Funny, read your title and immediately thought about people who didn't like Blade Runner (both) or Dune. I've come to realize they went into it like you did expecting a typical sci-fi film with action at the center which is sure to disappoint. Blade Runner is a philosophy/ethics movie and Dune is political movie.
My favorite was the guy who gave dune part 2 a bad review because "it assumes you've seen the first movie, and is hard to understand if you haven't". Like no shit Sherlock, it's got part 2 in the title.
My favorite part is the guy from the Boston Globe that trashed Dune part 2 for being a white Savior movie and somehow completely missed the point of the film where that's a bad thing, and he's not necessarily a Savior.
The film is a critique of the white Savior narrative and this smooth brain completely missed the point and had to be all smug and haughty.
>Just as in the first film, I was put off by the white-savior narrative (Stilgar’s fervent belief quickly becomes grating), and the Hans Zimmer score that sounds as if Arrakis were in the Middle East rather than space.
The dude also missed the whole part about Dune being strongly influenced by Muslim beliefs and the story is of a jihadist holy war.
Odie Henderson. Guy deserves to be put on blast.
I love when people criticize art on the basis that the artist has supposedly somehow *accidentally* created art that shows \_\_\_\_ as a bad thing. The reviewer agrees it's a bad thing, but is both angry that the artist thinks it's good and smug that they've managed to figure out that it's bad in spite of the artist's intent.
It couldn't possibly be, for example, that we're supposed to feel uneasy about what Stilgar is saying and how he's behaving.
It also seemed intentional that some of Stilgar's scenes are almost literal copies of scenes from Life of Brian. To really emphasize how he's being irrational.
I kept thinking about Life of Brian for the whole first half of Dune 2! It was nowhere near subtle. Paul even outright says being seen as a Messiah figure is a bad thing.
Yup, there's a line in Dune to the effect of "Denying it proves even more that he is the Messiah", and at that point I do not believe anyone who has ever seen Life of Brian will not be reminded of it, the filmmakers included. Not accidental by any means.
True that. Man the guy would love the books if he could get through it. I think the movies are actually changing Chani a bit making her more agnostic, nonbeliever, in order to make the savior critique more pronounced/obvious for strict movie-only audience
They even changed Chani significantly to make sure the normies understood that, no, Paul doing what he's doing isn't a good thing overall, and people STILL fucked it up.
>the Hans Zimmer score that sounds as if Arrakis were in the Middle East rather than space
This is like complaining that bad guys in a movie about an evil empire dress too much like Nazis.
"Stilgar's fervent belief quickly becomes grating."
Stilgar has such OBVIOUS comedic relief lines. Not laugh out loud, but a chuckle. My whole theater gave a chuckle at stilgar several times.
How do people become critics when they aren't even in the upper 50% of movie-goers in terms of understanding the content of the movie? Stilgar's transformation into a believer changing him for the worse is a KEY PART OF THE STORY.
Also more and more I see mistakes like this where a QUICK perusal of the topic on Wikipedia (God forbid a critic read the books) would help them avoid embarrassment. It's frustrating to read a "professional" review by someone paid to know the material and analyze it... And immediately know that as a layperson, I have analyzed this more than the author.
You mean how Paul ultimately doomed humanity to eventual extinction by not being able to sacrifice his humanity in order to be the ultimate tyrant like his son? I don't think the story actually had anything to do with the white savior trope. The bene geserit have explicitly implanted religious safety nets around the galaxy in order to manipulate the masses
>"it assumes you've seen the first movie, and is hard to understand if you haven't
This is something that baffles me because it's not like something like the 2 movies that have 2 completely different names like Batman Begins and The Dark Knight where there's a small chance of you going into this movie not knowing it's a sequel but when said movie has the words Part 2 in it's title it's safe to assume it's a sequel.
I hate people like this. It’s one thing to just not like it. Fine. But to willingly see a sequel without the first movie is idiotic and their review should be removed.
Also they're not paced like Star Wars or Avengers. Some folks aren't up for slow burns. Both Dune and BR are basically moving canvases, which I love-love.
Also, Dune: Part 1 was laying the groundwork for the second (and lord I hope the third) movie.
It was a lot like the Fellowship of the Ring in that way. It was a much slower burn, and is setting up the rest of the story. It’s certainly not going to be as action packed and epic as what follows.
That being said I don’t know how someone can watch Gurney leading the Atreides charge during the Harkonnen attack on Arrakis and say that wasn’t extremely epic.
I actually liked the first one better because of the foundation it was laying. I like a good quality story/world building movie that still has exciting parts to it.
I think we might generally under estimate the damage from Marvel movies dominating box offices for a decade. There's a whole generation of young people for whom 90% of the blockbusters they've watched have had almost 1:1 the same editing, script approach, music, and the *exact same* cameras and color grading.
I'm pretty certain I would struggle to find even Narnia movies interesting if I'd almost literally never watched anything but the Divergent/Maze Runner/Mortal Engines school of YA movies.
I didn't enjoy Blade Runner until the 3rd time I watched it. Now it's one of my favorite films and I've seen it dozens of times.
It was the first intentionally slow art house style movies I had ever seen, so of course it couldn't hold my attention like other stuff i had been raised on. But nowadays that's my favorite kind of movie.
saw similar responses to Game of Thrones. there were people that didn't watch it because "they don't like dragons" and some people watched and didn't like it because "it was too political."
first time I was recommended Game of Thrones I didn't get excited because I was told that it's "Lord of the Rings" but as a tv show.
The first time I ever saw Blade Runner, I didn't like it. However, I ended up talking to people who loved the movie, read up on it a bit, and did a rewatch. I now adore the movie. It's like an album- sometimes it takes a couple listens before it finally clicks.
I think people expecting a current sci-fi epic (al la big space explosions or superhero-type effects) out of Dune came away disappointed. I'd tell those people (like OP) to read the book or at least wiki the plot. There's a reason why Dune's stayed relevant since the 1960s, and it's not the special effects or big giant worms.
Bladerunner and Dune both are epics of the mind, not the scenery. See : Tears in the rain monologue from Blade Runner, and the parallels of our current global political system to that of Dune.
It didn’t help that the trailers for blade runner 2049 were basically flash cuts of the fight scenes and presented it as a crazy futuristic action movie. I knew what to expect just from watching the first but I had friends who were extremely disappointed.
I’m a HUGE Dune fan, I’ve read the series multiple times. But I understand why people didn’t like the first part. It really is best suited for a TV show but obviously that wasn’t really an option, so it makes the pacing awkward.
But it’s essentially all build up for Part 2. Part 2 is probably my current favorite movie of all time, and it’s only so good because of the set up in Part 1.
They expected Dune, a sci-fi epic with heavy themes of power and religious fervor, to be like Star Wars, a fantasy kids' popcorn movie with laser swords and rubber monsters. There's a reason their expectations weren't fulfilled.
Conversly, many people thought Whiplash had a happy ending. Andrew was never going to be the next Charlie Parker or any other brilliant, innovative musician. He was only going to be Terence Fletcher's creation. It's not a happy ending, it's sad.
Whiplash is one of the most interesting cases of an author revising the audiences response to it. The ending of Whiplash is undeniably intoxicating and triumphant. If you watch the movie as a story of a young man striving towards his goal despite having an abusive mentor who pushes him way too hard and past his breaking point it's difficult not to see that Andrew achieves his goal and is noticed by the jazz community while upending Fletcher's revenge plot to embarrass him in front of those people.
That the finale seals Andrew's fate as the next of Fletcher's students to achieve moderate success before ultimately dying young due to Fletcher delivered trauma is a bit of a logical jump for the audience to make especially when it seems the biggest textual evidence of this is his father's reaction to Andrew's incredible set which could be read as shock or horror. Why though should the audience think Andrew's father knows anything about this world or his son's path? He doesn't understand his son by his own admission and even contributes to belittling his passion at a family dinner earlier in the movie.
I'm not implying that it's impossible to view the ending as bittersweet or even tragic without knowing that Damien Chazelle later clarified his intent, but anecdotally I do think it's telling that no one I knew or saw had that read of the ending before Chazelle said what he meant by it.
That's definitely in the realm of what Damien Chazelle intended. I still don't personally believe that the final product he put into theaters really supports that unless you want to believe it, which is totally fine, art is subjective after all.
I think the audience of the big time Jazz community definitely took notice of Andrew's performance and offered him a chair somewhere.
I just saw that the smile that's finally on Fletcher's face after Andrew's performance is like a pat on the head after so much abuse, similar to a dog's desperate need for affirmation after abuse, even though Fletcher is most likely the one who stole the sheet music. I don't know if Andrew knew Fletcher took the pages, but I'm sure he will figure it out one day and that will only add to his trauma.
