Defend a film you think is misunderstood

johnny_ultimate

Fascinating article in Sight & Sound this month about 75 mainstream films individual critics feel have been misunderstood, unfairly ignored / criticsed and are due a good old re-evaluation. While some of them are hard to agree with - one critic's assertion that The Box "is disconcertingly in-tune with the geopolitical predicament that globalised capitalism and eco-catastrophe impose on us" ignores the more pressing concern that the film is a load of bollocks - it's an interesting idea, and one that might be fun to replicate here

Might be a welcome idea to limit it to one film per poster too, hopefully to get a more in-depth opinion on why you think a certain film deserves another look. This isn't necessarily about guilty pleasures, more films you genuinely feel were misread, misinterpreted or unfairly dismissed by the majority!

So: what film do you feel they're wrong and you're right about?

Nolanger

Glitter with Mariah Carey. Everyone laughed at it but it was the best movie to portray American nightclub culture in the 1980s.

tallaghtmick

right im just gonna come out with it.......alexander,yes the accents where all irish,there was some ghey,but sweet jesus there was action,a decent history lesson,anthony hopkins.......and rosario dawson naked nuff said:pac:

bnt

I've defended Jackass: The Movie before, on the basis that it taps in to almost-forgotten artistic movements of the last century, particularly the Situationist International. Even when they "plan" something, their "plans" are sufficiently loose as to allow just about anything to happen ...

James Forde

Waterworld - I just really enjoyed it - can't explain why

harry21

bryanjf wrote: »

Waterworld - I just really enjoyed it - can't explain why

I don't think that film even needs defending. Just cause the critics didn't like it and the mass public didn't go see it does not make it a bad film.

No defending needed!!!

harry21

harry21 wrote: »

I don't think that film even needs defending. Just cause the critics didn't like it and the mass public didn't go see it does not make it a bad film.

No defending needed!!!

Wow.... I didn't realise I liked waterworl that much:eek:

dlofnep

bryanjf wrote: »

Waterworld - I just really enjoyed it - can't explain why

I like the concept of Waterworld. I felt it could have been done better, but overall wasn't actually a bad movie.

tallaghtmick

waterworld also spawned a great moment in the simpsons......millhouse puts loads of change in the arcade machine......the waterworld character takes one step forward GAME OVER!!!! please insert 40 quarters:pac:

krudler

Waterworld is a much maligned case of hype and budget overselling an entertaining but flawed movie, its a great concept and the sets and action setpieces are still fantastic, but its not without some silly plot holes.

tony1kenobi

I liked Southland Tales.Which is another Richard Kelly movie.I've watched it 3 or 4 times and I just like it.It doesn't make me smarter than anyone else.Most likely stupider......but it's a better defence than "if the glove don't fit you must acquit".....and that worked.

Mickeroo

I, Robot

I thought it was a pretty good film, it could have been great of course but for the interference that happened with te script, I still think there was a lot of good stuff in there though, Smith's charcter was pretty good although if they played up on the inner turmoil a bit more it would have been better. I think Alan Tudyk was nothing short of brilliant in his role though, and Chi McBride also deserves a mention(even if he always plays that character). It's not a perfect film by any means but is definitley better than the average big budget summer blockbuster.

I also think Ang Lee's Hulk desreves a mention, more for what it tried to achieve than what it actually did. While it was disjointed as a whole it had some great set pieces, all it was lacking was a bit of heart, the desert chase sequence was outstanding.

Corholio

tallaghtmick wrote: »

right im just gonna come out with it.......alexander,yes the accents where all irish,there was some ghey,but sweet jesus there was action,a decent history lesson,anthony hopkins.......and rosario dawson naked nuff said:pac:

I really like Alexander. I think Farrell plays him very well. On the accents, wasn't it proved after that the accents that the Macedonians had then were of gaelic origin? But yes either way it was strange that their accents were pretty untouched from the actors themselves.

Also the scene with

Alexander on the horse going against the elephant

is incredibly done. Still a favourite scene of mine.

Enkidu

Alien 3 was cool. Darker than the others, cool setting and characters, finished off the story and it had a touching ending.

ziedth

Alien 3 is a great one actually. I think people just wanted another Aliens and that's why it got such a hard tine.

My pick is Daredevil. It's far from great but I enjoyed it and I'm always surprised by how much flack it gets.

Auvers

Darkman with Liam Neeson, Frances McDormand, Larry Drake and directed by Sam Raimi.

