The stupidest thing you've heard someone say about a movie..

[Pas]

ASoundSo: I beg to differ.  I have probably seen just as many or close to it that you have and I know whats makes a good film.  Its more than just a critic liking it. A film can be great to a critic, but if people other than movie critics dont like it, then its not a great film. it takes both critics and general population to adore a film to make it great

[anyone who doesn't agree with that is wrong if you ask me]

by this logic Crash is a great film and that is wrong if you ask me.

ASoundSo: but I officially rank him next to Stanley Kubrick in my overrated directors file.  This file is set aside for directors who do brilliant work, but then later on do crappy work that gets called brilliant because of their previous brilliant work. 

[seriously, yes]
... even if that makes me a stupid retard

you're a stupid retard.

Fuck you are right about the Crash thing. I'll have to think about it further. Still your love for New World blinds you from the fact that bethie looked like a real 'poser' (is that an english word) in that log while the guy was pretty truthful/authentic.

[Pubrick]

Fuck you are right about the Crash thing. I'll have to think about it further. Still your love for New World blinds you from the fact that bethie looked like a real 'poser' (is that an english word) in that log while the guy was pretty truthful/authentic.

i don't care about the new world as much as i think the guy was invalidated when he dissed kubrick. that was a bigger poser thing to say, that their older stuff is better than their new stuff. only an idiot would say that about kubrick.

[Bethie]

What Mike (ASoundSo) is basically saying that if the general public doesn't go to a great film then it's not a great film. So to him, every blockbuster is a great film. His favourite movies are shit like Varsity Blues, Troy, V For Vendetta, etc. He tells me he's seen as many or more films than me,maybe he has, but for him thats only movies after 1985. He is someone who says Bette Davis over acts and is obsessed with Jennifer Love Hewitt. He shouldn't even be able to comment on film because it's something he doesn't know anything about. Hence the stupid comments.

and to laugh when I said "maybe some day you'll understand"? I tried to help Mike out, show him what great films are, he's just someone that doesn't get it. meanwhile he's standing inline for Hannibal Rising.

[picolas]

Brian Robbins, who directed Norbit and co-produced Wild Hogs, has taken a swing at the critics who swung at those two movies when they were released last month. "If you read reviews on a consistent basis on all films, you realize that the majority of films just get murdered," Robbins told today's (Thursday) Hollywood Reporter. "The only films that get good reviews are the ones that nobody sees. I just don't think you can make movies for critics." Both Norbit and Hogs have proved to be huge hits, despite their critical shellacking. What Robbins says he has learned from the success of the two films: "Don't pay attention to tracking and don't read the reviews."

- imdb

[pete]

haha you know that news was cooked when they called movies that I've never ever heard of "huge hits".

[Ravi]

I shit for money.

[hedwig]

GET. READY. FOR THIS ONE

dumb girl: have you seen borat?
me: yeah.
dumb girl: is it a good movie?
me: yes.
dumb girl: is borat a real person?
me: [pause] no..
dumb girl: who is he?
me: have you seen da ali g show? he's --
dumb girl: oh my god i love the ali g show.
me: uh, that's the guy who plays borat. and borat was --
dumb girl: oh my god really? no way!

EPILOGUE

dumb guy walks by and interrupts.

dumb guy: ali g has made five movies, one for each character. [turns to me] you should see the ali g show, it's hilarious.

[Ravi]

Overheard by a friend at a movie theater:  "Grindhouse was the worst film since Brazil."

[hedwig]

during the end credits of INLAND EMPIRE:

fucking idiot: oh that was laura dern?

[picolas]

pretty much exact quote:

"i loved that movie about the Irish police in New York.. Departed! oh and The Prestige and The Illusionist! they were great. don't remember which is which though."

[Gold Trumpet]

Recently, I watched Fried Green Tomatoes with a friend. It was her favorite movie and I enjoyed it. Afterwards we drove somewhere and were discussing the film. We got into an argument about the two lead actors. I was convinced that Mary Louise Parker played Idgie and Mary Stuart Masterson played Ruth. I was so convinced about it that I made a bet with her on it. She kept laughing at me for being so dumb and I kept making jokes about what I'd spend my winnings on when she had to pay up. I thought I was right in the worse way. So we got to my apartment and I looked it up and.....was a dollar poorer. She still reminds me how much of an idiot I am. I can't deny it.

See, I thought the actress who played Watts in Some Kind of Wonderful was Mary Louise Parker. I don't know. I had never seen her in anything else and got it into my head she was the actress in that film. I'm an idiot because when I looked it up I didn't realize how wrong someone could be.

[pete]

my friends and I lost an $100 pot in pub trivia by betting all of our points on which actress was thelma and who was louise.  I'm still confused.

