The reverse of that post I’ve made a week ago…
Rules: pick one movie or series and explain why you actually enjoyed it despite the criticism.
For me: The JJ Abrams Star Trek movies, by far the best ST stuff ever made, I couldn’t take seriously the original universe with the dated effects and stiff acting, same goes for NG… These movies did ST actually great looking and much more believable, not just the effects.
For me, it’s the movie Waterworld. I cannot get enough of that movie. So many people hated it. 🤣
Haters: it’s just Mad Max on water
Me: that’s awesome
I like Waterworld, and I like The Postman.
Postman was great! The book is worth a read, too.
The joke in my friend group was that Waterworld was Dances with Wolves on water. The Postman was Waterworld on land. Dances with Wolves was the Postman with Native Americans. Toss in whichever parallel you feel works best to not actually say the movie you’re putting on.
DRY LAND!!!
I dont understand the hate other than cosner was the guy to hate in that era.
I’ve never understood Costner hate. He’s a good actor who stars in a lot of good movies.
Solid Film. Quirky characters. Everyone seems to be having fun.
It inspired me to buy a kayak a few years back to have my Autistic Fish Man Summer.
If paper is the most valuable substance in the entire world, then why are they continuously smoking cigarettes that are rolled in paper? That would be like eating a chunk of gold every hour.
Have you ever smoked? When you’re addicted you’d trade in a chunk of gold for a cigarette if necessary.
I once walked 10 miles to get cigarettes, so yeah, I guess I get that.
In my headcanon it’s some kind of smokable kelp wrapped in different kelp.
Pretty sure when I went to WB world or whatever as a kid they had one of those 15min live shows of it. Jestskis and a few explosions. Surly it can’t be thst unpopular.
It’s a fine movie, but people really don’t like being reminded of climate change or other environment issues. Same thing with Avatar. If you cast an environmentalist as a villain though, people seem to like it.
Wild Wild West has a 16% on Rotten Tomatoes but I genuinely enjoy that film. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen also at 16% and also a movie I enjoyed
Fun fact. Will Smith passed up playing Neo in the Matrix for WWW. I think we got the better deal but it’s fun to picture it.
No way ! WWW is a treasured childhood memory of mine, this rotten tomato guy can suck ass
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen aka How audiences unjustly bullied Sean Connery out of acting.
Wait, really? That was an excellent movie. I wanted them to build a franchise around it
I can see someone liking League if they’d never read the comic.
I’ve read the comic. I consider them two different things
Super Mario Bros. with Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo. I don’t care how bad it is. It’s in the campy so-bad it’s good pool of movies and nothing anyone says can change my mind. The fact that they were drunk off their asses just makes it even funnier in my opinion.
Not sure if it was HATED, but Hook if we’re going by reviews. I can’t imagine any kid seeing that movie and not loving it though.
Me and about a dozen other people thought John Carter was great. To me, it was just a fun sci-fi/fantasy movie. Never undestood the hate.
John Carter was only hated by people who follow box office numbers instead of watching movies.
It was great!
My gal hates it because she’s a huge fan of the book and apparently they did the whole of it pretty dirty. One of those, “it’s fine if you weren’t hoping to see anything that made the book unique” type movies.
My go to for that criticism is that it’s a different medium, so it must be different.
It’s like complaining that a photo of Statue of David doesn’t show the whole statue.
Counterpoint: if I sell you a photograph which I advertised as of the statue of David and it’s just a zoomed in picture of his back, you would be in your rights to complain about leaving out the important parts.
At that point we’re in caveat emptor territory.
But, yes, nice counter point.
Floppy wieners?
I went to see it at noon after dropping the car off for work and was literally the only one in the theatre. I thought it was pretty good.
John Carter was great. Zero dollars spent on marketing. They thought it was a household name or something because it was a book.
Yeah, i tend to agree. It was fun and refreshing. It was just kind of… forgettable.
Yeah I thought it was a fun movie too. It would have been nice to have gotten another scifi series that was more focused on fun.
Me and my wife went to see it and really liked it. Unfortunately I think we were the only couple in the theater at the time. I don’t think it was marketed very well at all by Disney.
If you want a good read: John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood
https://www.amazon.com/John-Carter-Hollywood-Michael-Sellers/dp/0615682316
Looks interesting ty!
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I thought Waterworld was fine.
The original super Mario bros movie from the 90s. If I come across it I always get the urge to watch it. Its so weird and interesting, love it. Noone in my family will watch it though they hate it :(
Your family are weird then, that movie is cinematic gold.
They say its too weird :(
Got bust out the ol reliable “no u”
This is mine too. If you haven’t, look up the drama on set! The crew wore shirts stating they hate the directors, the actors were drunk, Haskins broke his leg and was in a cast most of the time (rumored to have been run over on set by another drunk actor, lol).
It’s insane and crazy that we got a movie so fun (seriously, it’s just so fun even if it doesn’t adhere to the source material).
