Classic Books and/or Movies That Suck

[Psycho P and the Freight Train]

Got inspired to make this after the thread mentioning the Great Gatsby. I hated that book so much, and not because it was bourgeois or whatever. It was really just terrible and had no profound meaning in the slightest. Not to mention, I hate how people in my generation all of a sudden have a love for the story because of the fucking movie that came out recently.

Also notice I said classic, not classical, although classical shit can obviously be included in classic. By classic, I just mean books and movies that seem to be universally loved.

Oh and I also didn't like the Matrix too much. The concept was incredible, but I found it boring and wish they had focused more on the "real world" and the machines and shit. Haven't seen the other two.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

I actually liked the Great Gatsby but then I'm a sucker for stories where horrible vacuous people do horrible vacuous things and die horrible vacous deaths. I like a lot of Fitzgerald's other stuff for just that reason I guess.

Jane Eyre is supposedly a classic but I always hated it.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

You know what's the worse book ever? The Age of Innocence That was perhaps one of the most pointless examples of upper class twattery that I've seen

[Ele'ill]

Have you seen the Great Gatsby movie, the recent one, it was so annoying. I watched it at a motel.

[Sinister Intents]

I turned the Great Gatsby off pretty quikcly and I've had people tell me horrible things about it. Also I'd say the MIB movies are pretty sucky

[Slavic]

The book was better than the movie.

[Hermes]

Have you seen the Great Gatsby movie, the recent one, it was so annoying. I watched it at a motel.

I really dislike DiCaprio as an actor, for some reason. Whatever movie he's in, he seems to come off as unbearably smug.

I didn't really like Wuthering Heights, to be honest. I don't know if I'd go so far as to say it sucked, though.

[slum]

the graduate is a horrible film that isn't even funny

come at me

[Slavic]

the graduate is a horrible film that isn't even funny

come at me

Yea the graduate was shitty. Dustin Hoffman's monotone acting was horrendous.

[BIXX]

Everyone tells me that the Pearl was good. It was not. Don't know if it's considered a classic but it was just boring. One of my friends keeps trying to explain that steinbecks characters weren't supposed to be clever in that one but it seemed worse than that- it seemed like they weren't even people, but more like puppets.

[motion denied]

Tarkovsky is an unbearable prick.

[Quail]

I didn't like Wuthering Heights either. Jane Eyre on the other hand was the first "classic" book I read as a teen and I was amazed that not only did I not find it boring, I actually found it really engaging.

I have a special kind of hatred of The Catcher in the Rye. I read it when I was a teenager and disliked it, so I tried again as an adult wondering if I'd missed something but nope. Couldn't even bear to read it all the second time.

[Rugged Collectivist]

I don't like star wars. I only watched 3 of them (two of which were of the newer trilogy, which everyone hates so I guess that doesn't count) but I remember hating the first one. Boring, simplistic bullshit. Maybe one day I'll watch them all over again but I doubt it will change my opinion.

Also the bible

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[Ceallach_the_Witch]

I have a special kind of hatred of The Catcher in the Rye. I read it when I was a teenager and disliked it, so I tried again as an adult wondering if I'd missed something but nope. Couldn't even bear to read it all the second time.

oh god yes. I thought Holden Caulfield was an irritating little prick when I was 14 and an irritating little prick myself, who knows how i'd react now. I never understood why it's supposed to be this big thing for teenagers to relate to.

[Queen Mab]

I didn't like Wuthering Heights either. Jane Eyre on the other hand was the first "classic" book I read as a teen and I was amazed that not only did I not find it boring, I actually found it really engaging.

Both are great, but I prefer Wuthering Heights. More passionate and less stultifyingly Christian as Jane Eyre IMO.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I agree about how horribly boring The Great Gatsby is. If I'm going to watch a movie about rich people, I want to see a movie filled with degeneracy and sex and drugs and white collar crime and spectacular falls from grace, not some a plodding tale about some sulky bastard and his dull friends.

[PC LOAD LETTER]

I don't like star wars. I only watched 3 of them (two of which were of the newer trilogy, which everyone hates so I guess that doesn't count) but I remember hating the first one. Boring, simplistic bullshit. Maybe one day I'll watch them all over again but I doubt it will change my opinion.

Also the bible

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Empire was the best one out of the first trilogy.

