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The following is an incomplete list of movies that most smart people seem to hate on, but that I geniunely, no kidding, enjoy. A lot.
• Cloverfield
• Titanic
• Avatar
• Dune
• Gladiator
• AI
• Alien 3
• Dead Man's Chest and At World's End
Am I just an idiot? Or is it okay to like things that most people agree are bad and still have some basic concept of artistic taste?
Sir, that's the basic precept of my day to day life.
Wait a minute. Who hates Gladiator? That movie gets plenty of love. Not from me, mind you, but from other people who don't know any better. You know, like Braveheart does.
The only ones on your list that I strongly dislike are Dune and At World's End, by the way.
I was gonna include the two Matrix sequels, but frankly I don't need that kind of flame war today.
• Cloverfield - like
• Titanic - like
• Avatar - may look more kindly upon in later, post-hype years
• Dune - haven't seen
• Gladiator - liked at the time, been 10 years though
• AI - like, but rewatching it last year for the ill-fated DIF commentary, less so than I used to
• Alien 3 - didn't this one get a good showing of support on the show?
• Dead Man's Chest and At World's End - DMC had potential, AWE was a fucking mess.
Or is it okay to like things that most people agree are bad and still have some basic concept of artistic taste?
As long as you can understand and articulate WHY they're universally reviled, I think you're alright. There's such a thing as a guilty pleasure.
Well, Dune is just a bad movie. Not even David Lynch likes that movie, and he likes some pretty crappy movies he's made.
The rest appear to be perfectly good movies that plenty of people like.
Dune is a bad movie with, for me, redeeming qualities that outweigh its badness to the point where I really like it anyway. I just can't get enough of the art direction, man. I know that's weak praise, but it's just so damn pretty. It makes my eyeballs feel happy.
• Cloverfield - dislike
• Titanic - like
• Avatar - like
• Dune - dislike slightly
• Gladiator - love
• AI - love
• Alien 3 - like-ish
• Dead Man's Chest and At World's End - like/like
• Cloverfield - love
• Titanic - like
• Avatar - I see no redeeming value in this movie
• Dune - not good
• Gladiator - like
• AI - like, though I haven't seen it since it came out
• Alien 3 - like
• Dead Man's Chest and At World's End - like/hate
- Branco
• Cloverfield Love
• Titanic Dislike the first half, like it once the ship starts to sink
• Avatar Haven't seen
• Dune Hate
• Gladiator Don't like very much
• AI Haven't seen
• Alien 3 Dislike
• Dead Man's Chest and At World's End DMC is ok, AWE is awful
Then again, I love cheesy 80s movies and could quite happily watch Tango & Cash once a month, so what do I know 
• Cloverfield
• Titanic - Like a great deal
• Avatar - I totally like this, but don't hold it to be a miracle. Just a fun movie.
• Dune - Sentimentally I like it.
• Gladiator - Never got really into it.
• AI - Hate hate HATE, giant bolt gun of hate.
• Alien 3 - Makes me sad.
• Dead Man's Chest and At World's End - DMC is fun, AWE is just bizarre.
I'm amazed by all you guys who have such different opinions of the two "Pirates" sequels. I have a hard time telling them apart, frankly. Like if I remember scene X, I'm not necessarily going to know which movie it came from.
If the scene was remotely watchable, it probably wasn't from the third movie.
- Branco
Oh come on. Differences aside, y'all gotta admit the sequence in Davy Jones' locker was cool, yeah? (That was from the third one, wasn't it?)
Yes, Davy Jones' locker sequence was from the third one, and no, it wasn't cool. It was the ending of SECRET WINDOW all over again. Branco's methodology of telling the films apart is fairly accurate.
<very small voice>Well, I liked it.</very small voice>
Just re-watched them recently, loved Dead Man's Chest, and hated At World's End. I have a big 'ol theory about exactly what they did wrong, but I'll save it for the eventual commentary.
Tease.
One of the things I've heard repeatedly is that the plot of the two sequels put together is so convoluted as to be nigh-unfollowable. Truth be told … I kinda liked that about the movies. So often movies, particularly big-budget action/adventure movies, have very simple plots. Character A wants B, is opposed by character C. Not that there's anything wrong with that; a movie where character A wants B and, through hardship and interesting sequences of events, finally gets it can be entirely satisfying. But I kinda dug, just for the change of pace, the way everybody in those movies wanted something different, and was willing to throw their ostensible allies under the bus to get it. It amused me for it to be so.
No no, the density of DMC is perfect, and they even have a great joke about it with Ragetti saying "well, best I see it, he wants the chest because...". Then, absolutely out of fucking nowhere, the third movie entirely ignores the plot as it was happening in DMC for thirty minutes while establishing the Jedi Council, who should have absolutely not been in the movie at all. Had they played out the remainder of the plots set up in DMC (all of which were left open), and that was the movie, that would have been awesome. Instead, they added a really gigantic (in terms of fraction-of-the-movie) plot about the pirate kings.
