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Post by ganews on May 24, 2016 23:53:35 GMT -5
I legit applaud Return of the Thin Olive Duke for rebooting any flavor of Unpopular Opinions thread. *ahem* Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia suuuucked. I can not remember anything redeeming from that movie. Dune is approximately my favorite anything by David Lynch, and that is not a knock.
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Post by ganews on May 24, 2016 23:58:49 GMT -5
Wait, I've got another: there's nothing particularly special about Taxi Driver as a whole (though it has some individually great scenes), and the canonical ending (that it was not all a dream after Travis is shot) is dumb.
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Post by Nudeviking on May 25, 2016 2:35:53 GMT -5
"Films" and "Cinema" are bullshit. "Movies" are where it's at. Things like Michael Bay's Transformer movies are better more enjoyable than something like Boyhood. I like my low culture to be low goddamn it.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2016 2:50:32 GMT -5
Boyhood was a boring film with a hardly unique gimmick and dialog written by a Youth Pastor.
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Post by Return of the Thin Olive Duke on May 25, 2016 2:55:20 GMT -5
Boyhood was a boring film with a hardly unique gimmick and dialog written by a Youth Pastor. Youth Pastor, which? Did the characters use a lot of phrases like "relevant!" and "servant heart" and "edify" and "being intentional," but using them in ways that are totally incomprehensible to the uninitiated? (I want the answer to be yes, but acknowledge that it's probably no)
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on May 25, 2016 9:54:27 GMT -5
If The Witch and Goodnight Mommy were key milestones in "redefining horror", that is not a definition I want. I feel that way about It Follows. Yep. I mean, I think it's an enjoyable and pretty clever film, but it was nothing game-changing and I don't believe it deserves its reputation.
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2016 9:54:39 GMT -5
My intros to Jake Gyllenhaal were October Sky and Bubble Boy, both of which I liked, and both of which I'm afraid to re-watch. I've been told that if you haven't seen Donnie Darko by 16, you won't like it. Donnie Darko probably doesn't hold up great as a complete package but I would say there are enough interesting scenes to make it worth a watch as an adult. Avoid the Director's Cut, though.
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on May 25, 2016 9:58:03 GMT -5
Ooof, I'm getting heartburn here.
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Post by Ron Howard Voice on May 25, 2016 10:08:56 GMT -5
I love LOVE the 1967 version of Casino Royale. It may be wildly self-indulgent and incoherent - like something written by a 12-year-old - but it's nonstop entertaining and achieves, manyfold, exactly what it was trying to do (spoof the spy genre). Everything looks amazing and everyone is having a great time. It's the 'Adam West Batman' of James Bond movies. Whoever disparages this film is the enemy of fun. When I was a 12-year-old, the final casino showdown where everyone parachutes through the casino roof was the funniest thing I had ever seen.
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Post by MarkInTexas on May 25, 2016 10:08:56 GMT -5
While it is admittedly several notches below the first two, The Godfather Part III is not a bad movie. Yes, Sofia Coppola is nails-on-the-blackboard awful, but besides that, it's a solid gangster film. If it was a stand-alone movie, and not a sequel to two of the best films of all time, then I think it would have a much better reputation.
I love both movies, but of Scorsese's two ultra-long gangster flicks starring De Niro and Pesci, Casino is not only more entertaining than GoodFellas, it's a better overall film, too.
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Post by Ron Howard Voice on May 25, 2016 10:13:09 GMT -5
Hmmmm... with the Dark Knight covered, I feel like I just need to add that Donnie Darko is awful. I thought that movie was laughably terrible. It ruined my perception of Jake G. for years before I realized that he is an amazing actor. Past that, I think that Chris Nolan is overrated as a director - and I'm not even referring to his usually bagged on films (TDKR, Inception) - Memento does not hold up at all, in my opinion. Also there's a pretty decent backlash against Seth Rogen and James Franco, but Pineapple Express remains one of my favorite dumb comedy movies. Thank you. Donnie Darko is high school pretentious stuff for high school pretentious boys. Also, and maybe equally unpopular, I love Seth Rogen and James Franco team-ups. In terms of "comedies revolving around plots to assassinate the leader of a real foreign country," The Interview is funnier than Zoolander, and I watched them on a double feature one night to confirm it. P.S. Oddly enough so far there's only been 1 opinion in this thread that really made me upset.
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on May 25, 2016 10:13:43 GMT -5
Okay, rather than cut down some loved films, I'll prop up some hated ones:
Hook is one of Spielberg's best movies, with a stunning conception of Neverland and terrific performances from Williams, Hoskins and especially Hoffman. It tells a good story about parents and children, has several memorable set pieces and is even consistently funny. In fact, it wasn't until I started reading AVC that I learned people don't like this movie. That was unimaginable to me before. I once considered starting an Unpopular Opinions-style thread specifically about those times you discovered you held the "wrong" opinion about a piece of pop culture way past when you should have.