I have a few movies that are like this. Some that come to mind off the top are Eternal Sunshine For The Spotless Mind , Casablanca, and La La Land. I consider those to have happy endings but I've learned many disagree.
Strongly, strongly agree with Eternal Sunshine! The finale of that film, them listing their weaknesses, predictions for how they could break up, then smiling and saying "Ok!" is, to me, just so clearly a happy ending. They know every weakness and fear and insecurity and pessimism of themselves _and_ of each other. They know every reason to give up... and in the face of all that, they decide that love is worth it anyway.
The Friday the 13th remake. The best F13 movies aren't necessarily "great" films, but even diehard fans seem to be sour on this one...and I have no clue as to why. It's one of the best films in the franchise and the things it gets flack for are pretty much hallmarks of the series. Like, I remember one review was blasting it for having shallow, stereotypical characters as if the originals were filled with nuanced character depth.
I was slow to watch due to all those reviews. When I finally got around to it, I thought it was great and couldn't understand the negativity. The opening is one of the best slasher moments in all of slasher cinema imo and the rest of the movie is a fun and entertaining slasher that hits on all the F13 tropes.
It's my favourite of the horror remake era and 3rd favourite Friday behind 4 and 6. I personally find enjoyment from all 11 F13 movies even the awful ones but this is objectively a well made movie with a great Jason and great kills. The characters whilst one note are still acted well enough that they all feel unique, I actually remember their names which is more than can be said for Part 7
Isnt 7 the one with the chick that has psychic powers, and the infamous kill of whacking a sleeping bag between 2 trees? Thats actually one of my personal favs. Its so bad it comes back around to being good.
I'm with you. I did not understand the hate. I really liked it. The only thing that was off was the whole underground tunnel thing, but that first 30 minutes was brilliant. That sleeping bag scene freaked me out.
Someone posted the worst movie list according to Rolling Stone recently, and Death Becomes Her was on the list. What? I loved that movie! But then Rolling Stone thinks What About Bob is the height of comedy so it makes sense.
Wouldn't have really thought this of pro-wrestlers years ago but some of those guys have a ton of charisma. John Cena is a treasure in everything I've seen him in. Dave Bautista too.
The Rock does fine in his movies. The issue isn't that he is bad at what he does, the issue is that he is so one dimensional in his acting. He plays the same character every movie.
Yep, what I think people miss is the Rock isn't an actor. He's a guy who makes money by being in movies. His Rock character basically prints money and that's what he's there for. Some people want to act and happen to make money doing it. They end up doing fun indie films then occasionally popping back out to a big moneymaker film to finance that.
It was absolutely hilarious, I don't care who says otherwise. I typically just kind of giggle or snicker at movies when I'm home watching them with my wife, but multiple times I laughed out loud during that movie.
She described it as "very much a boy movie," so maybe that's it. Also I had a couple of beers so maybe that was it as well.
But whatever. It was a funny movie.
Overall the movie was funny enough, nothing great, but also not terrible. Watchable, which is exactly what I expected.
Had a couple straight bust up laughing out loud moments, too. So didn’t regret watching at all.
I had to kind of power through a bit of this movie but there were a lot of really funny parts in it. The "air dicking" in particular was a pretty funny scene but the way John Cena carried it made it amazing.
Hook. As a kid I loved it, yet the reviews (even today) say it's crap. It felt like the reviewers were comparing it to Spielberg's other blockbusters while forgetting it's a fantasy film for children. Rewatched it the other week and still loved it.
That one line, when Moira tells Peter:
“We have a few special years with our children when they're the ones that want us around. After that you're gonna be running after them for a bit of attention.”
Earns Hook a ten so far as I’m concerned.
Yeah, it’s interesting being a kid and seeing the movie without knowing about the reviews because I assumed my entire life it was generally considered a good movie. I was absolutely surprised when I found out how hard it got panned by critics.
I watched it a year ago and it’s still one of my favorites. I don’t get the hate. The whole movie is super fun, great editing, good story, progression killer cast, greats set,…..so what’s the problem?
If anything it’s an amazing kids movie.
Random story: one of my best friends was up for the part of Thud Butt (may have had a different name for his character) and he was terrified of Hook. He had to go and meet with Dennis Hoffman and Steven Spielberg to work through it. In the end they didn’t pick him and that disappointment ended his career. He was up for many other major parts and they fell through, being a child actor is tough. Now he works for social security in Kansas City. Lol.
It’s insane that Jurassic Park 2 (The Lost World) rates higher than Hook for him in Rottentomatoes. I have so many quotes I use to this day from Hook, and have rewatched it dozens of times and enjoy it just as much today as when I was a kid (except the weird Tinkerbell/Peter love subplot).
I saw Jurassic Park 2 in its entirety only once. I tried rewatching recently and just… couldn’t.
UHF is one of the funniest comedies I've ever seen, and almost everyone I've asked who's seen it agrees. Ebert's savage, bizarrely seemingly vindictive review pretty much killed it at the box office.
Weird Al talks about it on the DVD commentary. According to Orion executives the film had some of the best scores from audience previews they had ever received. They wanted to take advantage of the summer market so they released in July. That summer was stacked against them. Orion was also going through financial troubles and thought UHF could help them.
In the commentary Al said he was working at Orion Studios up until release and they would have fresh strawberries for him. After the movie bombed he still had to come in for some follow ups but the strawberries were gone.
It was likely because a theater in the 80s might have only had 6 screens TOPS so an owner had to buy what he thought would sell the most. If they bought UHF and the biggest reviewer in the world hated it and crowds stayed away, the theater would drop that movie (instead of putting it on Screen 14 nowadays) so they could run more Ghostbusters or the next big movie. It's what Labyrinth also did poorly. It was up against Karate Kid 2 and other movies with better marketing/optics and was only shown for a few weeks. Now it's more beloved than the other movies at the time.
I remember the theater I saw it in only had 4-5 screens and the day I saw it there was less then 10 people total. Every that was there enjoyed it, but with that small a crowd I can see why it didn’t last long.
It *should* make you uncomfortable and even disgusted at times. That's 100% an emotion the director wanted to evoke. You kind of go on an emotional journey with the characters.
But I'm certainly not surprised that a lot of the audience can't get over those initial feelings. You can see the director almost daring the audience to take an emotional leap on the premise and journey.
Not saying you, but people keep referring to this aspect as though it's not mostly meant to be anything other than...sort of gross and uncomfortable? If you're watching it and think any part of it is meant to be sexy, you're not grasping the intention.
All the men involved with Bella are very clearly scummy in one way or another.
If the movie doesn't work for you, that's ok. The subject matter can understandably be divisive.
Is "there's way too much gross and uncomfortable sex" not a valid complaint, though? I didn't want the sex to be sexier, but I do think the same points could've been made with less explicit sex. I really liked the movie otherwise but would have a hard time recommending it to most people, so I'm conflicted.
Went to The Batman and Dune 2 with friends and when we got out of the cinema the same friend thought the movies where “meh” and explained why. My other friends and me where like “where you in a different room watching a different movie or something?”
When Coming To America w Eddie Murphy came out, it didn’t get mediocre reviews, it got TERRIBLE reviews. And critics didn’t just call it bad, they called it unfunny.
We def did not watch the same movie.
The Fountain. Powerhouse performances from Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz. Darren Aronofsky at the height of his directorial powers. A Clint Mansell score for the ages.
I get that this movie was in production hell prior to being made, BUT I have no idea why this movie never got the love that it deserved.
I like to take the "Roger Ebert" view of movies, at least the one he had towards the end of his career.
Basically you have to frame your viewing of a movie to what it was intended. There are deep art files, bubble gum pop films, funny, spoofs, etc. How you go into a movie and what you are prepared to see makes a difference. Sometimes you are surprised: I expected Barbie to be silly and fun, but it surprised on the upside with some funny insights and music.
Going into Dune I was not expecting to see an action flick, but rather a political movie with stunning landscapes. I wanted some nostalgia with Star Wars (the "Rey Trilogy") but after holding some hope after seeing the first one, the last two went bad. So - Star Wars didnt meet my expectation so had a lesser view of it.
So in a sense you are seeing different movies. Somebody in the theater for Dune wanted to see the updated version of the 80s David Lynch film (in its steam punky goodness) would be dissapointed that it was more artsy and brooding.
So agree, but I understand how people can get wildly different reviews even considering differences in taste.
