Most Overrated Hollywood Movies Ever

Here is a list of the Most Overrated Hollywood Movies Ever in no particular order.

Gravity Gravity
Except for the Cinematography and the Vfx the movie has nothing. It just has a hyperventilating Sandra Bullock overacting like anything. And she has been nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress for this. Its hard to be sympathetic towards a character who not only endangers her life but also of others by not listening. George Clooney is pretty much there to put on his charm and provide some comic relief. There is even a imaginary scene in this. The movie hits a new low when Sandra Bullock shows up in shorts and the camera keeps focusing on them on like a pervert. The movie certainly does not deserve the Best Picture and Best Actress Oscar nominations that it has got.

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Juno Juno
A totally overrated movie which tries to make teenage pregnancy look cool. Does not help that the main character is a smart ass teen who speaks like an older adult but does not have the brains/maturity to indulge in safe sex. Her parents are so cool about the whole thing as if she had a small cut on her finger or something. The movie is supposed to be set in present time but no one is seen using any cell phones. Ellen Page was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress but is so irritating. They so easily find the right parents while the truth is less than 2% of teens place their babies up for adoption. They don’t even run into a few bad prospective adoptive parents. In the end she is the same cool school student like she was before. Its like some kid is playing pretend pregnant with something underneath her clothes. Its shown so casually – the whole pregnancy, giving the baby away and then going back to school as if nothing ever happened.

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avatar Avatar
Avatar was one of the most hyped movies and everyone had to pretty much watch it. Now the Cinematography and the visual effects were good for which it deservedly won the Oscars. But the story has no originality whatsoever. It borrows from Pocahontas, Dances with the Wolves, FernGully and a bunch of VFX movies.

It’s very apparent that the Native Americans are being alluded to by the looks or customs of the Navi. Wes Studi, who stars in almost every other movie on Native Americans, plays the Chief. Phrases like ‘veteran benefits in this economy’, ‘shock and awe’, ‘using terror against terror’, ‘preemptive strike’ are sprinkled throughout to hint at the US war against Iraq. The movie has an environmental message too as it’s about saving a tree and being in harmony with the environment.

The climax fight is too much to handle and one might end up with a headache. They obviously spent a lot of money on the movie but wish they had spent some on the script too. Take out the vfx and the movie is just another B-movie.

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The_Breakfast_Club The Breakfast Club
The movie is considered to be one of the best movies ever and one of the best high school movies by many. May be it has to got something to do with it being a fantasy of some kids who hate their teachers/school or may be they think it is cool because it is some rebel against the system kind of movie. It is one overrated piece of drivel. The whole movie is set in a room where they are in detention and surprisingly nobody supervises them leaving them to do whatever they want. There are all crazy characters with issues and there is a lot of yapping. Judd Nelson looked too old to be a school kid and his character is very irritating. Ally Sheedy is very irritating with her stupid mannerisms.

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Hugo Hugo
The movie is so pretentious and full of coincidences. Its like Martin Scorsese actually wanted to make a documentary on the history of movies but instead made it under the guise of a kids movie. Kids being interested in movies is one thing but here the kids being so interested in finding out how it all works seems so implausible. Cinematography and art direction are good but the sets seemed fake at many points. Anybody who has ever lived in a place where it snowed would know how cold it is and here the little kid is wearing shorts throughout the movie in snowy conditions without even showing the slightest hint of feeling cold. And there are all these scenes of Sacha Baron Cohen as the Station Master which look so ridiculous in the movie.

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BeforeSunrise Before Sunrise
This is one of the most boring and pretentious movies ever. It is considered a cult movie by some and it has spawned a couple of sequels too. Ethan Hawke meets this girl on a train and 10 minutes later he asks her to just get off the train and go with him on a tour of Vienna and she agrees. Yeah like this would totally happen in real life. This has to be one of the most ridiculous male fantasies ever. The rest of the movie is just these two people walking through Vienna and spending the night talking gibberish and pseudo intellectual crap. The writer obviously has no clue as to how young people talk. Directors sometimes translate their stories or fantasies set in a older era to the present era and this movie suffers from the same problem. Their decision to not exchange their contact information is so ridiculous and implausible. Ethan Hawke is like a poor man’s Tom Cruise trying to totally act like him. Both his and Julie Delphy’s character are like dumb people pretending to be these deep intellectuals.

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ThManfromEarth The Man from Earth
This has to arguably be the most overrated movie ever. While the other ones have some famous names associated with them or some award nominations this one is a real surprise. The movie is total crap and boring as hell. All actors including the lead are pathetic. The acting is comparable to the acting in those B-Grade soft core movies that come on late night on Max. The movie is so badly shot that one can shoot a better looking movie using a camcorder. There is no intelligent conversation or any interesting stuff that the lead says that’s not already known at least to the intelligent people. One has to be absolutely dumb or living under a rock to not have heard about the myths associated with Jesus and Moses. Its a movie for those who are too lazy or inquisitive to think that they have discovered something great or profound. And if that’s all not enough there is a totally ridiculous twist too which is laughable.

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LoveActually Love Actually
The movie has some funny lines but it has so much cheesy stuff specially with the Christmas truth telling stuff. This is like one of those Christmas movies that come on TV except that this is a British movie. And Hugh Grant as the British Prime Minister is so ridiculous. The scene where he castigates the US President is so corny and it is like some silly British fantasy. The movie is filled with implausible and corny scenes like the British Prime Minister going around door to door looking for his girl and Liam Neeson encouraging his kid to go after the girl at the airport. Apparently the body doubles shooting nude scenes in mainstream movies do scenes that mirror porn scenes. The only good thing about the movie was Bill Nighy as the aging rock and roll legend.

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TheUsualSuspects The Usual Suspects
The movie won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay Oscar and is considered to be one of the best thrillers. Now the twist may have been great for its time but if you have watched even a couple of suspense films in your life you will be able to guess the twist in the first few minutes itself. The movie is so boring while pretending to be this smart complex thriller. A few lines are good and the background score is good but it feels like a wannabe Reservoir Dogs. Kevin Spacey is so bad with his startled expressions and fake crying that one has to be a complete idiot to still not guess the twist. And he won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for it. And now coming to the twist it is one of the most ridiculous twists ever. It completely invalidates the entire movie that you just watched raising the question if any of it was even real.

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TitanicTitanic
First of all the movie takes 30-40 minutes to get started with the whole underwater thing. The first half is usual poor boy meets rich girl love story but its the second half where the movie goes down the water once the ship starts to go down. Its all a huge spectacle. Instead of showing what a great tragedy it was James Cameron is just interested in showing this huge ship in a vertical position and people sliding down. The movie swept the Oscars that year and the best movie of the year L.A. Confidential which should have won the Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director was robbed.

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TheGraduate The Graduate
This is considered to be one of the greatest movies ever and it won the Oscar for Best Director. The Mrs. Robinson seduction scene is iconic and it has a great soundtrack but the rest of the movie is so bad. After having an affair with the mother he starts to date the daughter and is madly in love with her to make the plot incestuous. And there is an over the top ridiculous wedding scene at the end which can be blamed for all the stupid wedding runaway scenes that it started.

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91 Comments
  1. hithere 10 years ago

    Like most of them..over-rated is relative IMO. In the list I like Love Actually least. Gravity and Avatar are visual splendor. I don’t think they have touch emotional chord like say Titanic, which itself was simple love story but made on grand scale with good screenplay.

    • hithere 10 years ago

      The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, pretty in Pink or Sixteen Candles – They look and feel same to me. Good watch.

      • Author
        sputnik 7 years ago

        Watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and I think it is another overrated movie. My comment on the movie.

        Silly nonsensical stupid movie. This is supposed to be a cult movie and is rated 7.8 on IMDB. It started off well and seemed a little funny at places but it is so ridiculous with so many implausible things happening. There are so many times that Ferris Bueller is right next to the father but he doesn’t see him. He just can get on a parade and sing. Ferris Buller’s sister who is in same school doesn’t know the principal/dean of the school? The principal’s track is like from some little kids movie like Home Alone.

        Matthew Broderick was good as Ferris Bueller but his character is basically that of a jerk. Alan Ruck was excellent as Cameron. Had liked him previously in the comedy series Spin City. Mia Sara looked very pretty as Sloan. Jeffrey Jones was good as the principal. Jennifer Grey overacted and was annoying as Jeannie.

    • Author
      sputnik 10 years ago

      Well overrated may be relative but hated Before Sunrise, Juno, The Breakfast Club and The Man from Earth.

      Have not watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles but even the posters look the same.

      • hithere 10 years ago

        How do we define overrated? For example Titanic won slew of awards but nothing in acting categories. I think these are famous movies. Juno was sleeper hit but relatively small movie. I don’t think people discuss it after it runs. I think over rated should be based on movies like King’s Speech, Gravity, Pulp Fiction, Slumdog Millionaire, Shawshank redemption..either they have won awards or rated very high on IMDB like site.