Speed Racer is terrific. Probably my favorite movie of whatever year that movie came out. It has limitless visual energy, really engaging editing, fun characters and deserves credit for looking and feeling like nothing else. (I think this one is developing a cult following now, actually).
And speaking of the Wachowskis, The Matrix: Reloaded and The Matrix: Revolutions are perfectly cromulent sci-fi action movies. Yes, even Revolutions. It gets too Star Wars-y with its Zion scenes, what with its councils and prophecies and blah blah blah, but to this day the films are impressive visual spectacles, and if the story loses itself, they are at least films with vision. They go big! (Reloaded is still definitely better than Revolutions).
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Post by rimjobflashmob on May 25, 2016 11:21:02 GMT -5
Speed Racer is terrific. Probably my favorite movie of whatever year that movie came out. It has limitless visual energy, really engaging editing, fun characters and deserves credit for looking and feeling like nothing else. (I think this one is developing a cult following now, actually). Agreed, this movie is fucking awesome, just so much fun. Inglorious Basterds is Tarantino's best film and he hasn't made a good one since. Return of the Jedi is essentially the same quality as the prequels, but with a better cast. Howl's Moving Castle is the worst Ghibli film. I love Paul Thomas Anderson, in particular The Master, but There Will Be Blood was just not good. Daniel Day-Lewis gave a great performance but that's basically it. It's PTA's Dark Knight and Day-Lewis is the Joker.
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Paleu
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Post by Paleu on May 25, 2016 11:53:13 GMT -5
Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia suuuucked. I can not remember anything redeeming from that movie. I don't totally agree with this, but I'll definitely pipe up and say that the more PTA movies I watch, the more they all seem to be copying older, better, much livelier movies with a sort of clinical coldness that makes him seem increasingly like the definition of "pretentious indie bullshit" to me. I also genuinely hate Boogie Nights. It's a movie about pornos that's terrified to show a cock on screen for more than two seconds. Or have any of the characters' actions have consequences.
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Post by Squanchy on May 25, 2016 12:06:49 GMT -5
I think The Darjeeling Limited and Return of the Jedi are both totally fucking rad. "... I didn't save mine." I love Darjeeling Limited. Also, I'll do you one better. Revenge of the Sith is as good as Return of the Jedi.
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Post by Squanchy on May 25, 2016 12:12:34 GMT -5
I feel that way about It Follows. Yep. I mean, I think it's an enjoyable and pretty clever film, but it was nothing game-changing and I don't believe it deserves its reputation. My threshold for horror is "did it scared the living shit out of me" if so, good film. By that metric, It Follows, The Babadook, and The Conjuring are all perfectly cromulent films. I haven't seen the VVitch, or Goodnight Mommy yet. Sinister was terrible before Gene Simmons ever graced the screen.
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Post by Superb Owl 🦉 on May 25, 2016 14:07:43 GMT -5
Okay, rather than cut down some loved films, I'll prop up some hated ones: Hook is one of Spielberg's best movies, with a stunning conception of Neverland and terrific performances from Williams, Hoskins and especially Hoffman. It tells a good story about parents and children, has several memorable set pieces and is even consistently funny. In fact, it wasn't until I started reading AVC that I learned people don't like this movie. That was unimaginable to me before. I once considered starting an Unpopular Opinions-style thread specifically about those times you discovered you held the "wrong" opinion about a piece of pop culture way past when you should have. Speed Racer is terrific. Probably my favorite movie of whatever year that movie came out. It has limitless visual energy, really engaging editing, fun characters and deserves credit for looking and feeling like nothing else. (I think this one is developing a cult following now, actually). And speaking of the Wachowskis, The Matrix: Reloaded and The Matrix: Revolutions are perfectly cromulent sci-fi action movies. Yes, even Revolutions. It gets too Star Wars-y with its Zion scenes, what with its councils and prophecies and blah blah blah, but to this day the films are impressive visual spectacles, and if the story loses itself, they are at least films with vision. They go big! (Reloaded is still definitely better than Revolutions). "They went big!" is almost guaranteed to be the epitath on the Wachowskis gravestones, isn't it?
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Post by Superb Owl 🦉 on May 25, 2016 14:10:25 GMT -5
"Films" and "Cinema" are bullshit. "Movies" are where it's at. Things like Michael Bay's Transformer movies are better more enjoyable than something like Boyhood. I like my low culture to be low goddamn it. While I don't think I'm quite as worked up about this as you are, I do think there is too much focus on whether films are important or re-watchable enough to enter the canon of THE GREAT MOVIES when deeming them good or bad. Did you fucking enjoy Inception when you watched it in the theater? Then it was a good movie, I don't think it particularly matters if it 'held up' after everyone discussed it to death.
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heroboy
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Post by heroboy on May 25, 2016 14:21:00 GMT -5
Like what LazBro mentioned with Hook, I had no idea that Willow is basically reviled until I saw comments about it over at TOC. For me, it remains one of the greatest Fantasy movies of all time. Everything that has come since has been overly-long, or overly-dumb, while Willow is pretty much perfectly paced, has a great mix of action and comedy, and great costume design. It suffers a bit from landing in that weird time where they were just starting to try out digital effects, but the movie as a whole holds up incredibly ell. (I used to think I loved Lady Hawke, but having watched it again as an adult, I can attest that it is unmitigated crap.)
