20 Most Overrated Films Of All Time

Question

http://www.cinematical.com/2006/12/20/premiere-gets-brave-knocks-20-classics-as-overrated

I agree that American Beauty is the most overrated movie of all time. But it paved the way for Alan Ball to create his amazingly good series, Six Feet Under, so I guess American Beauty was a necessary evil. I still can't understand why so many people were gaga over it.

Chicago in the #2 slot? What are they smoking? But as long as they put American Beauty at the top of the list, I can't complain too much.

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]http://www.cinematical.com/2006/12/20/premiere-gets-brave-kn ocks-20-classics-as-overrated[/nq]
A list compiled by the same industry that overrated the films in the first place?
jaybee

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[nq:2]http://www.cinematical.com/2006/12/20/premiere-gets-brave-kn ocks-20-classics-as-overrated[/nq]
[nq:1]A list compiled by the same industry that overrated the films in the first place?[/nq]
Good point. At least it gives them something to do.

RonB
"There's a story there...somewhere"

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]http://www.cinematical.com/2006/12/20/premiere-gets-brave-knocks-20-classics-as-overrated I agree that American Beauty is the most overrated movie of all time. But it paved the way for ... I guess American Beauty was a necessary evil. I still can't understand why so many people were gaga over it.[/nq]
Although he stole the narration device from Sunset Boulevard. Oh, sorry... influenced.. and sucked-up to the bad idea that any guy who is overly macho is secretly gay, he tapped into Thoreau's observation: "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

Talk about suspending disbelief. I can't imagine how anyone could be married to Annette Benning (no matter what character she's playing) and be anything but thrilled...

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]http://www.cinematical.com/2006/12/20/premiere-gets-brave-knocks-20-classics-as-overrated I agree that American Beauty is the most overrated movie of all time. But it paved the way for ... I guess American Beauty was a necessary evil. I still can't understand why so many people were gaga over it.[/nq]
Kevin Spacey's performance.
Robin

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]http://www.cinematical.com/2006/12/20/premiere-gets-brave-knocks-20-classics-as-overrated I agree that American Beauty is the most overrated movie of all time. But it paved the way for ... smoking? But as long as they put American Beauty at the top of the list, I can't complain too much.[/nq]
Yup. Looks like a list generated to sell magazines.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."[/nq]
[nq:1]That's not the message I got. What I took away from the movie was, "look at how *** up these ... of cardboard characters stuffed into the author's message. Kevin Spacey's terrific performance helped to hide deficiencies of believability and motivation.[/nq]
Yeah, that, too. Ball's from that kind of life I believe. Just a guess that he was gay in high school, didn't fit in (or felt he didn't), hated suburbia, couldn't wait to get out, wrote them all as tortured souls. That kind of movie turns up on occasion. The latest is The Chumscrubbers with Rita Wilson, currently playing on cable, never should've gotten past the horrid screening I saw.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]A list compiled by the same industry that overrated the films in the first place?[/nq]
True. But there's nothing wrong with a mea culpa now and then.

Actually, it doesn't strike me as a hideously eggregious list. I think they're a little harsh on American Beauty, but Chicago? Forrest Gump? A Beautiful Mind? Mystic River?
Hey, even Jules and Jim - I'm a huge Truffaut fan, but, that one just doesn't work for me.
On the other hand, including "The Red Shoes" in that list is insane. Maybe you have to know film to know how important that movie is. I think you could maybe make the argument that it's a "great film" but not a good one, but then again I doubt most contemporary moviegoers are even aware of it.
Yes, it's dated. On the other hand, it's still more formalistically daring than 99.9% of the films being made today.
-Ron

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]http://www.cinematical.com/2006/12/20/premiere-gets-brave-knocks-20-classics-as-overrated[/nq]
I never liked Moonstruck. I loathed it the day I saw it and will loathe it forever.

Hercule Platini

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@reader2.panix.com:
[nq:2]A list compiled by the same industry that overrated the films in the first place?[/nq]
[nq:1]True. But there's nothing wrong with a mea culpa now and then.[/nq]
Sure, but my point is that there is no absolute rule. One man's trash is another man's treasure, and one critic's "Ten Best" list is as worthless as another's "Ten Worst". It's apparently as random as the weather.
jaybee

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]http://www.cinematical.com/2006/12/20/premiere-gets-brave-knocks-20-classics-as-overrated I agree that American Beauty is the most overrated movie of all time. But it paved the way for ... smoking? But as long as they put American Beauty at the top of the list, I can't complain too much.[/nq]
I just think it's sort of silly to address movies like American Beauty or Chicago or A Beautiful Mind that are of such recent vintage.

Who knows if these movies will even have a reputation if anyone will even "rate" them at all ten years from now never mind overrate them?
The trouble is, people have really bizarre memories. You always see it whenever you get these "what's your favorite movie" lists, what's "the best movie of all time" lists
You always end up with a ton of movies that are either literally still in the theatres or have just come out within the last year or two, because people answering the questionairres aren't thinking back to Buster Keaton or even to The Godfather they're thinking back to the last movie they saw that they liked and suddenly that becomes their favorite movie and suddenly, by extension, the best movie that was ever made in the history of the universe - even if it happens to be Clerks.

That's why I think that for any list like that to have any real gravitas you have to have some kind of cut-off date, like the last ten years because you have no sense of real perspective on more recent movies. Maybe they're great, but until you've had a chance to let it sit in your head for awhile, until you've had a chance to get some perspective on a movie for awhile, you don't really know.

At one point, we all thought that "Laugh-In" was just the greatest thing on TV.
So, personally, before you can even decided that something is legitimately over-rated, it has to have been "rated" as something significant for at least ten years.
Less than that, movies just has that kind of generalized "over-rating" fever that recent works tend to have anyway.
NMS

20 Most Overrated Films Of All Time

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