Or you watch something that you thought was just awful and you find out that people on the internet loved it…
This was me trying to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey
Either I didn’t get it, or I watched it too late to appreciate the ground-breaking effects. Maybe I’ll give it another try someday.
2001 is one of those movies that’s really important historically, but doesn’t really hold up to modern standards.
Prior to 2001, there wasn’t really a market for non-schlocky SciFi movies, the whole genre was just cheap horror stories about aliens and monsters.
That movie opened the door to let us have more thoughtful genre flicks with much higher budgets.
2001 still holds up because it’s still the most realistic space travel movie ever made. Very few movies come close, 2010 comes close by default, Ad Astra had moments, but it’s a very short list.
Being realistic doesn’t automatically make something a good movie to watch. Much of reality is quite slow and boring.
Your opinion is just an opinion buddy
Parts of 2001 are more art than a movie telling a story. 2010 is a far better scifi movie overall and a favorite of mine. But there are critics of that one too that say it’s terrible. I always think back to when I was a kid and reading a newspaper review of the new movie out I hadn’t seen yet. “Star Wars is a failure and departure from the science fiction standard.”
there are definitely people back then who treat empire strikes back like people treat the last jedi
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I was going to say I think of it more as a piece of abstract art, than a movie.
The first Star Trek movie is kind of a more accessible version of 2001. It’s still pretty slow, but it at least has a semi coherent plot.
Would you believe that I adore that movie?
I think it’s better than a lot of people give it credit for.
I felt this way about Arrival. I absolutely hated it, and then found out it was super popular lol
Damn what didn’t you like about it?? It’s one of my favorite movies, I’ve had friends who didn’t care for it but never seen someone say they hate it haha
It’s been a while since I watched it, so I don’t remember specifics, but I felt like the end of the movie ruined the rest of it. She destroyed poor Jeremy Renner’s life!
Oh, I just had a flashback to when 2001 was broadcast on television when I was a kid!
I said the next day that I liked it, and damn I was cross examined in the school yard for it. Every detail that made anybody confused was enough to crucify twelve year old me for liking an awesome space thriller with trippy effects and ambiguous ending. I mean, I didn’t get all of it, but I got enough of the vibe. The ending was confusing, but I mean it arguably still is and intentionally so. Especially for the protagonist that goes through a portal and wakes up
deadand… yeah, well, you decide for yourself and I’ll stick to mine.Anyway, the judge was the popular kid that also claimed that in western movies, people that wanted to die were shot for real, so there.
Fwiw I’m with you on the film but turns out the book is great.
I’ve had that with tons of ‘must see classics’. I’ll sit there and be like ‘I’ve already seen this a thousand times’. And while I of course appreciate the fact that the reason I’ve seen it so often is because that movie did it first back then, doesn’t mean that it’s impactful or interesting to me now.
It was pretty mid.
Honestly nothing makes me more curious about a movie than when the the critics score and audience score on a movie are vastly different. Sometimes I’ll agree with the critics, sometimes I’ll agree with the audience, but either way I’ll probably find the movie to be have been worth the watch and interesting if nothing else
That was my experience with Spider-Man Across the Spiderverse. It started really strong, but it drags on for 2.5 hours just to end on a cliff hanger? Fucking what? They couldn’t have cut spider-cat and baby spiderman and fit the ending in there? There was so much fluff that contributed nothing to the movie that it being half a movie completely ruined it for me. 5/10.
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Bram St®okers Dracula
Yeah, like Dune. Watched it a month ago because it was so hyped. Turned out it was great to fall asleep to 💤
You didn’t like WHAT!?
(ง’̀-'́)ง
I have a close friend who has absolutely no taste in movies. He likes everything! I’ve learned to stop listening to his feedback for movies, because it could be the worst movie ever made and he’s like “wow, that was such an amazing experience!”. I kind of envy his state of ignorant bliss.
I want to be that way. It seems like a more pleasant way to experience everything, like how kids do.
I started to make a conscious effort to do this for the media I consume. I’ve noticed I’ve been a far less negative person in general since I started doing that.
The secret is mostly to judge a work based on the intent rather than the execution. Most movies have something about them that is interesting, even if the direction/cinematography/acting completely failed to convey it accurately.