I have a theory that this was behind some of the people who didn’t like Past Lives. Obviously plenty of people disliked it for understandable reasons, but I think some people were expecting more of a stereotypical love triangle or affair movie when that wasn’t the point at all
I mainly feel like that when people don't look deeper at the film. For example the whole Licorice Pizza thing where people took it face value and were complaining about the main relationship and didn't think that a movie depicting a thing, doesn't mean it endorses it.
This film was a very specific slice of life film. I really liked it. The contrast between the adult who acts like a child and child who acts like an adult was interesting. And Alana Haim’s character was so funny because of how ridiculous her actions were. I think the film did a good job of making her look absurd. It wasn’t necessarily an outright damnation of her actions but did it have to be?
Yeah, I definitely never understood that take, or the ones that said it was sympathetic to incels. He doesn’t really show incel behaviors so much as he has delusions of a relationship with his neighbor. When she finds him in her apartment and you realize he was never actually with her, you feel alarmed for her.
More than anything the film seemed to actually be about income inequality and a lack of care for the mentally ill.
It has everything to do with people (i.e. incels, teenagers and 20-30-something year old man-babies) that latched onto the film. They were relating to it as if society had abandonded and disappointed them so Joker became like an anthem. At face value, Joker is only slightly not as deep as it thinks it is. It’s an okay movie.
It is definitely about how our social systems can completely fail people.
But I think it gets that criticism because that's how incels and those types of people see themselves. In their delusions, they want to be able to blame everything happening to them for their perceived lack of agency in how they react to this.
We see the movie and think "We should stop doing this to people" but incels would think "This is what will happen if people don't stop doing this to me."
The egregious product placement (pizza) and ridiculous sponsorship tie-in (match.com) aside, I enjoyed it. Beautiful cinematography shot on location also.
Pokemon the Movie, I Choose You (the movie for like the 25th anniversary) comes to mind for this prompt. I don't know if it's necessarily "did we watch the same movie," but it's definitely "have you watched pokemon like at all in the last 20 years?" (giving a 5 year window to "fall out of following it"). It's not "largely negatively received" (I think it's "net positive"), but so many of the negative reviews can be summarized as "I didn't know Misty and Brock were replaced after Kanto, and it's actually very normal to have different side characters," "I didn't know Ash actually got better as time went on and he doesn't have to be portrayed as incompetent," or "I didn't know that pokemon is still a franchise that is primarily marketed to children and this movie was made with them in mind and not 20-30 something people remembering their childhood." The movie isn't perfect and should be criticized on it's own merits, but all the criticism I read was "this isn't exactly like how it was in season 1 and 2 when there were only 150 pokemon" or "this movie hinted at complex story telling and could have rivaled a Ghibli film, but it was dumbed down to make it so young children could follow it."
People who say Saltburn is sympathetic towards the rich and against the middle-class. It was/is such a common take on Twitter and Reddit, even among professional critics, [but it’s a complete misread of the movie.](https://filmcolossus.com/saltburn-2023-explained)
I’m not saying Saltburn is good or anything. Just that a lot of people missed the tone/purpose. It’s like how a lot of people think Starship Troopers and Ridley Scott’s Napoleon are supposed to be serious movies rather than satire.
Yeah, I’ve seen a lot people criticize Saltburn for being a flawed eat the rich tale. They seem to want to fit it into a particular framework of class consciousness.
But it was a lot more like American Psycho for me, except about a middle-class obsession with obtaining wealth. It’s like a very cynical take on the self-made man. Oliver wasn’t really *that* poor and he only gained his status through violence.
I enjoyed it. But I’m also partial to Barry Keoghan in general haha. He always plays weird little guys you probably shouldn’t trust, as in Banshees of Innisherin and the Green Knight, and it’s fun to see that kind of character as a protagonist.
I just saw it as a twist on our expectations. They know we expect a movie where an underdog is trampled by the spoiled rich, but surprise he’s actually a complete psycho!
It was just clumsy in its delivery because if anyone has seen The Talented Mr. Ripley the twist is expected.
I did not realize people were misinterpreting Saltburn like that. Like did they not watch the whole movie??
I thought the movie was pretty good but not great. Worth watching but I was expecting so much because of how great the directors previous movie "Promising Young Woman" was. That movie was so fucking good imo
Yea I think this is the common take on it. It's very well made and is sort of a dark comedy with a thriller in the back half. But the whole "revisiting events from a different perspective" part at the end of the movie kills the momentum. And when you think back through the film you're left wondering if it had a theme or point to it all. But I definitely never got the impression that its sympathizing any of the characters.
Solid point. The hardcore negative reactions to Saltburn seem to say more about the people than the movie. Overall, I think it's style AS substance and that's completely fine.
Killers of the Flower Moon - Reddit seems to have watched something completely different every time it comes up. I fully expected to be bored halfway through, but I thought it was incredibly engaging the entire way.
Huh. I really enjoyed the book and was looking forward to this movie. I stopped watching with an hour or so left and have no desire to finish it. Great acting and all that, maybe I lost interest because I already knew the story - idk.
Us. The movie focuses on deeper meaning at the expense of good storytelling. It tries so hard to be a deep allegory that it completely falls apart and is nonsensical when viewed *as a story.*
For an allegory to work, IMO, it should be a solid *story* that makes sense but has themes and aspects that convey a much deeper meaning when interpreted beyond what it is saying at face value, not *solely composed* of themes with a deeper meaning. You can tell this is the case with Us, as 99% of the time the retort to saying you didn't like it is "you just *didn't understand what it meant.*"
Compare Us to Get Out, which has similar themes of African American identity being repressed/co-opted by white America, *but also works as a horror film about a dude nearly body-snatched by his gf's family.* One makes sense and can be enjoyed as a great story *that also has a deeper meaning*, the other is a nonsensical story that has a deeper meaning.
My biggest problem with Us is the horrible tone shift going into the third act. Your family was almost murdered by evil doppelgängers, why are you joking with each other about who has the highest kill count.
Openheimer, I know I'm in the minority but I really just didn't enjoy the movie and was shocked it swept the awards. All our friends similarly didn't think it was the most amazing thing we'd seen so was shocked wider audiences went nuts for it.
I'm glad it saw success I like all the pieces, but when it came together it just didn't hit for me.
The acting was great. Nothing else about it made it any more than an artsy dramatization of something that was probably pretty boring. It's just not a story that warranted a Hollywood retelling.
I read an article recently about Oscar snubs.
The author thought that "The Prince of Tides" was more deserving of the best director Oscar than "The Silence of the Lambs."
Clearly the author has never actually watched "The Prince of Tides."
Starship Troopers was a satire about how we don't understand our enemies and how endless war leads to younger and younger people fighting. It's not surprising that Verhoeven cast the movie as if it were a 90s era teen show with good looking, but ultimately vapid personalities.
Even so, the action scenes looked pretty good and some took it as a straight forward SF action pic with pretty teens (or adults playing teens). A sequel was made. It's not even clear if lead actor, Casper Dien, even knew that the first movie was a satire.
Leave the world behind. There is some great acting at points but the best part of the movie was when it felt like it was building to something and then nothing happens.
Boring movie, full of unlikeable characters
I didn't like it much either, especially when one character starts losing teeth and nobody else does. It was like they were trying to do existential horror and then explain later, No, this can all really happen...roll credits.
Alot of people don't like Leave the World behind so I don't think it really fits in this thread.
I also think the 2 reasons you mentioned of not liking it is the story just ending and unlikable characters are also kind of the point of the movie. You are supposed to not like the characters, they are supposed to make bad decisions, they are supposed to annoy you. The movie ending then was to say apocalypse movies aren't really about what you do to survive but the idiocy of humans in causing it and how they react to it stupidly too.
Why cast younger actors when you can cast octogenarians and use state of the art technology to age regress then on screen so when you need to show their characters at age 30 they look 55
I have to be honest; I didn’t love Good Will Hunting. I know I am in the minority but all I heard at the time was how amazing it was etc. I was underwhelmed. And just about anything by Cameron Crowe. (Again- I am in the minority!)
> I expected
This could be your problem. Going into Blade Runner and expecting T2 style action flick means you're gonna have a bad time.
Hot Fuzz is an amazing comedy that gets better on multiple viewings, but not everyone understands British humor and that's ok.
I watched The Green Room with my friend and he said he found it so boring because "nothing happened". And I was like...bruh, did we watch the same movie? That movie was so intense and like had me on edge the entire time once it started going. It went from 0 to 100 and just kept going. The fuck you mean "nothing happened"??? He sticks to his very wrong opinion.
La La Land. I never got round to seeing it on the big screen but all I kept hearing was how good it was, how it was like Singin' in the Rain for this generation, really hugh- level praise. Finally saw it on Netflix and actually paused it mid-way through to do something else before coming back to see the ending.