Imagine it was one movie. At the point in the story where DMC now ends, Davey Jones is the biggest bad of all time, under whom all others live in fear, though his heart has just been traded to the up-and-coming (in the story) East India Company. Will Turner is with Elizabeth, although the last time he saw Jack, Liz was making out with him onboard the ill-fated Black Pearl. Elizabeth is deeply conflicted, loving Jack but having committed him to Davey Jones' locker, loving Will but being bored by him, and beginning to see the man in James Norrington. Barbosa has come back from the dead, retrieved from the Locker by Tia Dalma, and is prepared to lead a quest to save Jack Sparrow (for unknown reasons).
And then, the next thing that happens is thirty minutes dealing with an additional plot. That's a bag of sand on the camel's back.
That's just a structure note. Let's deal with what the Jedi Council represents, by comparing it to its closest analogue: the Jedi Council. In At World's End, Obi Wan Sparrow became one of a million other Jedi.
I have more.
One of the things I've heard repeatedly is that the plot of the two sequels put together is so convoluted as to be nigh-unfollowable. Truth be told … I kinda liked that about the movies.
...
But I kinda dug, just for the change of pace, the way everybody in those movies wanted something different, and was willing to throw their ostensible allies under the bus to get it. It amused me for it to be so.
Yeah, except that their motivations in the third movie often made no sense, violated their established characters, and the rules were clearly just made up as they went along.
I would have no problem with constant backstabbing and everyone stepping on each others' faces to get what they want. I have no problem with convoluted when it's done well -- in which case it's called "intricate."
The problem was that none of it made any sense and none of the loose ends from DMC were tied up satisfactorily in AWE, they either ignored them or did away with them offscreen (e.g. the Kraken) as if to say, "Forget all that, false start, here's what we're actually talking about."
It's fine when characters all want something different from each other. It's not fine when characters want something different from themselves without explaining how they arrived at this new goal.
Alright I just gotta pipe up here for minute to ask Dorkman, what the hell was wrong with the ending of Secret Window??
And also I'm totally with Jeff on this one, I loved both of the Pirates sequels.
Alright I'm done, feel free to flame me at your will.
EDIT: Holy shit you guys respond fast...
Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2010-08-02 21:14:46)
Oh. Yeah, okay, I see that point. The pirate kings (or whatever it was) wasn't strictly necessary to the film, you're right. But I liked the expansion of the plot into the old, dying myths versus the coming future, best symbolized by the Kraken's totally anticlimactic and off-screen death. I think it's a legitimate argument that it's a bit late in the trilogy to go gettin' all thematic, but again, I liked it just because it was different. I liked that the third movie wasn't just the second movie only longer.
(And now I'm putting the lie to my own statement before about not being able to tell them apart, 'cause the more I think about it, the more the differences are apparent to me.)
Yeah. And here's the thing: after finishing the trilogy by simply playing out the end of The Empire Strikes Back's Chest, telling me what the fuck we're doing about Han in his carbonite locker and how the relationship between the characters resolves after all the conflict and revelation in the last movie...that's when you give us Pirates 4, about whatever the hell they want. Introduce a new element to the world, I love the world.
In that context, the Jedi Council is a really cool plot idea. As long as it doesn't make Jack seem like just-another-wackjob-pirate. The execution they had was off because Jack isn't special at all in that group, they're all fucking nuts, broad characters. They should hate him but have respect, because even though they're simple Barbossa-like pirates with minor idiosyncrasies who are excellent, "normal" pirates, Jack keeps being right and talking himself into the best possible spot.
EDIT: More on that, imagine if Obi Wan was the only cool and crafty Jedi in the order, and they were more like the old guys in 300 or something, very plain and boring and contemplative. Monks. They haven't used lightsabers in a million years, they just hang out. Then Obi Wan is still Obi Wan, and we like him for the same reasons we did before only now with more corroboration, because everyone else like him isn't as interesting.
Alright I just gotta pipe up here for minute to ask Dorkman, what the hell was wrong with the ending of Secret Window??
SECRET WINDOW is a truly worthless film. I never liked the King story to begin with but the film was asinine. Depp put in an entertaining performance but not enough to save the film. And the ending is silly. Which gives Depp a lot of entertaining things to do but it's still not good.
The bigger problem is that when the same thing is done in AWE, you're dealing with 20 Jack Sparrows. The great thing about Jack in the original film was that he added a touch of unpredictable spice to the pot. But he was so popular that they made him the main character in the sequels and had him doing all the same stuff he did before that was so popular, failing to realize that the weird and unfamiliar nature of the character was what was so compelling. So he was overexposed in the first place, given nothing interesting to do in the entire movie (almost got there with his "jar of dirt" dance), and then we have a big scene which just does all the wrong things with 20 times the concentration. Fantastic.
And oh my god, I forgot about that pirate kings horseshit. So you're telling me that Sparrow and Barbossa, formerly Captain and First Mate of the same ship, were BOTH pirate kings at the same time? And that fucking Ragetti's eye is the ancient totem or whatever of Barbossa's king-ness even though we see Ragetti whittling the fucking thing in COTBP?
And since when is it a rule that the Captain of the Flying Dutchman has to cut out his heart and leave it ashore as part of the becoming-Captain ceremony? Davy Jones did that only because the woman he loved had cheated on him while he was on his first tour of duty -- so he did it WELL AFTER he became Captain, of his OWN ACCORD.
It's like the filmmakers didn't even watch the second movie, just had this chick explain it to them and went from there.
I guess once we clean up a few more franchises we should start on this one, because clearly a hate-fucking is in order.
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