'Great' films you just didn't get

[chicago]

Clockwork Orange, but I was fairly young at the time. I'd give it another go now.

 

[Bohemianne]

Pulp Fiction.

 

[Vanillaphant]

Clockwork Orange, but I was fairly young at the time. I'd give it another go now.

101 X better once you've read the book. 😛

I watched it when I was about 20 and quite enjoyed it.

But - and I'm being serious now - I read the novella quite recently and REALLY enjoyed it.

 

[chicago]

101 X better once you've read the book. 😛

I watched it when I was about 20 and quite enjoyed it.

But - and I'm being serious now - I read the novella quite recently and REALLY enjoyed it.

I remember trying to read the book and feeling like it was in a different language... lol But again, I was very young.

 

[Mitchell]

I didnt like "Titanic" when I saw it. Even though I know it won all those Oscars, and yes, the acting by Leo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet was great. It just seemed way too long,, and was too "much", so to speak,

 

[IrvingKrebb]

Clockwork Orange was a tough read but well worth it, and I liked the movie a lot - beautiful and brutal. The book is definitely written in another language and you have to get the hang of reading it, but the movie is much easier to grasp. I found the same thing with Irvine Welsh books, language wise, his are written in Scottish slang.

I thought the idea for The Matrix was good, but I didn't much like the execution.

 

[JJB]

Blair Witch Project sucked too.

Agreed. The Bare Wench Project was so much "better". 😉

 

[Amnesiac]

A Clockwork Orange is a masterpiece, but the film doesn't feel the need to explain the world its taking place in; it just drops you in and expects you to catch up. And, it's good to know ahead of time that it works like Full Metal jacket--it's divided into 2 major segments: Alex pre-incarceration and Alex post-incarceration, and they have different energies so the second half feels a tad slower than the first half.

 

[Vanillaphant]

I'm gonna add another just for the heck of it.

Lost In Translation. Watched it a year or so after its release. I don't remember much about the film itself, just a feeling of my being completely underwhelmed. And also a tad bemused. As I recall, it all seemed a bit - erm - wishy-washy (note the technical term! lol).

Na. Didn't get that one at all, I'm afraid.

 

[chicago]

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Just wtf

 

[knicks255]

Could never get into 2001, West Side Story, or Godfather 2. Which is weird, because I love Godfather 1.

 

[IrvingKrebb]

I Am Legend - I don't understand why they changed the story. It's such a good goddamn story. And World War Z. Why?

 

[TeeHeeLawrence]

Hammer Films had plans to make I AM LEGEND in England in the late '50s from a script by author Richard Matheson, probably directed by Terence Fisher and starring Peter Cushing, fresh from DRACULA. THAT would have been wonderful, but it was a production too expensive at that time for the small studio. Pity, because the book's NEVER been filmed acceptably.<p>
As to the thread topic, it's hard for me to come up with a "great" film I didn't get, because I'll watch ANYTHING. If I can sit through PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE--and more than once!--I can enjoy even the most ponderous of important films.

 

[magic fingers]

I get gaping jaw-drops for this because lots of geeks consider this his best film. I find it to be a mixture of Hitchcock's best craft with his worst indulgences: blondes

What's wrong w/blondes? Personally I love 'em.

My own choice was Vanilla Sky. I don't know if that's considered a classic but it was pure crap, and made 0 sense. To this day I still don't know what the hell it was about. Incredible waste of a top notch cast-Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Penelope Cruz, Kurt Russell

A couple others, that I think are overrated;

Goodfellas
Animal House
Kill Bill(what is Tarantino's fascination w/Uma Thurman? IMHO she's fugly, and has no screen presence)
Inception(couldn't watch it after the first 30-45 minutes)
Diamonds are Forever(easily the worst Connery Bond film of all time)
Star Wars(although some are better than others)
Life of Brian(not half as funny as the Holy Grail)
The Royal Tanenbaums(just like Vanilla Sky. Great cast - Gene Hackman, Ben Stiller, Bill Murray, Angelica Huston, Luke and Owen Wilson but a lame story, and very few laughs for what was billed as a comedy)

 

[magic fingers]

2 more;
The Hangover
Anchorman(and I usually love Will Ferrell and Steve Carell but this movie was more stupid than funny)

 

[Amnesiac]

The Royal Tanenbaums(just like Vanilla Sky. Great cast - Gene Hackman, Ben Stiller, Bill Murray, Angelica Huston, Luke and Owen Wilson but a lame story, and very few laughs for what was billed as a comedy)

The Royal Tenenbaums is a masterpiece, but it's an extremely dry, urbane comedy in a very specific aesthetic vein , which is why hipsters have commandeered Wes Anderson as one of their own.