        • Author
          sputnik 10 years ago

          Titanic was nominated for 14 Oscars and swept the Oscars with 11 wins including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Film Editing. The movie is 3 hours 14 min long and has a 30-40 minute build up scene and it wins Best Editing? Kate Winslet was nominated for Best Actress and lost out to the deserving winner Helen Hunt. From what I remember I liked Leo back then and he was far better and natural in it than The Wolf of Wall Street where he seems so labored.

          Juno may have been a small movie but it was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress and it won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

          Gravity might win all the technical awards and may be the Best Director award similar to what Titanic did.

          I loved Pulp Fiction and I liked Shawshank Redemption a lot but 9+ rating on IMDB is too much. If you look at the detailed breakdown of Shawshank Redemption then 57% (666234 people) have rated 10 which sounds bogus to me. Link How can majority of people rate it a perfect 10? 42% of users have rated 10 for Pulp Fiction. Link

          • Ipman 10 years ago

            shawshank redemption is a great film. though where its the greatest film or not is debatable. but then i prefer it to godfather. godfather is a good film but many scenes and dialgues of it today look outdated and havent aged well

  2. cr7 10 years ago

    Loved titanic,love actually,Juno . The man from earth was a decent watch . Gravity and avatar was visual treat .But i don’t rate them very high as a movie. Haven’t seen the rest.

    Some movies which are very highly rated but I hated are – The notebook,Taxi driver,The artist .

    • Author
      sputnik 10 years ago

      I loved The Notebook and The Artist. Liked Robert De Niro’s performance in Taxi Driver but did not like the movie much.

      • cr7 10 years ago

        Missed before sunrise series . Seen the first two movies . They looked very fake .

  3. aryan 10 years ago

    Unique Post liked it that’s why I’m attached to TQ.

    James Cameron’s two movies in overrated category its a sad for him.

  4. FS 10 years ago

    Definitely don’t agree with your choices. Haven’t seen The Breakfast Club, so can’t comment on it. Hugo is definitely overrated & was baf. Rest loved all except Juno but liked it as well. I believe the overrated movies are long boring movies that have high ratings such as Lincoln, Black Swan, 3:10 Yuma, No country for old men, pulp fiction, fight club, goodfellas, raiders of the arc lost, a clockwork orange, full metal jacket, A Separation, the kings speech, the hobbit, etc…

    • cr7 10 years ago

      Fight club is an all time favorite movie of mine . Liked pulp fiction but agree that its overrated . haven’t seen the others u mentioned .

    • Author
      sputnik 10 years ago

      Agree with you that Lincoln was overrated. It just had an excellent performance from Daniel Day-Lewis. I liked Black Swan a lot. Have not seen 3:10 to Yuma.

      No country for old men was very good/interesting and then went completely downhill after that shootout scene. I did not even understand what happened. Javier Bardem was excellent.

      Loved Pulp Fiction. I can understand some not liking the John Travolta/Uma Thurman track and the Bruce Willis track as they were slow paced but I liked those parts too. Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are Tarantino’s best movies. Kill Bill, Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained are the overrated ones. I found Django Unchained enjoyable though.

      Had watched Fight Club long time back and did not like the twist. Its also like The Usual Suspects twist. I am planning to revisit the movie soon.

      Did not like Goodfellas when I first watched it and thought it was overrated too but I want to revisit the movie.

      I may have watched raiders of the lost arc in bits.

      Liked A Clockwork Orange but I can completely understand many finding it weird. Loved A Separation. The Kings Speech was a ok movie but it did not deserve all the Oscars that it got. The Social Network was a way better movie that year.

      Have not watched The Hobbit. Actually have never watched the Lord of the Rings movies. Watched the 2nd one in parts and the CGI (mountains) all looked fake to me.

      • hithere 10 years ago

        Raiders of Lost Ark is pure fun..

        Agree with “Kill Bill, Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained are the overrated ones”. It is not that they are bad but previous movies were better.

      • Ipman 10 years ago

        “Watched the 2nd one in parts and the CGI (mountains) all looked fake to me.”

        its an aspect common to all CGI bound films.the same reason why i can never get myself to watch HP series . matrix which looked cutting edge technology for its time looks embarassingly poor today. this genre has this disadvantage of getting outdated.

  5. Ipman 10 years ago

    Great post. Good choices. I could never bear the usual suspects beyond 5 mins. The thing is many people especially those who are new to foreign films or have some inferiority complex about Hollywood/USA, tend to confuse international cinema with american cinema. Hollywood is certainly not the beginning and end of global cinema nor does it represent any kind of std of filmmaking.Sure there are good films made in that industry but they have shitloads of dumbed-down, formulaic and overrated films.

    Here are my choices. I will reproduce my comments here which i made on them:

    The wolf of wall street

    “Just back from the wolf of wall street. Its story is based on autobiography written by Jordan Belfort. So as is usual with all autobiography, the author will portray himself a hero. Its an entertaining film but a stupid film. Right from the selling techniques of de caprio to the money laundering in swiss banks , everything is too convenient and at times plain stupid.Its supposed to be a dark comedy but the tone is Over the top.De Caprio is good in some scenes and has overacted in a lot of scenes. His scene where he has an excessive effective of a drug is so loud and drags too much its almost irritating.He looks like an overgrown kid with wrinkles. Jonah Hill is also good in some scenes and hammed in many other. Margot Robbie plays De Caprio’s wife. Looks hot and acts the best among the cast. I am surprised how it has won so many award nominations, May be due to the big names associated.That is how most of the jury around the world works”

    Kill Bill 1

    “I was told by a certain Tarantino fan that this is an iconic action scene from the film Kill Bill Vol 1.But after watching it,I feel people should stop criticizing salman-akshay films or rather all south Indian remakes.It is so badly over the top and gross ,it is almost hilarious.Whats with the blood flowing like fountains and Uma Thurman flying in the air?Her body language is pedestrian to say the least.She cannot even move her legs fluently.And who was foolish enough to give the legendary Katana in her hands? This looks same as Parineeti holding the pistol like a belan in Ishaqzaade!It is an insult to the great katana.I guess this is iconic the same way bw hypes the stupid Gadar hand-pump scene as iconic.Both are jokes.I hope this is not the Tarantino that is praised.I am hearing his pulp fiction is far more realistic and better.Hopefully.

    Iconic or laughable?

    The Dark Knight rises

    “Just back from tdkr. Good entertaning movie but not extraordinary.didnt like the villain much.he looked like a human-bull-dog and always used to keep panting as he could not breathe.how could he when he always kept his nose covered?His look was inspired form wwe wrestler vader

    The action scenes between bane and batman are not very good.I dont know if its the costume of batman that makes him so slow in his punches but it looked like a fight between two senior citizens.Batman dodges bullets with his costumes but gets stuck with a knife in belly and bleeds!The vfx used at some places is good though.I liked how wayne escapes from the prison and especially agreed with the philosophy that was given.That was a good sequence.

    btw,Nolan didnt have the balls to show batman died in the end,I bet if he had not compromised for the BO,tdkr would pretty much fail how it happens in hindi films.Fans ofc enjoyed it just how HP fans enjoy HP.

    3/5″

    Fightclub

    “saw fightclub. its about an insomniac who has no life. the twist is like aparichit. its one of the highest rated films on imdb. i dont know how the director interpreted this but i find the whole “fight” argument and its supposed metaphors just overreading.even if the director did intentd it, he could have chosen some other way of presenting his social commentary. naming the film fightclub sounds just an attempt to look cool.”

    • Author
      sputnik 10 years ago

      Thanks @baba-ji

      Agree with you that The Wolf of Wall Street is overrated. I did not like Kill Bill 1 either when I watched it in theater. Hated the anime part in the movie. But you have not watched the full movie have you 🙂

      The Dark Knight Rises was ok but then movies from Nolan/Tarantino get overrated by fans. It also has the comic book/movie fans.

      Like I said above I am planning to re-watch Fight Club and will comment in detail.

  6. Saurabh 10 years ago

    Good post sputnik. You can do the most underrated list next. Fight club, Pulp Fiction, 3 10 to Yuma, Lincoln deserve the praise that they got I believe. Hated Titanic, haven’t seen Avatar yet. Yes, I said it. Forget theatre, I haven’t even seen it on TV. Cameron’s just going after the technology and cash instead of developing good stories and characters. I agree about Gravity. Hated Sandra Bullock. She was doing her ” Oh my Gaad, Oh my Gaad” thing from Speed for 90 minutes. If it weren’t for Clooney, I would’ve been annoyed as hell. Loved Raiders of the Lost Ark. It’s basically Tintin for adults.

    Here’s my list of overrated movies:

    The Avengers – The team of incompatible superheroes fighting clashing with themselves was more interesting than them fighting crappy aliens. Add to that the pointless inclusion of the crappy Scarlett Johanson’s Black Widow character. Thor alone would have been enough for those shitty aliens. Loved the interaction and dialogues but there were no stakes or a sense of dread that the world was in danger due to constant jokes.

