Everybody Loved Them; I Cringed

I loved Tampopo as I love many Food movies, but it doesn't fit the question for me here in that I had no preconception of it before I saw it. *

Another food movie, Babette's Feast, did disappoint me, in that I found it ....... somewhat like watching grass grow, but ..... it wasn't a Cringer by Roberta's criterion.


* Comment to self - "And, besides that osso, you liked it, so it really[/] didn't fit the question."

What a great thread! Let's see...

Ditto on Peter Greenaway (personal thumbs down, I mean). Walked out of "Elephant Man".

And who remembers "Blazing Saddles"? My friends assured me I'd howl. Well, I didn't. Too many jokes about flatulence and punch lines consisting of little old ladies saying four-letter words. That ain't funny, IMHO...

Roberta

I've had the same reaction to almost any "action" film I've ever seen!
Definitely not for me!

I cant believe that no-one has mentioned that pretentious piece of clap 2001 a space odyssey

The Deer Hunter, was that actually about something?

Apocalypse now starring mumbling Marlon the incoherent has been.

and lets not forget the biggest turkey of all, Independance day

It's often been said that the worst film ever was "plan 9 from outer space" compared with the above I think plan 9 was quite good.

I can't be near anything that even suggests John Wayne. There are a lot of political justifications for that but it comes down to the fact that he appears to be soft, with fat thighs.

Go figure... And I'm perfectly capable of falling in love with short fat balding men... I actually got to know Wayne's cameraman once, when he was working on a non-Wayne film, and he had nothing but convincingly good stuff to say about "Duke," but I still think JW gross, just gross.

And nowadays, around here, big soft men driving big pickups always seem to have bumper stickers which say, more or less, "I (heart) John Wayne."

Tartarin

Soft, fat thighs do nothing for me, either.
Wasn't crazy with the politics that went with them, either.
In fact, I can't think of a single attractive thing about JW. (My mother thought he was gorgeous. )

Oh D'art....I grew up in a family of toilet humour lovers, so for the genre, I would have to say that Blazing Saddles was not flawed in any way. In fact, I think it was the last time Mel Brooks was actually funny.

Always loved Polanski's films but found The Apartment very strange & over the top. Found myself laughing at what I presumed to be emotionally raw moments. The rest was So miserable! A bewildering experience & a depressing one!

... waiting for Mr. Lightwizard...



"Blazing Saddles" was fun. Not a classic, but fun.

msolga, I suppose you are talking about "La Locataire" (AKA "The Tenant").
IMO, "Knife in the Water", "What?", "Chinatown", "Tess" and "Rosemary's Baby" are also overrated.
Well, maybe "What?" is not overrated. Most people think it sucks.

OK ... more critically acclaimed movies I couldnt stomach myself ...

Wag the Dog

That was supposed to be a sharp, topical satire, right? I'd already heard about the story line before I went to see it - top Hollywood producer stages "war in Albania" to save president from sex scandal - and I thought it was clever and spot-on. Unfortunately, the movie itself had nothing to add to the clever concept. I was soooo bored! And I remember being so surprised, afterwards, at a satire that had me LOL all of *once* through the entire movie ... Anyone else had that?

Il Postino

Il Postino must have been in the moviehouses for like a *year* here. People *loved* it, lapped it up. So cute! So picturesque! So authentic! But it seemed just fake, oversweet sentimentalism to me.

Idioterne (the Idiots), Lars von Trier

The first Dogma movie that made it big. Was *the* talk of the town. I remember going there with a friend and we were actually angry when we came out! We felt so cheated. What a bullshit-movie - all pretense of innovation and message in its "shocking" style and subject matter - but the style's not all that new, really, and the subject mainly seemed to have been chosen for effect.

Nevertheless, it should be noted: after Idioterne came Festen (by a guy called Vinterberg), the next Dogma film that made it big. And Festen hit home, a breathless confronting gripping shocker of a movie. And before Dogma days von Trier himself made a beautiful movie too, "Europa".

Bertolucci's Stealing Beauty and Antonioni & Wenders' Par Dela les Nuages (Beyond the Clouds).

Those go together. Famous directors - and I'm a great fan of Wenders' work - who've become a bit older and are comfortably settled in their fame. Is that why these movies seemed so lazy?

Put a pretty girl (or different pretty women) in there and focus the camera a lot on that, add (Italian, Tuscan) settings that will strike the German/British/American snob viewers as classily exotic, have protagonists thoughtfully ponder some carefully dosed faux profundities, but don't actually touch anything seriously painful or confronting ... an easy score. Movies for middle-aged intellectuals. Will give them just enough fodder for both intellectual and actual masturbation the evening after ... and will reassure them that, you know, there's young beauties out there who'll consider them ever so interesting, when they stroke their chin and mutter about art, and life ...

Ah - you're talking about Polanski. That's funny, I'd just been writing this next "installment"!

Polanski's Bitter Moon and Angelopolous' Ulysses' Gaze.

I may just not like Polanski, I don't know, I havent seen anything else by him, but Bitter Moon was just a lousy movie, I thought! I mean, I didnt like the story, it didnt speak to me, but that could just be me. But it was so badly acted! Especially the first part, where they were still supposed to be all happy and in love, it was sooo cheesy and unbelievable. The director noticeably felt more in his element once things started going wrong, but even then I thought there was way too much hot air and unconvincing acting.