I absolutely adore the cheesy bits in this movie with some very funny moments throughout, love the bit where Neeson freaks out upon the sight of a stuffed pink elephant

what happend with the awful Spiderman movies Raimi

Turtyturd

ziedth wrote: »

My pick is Daredevil. It's far from great but I enjoyed it and I'm always surprised by how much flack it gets.

This was what came into my head initially, better than some of the other comic book sh*t that has been released.

While we are on the comic book theme The Spirit is one that gets a lot of crap. Yes I can see why people think it is a terrible movie, especially if you are unaware of the source material, yes Frank Miller relies too much on the look that proved successful with Sin City but as an adaptation of the source material it is pretty much spot on. In before the Sam Jackson Nazi video.

Burn after Reading is another one that I think gets a lot of unnecessary criticism mainly by being compared to other works by the Coen brothers rather than other movies in general.

Playboy

Revolver .. I really enjoyed it. Thought it had great pacing and some really nice ideas. Dont really care if it didnt make that much sense. The scene with Ray Liotta freaking out was brilliant!

Fysh

Turtyturd wrote: »

While we are on the comic book theme The Spirit is one that gets a lot of crap. Yes I can see why people think it is a terrible movie, especially if you are unaware of the source material, yes Frank Miller relies too much on the look that proved successful with Sin City but as an adaptation of the source material it is pretty much spot on. In before the Sam Jackson Nazi video.

Even if it is a faithful adaptation of the source material, if it's also an astonishingly bad film (and it was, I tried three times to watch that abominable piece of crap and couldn't stick more than ten minutes of it) then faithfulness to the source material is irrelevant.

freeth

'Friends with money' with jennifer aniston, joan cusack, etc.
Don't know if many people saw it but it generally got bad reviews, despite that I really enjoyed it and would watch it again. I think if people see that jennifer aniston is in something it is automatically going to be a chick flick, but it was actually really good!

jimbob86

There's a film called Staton Island showing once or twice a week on sky movies which ive watched 3 times now,i didnt hear anything about it at all but i watched it but thought it was brilliant.Its a Quintin Tarantino movie that has a few stories that all run into each other,kinda like pulp fiction...actually prob his best film since pulp fiction imo.

Nolanger

Flash Gordon - the one from 1980 with the Queen soundtrack. The ultimate Sunday afternoon movie!

jimbob86

jimbob86 wrote: »

There's a film called Staton Island showing once or twice a week on sky movies which ive watched 3 times now,i didnt hear anything about it at all but i watched it but thought it was brilliant.Its a Quintin Tarantino movie that has a few stories that all run into each other,kinda like pulp fiction...actually prob his best film since pulp fiction imo.

I'm pretty certain that it is in face a James DeMonaco film, one which Tarantino has absolutely nothing to do with.

tony1kenobi

Nolanger wrote: »

Flash Gordon - the one from 1980 with the Queen soundtrack. The ultimate Sunday afternoon movie!

Wrong thread.You should have posted this in the awesomest movie thread.

Gordon's aLIIIIIIIIIVE.

jimbob86

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm pretty certain that it is in face a James DeMonaco film, one which Tarantino has absolutely nothing to do with.

I stand corrected! dont know why but i thought Tarantino directed it ...i was sure of it

krudler

Mean Girls, ask anyone who's never seen it and they'll assume its either a brainless teen movie or a mushy romcom, its neither, its far better than it should possibly be and has a razor sharp script from Tina Fey. remember when Lindsay Lohan had some talent?

The King of Moo

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
I can understand why, when it first came out, people were expecting it to tie up all of the series' loose ends, and were annoyed when it failed to do so, but if you go in without expecting that and just watch it as a David Lynch film I think it's great. It's probably the most disturbing and scary of his films in some ways. Definitely the closest he's come to making an outright horror film.

Plus it has David Bowie spouting gibberish in a Southern U.S accent while reality appears to fall apart at the seams, so what's not to love?
(Not sure if the following constitutes a spoiler as I've no idea what's going on, but it's less than halfway through the film.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jrof3j72EpA

humanji

There were two mentioned above that instantly popped into my mind when I read the OP: Southland Tales and Revolver.

With Southland Tales, there was a comic that was released with it which explained a hell of a lot of things that happened in the film. So everything made sense to me in the end, which I think some people just didnt get it (mainly because the film does f*ck all to explain the majority of events). And I thought it was brilliantly dream-like and had fantastic visuals. I also thought that creatively speaking, the world in which they lived in was brilliantly thought out.