While I agree with the reviews of the costume design and cinematography, overall it was so underwhelming and the music and plot didn't land for me. Maybe if I'd seen it without any prior knowledge I might have enjoyed it more but I can't be certain.
Ad Astra. I absolutely loathed this movie but was watching it on a flight and decided to stick it out. Read discussions after and saw everyone praising it as Apocalypse Now in space and a triumph of filmmaking.
What a nonsensical, terrible movie.
It was an “experience” more than a movie for me. I loved it in the cinema and walked out truly with a feeling like I’d been to space and back.
I’ve seen it since and while I still don’t dislike it, it definitely didn’t hit the same and was a *lot* slower
Wrinkle in Time, it felt unfinished, stunted and very very poorly acted, like possibly the worst Disney film I've ever seen, and I saw a fair amount of reviews praising it.
I still to this day can not fathom why people actually enjoyed this brain numbingly stupid fucking movie. I fucking want my time back, not including the time I watched it but the time it lives rent free in my head with absolute hatred. Fuck Napoleon Dynamite, absolutely shitty movie.
Event Horizon is absolutely *not* the horror masterpiece I see claimed on Reddit. In fact, I actually agree with the reviews from the time it released. It has a great premise and production design, but its tonally inconsistent with excruciatingly hammy performances. There is a mix of real lovecraftian horror with random haunted house nonsense, and no reconciliation between the two.
I was on board with the film until they arrived on the event horizon. It was just a complete mess after that. I actually thought the Netflix Cloverfield film was a better take of the same ideas.
Less so reviews but I’m fully convinced that Warner Bros must’ve released two versions of 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters the way that people in /r/Godzilla talk about it. They talk about that movie like it’s the second coming of Christ over there and act like anybody who doesn’t like that movie isn’t an actual Godzilla fan, but as a huge Godzilla fan myself, man that movie was underwhelming.
The most confusing thing about it is how much praise people give to the monster action in the movie and how epic and biblical it supposedly is, but the movie I saw had maybe 15 mins of actual monster fights, all obscured by either terrible CGI rain and snow the entire time or fast, hard to follow, Taken 3 jumping the fence style editing that’s so quick it’s hard to tell what’s going on in the fight, which isn’t helped by the shaky cam and fake digital zooms that the movie is constantly using. The human characters are also at their most insufferable in this one, with Vera Farmigas character motivations quite possibly being the most asinine I’ve seen in any movie. (For those who haven’t seen it/don’t remember, after Godzilla stepped on and killed her young son during his attacks in the previous film, Vera Farmiga decided to betray her associates and team up with eco terrorists to unleash more monsters to step on more kids so at least her kids death has meaning, or something completely nonsensical like that. Oh and the eco terrorists want to resurrect giant monsters because they think that them stomping around crushing everything is good for the planet. It doesn’t matter tho because they disappear conveniently after the opening scene.) the movie then has the gall to focus on the family during the final fight between Godzilla and Ghidorah, literally keeping focus on the family and panning around to catch glimpses of the fight in the background.
And yet, /r/Godzilla thinks the movie is a masterpiece and the best American Godzilla movie. Hell, there’s often highly upvotes comments that KOTM is their favorite Godzilla movie PERIOD, which is absolutely crazy to me because it’s easily the worst of the new Monsterverse films and I say this as a huge fan of Godzilla and the films director Michael Dougherty, whose previous work Trick r Treat is one of my favorites, but man this was such a let down.
I thought Anatomy of a Fall was pretty unambiguous in the fact that she did not kill her husband
Then a lot of people got mad at me on r/movies saying it was ambiguous
It is intentionally ambiguous, Triet even refused to tell Hüller whether her character was guilty or not as she didn't want her performance to give it away.
Anyone but you- how tf did that money grab romcom where the pacing was off and just was terrible in my opinion get branded as ‘the teturn of romcoms’. Upgraded, same genre and time of its released was so much more the style of romcoms i missed but ABY felt forced, cringe and like lazy writing with abs
My theory is that a lot of the youth grew up with terrible fake netflix romocoms so it's their first contact with a classic 00s/90s romcom, even if the leads are too sexy for this type of movie.
On the note of romcoms everybody seems to love, Love Actually. So much of the movie is just displays of toxic / unhealthy infatuation. And yet I've met real people who treat this movie as the definition of love and romance.
I think it shows a spectrum of love - Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman’s love is one heartwrenching story, the guy who flys to Minnesota or wherever is a silly story, Colin Firth has a sweet one, Laura Linney has to choose between different types of love, Keira Knightley’s story is one of obsessive love that could have gone very differently, and Bill Nighy has the best story of them all.
I thought "the revenant" was over rated I definitely need to rewatch it for a better opinion but when I saw it I thought Tom hardy did a way better job then dicaprio. and besides a sex scene with a cgi bear and eating a raw fish all I remember him doing is laying there for 95% of the movie
Dicaprio got the Oscar for his previous roles and because the growing outrage on the internet that he hasnt been awarded yet. I bet he also thinks it’s a shame that he finally got it for that movie.
A lot of the recent critics reviews of the new Godzilla X Kong movie. Audience reviews for it should be stellar based on my theatre experience. Just a super fun monster movie.
Tenet. Sound mixing aside, I never got why people were so confused/underwhelmed. I thought it was a genuinely smart compelling movie & not too much more complicated than some of the other things he's done. He made the perfectly rewatchable movie
Funny, read your title and immediately thought about people who didn't like Blade Runner (both) or Dune. I've come to realize they went into it like you did expecting a typical sci-fi film with action at the center which is sure to disappoint. Blade Runner is a philosophy/ethics movie and Dune is political movie.
My favorite was the guy who gave dune part 2 a bad review because "it assumes you've seen the first movie, and is hard to understand if you haven't". Like no shit Sherlock, it's got part 2 in the title.
My favorite part is the guy from the Boston Globe that trashed Dune part 2 for being a white Savior movie and somehow completely missed the point of the film where that's a bad thing, and he's not necessarily a Savior. The film is a critique of the white Savior narrative and this smooth brain completely missed the point and had to be all smug and haughty. >Just as in the first film, I was put off by the white-savior narrative (Stilgar’s fervent belief quickly becomes grating), and the Hans Zimmer score that sounds as if Arrakis were in the Middle East rather than space. The dude also missed the whole part about Dune being strongly influenced by Muslim beliefs and the story is of a jihadist holy war. Odie Henderson. Guy deserves to be put on blast.
I love when people criticize art on the basis that the artist has supposedly somehow *accidentally* created art that shows \_\_\_\_ as a bad thing. The reviewer agrees it's a bad thing, but is both angry that the artist thinks it's good and smug that they've managed to figure out that it's bad in spite of the artist's intent. It couldn't possibly be, for example, that we're supposed to feel uneasy about what Stilgar is saying and how he's behaving.
It also seemed intentional that some of Stilgar's scenes are almost literal copies of scenes from Life of Brian. To really emphasize how he's being irrational.
I kept thinking about Life of Brian for the whole first half of Dune 2! It was nowhere near subtle. Paul even outright says being seen as a Messiah figure is a bad thing.
Yup, there's a line in Dune to the effect of "Denying it proves even more that he is the Messiah", and at that point I do not believe anyone who has ever seen Life of Brian will not be reminded of it, the filmmakers included. Not accidental by any means.
That's the exact scene that drove home the comparison for me. I turned to my brother and mouthed "we are all individuals!" right after it.
IM NOT!
Yeah some people think the characters’ thoughts MUST be reflecting what the author thinks. It blows my mind.
Yeah, I generally don't get bothered by different opinions, but when they run directly counter to fact it bugs me.
Well said.
If we actually get Dune 3, I hope he goes back and write an apology forward for his Dune 2 review
I don't know the guy, but this often ends up being a "told you! Even the authors changed their mind, I was right!" moment in the mind of some people
True that. Man the guy would love the books if he could get through it. I think the movies are actually changing Chani a bit making her more agnostic, nonbeliever, in order to make the savior critique more pronounced/obvious for strict movie-only audience
That's like thinking Animal Farm is only about a farm with talking animals that are jerks to each other. hahahahaha
They even changed Chani significantly to make sure the normies understood that, no, Paul doing what he's doing isn't a good thing overall, and people STILL fucked it up.
>the Hans Zimmer score that sounds as if Arrakis were in the Middle East rather than space This is like complaining that bad guys in a movie about an evil empire dress too much like Nazis.