My mom is like this. She liked Battlefield Earth lol
Did you have her checked for Scientology?
She’s not religious, she’s just easy to please lol.
Lmao I’m that person. I’m autistic though and because of that I simply don’t notice if acting is good or bad, and I also am very uncritical of the story because I believe everything. Unless it’s really egregious of course, but that doesn’t happen that often.
I’m currently in a similar situation with a close friend. He’s seen more movies than almost anyone I’ve met and yet his tastes are not at all discerning. He’ll also rewatch movies all-the-time which I seldom do.
I love good movies that are actually good. But lately I haven’t been feeling too well physically (health problems -.-) and needed something to watch. And I ended up watching a lot of movies that are generally considered bad. And I liked them. Because I watched them for what they were and didn’t have any expectations.
I thought some were actually ‘decent’. Not the best, but definitely not the trash people said it was (on IMDB and RT) . And then there were some that were really really bad. But most of them were fun! Not good, but fun, which is what I’m usually looking for when watching a movie anyway.
The types of movies or TV shows I like to watch really depend on how I feel. Sometimes I want to watch movie that makes me think or have a big impact and sometimes I want to watch a movie for its entertainment factor. In the end, if I was entertained while watching the movie, the movie was good enough to me at that time.
The 80’s was full of bad but fun movies. Movies like Roadhouse, or Lambda are terrible by today’s standards, but still heckin fun to watch. Anything from Van Damme during that era is amazing. Bad, but amazing. IDK if Big Trouble in Little China counts as bad, but it’s such a joy to watch.
I used to be this person. I figured, with all the people and money and resources thrown into a full-length feature film project, there always had to be something redeeming about it. Someone loved this film enough to see it through to completion, so why can’t I appreciate that? Even if the acting wasn’t all that good and the sets weren’t super appealing, at least the overarching story was interesting enough to sit through and ponder about afterward.
What cured me was actually watching a ton of Nostalgia Critic videos. His original purpose with his show was to see if nostalgic films from his childhood ('80s/'90s) still held up today. And in almost every case, he tore them apart for being awful films that only his innocent, naive, child self could’ve enjoyed.
He helped me understand what makes a good film. I learned that it’s not just a good story that makes a movie, but in how the story is told. How it impacts audiences emotionally. How well the actors disappear into their roles; how well their lines are written and delivered. As well as many other factors.
I started being more critical of films since then, and I even started my own personal blog to review films in more detail than “It was good; I enjoyed it.” My friend all saw me as the untrustworthy advocate for films, since I used to enjoy absolutely everything, so writing a blog was my way to show them I had changed and could seriously analyze a film for its positives and negatives. Which worked; my friends are more willing to take my film recommendations seriously nowadays.
So you used to enjoy every movie, and now you don’t. Sounds like he did you a disservice.
Just because you can criticize something doesn’t mean you don’t enjoy or appreciate it. Criticism and appreciation are not mutually exclusive.
Tearing something apart just to tear it apart isn’t “criticism”, it’s just cynical bs.
Good thing that’s not what we’re talking about then.
That’s literally all nostalgia critic and the like do, my dude. The whole schtick is being angry about movies, tv, games, w/e. All they do is look for problems.
It usually means you enjoy it less.
I mean the nostalgia critic has plenty of his own shitty takes and opinions, I wouldn’t take his word as law I say that as someone who used to be a fan.
You might want to check out Your Movie Sucks (YMS) on YouTube as well, even when I don’t agree with his assessments he usually has a good explanation for why he feels the way he does about something in a film, and he definitely has more insightful opinions about music and sound design in films than I do.
He also has some great videos about why the live action Disney remakes suck, which automatically gets my approval.
One of my biggest pet peeves is when critics judge a movie on what they think it should be, instead of what it’s actually trying to achieve. Sometimes it’s perfectly fine for a film to be big, loud, and nonsensical. Sometimes, a movie needs to be “complex” (although what critics call “complex” makes me think that a lot of them consider filmgoers to be idiots with the attention spans of goldfish).
Are there plenty of problems with any given popular film? Yes., but if it satisfies the audience it’s for, shut up.