Second trilogy doesn't exist.

Ummm .... hmm .... well, most people rag on movies and say 'the book was better!!!!!', but in the case of Children of Men, the movie was infinitely better than the fucking book. The book was horrible. The movie was also really well shot.

[Ele'ill]

jerry maguire sucked

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Echoing The Graduate as utter crap.
I was so disappointed - I'd heard it talked up so many times only to find another terrible, "Stalk a woman long enough and she'll eventually love you" story. Ew. Gross. Gross, gross, gross.

[Thirsty Crow]

Every damn thing ever written by Tolstoy.

Anna Kerenina was the end of me.

Shakespeare is massively overrated also especially in relation to his (now pretty much unknown) contemporaries like Marlowe.

And British realist novel...no just don't do it, okay?

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

Gone With the Wind.

I.

Hate.

Gone With the Wind.

It's a movie that's far too long, based on a bloated piece of barely serviceable pop literature, and filled with so much 'lost cause' bullshit that even Jefferson fucking DAVIS would look at it and say "Yo, that's a lot of shit".

[Marshal of the People]

The worst movie I have ever seen is Battleship it is a fascist, militaristic and jingoistic film, of course most American action movies are like that, but Battleship was several times worse than any other American movie I have seen. Not to mention the scientific inaccuracies and many logical failures. You would think a spaceship which travels through space would have thick enough glass to stop a bullet from a rifle? The the Humans just attack the Aliens for no reason, the Aliens never initiated aggression, they only defended themselves against random and illogical attacks. I was actual hoping the Aliens would win and kill all the humans.

I am still upset about the time I lost watching that movie and am deeply disturbed about what kind of person could write that piece of [CENSORED]!

[PC LOAD LETTER]

The worst movie I have ever seen is Battleship it is a fascist, militaristic and jingoistic film, of course most American action movies are like that, but Battleship was several times worse than any other American movie I have seen. Not to mention the scientific inaccuracies and many logical failures. You would think a spaceship which travels through space would have thick enough glass to stop a bullet from a rifle? The the Humans just attack the Aliens for no reason, the Aliens never initiated aggression, they only defended themselves against random and illogical attacks. I was actual hoping the Aliens would win and kill all the humans.

I am still upset about the time I lost watching that movie and am deeply disturbed about what kind of person could write that piece of [CENSORED]!
Reminds me of the 2008 film Doomsday. I got in free for a pre-release screening through work, and started laughing when the armored vehicle's window was busted out with a baseball bat.

[Ele'ill]

the terminator series would have been great without Arnold in it

[Marshal of the People]

Reminds me of the 2008 film Doomsday. I got in free for a pre-release screening through work, and started laughing when the armored vehicle's window was busted out with a baseball bat.This is worse. I was so upset for days about the excessive militarism and jingoism I had an emotional breakdown. Not to mention that an advanced Alien spaceship gets destroyed by a WWII-era battleship. It was so unrealistic. The sad thing is that a lot of people (critics not included thankfully) thought it was a good movie.

[Skyhilist]

Jane Eyre is supposedly a classic but I always hated it.

Ugh we just read that book in english. I'm already a STEM person to begin with who isn't huge on literature but that was the worst book of the year - and we also spent the most time on it out of all the books this year. Truly dull and boring shit. I get that it addressing problems that still occur, but all of those problems in modern times can be addressed much more thoroughly through a modern lens that fully understands them in their current form. Idk maybe I just like modern writing better.

Oh also this isn't a classic book or movie, but old english poetry in general - it sucks. Bores me to death. Honestly, I'd be much more satisfied if the people writing it would just be straight up and make their point directly instead of forcing me to guess what the hell they're thinking with a bunch of obscure metaphors and shit.

[Thirsty Crow]

the terminator series would have been great without Arnold in it
Supposing you mean the movie thing.

The first Terminator is the fucking best action movie ever IMO, and Arnie plays his role well enough.

[Slavic]

This is worse. I was so upset for days about the excessive militarism and jingoism I had an emotional breakdown. Not to mention that an advanced Alien spaceship gets destroyed by a WWII-era battleship. It was so unrealistic. The sad thing is that a lot of people (critics not included thankfully) thought it was a good movie.


Its just a movie man, war movies tend to be full of militarism and jingoism by their very nature.

