Constantly recommended films that you don't rate much

[Urinal Cake]

Blue Velvet
Mulholland Drive is overrated but it's the better film

[greenman]

Moonrise kingdom was just unbearably twee.

[phantom_power]

Subjectively, I agree with you but objectivity, 2001: A Space Odyssey possesses many an artistic quality.

*awaits the inevitable backlash for daring to invoke the words 'subjective' and 'objective'.  After all,
Tommy Wiseau is no less skilled than Stanley Kubrick.  It's entirely subjective, right?*

Is it fair to say that 2001 is a film that it is easier to admire than like?

[Attila]

I think Howj might be pulling a few legs here :)

I liked Fight Club (novel and film); my only beef is that it takes ostensibly takes place in Wilmington, DE, where I have spent a hell of a lot of my life, and nope, god knows where they filmed it (LA and that, I'm guessing), but that weren't Wilmington. (The skyline sequence at the end is particularly annoying in that regard.) Daft, I suppose, but that took me right out of it.

[Povidone]

Almost everyone I've spoken to enjoyed Sicario, I thought it was a lifeless, atonal bore. Just couldn't get into it at all.

[chveik]

The Green Mile

[St_Eddie]

Is it fair to say that 2001 is a film that it is easier to admire than like?

Absolutely.  Objectivity and subjectivity can happily co-exist.  In fact, they make rather fine bedfellows.  2001: A Space Odyssey is an objectively good film.  The direction, cinematography and acting are all objectively above par.  Subjectively, I don't care for it.  Many on CaB will tell me that I'm wrong for saying that but quite frankly, they're wrong-headed, the lot of them.

[greenman]

Almost everyone I've spoken to enjoyed Sicario, I thought it was a lifeless, atonal bore. Just couldn't get into it at all.

I with you there, I mean I enjoyed watching something like Uzak recently so its not an aversion of lengthy mood pieces so much as the film just failed to build one very effectively for me dispite Blunt being pretty good in it.

[Better Midlands]

The Christopher Nolan Batman films. Charmless, lifeless crap. Many hours of my life I'll never get back.


I've never known anyone to ever recommend Love Actually. I always thought the general consensus was it was utter crap. I never massively enjoyed Four Weddings either. Notting Hill was marginally enjoyable but still crap.

I actually really like Hugh Grant and I agree he's got better as he's got older. This is quite an interesting and honest interview about his career. He's spot on about being critical of the fact he took his style of acting from Four Weddings and carried it on into far too many films in the years after it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2YoUbAEFTI&t=664s

High Grant was good in Florence Foster Jenkins with Meryl Streep from 2016, really enjoyed that film.

[Chollis]

I didn't think Casino was that good.

[a duncandisorderly]

the "matrix" flicks, all of them. bobbins.

[Clownbaby]

I really don't enjoy Wes Anderson films. I don't like the stiff, mannered way they're made. The actors always feel over directed to me, like they were made to move as precisely as stop motion figures. I know this is a stylistic choice and everything but I'm not a fan.

[Clownbaby]

the "matrix" flicks, all of them. bobbins.

Same. Another "dizzying concepts of life" bunch of films which I just find to be a pain in the arse

[up_the_hampipe]

Withnail & I. Sorry, didn't find it to be hilariously hysterically brilliant.

[Icehaven]

I thought District 9 was bloody awful, horrible to look at and almost impossible to give a hoot about anyone or anything in it, but it was critically lauded and I've yet to meet anyone else who's seen it and doesn't rate it highly.

I love Donnie Darko too, although I agree it's one of those you need to see when you're still quite young, and it's appeal is going to be limited if you're much past your mid-20s on the first viewing. I still love it now but I doubt I would if I'd first seen it when I was much older than 21.

[a duncandisorderly]

Withnail & I. Sorry, didn't find it to be hilariously hysterically brilliant.

that, 'lebowski' & several others, I use (perhaps unfairly) as a mental yardstick of whether I'm going to be arsed with someone or not, vis a vis their sense of 'humour'. any flick where there are people endlessly laughing at themselves & each other quoting great chunks of it.....

um.... except 'spinal tap'. that's sacred, that is.

[Clownbaby]

I thought District 9 was bloody awful, horrible to look at and almost impossible to give a hoot about anyone or anything in it, but it was critically lauded and I've yet to meet anyone else who's seen it and doesn't rate it highly.

I love Donnie Darko too, although I agree it's one of those you need to see when you're still quite young, and it's appeal is going to be limited if you're much past your mid-20s on the first viewing. I still love it now but I doubt I would if I'd first seen it when I was much older than 21.

I saw Donnie Darko when I was 12 and didn't like it then. It might've been because my mam's friend kept going on about how it was "my kind of thing" even though she'd only met me that same day

[Clownbaby]

that, 'lebowski' & several others, I use (perhaps unfairly) as a mental yardstick of whether I'm going to be arsed with someone or not, vis a vis their sense of 'humour'. any flick where there are people endlessly laughing at themselves & each other quoting great chunks of it.....

um.... except 'spinal tap'. that's sacred, that is.

