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zombiewhacker
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1475 Posts |
 Posted - 09/05/2005 : 02:49:11 AM
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It's September, summer's over, fall's a-coming, so it's time for another bare-knuckled brawl here on the Jabootu boards:
What do you think are the most overrated movies in film history? Some near the top of my list include Midnight Cowboy and Network, but in the interest of time and brevity I'd rather concentrate my energies on one film in particular whose meteoric success has never ceased to baffle me:
Tootsie
The rundown:
New York actor dons drag disguise to get job on TV soap opera. OK so far.
Actor wins role on TV soap opera even though he's (she's) homely, middle-aged, and a terrible actor to boot. The third part I can allow, but one and two? Uh uh.
Not a single fellow New Yorker in the savvy Big Apple realizes he's in drag. Um... I don't think so. You'd think a TV viewer or two from Greenwich Village might have at least caught on.
Actor goes on to become the star of the show. Did the writers of Tootsie ever watch a real TV soap opera? Any TV soap opera? Even a telenovela would have clued them in. The people who skyrocket to fame on these shows are always the David Hasselhoff/Tom Selleck or Deidre Hall/Meg Ryan types. Yes, MacDonald Carey starred on Days of Our Lives for, like, 40 years, but he most definitely was not the chief draw on that show.
Actor, despite his (um... her) aforementioned ugliness, becomes the first celebrity to land on the cover of Cosmopolitan. In the early '80s, actresses never made the cover of Cosmo, and a mere soap star certainly would not have been the first. And certainly not one so butt ugly. (For the record, I think Joan Rivers was a Cosmo cover girl once. But, jeez, even Joan Rivers would be preferable to this guy... um... girl... thing.)
Despite actor's superstar fame, his personal life is unencumbered, as no one in the celebrity-crazed media has bothered to do any research into his background or even find out where he lives. Self-explanatory.
And so on and so on. Now I know what defenders of Tootsie are going to say: "Come on, it's a comedy! You're not suppose to analyze it and take it seriously." But that's the film's problem. It does take itself seriously. Too seriously. Had the movie been played at the level of Airplane or Monty Python, its flaws could easily be ignored. But Tootsie has loftier ambitions. It doesn't want to be zany, it wants to be profound, like the final season of M*A*S*H. "A man discovers how to be a better man by becoming a woman." Ptttth! Give me the Jehovah stoning sequence from Life of Brian over any scene in this nonsense any day.
What's worse, making the characters intelligent and humanistic only works against what little credibility the film has. Lt. Frank Drebin might easily be fooled by a man in lipstick and a dress, but not Jessica Lange and Dabney Coleman and others, whose characters are too realistic to be so gullible.
Always beware the dreaded Comedy With a Message.
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So what are your picks? Remember, we're not picking Worst Films of All Time (although some overrated films are). Tootsie had some merit; I just don't understand what all the fuss was, nor why the film did such mega-business at the box office. |
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Mr. Blue
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Papua New Guinea
648 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2005 : 03:02:58 AM
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Easy Rider
What the heck was that all about? My (ex-hippie) folks insisted that we watch it together a while back, and ???
Ken's description kept coming to mind: "a wierd, technally inept little film...".
Maybe if I was stoned, I would understand it better.
"Down in the Delta, they say I was a fool for making that deal with the devil, they say I’ve got the hellhounds on my tail. But they also say this: there’s not a bluesman alive who can play the entire first part of Smoke on the Water like Hellbound Dave.
"-Iowahawk |
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Hinda
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Israel
229 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2005 : 04:46:21 AM
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THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE. SEVEN BEAUTIES. ANNIE HALL.