Also lol at alien-human battles being unrealistic. I needed that laugh.

[Marshal of the People]

Its just a movie man, war movies tend to be full of militarism and jingoism by their very nature.

Also lol at alien-human battles being unrealistic. I needed that laugh.But this movie was at least 10 times worse than any other movie I had ever seen.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Alternatively - speaking of Battleship - what about terrible films we've seen / books we've read that are brilliant?

Starship Troopers anyone?

[Queen Mab]

And British realist novel...no just don't do it, okay?

Huh? :confused: Middlemarch?

[ArisVelouxiotis]

Am I the only one who actually likes the prequel trilogy of star wars?

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Since reading Wuthering Heights for my ENG252 class, I will always associate it with Badiou's concept of love, thanks to the essay I choose to write about. Still makes me tedious when I think about reading through the book. It wasn't terrible but it is not exactly material that I am going to recommend to a friend in need of entertainment.

What I hate in classic lit though? Hands down: Tess of the D'urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. Book was so fucking boring!!!! Wrote s splendid essay regarding Queer life, but other than that... bleh.

[Quail]

Am I the only one who actually likes the prequel trilogy of star wars?

II and III aren't too bad but Episode I is just kind of terrible. On a slight tangent I think Star Wars machete order (http://static.nomachetejuggling.com/machete_order.html) is pretty good because it all makes sense and you don't have to bother with the abomination that is Episode I.

Also on another tangent, I know that Star Trek V is widely known as a terrible film and I kind of agree but I still like watching it.

[Red Commissar]

The worst movie I have ever seen is Battleship it is a fascist, militaristic and jingoistic film, of course most American action movies are like that, but Battleship was several times worse than any other American movie I have seen. Not to mention the scientific inaccuracies and many logical failures. You would think a spaceship which travels through space would have thick enough glass to stop a bullet from a rifle? The the Humans just attack the Aliens for no reason, the Aliens never initiated aggression, they only defended themselves against random and illogical attacks. I was actual hoping the Aliens would win and kill all the humans.

I am still upset about the time I lost watching that movie and am deeply disturbed about what kind of person could write that piece of [CENSORED]!

Is battleship really a "classic" movie though? I agree with you, it sucks but it doesn't really register for me as something that people see as a classic.

As for me, a classic movie I could never really get into was Ben-Hur. I don't know why but I have a soft-spot for those overblown period pieces but Ben-Hur just seemed to've dragged on for me, even when considering those kinds of movies were long to begin with.

I agree with Gone with the Wind. Besides the Lost Cause bullshit it carries over from the original material, it comes off as too sappy to me and the whole relationship between Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara is more creepy than anything else. I can give it credit for have a large cast and set design but it's not a movie I can sit through again. Suck might be too strong for this movie, it's not bad just I don't see why it's held up the way it is.

[Rugged Collectivist]

II and III aren't too bad but Episode I is just kind of terrible. On a slight tangent I think Star Wars machete order (http://static.nomachetejuggling.com/machete_order.html) is pretty good because it all makes sense and you don't have to bother with the abomination that is Episode I.

Also on another tangent, I know that Star Trek V is widely known as a terrible film and I kind of agree but I still like watching it.

Now that I think about it, I did enjoy III

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[Ceallach_the_Witch]

Every damn thing ever written by Tolstoy.

Anna Kerenina was the end of me.

And British realist novel...no just don't do it, okay?

fight me


on-topic

Ulysses. I've read it a few times and no, obviously i didn't understand it because literally nobody does because James Joyce was just showing off and had probs realised that his core readership of pretentious tossers (which to be fair includes me) would lap that shit right up. On the other hand Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young man though.


Still nothing Flann O'Brien didn't do better and funnier imo.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Every damn thing ever written by Tolstoy.

Anna Kerenina was the end of me.

Pretty much. I also found Gorky to be unbearable, which is strange since I like me a bit of Chekhov, including his more "social" work.

Grass deserves some sort of special prize for making me sympathise with the Nazis, due to the said Nazis trying to kill many of his ridiculous characters.

[motion denied]

Gorky is ok. Actually, his autobiography is pretty good, as well as The Petty Bourgeois.

Ostrovsky is a joke though.

[Queen Mab]

Gorky's autobiography is amazing. Especially My Childhood.

[Goblin]

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of the worst books i've ever read.

