This week the best looking writing team on the internet is asked the question of which beloved film can you just not get behind. There’s a few surprising answers.
Aidan Myles Green: THE BIG LEBOWSKI. Now I know what it feels like when I tell people they don’t like DRIVE because they “simply don’t get it” – that is all anyone ever says to me when I express my disdain and flat-out confusion toward THE BIG LEBOWSKI.
Is it funny? At parts. Well-acted? Sure. Quotable? I guess. But narratively coherent, even in a “quirky” way? No!
Since when does quotability mean a film is charming enough to be considered “good”? By that rationale, screw me, Mr. Freeze makes BATMAN & ROBIN a masterpiece.
Derek Ciapala: Old School. I don’t know why everyone else seems to have loved it, but I just didn’t find it all that funny. Will Ferrell is probably what did it for me. He stopped being funny a long, long time ago – at least to me.
Derick ‘d-rock’ Dotson: DRIVE – Yes, I know how beloved it is. Yes, I understand it is an arthouse film. I still have this overwhelming sense of aggravation every time I watch it. Most people praise it because the director cut out almost 85% of the dialogue in the screenplay, which did nothing for me except make every other scene feel like an awkward pause that you just can’t escape. Almost all scenes that had that weird sense of uncomfortable silence felt like the director just added them for gits and shiggles.
The soundtrack is badass though, and so is the overall style and cinematography of the film. Plus, Albert Brooks quite possibly gave his best performance ever as the antagonist.
At the end of the day though, Drive just pisses me off and I can’t understand why people adore it except for maybe they have blind love for Nicolas Winding Refn.
Tony Beaulieu: Minority Report has an extremely undeserving 92% on Rotten Tomatoes. The plot is predictable and riddled with plotholes. I hate this movie. Yet everyone acts like its good, like its something other than a steaming pile of dogshit. The only thing that makes me want to throw up more than the unwieldy, tacked-on happy ending is the critical support of this horrible, horrible film.
Jesse Blume: Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. I’ve never liked the Alice in Wonderland story to begin with, and I like Tim Burton’s adaptation even less. I would go into much greater detail about how I dislike this movie, but I honestly don’t remember that much of it. I suppose that’s really the biggest sin a movie or an artist can make.
I remember thinking that the girl they chose to be Alice was not a very good actress. The story was very strange, and I am tired of seeing Johnny Depp play weird characters. He’s too gifted an actor to limit himself by playing the same kind of performance. He does his best work when his best friend isn’t directing him.
The biggest thing I remember from Alice in Wonderland is thinking to myself, “Well, I can’t deny any longer. Tim Burton is just a cheap hack. He just uses the same formula for every movie he makes, with the same people, and serves it to the same audience of his own fans who will accept anything he gives them.”
Brandon Groppi: James Cameron’s Avatar. Yes. I know James Cameron is a brilliant man and director. I have loved all of his other films. But there was so much buzz around Avatar I thought it was the next Star Wars. Then I saw it. I didn’t like it. Granted I saw it in 2-D but should that really matter? Sure the CGI was epic and almost photo realistic at times but does that really matter? A once wise man once said,”The Special Effects are just tools to help tell the story” – George Lucas ( I said ‘once’). And people kept telling me it that it was the CGI and 3D that made it amazing. I guess. It’s not a horrible film. I can tell that James put effort into it and loved working on it. At least we can hope for different material from Mr. Cameron in the future . . .(looks at imdb page and sees Avatar 2 & 3) . . . oh god no.