I didnt know about any of that, thanks for the tip!
Way better than the recent animated movie IMO
Also the new movie basically ripped the exact premise from the OG
Johnny Mnemonic. Keanu cannot act for shit in it, the story isn’t exactly gripping, hell the action in it is somewhere in the shitter. Oh, and Henry Rollins is a nerdy doctor. All if it adds up to a campy trip of slop that triggers my guilty pleasure.
Matrix 2 & 3. I don’t see, or watch, them as separate movies. Rather, together with Matrix 1, they form one big masterpiece for me. But I can see that it doesn’t really fit the 100 minutes format audiences came to expect, and breaking it in three parts did not do it any good. Plus, I guess I’m just a fan of long movies as I’ve also sat through the original, restored “Until the End of the World,” which runs for about 5 hours.
When I binged all 3 movies I realised that 2 and 3 should be watched together as a single film, it makes it so much better
I get quite annoyed when people talk trash about 2 and 3. If it’s not for you then that’s fine but saying they’re not good really gets under my skin.
I mean, 2 and 3 are also largely a deconstruction of 1. The Matrix is an incredibly well made movie with really stupid themes. 2 and 3 do an excellent job highlighting why stuff like “Neo is the Chosen One” is fundamentally bad storytelling, but there were a lot of audiences who loved The Matrix fully and completely. I can understand why those people were disappointed when 2 and 3 weren’t just more senseless violence in black trenchcoats, but ultimately the series wasn’t made for them.
IIRC, 2 and 3 were meant to be one film, but it got split due to studio meddling. I wonder if there is a mega-cut adapting the whole trilogy into a single runtime.
Matrix 2 and 3 were films that always got a bad rep, but were alright if you sat down and watched them.
Matrix 4 is… best left forgotten, and I say that as someone who likes Indy 4
Yea I’m with you on this. They expand on an otherwise superb unit in a rather intricate way, bringing in so much lore and characters, complexifying the stakes, that I can see how they can be perceived as diluting a very pure work of art, and losing the beautiful esoterism of the first. But it’s two of those films you need to watch several times to wrap your head around and appreciate rightfully. Just like The Big Lebowski, in a different way
SOLO - I know everyone hated on this film, but we get a space western mixed with a heist movie. Woody Harrelson and Donald Glover are icing on the cake. Plus we get a robot uprising. 5 bags of popcorn and throw in a couple of those Darth Vader cups.
I did not enjoy the sequels, but Solo? Yeah, that is a solid fun time. I even have a Solo T-shirt that I still wear on occasion.
I don’t think this is really a hot take. I know quite a few star wars fans and most of them (including me) love Solo, even those who can’t stand any of the other new movies.
For some reason I was thinking you were talking about that Mario Van Peebles movie
Yea I enjoyed Solo, good popcorn flick
It’s easily the best Star Wars movie in the last 30 years. Its only major faults are some bits of bad cinematography and a bit of cringey fan service.
That’s Rogue One.
I did like Solo, but can’t but feel it would have been better had the main character not been Han Solo, because nobody was really going to live up to Harrison Ford in the originals.
Its easily Roque One, Theres just no competition movie wise. In general its Andor, that show was just peak Star Wars
Nah, Rogue One is as bad as the other sequels. The main character is about as interesting as a wet dish rag. Several of the side characters are annoying. Zombie Tarkin. There’s no story arc or characters that are worth caring about and the entire plot is just a thin excuse to have cringey fan service and CG action scenes.
I’m not even going to call it a guilty pleasure, but Josie and the Pussycats was a movie that I genuinely adored long before people started to appreciate it for the satire that it is.
As a CIS male I got endlessly mocked, but I stuck to my guns.
A million ways to die in the west is a solid dumb comedy. The movie has dogshit reviews on every review site but I enjoyed it.
I unironically really want to see Seth McFarlane do more comedies like this one. It was a blast all the way through.
I can’t believe I want to see him in more sci-fi. I miss the Orville so much.
For some reason he’s who I pictured in my head when reading Project Hail Mary.
Was that show good? I actually never watched it.
I went in expecting family guy in space and instead I got a really good spoof of star trek with a comfortable mix of low-brow humor and well thought out commentary. I’d honestly give it a go if I were you, Seth McFarland is so much funnier than most give him credit for.
It’s Star Trek with Seth MacFarlane’s humor mixed in. I really enjoy it, and hope the rumors of a season 4 starting filming this year are true.
Plus I have a huge crush on Adrianne Palicki.
I know! I wish he did more.
“Ain’t nobody have a dollar!”
“Yeah, show us the dollar!”
Pulls out a $1 bill; crowd gasps
“Take your hat off and show some respect, boy, that there’s a dollar bill!”
Dad: You’re late!
Seth: Late for fucking what?!
Dad: Fair Enough
It’s full of good, snappy writing, too. Great skits all throughout.
