The Top 10 Most Overrated Movies Of The Past 14 Years

re: The Top 10 Most Overrated Movies Of The Past 14 Years

meganco — Thu, 01 May 2008 00:17:28 GMT

@ LydiaSarah

Yo-- nothing says "take it easy" like histrionic adjectives, caps lock, and putting things in us-vs.-them terms. Calling it a controversy was (I thought) obviously tounge-in-cheek on my part-- maybe that didn't come through despite my liberal use of motorcycle jokes. Ah well.

Since you ask-- I thought Magnolia was totally bitchin', and I'm happy to waste my two cents on the blogosphere as to why. Where you say "pretentious" I say "ambitious", where you say "obnoxious" I say "unflinching" or maybe "unapologetic". I don't see how the ultra-realistic rain of frogs could be called "predictable", and I thought the dialogue was not "stilted", but stylized to create a heightened emotional canvas for the film's archetypal people and events. I didn't find the characters "silly", I found them an interesting array of essentialized portraits, and I thought that most if not all of the figures in the film rang symbolically true as metaphors for various facets of contemporary American life. In general, I felt that the collision of all of these different aspects of the film created a resonance well beyond the individual parts. (But hey, what do I know, I'm just a professional script reader.)

Obviously it's all a matter of taste, but part of taste is that people spit stuff out and are like "BLECH, THIS IS GROSS". So, ya know, when you bring up subjective things like this, you're gonna get some squabbling and some venting and some wrassling. It's all part of the beautiful human rainbow of snark that distinguishes us from monkeys or whatever.

As for picking on the bloggers-- I agree that things have been getting kind of intense around here. Maybe Scanner commenting needs a safeword. I suggest "Connery!" or maybe "Albacore!". Any other nominations?

re: The Top 10 Most Overrated Movies Of The Past 14 Years

jane — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:41:40 GMT

Crash sucked so bad. The frenzy around it was way more revealing than the actual film.

re: The Top 10 Most Overrated Movies Of The Past 14 Years

LydiaSarah — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:05:47 GMT

Will some of these Magnolia defenders please tell us what is good about this pretentious and obnoxious movie? Every single development was predictable, the dialogue was stilted, contrived, and heavy-handed, the characters were downright silly and everybody SCREAMED ALL THE TIME; this was one of the greatest misuses of a great cast I've ever seen.

I do wonder why people bag on "The Queen" though. To me, that film was understated but fascinating, not really about the royal family itself, but about Britain--the stiff upper-lip ethos that it has defined itself with since at least the World Wars coming into conflict with newer, less traditionally "British" attitudes towards tragedy and grief. It was about a nation trying to define itself in the modern world. That was very interesting to me, but it is a matter of taste.

So let's try to remember that this is a discussion about what movies we like, people. Abortion is a "controversy." Which movies are overrated is not. Can everybody take it easy and stop picking on the bloggers? If they suck so much, then why are you spending time commenting on their posts about MOVIES?

re: The Top 10 Most Overrated Movies Of The Past 14 Years

Em — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:41:46 GMT

Yowzers. When did Scanner bloggers start getting so defensive? Oh, that's right. When Scanner started sucking and the readers started noticing.

re: The Top 10 Most Overrated Movies Of The Past 14 Years

peacock — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:49:20 GMT

Ahh, you forgot the MOST overrated movie in the past century: Donny Darko

re: The Top 10 Most Overrated Movies Of The Past 14 Years

meganco — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:29:33 GMT

Fairbanks, with this total controversy-bait post, I think you've officially become the bad boy of Scanner. Slammin' on Magnolia? You rebel! You might as well get a motorcycle and start cursing at my daddy.

re: The Top 10 Most Overrated Movies Of The Past 14 Years

saraswank — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 02:06:30 GMT

P.S. I forgot to mention that Crash was the most heavy handed shit I've ever seen!

re: The Top 10 Most Overrated Movies Of The Past 14 Years

saraswank — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 02:05:09 GMT

I agree with you about Titanic (drivel) and The Queen (good acting but who cares?), BUT HOW can you cast aspirsions on MAGNOLIA???? Btw, I HEART Amy Mann and I thought her soundtrack made the entire film!!!! (I also HEART Juno btw so don't even get me started)

re: The Top 10 Most Overrated Movies Of The Past 14 Years

Brian Fairbanks — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:17:42 GMT

LydiaSarah-- I wrote the above comment while yours was going up, so I hadn't read it yet and didn't want you to think I was responding to it, since I agree with yours.

I agree with you on Titanic as well-- it was pretty entertaining, at least the first time I saw it. Seeing it on a Greyhound a few years back, I remembering snickering along with the guy sitting next to me. His only comment? Through a fit of laughter: "E-leven Oscars."

re: The Top 10 Most Overrated Movies Of The Past 14 Years

Brian Fairbanks — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:13:32 GMT

Wow. It's amazing how quickly people attack Scanner bloggers without fully reading the passages they claim to be offended by.