Rick Tym: I’ve got to go with Titanic. Listen, I’m no hater on the flick or anything, and I did marvel at the special effect clinic put on by James Cameron. And it’s not like I didn’t take to Leonardo DiCaprio or Kate Winslet, or the craziness that is Billy Zane. However, Titanic just didn’t floor me like it did the general movie-going public or the Academy — and I guess that’s where my problem really lies. I still shake my head in disbelief at the fact that Titanic beat out L.A. Confidential for Best Picture in 1997. At least Kim Basinger snagged a well-deserved supporting status, I guess…
Shawn S. Lealos: Insidious. SPOILERS FOLLOW – Horror lovers fell in love with this low budget horror movie, calling it a return to form for the horror genre. I actually liked the movie through the first 2/3 of it, with the atmosphere creepy and the idea that a haunting could follow a family to a new home refreshing. Then the end flushed the entire movie down the toilet. First of all, the demon looked pretty stupid and was too similar to Darth Maul for my taste. That, I could have lived with. However, the entire movie Patrick Wilson’s character was the perfect dad, doing everything he could to protect his wife and son. Hell, he went into his son’s “demon world” to save him. Dad of the Year, right? Then, as he and his son are running from the demon, he sees something and remembers that he had problems as a kid too. So, what does he do? He tells his son to go ahead and try to get away from the demon on his own, because he has something to go check out. He went from trying to save his son, to being self centered and for that I will always hate this movie for betraying the character’s traits that they built up the entire movie. This is the case where an end killed the movie and no one else seems to care.
Caliber Winfield: SCARFACE. Be warned, I sort of went on a tirade.
The greatest gangster film of all time? One can only assume that asinine statement is a work of nepotism, because one of Al Pacino’s relatives HAD to come up with that.
First off there’s Tony, who’s so soft spoken most of the time that you can barely hear him. His best friend Manny who’s literally trying to f*** anything that moves. Seriously, I’ve known guys with more-than-advanced-libidos, but Manny might as well be wearing a NASCAR suit with Viagra plastered all over it, as if he’s shooting it up when no one looks. The skull is the face of Death. Manny’s is the face of date-rape. Then we have Frank, who laughs at EVERYTHING. Like one of those assholes that laugh at their own jokes, just like Two & A Half Men, or The Big Bang Theory. He not only laughs at everything, but he does it like if everyone in a 10 mile radius doesn’t hear him, then he won’t be able to wear cheap leisure suits that show off his chest hair-plugs. Now, what do Tony & Frank have in common? They’re both in love with Elvira! Who wouldn’t?! She never smiles, she never has ANYTHING nice to say, she never enjoys anything, she has the body of a 10 year old boy, and she doesn’t f*** the help. I mean, Oliver Stone may have done a few great pictures, but his writing here was beyond pathetic. How on Earth would anyone dig Elvira? She’s a miserable bitch who does nothing but complain. It’s ludicrous. One of the more ridiculous aspects of the film.
Any gangster picture shows the rise of said gangster, and how things get done. What do we see here? Tony is lucky enough to have Frank take him under his wing. Teach him the game. Show him the ropes, and what does Tony do? He makes deals behind his back and tries to f*** Frank’s woman. Well, why wouldn’t Frank try and kill him then? That goes wrong, Tony kills Frank, then what? Just as Tony gets on top we don’t get to see anything cool. We don’t get to see where he gets his coke, how he gets it, none of it. We get the montage, and that’s it. Then the film just drags on, and on, as nothing too interesting happens. With films like Blow, Goodfellas, or Casino, something is happening all the damn time. Constantly drawing you in. What do we get? Tony and his weird, weird obsession with his sister. Something truly incestuous. I mean, why won’t you just let your sister f*** some dude in a club bathroom stall? It’s classy.
An important part of a movie is the music. Scarface, has hands done, one of the worst soundtracks and scores ever. Hell, can we even call it a score? When it’s not an actual song, any music we hear is this really loud, one note-snyth being played. It’s f****** terrible. I love 80′s music, but they chose the absolute worse tunes of the decade that they could find. Now of course the classic song is “Push It To The Limit” set to the montage of Tony’s uprising, and that song only kicks ass because of how corny it is. South Park did it true justice.
I could go on, but I think you get the point. Booo to Scarface.
