Movies I hate that everybody else loves.

[Jeebo]

I'll offer up two examples.

1) The Lord of the Rings movies. When I was in high school way back in the 1960s, I kept hearing about the Lord of the Rings and how good it is. I did not understand at the time what the difference is between science fiction and fantasy. I love science fiction and, thinking Lord of the Rings is science fiction, I bought the first book in the series and started reading it. Well, what a letdown. Couldn't get even a third of the way through the first volume. A couple years later I read The Hobbit. I did manage to get all the way through that one, but it was a real slog. I've known ever since then that I love science fiction, but fantasy does nothing for me. Absolutely nothing. I have to be able to suspend my disbelief. With science fiction, I can do that. With fantasy, I cannot.

2) The Deer Hunter. I saw that movie once, only once, in the movie theater when it was a current movie. I will never watch it again. I found it brutal, depressing, ugly -- and the whole first half hour of the movie was just a bunch of godawful noise. Not an effective way for a filmmaker to get the viewer into a receptive mood for watching a good movie, I thought at the time. And did I say, I will never watch that movie again?

Well, there you go, folks. As Linda Richman would say, I've given you a topic. Now, discuss!

-- Ron

[no_hypocrisy]

1. The Way We Were

Sappy, saccharine, formulaic.

Didn't like both Streisand and Redford.

Didn't cry at the end.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

2. The Fifth Element

I love sci-fi, Gary Oldman and Luc Besson. I think the opera singer is amazing. And I think the movie is a hot mess with no plot and everyone chewing the scenery to the point of parody.
I also know I'm among the few who think this...

[regnaD kciN]

7. I think it was SUPPOSED to be a parody...

[AZSkiffyGeek]

10. The way I hear people talk about it, I'm not sure everyone thinks that

But that is a good point. I love Starship Troopers because it is such a great parody of fascism - while a lot of hardcore Heinlein fans hate it because it is completely different than the book.

[TlalocW]

17. Oh, god, I hate that movie so much

Mainly because oh, god, I hate Bruce Willis so much

[2naSalit]

25. That's too bad.

I wasn't sure about it the first time I saw it but the second time, quite a while later, I really liked. I'd watch it again.

It probably is an acquired taste to some degree.

[doc03]

3. I never thought The Deer Hunter was so great. It was filmed locally and I know people that

were extras in it so it has fans. I know of one person that drove the limo for the actors, he said you wouldn't believe the cocaine
they went through.

[debm55]

29. I live near Clairton, PA were some of it was filmed. That was the draw for me. It was a depressing

movie. I have never or want to watch it again.

[sl8]

43. Except for the deer hunting scene.

That was filmed above the tree line on Washington's Mount Baker. Not much like the Pennsylvania woods. Didn't help that they used a red deer as a stand-in for a whitetail.

[doc03]

51. I was puzzled in the movie when they got in the car to go deer hunting

and ended up someplace that looked like the Rockies. There are no such mountains I know of any place in the east.
Part of it was filmed in Mingo Junction Ohio where I worked. I remember in the middle of the summer they had snow
on the streets and a Christmas display in a storefront. Although there was a huge steel mill in Mingo Junction, I think all the mill
scenes were at another mill in PA for some reason.

[debm55]

53. in Clairiton, PA It was the US Steel Mill, Clairton Works

[VGNonly]

74. Yes, a red deer

is more related to elk rather than whitetails. The highest point of Mount Baker is about 10,800 and heavily glaciated, the high point in PA about 3,200.

[Walleye]

4. I didn't like the Deer Hunter I thought it was slow

As well as so ugly that it was unwatchable

[Gidney N Cloyd]

5. Anything 'Star Wars' after the original 3 movies.

After too many disappointments I just can't anymore.

[Shermann]

13. I believe everyone else agrees with you! nt

[Gidney N Cloyd]

14. But they keep churning them out. Clearly the market's there.

[Shermann]

16. Star Wars is the movie equivalent of McDonald's

Nobody admits to liking the food, but they are everywhere!

[skypilot]

6. I might get flamed for this but here goes:

Pulp Fiction
The Big Lebowski
The Shining
Ferris Bueller's Day Off

[AZSkiffyGeek]

9. I loved all of those

I'm pretty sick of all of them now.
Lebowski is the only one I still can take, and even that is pushed to the limit by obsessive fans. But someone pointed out to me that it was a parody of The Big Sleep, and that changed my opinion on its genius.
It's not the Coen's best (that would be Fargo and No Country for Old Men), but I don't hate it.