[Comrade Jacob]

I heard the Da vinci code is really...naff.

[Rosa Partizan]

you consider the Da Vinci Code a classic?

[Comrade Jacob]

you consider the Da Vinci Code a classic?

No...it's naff. But some people do consider it one. innit

[Rosa Partizan]

yeah but those people are a bit...let's put it nicely...confused.

[Quail]

Yeah I was going to mention the Da Vinci Code. I tried to read it in both French and English. Got further in French because hell, at least it was serving a purpose by helping me practice my language skills, but I couldn't finish it.

[Rugged Collectivist]

I heard the Da vinci code is really...naff.

I liked the movie. Then again, I haven't seen it in 8 years.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

Concerning The Da Vinci Code:

Little known fact, before Dan Brown became a bestselling novelist, he was a musician.

I shit you not. Here's a few songs (http://www.buzzfeed.com/lukelewis/that-time-dan-brown-recorded-a-song-about-phone-sex) he recorded for his self-titled debut album and its followup "Angels & Demons", including one song that's about....wait for it.....phone sex. And yes, he's singing.

[Rugged Collectivist]

Concerning The Da Vinci Code:

Little known fact, before Dan Brown became a bestselling novelist, he was a musician.

I shit you not. Here's a few songs (http://www.buzzfeed.com/lukelewis/that-time-dan-brown-recorded-a-song-about-phone-sex) he recorded for his self-titled debut album and its followup "Angels & Demons", including one song that's about....wait for it.....phone sex. And yes, he's singing.

This made my week.

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[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

I'm going to reverse the overall concept here.

A book that supposedly sucks, but that I actually really liked:

Battlefield Earth.

Yes, the movie is godawful, even painful to watch.

But the novel its based on is a lot of fun. It's a gloriously bloated piece of pulp science fiction that is pure literary sugar, from start to finish. It also inspired one of my favorite Frazetta paintings.

Hubbard was a real bastard, but it can't be denied that he was a great storyteller.

Now, the Mission Earth books on the other hand...bleh. :P

[MarxSchmarx]

The Bible.

Ok - I get it, "begot begot begot."

And the innumerable passages about arcane rules about planting seeds in the morning and not eating owls, cormorants and something called the ossifrage.

"The Bible as Literature" is a joke. Its characters are flat, the themes are preachy, its plots hyperbolic and its cadence dull. Any writing course that teaches budding writers to write like this should be shut down for fraud.

[Art Vandelay]

Concerning The Da Vinci Code:

Little known fact, before Dan Brown became a bestselling novelist, he was a musician.

I shit you not. Here's a few songs (http://www.buzzfeed.com/lukelewis/that-time-dan-brown-recorded-a-song-about-phone-sex) he recorded for his self-titled debut album and its followup "Angels & Demons", including one song that's about....wait for it.....phone sex. And yes, he's singing.

He plays in a band with Stephen King, along with some other writers.

[synthesis]

Alternatively - speaking of Battleship - what about terrible films we've seen / books we've read that are brilliant?

Starship Troopers anyone?

Freddy Got Fingered.
The Twin Peaks movie.
Final Destination 2.
Trick Baby.
Paranormal Activity 3.
Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters.
Pain & Gain.
Observe and Report.

Neither my listing nor my appreciation for any of these movies is at all ironic.

[Art Vandelay]

Freddy Got Fingered

Yes! Also idle hands.

[Redistribute the Rep]

Well I do agree that it's annoying that people are starting to like it just because the movie came out, but I actually like the Great Gatsby and from what I understand Fitzgerald was a Marxist

[Rugged Collectivist]

The Bible.

Ok - I get it, "begot begot begot."

And the innumerable passages about arcane rules about planting seeds in the morning and not eating owls, cormorants and something called the ossifrage.

"The Bible as Literature" is a joke. Its characters are flat, the themes are preachy, its plots hyperbolic and its cadence dull. Any writing course that teaches budding writers to write like this should be shut down for fraud.

Yes! And don't forget the pages upon pages of boring genealogy. "And Methuselah lived 900 years and begat Noah who lived 800 years and begat blah blah blah.

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[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The Bible.

Ok - I get it, "begot begot begot."

And the innumerable passages about arcane rules about planting seeds in the morning and not eating owls, cormorants and something called the ossifrage.