[Reinhold]

my friends and I lost an $100 pot in pub trivia by betting all of our points on which actress was thelma and who was louise.  I'm still confused.

[B.C. Long]

Here's a good one from an "overrated directors" thread.

Dr. Ifto: Stanley Kubrik

DML: What movies have you seen of his? Just curious.

Dr. Ifto: CLockwork Orange, 2001, Dr. StrangeloveThe Shining, Eyes wide shut, and Apocolypse now. I just can not get into his movies. The only 2 I thought were any good, is The Shining and Dr Strangelove. But those 2 movies does not make this guy a good director. I really think he sucks.

DML: Apocalypse Now is Francis Ford Coppola.

Dr. Ifto: Doh, i could have sworn it was kubrick though, it had his boredom written all over it...


Just please...die.

Here's a priceless one about  Scorsese:

Luna: I think he sux. I'm sick an tired of people going on about how great he is convincing me to watch his caca movies and then being bored to death by every one of them. I did catch myself falling asleep in the theater, a full house yet, for Kundun. And that was when I wanted to be a Buddhist. He takes subjects I should be interested in and makes them into cinematic matzoh. The overrated movies of his that I've seen are Goodfellas, The Last Temptation of Christ, Gangs of New York, The Aviator, Mean Streets, andThe Age of Innocence. All crap. What's worse are the ones that aren't overrated. People should be thrown out of Hollywood for crap like New York, New York and Bringing Out the Dead. The puke emoticon is too cute to express how I feel about that last one. Oddly enough the only one that I think was equal to it's hype was Casino and even that was a little funky.

What I want to know is where did he get this "greatest living American director" tag? The first person I heard say it was Jodie Foster. I don't know if she started it, but she should have ended it. I can't think of a director with a career even remotely as long as his or with the kind of hype he has that is even close to how bad I think he is in terms of delivering an enjoyable or even interesting film.

The reason I have no problem saying that Scorcese sucks, is because of my time that he has wasted. Look, I went to school with a bunch of film snots who knew all the things they were supposed to say about who's the greatest director and who's not and said them often. I know all the "right" answers, I just don't care to pretend that I believe the same things. If you want to take a movie here or there of Scorcese's and hold it up and say that makes him a great director, that's one way to go about it, I suppose. But when I look at his body of work I see mostly average-at-best movies, a few that really sucked, and none that would make it into my top 100 movies, probably even 300.

I'll say his best movies on the whole are Taxi Driver and Casino. Most people think that Raging Bull and Mean Streets are also superior. Now most people are going to give Martin Scorcese credit for that, but does anyone even notice that those movies also have someone else in common? Isn't entirely possible that the reason most of Scorcese's work is so acclaimed could be misplaced glory that should be directed at the star of those films? Robert DeNiro is considered by many to be the best actor out there. Maybe that's what makes those movies so wonderful in everyone's eyes. Maybe it's not Scorcese at all. Maybe he makes the shots, and when he points the camera at DeNiro that's when everyone is blown away.

That's my theory of where the hype around him comes from. I could be wrong. That doesn't bother me. But I do consider myself to be a movie fan. When I compare his films to the other films I've seen in my lifetime, they don't compete. There are young directors who've made a handful of films and have already surpassed him in my book, in terms of presenting the movie going public with interesting and/or entertaining work. I personally think movies should do that. Entertain you. Inform you. Make you think. Make you feel. Do something. Has anyone here ever shed a tear over one of his characters? I haven't. I'm not saying every movie has to do that, but that's what a lot of people go to the movies for. To be moved one way or another. Did any of his movies challenge your beliefs? Did they make you think? At best, they are stories about some guy and that's it. Imo, any connection that you get to his characters comes solely from the actors. He never has a hero, or takes a stand either way. That's why he doesn't win the Academy Award. People want to feel at the movies or escape from daily life. The experience of going to his movies for the most part is the equivalent of taking a lawn chair and putting it in the middle of the street and watching people walk by. Something interesting may happen but unless you know what the people you are watching go through everyday of their lives, their struggles, their demons, their redeeming qualities, at some point you're going to pick up your chair and go home feeling unfulfilled. That's what his movies do. They take pictures of people. Boring ones.