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2016 14:33:37 GMT -5
Like what LazBro mentioned with Hook, I had no idea that Willow is basically reviled until I saw comments about it over at TOC. For me, it remains one of the greatest Fantasy movies of all time. Everything that has come since has been overly-long, or overly-dumb, while Willow is pretty much perfectly paced, has a great mix of action and comedy, and great costume design. It suffers a bit from landing in that weird time where they were just starting to try out digital effects, but the movie as a whole holds up incredibly ell. (I used to think I loved Lady Hawke, but having watched it again as an adult, I can attest that it is unmitigated crap.) Ladyhawke also has the most hilariously awful soundtrack of all time, courtesy of Alan Parsons Project.
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Post by starforge on May 25, 2016 14:37:29 GMT -5
I find the Matrix, and indeed the entire Wachowskis catalog kind of repulsive. They set out for such lofty goals with nearly every film, which is admirable, but the final effort feels so forced and superficial and mediocre.
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Post by ganews on May 25, 2016 15:15:12 GMT -5
Big Fish is a great movie, in the top half of Tim Burton.
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Post by Squanchy on May 25, 2016 15:30:58 GMT -5
Raising Arizona is my favorite Coen brothers film and I like all of the Coen Bros movies.
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repulsionist
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Post by repulsionist on May 25, 2016 15:42:18 GMT -5
More Cult and Underground Film Unpopular Opinion....
Joe Coleman was more fun in the 80s and 90s than G.G. Allin. Doris Wishman is objectively a better filmmaker than Ted V. Mikels. Frank Henenlotter's best film is Frankenhooker.
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Post by firstbasemanwho on May 25, 2016 16:19:21 GMT -5
Raising Arizona is my favorite Coen brothers film and I like all of the Coen Bros movies. I'll go one further and say I like O Brother, Where Art Thou? the best of their movies. I generally like the "funny" Coen bros. films over the "serious" ones. ( Fargo is great because it combines them both.)
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on May 25, 2016 17:57:52 GMT -5
Raising Arizona is my favorite Coen brothers film and I like all of the Coen Bros movies. I'll go one further and say I like O Brother, Where Art Thou? the best of their movies. I generally like the "funny" Coen bros. films over the "serious" ones. ( Fargo is great because it combines them both.) ... ... ... Intolerable Cruelty is my favorite Coen bros. movie
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on May 25, 2016 18:04:37 GMT -5
Big Fish is a great movie, in the top half of Tim Burton. How great an achievement is "in the top half of Tim Burton", really, though?
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on May 25, 2016 18:07:46 GMT -5
I think everything that Christopher Nolan has directed has ranged from very good to excellent, with the exception of the mediocre and predictable Interstellar. As far as his maligned post-Prestige output goes, Inception is an excellent movie, and the fact that it's unrealistic matters about as much as it matters that Star Wars is unrealistic. TDK is a great superhero film improved by an excellent performance from Heath Ledger. TDKR is still a very good superhero film, imo. Who cares if there's plot holes? If not having plot holes/everything making sense were a prerequisite to a superhero film being good, then the original Superman movie would be one of the worst films of all times, because spinning the earth backwards doesn't make everything go back in time, and is completely idiotic even in a fictional universe about some fucking immortal asshole who can fly and shoot lasers from his eyes and shit like that. Who cares if Nolan's Batman trilogy is not as "fun" as the output of the MCU? It's a little self-serious and in that self-seriousness is probably going to look pretty dated in twenty years time, but lots of movies held up as good are dated. I'd so much rather re-watch TDKR than have to look at Ryan Reynolds in his fucking Deadpool mask ever again.
Also, I'm not sure if this is an unpopular opinion or not, but Deadpool is truly an awful, unfunny movie. If you want to learn a lesson about the unfulfilling shallowness of approaching everything from a viewpoint of detached irony, there's no need to spend a month of your life painstakingly working your way through Infinite Jest, because Deadpool does the same thing in about an hour and a half.
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2016 18:18:39 GMT -5
I think The Darjeeling Limited and Return of the Jedi are both totally fucking rad. best use of the kinks in a movie
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2016 18:20:24 GMT -5
"Films" and "Cinema" are bullshit. "Movies" are where it's at. Things like Michael Bay's Transformer movies are better more enjoyable than something like Boyhood. I like my low culture to be low goddamn it. While I don't think I'm quite as worked up about this as you are, I do think there is too much focus on whether films are important or re-watchable enough to enter the canon of THE GREAT MOVIES when deeming them good or bad. Did you fucking enjoy Inception when you watched it in the theater? Then it was a good movie, I don't think it particularly matters if it 'held up' after everyone discussed it to death. I liked seeing in inception in theater but am bored on rewatchs, not discussions. Speaking of unpopular opinions, prestige is Nolan's only great movie.
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