TheMovieCheese.net

First of all, the movies in this list aren’t necessarily bad films. Most of them are films that I do actually enjoy, but are given far too much praise. They are good, but not great.

10. Gladiator (2000)

Gladiator is a brilliantly entertaining movie. It’s a big, fun action blockbuster that boasts amazing direction from Ridley Scott and a brilliant central performance from Russell Crowe. However, in 2001 it completely swooped the Oscars; winning Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Visual Effects, Best Costume Design and Best Sound. Admittedly, three of those awards (Visual effects, sound, and actor) were pretty well deserved. But I simply can NOT forgive it’s victory of the other two. In the 2001 Oscars, Gladiator was up against both Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Traffic for Best Picture. Both of these films are much better than Gladiator. Gladiator is a good entertaining film, but Crouching Tiger is a stunning piece of art that gives the audience the feeling of watching poetry unveil on screen. Likewise Traffic is an incredibly thought-provoking film about what is right and wrong and how we protect our families. The costume category should have also definitely gone to Crouching Tiger. It’s also noticable that (while it wasn’t nominated) Christopher Nolan’s masterpiece Memento was also released in the same year. So by the Academy’s opinion, apparently Gladiator is a better film than Memento. I “lol” in the face of that theory.

9. Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)

Say what you want about Phantom Menace, but at least it had that epic Darth Maul fight scene at the end. Granted that is its only good scene, but hey…that’s one more than this piece of science fiction, video gamey trash. It’s a boring piece of film making with some of the worst CGI effects in a mainstream film ever. There is a reason why so many people take the piss out of George Lucas, it is because the best Star Wars films (Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi) he did not direct. Hell, he didn’t even write their scripts. In fact, I’m going to throw this out there right now…I also do not like Episode IV: A New Hope. Yeah, It’s shit. There is zero story in that movie. Tell me what the story is, because I genuinely want to know. Empire on the other hand is fucking awesome, with one of the greatest and darkest endings in cinema history. Back to Attack of the Clones it’s a fucking terrible movie. I even hate the big Yoda fight in the finale, simply because it’s just been tacked on there. It doesn’t lead to anything, nothing comes of it, and it isn’t even emotional because he’s only fighting Dooku. Who gives a flying fuck about Dooku?!

8. Independence Day (1996)

Another movie that is just downright shit. Completely brainless, and contains some of the most ridiculous patriotism ever commited to film. It’s another one of those tired “America saves the day” movies that completely ignores the competence of any other country as if America is the only one that could save the day. The dialogue sends me in some serious shivers (“Welcome to Earth!”, “Not ’till the fat lady sings”), and the acting in general is sub standard. Only Jeff Goldblum gives a half decent performance. Admittedly the special effects are pretty damn good, but then it is a Roland Emmerich movie. Even his worst films (see The Day After Tomorrow and 2012) still contain some damn impressive CGI. The best is the shot of the alien craft decimating the White House. But the rest of the film is a queesy, overrated piece of popcorn trash that receives WAY too much attention.

7. Top Gun (1986)

People constantly bash 300 and Lord of the Rings for all their homo-erotic undertones. Those same people are probably fans of Top Gun. That seriously makes me “lol”. This movie is about men, doing manly things, in a manly way, with lots of men. Without trying to sound homophobic…it’s the gayest movie ever made. That doesn’t make it bad. But it does make it completely inconceivable that there are so many men in the world who adore it even though they call themselves heterosexual and some of them even pride themselves in being homophobic. Even more mind-boggling is A) the amount of women who love this movie, and B) the amount of women who love the men who love this movie. But aside from that it’s just boring. Downright boring. The dialogue is stupid and it’s very basic in terms of it’s directing and acting. Also, did I mention one of the main characters is called ‘Goose’? I rest my case.

6. The Matrix (1999)

A revolutionary science fiction mythology is great and all, but sometimes it isn’t enough to carry an entire movie. The directing is first rate, the story is moderately interesting, and the action/fight scenes are out of this world and incredibly influential. But everything else that happens is just tedious. Seriously, how many of you Matrix nutbags actually care about the religious mumo jumbo in these movies? What would you rather watch, a kid trying to bend a spoon and a poor man’s Opera Winfrey talking about fate…or would you rather watch crazy bullet time shoot outs and Keanu Reeves kicking Hugo Weaving in the face? The Wachowski Brothers really can make a damn good movie. But this isn’t their best. V For Vendetta is a MUCH better film than The Matrix but their best film is without a shadow of a doubt their first film Bound; it’s a mix of crime drama and dark comedy that is full of tension and laughs….oh, and did I mention it contains both Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon in several naked lesbian “embrace” scenes? Yeah, that’s right, I see you heading straight to amazon for the DVD.