When I say he sucks, it's in contrast to his hype. Compared to how great he's supposed to be, he does suck. Look, this year he's up against Clint Eastwood for Best Director. Clint Eastwood is definitely not one of my favorite people. But having only seen Million Dollar Baby and Unforgiven, I can tell you quite honeslty that as a director, imo, he beats Scorcese by several lengths. If I hold up the two best movies I've seen from Scorcese to those, they're not even close. When I think of all the truly great directors out there like David Lynch, Francis Ford Coppola, Woody Allen, etc., who are kinda his age with the legacies that they have and then I keep hearing that this guy is supposed to be the greatest living American director, it baffles me. And like I said before there are directors like Tarantino, Paul T. Anderson, M. Night Shyamalan, the Coen Brothers, who I'm sure wouldn't admit to it themselves, but they could wipe the floor with him and they're kids compared to him in age and years in the business. For chrissake Kevin Costner and Mel Gibson could kick his ass. I'm sorry but when people go around comparing, Scorcese falls short. For some unknown reason, he's the guy. Someone somewhere decided that he was going to be the guy with the hype. But I guarantee you, if you find you the person who decided that and ask them what their favorite movie of all time is, it won't be a Scorcese movie.

I'm speechless on that one.

[Gold Trumpet]

I actually read that long Scorsese post. As I found myself wondering if any actual point was going to be made, I did chuckle when the guy/girl said that even Kevin Costner could kick Martin Scorsese's ass. When everyone looks back to 1990 and sees Costner beating out Scorsese for Director's honors at the Academy Awards, I actually am siding with Costner. Even though everyone believes Scorsese was robbed.

See, Costner did some good work. Dances With Wolves was the stuff of tear jerkers and sentimentality, but he filmed with the scope of a John Ford film but also to the personal closeness of a small drama. He filmed the story to best match the themes. The film has a lot of story to cover and not all of it has to deal with the dying spirit of the Native Americans, but when he does need to envoke the grandness of their struggle, he allows the camera to take over great marches and buffalo hunting quite well.

This isn't the only way to film an epic Western. Costner himself proved it by setting much of the story of Open Range in composition to exemplify the prairie and land that the men are fighting for. Besides the end shoot out, it is simply a picturesque Western. The best part about Dances With Wolves is that the filmmaking has to deal with numerous subplots that require different cameras and scopes. I think Costner handled this with a lot competence being a first time filmmaker. Open Range just confirmed he had many gears in which to go after the Western story.

I'm afraid to think Martin Scorsese was on auto-pilot with Goodfellas. The composition and camera movements showed little variety than the stuff he did with other movies in the 1980s. Scorsese did add complexity in shots and edits with Casino, but with Goodfellas that yet wasn't the case. As Pauline Kael noted, the one new exception for Scorsese was that he filmed the drug experience very well in Goodfellas. So what? Henry Hill does allow drugs to take over his life, but the filmmaking mattered very little.

When Ebert and Scorsese did a top ten list for the 90s, Ebert tried to get Scorsese to admit he changed his filmmaking over the course of the years in the story to match the filmmaking trends of the decades in question. Scorsese only admitted to the music and production look changing for that. Ebert looked at the erratic camera movements later in the story to represent something more. As Kael correctly said, it was just him filming a 'drug experience'.

Then there is the story. Scorsese has always distanced himself from the romantic portrayal of gangsters in The Godfather and preffered to look at what he has done. Yes, he's told more realistic stories, but Goodfellas is barely a cut above The Godfather. The film makes numerous references to 1930s gangster films that depended on storylines that didn't fault the characters for always being in the wrong, but for messing up. Goodfellas, for 3/4 of the story, is a series of antics and crimes done by these mob figures. Henry Hill understands he screwed up everything and can't trust anyone, but he still looks at his past like he messed up a good thing.

The characterization is no different than a generic 30s gangster movie. The film asks little of Robert De Niro to act because his character is a walking cliche. The film ends with Joe Pesci standing in front of a black screen shooting bullets at the camera, the staple shot for those movies. The Godfather recreates the mafia as a romance novel would realize it and Goodfellas recreates it like Hollywood in the 30s had realized it. The Godfather is better made because of the excellent production, but when people ask me to recommend one over the other, I only pick Goodfellas because it's funnier and has one ounce more honesty to it. The film is based on a real story and real people, but molds them into a characterization that skims the surface instead of probe deeper into the heart of the matter. 

See, Dances With Wolves isn't innovative or even grand, but it is better handled and the story is more important. Costner wasn't treading on new ground here. He was telling a story another filmmaker did tell, but that filmmaker was Sam Fuller who in the 1950s told a less than poular story in Run of the Arrow. Fuller saw Dances With Wolves and complemented it as homage. As Howard Zinn said in a People's History of the United States, there is great truth to whites leaving for Indian settlements.

But it's not bad to do a homage to a filmmaker who while wasn't very talented filmmaker, was telling daring stories. Scorsese also does homage in Goodfellas, but he does it for hundreds of movies that created different norms and tendencies in Hollywood. The only air of freshness with Goodfellas is that it had been years since someone had seen those direct shots and characterizations put onto screen. Even if they were already bad cliches.

Damn, I didn't expect to go this long. I think I wrote this for the wrong thread.