1) There's no way I'd ever attack Aimee Mann. I, too, love that song... it has nothing to do with the song-- it's the singalong that's so uncomfortable.

2) Wise Up isn't even FROM that movie. It had been out for years and was used a year or two earlier in Jerry Maguire, which is also on many lists of the most overrated movies of all time. Hello, people-- that, too, has nothing to do with the use of an Aimee Mann song.

3) Ben-- there's absolutely no reason I picked 14 years. It's a goof on all these EW/Premiere/US Weekly and other bullshit lists that they put out only to sell magazines (The Greatest Films of the Last Four Months-- Limited Edition! and so forth.) It's not supposed to be funny, but we're not so arrogant as to take ourselves as seriously as those publications. We're fooling around here, and being specific is boring and for suckers. And if you think Titanic has been trashed enough, you clearly do not have a Facebook account, where 90% of females and at least 40% of males claim it as their favorite movie.

4) Well, although I disagree with "Shakespeare in Love" as one of the TEN most overrated movies of the last (arbitrarily) 14 years, I definitely agree with the Gwyneth Paltrow diss. Wasn't there about four other excellent nominees that year? Anyway, fuck the Oscars.

5) jewbster8 is right about the frogs. If Magnolia was, as I said, an hour shorter and featured the frogs, it would be the classic we thought it was for the first two hors...

By the way, we didn't put this up as any sort of definitive list. I'm sure I missed a dozen or more equally overrated movies, and you are all encouraged to nominate them here.

Stop taking the internet so seriously! Have fun with it!

re: The Top 10 Most Overrated Movies Of The Past 14 Years

LydiaSarah — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:54:25 GMT

Personally, I love Juno and the Queen but thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for acknowledging how overrated Magnolia is. I just don't get it. I knew so many people whose tastes I considered good that gushed about this movie that I went in expecting a masterpiece. What I saw was a pseudo-profound, melodramatic, predictable, self-indulgent (on the part of Anderson) piece of crap. The only thing more bewildering than the amount of respect this movie gets is the amount of respect Tom Cruise gets (or got). And yes, the spontaneous Aimee Mann sing-along caused me to crack up, although, by itself, it is a beautiful song.

Also agree on Million Dollar Baby, I found it totally overwhelming and it's a travesty that Eternal Sunshine was so ignored that year. And while my love for Forrest Gump does not blind me to the fact that it is a bit overrated, I also think Pulp Fiction, which it beat, is one of the most overrated films of all time, much more so. As for Titanic--not eleven-Oscar material, that's for sure, but still one of the most enjoyale brainless popcorn movies of all time, in my opinion.

re: The Top 10 Most Overrated Movies Of The Past 14 Years

GeeBee — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:30:04 GMT

Oh how could you miss out "Shakespeare in Love"? Not only a totally overrated movie, but the least deserved Best Actress Oscar of all time!

re: The Top 10 Most Overrated Movies Of The Past 14 Years

jwebster8 — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:40:19 GMT

The one thing that lifts Magnolia from very good to Excellent (with a cap E) is the raining frogs sequence.

Deus ex amphibius. Fucking amazing that was.

re: The Top 10 Most Overrated Movies Of The Past 14 Years

Adam — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:05:33 GMT

I hate to nitpick, but I always thought that for a film to be "overrated," public opinion had to be higher than the piece in question actually deserved. Is anyone out there still gushing about the joys of Titanic and Gladiator? Has Forrest Gump even been rented by anyone in the last ten years? Which awards exactly did Harold and Kumar win, anyway? Feel free to make lists of movies you don't like and all, but you don't even have to go back five years to get substantially more deserving entries.

re: The Top 10 Most Overrated Movies Of The Past 14 Years

ben — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:30:15 GMT

(understand before you read this that I LOVE Scanner, which is why I'm a little worried about this lame post)

This post is kinda sorta definitely worthless. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem chastising films like "Crash." That entire movie donned the perception that all of a sudden Hollywood discovered there were racial tensions in southern California. But to pick on helpless features like "Titanic" and Harold and Kumar is really really really really easy. And where'd you get the 14 years from? It just that just to include one of those entries? I bet it is. Lazy.

re: The Top 10 Most Overrated Movies Of The Past 14 Years

Emily Farris — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:17:40 GMT

I, too, love that Aimee Mann song.

re: The Top 10 Most Overrated Movies Of The Past 14 Years

David — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:11:03 GMT

Fuck it. You dissed Aimee Mann.

The song "Wise Up" is a simple narrative about regret in getting what you wanted. It may be a little much for people who have no feelings, but it's not preachy.

Go ahead and call the grass blue and the sky green, if that attracts more readers. As for me, I'm done with Scanner. Sigh.