Same with me and The Princess Bride. I wouldn't actively freeze someone out if they said they really loved it, but it's one of those films that completely doesn't do to me what it seems to have done to so many other people. I was talking to someone about Princess Bride the other day and how I don't really get the appeal. She said "it's just simple 80s humour, nothing about it to misunderstand, you just don't like it cause you're a 90s kid" which is always the laziest generalisation you can make

[Chollis]

I thought District 9 was bloody awful, horrible to look at and almost impossible to give a hoot about anyone or anything in it, but it was critically lauded and I've yet to meet anyone else who's seen it and doesn't rate it highly.

District 9 is indeed wank.

[Clownbaby]

Pacific Rim was boring as hell to me, as are Marvel films. I don't like the Marvel films cause I think they're boring, not because of any "snobbery" or "trying to be different", which is the argument that often gets spat back at me by Marvel fans. Either that or they'll recommend a list of Marvel films that I might actually like, despite me just saying I don't like Marvel films.

[thecuriousorange]

I really don't enjoy Wes Anderson films. I don't like the stiff, mannered way they're made. The actors always feel over directed to me, like they were made to move as precisely as stop motion figures. I know this is a stylistic choice and everything but I'm not a fan.

I hate how every single actor choice feels like wink-at-the-audience cameo.

[Clownbaby]

I hate how every single actor choice feels like wink-at-the-audience cameo.

YES

[Clownbaby]

Yeah I was a teenager when Fight Club and Donnie Darko came out, and I loved them, but looking back I think I didn't actually get that Fight Club was taking the piss out of that sort of trendy Gen X nihilism, while as mentioned above Donnie Darko seems very wan when you've seen anything by David Lynch - and the 'director's cut' only went to prove that the enigmatic structure of that film was sort of an accident.

Fight Club holds a place in my heart as its the first 18-cert film I saw in a cinema, and I was only 15 too so it felt good and rebellious just getting in to see it. .

Even if Fight Club's intention is to take the piss out of gen X nihilism, it's still results in the same kind of thing for me. Gen X nihilism is something that irritates me so much that I don't even want to see it took the piss out of, if that makes sense.

[greenman]

Platoon, not really that interesting visually and so simplistically preachy it almost had been rooting for Tom Berenger's character.

As far as Withnail and I goes I would really that its been done a bit of a disservice being quoted to death giving expectation of something similar to Spinal Tap when really I think a lot of its strength is as a drama.

[a duncandisorderly]

As far as Withnail and I goes I would really that its been done a bit of a disservice being quoted to death giving expectation of something similar to Spinal Tap when really I think a lot of its strength is as a drama.

you know, you've almost talked me into watching it again. almost. but not. if it comes on the telly I might, if there's nowt else on.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Same with me and The Princess Bride. I wouldn't actively freeze someone out if they said they really loved it, but it's one of those films that completely doesn't do to me what it seems to have done to so many other people. I was talking to someone about Princess Bride the other day and how I don't really get the appeal. She said "it's just simple 80s humour, nothing about it to misunderstand, you just don't like it cause you're a 90s kid" which is always the laziest generalisation you can make

I was about to say what a great new poster you are, and how you've started a lot of really interesting threads recently, but now you are dead to me.

[Clownbaby]

I was about to say what a great new poster you are, and how you've started a lot of really interesting threads recently, but now you are dead to me.

Aww bby pls

To be fair that is the exact reaction that I was expecting form at least one person to me mentioning The Princess Bride

[Enrico Palazzo]

Pacific Rim was boring as hell to me, as are Marvel films. I don't like the Marvel films cause I think they're boring, not because of any "snobbery" or "trying to be different", which is the argument that often gets spat back at me by Marvel fans. Either that or they'll recommend a list of Marvel films that I might actually like, despite me just saying I don't like Marvel films.

I gave up on Pacific Rim when the bad actor bloke 'humorously' lost to a wo-man in a training fight, even though she's a wo-man. Reminded me of 'this guy's got AIDs and he's just beaten me in an arm wrestling contest'.

And i'd nominate every other Guillermo del Toro film for this thread including Pan's Labyrinth.

[up_the_hampipe]

I was about to say what a great new poster you are, and how you've started a lot of really interesting threads recently, but now you are dead to me.

She's this forum's Princess Bride and you will show some respect!

[Clownbaby]

I gave up on Pacific Rim when the bad actor bloke 'humorously' lost to a wo-man in a training fight, even though she's a wo-man. Reminded me of 'this guy's got AIDs and he's just beaten me in an arm wrestling contest'.

And i'd nominate every other Guillermo del Toro film for this thread including Pan's Labyrinth.

See, Pacific Rim was so boring I don't even remember that scene.