    Iron Man Three – This is more of a comedy movie in the name of a superhero movie. There’s no sense of danger to Tony Stark. The Mark 42 suit is the worst suit. The villain lamest. And too much humour. Whenever things get serious, immediately they are neutralized by a heavy dose of comedy. And plotholes. In Avengers you had Iron Man giving a tough time to the God of Thunder, but some fire soldiers (extremis) easily overpower the suit. Tony could have called the other suits while Mark 42 was charging in Tenessee, but he wanted to use them for the final showdown as he saw it coming. And why don’t the other Avengers come to help Stark? Loved only Brian Tyler’s music and Ben Kingsley’s Mandarin and the twist, which many seem to hate.

    Boogie Nights – The story of a 70s pornstar is good, but not anything pathbreaking as it is claimed to be for Paul Thomas Anderson. I find There Will Be Blood more deserving of that title.

    Killer Joe – Awful characters and utterly repulsive, even though I loved McConaughey.

    Batman (1989) – I’ve watched it many times and still don’t get the overwhelming acclaim that it gets. Michael Keaton is a good Bruce Wayne, but not intimidating as Batman. Add to that Batman’s over reliance on gadgets. Nicholson’s Joker is regarded as one of the best portrayals of the character. But it’s Nicholson doing his usual crazy stuff, just taking it to the extreme. Prior to TDK’s release not many felt that Heath Ledger could top Nicholson’s Joker. I found that ridiculous back then and even today. Ledger simply destroyed Nicholson’s Joker. It’s just too un-Batman-y of a movie where a lot of time is spent on romance and Grandpa Joker’s annoying antics than Bruce Wayne/Batman. The only thing I love is Danny Elfman’s iconic Batman theme which gives Hans Zimmer’s theme (?) a serious run for it’s money.

    • cr7 10 years ago

      Absolutely agree on Avengers . Didn’t like it at all .

    • Author
      sputnik 10 years ago

      Thanks @saurabh Good idea for the Underrated list. Loved Pulp Fiction and for me its a classic.

  7. Saurabh 10 years ago

    Ipman, Kill Bill is Tarantino’s masterpiece for me. Every Tarantino movie is a masala movie with elements copied from many old westerns. He’s known for taking a genre and flipping it over itself. With Kill Bill he took the western theme and applied it in an Asian environment. With Django Unchained, he made the guru hero and the chela a side hero (whereas it’s opposite in westerns). It’s only after Waltz’s death that Django shows his skills (herogiri). Hence, you see many of our B’wood directors aping his style. (Kashyap, Dhulia, Bharadwaj) Also bcoz it’s inexpensive.

    Abut TDKR’s ending, Nolan had the ending scene in mind when he had written BB’s story in 2003. He had roughly sketched an outline of Bruce Wayne’s journey back in 2003 while he was doing BB but didn’t want to stick to it strictly. It’s about bringing a logical conclusion to the story and with Nolan you can’t expect to see what YOU expect will happen. Also it would’ve been too predictable if he had died. Nolan doesn’t care about cash like Cameron, hence he prefers Imax, over 3D. If he did , TDKR would have been released in 3D and would’ve made much more money. He didn’t even allow for post conversion to 3D. As far as I’ve seen Nolan’s movies, read his interviews, he doesn’t compromise on story and characters. Batman vs Bane (round 1) was the best fights I’ve seen in recent time as I don’t like dance like fight scenes. I think Tom Hardy’s Bane is almost as powerful as Ledger’s Joker, but was hampered by his lame death. His mask was inspired by snarling silverback Gorilla. Catwoman’s character was totally unnecessary. It could have been any woman in Gotham who truly loved Bruce Wayne. Also Marion Cotillard acted horribly and at times was irritating with her voice and that French accent.

    The more is see TDKR, the more I feel the story has no room to breathe due to the quick editing. There’s too much going on and the pace should have been relaxed a bit to allow the audience to absorb every detail and event. Adding 15 – 20 min could have helped. Also Zimmer went way overboard with his bombastic score and the need for quiet moments (like Alfred and Bruce’s interaction) was strongly felt. When music is to be used and when NOT to be used is decisive at such times.

    • Ipman 10 years ago

      tarantino bastardized the films that he was paying tribute to in kill bill. regarding tdkr, the stakes to outdo tdk was really high. so nolan went for a safe ending.

  8. FS 10 years ago

    In IMDB Top 250 there are more than 50 movies that are not only overrated but wierd & bad.

    If i have to put a list of overrated then its not possible coz there are so many such movies that you will find over 8.0 IMDB RATINGS

    • FS 10 years ago

      Btw good post 🙂

      • Author
        sputnik 10 years ago

        Thanks. Yes a lot of movies on IMDB are overrated. If the director is famous/critically acclaimed then a lot of their movies get overrated by that director’s fans.

        I know not everyone will like a movie to the same extent. While some may feel that a movie is overrated because they did not like it as much as the movie was praised I think its best to list out the reasons why they consider it overrated.

        • Ipman 10 years ago

          the latest to join that list seems to be raid 2.it has not even released in many countries but ppl have rated it 10/10. I read one review there where a guy actually admitted he had not seen the film but he wrote a review about how it was going to be a great film and he rated it 10/10.

          read this

          68 out of 218 people found the following review useful:

          The Raid 2
          10/10
          Author: rrtwitchell from United States
          24 January 2014

          Haven’t seen anything but great previews and I cant wait for the final product ! The Raid was Awesome…The Raid 2 will be even BETTER than the first ! This Sequel is going to be even better! The action scenes contain a Martial Art called Pencak Silat & I teach that art here in the Sacramento area !! With this movie coming out it will open channels for Indonesian cultural and martial advancement and bring to light the Awesome martial art of Pencak Silat! I’m looking forward to positive aspects of this movie and the knowledge it will bring about the Art of Pencak Silat. Gareth Evans is a fantastic Director, with a wisely chosen cast and filming crew !Bringing martial arts into a new realm !

          Sincerely, Rocky Twitchell & Liahona Warrior Arts International

          https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2265171/reviews?ref_=tt_ov_rt

  9. Saurabh 10 years ago

    I liked The Raid Redemption but the US is infatuated with it. Calling it the best action film in recent years is just stretching it. Scott Adkins’ movies easily challenge that perception.

    Regarding TDKR, Nolan isn’t someone who plays safe. That’s not just my inference, but it comes from people who have worked with him. Hollywood’s playing safe by choosing to go with digital and 3D, but you won’t see any Nolan blockbuster in 3D. He’s one of the last filmmakers to hold onto film as the medium is still superior compared to digital. He hasn’t played safe in any of his movies and his biggest gamble was Inception. It’s an achievement how he was able to convince WB to make such an ambitious project which isn’t a remake, sequel, reboot, based on a novel etc. How many original blockbusters do we see in Hollywood? The last one I remember is the first Matrix.

    Same thing with TDKR. He could have played it safe by making another sequel, but that’s the point of the ending. Bruce Wayne (and Nolan) had to move on beyond his work. Bruce Wayne dying is too predictable and comes of as pretentious hero sacrificing himself and thus inspiring everyone which we’ve seen zillion times. It wasn’t a teriffic ending and the movie is no masterpiece (compared to Inception, TDK, The Prestige, Memento, BB), but a satisfying and one which Bruce Wayne deserved.

    Oldboy (Korean) is another depressing and disgusting movie in the name of art. The twist and the octopus scene make me puke.

    Another one I find overrated is Star Trek Into Darkness. Apart from few mindblowing visuals, the movie was 9/11 conspiracy theory bullshit. Chris Pine’s Captain Kirk never took a single good and correct decision. Benedict Cumberbatch’s Khan Noonien Singh was a racial joke. Khan’s supposed to be a Sikh. You have a white guy playing a Sikh. That’s Hollywood playing safe. He was just channeling his Sherlock persona with extreme facial contortions. The Khan from ST Wrath of Khan didn’t need to use his hands and feet because his cunning mind did everything for him. This one showed him just another skull crushing bad guy (and in conspiracy theory analogy – Osama Bin Laden) I don’t get the hype around JJ Abrams. His Mission Impossible 3 was dull, Star Trek average and Super 8 an E.T. love letter. Only his TV work’s good. I guess he’ll ruin Star Wars.

    Regarding ratings, I don’t check those IMDB or any other lists as I think they are mostly crap. I burnt myself when I saw Oldboy. If I’m not confident about a movie, I’ll check the story, the director, actors etc or simply ask a friend who has seen it.

    • Ipman 10 years ago

      I am not sure about your defense of tdkr. it doesnt make sense.its like saying everyone knows that for a film like border sunny would die in the end but making him live is unpredictable! the director is just making the fans happy. thats all 😉

      oldboy is a beast of a film. it is extremely bold and offensive in content in the truest sense. it makes you uncomfortable. it is not a film for soft ppl.not everyone can stomach its twist and the violent scenes

  10. John Galt 10 years ago

    My question is ‘overrated by whom’ ?

