVES briskly. I love black and white films, they seem less distracting, if that makes any sense.

That's because they hired screenwriters who actually read books and went to see plays, they didn't just only watch other movies. And they had no TV.

Carey Mulligan is mannered and owes much of her success to madly networking with Anna Wintour.

If I had to take or leave the Coen brothers... I'd leave them.

Women's undraped breasts have no place in any motion picture ever.

There hasn't been a great Disney animated movie since 101 DALMATIANS.

Hi Jon Stewart!! r411

"Everyone else seems to hate this film and many people think it killed Snipes' career, but I maintain it is not only the best of the Blade series, but one of the best vampire movies ever."

The film didn't kill Snipe's career. His behavior during the filming is what did it. (Perpetually too stoned to remember his lines, refusing to leave his trailer, extremely paranoid, etc., etc.)

I agree, I thought this movie was really fun and entertaining and the best of the series.

I love Star Wars and Star Trek... but the most recent Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens, was fucking lame and annoying. Not good.

And the most recent two Star Trek movies, Into Darkness, and Beyond, were both awful. I mean, seriously bad.

Seriously, WTF? How are these awful movies popular?

I preferred the last two DC movies to any of the Avengers films - and they were BAD. The Avengers are clean and predictable and soulless and, well, Disney - inclusivity by the numbers. BATMAN VS SUPERMAN and SUICIDE SQUAD were failures at what they attempted but there was *something* at the heart of it.

Tom Hanks in the 1980s was sexier than Tom Cruise. But Forrest Gump's boxes of chocolates and 15 Dr. Peppers put a stop to that.

[quote]Tom Hanks in the 1980s was sexier than....

Jesus fucking shit, get your eyes checked. Tom Hanks has never been sexy for even a single moment in his entire life.

Neither has that self-loathing psychopath Cruise.

Quentin Tarantino is a racist hack and [italic]Pulp Fiction[/italic] is one of the worst films ever made.

BATMAN VS SUPERMAN wasn't actually bad. Not interesting, but not terrible.

I will actually consider watching the marginally better reviewed SUICIDE SQUAD now.

R417, Agree about Cruise. In fact, I think he's a great actor! And I am not being snarky here.

I don't get the appe of Jennifer Lawrence, however. I find her visage child-like.

appeal

Karen Carpenter should've been cast as Sandy in the movie version of Grease

"Titanic" was unbearably stupid. I would have walked out if I hadn't been with a date.

r450

You mean "If my date would have given me a refund"

The Greatest Show On Earth isn’t a great movie, and certainly not worthy of Best Picture, but it’s not unwatchable.

I hate practically everything with "Star" in the title.

I hated the first Toy Story and sad through the second disinterested.

I think it's because I wasn't that attached to plastic toys.

Le diCaprio's acting could be improved by any randomly selected 14-year-old boy asked to imitate a man taking a difficult shit whilst puzzling over a difficult math question.

I love Citizen Kane. I think Titanic is crap.

greed, R368. Paddy Considine is brilliant. I've sought out most everything he has been in and always it's a reward.

Sandra Bullock didn't deserved that Oscar at all. Sharon Stone should have won over Susan Sarandon for Casino. Audrey Hepburn was mediocre and Marilyn would have been a much better choice for Brakfast at Tiffany. Audrey didn't understand the character, she was a prostitute, not a socialite. I don't believe Woody is a pedophile, I think is all a revenge from Mia. Penelope Cruz was amazing in Vicky Christina Barcelona, and deserved that Oscar. Scarlett Johanson is a decent actress.

R422 Neither can I. Back in the 70s and 80s they would regularly cast 30 something's as 15 year olds. Now they have gone to the other ridiculous extreme and insist on casting actors who still look 16 as 35 year olds. I'm tired of seeing all these child- like pubescent faces in roles that would suit more mature looking actors.

Bump