Kelly WandThe 10 Most Overrated Non-Kevin Smith Movies of All Time (to Date)
June 5th 2008 00:36
It's always annoying when a bad movie does really well (which happens almost every week-end). Upon pointing out its blatant flaws to people, instead of refuting them they reply that you're just "being negative." Or that you "can't just enjoy things anymore." Or that you're "nitpicking." Or that you didn't "get it." Or that you're "jealous" (of them presumably, and not the filmmakers, with whom they presumably have no relation or stock in). That's not even the worst part, which is after a few years elapse and then everyone sees the movie again and gradually bit by bit people come to admit that yeah, maybe it was just "good for its time." Or that it was "entertaining" (a lesser form presumably). Or it had "a few good parts." Meantime, the dudes who made these movies are lying on their mattresses of solid gold thinking, "Sigh, I'm an even bigger genius right now than I was when I made that movie everybody paid money to see. Suck it, Einstein!" (They might mean Eisenstein, but they don't need to get the details right, as has been proven.) Well, I have an Internet connection and I'm not going to take it anymore!
Herewith, the top 10 movies I still "don't get," a list doubtless destined to expand vastly before this summer is over:
1. "High Noon." The '50's western version of "24," with "thoughtful" overtones of how lonesome it was to be blacklisted and abandoned by all the townsfolk you've served so faithfully going to all those Communist rallies or whatever event Gary Cooper met Grace Kelly at. Nothing happens in this movie until the gunfight, which especially after all that dithering is pretty perfunctory. What a waste of an awesome title. And wtf, a Hollywood blacklist allegory with a happy ending? At least in the Connery remake "Outland," you get to see a few bodies explode and instead of Grace Kelly, it's Frances Sternhagen.
2. "Crash." The problem with all these characters isn't that they're racist, it's that they're idiots.
3. "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers." Occasionally you meet some rebel who'll tell you this is the best one of the trilogy. It's actually saddled with tons of cheats and bad writing. Aragorn goes over a cliff and everyone thinks he's dead for a day or two. How suspenseful. (Wasn't in the book.) The whole plot revolves around a siege that we never get to see the resolution of; Gandalf just rides down towards the waiting pikes and apparently the Orcs just fold up and die. We don't know, since we're not shown the gory pay-off to this three hour set-up but some hymn music's playing and the sun's shining so battle tactics are irrelevant. In another effort to prolong the "drama" (since the cool stuff with Shelob has been moved to the already busy third movie), Faramir turns out to be a dick (completely undermining the nature of his character in the books), or at least he is until Sam makes a fairly belated, kind of obvious speech to him about his brother that changes his mind -- all after they've trekked hundreds of leagues out of their way and while a Nazgul's attacking the city they're in, or maybe it's just perched on a nearby pediment, listening to Sam's speech checking its watch like the rest of us. And Gandalf's new staff is made of plastic. And Gimli and Aragorn do Matrix kung fu against horse-guards. If it weren't for Andy Serkis' admittedly funny schizophrenia, this movie could've been called "Lord of the Rings: The One Hour."
4. "Spider-Man 2." Why is this considered the "good one"? How many cliches can these bland pale cardboard characters utter? Spider-Man finally prevents Doc Ock from destroying the city (because Ock wants more "power"; i.e., to die in a huge explosion) by reminding him that his dead wife liked poetry? That's satisfying? Really? Spider-Man, in the comics a witty quipster light on his feet, is rendered here as terribly earnest and mopey and Maguirey, and his iconic redheaded firebrand tease love interest Mary-Jane Watson reduced to "the girl" on some billboard. These two are all wrong. The contrived air of tragedy hanging over everything is all wrong. With great budgets come great responsibility.