I knew a dude that didn’t like any movie that didn’t teach him anything. That’s fine. That’s preference I guess no judgment… Until you had to work with him and listen to him drone on and on about how uncultured or unintelligent an animated Disney movie is for eight hours. Every now and then I see a review with someone complaining about how they didn’t learn anything/the movie is too dumbed down and I wonder if he’s still at it lol
Oppenheimer didn’t teach me to build a bomb zero stars
But it did teach me to how to bag Florence Pugh, 7/7 erections
filmgoers to be idiots with the attention spans of goldfish
Why do you think big, loud, and nonsensical is so popular?
I agree 100%. Before rating a movie I always ask myself if the team behind it managed to reach the goals they set for themselves. If all they wanted to make was a cheesy but entertaining slasher movie and succeeded, it can get the same score from me as some Oscar-nominated drama with a triple-A cast.
Yeah but critics have to say good films are shit and shit films are good, because that way we think they’re really smart and have some god-level insight that we’re too dumb to perceive, so we keep giving them money to be smart while we carry on enjoying the shit films.
If they said good films were good and shit films were shit then we’d all go “well duh” and not think they’re doing anything useful.
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Is it Richard or Ricardo?
It’s like people have different tastes or something.
I had a friend at school who did this. At the cinema, after the movie was over, he would be one of the loudest voices in the group, talking about how awesome the movie was, how it’s going to do so well at the box office and how he couldn’t wait for the next one to come out.
The very next day, he’d come in armed with research on all the plot holes and ways the movie failed from other critics, and then just lay into the movie as if it was the worst movie he’d seen and how it was a waste of his money.
We would point out how annoying he was for convincing himself that he hated it. The only opinion that counted was the one right after the movie ended; that’s the best and most honest review one could give. He kept on doing it. It wasn’t cool, Chris.
Always a gd Chris ain’t it
everybody hates chris
My brother is a Chris and has watched that show all the way through several times.
Who cares, as ling as you liked it?
Ironically, I took that challenge when I first read the XKCD and found quite a few pretty quickly. It’s either surprising how little people agree with each other OR how bad my movie tastes are :)
The hard parts are that post-2000 it was harder to find a <50 movie at all… and the fact you can’t easily just grab a list of <50 movies after 2000 to read through and pick. In the 90’s it’s the opposite, since movies were so polarizing. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective sits at a freaking 48%. In fact, almost every movie I grew up loving is <50%… but then 2000 hits and it changes. I spent an hour and found a dozen back then, then moved on. But it’s still so much easier to pick your favorite pre-2000 classic and find it’s sitting well under 50%.
Ace Ventura, although enjoyed at the time, hasn’t aged perfectly. There are some fun moments, and there are… others.
It’s still a reasonably funny movie. I watched it a few years back and enjoyed it.
Importantly, I can probably come up with 50 movies I liked before 2000 that are <50. Hell, I grew up with Richard Pryer’s “The Toy”, which sits at 3%. College-me really liked Toys, sitting at 29%. If it’s pre-2000, I can literally name almost any non-disney movie I love and find it in the “rotten” bin.
Im not saying some bits aren’t funny, but it depends on whether “parts are funny” is more important to you than the following statements, vis a vis your enjoyment of a body of work, which may affect your enjoyment in a cultural way (as these considerations could set a context that is uncomfortable for a vehicle for jokes and humor), or might affect your enjoyment in a critical way (as these considerations could, to some be hallmarks of poor writing and dramaturgy).
- dolphins are better off in captivity
- mental health institutions are wacky fun
- it’s OK for private detectives to interrogate the parents of leads under false pretenses
- medical health records should be available to private, sole traders even if they have to engage in espionage to obtain them
- kissing a trans person is extremely disgusting and wrong
- a man kissing “a man” (with all apologies, cf supra bullet) is extremely disgusting and wrong
- if you suspect someone is trans you should forcibly remove their clothing in front of law enforcement
- to “free” someone’s dog, it is ok to stalk them, destroy their property, and kidnap the dog
- white men in Africa are saviors and extremely sexually desirable (sequel)
he also
- has a massive disrespect for women
- opens conversations with women with unwanted sexual innuendo
- trafficks illegal exotic animals, keeping them in squalid, urban living conditions
- doesn’t pay his creditors
- desecrates holy places of tribal persons (sequel)
it was also absolutely panned by critics at the time for being homophobic(! in the 90s!) — and for being quite annoying, which, of all these criticisms are the two most fair ones.