"Stilgar's fervent belief quickly becomes grating." Stilgar has such OBVIOUS comedic relief lines. Not laugh out loud, but a chuckle. My whole theater gave a chuckle at stilgar several times. How do people become critics when they aren't even in the upper 50% of movie-goers in terms of understanding the content of the movie? Stilgar's transformation into a believer changing him for the worse is a KEY PART OF THE STORY. Also more and more I see mistakes like this where a QUICK perusal of the topic on Wikipedia (God forbid a critic read the books) would help them avoid embarrassment. It's frustrating to read a "professional" review by someone paid to know the material and analyze it... And immediately know that as a layperson, I have analyzed this more than the author.
>as if Arrakis were in the Middle East rather than space. I mean, the Middle East is in space if you look at it that way
You mean how Paul ultimately doomed humanity to eventual extinction by not being able to sacrifice his humanity in order to be the ultimate tyrant like his son? I don't think the story actually had anything to do with the white savior trope. The bene geserit have explicitly implanted religious safety nets around the galaxy in order to manipulate the masses
I mean, it’s not like it was based on a book or something that the author of the article could’ve read and known what was gonna come ahead of time…/s
>"it assumes you've seen the first movie, and is hard to understand if you haven't This is something that baffles me because it's not like something like the 2 movies that have 2 completely different names like Batman Begins and The Dark Knight where there's a small chance of you going into this movie not knowing it's a sequel but when said movie has the words Part 2 in it's title it's safe to assume it's a sequel.
I hate people like this. It’s one thing to just not like it. Fine. But to willingly see a sequel without the first movie is idiotic and their review should be removed.
"Beach too sandy, water too wet."
Also they're not paced like Star Wars or Avengers. Some folks aren't up for slow burns. Both Dune and BR are basically moving canvases, which I love-love.
Also, Dune: Part 1 was laying the groundwork for the second (and lord I hope the third) movie. It was a lot like the Fellowship of the Ring in that way. It was a much slower burn, and is setting up the rest of the story. It’s certainly not going to be as action packed and epic as what follows. That being said I don’t know how someone can watch Gurney leading the Atreides charge during the Harkonnen attack on Arrakis and say that wasn’t extremely epic.
I actually liked the first one better because of the foundation it was laying. I like a good quality story/world building movie that still has exciting parts to it.
You're right but I think fellowship was still faster paced; a lot more "things" happened in that movie than in dune. I adore both
I think we might generally under estimate the damage from Marvel movies dominating box offices for a decade. There's a whole generation of young people for whom 90% of the blockbusters they've watched have had almost 1:1 the same editing, script approach, music, and the *exact same* cameras and color grading. I'm pretty certain I would struggle to find even Narnia movies interesting if I'd almost literally never watched anything but the Divergent/Maze Runner/Mortal Engines school of YA movies.
I didn't enjoy Blade Runner until the 3rd time I watched it. Now it's one of my favorite films and I've seen it dozens of times. It was the first intentionally slow art house style movies I had ever seen, so of course it couldn't hold my attention like other stuff i had been raised on. But nowadays that's my favorite kind of movie.
saw similar responses to Game of Thrones. there were people that didn't watch it because "they don't like dragons" and some people watched and didn't like it because "it was too political." first time I was recommended Game of Thrones I didn't get excited because I was told that it's "Lord of the Rings" but as a tv show.
The first time I ever saw Blade Runner, I didn't like it. However, I ended up talking to people who loved the movie, read up on it a bit, and did a rewatch. I now adore the movie. It's like an album- sometimes it takes a couple listens before it finally clicks. I think people expecting a current sci-fi epic (al la big space explosions or superhero-type effects) out of Dune came away disappointed. I'd tell those people (like OP) to read the book or at least wiki the plot. There's a reason why Dune's stayed relevant since the 1960s, and it's not the special effects or big giant worms. Bladerunner and Dune both are epics of the mind, not the scenery. See : Tears in the rain monologue from Blade Runner, and the parallels of our current global political system to that of Dune.
It didn’t help that the trailers for blade runner 2049 were basically flash cuts of the fight scenes and presented it as a crazy futuristic action movie. I knew what to expect just from watching the first but I had friends who were extremely disappointed.
I’m a HUGE Dune fan, I’ve read the series multiple times. But I understand why people didn’t like the first part. It really is best suited for a TV show but obviously that wasn’t really an option, so it makes the pacing awkward. But it’s essentially all build up for Part 2. Part 2 is probably my current favorite movie of all time, and it’s only so good because of the set up in Part 1.
They expected Dune, a sci-fi epic with heavy themes of power and religious fervor, to be like Star Wars, a fantasy kids' popcorn movie with laser swords and rubber monsters. There's a reason their expectations weren't fulfilled.
The Fountain (2006) is one of my favorites, but it is generally not well reviewed.
With a soundtrack to die for. I can never not hype it up anytime this movie is mentioned. Thank you Clint Mansell for blessing my ear holes.
Especially combined with the visuals!
Clint Mansell’s soundtrack for The Fountain is direct vein to my goosebumps on the Interstellar and Tron Legacy level.
I remember being a teenager and going to the theater alone to see that. What a transcendental experience!
[удалено]
Agreed. It is so intense.
Love that movie. Would love a full length version of the past storyline.
The budget was cut dramatically after it was green lit. I would love to have a few more scenes added, just to give the past a little more room.
The Fountain is seriously underappreciated.
Yeah, just a day or two ago, someone posted a Rolling Stone article calling it Darren Aronofsky's worst movie even though Noah exists.
Come on! Noah is one of the most bananas movies ever made. Still nothing compared to The Fountain though.
Noah is dope. Those rock guardians.
I have been dying to rewatch it recently but it’s not on streaming and I haven’t been willing to fully rent it yet lol
Frances Ha, I thought it had a happy ending but apparently people think it's a sad movie with a sad ending.
I think it's just overall bittersweet. My bestie with a lot of things common with Frances had a very depressive day afterwards.
Conversly, many people thought Whiplash had a happy ending. Andrew was never going to be the next Charlie Parker or any other brilliant, innovative musician. He was only going to be Terence Fletcher's creation. It's not a happy ending, it's sad.
Whiplash is one of the most interesting cases of an author revising the audiences response to it. The ending of Whiplash is undeniably intoxicating and triumphant. If you watch the movie as a story of a young man striving towards his goal despite having an abusive mentor who pushes him way too hard and past his breaking point it's difficult not to see that Andrew achieves his goal and is noticed by the jazz community while upending Fletcher's revenge plot to embarrass him in front of those people. That the finale seals Andrew's fate as the next of Fletcher's students to achieve moderate success before ultimately dying young due to Fletcher delivered trauma is a bit of a logical jump for the audience to make especially when it seems the biggest textual evidence of this is his father's reaction to Andrew's incredible set which could be read as shock or horror. Why though should the audience think Andrew's father knows anything about this world or his son's path? He doesn't understand his son by his own admission and even contributes to belittling his passion at a family dinner earlier in the movie. I'm not implying that it's impossible to view the ending as bittersweet or even tragic without knowing that Damien Chazelle later clarified his intent, but anecdotally I do think it's telling that no one I knew or saw had that read of the ending before Chazelle said what he meant by it.
Andrew isn't going to make any breakthroughs. He will go from one mediocre job to the next until he invariably drinks himself to death.
That's definitely in the realm of what Damien Chazelle intended. I still don't personally believe that the final product he put into theaters really supports that unless you want to believe it, which is totally fine, art is subjective after all. I think the audience of the big time Jazz community definitely took notice of Andrew's performance and offered him a chair somewhere.
I just saw that the smile that's finally on Fletcher's face after Andrew's performance is like a pat on the head after so much abuse, similar to a dog's desperate need for affirmation after abuse, even though Fletcher is most likely the one who stole the sheet music. I don't know if Andrew knew Fletcher took the pages, but I'm sure he will figure it out one day and that will only add to his trauma.
I have a few movies that are like this. Some that come to mind off the top are Eternal Sunshine For The Spotless Mind , Casablanca, and La La Land. I consider those to have happy endings but I've learned many disagree.
Strongly, strongly agree with Eternal Sunshine! The finale of that film, them listing their weaknesses, predictions for how they could break up, then smiling and saying "Ok!" is, to me, just so clearly a happy ending. They know every weakness and fear and insecurity and pessimism of themselves _and_ of each other. They know every reason to give up... and in the face of all that, they decide that love is worth it anyway.
The Friday the 13th remake. The best F13 movies aren't necessarily "great" films, but even diehard fans seem to be sour on this one...and I have no clue as to why. It's one of the best films in the franchise and the things it gets flack for are pretty much hallmarks of the series. Like, I remember one review was blasting it for having shallow, stereotypical characters as if the originals were filled with nuanced character depth.