With Revolver, I don't really know why I liked it so much. Again, it has a strange dream-like quality. I think that one of the main theories about it is that it's a chess game with characters and plot replacing the pieces, and that seems to fit it perfectly.

TheoBoone

Alien v Predator 2. I know its not a work of art. It also, could have been sooooo much better if they didn't have two idiots directing it. However, I saw it on tv a few weeks ago and I actually enjoyed most of it. I think expectations make or break movies for people. With low expectations you appreciate smaller things about a piece of work.

Duggy747

Last Action Hero - Came out at the same time as Jurassic Park (against Arnie's advice) and failed to ignite the box office. Critics weren't so kind of it either and generally I hear people bad mouth it as a piece of shìt.

I think it's great pisstake of a genre of action films we sorely miss nowadays. It does fall flat on a lot of jokes but I think it's definitely a more hit than miss movie with some great jokes.

Probably because action films have changed in the last decade as more gritty and dreary, people can look back at this film and notice it's poking fun at the old cliches that aren't as common nowadays ("Last day before retirement" and crazy guitar solos during deaths, dreadful puns, crazy set pieces, etc).

Plus Arnie as Hamlet is the type of Shakespere movie I'd love to see. :pac:

Old man: "Stay thy hand, fair prince!"
Hamlet: "Woo sed I'm fair?"

*camera pans to Hamlet holding an Uzi

*Ra-Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta*

krudler

Duggy747 wrote: »

Last Action Hero - Came out at the same time as Jurassic Park (against Arnie's advice) and failed to ignite the box office. Critics weren't so kind of it either and generally I hear people bad mouth it as a piece of shìt.

I think it's great pisstake of a genre of action films we sorely miss nowadays. It does fall flat on a lot of jokes but I think it's definitely a more hit than miss movie with some great jokes.

Probably because action films have changed in the last decade as more gritty and dreary, people can look back at this film and notice it's poking fun at the old cliches that aren't as common nowadays ("Last day before retirement" and crazy guitar solos during deaths, dreadful puns, crazy set pieces, etc).

Last Action Hero was a decade ahead of its time, it was postmodern before Scream made postmodernism cool. The Shane Black written script nails the parody of the genre of movie he helped invent, the buddy cop action flick. digs at Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, Sly Stallone and dozens of other injokes make it really enjoyable to watch, its a spoof movie done properly unlike the garbage being churned out by the Epic Movie clowns today.

Herrick

Duggy747 wrote: »

Last Action Hero - Came out at the same time as Jurassic Park (against Arnie's advice) and failed to ignite the box office. Critics weren't so kind of it either and generally I hear people bad mouth it as a piece of shìt.

I think it's great pisstake of a genre of action films we sorely miss nowadays. It does fall flat on a lot of jokes but I think it's definitely a more hit than miss movie with some great jokes.

Probably because action films have changed in the last decade as more gritty and dreary, people can look back at this film and notice it's poking fun at the old cliches that aren't as common nowadays ("Last day before retirement" and crazy guitar solos during deaths, dreadful puns, crazy set pieces, etc).

Plus Arnie as Hamlet is the type of Shakespere movie I'd love to see. :pac:

Old man: "Stay thy hand, fair prince!"
Hamlet: "Woo sed I'm fair?"

*camera pans to Hamlet holding an Uzi

*Ra-Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ6r0cshrSY

Arnie should be on Jack Slater X by now :pac: Gotta love the cheesy action movie intro

Actually speaking of parody movies, I've always loved Hot Shots part 1 and 2. But all I've ever heard is bad things about them. There way better than any of that Epic movie ****e.

Marty McFly

Alpha Dog: Not many people i know have seen it,didnt perform to well at the box office or wasnt much hype around it, strange seen as Justin Timberlake was in it at the height of his cry me a river fame.

Its a really powerful movie and the fact its a true story just makes it all the stranger and more powerful to watch.

johnny_ultimate

I'm going to stand up for The Brothers Bloom. With a relatively big name cast, it was still instantly relegated to obscurity, showing up over a year late in Irish / UK cinemas (IFI only, too!). Like Brick - Rian Johnson's equally misunderstood debut - it's inorganic, self-aware and perhaps too clever for its own good. And IMO that's sort of the point. Like The Last Action Hero, it's a parody movie, one that completely dismantles the concept of a heist film, while at the same time making an enjoyable romp in its own right. It goes further than that, though, and explores the very nature of cinema - how we're all ultimately being manipulated by a director.