"The Bible as Literature" is a joke. Its characters are flat, the themes are preachy, its plots hyperbolic and its cadence dull. Any writing course that teaches budding writers to write like this should be shut down for fraud.

To be honest, I always found Ezekiel and the Apocalypse of John to be great examples of stoner literature. The Song of Songs is meh porn. Most other books are atrocious minutiae that would have bored even a contemporary bureaucrat to tears.

edit: The only irritating thing about Ezekiel and the Apocalypse is the constant "and then this detail was made of emerald and ruby and chrysoberyl and crystallised lynx piss and amethyst and pearl and Weetabix and...".

[Brutus]

To be honest, I always found Ezekiel and the Apocalypse of John to be great examples of stoner literature. The Song of Songs is meh porn. Most other books are atrocious minutiae that would have bored even a contemporary bureaucrat to tears.

edit: The only irritating thing about Ezekiel and the Apocalypse is the constant "and then this detail was made of emerald and ruby and chrysoberyl and crystallised lynx piss and amethyst and pearl and Weetabix and...".

... I will strike down upon the with great vengeance....

[Leftsolidarity]

Moved thread to Lit & Films

[synthesis]

Oh! Also "The Last Stand," with Arnold and Johnny Knoxville, was a great action movie. It was directed by the same guy who did "A Tale of Two Sisters" and "I Saw the Devil."

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

The worst movie I have ever seen is Battleship
Um, this thread is about books and films that you don't like but that are considered to be classics. Battleship doesn't qualify.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

The Sound of Music.

Good god do I hate that movie.

[Nakidana]

The Sound of Music.

Good god do I hate that movie.

My parents forced me to watch it all the way through when I was younger. As a consequence I fly into a murderous rage whenever it's on the telly.

I have another very special place of loathing for Casablanca. It's the first movie to be relocated to the bottom 100 on IMDb when the revolution comes, no ifs and buts.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Tarantino. That's right. Maybe he's classic to all you youngin's but he's still fucking shit and everything he touches turns to vomit. Is that snappy and obnoxious dialogue supposed to be realistic? I've never seen people talk like that. Not that it has to be - but I see all those cretinous critics say it's the "realistic and believable dialogue" - but do these people even see anyone talk but themselves? That piece of shit he had in that two-feature crapfest, Bullet Proof. What fucking utter unbearable shit.

James Joyce sucks. Tarkovsky sucks. Catcher in the Rye is the most unreadable shit. Short as all fuck, and you think, mayhap I can finish this; but no, but I could only get half-way through. It was just so thoroughly uninteresting. Phoney, phoney. What-ever. Dostoevsky sucks.

I don't like Star Wars either. Oh, blasphemy of the Geeks. Dan Brown is a worthless hack, if that counts for classic. Shakespeare is terrible (I went there!). Charles Dickens is awful, too. I've read mid-1800's news articles more pleasantly written than Dickens shit about the awfulness of the rookeries.

Shawshank Redemption is overrated. Stephen King is drab and generic and most of his novels are terrible and rehashes the same points again and again (I like his writing's lack of flowery prose in general, it makes me feel good about my terrible shit writing), and everything that passes for "literary fiction" is utter and total refuse. I don't care about Person X growing up in Small Town X and meeting Future Wife X and their dull every day activities and interests, their meeting with each others parents and discussing the soon birth of their child. I do not see the interest.

Werewolves are lame.

[Tenka]

Everything Takayuki said.
Also, The Tell-Tale Heart, Edgar Poe's most famous story (probably because it's so short and, we're told, unified in effect), is also his most boring.

edit: mentioning a short story is doing the thread wrong though, I know.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Tarantino. That's right. Maybe he's classic to all you youngin's but he's still fucking shit and everything he touches turns to vomit. Is that snappy and obnoxious dialogue supposed to be realistic? I've never seen people talk like that. Not that it has to be - but I see all those cretinous critics say it's the "realistic and believable dialogue" - but do these people even see anyone talk but themselves? That piece of shit he had in that two-feature crapfest, Bullet Proof. What fucking utter unbearable shit.

