Most overrated films...

[71 dB]

No, I meant the franchise tie-in novels. It seems there's a new one out each month. 

Oh, I see. I have read only one (splinter of the Mind's Eye). I am not into all the "expanded universe stuff" either. The movies are what I like.

Sure, but it's still just movie fiction.  Going a step further, I can't imagine Star Wars enriching anyone's life, never mind feeling that "Star Wars is my life".  Isn't your family more important to you than a movie series?

You take things too seriously. Loosen up man. 

[Bogey]

My contenders, though, for most overrated are the fictions by Michael Moore that have won Oscars as documentaries.

A number have been mentioned that I also agree with, but with a sweeping gesture, and keeping Ed Wood out of the conversation, anything that Tim Burton directed....or will direct.

[greg]

Technically, your actual life is more important, but there's nothing wrong with films, TV/whatever being more interesting or influential in your life. That's just how they are designed to be.

[Lilas Pastia]

Overrated means it doesn't live up to its ratings. Many bad films are not overrated. They were never rated high anyway.
Truly overrated films are those that have high artistic or philosophical ambitions but come out corny, bloated or otherwise unable to live up to lofty promises.

The Star Wars prequels were universally disliked by fans, and critics sat on their hands too. Just plain bad cinema. The first three films had the chops. Nerve, humour, surprise and suspense. The prequels are unnerving, humourless, unsurprising and devoid of suspense. Since everyone agreed they were duds, they don't count as overrated.

I can't think of worthier contenders for the crown than Cameron's Titanic and Peter Jackson's Lord of the Ring films - the whole bloody trilogy. Titanic: primitive gooey sentimentalism slapped onto an otherwise well made catastrophe movie. It would have been infinitely better without Di Caprio and Winslet. I mean, not them personally, but their totally redundant characters. Just make a new director's cut without their characters.  LOTR: Infantile cartoonishery. Grandiloquent verbal puffery. Insufferably detestable or mushy characters. Acres of night scenes. Couldn't anybody light a torch or something?

What's that movie with the bouncing camera and the witch story? All shot in the dark in shades of grey and fluo green. Horrible. Horrible.

Other goodies: Lost in Translation . Bill Murray's terminally dazed look is one for the books, really. He looks enbalmed from shot one. One of the worst pieces of acting ever. Then American Beauty. So pretentious. Yeccchhh. Give me Ferris Bueller's Day Off any day over this. Moulin Rouge and Gangs of New York are other overambitious clunkers that are heavy on razzmatazz and devoid of any significance. They founder under the weight of their sets and costumes. Oh, and is there any story?

A few european films rivalize in pretentiousness and ridicule. Coincidentally, most are italian: L'Eclisse, L'Avventura (Antonioni), La Dolce Vita, Last Tango in Paris (disgusting to top things off). All are depressing, navel-gazing stories of bored beautiful people. As artistic as they are (honest), I find them revolting all the same. Pasolini's Teorema at least had some guts to it. If you're going to picture troubled people in search of a meaning to their life, you can count on Pasolini to shock the bourgeois (instead of fondling them, Antonioni-style). Resnais' L'Année dernière à Marienbad. Oh, God! Has there ever been something as utterly uninteresting? Stylized existentialist angst of the worst kind. Welles' The Trial and Duras' Hiroshima mon amour show it could be done well (great films both).

[Bulldog]

You take things too seriously. Loosen up man. 

No, I just need to remember that you tend to overstate.

[knight66]

Boo! to those of you who have listed LOTR.
Cheers, those who included A Protracted Death in Venice.

Mike

[71 dB]

The Star Wars prequels were universally disliked by fans, and critics sat on their hands too. Just plain bad cinema. The first three films had the chops. Nerve, humour, surprise and suspense. The prequels are unnerving, humourless, unsurprising and devoid of suspense. Since everyone agreed they were duds, they don't count as overrated.

Some people love them. These movies where years ahead of their time. Surprisingly many didn't get them at all. I followed closely the making of these movies (~30 months each) online. I understood very well what Lucas was doing (taking movies to the next level). No wonder I absolutely loved the new trilogy and saw each of them half dozen times in the movie theatre (+many times on DVD later on). So, I'd say they are three most underrated movies ever.

[71 dB]

No, I just need to remember that you tend to overstate.

When someone says a movie is her/his life, it means that movie means significantly more to that person than any other movie. Many other things are my life too, of course.

[MN Dave]

Boo! to those of you who have listed LOTR.

Indeed.