Looking at your bullet points, I’m thinking you’re going way too political about this. I’m a believer that comedy gets “the hall pass” so long as the comic is not racist/sexist/whatever. I am a huge fan of a stand-up comic with serious disabilities who spends an entire hour making fun of those disabilities. Of all genres of book/film that fail to age well/badly because of the changing in political winds, I would say comedy is the most protected and protectable.
I’ve seen your argument used to ban Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer from schools. And those aren’t comedies.
You have every right to avoid old movies that happen to do things unacceptable in current society. I support that. But unless you have evidence that the actors/directors feel the way you implied OR that the movie is going to influence society’s disposition, it should not be affecting an objective metric of the movie’s quality. You can laugh at bad things as long as you know they’re bad things and you’re not going to support bad things in the real world.
Let me remind you of Mel Brooks’ Spanish Inquisition. Nothing you mention above is darker than that.
I was writing in the detached/supposed-omniscient voice of “The Critic”, not necessarily me qua me.
I think its an interesting discussion to participate in, but I’d request a generosity of not thinking I am 100% ideologically committed to one side of any of those points (note my frequent use of “depends”, “might”, “may”, “if”, etc). I think they are interesting starting points for a conversation about this particular piece.
But - I also recognize that further up the chain, someone notes their displeasure at the very concept of art criticism. I take pleasure in it, others may not. Cest la vie.
Fair point about art critique. I’m not saying a person can’t rate it low. I’m just not a believer that comedy can age badly. If anything, the opposite. It is a statement for the flaws of our past.
Take any classical book where slavery was commonplace, or men lorded power over women and abused them. Any book before suffrage, or before the 1850’s will depict that. The classics we read or watch are of a worse time, and that should itself be a lesson for us.
Of Mice and Men. George killing Lenny. There’s a laundry list 100x longer than Ace Ventura. Some parts of that were a statement about society, but some parts only became a statement about society 100 years later.
Easy, I genuinely love the Constantine movie.
Everybody else hates it because it’s very different from the comics, oh no.
And it’s 46% on rotten tomatoes.
I loved that movie as well and didn’t understand the hate.
Classic problem of shoving a good/decent movie into an existing franchise and expecting the fans excited enough to see it not to mind.
Sometimes not knowing the source material is bliss, I genuinely enjoyed Constantine as well. Even my GF liked it, to my surprise. 😁
After watching the TV series, which is more faithful to the comics, I can understand the wasted pontential of the movie, but as is, is still a fantastic fantasy thriller!
My wife and I went into The Northman blind, and we honestly loved the experience. I don’t give a shit whether or not it’s realistic or historical accurate on any front. It was like John Wick with Norse mythology. Just an intense and barbaric ride from start to finish. I was genuinely surprised to learn how universally disliked it was. But people are out there buying tickets to 9 Fast 9 Furious 9, so I don’t exactly value the reviews of opinions of strangers.
And this is why I only really care what critics think. Maybe that makes me pretentious or a movie snob, but fuck it. I like paying attention and analyzing movies (along with books, music, video games, etc.), and IMO, the average viewer can’t handle being asked to think about anything with more depth than a bird bath. On the other hand, 90% of the people that are paid to put a little critical thought into their media consumption reviewed The Northman positively, and I agree with them. It was fucking great, and I don’t care what the unwashed masses think.
When critics and audiences agree, I generally know I’m in for an enjoyable experience, but probably nothing too great. But when critics love it and audiences don’t, I get excited.
Reviews are only useful insofar as you vibe with the reviewer. If you’ve got really specific taste, mass appeal isn’t a helpful data point.
What you described sounded a lot closer to FF9 than something that would allow one to look down on the tastes of others lol
9F9F9*
I have the opposite problem. Everyone I know loves a movie, and I think it’s shit. Looking at you, Donnie Darko.
Same problem, different movies I guess… Donnie Darko is a personal favorite.
Man I hated that movie and it felt so weird because I generally always have some sort of consensus with movies, but everyone enjoyed Donnie Darko, except for me.
Know how I can tell you watched the Director’s Cut?