"Death Proof"

[Tenka]

And everything by Jane Austen is garbage. Bram St(r)oker's Dracula, I'm 68% done reading, and though it is finely written, and has unusually human-like female characters for its time, it still manages to be pretty fucking sexist at parts, and I wish that manipulative bastard Van Helsing hadn't made everyone so bent on killing ill people ("the UnDead"). Vampires can be scared off by the lamest things, too--basically everything Catholics like to have around themselves, plus garlic.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

I have another very special place of loathing for Casablanca. It's the first movie to be relocated to the bottom 100 on IMDb when the revolution comes, no ifs and buts.
Sorry, but that's just wrong. It's a great example of Hollywood's Golden Age style.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Takayuki, is there anything you do like?

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Takayuki, is there anything you do like?

Of course there is, but that's not what this thread is about.

[Quail]

And everything by Jane Austen is garbage. Bram St(r)oker's Dracula, I'm 68% done reading, and though it is finely written, and has unusually human-like female characters for its time, it still manages to be pretty fucking sexist at parts, and I wish that manipulative bastard Van Helsing hadn't made everyone so bent on killing ill people ("the UnDead"). Vampires can be scared off by the lamest things, too--basically everything Catholics like to have around themselves, plus garlic.

I like everything Jane Austen wrote and I enjoyed reading Dracula, The Jewel of Seven Stars and The Lady of the Shroud by Bram Stoker. :o

[Goblin]

Some classic movies i hate: The Matrix, the Indiana Jones movies, Ghostbusters, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Terminator 2 (first one was good though), Kill Bill, Titanic, Fight Club, Risky Business, E.T, Lost in Translation.

I hated everything i read by these authors: Mark Twain, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, William Shakespeare, John Steinbeck, Stephen King, H.P Lovecraft, Leo Tolstoy, J.K Rowling, George Orwell, James Joyce, J.D Salinger, Hunter S. Thompson,

[Nakidana]

Sorry, but that's just wrong. It's a great example of Hollywood's Golden Age style.

I'm sure it is a great example, but it's still boring as fuck. And it's not because I have a general dislike of golden age period movies, e.g. I quite liked North by Northwest.


Ghostbusters

Grounds for banning right here!

[Comrades Unite!]

I can't believe I've seen James Joyce posted here .... twice!:ohmy:
The man was intensely creative and everything he put out is worth a read.

Anyways I do not think the English language has been advanced to the point I can express my dislike for The Great Gatsby.Absolute shite.

[Dagoth Ur]

Starry Night.

[synthesis]

As long as we're all talking sacrilege...

Coppola is a terrible director and just had the advantage of 1. a lot of money and 2. being in the right place at the right time, subject matter-wise. Any movie he made that didn't capture some cultural zeitgeist or whatever has been rightfully recognized as shit, and is only spared from ridicule by the fact that the director is considered untouchable.

And yeah, I love Tarantino but his dialogue is awful. I feel like every director who gets commended for their "dialogue" - Tarantino, Kevin Smith and Joss Whedon come to mind - is just getting an amateur appraisal. Good dialogue is dialogue that doesn't stick out as "good dialogue."

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Coppola is a terrible director
I think his 1970s output is up there in the great range, but he was never the same creatively after Apocalypse Now.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

I guess I'd pick Scorsese's The Departed as one I don't like despite all the acclaim it has.

[Tenka]

... and I enjoyed reading Dracula, The Jewel of Seven Stars and The Lady of the Shroud by Bram Stoker. :o

I did like Dracula up to a little past mid-point. I really dislike the character Van Helsing, who talks about keeping an open mind and then teaches that vampires are an unholy threat to everyone's souls and convinces Lucy Westenra's friends to kill kill her. It's ironic that the novel's style is very similar to that of a lot of 19th-century science-positive fiction and yet its supernatural horror elements grow out of such an essentially religious flavour of reaction.

Needless to say, I sympathise with the vampires.
But god, James Joyce writes poorly. J.K. Rowling's first Harry Potter book is more evocative and lucid than his Ulysses.

[La Comédie Noire]

You guys are all making my monocle pop from the James Joyce bashing. :(

But I'd have to agree Quentin Tarantino is so over rated. Good thing he only makes movies once every few years because his "style" has long worn out its welcome.

[slum]

all these james joyce haters

not even portrait of the artist? the dead? come on now

[Comrade Jacob]

Narnia.

[synthesis]

Oh yeah. I found House of Leaves to be really underwhelming, particularly the "framing device" in the typewriter font. The whole thing just felt like a first and very rough draft of something really good.