[Lilas Pastia]

We have Wagner's Ring. Who needs Tolkien's bad imitation?  . Honest, I've come to heartily dislike those films where everything is shot in the dark. IMO it' a way to conceal electronic trickery. You don't need a metteur en scène when all he does is surrender power and artistic vision to the lighting engineer or computer imaging technician.

Speaking of Wagner's Ring, it reminds me of some anecdotes related to Karajan's 1967 Met production. The Maestro spent 95% of the repetition time on lighting repetitions. The whole concept was to have everything so dark you could barely make out who was there and what was happening.

- When Rudolph Bing came into the repetitions, he cracked that he could achieve the same result by flipping off the main switch.
- Birgit Nilsson (Brünnhilde) said that she could go out for a coffee, come back and no one would notice.
- Rysanek (Sieglinde) taunted Nilsson into playing a trick on Karajan. At the next repetition, Nilsson arrived onstage with a miner's helmet complete with searchlight and valkyrie horns on the side.

Karajan never made another Ring at the Met.

[Brian]

We have Wagner's Ring. Who needs Tolkien's bad imitation?  .

Hey, Tolkein's books were (mostly) pretty good. The movies were still laughable.

And, I share your dislike of nighttime cinema. Most of my favorite movies are brightly lit, coincidentally or not.

[zorzynek]

Hey, Tolkein's books were (mostly) pretty good. The movies were still laughable.

Agreed.

Not to mention Wagner's work is imitation of music to begin with 

[Maciek]

Hm, I didn't think much of the second and third films in the series, but actually believe that Fellowship is a really great movie (and, IIRC, the press it got wasn't all that enthusiastic, especially compared to the other two). I pretty much loved (and still love) almost everything about it. Much closer in spirit to Tolkien than the other two - it really does read (or watch) as a parable about the ostensible weakness of good. The Christian underpinnings are there. Some of the shots are reminiscent of Christian/Medieval iconography, and I feel some of the scenes are great illustrations of Medieval imagination/literature (Tolkien's achievement primarily, but it wasn't lost in the adapting process). Oh, I could go on, but I'm sure I won't convince anyone anyway (and that's not what I'm aiming at). (Of course, the film has its weaknesses; I'm not particularly fond of the acting of Orlando Bloom and Viggo Mortensen, for example.)

Otherwise, Andre, I pretty much agree with everything you say. With the exception perhaps of Marienbad. I think it is a quite fascinating film (even if more than a little boring ).

[greg]

What does everyone think of this list?
Top 50 top-rated animated films by vote:

http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Genres/Animation/average-vote

It's actually pretty surprising to see the top ones. #1 is one I've hardly even heard of!  No one talks about it or anything, which is weird.
#2 is Spirited Away, which I thought was great, too, although I'm a bit surprised at the ranking.

My top 5 (from what's on this list) would probably include Toy Story 1 and 2, Monsters, Inc. I do really need to see quite a few Studio Ghibli movies that are on that list.

[Lilas Pastia]

Going back a bit, I noticed some animosity towards Mullholland Drive.

I haven't seen it, but - sheeeeeeer coincidence, no doubt - it was voted  this week 'Best Movie of the  Decade' by the L.A. Film Critics' Association   0:) - (retreating into safer ground...)

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Going back a bit, I noticed some animosity towards Mullholland Drive.

I haven't seen it, but - sheeeeeeer coincidence, no doubt - it was voted  this week 'Best Movie of the  Decade' by the L.A. Film Critics' Association   0:) - (retreating into safer ground...)

Those critic folk in and around LA might get a kick out of the film because it's home turf but as to the rest of the sober planet....

[Bulldog]

When someone says a movie is her/his life, it means that movie means significantly more to that person than any other movie.

I never heard of that one - but whatever.

[rubio]

Going back a bit, I noticed some animosity towards Mullholland Drive.

I haven't seen it, but - sheeeeeeer coincidence, no doubt - it was voted  this week 'Best Movie of the  Decade' by the L.A. Film Critics' Association   0:) - (retreating into safer ground...)

I LOVE most of David Lynch' dream-nightmarish work, and Mulholland Drive certainly belong to my top 10 list of all films.

Overrated movies for me are Citizen Kane (a bit boring to be the best movie of all times, should rather be Tarkovsky), Star Wars (just not my thing at all), The Big Lebowski (must be some internal American comedy expressions I don't catch up here, maybe? - cause i generally like the Coen Brothers a lot).

[MN Dave]

I just saw THE HURT LOCKER, speaking of overrated...

[Brian]

I just saw THE HURT LOCKER, speaking of overrated...

!

I'm actually in the middle of watching it myself - care to elaborate?