I also have this disorder. The entire last 15 years has been really rough.
Alien? Masterpiece. Great audio, atmosphere, and tension, story, with realistic characters. I loved how Ripley wasn’t the main focus out of the gate and gave time for the rest of the crew to be seen.
Aliens? Trash, garbage. I hated everything about it. Drivel. Okay audio, horrible cast, bad characters, stupid conclusion. Ripley went from “scared captain” to “Fuck you I’m an alien killing badass” fuck.
I don’t normally shit on people for liking something, but to the people who enabled that trilogy to continue in the way it did…fuck you.
Random fun fact: in older titles Hungarian translators loved giving weird names to movies (probably though it was a bit generic), so they named the first Alien “The 8th passenger: Death”, which is like kinda cool.
They probably though it was gonna be one off thing, so after they announced Aliens, translators were like, ok, what now. We cant name it the same, but still the audience need to know they are connected, so they double down, calling it “The name of planet: Death”. not as cool but crisis averted.
So when Alien 3 is announced, they are like we are fucked, but its the end of the trilogy, so go big, final title: “The final solution: Death”. (This has some wierd implications, but no more Alien movies, we can leave these namings behind.)
So Alien 4 get announced and they are finally like fuck it, we had enough of this shit, we just translate it literally. “Aliens 4: resurrection of Death”
After that, they drop transitions, like any, they release them with English title only. This has more to do with the gap between films and how the majority of sci-fi audience probably already know English, but its funny to think that the translators finally just gave up.
Post fun fact fun fact: you know those TV channels that play old dvd movies? They are stuck with these transitions. Ads on those are “Tune in for the classic hit horror movie, the 8th passenger, Death”
I’m one of the weirdos who likes Alien 3 better than Aliens.
I’ve had the opposite problem.
Take… Interstellar. I watched it. It was pretty and great around track. But the science, plot, and interactions were pretty awful.
Little did I know that for the rest of human time I would be reading about what a Master piece it is and that the internet just can’t get enough interstellar.
Sometimes I wonder if there’s another movie with the same name. Because I can’t believe I’m the only one with a working logic center who watched this movie.
Emotionally, I think it does a great job. Logically, it’s pretty stupid. The music, the effects, and the plot all work together to make you feel something, but the plot doesn’t really make sense when you think about it at all. I don’t think that should be a requirment. There are plenty of stories that do the same thing.
I think the issue is that it’s sci-fi, which has a certain expectation of logic. The characters are all scientists, but then they just ditch logic. I think it took themes from another genre and put them into sci-fi and it did it fairly effectively. It’s just the sci-fi is usually there to make you think, but Interstellar you’re just supposed to feel and not think.
I had the same exact impression of it. It’s so refreshing to see other people thinking the same of it.
I loved this movie when it came out, but you’re right, there isn’t much worth in it if you think about the plot or the science for more than 2 seconds. Soundtrack is still one of my favorites, though. Last time I watched it, I was high as a kite, and that made it pretty enjoyable.
I don’t care what anyone says, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is one of the best movies of all time.
Wonderful movie. I always watch it when it comes on.
I agree. The visuals and the story itself are a fun love letter to analog film photography, right at that moment in history when digital replaced analog as the default form of artistic photography.
Stop basing your opinions on what other people like. I’ve never experienced such a wide range of media since I cut out sites like Rottentomatoes, Letterbox, Rateyourmusic, and stopped watching “review” youtubers.
I don’t think op said at all that their opinions are based in what other people like, just that it sucks when you like something only to find out everyone else hates it.
Or just consider those sources as fodder but don’t use it as a substitute for critical thought.
RT tends to favor novel story telling, directing, and acting performances. It tends to give neutral (fair) feedback to movies that coast on good writing.
It tends to pan movies that do not break new ground or that rely heavily on comedy.
So I just keep those quirks in mind and don’t really let the RT rating actually represent any sort of “final” opinion. It’s more a number I can apply to the context of a film to let me know whether to expect it to be good, bad, or neutral.
I still watch and form my own opinion, but a little curation never hurt anyone. There’s lots of stuff to watch, and these review sites can help sift the options.