THE GENERAL (l998). |
Edited by - Hinda on 09/08/2005 10:42:25 AM |
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Hinda
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Israel
229 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2005 : 04:56:29 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by zombiewhacker
It's September, summer's over, fall's a-coming, so it's time for another bare-knuckled brawl here on the Jabootu boards:
What do you think are the most overrated movies in film history? Some near the top of my list include Midnight Cowboy and Network, but in the interest of time and brevity I'd rather concentrate my energies on one film in particular whose meteoric success has never ceased to baffle me:
Tootsie
The thing that offended me about TOOTSIE is that the woman all women really want to be is actually a man. |
Edited by - Hinda on 09/05/2005 07:27:28 AM |
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thepanteduffin
Diocesan Ecclesiarch of the Sacred Order of Jabootu
Canada
74 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2005 : 09:07:51 AM
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This is probably going to be a lot of people's pick, but I want to be the first to say it:
Titanic!
It's a good movie and all, but I thought it was too formulaic and saccharine to be regarded with the level awe and respect that it gets. Plus, it did get the whole Titanic craze started, culminating in things like people wanting to get married at the site of the wreck.
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Hinda
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Israel
229 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2005 : 09:30:08 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by thepanteduffin
This is probably going to be a lot of people's pick, but I want to be the first to say it:
Titanic!
It's a good movie and all, but I thought it was too formulaic and saccharine to be regarded with the level awe and respect that it gets.
HOLOCAUST (1978) was the "formulaic and saccharine" CHAMP of all time. And it wasn't even a good movie. |
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Greenhornet
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1791 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2005 : 10:18:51 AM
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An Eighty's version of 1984, It was supposed to be profound (Like the novel) but was dumb and dull (Like the novel). In fact, the novel and much of Orwell's writeings are pretty much half baked.
Close encounters Of the Third Kind, last time I heard, KIDNAPPING was a crime! (And God only knows what they did to them) Sic the Men In Black on those SOBs!
Catch 22, I had to read the novel in Jr High School. Did Heller just send his publisher his charicter notes and they were mistakenly published? Garbage in, garbage out.
"The Queen is testing poisons." CLEOPATRA, 1935 |
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packratshow
Altar Boy of Jabootu
7 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2005 : 11:04:36 AM
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My instant response is always American Beauty.
It's annoying that the only person in the movie with any trace of a soul is a homophobic murderer!
www.packratshow.com
www.destrucity.com |
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Triviachamp
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
254 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2005 : 11:31:10 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by thepanteduffin
This is probably going to be a lot of people's pick, but I want to be the first to say it:
Titanic!
It's a good movie and all, but I thought it was too formulaic and saccharine to be regarded with the level awe and respect that it gets. Plus, it did get the whole Titanic craze started, culminating in things like people wanting to get married at the site of the wreck.
Not to mention poorly written with uninteresting characters and poor dialogue.
Got to agree on American Beauty as well!
I think Fellini and Bergman films are pretty overrated. Oh and most Canadian films are very overrated (i.e. Egoyan). |
Edited by - Triviachamp on 09/05/2005 11:31:48 AM |
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R. Dittmar
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
420 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2005 : 11:52:40 AM
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This has actually come up a couple of times previously on the bulletin board and my response is always the same - The Godfather.
I just don't get what people see in that movie. It is one of only two movies that I've fallen asleep during - right after the horse's head in the bad gag if I remember right. Since that first time I've seen bits and pieces on cable, but nothing that has ever given me the least desire to sit down and watch the whole thing. The mountains of praise that this movie has accumulated simply astonish me. What I've seen of it is nothing but boring low-level melodrama. The only positive that comes to mind is the fact that Al Pacino's performance isn't nearly as obnoxiously foul-mouthed, loud and eye-popping as his more recent ones are. |
Edited by - R. Dittmar on 09/05/2005 11:53:29 AM |
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Prankster
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Canada
727 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2005 : 12:24:45 PM
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Network overrated?!? Yikes. That movie was disturbingly prescient
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Check out my online comics at [URL]http://www.phantasmictales.com[/URL]! |
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Pip
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
333 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2005 : 1:40:59 PM
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Network I think is corny and dated in places but still manages to be "disturbingly prescient" in places.
