For me the first thing that comes to mind is Tales from Earthsea. I don’t think it’s excellent or anything and has plenty of problems but people act like it killed their dog. While it has its problems that have been covered extensively, I think it has a beautiful atmosphere and art.
IMO it would have been better received if it wasn’t advertised as an Earthsea adaptation and was just its own thing.
Absolutely awful, atrocious, lazy cinema. It had a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes. When they do the whole under the sea scene, none of the sounds align with anything happening on screen. The plot was garbo. They’ve got a whole song dedicated to the cruelty of eating fish as if fish never eat any fish, and then that’s still not as bad as the fucking “scuttlebutt” song.
Wait, really? I thought it was pretty universally hated. I wonder if critics gave it good scores for fear of being lumped in with the idiots who were pissed with Ariel being played by a black woman.
The 94% is an “audience score”. The only way I can rationalize it is they used a bot network, but I’ve got no proof. Maybe just a bunch of parents who took their kids rated it highly? 10,000 of them.
Yeah, of course not lol. It was actually 20,000 children ages 5-11, because each review was written by two kids in a big coat to get past the bot filters.
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills regarding The Fifth Element for this exact same phenomena. I watched it for the first time a few years back and it…just isn’t good? But people absolutely rave about it. I don’t know if I’m missing something or if people are just too blinded by nostalgia glasses. But the CGI doesn’t hold up, I found all the characters annoying, and the plot felt really basic and random. Someone’s probably mailing me anthrax now just for saying this.
That’s how I feel about 2001 a space Odyssey. I’m sure it was amazing for it’s time, but it’s so dry and boring. I wouldn’t recommend anyone to torture themselves watching it. I know tons of people love it, I just don’t get it.
Yup I watched this for the first time recently as well, it’s in the top 50 films ever made yet I don’t know a single person that actually thinks it’s a good film.
It’s unusual in that it requires a bit of extra work to really appreciate how absurdly rich and deep that one is. It’s honestly fascinating. And it looks like it was made 30 years ago, which is an absolutely monumental achievement considering it was made over 50 years ago.
Though I can of course completely understand it when people don’t want to have to read books and listen to Ted talks about a movie to figure it out.
2001 is definitely what I call a watch once film. It’s worth watching based on it’s artistic merits, and appreciating the groundbreaking for it’s time practical cinematography. But the film is definitely super dry, and not quite entertaining. When the intermission comes on, actually take a break and talk with someone or refresh yourself. The ending is also kind of nonsense taken at face value, it’s a film to be discussed, not really enjoyed.
For those reasons I say it’s worth a watch, only really once.
Ah, that’s one of my favorites. It’s just so sincere and fun. It’s definitely unrefined, like a student film that somehow got a massive budget, but that is part of its charm.
Yeah, I can see how watching The Fifth Element now compared to 1997 would be a pretty bad experience. At the time a lot of the concepts in the film were new and edgy to the wider audience, but now that we’ve got the internet we see way more obscene stuff on the daily.
It’s kind of like how the Rocky Horror Picture Show was a musical about being deathly afraid of satanist transvestites in 1973, but nowadays it plays off as more of a parody.
It was pretty uniformly popular in France, but elsewhere it did rather split opinion. Critics were not kind to it then either, but considering it was originally a teenage pet project of Besson’s but later got concept art from Mézières and Moebius explains a lot.
Counterpoint, nobody watched it for the CGI. The characters only seem annoying now because they were over the top then and moved the goal posts for that over the course of a generation of being repeatedly aired on broadcast television and cable. The plot seems basic now because so many sci-fi movies afterwards we’re influenced in some way by it. The 5th Element is a fun bombastic sci-fi romp and you’re taking it way to seriously to enjoy it the way everyone that does enjoy it will do. But, you do you. I’m not telling you you’re wrong. Sometimes entertainment endeavors fail us, sometimes we fail to enjoy entertainment on its terms because of our predispositions.
Aw man, I rewatched that for the first time in a long time a while ago and it did not hold up nearly as well as I was hoping. I was absolutely crushed.