    • cr7 10 years ago

      LOL . Good question .

    • Ipman 10 years ago

      For me it is any film which is talked about or brought in a debate as being some sort of std of great filmmaking. films that are used as references to define a “standard”

    • Author
      sputnik 10 years ago

      It could be overrated by a majority of people or considered critically acclaimed or some great standard of film making or may have won/nominated for many Oscars or may have very high IMDB rating.

      Whatever be the yardstick the point is whether the reasons given for calling it overrated are valid or not. And the interesting thing is that no one has has offered any rebuttal of the reasons I listed while calling the movie overrated.

  11. Saurabh 10 years ago

    That’s the point. But to answer your question it simply means the ones tremendously acclaimed by a majority. Like Citizen Kane or Vertigo. An overwhelming majority feels they are the best movies of all time. But really? This is where perception comes into play. When it comes to foreign language movies, we Indians generally look for the content, then the acting, direction, characters, etc. But the foreign folks dissect them with respect to cinematic techniques like editing, sequence framing, shot framing, three act structure, etc in addition to story, characters, action,etc. They form their opinions based on these parameters, hence you see these people claiming no one can make a movie like Citizen Kane.

    Another thing is time. What seems great today may look dull few years from now. Saw The Thin Red Line after many years yesterday and it still feels extremely strong in many respects. A masterpiece stands the test of time.

  12. Saurabh 10 years ago

    Ipman, I didn’t say that Nolan did that ending so as to be unpredictable. That’s not his way of dealing with character arcs. Pardon my language if you thought it that way. Heck, I didn’t explain it properly. Loved your Sunny paji Border analogy. The point I was trying to make is that you can never be sure how a certain character or certain sequences will turn out towards the end in a Nolan movie. The 3rd TDKR trailer gave the vibes that he’ll die but he stayed alive. The point his fans miss is the conclusion and it’s intention. It’s an ending the characters EARN through the course of the movie. On a surface level it may seem anti climatic, but there’s no superficial purpose behind it in any Nolan movie.

    For instance, people dissected the Inception ending like a zillion times whether Cobb’s still dreaming or if it’s reality. But the point a vast majority miss is that Cobb doesn’t care. He just spins his top and turns his back towards it. That’s his reality. That’s the reality he chooses to believe in. Same with TDKR. Here’s what he said : “For me, The Dark Knight Rises is specifically and definitely the end of the Batman story as I wanted to tell it, and the open-ended nature of the film is simply a very important thematic idea that we wanted to get into the movie, which is that Batman is a symbol. He can be anybody, and that was very important to us. Not every Batman fan will necessarily agree with that interpretation of the philosophy of the character, but for me it all comes back to the scene between Bruce Wayne and Alfred in the private jet in Batman Begins, where the only way that I could find to make a credible characterisation of a guy transforming himself into Batman is if it was as a necessary symbol, and he saw himself as a catalyst for change and therefore it was a temporary process, maybe a five-year plan that would be enforced for symbolically encouraging the good of Gotham to take back their city.To me, for that mission to succeed, it has to end, so this is the ending for me, and as I say, the open-ended elements are all to do with the thematic idea that Batman was not important as a man, he’s more than that. He’s a symbol, and the symbol lives on.”

    Hence, whether Bruce Wayne lives or dies isn’t as important as much as the symbol of Batman continues to exist. And Nolan doesn’t indulge in fan service, he doesn’t follow the internet. Fans were spewing venom when he cast Ledger as Joker. If fanboys had their way, the world would’ve been torn apart. Take for instance the outrage at Ben Affleck as the next Batman. No one’s seen one photo of him in the Batsuit and fanboys are ready to kill him. Poor guy. He’s not a great actor but what has he done warrant such hatred?

  13. Ipman 10 years ago

    someone has disliked all sputnik comments on this thread. must be a lover of the movies mentioned in the post 😀

    • Author
      sputnik 10 years ago

      LOL

      I knew the post would be hated by many coz it probably has at least one movie they love. So I was expecting low ratings for the post.

      • cr7 10 years ago

        How to rate a post ? I want to give this post low ratings 😛 . Btw didn’t notice that tq has like/dislike comments option. Had lots of fun when it was first introduced in NG . So many comments were hidden due to low ratings 😀

        • Author
          sputnik 10 years ago

          TQ has always had post and comment ratings. You can click on the stars below the post title to rate a post.

          Comments have like/dislike option but they don’t get hidden even if they get low ratings. I don’t like approved comments being censored/hidden by some because they don’t like it. And fans gang up to hide the comments if its against their favorite star or in favor of a rival star.

          You can view the Top Rated Posts and Comments by different criteria (All | Today | This Week | This Month) on the sidebar on the right below the Top Posts by Views.

  14. Bored 10 years ago

    TDKR got mixed critical reception – cant understand how one can say it was overrated? The movie was good fun, but the weakest one of the trilogy.

  15. Author
    sputnik 10 years ago

    @cr7,

    LOL

    I liked your comment rating my post 2 stars 🙂

  16. Saurabh 10 years ago

    88 percent on RT isn’t what I’d call mixed critical reception. Fanboys gave a mixed reaction to the movie. It’s the weakest of the three but a satisfying conclusion to Bruce Wayne’s journey. Nolan shouldn’t have added unnecessary characters like Catwoman, Foley and should have focussed on just Bruce Wayne like in BB and to some extent Bane. BB is the quintessential Batman movie. It has signature Batman comicbook shots – lurking in shadows, use of bats through sonar, The other two are shift in genres (TDK- crime drama, TDKR – epic) and go beyond Batman in terms of the scope of the story by adding more characters. That somewhat took away the audience’s focus from Batman in the subsequent entries.

    Another overrated film is Ridley Scott’s Alien. Apart from the terrifying creature design and the memorable scene it didn’t do much for me. It’s regarded as one of the best sci fi mfilms of all time, but it’s more of a horror movie in space than pure sci fi. Cameron’s sequel is much better I think.

    Another overrated Ridley Scott film is Blade Runner. The movie flopped in 1982 but attained a cult status later on and eventually became hailed as one of the best sci fi films. I loved the movie and the future noir aspect of the story with some stupendous and dazzling cinematography. But the movie is slow and the protagonist is passive throughout the movie. We’re told Harrison Ford’s Deckard is the best Blade Runner but all he does throughout the course of the movie is get his ass kicked by the replicants. Only Vangelis’ s transcendent music and the visual complexity (it’s not much CGI but mostly miniature sets) are commendable.

    Also Skyfall is another overrated franchise entry. Many hail it as the best Bond movie of all time. I’d give that title to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (or maybe Casino Royale). The movie has the best cinematography and destroys every previous entry in this dept (courtesy Roger Deakins). But Javier Bardem’s Silva is almost a joke of a villain. The Bond girls were the worst and towards the end it became more of a western than a Bond film. Also lack of gadgets and the use of the Monty Norman’s James Bond theme in just one scene (just to remind us that this is a Bond movie)

    • Ipman 10 years ago

      somehow i have never been able to get myself to complete any bond film. they look too fabricated, pretentious and fake.

  17. John Galt 10 years ago

    I pretty much like/love most movies on this list.

    The only ones which I agree with completely with would be The usual suspects and the graduate.

    Regarding before sunrise, the breakfast club and the man from earth- these are cult classics and hence only liked by a small group of people and hence don’t think they fall into that category of ‘overrated’ so to say…. Also looks like you do not like movies with extremely few characters that are shot in a limited frame.

    Regarding gravity and avatar- these are movies meant mainly for theater viewing.. It’s like junk food for people who like great cinematography and details. Although I agree on the point that they didn’t really have a concrete story per se.. But I don’t think most people who rate ( or overrated) these two movies did it on the basis of their story screenplay or acting..( I mean come on who is Sam Worthington 😉 ) Regarding the best picture nomination- I think they are nominated so because they provided great entertainment at visual level and had great technical achievements. Although I agree that Sandra Bullock had no business in the best acting category.

    Totally disagree on Titanic- I think it’s one of the most entertaining films ever made. Your reasoning for it being overrated is more into the direction of what you wanted it to be and it wasn’t. So that may not work for you but the same thing works and it did work for a lot others. For me Titanic is an emotional love story set on the backdrop of Titanic the ship and I think it worked pretty fine for me. With all the accolades it has got, I would still call it underrated if anything.

    Hugo- I don’t think this was a children movie to begin with. Yes we were all made to believe that it was one but it was something much much more. I was pretty annoyed in the initial 30 minutes but loved the movie by the end of it. I always wanted to watch a film about films and I think this was one. I don’t know whether its overrated or underrated.

    Love actually- I don’t know why you even included this.. It’s just another rom com with the multiple stories one connection theme. Enjoyable for people who like such movies.. Not for others.