It’s not as good as Ted but still great.
Huh, I think I didn’t know (or just forgot) that it was panned… I liked it, it was fun
Green Lantern. I went in expecting cartoony quips and got what I expected. Everyone calls it a stupid movie like they went in expecting Shakespeare and found the Muppets. I went in expecting a live action comic book, and yeah that’s pretty much what I got. Fun show, watched it a few times now.
I would 100% watch Muppets doing Shakespeare. That’s basically what the comedies were in those days anyway.
No matter how nice you are about Green Lantern, Ryan Reynolds still won’t call you. Don’t ask how I know, it’s a touchy subject.
I know why he’s mad, it was a box office disaster. Nothing can fix that short of a time machine.
Lots of people love to hate Cloud Atlas. I see it as flawed work of art with a good message and an amazing cast, produced under such nearly impossible circumstances that we are more than lucky it ever saw the light of day.
Man, I love that movie totally unironically. Cannibal Hugh Grant, dude.
I can watch really bad movies as long as the score is good, and cloud atlas has a banger score. How they weave the different timelines while playing that music really does it for me. I’ve watched it a few times and now that you reminded me I’ll probably watch it again soon.
I absolutely loved Cloud Atlas and I was crying at the end. I didn’t know anything about it, didn’t know about the book, didn’t know it was hated until now. Just a movie that I liked the trailer for, so I watched it and I’m glad I did.
Not universally hated by any means. But there are plenty of people that expect a movie to fit a certain Hollywood formula, which includes not challenging your audience too much. And so they judge movies by standards that an epic artistic endeavor like Cloud Atlas was never trying to meet.
Also the whole “gender- and race-bending” made some people uncomfortable, even though it’s merely the same actors portraying completely different characters.
Add to this that certain influential studio voices in Hollywood had previously rejected the project outright when they were first approached by the Wachowskis. So it was clear they would never give it a fair shake after it was produced in Europe, against their judgment and without their blessing, and under such unconventional circumstances.
Ain’t that the tru-tru.
It has one of the coolest trailers ever
The concept behind Cloud Atlas made for a much better movie than book, IMHO.
Having the same actor play the same part in each time made following the plot easier, at least for me. The book was a bit of a slog at times and following each characterization was confusing.
Plus some of the casting in the movie was really good. Jim Brodbent in particular, I thought, delivered a spectacularly good performance.
You’re probably right. I’ve never read the book.
Having the same actor play the same part in each time made following the plot easier, at least for me.
This is what I expected to see on first watch, and was a bit confused that at least some actors did actually “switch sides” between timelines. Going by interviews, it seems this was possibly meant to reflect an evolution of souls. But to me the message of the movie works just as well, if not better, if you leave out the concept of persistence of souls or individuals altogether, accept that some of them just look similar, and think more in terms of repeating patterns and ideas across eras.
Jim Brodbent in particular, I thought, delivered a spectacularly good performance.
Hard agree. His contemporary and light-hearted “shady publicist to nursing home jail break” plotline also really worked well to ground the movie in between epic-dramatic segments.
Check out Mr. Nobody (2009) if you liked Cloud Atlas.
It needed to be like 4 hours longer to capture the feel of the book. Some of the actors didn’t have the range to pull off all their parts which caused some sequences to fall flat. It’s still good though, I remember hearing a lot of positive things about it.
What’s the message? I didn’t really catch any, besides some notions about souls, reincarnation and sex not being fixed.
The things you mention are narrative elements. The message is repeated almost like a mantra throughout the movie, and later revealed or summarized as the ‘prophetic’ words of Son-Mi:
Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.
This is the core thesis of the movie, standing in direct opposition to the various antagonists’ ideology, which can be summed up as self-serving nihilism and upholding the status quo of might makes right / the natural order by any means.
Thanks. That completely slipped from my memory.
Reminds me of The Egg short story I’ve reread yesterday.
It spoke to me when I watched it at the right point in my personal development. As is often the case with movies or experiences that try to convey something meaningful, whether the message lands depends just as much on the watcher. I honestly don’t blame anyone for whom it was a lengthy and confusing blurb. The narrative structure and casting choices are so far outside what audiences are used to, that the script was thrown out by every major Hollywood studio at the time despite the prestigious names behind it. I myself was quite confused on some of the timelines and characters until my 2nd rewatch, and that’s a lot to ask for a movie of this length. It really never had a shot at mass appeal, so in an economic sense those studios were right. I’m just fascinated and grateful it ever got made. It truly was a leap of faith and a labor of love for many, the Wachowskis and Tom Hanks in particular. And I feel like this shines through in the final release, rough edges and all.
I read the story you linked and I absolutely see the parallels. I feel like I may have read it once already years ago. It’s quite the philosophically intriguing concept.
Kurzgesagt has also arranged it in short film form if that’s your thing : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6fcK_fRYaI Personally, it’s one of the most impactful stories I’ve read.