5. The Sixth Sense (1999)

M Night Shyamalan’s breakthrough film is a very mixed bag. There are those who unfairly hate it simply because they guessed the “big twist” too early (why exactly does that make it bad?), and there are those who love it for it’s campfire-style of story telling and Haley Joel Osment’s phenomenal performance. I am somewhat in the middle. On the one hand, I love the direction Shyamalan takes with the film, his attention to detail and the lighting scheme of the whole film. On the other hand, I’m thinking of a “watching the film on your own” kind of view. Hear me out. A great film has to be one that you can watch with a group of people and by yourself and still receive the same amount of satisfaction. The Sixth Sense is not one of those movies. Fair enough, the first ever time you watch it, it is great to watch it on your own; but after that (once you know the twist) the only way to fully enjoy the movie is to watch it with somebody else – sitting there grinning because you’re noticing little things that you never noticed before, and looking at your mate while he/she scratches his/her head. Once you’ve done that though you’ll never be able to get satisfaction from watching it on your own. And that is why this film is overrated. It’s a one-trick pony that so many people bragged about on it’s release. The funniest thing is that a couple years later, M Night Shyamalan would go on to make Unbreakable; definitely the best film of his entire career and a personal favorite of mine.

4. E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

Everyone has a film that is so nostalgically ingrained in their childhood that the very mention that it may not be a great film must be thrown down and put to the sword at once. For me, that movie is the immortal 80s movie The Goonies. Sadly, for many more people, that movie is E.T. It’s the kind of movie where even if you don’t like it you have to pretend to like it just to please certain people. Well, fuck you, because I fucking hate it. There are load of movies that I loved as a kid that weren’t exactly amazing (Crocodile Dundee comes to mind), but just because I loved them back then (and still love them now) I would never deem them a “classic”. That “not classic” category is where I would stick E.T. Even though I personally don’t like it, I respect the fact that is a moderately entertaining achievement. But I can’t condone the fact that billions feel it is the second coming of Jesus Christ. Because it was directed by Steven Spielberg, the E.T.-nostalgia-tinted militia has been given unfair ammunition. When I watch E.T., I see a weirdly phallic muppet hanging out for two hours with Drew Barrymore and the dude from Legends of the Fall. So I’m now here to set the record straight – as far as Steven Spielberg’s movies go: Jaws is a great movies, Shindler’s List is a great movie, Duel is a great movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark is a great movie…E.T. is a merely a decent movie – for kids. If you are unable to accept this for what ever reason, then replace every sentence of this paragraph from E.T. to The Goonies. But remember, The Goonies is a MUCH more awesome movie.

3. Chicago (2002)

Even with the fact that 2002 was a bit of a downer movie-wise…was Chicago really the best film? Really?! Well, according to the Oscars it was. Even though 2002 also saw the release of The Pianist, Igby Goes Down, Gangs of New York and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Is Chicago really a better film than all those? Is it fuck. It’s an entertaining little film if you like your musicals, but it is not “film of the year” territory. It was all pish pash and ho hum. And seriously, when will people stop putting Catherine Zeta Jones in movies. Well, actually she hasn’t made anything for quite a while admittedly, but she’s still an unbelievably shit actress. I love Richard Gere but even he can’t save this from just being a basic musical that has garnered far too much attention and awards. Disagree? Well then ask yourself this…how many people still talk about Chicago now? There you go.

2. Saving Private Ryan (1998)

We come to another Steven Spielberg movie. Are we beginning to see a pattern here? Oh come on, Spielberg is overrated. As is this snorefest. I’m expecting a lot of backlash here actually, but the fact is that I find Saving Private Ryan downright boring. People constantly complain about Lord of the Rings being just “about people walking”. That may be true, but it’s even more the case here. Granted, the opening beach scene is amazing. A bullet and gore ridden frenetic ride that only makes everything that comes after it even more boring. It’s just a hand full of people walking around Normandy going “Yo, where’s Ryan at?” for almost three hours. About every half an hour they get shot at, and then they continue walking. But the real reason I hate this movie is because of it’s ending. It’s just so full of wincing emotional clichés that it becomes almost comical. The flash foward where we see Ryan stood over Tom Hanks’ grave (“Did I live a good life?!”) is just fucking cringe worthy. Shakespeare In Love was also a shit film, but thank god it beat Saving Private Ryan at the Oscars in 1999.

1. Forest Gump (1994)

To anybody who knows about my love of film, this should come as no surprise. Forest Gump is the most overrated movie of all time. Why? Simple: on March 27th 1995, the Academy (the people who pick Oscar winners) gave Forest Gump the Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay award. Now you ask, what’s wrong with that, Forest Gump is a damn good film. To be fair, I’d be inclined to agree with you. But the problem here is that in the same year as Forest Gump, there were two other films released that go by the names of Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption. Now, don’t get me wrong, Forest Gump is an okay film with an admittedly amazing performance from Tom Hanks. But is it better than both Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption? Fuck no! Fucking seriously? How the fuck? What the fuck? What the motherfucking fuck? Now, if you’ve seen my “Top 5 Films” list then you know that The Shawshank Redemption is actually my favorite film of all time. But let’s put that aside for a second and let’s focus on something else: on imdb.com (the Internet Movie Database), they have a “Top 250 Films” list. This list is voted for by regular people, just like me and you. Regular movies fans, and not film critics or film makers. On this list The Shawshank Redemption is the number one movie. So that means that the demographic of the fucking world classes The Shawshank Redemption as the greatest film of all time. But for some fucked up reason, the Academy – people who are supposed to be the most adept film aficionados on the planet – thought Forest Gump was better. And by the way, it also won Best Adapted Screenplay…whereas The Shawshank Redemption didn’t even get a fucking nomination. Yeah. Seriously. Fuck Forest Gump.

Thoughts? Disagree? Want to add more? Feel free to comment below!