it comes in pints?

[SideshowBobRakeInFaceNoise} Don't get me started on American Beauty. I know you're trying to goad me on.

I like how they managed to drop in Chekov in that one little paragraph. Well done.

I thought you would appreciate its place on the list. I was trying to make you happy. Stupid git.

Yeah, like I'm going to fall into that "being nice" trap again.

It is rather surprising to see it on such a list. It's been completely taboo for entertainment media or "I know movies!" types to type of it in anything but reverent tones. Maybe this was an attempt to be shocking. Nah. That's too much thinking about it.

Have you read the whole list? There are a lot of movies on it that the usual sycophants label as "genius." I was kind of surprised. But the rebuttals were pretty typical. This one in particular was so grating because it was one of those stupid "you just didn't get it" responses, which infuriate me.

I just ran through it, though I didn't read every rebuttal. They always seem to be "you didn't get it" or "it was IMPORTANT!", both of which annoy me.

It was nice to see "Clerks" there, though.

I love the bit about Clerks where the guy writes that everybody loved this movie because they could either empathize with the slacker protagonists or they were just trying to be cool, or something like that.

Of course, even idiots have a right to their opinion, but stay away from my "Field of Dreams"... and anyone who doesn't like "Wizard of Oz" and "GWTW" is a boob.

(Apologies to boobs whom I've offended with that statement.)

Count me among the boobs, Julie. I cannot stand Gone With The Wind.

I never EVER got what the big deal was about American Beauty. It wasn't that I didn't "get it" - what's to get?? - it was that I seriously did not know why people listed this as the best movie THEY HAD EVER SEEN. I'm not a Kevin Spacey fan so I assumed it was my issue - but I actually watched the thing a couple times, because .... I just was wondering WHY is everyone pissing their pants about this?

I remain baffled.

I felt the same way about Chicago. I have no idea why everyone came in their pants about that movie. I thought Catherine Zeta was the best thing in it - and she wasn't in it enough. I kept waiting for her to return and save me.

I just felt, as i watched it - wow, I am WAY out of the majority opinion on this one cause I think it's a big fat YAWN.

As a matter of fact - I thought American Beauty was one of the more SHALLOW movies I had seen in a long time. So the whole "it's too deep - you really have to think about it ..." makes me suspect that the people who are saying such things are feeding themselves regularly on really REALLY shallow fare ... so that that film SEEMED deep to them ...

I don't know. I was bored. It had no revelations. I can think of 10 movies that told the same story better.

I read all the rebuttals, and you're right, Emily, they ALL sound like pretentious assholes.

"The characters are complex knots of contradiction under constant threat of unraveling at the hands of genuine suffering and loss."

What the fuck? This is supposed to make me WANT to see it?

I never saw Chicago - with the exception of Pretty Woman, watching movies with Richard Gere in them will cause me to break out in a rash. Don't believe me? I had to make an emergency trip to the store to buy some Gold Bond cream just for clicking past First Knight over the weekend while channel surfing.

But yeah, the American Beauty thing baffles me. Annette Benning was really over-the-top with the phoney schtick character she was playing. None of the other characters were even remotely interesting. I didn't give a shit what happened to them. I didn't care about them or where they came from because the only time you can get away with stereotypes that boring and typical is with satire. Maybe that's what we don't "get." It's all supposed to be one big fat joke.

Even then, it's not funny.

Must....resist.....ranting about...American Beauty ...and...critical praise of it.....quit goading me!

Marc,
Give in to the hate. Your journey to the Dark Side will be complete. There's no use resisting.

It ees juthst ath I have fortheen it.

Agree about Jules et Jim. Trés wierd. I didn't know what l'enfer was going on apart from three people shagging in Austrian Alpine chalets. Easy Rider and 2001 are also deeply boring, never got the hype.

I enjoyed The Red Shoes though. Not an easy watch by any means for this non ballet enthusiast but a sumptuous son et lumière.

Ugh...2001. I never even made it past the 45 minute opening sequence with the monkeys doing the "uga uga" business. At least it felt like 45 minutes. It was probably more like eight minutes.

About 8 minutes, Emily, maybe a couple less. I never understood 2001 myself, not until I read the book. And even then......

Yeah, 2001 really should be on that list at least twice in order to account for its total mind-numbing tedious endlessness.

And I strongly concur about Catherine Zeta-Jones being the best part of Chicago, though I think that's true of most stuff she's been in. She just has such presence that each additional second given over to Renee Zellweger was the real crime in that movie.

Oh my gosh, Emily! You are channelling me! I think there is a signal hidden in the movie, because every time I see that monkey throw the bone in the air, I fall asleep. I mean, I've tried it several times, but it's hopeless. It's like when my cats send me that silent "Fill... my.... Food... Bowl... Bitch!" message -- except they won't LET me sleep until it's full... so nevermind, bad allegory.

My number one overrated movie is Titanic. I rooted for the iceberg.

And besides, trivia buffs, the bone morphing into space station device was inspired/pinched from Powell & Pressburger's A Canterbury Tale. There the medieval pilgrim's falcon morphs into a present day - 1943 - Spitfire. An inspired idea.

What no Titanic? Or Moulin Rouge?

I dunno. I like what I like. I agree with a lot of the films being on that list. (That said, I STILL like Wizard of Oz. It may be partly happy childhood memories tied up with it.)

I tend to take the "high critical praise" or the "it's so deep and it shows such tortured souls" or "But it's great art!" thing to often be a variant of the Emperor's New Clothes Syndrome - as in, you're seeing stuff in the film (or artwork, or whatever) because People of Taste have said they see something in it and you don't want to be exposed as a cretin.

I mean, I don't deny that Great Art exists. It's just that I've been burned so many times by someone insisting how good, or how deep, or how whatever something is, and I see it or read it and I'm all like, "I don't get it." (I have a colleague who claims that "An Inconvenient Truth" is the "greatest" film he's ever seen, for example. I didn't need to see it to be suspicious of his claim in that case though)

...everyone who is not an artist, cop or lawyer living in a big city is a hopelessly bored, disillusioned, unhappy person who can only cure their mundane lives by killing either themselves or someone else.

OH - so that's all that's wrong with the jihadis. No wonder Hollywood is largely on their side.