Midnight Cowboy I never saw.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Got it in one here. Maybe you had to be there at its release.
Titanic: This was a smash and, in a way, became a sort of cult movie for awhile. I saw it six times and never once with a date. It's hard to explain to people here. I love it still despite myself.
Tootsie: I saw this long ago on the tube and enjoyed on an level you might expect a teenager would, at least in places, if I recall correctly. Any 'deep points' they were trying to make went over my head.
American Beauty: I enjoyed this movie. I don't know. People can be good and bad at the same time.
1984: Loved the movie. Loved the book. Love English stuff like that. Rare in that it's overwrought melodrama and starkness that works.
My pick: Pulp Fiction. A curious mixture of senselessness, boredom and unwatchable grotesqueness...yet for about five years after, I knew people that seemed to be able to quote the entire movie with relish. Sort of the Monty Python of its day. (And there's another one.) And, as Ken Almighty noted, it launched a thousand even thinner wannabes.
Of late: Napoleon Dynamite. I'm one of the people that Doesn't Get It. Sorry.
Pip
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Buy the book. You won't be (too) sorry. http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11457.phtml |
Edited by - Pip on 09/05/2005 1:44:59 PM |
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Ubiq
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
347 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2005 : 2:07:25 PM
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To me, it's hard to describe the films listed so far as being truly overrated simply because while acclaimed and popular, they're not universally proclaimed as being the best ever.
No, in my mind, Citizen Kane is the most overrated film ever. It's not even the best film from its calender year, let alone ever. Heck, it's not even Orson Welles' best film as far as I'm concerned.
BM: I should have mentioned this at the beginning. I solve my problems with violence. |
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GalahadPC
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
380 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2005 : 5:37:42 PM
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Bah! You folks really frustrate me sometimes, the way you keep beating me to the punch. My top picks got put up in just the last two posts. But to reiterate:
Pulp Fiction: Never been able to sit through the whole thing. I think I've been able to make it about halfway through, but the fact is I just can't bring myself to care about anyone in that movie, or anything they do. Then again, I've never appreciated the supposed coolness of organized crime, so I guess there's my bias.
Napoleon Dynamite: It doesn't take much to make me laugh, but this movie couldn't pull it off. Even the idiocy of the Three Stooges had a certain rhythm and grace that the slack-jawed, stoned-eyed, catatonic Napoleon couldn't come close to matching.
Citizen Kane: All the directoral flair in the world can't make dull material interesting. You'd think the "greatest film in history" would be worth watching more than once.
EDIT: You know what? There is another film that springs to mind...
Star Wars: I don't think anybody would deny that it was a fun movie, but some people hold it up for the work of art it simply isn't. Solo, Leia and Vader are the only characters worth paying attention to, and the whole affair feels like it was slapped together haphazardly at times. The whole Jedi/Force angle is set up and pretty much leads to nothing except Luke hearing voices telling him what to do at the end. I can't help but feel that pure luck was as much a factor as anything for this becoming the phenomenon it was. |
Edited by - GalahadPC on 09/05/2005 5:44:28 PM |
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2005 : 6:21:52 PM
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American Beauty is near the top of my list. Sheesh, in a year with Toy Story 2, Limbo, and The Straight Story, the Academy, in its infinite wisdom, picks American Beauty for Best Picture. And Kevin Spacey beats Richard Farnsworth for Best Actor. Ugggghhh!!!
Another one near the top: M*A*S*H. I guess I'm one of those who just didn't get it, but I didn't give a damn about a single character here; I've only seen a few episodes of the TV series, but at least I cared what happened next.
The Thin Red Line would have to go in as well. There were some truly great parts to it, and the score is one of the best I've ever heard. But there was plenty of yawn time. Memo to Terrence Malick: when the movie's over, you DON'T spend another forty minutes of characters narrating your, uh, philosophies. Or whatever they were. |
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hbrennan
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Philippines
1455 Posts |
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