How about movies most people love but you hate?
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pittdan77
Athletic Director
I worked at a mental hospital during a couple of my summers at Pitt, oh the stories I could tell.........
Paul Gleason (Principal) is the only worth while performance in the movie. we shall agree to disagree..
I bet no one could have predicted that someone would need to infer racism into any critique of the movie's quality either. White knight all you want, the movie sucked.
OK....I am going to go here. First off a disclaimer. I LOVE Christmas stuff. I am a schlocky fan of Christmas music, the Christmas specials, love A Christmas Carol, Christmas Vacation, Charlie Brown, all of these bad 60's early 70's claymation (Rudolph) christmas specials that I grew up on.
But....a movie I just don't really care for, and people adore is......wait for it.....It's a Wonderful Life.
But....a movie I just don't really care for, and people adore is......wait for it.....It's a Wonderful Life.
Goonies
All the Harry Potter movies
Stand by Me
Sand Lot
There’s a theme here, but I’m not sure what it’s about.
I could never sit through the movie. Like watching paint dry. Then I listened to the unabridged novel on a cross country road trip. It covers all three movies. An absolutely fascinating psychological study. Changed the movie totally once you know what they are thinking.
That movie sucks. I just assumed everyone hated it
Mrs Buffett and make Its A Wonderful Life a Christmas required course.
Plus all the Christmas Music seasonal shows.
I spent 3 years of my legal career as co-counsel for MGM in litigation over the ownership of sequel motion picture rights of Gone With The Wind. Read Margaret Mitchell’s private papers on it (at the University of Georgia), MacMillan & Co.’s files (NY Public Library), David O Selznick’s files (University of Texas) and probably 100,000 other documents. In 1983, I probably knew more about GWTW than anyone else alive.
Don’t believe me? In the first draft of the book, Scarlett’s name was Pansy. Mitchell’s editor, who was a college classmate, wrote her that the publishers wanted it changed because while Pansy was a perfectly acceptable name Down South, it had a different connotation in Yankee country. Mitchell changed it to Scarlett with two ts to make it distinctive.
Yet, I have never been able to sit through the entire movie. I think it is dreadful. The only scene I enjoy is the burning of Atlanta. More Trivia: that scene was filmed before the rest of the movie and was directed by George Cukor. David Selznick invites a lot of celebrities to watch it being shot, and they watched it from bleachers he had constructed. His brother Myron, an agent, brought Sir Laurence Olivier and Olivier’s young wife to watch it. When he introduced Olivier’s wife to his brother, he said “David, this is Vivian Leigh, your Scarlett O’Hara.”
That part hadn’t been cast yet. Every female star in Hollywood wanted it. Paulette Goddard was the leader as of then, but Selznick had two major reservations about her: She was married to Charlie Chaplain, who had fled America to avoid criminal charges, and she was Jewish, which he thought would alienate part of the potential audience. Vivian Leigh, an unknown, got the part.
Don’t believe me? In the first draft of the book, Scarlett’s name was Pansy. Mitchell’s editor, who was a college classmate, wrote her that the publishers wanted it changed because while Pansy was a perfectly acceptable name Down South, it had a different connotation in Yankee country. Mitchell changed it to Scarlett with two ts to make it distinctive.
Yet, I have never been able to sit through the entire movie. I think it is dreadful. The only scene I enjoy is the burning of Atlanta. More Trivia: that scene was filmed before the rest of the movie and was directed by George Cukor. David Selznick invites a lot of celebrities to watch it being shot, and they watched it from bleachers he had constructed. His brother Myron, an agent, brought Sir Laurence Olivier and Olivier’s young wife to watch it. When he introduced Olivier’s wife to his brother, he said “David, this is Vivian Leigh, your Scarlett O’Hara.”
That part hadn’t been cast yet. Every female star in Hollywood wanted it. Paulette Goddard was the leader as of then, but Selznick had two major reservations about her: She was married to Charlie Chaplain, who had fled America to avoid criminal charges, and she was Jewish, which he thought would alienate part of the potential audience. Vivian Leigh, an unknown, got the part.
I know he is easy to pick on Cruise for a number of reason, but I agree- most of his films he is in are pretty good. He is pretty smart about making sure it is a good script with a good director attached and honestly he is a better actor than he gets credit.
He is no Brando... but he also does not ruin films like Ben Affleck or Costner.
THE FIRM is quite a good film that I can watch again and again - of course it was well written and has a very strong supporting cast and Good directing and great use of music.
I genuinely love that movie!As mentioned here and actually reminded me how annoying Tom Cruise really is- any of his movies.
Obviously you've never seen Tropic Thunder--although not really a "Cruise movie".
Ha. I know he is a really nice guy in person, but holy crap can his acting irritate me too sometimes. He’s the same in every film.
That’s pretty much right on target. I think the so-called heyday of Saturday Night Live was actually pretty weak. It became much better by the early 80s with Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy.
This is unrelated but I also think Pittsburgh’s own Dennis Miller was the worst Weekend Update host they have ever had. He is insanely overrated. I also think Norm McDonald was the best Weekend Update host they have ever had — by far.
North Chicago is fine and so is the area around the Chicago River. The rest of Chicago basically sucks. The Navy Pier is as charming as Parkway Center Mall and the Miracle Mile is just a shopping area. I really like Chicagoans – they remind me of Pittsburghers. However, as far as the city itself goes...eh. It’s probably in my top 10 but definitely not my top five for US cities.
I also think most of the movies you listed are overrated and I have never found either Dan Aykroyd or Chevy Chase to be very funny.
And to make matters worse, that’s basically of my time. I’m a little young for that era, but I’m very familiar with it and I just don’t think it’s very good.
I do love 70s music but again, there’s been plenty of great music since then as well.
I just think that most people believe that the music and comedy of their coming of age years is the greatest music and comedy of all-time. I think that’s just human nature.
The reason why that era is considered so strong by so many is because the majority of our population was coming of age then. That’s right in the heart of the baby boomers. They’ve had an outsized impact on the culture and it has led to many great things and some not so great things. I think 70s comedy is by and large incredibly overrated and I think the Blues Brothers is a perfect example of it.
I would still happily have a beer with you but we’d probably be confined to talking about Pitt football.
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I too like The Firm! Fantastic book that jumped the hurdle of also being a really good movie.
Hard to hate on The Club, at least if you were a teenager in the 80s as I was.
Smoke up Johnny!
Lot to debate here but I’ll stick to your thoughts on Chicago. What really makes Chicago great is its neighborhoods. The Mag Mile is a glorified mall but the city is massive and has a great many nooks and crannies that the weekend tourists never make it to. In the summer the city contains miles of Lake Michigan shoreline dedicated to public parkland and beaches that are packed with young well educated professional people. The cultural offerings are first class. The big city parks are fantastic. The demographics and the livability have made it a magnet for young college/grad school grads and it is probably the greatest city to live in for people between the ages of 25-40 as far as the social scene and offerings. You could probably eat at a different restaurant or bar in Chicago every day of your life and die without making it to half of them. It’s a huge city, but unlike NYC, it’s a lot more friendly and manageable.
As far as major US cities go, for me, it’s
(1) San Francisco
(2) Chicago
(3) San Diego
The dropoff is precipitous from there.
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Yes! Hollywood didn’t screw this one up.
I was flipping though the channels tonight and saw it was on... and got sucked in again. Great cast- not a boring scene in the entire film.
I don't know why....I did not like the Firm. It just seemed over the top. I liked a Time For Killing much better as a movie (and book) from Grisham.