    I think the reasoning that you’ve provided for many of these films are more about why you don’t like these films rather than why these films may be called overrated. In your manner of critiquing I can basically take any classic/cult and call it overrated. Here’s an example of The shining (which is a highly rated film and also one of my all time fav movies)

    The shining: one of The most boring and senseless films ever. The kid is always riding on his tricycle and never laughing or giggling. He behaves too unusual for a 6 year old. Also the job jack Nicholson’s character opts for doesn’t sound like much of a job in real life. There are weird hallucination scenes which just crop up without any continuity… Yada yada yada….

    Now here’s a movie I totally dislike- one flew over the cuckoo’s nest. I didn’t find it gripping or entertaining and found it too forgettable. I still however can’t comment on whether it’s overrated or underrated.. That is solely based on the perception of audience rating it.

    Perhaps the title of this post is a little overrated for me 😉

    • Author
      sputnik 10 years ago

      Ha Ha Excellent comment.

      Glad you agree with me at least on The usual suspects and the graduate 🙂

      I know before sunrise, the breakfast club and the man from earth are only liked by a small group of people but they are liked very passionately and I have seen people who criticize these movies being dismissed off as trolls or lacking intelligence or so on. I love 12 Angry Men and its my all time favorite which is a movie with “few characters that are shot in a limited frame”. I also liked Buried a lot which had only one character/actor Ryan Reynolds in the whole movie. I liked Carnage too which had very few characters. So its not I hate those kind of movies. Its that movies like that need strong performances and also the characters have to be interesting not necessarily likable (12 Angry Men, Carnage) and the dialogues have to be very good and realistic.

      I don’t have any issue with Avatar/Gravatar being hailed for their technical achievements but most people and even Oscars go the next step and hail it as the best thing that happened to movies.

      Well you could be right on me finding it overrated because Titanic did not went into the direction of what I wanted it to be but then I think a real life tragedy should be presented as such instead of as a spectacle.

      I would have liked Hugo if it was even a documentary on movies or if it was a serious film on those filmmakers/films but for me the whole story/characters seemed fake and made up so that they just could make a movie about movies.

      Yes Love actually is just another rom com but people loving/praising it a lot is like people loving/praising Dil To Pagal Hai and I don’t think that anyone praises that movie except @ali 🙂

      Yes one can basically take any classic/cult and call it overrated but I am not doing it just for the heck of it. I think the reasons given are very important. I have not seen The Shining yet but I find your criticism of The Shining very valid even though you just made them up 🙂

      Now I love One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and its one of my all time favorites. If you did not like it then you have every right to call it overrated.

      Another movie which I think is overrated is Taxi Driver and which I should have added in the list. I think you also will agree on that one as I remember you saying that you did not like it either. It has a excellent performance by Robert De Niro but as a movie I think it is not that good.

      Now Godfather is hailed by many as one of the greatest movies ever and the first time I watched it I was underwhelmed by it. It did not meet the expectations that were set by every one by praising it so much. I think you had said same stuff about The Godfather. But when I watched again I felt like a lot of scenes were excellent and that may be I have seen too many inspired/copied versions of it before the original and that I cannot completely appreciate it because I was not even born to watch it when it released in 1972. If I try to critique it saying its overrated the best I can do is say that some scenes were boring but other than that I cannot say that the performances were horrible or some scenes were cheesy/implausible or so on.

      And you have every right to say that the title of this post is overrated 🙂

    • Ipman 10 years ago

      usually its the cult classics which are the most overrated films. like scarface. a bad movie with a hammy performance from pacino. people take personal pride in liking such films bcos they are liked by few and hence tend to priase/support them out of proportion

      • Author
        sputnik 10 years ago

        You have just skimmed through the movie.

        I watched Scarface back in 2000 or so and I loved it. Its a movie about excess and Pacino was great as the blowhard gangster doing drugs and all. Pacino’s performance was called hammy by many back then and it was not nominated for any Oscars. It did not do that well at the box office either as it was the 16th highest grossing film of 1983 acc to wikipedia.

        It became a cult movie later on. Its way better than The Wolf of Wall Street which has been nominated for so many awards. The excess and the downfall is way better in Scarface than The Wolf of Wall Street and it makes more sense as it is set in the gangster world. Al Pacino was way better than Leonardo who has been nominated for an Oscar.

        • Ipman 10 years ago

          i tried to sit through it but it was not good enough. then i skimmed through it.the scene where some feel he performed the best (climax scene) is embarassingly retarded and stupid. had posted it once in this thread https://tanqeed.com/iconic-or-laughable/#comment-117774

        • Ipman 10 years ago

          wows was better than scarface. its a stupid film but still watchable. leonardo was far better than the retarded pacino in scarface. he was good in atleast some scenes

          • Author
            sputnik 10 years ago

            No its not better than Scarface and Martin Scorsese himself liked Scarface and WOWS is just Scarface set in Wall Street. Leo himself mentioned Scarface about WOWS in an interview.

            “I keep referencing “Caligula” but you think about “Scarface,” films like that, I don’t know how people are going to react to it right off the bat, but I think as the years roll by people will appreciate what we were trying to do here.”

            Link

            Leo was way bad in that retarded drug scene than Al Pacino was in any scene of the movie.

            You can’t skim and watch scenes selectively and out of context without having watched the movie in full and say that some other movie is better. There is a whole background to Tony Montana’s character and behavior.

            There is a scene in Zara Si Zindagi where Kamal is asked to do a death scene in a stage play. He just dies as soon as he is shot without saying any dialogues. The director gets pissed off and questions Kamal and he says I don’t think anyone can say anything after being shot. The point is that all shoot out death scenes are stupid and they are all for dramatic purposes but criticizing one saying he shaked more and all that is stupid.

          • Ipman 10 years ago

            martin scorsese has not said scarface is better than wows. so dont put words in his mouth 😀

            leo was bad in some scenes in wows but atleast he was not dancing like a retard in the drug scene.

            the shootout scene of scarface is cheesy and hammy. dont unnecessarily defend that poor scene.not all shooutout scenes are cheesy and overdramatic

            chek this scene

          • cr7 10 years ago

            Scarface was unbearable . I tried to watch it couple of times .But couldn’t get beyond first 30 mins . Wolf of wall street is a far better film IMO .

          • Bored 10 years ago

            Dont think highly of WOWS, but if Scarface wasnt good (which also i agree), then what was Amitabh’s Agneepath (whaich was a poor man’s Scarface)?

            After watching Bachchan’s hamming in Agneepath, Pacino is more than tolerable in Scarface.

          • cr7 10 years ago

            Hated amitabh’s agneepath . Hr’s one was a decent watch .

  18. John Galt 10 years ago

    Sputnik,

    Yes I didn’t like taxi driver as much as others. Even godfather was a bit underwhelming for me on first instance.

    I didn’t even like the departed as much.

  19. Saurabh 10 years ago

    Cult classics are generally products of their time and surroundings. The meaning of cult classic itself is that they appeal to a small group which regards these movies as one of the finest.

    I love Taxi Driver and The Departed and they cemented my love for Scorsese. It’s the uncompromised storytelling regarding Travis Bickle that fascinated me. The tone is set right from the opening shot where we see the cab coming out from the smoke. Throughout the course of the movie Travis has these experiences that becomes frustration which explodes at the end. It could have been bad, but he becomes a hero. He could have become a villain if he was able to shoot the Senator. That’s the defining aspect of the movie for me. But I can understand why people say it’s overrated.

    I see Pacino’s Scarface acting unintentionally funny. It’s super hammy.

    Has anyone seen Citizen Kane? Some of my friends feel it’s good but super overrated. (Best movie of all time)

    • Author
      sputnik 10 years ago

      I liked The Departed.

      Had watched Citizen Kane long time back in 2000 or so but did not like it back then. Have been wanting to re watch it for some time.

  20. Author
    sputnik 10 years ago

    And here is a Honest Movie Poster of The Wolf of Wall Street 🙂

  21. Author
    sputnik 10 years ago

    @baba-ji,

    Don’t try to deliberately misread it. Where did I say that Martin Scorsese said Scarface is better than wows?

    So let me re post what I said. “No its not better than Scarface and Martin Scorsese himself liked Scarface and WOWS is just Scarface set in Wall Street. Leo himself mentioned Scarface about WOWS in an interview.

    “I keep referencing “Caligula” but you think about “Scarface,” films like that, I don’t know how people are going to react to it right off the bat, but I think as the years roll by people will appreciate what we were trying to do here.”

    and I gave the link to that Leo Interview.

    And as to what Martin actually said – “”At the premiere Martin Scorsese turned around in the middle of the film, and he said, ‘You guys are great – but be prepared, because they’re going to hate it in Hollywood.’ Link

    And as far as my point about “WOWS is just Scarface set in Wall Street” both the movies are about excess and glorify the bad guy who rises almost instantly to the top only to fall down. Both movies have excessive use of drugs and have excessive use of F words. Read this.