5. "300." I hate how sanitized and watered-down the brutality of the Spartan society is from the graphic novel, let alone history, how often the word "freedom" is thrown around by these guys who in real life had slaves of their own (helots) that were ritualistically strangled by Spartan youths as a rite of passage. I hate all the self-congratulatory slow motion. I hate that there's never any blood on the ground, ever. I hate how often the "making monuments out of people" motif is recycled, including that Tree of Dead the Persians somehow found time to make on the way to Sparta on the wrong side of the Hot Gates. I hate that you can never tell what's going on in the battle sequences spatially. I hate how Gerard Butler shouts every line, when in the graphic novel his serenity and composure in the face of certain death made him seem more kingly and smarter. I hate that he needs his wife's permission to kick the emissary into the pit. I hate the coincidence of the gold coins being right where Gorgo stabs whatshisface. I hate that there are hardly any older Spartans, these alleged patriarchs all young and gym-sculpted with waxed chests. Actually, maybe reading "Gates of Fire" by Steven Pressfield might've ruined this one for me. This movie made glory trite.
6. "The Sting." Enough with that goddamn song already.
7. "It's A Wonderful Life." No, it's not.
8. "Independence Day." Maybe no one still likes this one; it has been a while. But it led us to "10,000 B.C." so let's stir the ashes one last time. Remember when you could blow up the White House in movies? In "Die Hard 4," you're supposed to be in a panic for a few minutes because Timothy Olyphant shows a video of it blowing up on a TV screen. That digitizing scoundrel. But getting back to "ID: 4," why are aliens in these movies so dumb? Don't they have to be more intelligent than us to have even gotten here? Nevertheless, their "computers" don't have any firewall protection from Jeff Goldblum, they don't use their giant ships to simply squash cities flat, their pilots have no defense against our most crackpotted cropdusters, and their fireballs can't even singe our dogs. Thank God Judd Hirsch's character lived, at least. And the President's wife. And everyone in those RVs who ignore the sight of Will Smith dragging an alien corpse through the desert. Whew!
9. "American Pie." Oh look, it's handsome young boys who want to lose their virginity. This should be spicy. Well, no, it's a wholesome, shmaltzy sex comedy the whole family can watch together. Just what I wanted. Instead of making their dumb bet and sleeping with each other's moms without suffering any consequences, why don't these dudes just buy some whores? Because they need to "learn about themselves." This is what distinguishes movies like this and "Van Wilder" from "Porky's" and the sex comedies of our forefathers; now you have to join glee clubs to get sex in these movies, and it's not even depicted for laughs, it's just "the right thing." In fact, this movie trilogy even ends with the wedding of the two people who hook up in the first one; edgy stuff!
10. "Forrest Gump." I knew only a retard could've come up with "Have a nice day".
Herewith, the top 10 movies I still "don't get," a list doubtless destined to expand vastly before this summer is over:
1. "High Noon." The '50's western version of "24," with "thoughtful" overtones of how lonesome it was to be blacklisted and abandoned by all the townsfolk you've served so faithfully going to all those Communist rallies or whatever event Gary Cooper met Grace Kelly at. Nothing happens in this movie until the gunfight, which especially after all that dithering is pretty perfunctory. What a waste of an awesome title. And wtf, a Hollywood blacklist allegory with a happy ending? At least in the Connery remake "Outland," you get to see a few bodies explode and instead of Grace Kelly, it's Frances Sternhagen.
2. "Crash." The problem with all these characters isn't that they're racist, it's that they're idiots.
3. "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers." Occasionally you meet some rebel who'll tell you this is the best one of the trilogy. It's actually saddled with tons of cheats and bad writing. Aragorn goes over a cliff and everyone thinks he's dead for a day or two. How suspenseful. (Wasn't in the book.) The whole plot revolves around a siege that we never get to see the resolution of; Gandalf just rides down towards the waiting pikes and apparently the Orcs just fold up and die. We don't know, since we're not shown the gory pay-off to this three hour set-up but some hymn music's playing and the sun's shining so battle tactics are irrelevant. In another effort to prolong the "drama" (since the cool stuff with Shelob has been moved to the already busy third movie), Faramir turns out to be a dick (completely undermining the nature of his character in the books), or at least he is until Sam makes a fairly belated, kind of obvious speech to him about his brother that changes his mind -- all after they've trekked hundreds of leagues out of their way and while a Nazgul's attacking the city they're in, or maybe it's just perched on a nearby pediment, listening to Sam's speech checking its watch like the rest of us. And Gandalf's new staff is made of plastic. And Gimli and Aragorn do Matrix kung fu against horse-guards. If it weren't for Andy Serkis' admittedly funny schizophrenia, this movie could've been called "Lord of the Rings: The One Hour."