[Shermann]

12. Wait did we segue to listing our FAVORITE movies?

I just saw The Big Lebowski for the first time, and it was just OK. Sometimes those cult classics take a few viewings.

The other three are pure gold.

[XanaDUer2]

21. Can't stand FBDO

Saw it in theatre when it came out. I'm the same age as the protagonists in it.

There was something so smug and annoying about the lead character. Broderick is a good actor, so it was writing and directing imo.

It was like, we're just so cool. I left in a bad mood, I remember. Ick

[Coventina]

39. Another GenX Ferris hater here.

I never saw it until recently.

My husband is from Chicago and LOVES that movie.

I just couldn't stand him. He's just the kind of guy I hated in high school.
So full of himself.

Blech!

[hunter]

38. I realized right away that Ferris Bueller's Day Off was a story about an imaginary friend.

Fight Club is the movie's sequel.

Haven't seen Pulp Fiction or the Shining and never will.

Haven't seen The Big Lebowski either, but I might get around to it.

The popular movie I hated was The Big Chill. Nobody told me it was a horror film.

[mucifer]

50. Hated Ferris Bueller

[Skittles]

55. I love those movies too!

[Mad_Dem_X]

64. I hated Pulp Fiction

The only good thing about it was Samuel L. Jackson, IMO.

[50 Shades Of Blue]

8. Pretty Woman. Pretty Woman. Pretty Woman. And Pretty Woman.

Rounding out the top five is Bram Stoker's Dracula.

[Niagara]

27. ...

Rounding out the top five is Bram Stoker's Dracula.

That's blasphemy!

[50 Shades Of Blue]

32. Sorry! It should have been called Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula.

[Harker]

65. I call it, somewhat laboriously, "Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula." n/t

[50 Shades Of Blue]

69. ROFL.

[milestogo]

37. That movie made me nauseous.

Sorry Julia Roberts, but you brought it on yourself.

[Skittles]

56. glamorizing prostitution

[Shermann]

11. Maybe you'd enjoy low fantasy?

LotR is thought of as being "high fantasy". These stories are typically set in a completely make-believe world.

Low fantasy stories are typically set in a more real-world environment. This requires less suspension of disbelief and is more casual. "Harry Potter" is an example. High fantasy can require more of an investment as the reader/viewer.

[yellowdogintexas]

66. Agree. Tolkien's writing style is much more 19th century

whereas Rowling's is very modern and it's easy to visually 'see' the action.

Light fantasy can be fun! The Discworld novels really stand out in that category, even they are set in a created world.
Neil Gaiman's books are also in that genre.

[CanonRay]

15. Rocky Horror Picture Show

and Out of Africa

[MANative]

19. Out of Africa is the only movie I've ever walked out on n/t

[CanonRay]

24. I fell asleep

So I guess it wasn't all bad

[MuseRider]

31. I walked out of

Love Story. What a load of crap that was. I was in High School, everyone was talking about it so I convinced my boyfriend to take me. He and his friends stayed and finished it, I don't know why but it wasn't because they liked it, and I waited in the concession area for them. No on else joined me out there oddly. It came on the TV a month or so ago and I was curious and turned it on. What a load of crap it is, just nooooooooope!

[XanaDUer2]

42. I watched it a month ago, lol

The Ryan O'Neal character is so arrogant towards his father. Shows I'm getting old.

Not a great movie. There was a sequel, Oliver's Story. Never saw that

[rsdsharp]

18. The Thin Red Line -1998

Based on the second novel of James Jones’s war trilogy, I found it incredibly boring. I nearly walked out. From Here to Eternity is a classic, but I thought Thin Red Line was awful.

I laugh about Deer Hunter. I’m not a fan, but I saw it on a very early date with the woman who would become my wife. I dumped a full large buttered popcorn into her lap. She says that’s when she fell in love with me.

[Emile]

60. I just watched the Thin Red Line over again while

walking on my treadmill. I liked it better this time. It showed the horrors of war for sure.

[Scrivener7]

20. Loved The Deerhunter. But I HATED Inception, and everyone else thought it

was brilliant.

Everyone who loved it said I just didn't understand it. I understood it fine. And I understood it was way overrated and just dopey.

Also, I thought Pulp Fiction was okay. Not great. Wouldn't see it twice.

[gratuitous]

48. The premise of Inception is indeed deeply silly

It didn't hold up to much (any) scrutiny. But for me the draw was Leonardo DeCaprio playing a guy who's dangerously close to burnout, and whether or not his team can still trust him to do his job.