From Angelopolous I saw the most beautiful movie on TV once, about a Greek and Albanian village on opposing sides of a (border) river. The Suspended Step of the Stork, that's it (I looked it up). Such beautiful shots, such a vulnerable, moody movie. Now Ulysses' Gaze, which was in the art house cinemas here forever, has beautiful shots too. It follows the protagonist on a reflective travel-book-commentary kind of odissey across the Balkans. A shot of a statue of Lenin passing by on a boat, being carted off somewhere in the mist, for example was memorable. I also remember an interesting scene in Romania, where there is some reflection on a family's interbellum history.

But Harvey Keitel - an annoying actor in any role - in the lead was totally miscast, and seemed like somebody faking the role throughout the movie. And the longer the (three-hour) movie lasts the more the Balkanist cliches that are vented about South-East Europe as if they were great relevations get on your nerves. The film overstretches itself, trying to say too much but ending up basically reflecting a kind of pretentious outsiders' exoticism. Perhaps by a director from Romania or Yugoslavia rather than Greece (Markovic or Kusturica or something), and with a local cast rather than Keitel looking like a lost American tourist, this kind of movie could have been done so much better.

(I described the really good movies I've seen from/about the region in another post here, there's some good alternatives to see among those!)

fbaezer

Yes, of course - The Tenant it was. Becoming decidely odd & taking on the previous tentant's personality & appearance in an apartment in Paris.

We tend to agree, nimh, but not always.

"Wag the dog" is politically frail, oportunistic, and not funny.
A much deeper critique is done in "Primary Colors".

"Stealing Beauty" is one of the few movies I haven't been able to go through. "Carefully dosed faux profundities", wrote nimh. That sums it.

I liked "Il Postino". I would have loved the film, were it not for the sentimental ending. My eyes got teary, but I was angry: "these damned opportunists are manipulating me, and I fell for it".

So I took John Wayne's blood once...

I dunno if that is unethical to mention at this late date.

Aside from that the only film I liked him in, and I was young at the time when I saw it, was The Quiet Man. I don't know if I could stand that movie now.

Il Postino, finally a movie I can say I thought I would like and didn't. I am rather keen on Philippe Noiret as an actor but that didn't matter in this case, I am unhappy watching taffy form (although I too can watch grass grow, sometimes). I am remembering that actor who played the postman died after the filming and was ill during it, which may or may not have affected the pace. I didn't dislike it because it was "just a vignette" as I don't mind vignettes. But this was, to me, a concocted frozen vignette.

Does anyone here remember The Loves of Dobie Gillis, a tv show? Remember Maynard G. Krebbs and his reaction to the word "work." That loud, barking, horror-filled reaction. That's my reaction to Eric Rohmer. Rohmer!!!! So much talk of such little substance. Makes my eyes glaze over. In fact, when I saw Claire's Knee way back when, I was turned off to French films for a long while.

Some folks here have mentioned directors I'm not familiar with. Since my vcr gave up the ghost, I'm at the mercy of whatever appears on tv. Sigh. So I can't do any catching up.

Polanski? Some good films. Some not so good. Which is the way it is for most directors.

I'm glad that someone brought up 2001, a Space Odyssey. I liked the beginning with the apes. I liked the look. I even liked the middle with Hal the computer. But the end was so cryptic, so, dare I say, pretentious that the whole movie fell apart for me. I left the theater feeling cheated--and mystified. I'm a great admirer of Kubrick, but Stanley went a bit over the top of this one. BTW, he and I went to the same high school. He preceded me by a few years.

And how about Jules & Jim?
I saw it at a "classics" night (after reading rave reviews) only to find it to be so dated! Here was I prepared to do my respectful/adoring Truffaut thing, but the audience was rolling on the floor with laughter!

I loved "Dobie Gillis"--and Maynard. As for Rohmer, I liked him during my Film Society days at college, but the last time I saw one of his films, it fell flat for me...

Ditto on "2001". But "Clockwork Orange," which was dissed by several people earlier (you know who are) is fantastic. And the novel is worth reading, too. That violence was relevant to the theme, folks. At least I thought it was!

D'Art, I agree with you about A Clockwork Orange. I thought it was a fine film. The violence was integral to the entire story. It was staged to look almost balletic. (Is that a word? Too lazy to look it up.)

ssssshhhhh, don't tell, but I didn't like Truffaut's Day for Night, ( I don't like movies about movies about movies like I don't like writers writing about writers writing, plus I never really related, for some reason, to Truffaut's alter ego, Jean Pierre Leaud. But that is all personal taste.)

On Claire's Knee, I remember a feeling of deep ennui as I left the theater, and I had expected to like it, from reviews, but there were other french movies in my life to make up for it. Not sure of the timing, relative to when they appeared in theaters or my oldies theater, but I liked a few of the early Gerard Depardieu/Patrick deWaare movies for liveliness. Or another quiet one, The Clockmaker. I think that was one of the earlier french movies I saw (think it was french, suppose I could be wrong); I was very receptive to that one.

Oh, osso, Day For Night remains one of my all time favourites! Sorry you didn't like it.
But I do know what you mean about Jean Pierre Leaud. He can be very irritating & self indulgent & maddening!