4. "Spider-Man 2." Why is this considered the "good one"? How many cliches can these bland pale cardboard characters utter? Spider-Man finally prevents Doc Ock from destroying the city (because Ock wants more "power"; i.e., to die in a huge explosion) by reminding him that his dead wife liked poetry? That's satisfying? Really? Spider-Man, in the comics a witty quipster light on his feet, is rendered here as terribly earnest and mopey and Maguirey, and his iconic redheaded firebrand tease love interest Mary-Jane Watson reduced to "the girl" on some billboard. These two are all wrong. The contrived air of tragedy hanging over everything is all wrong. With great budgets come great responsibility.
5. "300." I hate how sanitized and watered-down the brutality of the Spartan society is from the graphic novel, let alone history, how often the word "freedom" is thrown around by these guys who in real life had slaves of their own (helots) that were ritualistically strangled by Spartan youths as a rite of passage. I hate all the self-congratulatory slow motion. I hate that there's never any blood on the ground, ever. I hate how often the "making monuments out of people" motif is recycled, including that Tree of Dead the Persians somehow found time to make on the way to Sparta on the wrong side of the Hot Gates. I hate that you can never tell what's going on in the battle sequences spatially. I hate how Gerard Butler shouts every line, when in the graphic novel his serenity and composure in the face of certain death made him seem more kingly and smarter. I hate that he needs his wife's permission to kick the emissary into the pit. I hate the coincidence of the gold coins being right where Gorgo stabs whatshisface. I hate that there are hardly any older Spartans, these alleged patriarchs all young and gym-sculpted with waxed chests. Actually, maybe reading "Gates of Fire" by Steven Pressfield might've ruined this one for me. This movie made glory trite.
6. "The Sting." Enough with that goddamn song already.
7. "It's A Wonderful Life." No, it's not.
8. "Independence Day." Maybe no one still likes this one; it has been a while. But it led us to "10,000 B.C." so let's stir the ashes one last time. Remember when you could blow up the White House in movies? In "Die Hard 4," you're supposed to be in a panic for a few minutes because Timothy Olyphant shows a video of it blowing up on a TV screen. That digitizing scoundrel. But getting back to "ID: 4," why are aliens in these movies so dumb? Don't they have to be more intelligent than us to have even gotten here? Nevertheless, their "computers" don't have any firewall protection from Jeff Goldblum, they don't use their giant ships to simply squash cities flat, their pilots have no defense against our most crackpotted cropdusters, and their fireballs can't even singe our dogs. Thank God Judd Hirsch's character lived, at least. And the President's wife. And everyone in those RVs who ignore the sight of Will Smith dragging an alien corpse through the desert. Whew!
9. "American Pie." Oh look, it's handsome young boys who want to lose their virginity. This should be spicy. Well, no, it's a wholesome, shmaltzy sex comedy the whole family can watch together. Just what I wanted. Instead of making their dumb bet and sleeping with each other's moms without suffering any consequences, why don't these dudes just buy some whores? Because they need to "learn about themselves." This is what distinguishes movies like this and "Van Wilder" from "Porky's" and the sex comedies of our forefathers; now you have to join glee clubs to get sex in these movies, and it's not even depicted for laughs, it's just "the right thing." In fact, this movie trilogy even ends with the wedding of the two people who hook up in the first one; edgy stuff!
10. "Forrest Gump." I knew only a retard could've come up with "Have a nice day".
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Comment by Morgan Bell
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i like this idea for a list!