Not-so-Classics, classics.

[Kev Hoffman]

Some of the films mentioned... ...why oh why them?  (Fargo and Citizen Kane for christ sakes!)

Others I completely agree with.  (Donnie Darko, Brazil, and The Usual Suspects stick out the most.)

[EL__SCORCHO]

Fellini and Godard have a few I'm not too crazy about too.

[©brad]

Here are just some that I couldn't find much good in....

apollo 13
a beautiful mind
the conversation
the discreet charm of the bourguisie (sp?)
fargo (fucking hate it)
forrest gump
gladiator
happiness
jfk
spartacus (just saw it)
titanic
the usual suspects (fucking hate it)

forrest gump? fargo? the conversation? jfk? usual suspects? even gladiator? geez louise... somebody take too many idiot pills.

[Gold Trumpet]

Calm down, cbr. Explain instead of name call. Say why you think he is wrong, if even in one sentence incriments for each movie, but still attempt to explain.

I'll disagree with you though on Usual Suspects and Gladiator. They are hideous. The Usual Suspects amounts to an hour and a half of character interaction driven by violence with an ending that brings nothing into clarification or completion, but acts for its own cuteness. The ending could have been added to just about any other crime movie and still operated as a good ending. Gladiator is a minor attempt to bring a gladiator drama that can never get past cliche in its story, but finds moments of attention in the execution of its actions scenes. The problem here, the movie never identifies what movie it wants to be in order to focus on those main points and bring some kind of movie that is interesting, albeit a pure action movie or drama. This is Shakespeare as made to be understood by 6th graders.

~rougerum

[Jeremy Blackman]

But you're missing the point, the character is focus in Goodfellas is not any one character, but the whole life of the gangster.

But it tries, doesn't it? It tries to make a cast of characters out of these character actors. Compare it to Full Metal Jacket. We follow Joker in FMJ, and we follow Ray Liotta in Goodfellas, but Scorsese can't do it right... like I said, I think Kubrick can pull it off, but I haven't really seen that anywhere else. Kubrick equated all the troops with each other.. they're all the same... and I don't see that with Goodfellas.... Scorsese definitely tries to create personalities from all these people, I mean look at the character introductions. How can you say he doesn't try to create individual characters? It's a delicate thing, and I don't think Scorsese alienated the characters enough from themselves and from the story to avoid an attempt at a character drama. If the "life of the gangster" is supposed to be a character, it's a pretty uninteresting one, and the point is over too soon... and the creation of a conglomerate character is definitely in conflict with the creation of separate individual characters. I thought the movie was a failure.

[Ernie]

I'll disagree with you though on Usual Suspects and Gladiator. They are hideous.

You meant to say agree, right? I'm just making sure, cause I said I hated The Usual Suspects, I hate Gladiator too...I too think they are hideous. Or were you talking to cbrad? Just wondered. I don't want anybody thinking I like those two fucking "movies".

Anyway, I came up with some more classics I dislike. Before I do that I just wanted to say that I did not forget Barry Lyndon, I really do like the movie and have been planning to see it again. I never hated it. I don't HATE all the ones that I list...like casablanca and gone for the wind...I don't hate them. I just don't think they're classics.

casablanca
crouching tiger, hidden dragon
dances with wolves
election
gone with the wind
heathers
lord of the rings: the fellowship of the ring
memento
monty python and the holy grail
the princess bride
se7en
the sixth sense
unbreakable
x-men

Also, I don't think American Beauty is anything close to a classic but...I like it too much to list it here.

[cowboykurtis]

you may not like casablanca, but to say its not a classic, is a reckless statement, my friend.

[Ernie]

you may not like casablanca, but to say its not a classic, is a reckless statement, my friend.

I definitely respect it for it's influence it had on films of the past and today...I don't even really dislike it. Cause I realize that a lot of my favorite films wouldn't have existed if not for Casablanca. It is a classic, I just don't see why...I guess that's what I mean to say. I would never call it a bad film...like I would some of the films on that list.

[Cecil]

It is a classic, I just don't see why

probably for those reasons:

it's influence it had on films of the past and today...

a lot of my favorite films wouldn't have existed if not for Casablanca.

[Gold Trumpet]

It is not trying really trying to create invdivual characters within a conglomerate character, but trying to create personalities within a congomerate character to push the latter forward in getting the point across of what it means and feels like. And can you really say that these personalities don't come alive on the screen? In your argument that it ends too soon, that is in conjucture with the feeling of what the movie wants to feel like, like you got a touch or a wiff of a world that is another world, like a dream come true in some ways but then, like that, its all gone. The fast pace storytelling and hollowness of intraspection upon these characters speaks exactly for who they are, empty people who live live in a daze of half stardom and half notoriety that is not possible for any of us. That's why I say the movies comes alive in showing us their personalities really only, and we get a feel for how extreme they can be in their obcessions and crime risks. For the movie to operate on intraspection of these characters, it would loose that feeling of what this life personified for these guys.

And ebes, in saying I was disagreeing, I was responding to cbr.

~rougerum

[budgie]

American Beauty (I've tried, but failed)
A bout de souffle (zzzz...)
Fargo (too deep frozen)
La Dolce Vita (poncy)
and K*****k. God, how I'd love to love him, but I just can't.

[Ernie]

Concering Goodfellas...

There are truly only two parts in the entire glorious movie that I can say I don't like very much:

-the part with all the mary's and paul's
AND
-the part with the jimmy two times guy.

Those are the only two parts that even come close to annoying me...they're just a little too cute. I get that it's tongue-in-cheek but it's just a little too cute for the good of the movie. It doesn't take away from the movie at all...but it definitely doesn't add to it. Thank god those parts are so short...they could have really done some damage to the overall greatness of the movie had they been longer.

Anyway, it's still one of my favorite films ever...and still perfect in my eyes.

[RegularKarate]

and K*****k. God, how I'd love to love him, but I just can't.

Don't think you can slip by...  I already knew you had felt that way, but I really thought you might be coming around...

and I have trouble understanding how people could sit through Braveheart and not laugh the whole way through... let alone call it a classic.

[Ernie]

and K*****k. God, how I'd love to love him, but I just can't.

Don't think you can slip by...  I already knew you had felt that way, but I really thought you might be coming around...

and I have trouble understanding how people could sit through Braveheart and not laugh the whole way through... let alone call it a classic.

Yeah, I've seen parts of Braveheart...not enough to judge it but quite a few parts...it's pretty horrible.

[snaporaz]

some of these movies, i hate and have no idea what's so great about them. others, i don't hate, but don't particularly enjoy either. i'm too lazy to segregate them, though.

the wild bunch
straw dogs
shoot the piano player
jules et jim
boondock saints
the usual suspects
citizen kane
jaws
rocky
north by northwest
lawrence of arabia
se7en
the sting
chinatown
annie hall
lock, stock & two smoking barrels
snatch - it seems like everyone loves ritchie films because of all the great lines and nothing else. not even because the lines are "great", but because of the way the actors say them.

and i guess that's it. i just skimmed down imdb's top 250 list because i couldn't think of shit off the top of my head.