There's that, plus the fact its visually inventive, funny, jaunty and backed up by strong performances from the cast (Rachel Weisz has rarely been so likable, Mark Ruffalo is typically superb in a strange role).

Most importantly, it was one of the most underappreciated soundtracks of recent times:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi6k3a4jPlI

It's self-indulgent, overlong and pretty unwieldy at times. And yet, it still felt refreshingly original and engaging throughout.

S.M.B.

^ Can't deny any of that. Point well made.

Phony Scott

Halloween III Season of the Witch.

It has one or two very bad plot holes in the story and there are a fair few silly moments but I love the film.

I see it as a breath of fresh air. I wished they had continued the series, with a new story each time, like this, instead of returning to Michael Myers constantly. So what’s to like?

First off Dean Cundey’s camerawork and lighting are superb and keep the continuity with the series. I know some people hate synthesised scores, but I think this is one of John Carpenters best works, all the tracks are memorable and drip atmosphere. It also has one of the most annoying irritating funniest tunes in existence.

I love Tom Atkins in the film, despite the fact he’s a bit of a-hole. But by the end of the film, you really desperately want him to win the day.

Backing this up is Dan O’ Herlihy, as Cochran, who steals the show. It’s a gleefully sinister performance, so good in fact; he repeated the same trick in Robocop 2. Cochran is one of my all-time favourite screen villains.

The ending to the film (despite being utterly daft) is completely hair-raising.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe_f4nKbZk4

LittleBook

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was a clever story, beautifully written and well acted ... but it's one of those films that a lot of people (hubby included :rolleyes:) labelled as "pretentious"

The King of Moo

Phony Scott wrote: »

Halloween III Season of the Witch.

It has one or two very bad plot holes in the story and there are a fair few silly moments but I love the film.

I see it as a breath of fresh air. I wished they had continued the series, with a new story each time, like this, instead of returning to Michael Myers constantly. So what’s to like?

First off Dean Cundey’s camerawork and lighting are superb and keep the continuity with the series. I know some people hate synthesised scores, but I think this is one of John Carpenters best works, all the tracks are memorable and drip atmosphere. It also has one of the most annoying irritating funniest tunes in existence.

I love Tom Atkins in the film, despite the fact he’s a bit of a-hole. But by the end of the film, you really desperately want him to win the day.

Backing this up is Dan O’ Herlihy, as Cochran, who steals the show. It’s a gleefully sinister performance, so good in fact; he repeated the same trick in Robocop 2. Cochran is one of my all-time favourite screen villains.

The ending to the film (despite being utterly daft) is completely hair-raising.

+1
I love that film, a great mixture of cheesiness and creepiness, and more than just a little insane. It's a pity Carpenter wasn't able to get his plan of turning Halloween into an annual anthology series of horror films based around the festival off the ground, that would've been great.

nyarlothothep

Your Highness, a classic movie. Everyone says it just revolves around dick jokes but that just isnt true, its more accurate to say its humour is low brow with a few covert nods to D&D trops. And the dick jokes were funny. People say this was Portmans Catwoman after Black Swan. I say its Portmans Black Swan after Catwoman. Black Swan was a crap rehash of the wrestler with a ludicrous descending into madness sequence and a lesbian sex scene tacked on to keep the unwilling to be there male attendees happy. By contrast Your Highness bucks the trend. In an age of hipsters, dreary realism and a fixation on "dark" this film reminds me of the carefree 90s. The humour doesn't even try to be smart or ironic which is refreshing. Great characters, great jokes, great story, great cast, simply a great film. One day perhaps, in more enlightened times this film will be regarded as the masterpiece that it is.

krudler

Exorcist III, after the godawful second part with bees and more Linda Blair shenanigans the third instalment, directed by Blatty himself is a superb return to form. Its one of the most underrated horror sequels ever, genuinely creepy in places like

the nurses station jump

and a fantastic turn by Brad Dourif (another really underrated actor) its well worth a watch.