[Zukunftsmusik]

I guess I'd pick Scorsese's The Departed as one I don't like despite all the acclaim it has.

Why?

[Os Cangaceiros]

I didn't like The Departed that much upon initial viewing, but it's grown on me over subsequent viewings. The real life influence for Jack Nicholson's character (James Bulger) is a pretty interesting case, a totally unrepentant sociopathic gangster. Evaded the feds for a good 15 years or so, too

[Os Cangaceiros]

Wouldn't necessarily call it a "classic" though

Know what is a classic that bored me to death? "Citizen Kane". I'm sorry but innovative filming techniques only go so far, if your story is boring as all hell then I'm not interested in your movie.

[DoCt SPARTAN]

I couldn't stand "To Kill A Mockingbird"....Every chapter felt the same, I liked the theme though.

Trying to read the protagonists southern accent was just dreadful.

Movie was not to good either, in my opinion.

[motion denied]

Shakespeare and Dickens? You did go there. I can't take it.

[Psycho P and the Freight Train]

Hey! You all hate Tarantino and Stephen King? :ohmy:

About the dialogue thing. You're absolutely right in that it's not realistic and nobody generally talks like that unless they're some kind of word genius or a talk show host or something. But that's not the point. The dialogue is awesome because it's a form of art. Of course nobody talks like that, it's genius dialogue! The fact that Tarantino has everyone speaking like that makes it incredible because he makes it seem like that's supposed to be the norm.

But I understand, I have met plenty who don't care for Tarantino. I think he's a bit of an asshole, but I like his movies. Stephen King I guess is just not your thing, I get that.

Now, I totally agree on some things. James Joyce is just painful to read. I'm trying to read a book, not decode some kind of ancient hieroglyphics. Dan Brown's books I haven't read, but that doesn't sound like my cup of tea.

Here's what I don't get about a lot of Dan Brown haters though (not that I'm promoting him though). The books are mostly criticized because of historical inaccuracies. But DUH. It's fiction. People act like it was supposed to be nonfiction or something. No, it's alternate history. I don't care for the subject matter at all, but if you want to criticize it, criticize it for the right reasons.

And Catcher in the Rye was awful, yes. Why is Holden seen as some kind of brooding intellectual? I guess angsty young people are all philosophers now. :lol:

But good posts, everyone! I agree with a lot of these.

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

Hey! You all hate Tarantino and Stephen King? :ohmy:

About the dialogue thing. You're absolutely right in that it's not realistic and nobody generally talks like that unless they're some kind of word genius or a talk show host or something. But that's not the point. The dialogue is awesome because it's a form of art.

If by "art" you mean incredibly empty and pretentious, then yes, I agree. By giving his characters soliloquies, Tarantino gives his films a Shakespearean gild, so as to distract from the banality of the plot and the characters.

[consuming negativity]

Stanley Kubrick. Full Metal Jacket is one of my favorite movies and Paths of Glory was worth watching. Everything else sucked. A Clockwork Orange is probably the worst movie I've ever been subjected to. The Shining was amusing but an hour and a half too long. 2001: A Space Odyssey is like the definition of classic things that everybody wants to have seen but nobody wants to watch. Lolita even as a general concept is disgusting and the movie itself is even worse. Spartacus could have been awesome... if it wasn't done by Kubrick. I haven't seen any of the others he did.

Psycho. Alfred Hitchcock never did anything good and I will never understand how anybody actually liked that movie. It did spawn the Bates Motel series in modern times which is decent, but frankly it doesn't even begin to make up for not only Psycho but the whole genre of shitty movies that Hitchcock influenced and made.

While I'm on the topic of horror movies, American Psycho isn't even watchable, much less good.

The only good movie Christopher Nolan directed was Memento. Batman sucked as a concept and the movies were even worse. Inception was just an average/poor movie; most people would not shut up about it and some people really hated it. A frequent actor in Nolan's movies, Leonardo DiCaprio should be shipped to the moon as he is a fucking awful actor in even worse movies and I don't understand why anybody likes him.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Oh yeah. I found House of Leaves to be really underwhelming, particularly the "framing device" in the typewriter font. The whole thing just felt like a first and very rough draft of something really good.