[3catwoman3]

22. Forrest Gump - just too implausible.

The Deer Hunter.

[hunter]

44. My wife hated Forest Gump with a seething rage.

There were things about the movie that merely irritated me, but that's my experience with most movies.

I didn't understand my wife's anger, which further enraged her.

We drove home in silence.

Bad date night.

[3catwoman3]

46. Spending my career in pediatrics may be what made the movie so...

...aggravating to me. In real life, there would be no way that someone with Forest's challenges would have had all those extraordinary experiences. It seemed disrespectful, somehow, to suggest that those things might even be possible for people with significant limitations.

Might something like that have been going on with your wife?

And, to any readers, please know I am doing my best to choose my words carefully so no one thinks I am being abelist, because I'm not. As I noted, I've spent my career in pediatrics, and seen patients to whom Mother Nature has been quite unkind.

[mucifer]

52. I agree hated Forest Gump. I'm a pediatric nurse

[hunter]

54. Oh my, you nailed it.

I'm certain that was it.

Thank you! At the time I was afraid to ask and we never really spoke of it again.

[3catwoman3]

23. Forrest Gump - just too implausible.

The Deer Hunter.

[rurallib]

41. about half away through old Forrest Gump I just about walked out

so implausible.

[patricia92243]

26. Harry Potter movies and books.

[XanaDUer2]

75. I thought I was the only one to hate then too nt

[Shermann]

28. Superhero movies

Eh, there are a few decent ones, but good grief.

This is the biggest cash-grab genre ever. How much wood is left in that barrel they are scraping?

[Jeebo]

58. I agree with you about superhero movies.

They're beyond merely stupid, they're ridiculous, they're utterly preposterous. What was that I said in the original post about being able to suspend my disbelief?

Also, another movie I'd like to add to the ones in my original post: The Matrix. I saw it only once, I'll never watch it again.

Also, animated movies. I'm 73 years old; I'm way too old to be watching cartoons. I want to see movies with REAL people in them.

-- Ron

[Niagara]

30. This is the easiest list I've ever done.

All Avatar movies


All Fast and Furious movies


All remakes of Planet of the Apes (I like the 1968 version)


Anything Star Wars


Any and all Die Hard movies. Die Hard can go die hard.


Waterworld

Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Back when I first got Netflix, it wasn't a streaming service, I would make a queue of what my next movie would be. A co-worker suggested this movie and it was the worst movie that I ever watched and I can't ever get my time back that I wasted watching it.

[Jade Fox]

35. I thought I was the only person in the world...

who didn't like the original Star Wars. I thought it was a bore.

[gratuitous]

71. All the fast and furious movies?

You watched them all trying to decide if you hated them? Poor chap; I figured it out from the trailer of the first one.

[Niagara]

76. Could you be anymore condescending?

BTW, I'm a female; not a "chap".

[gratuitous]

77. I dunno, I never really applied myself

By the way, it was a joke. In a Lounge thread. About bad movies. Perhaps your tastes are too sophisticated for this milieu.

[Niagara]

78. No, you were rude and insulting.

There was no reason for it. Grow up.

[First Speaker]

33. I'd say The Sound of Music, but that's *too* easy...

...like shooting fish in a barrel. But its popularity is undeniable... (I once knew someone who went to one of the theater screenings wearing a yellow dress. When asked why, she told me: "I'm going as Ray, a Drop of Golden Sun." ) Some others:

--The Blair Witch Project

--20th Century, with Barrymore and Lombard.

--Adam's Rib

--Top Gun

--It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World

--Blade Runner

--Ghostbusters

--Alien

[msongs]

34. mad world can be funny at times but it is tooooooooooooooo as is blazing saddles nt

[First Speaker]

36. British author J.B. Priestley once described the film...

...as the world of the nuclear deterrent trying to have fun...

[Coventina]

40. The two movies I walked out of: War of the Roses and Heat

Couldn't stand those hateful people in either one.

[Zorro]

45. Reservoir Dogs

[red dog 1]

47. I liked The Deer Hunter, but I can think of six popular movies that I can't stand

- The Wolf of Wall Street
- Harold and Maude
- The Hurt Locker
- Lost in Translation
- The English Patient
- Hotel New Hampshire

[Scrivener7]

49. OMG! Hated The Wolf of Wall Street! How could so much sexual and ethical

misbehavior be SO tedious?