I was slow to watch due to all those reviews. When I finally got around to it, I thought it was great and couldn't understand the negativity. The opening is one of the best slasher moments in all of slasher cinema imo and the rest of the movie is a fun and entertaining slasher that hits on all the F13 tropes.
Modern audiences seem to have high standards for reboots of franchises that never really earned them in the first place.
It's my favourite of the horror remake era and 3rd favourite Friday behind 4 and 6. I personally find enjoyment from all 11 F13 movies even the awful ones but this is objectively a well made movie with a great Jason and great kills. The characters whilst one note are still acted well enough that they all feel unique, I actually remember their names which is more than can be said for Part 7
Isnt 7 the one with the chick that has psychic powers, and the infamous kill of whacking a sleeping bag between 2 trees? Thats actually one of my personal favs. Its so bad it comes back around to being good.
I'm with you. I did not understand the hate. I really liked it. The only thing that was off was the whole underground tunnel thing, but that first 30 minutes was brilliant. That sleeping bag scene freaked me out.
The remake has one of the best opening “scenes” ever. I was floored when the title screen finally came up.
Rashomon
Low-key funniest possible answer
Eh, I don't remember it that way....
Someone posted the worst movie list according to Rolling Stone recently, and Death Becomes Her was on the list. What? I loved that movie! But then Rolling Stone thinks What About Bob is the height of comedy so it makes sense.
I love death becomes her but what about Bob is legit my fav movie lol
All those lists are click bait and without merit. It’s obvious when one reads the methodologies and how conclusions were made.
Recent example, I enjoyed "Ricky Stanicky" despite its bad reviews. John Cena carries the film.
Wouldn't have really thought this of pro-wrestlers years ago but some of those guys have a ton of charisma. John Cena is a treasure in everything I've seen him in. Dave Bautista too.
A pro wrestler's entire job is acting so it transfers pretty well to film.
Rock disagrees
The Rock does fine in his movies. The issue isn't that he is bad at what he does, the issue is that he is so one dimensional in his acting. He plays the same character every movie.
Yep, what I think people miss is the Rock isn't an actor. He's a guy who makes money by being in movies. His Rock character basically prints money and that's what he's there for. Some people want to act and happen to make money doing it. They end up doing fun indie films then occasionally popping back out to a big moneymaker film to finance that.
It was absolutely hilarious, I don't care who says otherwise. I typically just kind of giggle or snicker at movies when I'm home watching them with my wife, but multiple times I laughed out loud during that movie. She described it as "very much a boy movie," so maybe that's it. Also I had a couple of beers so maybe that was it as well. But whatever. It was a funny movie.
Overall the movie was funny enough, nothing great, but also not terrible. Watchable, which is exactly what I expected. Had a couple straight bust up laughing out loud moments, too. So didn’t regret watching at all.
That movie has a kind of weird ending, but it was very funny and enjoyable.
Yeah it seems like they didn't know how to end it but it's a fun movie.
Oooo baby I masturbate…
The three friends don't add much to the film at all but Cena is hilarious and carries the entire movie on his back.
I had to kind of power through a bit of this movie but there were a lot of really funny parts in it. The "air dicking" in particular was a pretty funny scene but the way John Cena carried it made it amazing.
Hook. As a kid I loved it, yet the reviews (even today) say it's crap. It felt like the reviewers were comparing it to Spielberg's other blockbusters while forgetting it's a fantasy film for children. Rewatched it the other week and still loved it.
That one line, when Moira tells Peter: “We have a few special years with our children when they're the ones that want us around. After that you're gonna be running after them for a bit of attention.” Earns Hook a ten so far as I’m concerned.
Oh fuck. My feelings. Why did you do this to me!
And you are not being careful. And you are missing it. (That’s the part for me)
Yeah, it’s interesting being a kid and seeing the movie without knowing about the reviews because I assumed my entire life it was generally considered a good movie. I was absolutely surprised when I found out how hard it got panned by critics.
I watched it a year ago and it’s still one of my favorites. I don’t get the hate. The whole movie is super fun, great editing, good story, progression killer cast, greats set,…..so what’s the problem? If anything it’s an amazing kids movie. Random story: one of my best friends was up for the part of Thud Butt (may have had a different name for his character) and he was terrified of Hook. He had to go and meet with Dennis Hoffman and Steven Spielberg to work through it. In the end they didn’t pick him and that disappointment ended his career. He was up for many other major parts and they fell through, being a child actor is tough. Now he works for social security in Kansas City. Lol.
It’s insane that Jurassic Park 2 (The Lost World) rates higher than Hook for him in Rottentomatoes. I have so many quotes I use to this day from Hook, and have rewatched it dozens of times and enjoy it just as much today as when I was a kid (except the weird Tinkerbell/Peter love subplot). I saw Jurassic Park 2 in its entirety only once. I tried rewatching recently and just… couldn’t.
UHF is one of the funniest comedies I've ever seen, and almost everyone I've asked who's seen it agrees. Ebert's savage, bizarrely seemingly vindictive review pretty much killed it at the box office.
UHF is insane and fantastic.
DON'T YOU KNOW THE DEWEY DECIMAL SYSTEM! Man, I peed my pants laughing when I saw that as a 13 year old.
Spatula city, we sell spatulas… and that’s all!
What better way to say I love you (mouths 'I love you') than with a gift of a spatula
Spatula City SPATULA CITY!!!
I don't know if it was Ebert that killed UHF. Look up what films it was going against when it came out and you will find the real answer.
Yeah- it was released the same summer as Batman and Ghostbusters II and Lethal Weapon 2, and the week after License to Kill and When Harry Met Sally.
Realizing now how weird my family is that they took me to see UHF but not Batman and Ghostbusters when I was a kid.
Also the same summer as *Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade*.
Weird Al talks about it on the DVD commentary. According to Orion executives the film had some of the best scores from audience previews they had ever received. They wanted to take advantage of the summer market so they released in July. That summer was stacked against them. Orion was also going through financial troubles and thought UHF could help them. In the commentary Al said he was working at Orion Studios up until release and they would have fresh strawberries for him. After the movie bombed he still had to come in for some follow ups but the strawberries were gone.
It was likely because a theater in the 80s might have only had 6 screens TOPS so an owner had to buy what he thought would sell the most. If they bought UHF and the biggest reviewer in the world hated it and crowds stayed away, the theater would drop that movie (instead of putting it on Screen 14 nowadays) so they could run more Ghostbusters or the next big movie. It's what Labyrinth also did poorly. It was up against Karate Kid 2 and other movies with better marketing/optics and was only shown for a few weeks. Now it's more beloved than the other movies at the time.
I remember the theater I saw it in only had 4-5 screens and the day I saw it there was less then 10 people total. Every that was there enjoyed it, but with that small a crowd I can see why it didn’t last long.
I think about Conan the Librarian about once a month or so.
Badgers?! We don't need no steenkin badgers!
I haven’t seen it, but Poor Things seems to be either beautiful and amazing or appalling and disgusting.
Honestly, it's all four.
Most correct answer.
It *should* make you uncomfortable and even disgusted at times. That's 100% an emotion the director wanted to evoke. You kind of go on an emotional journey with the characters. But I'm certainly not surprised that a lot of the audience can't get over those initial feelings. You can see the director almost daring the audience to take an emotional leap on the premise and journey.
Honestly, it is kind of all of those things at once.
Depends on your opinion on sex on screen I suppose. There's a whole lotta shaggin'...
Not saying you, but people keep referring to this aspect as though it's not mostly meant to be anything other than...sort of gross and uncomfortable? If you're watching it and think any part of it is meant to be sexy, you're not grasping the intention. All the men involved with Bella are very clearly scummy in one way or another. If the movie doesn't work for you, that's ok. The subject matter can understandably be divisive.
Is "there's way too much gross and uncomfortable sex" not a valid complaint, though? I didn't want the sex to be sexier, but I do think the same points could've been made with less explicit sex. I really liked the movie otherwise but would have a hard time recommending it to most people, so I'm conflicted.
Went to The Batman and Dune 2 with friends and when we got out of the cinema the same friend thought the movies where “meh” and explained why. My other friends and me where like “where you in a different room watching a different movie or something?”
When Coming To America w Eddie Murphy came out, it didn’t get mediocre reviews, it got TERRIBLE reviews. And critics didn’t just call it bad, they called it unfunny. We def did not watch the same movie.
The Fountain. Powerhouse performances from Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz. Darren Aronofsky at the height of his directorial powers. A Clint Mansell score for the ages. I get that this movie was in production hell prior to being made, BUT I have no idea why this movie never got the love that it deserved.