Yep. That was such a good movie. I think that was my point of transition from happy all the time kids movies to serious stuff. I need to watch it again.
For me, Titan AE was the first Mandela effect. I clearly remember teaser trailers years before its release with a totally different art style. It looked like really good anime. Then once it dropped it was this weird amalgamation of Disney’s Pocahontas and Fox The Simpsons. Still feels like a fever dream.
As I understand it, a couple hundred staff were laid off at the beginning of its final year of production. So a lot of the movie got outsourced instead of made by the people who started the film and did the trailers. Also, more than half the budget was spent before it went into full production. This may partially account for that bizarre discrepancy we had as kids looking at the trailer then seeing the full film.
I liked Thor Love and Thunder, something I’ve been clowned on for every time I say it lol. I get why a lot of people hate it but it was enjoyable to me.
It’s a story about fatherhood. I like stories about fatherhood. God Of War is pretty great. It’s also a story about Thor becoming worthy not just to be the prince of Asgard, but its king, by exploring his tender side. I guess a lot of people complained that Thor used the Thorforce to give other people the power of Thor, but that’s literally what Odin did in the first movie back when it was called the Odinforce. It symbolises that Thor has finally become the equal of his father, following in his footsteps while learning from his mistakes. Thor is finally ready to stop being someone’s son and to finally grow up, while at the same time becoming somebody’s father. Thor’s defeat of the god slayer not through violence but through nurturing empathy, is a symbolic victory over the flaws of his father, representing that Thor will be a better god and a better king.
I see Thor 4 as a shining example of positive masculinity. It directly answers the question: “What is a man, if a woman becomes his equal?” The answer is “himself.” And as cheesy as that may be, it’s true.
Rotten tomatoes is rotten itself. Half the professional critics there have been bought and paid for. So many movies have a critics score of 20 and an audience score of 90, or vice versa. It’s just a sad place, don’t go there
I just watch content creators or reviewers whose taste matches with mine and check their recommendations first. Otherwise check 2 or 3 positive and negative reviews in imdb, rt, Google. You can roughly tell who are shills, trolls or giving valid criticisms.
Why do you need anyone or any site telling you what you like and what not? Just watch the movies. Be your own judge and executioner.
I have a letterboxed acc, just for tracking purposes. Most reviews on letterboxd are reddit style “funny” “jokes”, so no point in reading those either. Just go by genre, director, etc. and have fun. I do sometimes check the lists on there tho.
I might have worded it clumsily… I don’t think anyone should watch ALL movies or not to look up stuff.
I think it’s important to learn to choose your media without outside help and/or manipulation (ads, paid reviews etc.). I do look for reviews when it comes to video games, since I don’t know many people IRL who play much.
You are afraid to waste time on a movie you might find bad? How will you know if a movie is good if you never seen a bad movie?
It’s perfectly OK to watch random movies. Be adventurous, it’s art after all. If you only watch popular movies you’ll never find your niche, something that fulfills your art/entertainment needs.
I agree with this sentiment. I’ll watch literally any movie that catches my eye. If it’s good, I’m happy. If it’s bad, my taste develops and I’m happy. If it’s really bad, I’m having a uniquely great time shitting on an awful movie. The experience is nothing but wins in my book.
It’s just that time is precious, and other activities can take precedence for some. So after having wasted enough time on bad movies or series, and with this huge amount of movies some kind of prefilter makes sense (for me e.g. a rather high imdb score which I’m often agreeing with)
I’ve seen plenty of bad movies, I’m just old and would rather not waste my remaining time on any more of them. Right now my routine is to see what’s available on the services I have, then read reviews on IMDb before watching anything. I tend not to watch popular movies which is why I look them up to get an idea if it’s something I think I’d like.