[Paladin]

63. Wow! Look how long it took for "The English Patient" to show up!

Usually on DU "I Hate This Movie" threads, "English Patient" is one of the very first despised movies to turn up, with multiple posts on how Godawful other people think it is. Hell, "Seinfeld" even did an episode, incorporating "English Patient" hatred.

Oh, by the way: I thought "The English Patient" was an excellent flick. And the book is even better.

[pressbox69]

57. Hated Out Of Africa

Until I caught on to the soundtrack. Now I only watch it with my eyes closed. John Barry deserved an Oscar for Goldfinger. The Fort Knox sequence was classic. Probably because Soupy Sales used it in his Philo Kevich series. Glad nobody mentioned that they hate my favorite movie. It's the one that was recently toppled off the top of the polls, first by Vertigo and then by some French film I never heard of.

[Emile]

59. Any of the Rocky movies.

[retread]

62. Patton.

[yellowdogintexas]

67. Citizen Kane. English Patient.

I have not seen several of the frequently mentioned films
but ....

All Rocky movies
Jaws
The Exorcist

[pressbox69]

87. I knew

somebody would mention Kane.

[VGNonly]

68. Movies in general that

are sequels, prequels, remakes, spin offs, reimagining, reboots...whatever.

Next blockbuster- Star Wars XXII Son of Wookie!

[Orrex]

70. Guardians of the Galaxy

Drax has a few good moments, but otherwise every single second of that film is agony. Ditto the sequel.

Let’s add in Avatar while we’re at it. Terrible.

[Harker]

72. "Saving Private Ryan"...

and a bunch of other Steven Spielberg products.

[VGNonly]

73. Armageddon vs Pearl Harbor

or any Michael Bay productions.

Uggh!

[ProfessorGAC]

79. Titanic

Romeo & Juliet on a boat. Grotesquely overracted by nearly all principal characters. Turgid story telling.
My wife & I left the theater because our uncontrollable laughing was irritating other patrons.
Later we tried watching the rest on HBO in installments.
It didn't help.
Utter dreck.

[Jeebo]

82. I disagree. I actually enjoyed that movie.

It's a real crowd-pleaser, it's quite a spectacle, and I've always thought it's difficult to make a bad movie about that incredible catastrophe.

However, if you don't like that one, I wonder if you've ever seen A Night To Remember, the 1958 black-and-white British film about the same catastrophe? I think A Night To Remember is a GREAT movie, the best Titanic movie ever made. That disaster was so memorable, so spectacular, so dramatic all on its own, that you don't have to add a story to it. This particular version is like a documentary film version of the sinking of the Titanic. It's like somebody was on the ship with a hidden camera following people around, and then that person and the camera survived.

The second mate on the ship, his name was Lightoller, was one of the main characters of the film. Standing on the keel of a capsized lifeboat and watching the big ship go down, he told another survivor, "I've experienced disasters at sea before, I've even been shipwrecked before, but nothing like this."

"How is it different this time?"

"Because this time, we were so SURE. And now, I don't think I can ever be sure about anything, ever again."

There's something profound about those words, and I'll never forget that scene as long as I live.

I have A Night To Remember on DVD, and I'm thinking about going and watching it again right now.

-- Ron

[ProfessorGAC]

84. Night To Remember Is MUCH Better!

I've seen it a few times, at least.
We agree on that movie, for sure.

[Upthevibe]

80. Jeebo...............

I love these kinds of posts:

Here are some that come to mind:

Out of Africa
Any and All Super Hero and Marvel movies (except the first two Superman movies with Christopher Reeve from the 70's and the Dark Knight one with Heath Ledger)
James Bond movies
All movies by Director Terrence Malick
Almost all period pieces

I'm sure there are more but these are what come to mind.

[Raine]

81. Chinatown, The Great White Hope, Gentleman's Agreement, Alien

and A Christmas Story I know there's more but those come to mind first.

[Rhiannon12866]

83. Forrest Gump

When others said good things about it, I thought they must be joking...

[Alpeduez21]

85. Citizen Kane

It's called a great movie. Maybe one of the greatest but really it's just a bore.

Tootsie.

[LudwigPastorius]

86. All of the Austin Powers movies.

...just about everything Mike Myers has done actually. Throw in Adam Sandler for good measure.

Because a bad movie winking at itself being bad, just isn't funny to me.

[Auggie]

88. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Bad Santa

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind -- a big yawn. And redundant.

Bad Santa was the worst performance I've seen from Billy Bob Thornton. A wretched film -- mean-spirited and totally not funny.

[Celerity]

89. anything done by Woody Allen (not including his daughter-wife)