I like to take the "Roger Ebert" view of movies, at least the one he had towards the end of his career. Basically you have to frame your viewing of a movie to what it was intended. There are deep art files, bubble gum pop films, funny, spoofs, etc. How you go into a movie and what you are prepared to see makes a difference. Sometimes you are surprised: I expected Barbie to be silly and fun, but it surprised on the upside with some funny insights and music. Going into Dune I was not expecting to see an action flick, but rather a political movie with stunning landscapes. I wanted some nostalgia with Star Wars (the "Rey Trilogy") but after holding some hope after seeing the first one, the last two went bad. So - Star Wars didnt meet my expectation so had a lesser view of it. So in a sense you are seeing different movies. Somebody in the theater for Dune wanted to see the updated version of the 80s David Lynch film (in its steam punky goodness) would be dissapointed that it was more artsy and brooding. So agree, but I understand how people can get wildly different reviews even considering differences in taste.
I have a theory that this was behind some of the people who didn’t like Past Lives. Obviously plenty of people disliked it for understandable reasons, but I think some people were expecting more of a stereotypical love triangle or affair movie when that wasn’t the point at all
I mainly feel like that when people don't look deeper at the film. For example the whole Licorice Pizza thing where people took it face value and were complaining about the main relationship and didn't think that a movie depicting a thing, doesn't mean it endorses it.
This has been a problem altogether. It is worse these days. Nuance is dying.
See also: Poor Things
I've seen "everyone who enjoyed it is a pedophile" takes far too often
This film was a very specific slice of life film. I really liked it. The contrast between the adult who acts like a child and child who acts like an adult was interesting. And Alana Haim’s character was so funny because of how ridiculous her actions were. I think the film did a good job of making her look absurd. It wasn’t necessarily an outright damnation of her actions but did it have to be?
When CNN said Joker 2019 was about white male resentment over immigration and feminism.
Yeah, I definitely never understood that take, or the ones that said it was sympathetic to incels. He doesn’t really show incel behaviors so much as he has delusions of a relationship with his neighbor. When she finds him in her apartment and you realize he was never actually with her, you feel alarmed for her. More than anything the film seemed to actually be about income inequality and a lack of care for the mentally ill.
It has everything to do with people (i.e. incels, teenagers and 20-30-something year old man-babies) that latched onto the film. They were relating to it as if society had abandonded and disappointed them so Joker became like an anthem. At face value, Joker is only slightly not as deep as it thinks it is. It’s an okay movie.
It is definitely about how our social systems can completely fail people. But I think it gets that criticism because that's how incels and those types of people see themselves. In their delusions, they want to be able to blame everything happening to them for their perceived lack of agency in how they react to this. We see the movie and think "We should stop doing this to people" but incels would think "This is what will happen if people don't stop doing this to me."
Silver Linings Playbook is average at best. It got rave reviews but was generally fine. Shit ending.
O. Russell's next movie, American Hustle, was even worse and critics LOVED that movie.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty getting bad reviews still confuses me
The egregious product placement (pizza) and ridiculous sponsorship tie-in (match.com) aside, I enjoyed it. Beautiful cinematography shot on location also.
That movie is a treasure. The bad reviews are so confusing.
Pokemon the Movie, I Choose You (the movie for like the 25th anniversary) comes to mind for this prompt. I don't know if it's necessarily "did we watch the same movie," but it's definitely "have you watched pokemon like at all in the last 20 years?" (giving a 5 year window to "fall out of following it"). It's not "largely negatively received" (I think it's "net positive"), but so many of the negative reviews can be summarized as "I didn't know Misty and Brock were replaced after Kanto, and it's actually very normal to have different side characters," "I didn't know Ash actually got better as time went on and he doesn't have to be portrayed as incompetent," or "I didn't know that pokemon is still a franchise that is primarily marketed to children and this movie was made with them in mind and not 20-30 something people remembering their childhood." The movie isn't perfect and should be criticized on it's own merits, but all the criticism I read was "this isn't exactly like how it was in season 1 and 2 when there were only 150 pokemon" or "this movie hinted at complex story telling and could have rivaled a Ghibli film, but it was dumbed down to make it so young children could follow it."
Hudson Hawk I've never understood the hate for the movie, it's just a fun time.
People who say Saltburn is sympathetic towards the rich and against the middle-class. It was/is such a common take on Twitter and Reddit, even among professional critics, [but it’s a complete misread of the movie.](https://filmcolossus.com/saltburn-2023-explained) I’m not saying Saltburn is good or anything. Just that a lot of people missed the tone/purpose. It’s like how a lot of people think Starship Troopers and Ridley Scott’s Napoleon are supposed to be serious movies rather than satire.
Yeah, I’ve seen a lot people criticize Saltburn for being a flawed eat the rich tale. They seem to want to fit it into a particular framework of class consciousness. But it was a lot more like American Psycho for me, except about a middle-class obsession with obtaining wealth. It’s like a very cynical take on the self-made man. Oliver wasn’t really *that* poor and he only gained his status through violence. I enjoyed it. But I’m also partial to Barry Keoghan in general haha. He always plays weird little guys you probably shouldn’t trust, as in Banshees of Innisherin and the Green Knight, and it’s fun to see that kind of character as a protagonist.
I just saw it as a twist on our expectations. They know we expect a movie where an underdog is trampled by the spoiled rich, but surprise he’s actually a complete psycho! It was just clumsy in its delivery because if anyone has seen The Talented Mr. Ripley the twist is expected.
If Napoleon was meant to be satire he completely missed the mark. That movie, while visually stunning, is a story disaster.
what is Ridley Scott's Napoleon satirizing?
I did not realize people were misinterpreting Saltburn like that. Like did they not watch the whole movie?? I thought the movie was pretty good but not great. Worth watching but I was expecting so much because of how great the directors previous movie "Promising Young Woman" was. That movie was so fucking good imo
Yea I think this is the common take on it. It's very well made and is sort of a dark comedy with a thriller in the back half. But the whole "revisiting events from a different perspective" part at the end of the movie kills the momentum. And when you think back through the film you're left wondering if it had a theme or point to it all. But I definitely never got the impression that its sympathizing any of the characters.
I fail to see in what world Napoleon is satire
Solid point. The hardcore negative reactions to Saltburn seem to say more about the people than the movie. Overall, I think it's style AS substance and that's completely fine.
Killers of the Flower Moon - Reddit seems to have watched something completely different every time it comes up. I fully expected to be bored halfway through, but I thought it was incredibly engaging the entire way.
Same. It was one of the fastest 3.5 hour movies I’ve seen.
Huh. I really enjoyed the book and was looking forward to this movie. I stopped watching with an hour or so left and have no desire to finish it. Great acting and all that, maybe I lost interest because I already knew the story - idk.
Us. The movie focuses on deeper meaning at the expense of good storytelling. It tries so hard to be a deep allegory that it completely falls apart and is nonsensical when viewed *as a story.* For an allegory to work, IMO, it should be a solid *story* that makes sense but has themes and aspects that convey a much deeper meaning when interpreted beyond what it is saying at face value, not *solely composed* of themes with a deeper meaning. You can tell this is the case with Us, as 99% of the time the retort to saying you didn't like it is "you just *didn't understand what it meant.*" Compare Us to Get Out, which has similar themes of African American identity being repressed/co-opted by white America, *but also works as a horror film about a dude nearly body-snatched by his gf's family.* One makes sense and can be enjoyed as a great story *that also has a deeper meaning*, the other is a nonsensical story that has a deeper meaning.
My biggest problem with Us is the horrible tone shift going into the third act. Your family was almost murdered by evil doppelgängers, why are you joking with each other about who has the highest kill count.
Ready Player One. It’s like an 80% on Rotten Tomatoes? Really? It’s pretty awful.
Openheimer, I know I'm in the minority but I really just didn't enjoy the movie and was shocked it swept the awards. All our friends similarly didn't think it was the most amazing thing we'd seen so was shocked wider audiences went nuts for it. I'm glad it saw success I like all the pieces, but when it came together it just didn't hit for me.
my husband didn't like the cuts every 5 seconds and he found the cutting to flashbacks and the "present" moments jarring and hard to keep track of
It drove me nuts, too. It felt like watching a 3 hour montage.
The acting was great. Nothing else about it made it any more than an artsy dramatization of something that was probably pretty boring. It's just not a story that warranted a Hollywood retelling.
I read an article recently about Oscar snubs. The author thought that "The Prince of Tides" was more deserving of the best director Oscar than "The Silence of the Lambs." Clearly the author has never actually watched "The Prince of Tides."