That said, people went apeshit over Rushmore 3 years earlier (seriously, the critical community would. not. shut. the. fuck. up. about it), and I never understood the appeal. Yes, it gave us back Bill Murray as we know and love him, but it was dull and uninspired to me.

 

[magic fingers]

The Royal Tenenbaums is a masterpiece, but it's an extremely dry, urbane comedy in a very specific aesthetic vein , which is why hipsters have commandeered Wes Anderson as one of their own.

That said, people went apeshit over Rushmore 3 years earlier (seriously, the critical community would. not. shut. the. fuck. up. about it), and I never understood the appeal. Yes, it gave us back Bill Murray as we know and love him, but it was dull and uninspired to me.

Yeah Rushmore was a snoozefest. I remember reading how much the critics loved it, but I don't think I laughed once when I saw it. It seemed like one of those movies that tried to be more hip than funny. It didn't help that the main character was a completely unlikeable obnoxious little punk.

And as long as we're talking Bill Murray, I was never a big fan of "Stripes". It had it's moments but IMHO definitely overrated.

I always thought I was maybe a little too picky when it comes to cinema, as I can only think of a handful of movies that I would consider "masterpieces"

With some films it helps if you see it in an actual movie theatre(Blair Witch for example was quite scary and unnerving in the theatre, but when I saw it again on tape/DVD, it was boring as hell, and even a little hokey)

 

[Realist]

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Just wtf

I loved that movie. It was so bittersweet yet serene.

I did not like Interstellar. Worst Nolan movie yet, I believe. I don't know why it got the ratings it did because it did not meet the standards of Nolan's previous films.

And the Maltese Falcon movie bored me to death. Why it was so highly regarded is beyond me. It wasn't even really a technical masterpiece of its day.

And The Avengers was greatly overrated I believe. Sure, action-wise it was pretty neat but the storyline was dull and generic.

 

[chicago]

And the Maltese Falcon movie bored me to death. Why it was so highly regarded is beyond me. It wasn't even really a technical masterpiece of its day.

Yes, nothing has taken longer than waiting for that movie to end. Felt like it took years.

 

[wolfman40]

I watched Interstellar at the weekend, it was good, but bloody long!

Not the best film I've ever seen given the hype.

I love sci-fi, but my favourite in recent years was the probably much cheaper made Moon..

 

[desdemona]

Yes, nothing has taken longer than waiting for that movie to end. Felt like it took years.

And the Maltese Falcon movie bored me to death. Why it was so highly regarded is beyond me. It wasn't even really a technical masterpiece of its day.

Maltese Falcon. I zoned way the fuck out during that shit.

Classic film noir. Dashiell Hammett was the bomb as a writer in his day (and yes, the book is better, if you like the detective genre).

 

[Amnesiac]

And as long as we're talking Bill Murray, I was never a big fan of "Stripes". It had it's moments but IMHO definitely overrated.

Thank God, I'm not the only one who feels that way. Compared to Caddyshack and Ghostbusters, Stripes is a phone-in job for all involved, although it is nice to see Harold Ramis playing a semi-hip guy.

While we're at it, I never got Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I felt like it tried too hard to be like other films made around the same time and Ferris' plans were almost cartoonish in how they worked and paid off. The musical number in the middle always made me hit fast-forward because it was just bullshit. There were funny moments to be sure, and I like the use of "Yello" as much as any '80s kid, but It seemed like 2 different movies mashed into one so it never felt right.

 

[Druidici]

A Clockwork Orange- I liked the time era plot,but at the end just left me feeling like "Ummm..yeah ok.
Gone With the Wind- *Yawn* Great actors..just too damn long.
Kill Bill vol. 1 & 2- Normally I love Tarantino and I like Thurman but I don't consider it my favorites of his work. A Tarantino take on the old 70's style Chinese kung fu movies. I liked Pulp Fiction & Resevoir Dogs better.

 

[C.A.B.]

Generally if a film is simply too obtuse, badly done, or a snore-fest, I've no qualms about getting up and walking out to find another film. Fortunately, all the tripe that I have walked out weren't worth committing to memory.

 

[Realist]

A Clockwork Orange- I liked the time era plot,but at the end just left me feeling like "Ummm..yeah ok.

I really liked the film. It was a visual masterpiece and always on the err of testing just what content was allowed to be shown on film. I think it's a very political film -- the subject of mind control and conforming to social norms of what is considered moral. I enjoyed the music and the sci-fi feel of the film.

Kill Bill vol. 1 & 2- Normally I love Tarantino and I like Thurman but I don't consider it my favorites of his work.

I also really enjoyed these two as well. It's kind of a ridiculous revenge flick that just fits so well under Tarantino's direction.