I use it as a resource in much the same way as you. Sometimes it’s a useful tiebreaker, but if I’ve got some reason to watch something other than “it’s one of several films I can watch at this moment”, that’d usually trump the rating.
I think it’s important to distinguish between cinematically valuable movies and enjoyable movies with no substance.
I like marvel movies. They don’t teach you anything, they don’t challenge any ideas, they don’t increase you as a person at all. They have zero substance, but they’re pretty and fun
They’re often good, but I’d never tell someone “you have to watch this marvel movie” the way I would tell someone to watch a Tarantino movie. Same general kind of movie, same great action sequences, but a Tarantino film has substance, it leaves an impact where a marvel movie leaves you just entertained
And that’s fine… But ratings for a cinematically valuable movie are worth digging into - for one that’s just entertaining, the ratings only matter when deciding if it’s worth watching
It’s a pure matter of taste vs maybe you were missing something on a deeper level
I’ve been doing this. Slowly but surely, cutting it all out.
After 20+ years on the Internet, I’ve finally had my fill of other people’s opinions on the media I like. Making a conscious effort to cut it all out has done wonders.
Rotten tomatos had Interstellar listed as 70% fresh, the week it come out.
Thr “critics” called the characters half baked.
I was so stoked for that movie i ignored it. And im so glad I did.
It’s really my favorite movie of all time. Literally helped me build a personal philosophy and battle cancer.
But that is like your opinion man, I think the whole “love” thing is hot garbage. Nice pictures, garbage movie.
Better plot point than Gravity which starts off with a mysterious force of acceleration pulling the astronaut dude away.
I dont know how you feel this way. Tbh.
I can get some of the hate on the love travels thru time thing.
But come on. There was so many cool aspects to this movie. I think my favorite part is the shallow sea plant. Or the accurate black hole imagery.
Matt damons character is perfectly flawed.
The inside of the Tesseract!?!Please tell me another movie you do like so I can jugde you for it.
/s
Interstellar was the first thing I thought of too. I thought the reading of the poem was badass and fit in perfectly.
If there’s a problem with Interstellar, it’s not the characters, because the characters aren’t really the point…
Broke: Wahhhh everyone hates the movie I liked. They are all wrong and stupid.
Woke: Yeah that movie was crap. I loved it!
People need to accept that a film can be entertaining without actually being good.
Street Fighter is my go to for this. It’s objectively awful. Half the cast can’t act for shit. The plot of a 2D arcade fighting game was never going to stand up to a cinema audience trapped with it for an hour and a half. But then Raul Julia shows up and old-school chews the scenery. He knows it’s shit too, but by fuck he’s going to make you enjoy it.
I’m convinced if you don’t love the sonic movies, you missed the whole point.
You can’t make a good sonic film. It’s a stupid concept with no nuance or reality, and has a plot of bad guy hates fast animal.
So someone made the movies so absurdly stupid that they’re good again. I’ve been playing sonic since I was 3, from the original until now. The only thing I wanted from a sonic movie was unrelated product placement, ham fisted sensitive scenes, Jim Carrey doing whatever he fucking feels like, and forced olive garden.
The first movie legit gets one more star for every olive garden ad. Then the second cast fucking Idris Elba as knuckles and had a character referred to as the olive garden guy.
Absolute genius. It could never be great, so go for absurdism.
I did enjoy it, ngl.
But I swear they did the teeth thing for the free marketing. There’s no way they intended to put it out like that. Pure nightmare fuel.
I love shoot em up, it’s so bad, same style as kund fury. It’s gold.
That’s awful, stop liking it.
I’m very discerning with media in general, and it has to be worth my time if I’m going to watch it. I love movies you discover more in on every rewatch, and can get in to solid discussions about character motives or possible themes. But you have to know what you’re getting into. Some movies are definitely just bad and not worth watching, but others have a goal and meet it.
I’ve had superhero fatigue since about 2005, but that being said, a friend wanted to watch Venom with me a few weeks ago. It’s not a good movie, but I wasn’t not entertained.
Ratings in general are heavily biased. For example, critics have a very different point of view from most viewers. And even the typical non-critic who goes on sites to rate movies isn’t the average viewer either. People like that tend to over-analyze every detail and try to look for a deeper meaning in the works. But that doesn’t correlate with your enjoyment of something.
