It's Not You, It's Me - Movies I Can't Connect With
- The Big Sleep (OK, defend the movie's confusing plot by saying the plot doesn't really matter, it's about the suspense, the dialogue, the chemistry between Bacall and Bogart. I'd rather watch a movie with a plot I can follow, thank you very much. Like "To Have and Have Not", which also features suspense, fantastic dialogue, chemistry between Bacall and Bogart - but also has a great plot.)
- Birth of a Nation (Wow! What masterful, innovative techniques Griffith uses in this movie! How much he influenced cinema with his camera angles! And what a boring, racist, boring, overlong, and boring film!)
- Blade Runner (What separates this movie from every other science fiction movie? OK, it looks nice, but so does Star Wars Episode 2. OK, it influenced many scifi movies to follow, but does that mean the movie itself is great?)
- Born Yesterday (From my AFI 100 Laughs commentary. Should probably watch again.)
- Bull Durham (I guess I didn't really care about the characters.)
- Cat Ballou (See "Born Yesterday.")
- The French Connection (Yeah, Jim. *high five*)
- From Here to Eternity (I watched this only a few months ago, but today, I couldn't tell you what the plot was. Should probably watch it again.)
- Holiday (Didn't really pay attention, couldn't focus on it. It went in one eye and out the other. I'm not sure if I should watch it again.)
- The Hustler (Did I miss something here? Sure, the first half hour or so of pool-playing is awesome, but then the movie slips into boredom.)
- The Leopard (Boooooring.)
- The Magnificent Ambersons (Great, not favorite.)
- Manhattan (I really don't agree that this movie is great. The visuals are so boring, the characters are unlikeable. OK, the dialogue is cool, but for great dialogue, go to any other Woody Allen movie. Still, other people think it's great, so it's here.)
- Mr. Hulot's Holiday (I've heard this film called hilarious, but the gags are so sparse, and some of them go on waaaay too long. I love silent comedy, but I'll stick to Keaton, Chaplin, and Lloyd, thank you very much.)
- On the Waterfront (I should probably watch this again. I didn't really pay attention. Hell, I couldn't tell you the plot of this movie five minutes after I finished it.)
- Out of the Past (I WILL watch this again. I promise.)
- Raging Bull (see review)
- The Searchers (I lost track of what was going on somewhere in the middle there. Should probably watch it again.)
- Stage Door (Boring and hard to follow.)
- The Thin Man (Jim, I promise I WILL watch this again sometime and see if I can find more to laugh at.)
- Wild Strawberries (This kind of foreign film has been praised to high heaven by critics, mainly foreign critics. The visuals are brilliant, the style is amazing and abstract. But it's the abstractness that makes it less accessible to the average viewer like myself. I'd like to see someone make a list of classic abstract foreign films and classic straight-narrative foreign films.)
I feel cleansed. I couldn't keep this bottled up any longer.
This is a list of movies that many people think are great. For the most part, I don't deny their greatness; however, I couldn't personally connect with or focus on these movies for whatever the reason. Many of them bored me. Sure, go ahead, make fun of my generation's puny attention span.
This is another reason why I feel the need to separate best from favorite. I realize that most of these movies are great movies, and if I didn't like them, it's my problem. You know the old breakup speech - "It's not you, it's me."
Someday, maybe I'll rewatch some of these movies, and maybe I'll like them better. But for now, they remain on this list.
And if anyone else wants to make confessions like mine to make me feel better, you're more than welcome.
The Big Sleep: Yeah AJ, *high five* (it's on my 2001 list)
Birth of a Nation: In my rental queue, and I'll leave it there, but I'm looking forward to it a bit less.
Blade Runner: I haven't seen this in quite a while, but I'm thinking Bertie is your man for answering this. Bertie, you listening?
Bull Durham: Not much will help if you couldn't get into the characters, but I loved this one.
The French Connection: :-)
The Hustler: Paul Newman is my favorite actor, bar none. But I haven't seen this movie since I was a teenager myself, and at the time it bored me too. I really must see it again. Adding it to my Netflix queue now...
The Searchers: Pretty far down on my Ford/Wayne list too. What others have you seen?
The Thin Man: Please do!
Great list!
The Hustler - Oh yeah, I love Paul Newman. His performances in "Cool Hand Luke", "The Sting", etc. etc. are outstanding. But "The Hustler" is another Newman movie with high acclaim, and I couldn't get into it.
The Searchers - I must admit, I really need to brush up on my Westerns. For John Ford, I've only seen "The Searchers" and "Mister Roberts", the latter of which, of course, is not a Western. For John Wayne, I've only seen "The Searchers" and "Red River", and I liked the latter better. I should really watch "Stagecoach", "Liberty Valance", "My Darling Clementine", "Rio Bravo", "Once Upon a Time in the West", "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly", "A Fistful of Dollars", "For a Few Dollars More", "The Wild Bunch", "Unforgiven", "Shane"......
I've seen all those westerns except My Darling Clementine and Once Upon a Time in the West (which really needs to be released on DVD so I can see it!). As near as I can tell you can't go wrong with any of those, although I saw Shane when I was maybe 10 years old and I didn't care for it then. I bet I'd like it now, and I liked all the others quite a bit.
BLADE RUNNER might be described as 'sf noir'. Most sf is pretty dark, so 'noir' would be pretty much redundant except that Ridley Scott deliberately set out to give us a blend of sf and the 'film noir' style that had its heyday in the 40s. It's a serious film not least because it raises moral issues that might become real in the future: e.g., wouldn't it be wrong to create 'replicants', virtual slaves with artificially brief life-spans? The film's visual and auditory styles are also remarkable. I think these philosophical and artistc qualities are enough to qualify it for the category of great.
Hey! HEY! HEY! Is that a slam of Stage Door with Katherine Hepburn. :?\<---stook waggles his finger.
I agree with you on Birth Of A Nation though. Could that film possibly be any longer, and more racist at the same time. I've heard there are people who like it, but it may be a critical in-joke.
Tallyho
:?)
I didnt like Raging Bull too
I agree with you, I was very disapointed with "Mr. Hulot's Holiday". I really love Buster Keaton, and I heard that the movie was very similar, but I just don't get how. "Mr Hulot" was a good movie, but prehaps I'm a tad bit to American to full enjoy it.
I've heard that Jacques Tati films are only good once you've watched them five times. I don't have the patience for that...
re: Blade Runner, I think it had some of the best sound design I've ever heard in a film. The visuals were also quite stunning, with great set design. The weakest part I think was the story, which I found a little silly, although still interesting enough to watch it all the way through and maybe even watch it a second time. But yeah, I sort of agree with you in that I find it somewhat overrated.