Obviously nothing wrong with that but I personally think it’s important to distinguish between “It’s good because it’s a bunch of moving pixels and it’s not terrible, and I’m lazy and have nothing else to do” and “it’s so good I thought about it for weeks after watching it”
I would call the first example mediocre at best even if I technically enjoyed watching it that time.
well in both cases, it affected me positively right?
i want a smart thinking movie, after finishing it i still think of it days or weeks after. I got what I want.
i’m bored,i want a dumb fun flick, after watching it, gosh time flew by and i was surprised i didn’t notice the time fly by. also i was entertained. I got what i want.
i want something to make me laugh, i watch a move and laughed. i got what i want.
all of these are good to me, i dont care if its dumb or not an artsy fartsy movie, i dont care if it’s a masterpiece. the most important thing is i got what i want. and that to me is good.
I really enjoyed Oppenheimer and I’d say it’s highly rated because it is good and lots of people enjoyed it, however nothing can please everyone and there’s nothing wrong with that. You not enjoying the popular thing doesn’t make it bad.
watching oppenheimer felt like watching a 3 hour compilation of trailers for oppenheimer. everything was so dramatic, there was no downtime, and they always had some kind of music playing. it felt like every scene wasn’t allowed to last more than 5 minutes
Agree with you on that. Many of the “oscar bait” movies are not that great for just watching. For instance, “the Revenant” was not a great picture in my opinion.
What probably elevates them is watching for all the minutiae in the acting and really focussing on the actors instead of the greater picture. However, I think great moments have to be earned through screemwriting. A great example is “the Wire”. Lives caught short, loves truly lost, and a realisation you are just part of a greater machine. These are all earned moments of pure emotion that films often do not get because of their tight focus. I do not mean to encourage film makers to lengthen their movies, please for the love of god, your movies are lengthy enough.
Reviews after the 2010s or so get increasingly more untrustworthy, because studios realized that box office returns rely on these ratings now. So now paid reviews and bot ratings become much more important for a newly released movie.
Another prime example: the newer avatar has a higher rating than the first.
That’s why i like to depend on reddit for reviews because you can see different opinions of people and see how many agree with them , look at the down votes which bots and shills do tend to get etc. granted it may not be dependable soon the way bots are growing and i’m hoping lemmy will be big enough by then as its a lot more hard for bots to get in here and continue to exist than on reddit due to the filling an application and better moderation etc.
Not animated, but since you’ve hit the frontpage and everyone else seems to be ignoring that…
1994’s Street Fighter. It’s terrible, but Raul Julia hams his way out of the screen for you. It’s Street Fighter: The Pantomime, and it’s glorious.
Between that, Tim Curry in The Three Musketeers, and Alan Rickman in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, I can’t decide which of them was best at saving a mediocre cocaine fuelled movie by playing a panto villain in the midst of undeserved po-faced seriousness.
Robin hood was a massive movie in my childhood. The kid across the road had the whole set of toys, didn’t even know they were just.unsold star wars figures
Not animated, but since you’ve hit the frontpage and everyone else seems to be ignoring that…
Haha yeah. I initially thought about doing something about it but by the time I noticed, there was already a decent amount of discussion happening so I left it. And then it blew up like crazy while I was asleep.
Anything fourth wave Marvel, people were done after infinity wars and just shit on anything since because it's too much nerddom on their systems. I still loved she-hulk but people didn't.
Secret Invasion had me close to hanging up my MCU fan hat. The Marvels is the first movie I didn’t catch in the theater, but then I watched it on streaming and it really reminded me why I love the franchise so much. It’s got its pacing issues and the first 30 minutes are clearly the swiss cheese left after some heavy revisions, but it’s just so fucking fun, and Iman Vellani is goddamn delightful.
X-Men '97 manages to hit all the good nostalgia notes from the old TV series while getting me excited for what comes next, and I’m going back and re-watching Agents of SHIELD now. I thought I remembered Season 1 being kinda humdrum before the Hydra twist, but it’s fun seeing all of Ward’s plot beats knowing what is coming.
A superhero for whom there’s more than one person in their head. Bruce Banner and the Hulk are a plural system, and so are Steven Grant, Marc Spector, and Jake Lockley. Although Banner and Hulk have integrated into a single personality by the time of Endgame. In She Hulk, Bruce is actually really surprised that Jen isn’t plural. I guess in the MCU he hasn’t realised that his plurality is caused by being beaten by his father like in the comics. He thinks his plurality is caused by gamma radiation up until Jen turns into a hulk but isn’t plural.