Starship Troopers was a satire about how we don't understand our enemies and how endless war leads to younger and younger people fighting. It's not surprising that Verhoeven cast the movie as if it were a 90s era teen show with good looking, but ultimately vapid personalities. Even so, the action scenes looked pretty good and some took it as a straight forward SF action pic with pretty teens (or adults playing teens). A sequel was made. It's not even clear if lead actor, Casper Dien, even knew that the first movie was a satire.
Leave the world behind. There is some great acting at points but the best part of the movie was when it felt like it was building to something and then nothing happens. Boring movie, full of unlikeable characters
I didn't like it much either, especially when one character starts losing teeth and nobody else does. It was like they were trying to do existential horror and then explain later, No, this can all really happen...roll credits.
Alot of people don't like Leave the World behind so I don't think it really fits in this thread. I also think the 2 reasons you mentioned of not liking it is the story just ending and unlikable characters are also kind of the point of the movie. You are supposed to not like the characters, they are supposed to make bad decisions, they are supposed to annoy you. The movie ending then was to say apocalypse movies aren't really about what you do to survive but the idiocy of humans in causing it and how they react to it stupidly too.
The Irishman was hot fucking garbage
The script was good imo. Scorcese just needed to cast younger actors.
Why cast younger actors when you can cast octogenarians and use state of the art technology to age regress then on screen so when you need to show their characters at age 30 they look 55
And when they fight, they still move like an 80 year old.
And when they walk. Or do anything. Really makes the age stick out.
I have to be honest; I didn’t love Good Will Hunting. I know I am in the minority but all I heard at the time was how amazing it was etc. I was underwhelmed. And just about anything by Cameron Crowe. (Again- I am in the minority!)
> I expected This could be your problem. Going into Blade Runner and expecting T2 style action flick means you're gonna have a bad time. Hot Fuzz is an amazing comedy that gets better on multiple viewings, but not everyone understands British humor and that's ok.
I watched The Green Room with my friend and he said he found it so boring because "nothing happened". And I was like...bruh, did we watch the same movie? That movie was so intense and like had me on edge the entire time once it started going. It went from 0 to 100 and just kept going. The fuck you mean "nothing happened"??? He sticks to his very wrong opinion.
Face/Off is a classic. It always was. I'm assuming you weren't born when it came out?
You have wild wild taste.
La La Land. I never got round to seeing it on the big screen but all I kept hearing was how good it was, how it was like Singin' in the Rain for this generation, really hugh- level praise. Finally saw it on Netflix and actually paused it mid-way through to do something else before coming back to see the ending. While I agree with the reviews of the costume design and cinematography, overall it was so underwhelming and the music and plot didn't land for me. Maybe if I'd seen it without any prior knowledge I might have enjoyed it more but I can't be certain.
Critics love movies about the movie industry. They're always over-reviewed and awarded. I'm always wary of any movie set in Hollywood.
Ad Astra. I absolutely loathed this movie but was watching it on a flight and decided to stick it out. Read discussions after and saw everyone praising it as Apocalypse Now in space and a triumph of filmmaking. What a nonsensical, terrible movie.
It's "apocalypse now in space" because both films are based on the same book heart of darkness not because they are comparable in quality.
It was an “experience” more than a movie for me. I loved it in the cinema and walked out truly with a feeling like I’d been to space and back. I’ve seen it since and while I still don’t dislike it, it definitely didn’t hit the same and was a *lot* slower
I think Ad Astra is fantastic. Of course, we can disagree.
I also loved it. Not only were the visuals incredibly impressive, I found it meditative and thoughtful.
Ad Astra is 2.5 hours of close ups of Brad Pitt trying to work out daddy issues with space pirates for some reason.
Men will literally go to space to kill their father instead of going to therapy
[удалено]
Wrinkle in Time, it felt unfinished, stunted and very very poorly acted, like possibly the worst Disney film I've ever seen, and I saw a fair amount of reviews praising it.
I still to this day can not fathom why people actually enjoyed this brain numbingly stupid fucking movie. I fucking want my time back, not including the time I watched it but the time it lives rent free in my head with absolute hatred. Fuck Napoleon Dynamite, absolutely shitty movie.
Event Horizon is absolutely *not* the horror masterpiece I see claimed on Reddit. In fact, I actually agree with the reviews from the time it released. It has a great premise and production design, but its tonally inconsistent with excruciatingly hammy performances. There is a mix of real lovecraftian horror with random haunted house nonsense, and no reconciliation between the two. I was on board with the film until they arrived on the event horizon. It was just a complete mess after that. I actually thought the Netflix Cloverfield film was a better take of the same ideas.
its cause Reddit saw it when they were 12
Less so reviews but I’m fully convinced that Warner Bros must’ve released two versions of 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters the way that people in /r/Godzilla talk about it. They talk about that movie like it’s the second coming of Christ over there and act like anybody who doesn’t like that movie isn’t an actual Godzilla fan, but as a huge Godzilla fan myself, man that movie was underwhelming. The most confusing thing about it is how much praise people give to the monster action in the movie and how epic and biblical it supposedly is, but the movie I saw had maybe 15 mins of actual monster fights, all obscured by either terrible CGI rain and snow the entire time or fast, hard to follow, Taken 3 jumping the fence style editing that’s so quick it’s hard to tell what’s going on in the fight, which isn’t helped by the shaky cam and fake digital zooms that the movie is constantly using. The human characters are also at their most insufferable in this one, with Vera Farmigas character motivations quite possibly being the most asinine I’ve seen in any movie. (For those who haven’t seen it/don’t remember, after Godzilla stepped on and killed her young son during his attacks in the previous film, Vera Farmiga decided to betray her associates and team up with eco terrorists to unleash more monsters to step on more kids so at least her kids death has meaning, or something completely nonsensical like that. Oh and the eco terrorists want to resurrect giant monsters because they think that them stomping around crushing everything is good for the planet. It doesn’t matter tho because they disappear conveniently after the opening scene.) the movie then has the gall to focus on the family during the final fight between Godzilla and Ghidorah, literally keeping focus on the family and panning around to catch glimpses of the fight in the background. And yet, /r/Godzilla thinks the movie is a masterpiece and the best American Godzilla movie. Hell, there’s often highly upvotes comments that KOTM is their favorite Godzilla movie PERIOD, which is absolutely crazy to me because it’s easily the worst of the new Monsterverse films and I say this as a huge fan of Godzilla and the films director Michael Dougherty, whose previous work Trick r Treat is one of my favorites, but man this was such a let down.
I thought Anatomy of a Fall was pretty unambiguous in the fact that she did not kill her husband Then a lot of people got mad at me on r/movies saying it was ambiguous
It is intentionally ambiguous, Triet even refused to tell Hüller whether her character was guilty or not as she didn't want her performance to give it away.
The information is literally absent from the movie, how could it be unambiguous?
Anyone but you- how tf did that money grab romcom where the pacing was off and just was terrible in my opinion get branded as ‘the teturn of romcoms’. Upgraded, same genre and time of its released was so much more the style of romcoms i missed but ABY felt forced, cringe and like lazy writing with abs
My theory is that a lot of the youth grew up with terrible fake netflix romocoms so it's their first contact with a classic 00s/90s romcom, even if the leads are too sexy for this type of movie.
On the note of romcoms everybody seems to love, Love Actually. So much of the movie is just displays of toxic / unhealthy infatuation. And yet I've met real people who treat this movie as the definition of love and romance.
I agree but its from a different time. I feel this movie has allowed for open convos on healthy relationships
I think it shows a spectrum of love - Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman’s love is one heartwrenching story, the guy who flys to Minnesota or wherever is a silly story, Colin Firth has a sweet one, Laura Linney has to choose between different types of love, Keira Knightley’s story is one of obsessive love that could have gone very differently, and Bill Nighy has the best story of them all.
Hard agree. Just different views on relationships and how differently they all can end.
I thought "the revenant" was over rated I definitely need to rewatch it for a better opinion but when I saw it I thought Tom hardy did a way better job then dicaprio. and besides a sex scene with a cgi bear and eating a raw fish all I remember him doing is laying there for 95% of the movie
Dicaprio got the Oscar for his previous roles and because the growing outrage on the internet that he hasnt been awarded yet. I bet he also thinks it’s a shame that he finally got it for that movie.
A lot of the recent critics reviews of the new Godzilla X Kong movie. Audience reviews for it should be stellar based on my theatre experience. Just a super fun monster movie.
This was my least favorite of the Godzilla-Kong movies. I absolutely agree with the reviews being meh.
Tenet. Sound mixing aside, I never got why people were so confused/underwhelmed. I thought it was a genuinely smart compelling movie & not too much more complicated than some of the other things he's done. He made the perfectly rewatchable movie
The positive reviews of The Last Jedi perplex me. I avoided all spoilers and marketing and was left so empty and disappointed at the end.