I like the main story (The Navidson Record), but I always skip the other story 'cause I can't stand that nasty character and his bland derangement and his stupid run-ins with some random women he has fucked (though his moments of hallucinations are pretty good, they are the only part that I care for).

[Kill all the fetuses!]

2001: A Space Odyssey is the single weirdest movie I have ever seen, I couldn't understand a damn thing.

[Per Levy]

the exorcist, its been a while since i watched it but all i remember was that i wasnt impressed and quite bored with it.

as for stephen king, king writes way to much stuff, way to long books especially for horror type books and mostly fails at being creepy or all that intertesting. seriously i take lovecraft with all his faults over king any day. at least lovecraft can creep me out and is interesting about it.

[motion denied]

2001: Space Odyssey is probably the worst thing humankind ever gave birth to.

This film just might turn me into a misanthrope. I'd index the shit out of it. Kill it.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Why?
I found The Departed to be dull, and Jack Nicholson just seemed to be playing himself once again. Compared to the Scorsese films that were snubbed for Oscars, it doesn't compare well.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

A Clockwork Orange is probably the worst movie I've ever been subjected to. The Shining was amusing but an hour and a half too long. 2001: A Space Odyssey is like the definition of classic things that everybody wants to have seen but nobody wants to watch.
I've seen both films dozens of times, and they never lose their brilliance.


Alfred Hitchcock never did anything good
It's hard to take you seriously after that statement. Really.

[Zukunftsmusik]

I feel the term classic is being stretched here

[TheBigREDOne]

The only good movie Christopher Nolan directed was Memento. Batman sucked as a concept and the movies were even worse. Inception was just an average/poor movie; most people would not shut up about it and some people really hated it. A frequent actor in Nolan's movies, Leonardo DiCaprio should be shipped to the moon as he is a fucking awful actor in even worse movies and I don't understand why anybody likes him.
Although I like The Dark Night, I a knowledge the fact that it's basically just a remake of Heat, with batman and the joker replacing Al Pacino and De Niro

[TheBigREDOne]

If by "art" you mean incredibly empty and pretentious, then yes, I agree. By giving his characters soliloquies, Tarantino gives his films a Shakespearean gild, so as to distract from the banality of the plot and the characters.

Did you really just call the man who bases his films off exploitation films, pretentious?

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Did you really just call the man who bases his films off exploitation films, pretentious?

But that's exactly it!
His films are just lousy violence-porn with pretensions to being more.

Sorry, but snappy dialogue doesn't make up for absence of plot or vision.

Shit is pretentious, and people who front like their being into it is somehow more sophisticated than being into other throw-away goreporn like, say, SAW 3, are full of it.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Yeah although I kind of respect Tarantino (and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Eli Roth) as a fellow fanboy nerd of the same type of films that I'm a fanboy nerd over, you can't really make a exploitation film for millions and millions of dollars and still stay true to the spirit of the original exploitation films of the 70's and such. The type of guerrilla filmmaking that people like Ruggero Deodato engaged in isn't really even done anymore (which is arguably a good thing, ha)

[Psycho P and the Freight Train]

Ok I guess I have just totally missed this definition. And I am a HUGE Tarantino fan but…. Define "exploitation film." Never been able to get a clear definition anywhere.

[Os Cangaceiros]

It's like pornography: hard to give an exact definition of, but ya know it when you see it!

Mostly I think of "exploitation films" as low-budget films which pander to the audience in their advertising and marketing in a sensationalistic or lurid way. Films like Planet Terror/Death Proof pander to the audience with a sensationalistic, faux-trashy type schtick, but when you're dealing with a budget of 50+ million dollars it just comes off as a bit fake...

If you want to see a modern exploitation film check out "The Human Centipede" or "A Serbian Film" or something.

[Psycho P and the Freight Train]

Oh shit, so it is exploitative to the audience? Like they manipulate the audience's expectations, I guess. Huh, that is not what I expected. Thank you though.

[Invader Zim]

I found For Whom the Bell Tolls utterly unreadable.

Film - Apocalypse Now

[Dagoth Ur]

People that don't like Tarantino don't like the excess of hack film. He is a true great of the style and he will be remembered for it.

Also dude how do you not like Apocalypse Now?

[Alexios]

Film - Apocalypse Now

Apart from Robert Duvall's parts I agree. Although I wouldn't say that the movie sucks, just that it's horribly overrated.