Moon Knight’s arc dealing with a fictive alter is great, but I’d be even happier with the MCU’s handling of plurality if there were an endogenic superhero. An endogenic system is one that wasn’t formed by trauma. A lot of people in the plural community, called sysmedicalists, think plurality can only be a mental disorder. I’d like it if the MCU was brave enough to include a counterexample to this belief.
She-Hulk was fun for me, but not amazing or anything. Same with Hawkeye. Ms Marvel was just too Gen Z for my millennial ass. Loki was amazing and I’m interested in where Moon Knight is going. Wandavision managed to have almost no rewatch value and Mulitverse of Madness was all over the place. Overall, I feel like the current wave just lacks direction. It’s theoretically building to Kang as the new villain, but it doesn’t really feel like it’s actually going anywhere and they’re still introducing new lead characters, so there hasn’t been much teaming up or plot convergence. There’s been a lot of stuff with a lot of new and returning characters, but it doesn’t feel like we’re anywhere close to a new Avengers movie.
I still can’t tell if Sucker Punch is an ingenious retelling of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest or an excuse to film scantily clad women while pretending you have something serious to say, but it’s certainly fun to watch.
Tbh, from all the shit Snyder has released since. It’s mostly just spectacle for spectacles sake, but I had fun watching it, and the story inside a story inside a story aspect was fun
The Aladdin live action remake was shat on mercilessly by the internet, but I thought it was a fun, true to the spirit of the original while introducing a few new ideas to keep it interesting, and (imo very respectfully) stayed out of Rob William’s lane by not trying to recreate his genie. And Will Smith did a great job with his version.
I agree, but the way they handled Jasmine was pretty sloppy. She had a whole song about not being silenced, which all happened inside her head and she proceeded to have no further impact on the plot.
I feel this same way about most the Disney live action remakes. I thought they were enjoyable blasts from the past (for me) but the internet and critics absolutely hated them which was puzzling. I guess I also have felt the same way about remakes where the actor is a different race than the original lore… Who cares?
“Oh noes, Snow White is no longer a ‘damsel in distress’ being kissed by a random dude while she is… checks notes… Unconscious??? AND the actress is Hispanic??? This ruins my life” - literally conservatives so much so that Disney cancelled it.
I didn’t really follow the online conversations around the movie, but I did watch it and it’s not entirely that long ago since I watched the animated movie either. If I was to try to judge the movie without the context of the orighinal, I’d say it was fine, nothing about it was terrible but I also didn’t find anything about it particularly good or memorable. I think Will Smith did a fine job and I don’t think he’d be anywhere near the top of the list of what I would criticise about the movie in that case.
But I do think context matters, and in context I think it comes out looking pretty poor. Genie as written for the live action movie pales in comparison to the animated one. In terms of craft I think the live action one feels like a soulless board-room directed husk, and I really miss the feeling of a creative voice in the whole thing.
If you’re going to remake something, I it should be better, or enough of a reinterpretation to be considered distinctly different.
I am glad others liked it, but if I someone asked me which they should watch I would tell them the original animated movie because I think it is a better piece of entertainment, and that makes the modern one feel like an absolute waste of time, money, skills and effort that could have been spent so much better.
We LOVED this film, and even convinced our local cinema to have a sing along one night.
The first time we watched it we had to leave the cinema early due to a tornado warning. But we were so pleasantly surprised by what we saw (expected trash after those awful trailers) that we went again. And then again.
My rule is that if the critic score is too high I won’t like it, and the audience score needs to be higher than the critic score and we have a banger on our hands
Hehe yeah, a little worried about watching rock-a-doodle now as an adult, it was great when I was a kid. We knew enough french to get the name pun (chant eclair = sing clearly) at the time and I guess that helped it feel a little more special for us. Not sure if the movie would still hold up from what I remember of it.
I love Van Wilder. The soundtrack is top-notch, it has superstar talent, and quite frankly, it’s basically Deadpool without the superhero stuff. Last I checked it was below 20% on RT.
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