    “The story is almost classically tragic — based on former millionaire Jordan Belfort’s memoirs of the same name, it’s yet another film about the corruption of the American Dream, playing out as if it were the Scarface of stockbroking”

    “Given the material Scorcese has been drawn to throughout his career, it’s not surprising that the film is played like a white collar mob film, Scarface without the machine guns (though certainly the cocaine!). I suspect Belfort sees himself as a sort of sexy, romantic outlaw and the film appears to as well. And like Scarface, it’s all about excess. But the film indulges, as Tony Montana did, to its own demise.” Link

    The scene that you posted is being praised by some because part of it was shot in one take but as a shoot out scene it is just like any other shoot out scene. Two people going around shooting a bunch of people and the bad guys just keep presenting themselves and getting shot. And the scene at 2:50-2:53 where it is cut is so badly edited that you can tell it was shot later. And you don’t see Chow Yun Fat’s overacting while doing that gun loading at 1:40? And people flying in the air after getting shot and Tony Leung in slow motion? Come on. This is all selective bashing.

    • Ipman 10 years ago

      yes, apart from the fact that its shot in one take,it is just like any other shootout scene and that is why it is better than the scarface shooutout bcos its the worst in that category!

      “There is a whole background to Tony Montana’s character and behavior.”

      there is no justification for bad acting. you cant argue that pacino danced like a retard and hammed bcos he was high on drugs.this is same as aamir fans saying aamirs hamming in ghajini is justified due to his memory condition 😀

      • Author
        sputnik 10 years ago

        You post a scene implying that it is a good shoot out scene and when I point out the flaws which you obviously cannot deny suddenly the other scene becomes the worst in that category. A scene where guys fly on getting shot is better than a scene where a guy shakes on getting hit by a flurry of bullets. Wow.

        And looks like you need to watch the scene you posted properly. A guy at 2:47 instead of hiding behind that desk and shooting gets on top of that thing near the window and then jumps out the window.

        I pointed out a actor overacting in a scene you posted saying its better than a other one where you criticized a actor in it for overacting. That’s the joke.

        “leo was bad in some scenes in wows but atleast he was not dancing like a retard in the drug scene.”

        I thought I replied to this in my comment earlier but may be I missed. Leo acted like a complete retard in that drug scene with his facial and body contortions like someone with cerebral palsy. And you are the one who hates mentally retarded characters. Al Pacino did not make any facial/body contortions in the whole of Scarface like the one Leo did in that scene.

        Memory loss condition should make him confused/lost like Guy Pearce in Memento not hyper like he is on drugs.

        —————

        And here is Roger Ebert’s excellent review which I had posted before where he has very nicely summed up Tony Montana’s character.

        “Brian De Palma’s “Scarface” rises or falls with Al Pacino’s performance, which is aggressive, over the top, teeth-gnashing, arm-waving, cocaine-snorting, scenery chewing — and brilliant, some say, while others find it unforgivably flamboyant. What were Pacino’s detractors hoping for? Something internal and realistic? Low key? The Tony Montana character is above all a performance artist, a man who exists in order to gloriously be himself. From the film’s opening shots, in which he is one more disposable Cuban ex-con in a Florida detention center, his whole drive is to impress his personality and will on others. He begins with no resources or weapons, except for his bravado, and fakes out more powerful men simply by seeming dangerous and resourceful. His act is a bluff, so there is no sense in underplaying it.

        Montana is one of the seminal characters in modern American movies, a character who has inspired countless others. If the crime expert Jay Robert Nash is correct, and American gangsters learned how to talk and behave by studying early Hollywood crime movies, then “Scarface” may also have shaped personal styles. There is even a documentary on the new “Scarface” DVD about the movie’s influence on hip-hop performers. The movie has been borrowed from so often that it’s difficult to understand how original it seemed in 1983, when Latino heroes were rare, when cocaine was not a cliche, when sequences at the pitch of the final gun battle were not commonplace. Just as a generation raised on “The Sopranos” may never understand how original “The Godfather” was, so “Scarface” has been absorbed into its imitators.

        It takes the name and some of the story structure from Howard Hawks’ famous “Scarface” (1932), starring Paul Muni and inspired by the life of Al Capone. Both movies were assailed for their violence, both are about the rise and fall of a criminal entrepreneur, both characters are obsessed with their sisters, and both die because they used their own product — in Montana’s case, cocaine; in the case of the syphilitic Capone, prostitutes. But the De Palma movie is not a remake in any conventional sense; it takes a familiar story arc, which may even contain echoes of “Macbeth,” and uses it to look at a new character in a new terrain — the Florida of the early 1980s, after Fidel Castro briefly allowed large-scale immigration from his island, sending us boatloads of his tired and weary masses and seizing the opportunity to empty his jails at the same time.

        Some of the early footage is documentary, showing news coverage of the arriving refugees and speeches by Castro explaining how he was happy to be rid of counter-revolutionary elements. Tony Montana, broke and a criminal, will do anything to get started in the new land, and quickly hustles a commission to kill a fellow prisoner who is disliked by a wealthy Cuban American. The payoff will be citizenship. “I kill a communist for fun,” he says, “but for a green card, I gonna carve him up real nice.” Soon he has become a lieutenant for Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia), a South Florida druglord, and from there his rise to power is inexorable.

        The movie was written by Oliver Stone — interestingly, the same man who directed the largely laudatory documentary “Command-ante” (2003), about his three days in conversation with Castro. Stone has always been at home with stories involving men, drugs, sex and violence, and his work here has a fierce energy; it is possible to see Montana reflecting Stone’s own drive to success. His screenplay, like Ben Hecht’s work for the earlier “Scarface,” is filled with quotable lines (“All I got in my life is my balls and my word, and I don’t break them for nobody”). Stone shows a certain toughness in not trying to soften Montana, who remains a snake from beginning to end; when he gives his mother $1,000, she asks him, “Who did you kill for this?”

        For Al Pacino, the role was an opportunity to explore a crime boss who is the polar opposite of his Michael Corleone in Coppola’s “The Godfather.” Corleone is slick and smooth, intelligent and strategic; Montana is instinctive, impulsive and reckless. “The Godfather” was made in 1972, “Scarface” in 1983, and 10 years later Pacino and De Palma worked together on “Carlito’s Way,” where Pacino plays a Puerto Rican criminal who for a time tries to go straight.

        His sadder and wiser Carlito, seen with psychological realism, helps us understand how many deliberate acting choices went into the creation of Tony Montana. “Though a busy performance, it’s not a mannered one, meaning that it’s completely controlled,” Vincent Canby wrote in the New York Times on the film’s first release.

        “Scarface” shows a man who wants the world, and at one point even sees The World Is Yours blinking at him from the Goodyear blimp. The world for him includes the possession of a desirable woman, and from the moment he sees the blond, slender Elvira (Michelle Pfeiffer), he determines that he must have her. She is Frank’s mistress, but soon Frank is dead, and his mistress and his business belong to Tony. That he must have her is clear, but what he intends to do with her is not; there is no romance between them, no joy, and they have two scenes — one with Tony in a swimming pool and the other in a vast bathtub — where her boredom is palpable. She’s along for the drugs. Tony is much more interested in his sister Gina (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), although his incestuous desires are deflected into a determination to keep all other men away from her. This leads him eventually to the murder of Manolo (Steven Bauer), his closest friend. Gina’s response to his jealousy is so horrifyingly direct (“Is this what you want, Tony?”) that it shows she knows exactly who he is and what buttons she can push.

        Scarface” is an example of Brian De Palma in overdrive mode. Like Tony Montana, he isn’t interested in small gestures and subtle emotions. His best films are expansive, passionate, stylized and cheerfully excessive, and yet he has never caved in to the demand for routine action thrillers. Even his failures (“Snake Eyes”) are at least ambitious. There is a mind at work in a De Palma picture, an idea behind the style, never a feeling of indifferent vulgarity. His most recent film, “Femme Fatale” (2002), was one of his best, an elegant and deceptive story based on the theft of a dress made of diamonds, which is stolen from the women wearing it during the opening night at the Cannes Film Festival. That the movie was not more successful is an indictment of the impatience of today’s audiences, who want to be assaulted, not seduced.

        A film like “Scarface” is more to their liking, which accounts for the film’s enduring popularity, even in an edited-for-TV version that emasculates it. The movie has a headlong energy, hurtling toward its grand guignol climax. The cinematography, by the great John A. Alonzo, gloriously magnifies the icons in Tony’s life — the mansion, the toys, the lifestyle — and then closes in on small, tight compositions as Tony’s world shrinks.

        One of the movie’s best scenes shows Tony at a nightclub, drunk, drugged and exhausted — and heartbroken, we sense, because he has gained the whole world but knows he has not merely lost his soul, but perhaps never had one. The music is by Giorgio Moroder, whose impersonal synthesized techno-pop provides the correct tone for a lifestyle that has the surface of luxury but not the comfort.

        And then it all comes around to Pacino. What a complete actor this man is. He can play big or small, loud or soft, tireless or exhausted, always as if it’s the only note he has. Consider him as the sad, doped publicist in “People I Know” (2003), doggedly trying to focus on an idealistic cause through the fog of his own excesses, and see how different that drug-addicted character is from Tony Montana in “Scarface.” Or look back at his early performance as a street hustler in “Panic in Needle Park” (1971).