Corholio

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Your Highness, a classic movie. Everyone says it just revolves around dick jokes but that just isnt true, its more accurate to say its humour is low brow with a few covert nods to D&D trops. And the dick jokes were funny. People say this was Portmans Catwoman after Black Swan. I say its Portmans Black Swan after Catwoman. Black Swan was a crap rehash of the wrestler with a ludicrous descending into madness sequence and a lesbian sex scene tacked on to keep the unwilling to be there male attendees happy. By contrast Your Highness bucks the trend. In an age of hipsters, dreary realism and a fixation on "dark" this film reminds me of the carefree 90s. The humour doesn't even try to be smart or ironic which is refreshing. Great characters, great jokes, great story, great cast, simply a great film. One day perhaps, in more enlightened times this film will be regarded as the masterpiece that it is.

I have no idea if you're serious or not :P

But 'Your Highness' was an extremely average film.

Fysh

Corholio wrote: »

I have no idea if you're serious or not :P

But 'Your Highness' was an extremely average film.

I haven't caught Your Highness yet (though I do want to see it as it looks like fun) but to say, less than a year after its release, that it's a classic - and more importantly to claim that it's superior to Black Swan because Black Swan was "a rehash of The Wrestler" and "Portman's Catwoman" is to say far more about your own taste in film than about the films themselves.

But then again, nyarlothotep is the person with whom I had a several-page argument over whether the possibility that hypothetical hipsters might like Scott Pilgrim Vs The World made it a bad film, so even starting out that post I already knew I was unlikely to agree.

mikhail

Fysh wrote: »

... to say... Black Swan was "a rehash of The Wrestler" and "Portland's Catwoman" is to say far more about your own taste in film than about the films themselves...

Ah, you've made that classic blunder. You've confused this

with this

Easily done: it's that combination of browns and oranges. The key difference though is that Portman is a small, mobile Jewish woman, and Portland is a city in Oregon.

nyarlothothep

Corholio wrote: »

I have no idea if you're serious or not :P

But 'Your Highness' was an extremely average film.

I'm very serious, and you're completely wrong, you need to watch it again

Lustrum

I saw Kickass recently with 4 others, they all thought it was rubbish and the guy who picked it out was full of apologies for making us sit through it. I thought it was brilliant! Action packed, complete escape from reality, just like a good action/cartoon hero movie should be.

It also put Chloe Moretz into the "I can't wait until she grows up so that it's ok to say she's hot" group, joining past favourites such as Natalie Portman and Emma Watson

Fysh

Lustrum wrote: »

I saw Kickass recently with 4 others, they all thought it was rubbish and the guy who picked it out was full of apologies for making us sit through it. I thought it was brilliant! Action packed, complete escape from reality, just like a good action/cartoon hero movie should be.

There are a good number of folks who thought that it delivered exactly what it said it would, including plenty on this board. You might also want to check out James Gunn's Super if you liked Kick-Ass.

Lustrum wrote: »

It also put Chloe Moretz into the "I can't wait until she grows up so that it's ok to say she's hot" group, joining past favourites such as Natalie Portman and Emma Watson

...Is that you, pedobear?

mikhail wrote: »

Easily done: it's that combination of browns and oranges. The key difference though is that Portman is a small, mobile Jewish woman, and Portland is a city in Oregon.

Damn and blast it, it's the mobility that throws me off, every time!

Well played, sir/madam/other

Corholio

nyarlothothep wrote: »

I'm very serious, and you're completely wrong, you need to watch it again

I'm not wrong, it's called an opinion. It's an average film, and with about 40% of the jokes, a below average film. It also gets a lot of minus points for the worst minotaur in cinema history :P

nyarlothothep

Corholio wrote: »

I'm not wrong, it's called an opinion. It's an average film, and with about 40% of the jokes, a below average film. It also gets a lot of minus points for the worst minotaur in cinema history :P

Those jokes were hilarious! The stoned sheep herding scene, the dickless traitor scene, the minotaur bumming the squire dude, the warrior dude who immediately gets killed by a trap just like in D&D, comedic genius!

L31mr0d

Speed Racer

Critically panned and largely unseen but I loved it. The Wachowskis get anime like no other western director of this generation.

Over the top action, bright and colorful with crazy dialog and characters.

I loved it

take everything

nyarlothothep wrote: »

The conclusion managed the dubious honour of portraying Portmans character as a martyr to her art, when in fact

she committed suicide

, which is not glamorous.

Haven't seen this film yet.
Thanks for ruining it.

Chuck Stone

Total Recall (runined by Arnie - brilliant story)

Predator 2. (Misunderestimated because of no Arnie)

Starship Troopers. Much more than just a shoot em-up (citizenship linked with army service - corporate dystopia)

Robocop. (Critique on privatisation runs thru movie)

Training Day. Slickest cop movie of all time imo.