        Pacino has an extraordinary range of styles, and a pitch-perfect ability to evoke them. There is no such thing as “the Al Pacino performance,” because there are too many different kinds of them. Here he plays Tony Montana on an operatic scale, as a man who wants more and more and is finally killed by his own excess. In the final sequence, he has a pile of cocaine on his desk and plunges his nose into it as if trying to inhale life itself. Pacino plays part of that scene with white powder stuck to his nose. The detail is often parodied, but it is a correct acting choice, showing a man who has become heedless of everything except his need. If Pacino goes over the top in “Scarface,” and he does, that’s because the character leads him there; over the top is where Tony Montana lives.”

        Link

    • Ipman 10 years ago

      “And people flying in the air after getting shot and Tony Leung in slow motion?”

      no one is flying in the air. ppl getting shot are falling instantly at a distance bcos thats how it is in real life unless you expect them to stand their ground after getting hit by bullets ala sunny deol or the dancing pacino in scarface! you find chow yun overacting at 1:40 and pacino not hamming in scarface? its a joke

  22. Author
    sputnik 10 years ago

    @bored,

    I watched Scarface first and I loved the movie and Al Pacino in it. I watched Agneepath after Scarface and I did not like Agneepath or Amitabh in it. Agree with you that Agneepath was a poor man’s Scarface and that Amitabh hammed in it. But then people who like Agneepath and Amitabh in it are bashing Scarface and Pacino without even watching the movie in full 🙂

    • Bored 10 years ago

      @Sputnik – I think Scarface was a decent movie if u consider the time it was made. Problem with many movies that gather cult following is that they seldom sustain the test of time. Usually cult films are ‘hatke’ for a time and people over-rate it coz they love the ‘difference’. But over time that difference become ‘commonplace’ and the later generations just scratch their heads wondering whats so great in that film?

      One similar example is DCH for indian cinema. I remember how fresh it indeed was in 2001. But now i can barely sit thru it – why? coz its a poorly made film in many ways – but that does not take away the fact that so many people had liked the film when it released and it had actually created a slew of urbane buddy films over the years.

      • sputnik 10 years ago

        Upon its release Scarface was neither critically acclaimed nor nominated for any Oscars or a big box office success. It became a cult movie later on much like AAA in India. It became popular and a cult movie over the years.

        Even though I like DCH I always thought it was overrated but that discussion is for Overrated Bollywood movies which I will make soon 🙂

        • Bored 10 years ago

          If u consider the gangster genre, its box-office was good enuf (40M or so upon its first release). Critical acclaim was mixed – but that is expected from an ‘unpleasant’ movie. Oscar wins or not, i never cared for.

          Pacino fans had sumthing to do with its cult status. AAA was an outright flop when it released and neither audience nor critics cared much as far as i can remember. AAA i guess achieved cult status with its successful TV reruns & DVD sales. To me Scarface is anyday way better than AAA.

    • Ipman 10 years ago

      for the record – i dont think very highly of amitabhs ap or amitabh in it! sputnik has made this up just like he made up chow overacting in hard boiler scene 😉

      but i will say few things about the old ap. its story and amitabhs character is quite different from pacino in scarface. ap is not about excess. amitabh is not a druggie/junkie in it.infact he is agaisnt those things in the film. he knows what he wants from his life and he has control on his emotions and intelligence unlike tony montana. the only common thread between the two is both went over the top with their mannerisms in every scene and after a while it got irritating and monotonous

      • Bored 10 years ago

        ^^ Yes that is one reason why AP was a bad remake. Indianizing ‘Hollywood’ often results in reverting concepts and themes (due to drastically different sensibilities) which make the remake a farce. Best example of what i am talking abt here is – Ghajini.

        I dare anyone to watch Memento and Ghajini (Surya’s or Aamir’s doesnt matter) back to back. 🙂

        • Ipman 10 years ago

          ap is not a remake of scarface. ap is story of revenge. scarface wasnt that. probably no one would even talk about the two movies together if not for the way amitabh acted. i think somewhere the character of tony montana was at the back of amitabhs mind while doing ap . amitabh made a mistake there. he should have acted like he did in deewar.

        • Bored 10 years ago

          Hold on!

          Amitabh’s Agneepath was about revenge? NO – Mukul Anand just didnt know what he wanted to make beyond a homage to Bachchan.

          Memento was abt memory loss in its core? Well, bloody NO once again!

          Scarface was about a life of a gangster. Memento was about ‘sense of purpose’. Hrithik’s Agneepath was abt revenge.

          Ghajini and Amitabh’s Agneepath dont have a core at all – just like most bollywood movies.

      • Author
        sputnik 10 years ago

        “dont think very highly of amitabhs ap or amitabh in it” is just a roundabout way of saying I like it and still think highly of it 🙂 Watching AP in full while not watching Scarface and bashing it shows which movie and performance you like more.

        “its story and amitabhs character is quite different from pacino in scarface. ap is not about excess. amitabh is not a druggie/junkie in it.infact he is agaisnt those things in the film. he knows what he wants from his life and he has control on his emotions and intelligence unlike tony montana.”

        If this is not a defense of Agneepath I don’t know what is. And every movie where the gangster says I am against drugs is from Godfather. And even Tony Montana has principles – there is a scene in Scarface where he is part of a hit job and he sees women and kids in the car and keeps getting frustrated and angry as he keeps following them because the women and kids are about to be blown up. And so he kills the guy who is about to pull the trigger for the bomb.

        LOL on “Control over his emotiona and intelligence” A guy bragging “maut ke saath aaj apna apointment haiin” and coming out of a car and asking people to shoot is “control on his emotions and intelligence”.

        Without Scarface and Al Pacino’s performance there is no Agneepath. Agneepath is just a Indianized version which is inspired/copied from Scarface right down to many scenes whether it is Amitabh’s first scene in the police station, hotel scene or there being a mother and a sister and the sister’s love track with the friend. Amitabh’s swagger and bragging nature is also from Tony Montana’s character. Even Amitabh dying to a flurry of bullets is from Scarface but not having problem with Amitabh’s shaking but having problems with Al Pacino’s shaking is selective bashing.

        • Ipman 10 years ago

          you had yourself said scarface is a movie about excess and that is how it is similar to wows. but now you say ap which was a revenge film, definitely not about excess, was a remake of scarface! you sound confused. 😉 make up your mind

          I didnt like the performance of both amitabh and pacino. i dont like such characters. i brought scacrface and pacino in the debate as its a thread on overrated hw films.dont worry , i will also bring ap in the hindi version of this thread, in case you make one 😀

          • Author
            sputnik 10 years ago

            Saying Agneepath is not a remake of Scarface is same as saying Ghajini is not a remake of Memento coz there was no love story track or old school villain track in Memento.

            Yes Scarface is a movie about excess but its basically a gangster movie. The lead is a bragging Gangster with swagger who comes from nowhere and rises to the top and then dies in the end.

            Yes Agneepath isn’t about excess but its also a gangster film where the lead is a bragging Gangster with swagger who comes from nowhere and rises to the top and then dies in the end. The characterization of Amitabh and some other characters, plot points and even some scenes are inspired/copied.

            I said WOWS is Scarface set in Wall Steet. WOWS is not a gangster film but its about a lead character who is also a bad guy who brags and has swagger. WOWS is about excess just like Scarface was and there is downfall of Jordan Belfort too but since it is not a gangster film there is no final shootout scene where the bad guy dies.

          • Ipman 10 years ago

            ghajini has the main memory loss twist copied from memento which is the core.ap may have some minor similarity here and there but its core is revenge and amitabh doing an “agneepath” like his father.there is no comparison between the two atleast on paper except that both are bad films

  23. Bored 10 years ago

    Btw, was Avatar over-rated? Everyone watched it because of technical reasons and praised its visual splendour. But dont think anyone cared abt the movie, how come its over-rated?

    Its similar to Gravity in that aspect, but Avataar had more story (although cliched) than the one line script of Gravity.

  24. Serenzy 10 years ago

    Juno, Love Actually , The Usual Suspects , TITANIC

    Wooooww…. This post is like a big “Fuck You, I’m Sputnik!” to all of us 🙁

    • Author
      sputnik 10 years ago

      Ha Ha nothing like that.

      I found the movie and the character Juno very annoying. Love Actually is ok as a regular rom com but doesn’t deserve the praise or acclaim that it gets. Titanic again is ok but the praise and awards that it got makes it overrated.

      I hated the ending of The Usual Suspects when I saw it back in 2002. This is what I think is a big “Fuck You, I’m the director!” to the audience 😉

    • FS 10 years ago

      lol good one Serenzy 😛

  25. Ipman 10 years ago

    When harry met sally. just as pointless a chickflick as before sunrise, aimed at soft girly males

  26. Author
    sputnik 10 years ago

    This has a 7 rating on IMDb and 82 percent rating on rotten tomatoes and I think this is one more overrated movie.

    What About Bob? Determined to receive treatment, a neurotic New Yorker struggling with a host of phobias follows his psychiatrist on vacation in this quirky comedy.

    Deewana Mastana is inspired/copied from this movie but Deewana Mastana is way better than this which was not funny at all. It was so irritating/annoying that I stopped after watching half of it. The crazy patient stalking the psychiatrist on his vacation and his family being so nice to him seemed completely unbelievable in the American context.

    Bill Murray was horrible and looked completely miscast for the part. There was nothing lovable about him. In the first scene he is a wreck and in just a few minutes he is fooling people and so confident. No consistency at all. It was a screenplay of convenience. Have never liked Bill Murray or any of his movies. He is one overrated actor.

    Richard Dreyfuss was good as the psychiatrist but the movie tries to show him as the bad guy for not being nice to a crazy stalker. Julie Hagerty (wife), Charlie Korsmo (son)
    and Kathryn Erbe (daughter) characters were all unbelievable. The 26 old Kathryn Erbe was trying to pull off a teenager.

  27. Anjanpur685Miles 10 years ago

    “The movie hits a new low when Sandra Bullock shows up in shorts and the camera keeps focusing on them on like a pervert. ”

    When she is shown in shorts , the 30 seconds after, she is spinning like a baby in a womb. Its symbolic. Well, I didnt find movie stupid. It may have lot of cliches and overacting, but its as fine as Avatar. I enjoyed it very much.

    And I dont think Gravity or Avatar are junk food movies. Just because some media in west is talking too much abt them and oscars etc (the reason for you to have this post) – which I they dont care for and have no knowledge of – does not mean they are bad or junk. For me they are just great piece of art – as good as Silence of the Lambs/ Oldboy etc etc ..
    Just that they are different genre.

    • Anjanpur685Miles 10 years ago

      Well ofcourse when I say I enjoyed it, does not mean its a great movie 🙂

      But they aren’t junk food either.

  28. Baba 9 years ago

    interstellar – it is hollywood’s krrish 3. takes suspension of disbelief to a whole new ridiculous level and looks surprisingly low budget

  29. shezad 9 years ago

    Baba jee kuch to kudah ka kauf karo, krish 3.

    Theek hai tumei passand nahi ahi liken krish. Lolll

    • Baba 9 years ago

      i said its hws equivalent of that. its an exageration ofc to stress a point 😉

  30. Author
    sputnik 9 years ago

    Multiple award-winning director Mike Nichols dies at 83

    Director Mike Nichols, one of the few people to win an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony award, died Wednesday evening, according to a note from ABC News’ president to its staff.

    Nichols, 83, who directed “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” and “The Graduate,” was the husband of former “ABC World News” anchor Diane Sawyer.

    Born Michael Igor Peschkowsky in Berlin in 1931, Nichols got his start as a stage performer, and in the 1950s co-founded the Chicago-based comedy troupe Second City, which honed comedians including John Belushi and Bill Murray.

    As recounted in the book “Faces of America,” a young Nichols arrived in the United States knowing only two phrases: “I don’t speak English” and “Please, don’t kiss me.” The family changed its last name to Nichols after settling in New York City, where the family patriarch established a medical practice.

    Nichols attended college in Chicago and later headed back to New York City, where he studied acting under famed teacher Lee Strasberg. He returned to Chicago, where he started up a comedy troupe and met Elaine May.

    The pair would go on to form a partnership that would later take Broadway by storm. Nichols said he took to the stage.

    “I liked doing the stand-up,” Nichols told The Hollywood Reporter in 2012. “I only stopped because Elaine wanted to stop. I’ve never understood it. I thought: “Why? It’s not a very long show. It doesn’t cost us anything emotionally.'”

    He moved behind the scenes and directed Robert Redford and Elizabeth Ashley in “Barefoot in the Park,” which won him his first Tony in 1964. More acclaim would follow for his work on the big screen, with films like “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” “Silkwood” and “The Graduate,” for which he won an Academy Award for best director in 1967.

    His last film as director was 2007’s “Charlie Wilson’s War.”

    “No one was more passionate about his craft than Mike,” James Goldston, president of ABC News, said in a note to the staff. “He had recently been immersed in a new project for HBO to adapt ‘Master Class,’ Terrence McNally’s Tony Award-winning play about opera legend Maria Callas. The project reunited him with Meryl Streep, one of his most frequent collaborators.”

    Nichols occupied that rare air in the industry of those who have won the EGOT — an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony. In 2012 he earned his record sixth Tony for best direction of a play for “Death of a Salesmen.”

    He met Sawyer later in life (he was 54 at the time) and she became his fourth wife. He told THR that he first spotted the then-“60 Minutes” correspondent on a flight and later struck up a conversation with her.

    “I found her and said, ‘You’re my hero.’ And she said: ‘No, you’re my hero. Do you ever have lunch?’ She wanted to interview me for ’60 Minutes.’ I pretended that I was up for it, and we had about 14 lunches.”

    The couple was married for 26 years. In addition to Sawyer, Nichols is survived by his three children — Daisy, Max and Jenny — and four grandchildren.

    Link

  31. Author
    sputnik 9 years ago

    Looks like Gravity was based on a novel but that the author got no credit or compensation.

    ——————–

    MY GRAVITY LAWSUIT AND HOW IT AFFECTS EVERY WRITER WHO SELLS TO HOLLYWOOD

    Saturday, Jan 31st, 2015 @ 08:29 am
    Yesterday, the court granted Warner Bros’s motion to dismiss my lawsuit against them. While Warner Bros crows victory, the judge has in fact left the door open for me to pursue my claim, allowing my legal team twenty days to revise our complaint and address a single issue: the corporate relationship between Warner Bros. and New Line Productions.

    For those unfamiliar with why I sued, you can find my original statement here:

    A quick wrap-up of the facts:

    In 1999, I sold the film rights to my book GRAVITY to New Line Productions. The contract stipulates that if a movie is made based on my book, I will receive “based upon” credit, a production bonus, and a percentage of net profits. The book is about a female medical doctor/astronaut who is stranded aboard the International Space Station after the rest of her crew is killed in a series of accidents. A biological hazard aboard ISS traps her in quarantine, unable to return to earth. While my film was in development, I re-wrote the third act of the film script with scenes of satellite debris destroying ISS and the lone surviving female astronaut adrift in her spacesuit.

    Alfonso Cuaron was attached to direct my film — a fact I did not know at the time. My project never made it out of development.

    In 2008, Warner Bros acquired New Line Productions. The takeover was rumored to be brutal, with numerous New Line employees losing their jobs overnight.

    Sometime around 2008 – 2009, Alfonso Cuaron wrote his original screenplay “Gravity” about a female astronaut who is the sole survivor after her colleagues are killed by satellite debris destroying their spacecraft. She is left adrift in her space suit, and is later stranded aboard the International Space Station. I noted the similarities, but I had no evidence of any connection between Cuaron and my project. Without proof, I could not publicly accuse him of theft, so when asked about the similarities by fans and reporters, I told them it could be coincidence.

    In February 2014, my literary agent was informed of Cuaron’s attachment to my project back in 2000. Now the similarities between my book and Cuaron’s movie could no longer be dismissed as coincidence. I sought legal help, and we filed a Breach of Contract complaint that April. Please note: this is not a case of copyright infringement. Warner Bros., through its ownership of New Line, also owns the film rights to my book. They had every right to make the movie — but they claim they have no obligation to honor my contract with New Line.

    This is why every writer who sells to Hollywood should be alarmed.

    It means that any writer who sold film rights to New Line Productions can have those rights freely exploited by its parent company Warner Bros. — and the original contract you signed with New Line will not be honored. Warner Bros. can make a movie based on your book but you will get no credit, even though your contract called for it.

    It means that any parent film company who acquires a studio, and also acquires that studio’s intellectual properties, can exploit those properties without having to acknowledge or compensate the original authors.

    This is alarming on many levels, and the principles involved go far beyond my individual lawsuit. Every writer who sells film rights to Hollywood must now contend with the possibility that the studio they signed the contract with could be swallowed up by a larger company — and that parent company can then make a movie based on your book without compensating you. It means Hollywood contracts are worthless.

    But as I said, the door is not yet entirely closed on my lawsuit. My attorney Glen Kulik has issued the following statement:

    The court issued a long, detailed, and very thoughtful opinion in which it noted that we need to include more facts in our pleading relative to the relationship between Warner Bros. and New Line — that was the only issue before the court on the motion. This happens quite often in litigation, and now we need to go ahead and file an amended complaint which corrects the technical deficiencies using the court’s decision as our roadmap. I do not think that will be hard to do as we have learned a great deal more information about the Warner Bros/New Line relationship since the original Complaint
    was filed.

    We will push on.

    Link

  32. Author
    sputnik 9 years ago

    Honest movie trailers of Avatar, Titanic 3D and Gravity

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