Overrated/underrated films?
10-09-2011, 06:00 AM
I hope I don't regret sharing...
I think an underrated movie was Persepolis, a brilliantly animated (kinda rough but very expressive) biography of Marjane Satrapi, a girl who grew up in Iran (and also Vienna). Seeing her grow and Iranian history from the eyes of a young girl who likes Iron Maiden was at times charming, other times hilarious, and other times sad or horrifying. Even though it's based on history I kept being surprised by what happened next, and it kinda blew my mind when the main character sings an off key "Eye of the Tiger" (and why) in her accent. Rarely has a movie made me laugh or cry or fall in love with a character like this one has.
I'm tempted to share how I think The Invasion (the last Invasion of the Body Snatchers that I know of) was a lot better than many say it was and adjusted to our political myths of today just as the previous versions were adjusted to the myths of their time and how the Lost in Space movie was actually very true to the original series save the 90s cynicism (and somewhat role reversal of the mom & dad, another 90s-ification) as well. But as they're not favorites of mine I find it too hard to share my thoughts. Maybe later.
Moving on...
One of the most overrated movies IMO was the original black & white Dracula with Bela Lugosi.
I'd heard so much how awesome this was, etc, that when I saw this with friends (none of us had seen it), it wasn't just a movie night, it was an EVENT. At least that's how we had it set up. Unfortunately, we were to be disappointed by the absolute lameness of it. (The ONLY thing we agreed to was that there was an intensity about Bela Lugosi's eyes, and he'd be awesome telling stories around a campfire given his face, but that's about it. None of us felt lust or awe towards him, and I not only rolled my eyes when he commanded, "Obey!" but one of the other women sighed wearily.)
Now there ARE a few extenuating circumstances. One being that the director and actors came from the silent film era, which didn't translate all that well to actual movies with audio (as they focused more on expressions, dramatic pauses, etc), and they weren't that practiced in the new form yet. Another bit, at least for me (and a lot of this would apply to those who watched it with me) is that we've seen more modern versions of Dracula, were used to characters like Van Helsing (the action hero of the movie of the same name), Blade, and Buffy (the series, not the movie), and I'd read vampire series like Ann Rice and played Vampire: The Masquerade. This made us a jaded audience, and I'm sure Dracula was probably a lot more impressive making scary faces at Renfeld back in the day when it was fresh and new.
Nevertheless, we were not only unimpressed, mystified by how people found this scary or sexy, but boggled by how boring it was. Like Dracula is walking through London....and still walking....STILL walking....we should've timed it, because he was doing it for like forever. And the characters not only had the tendency to say the obvious, but repeat themselves over and over. And the ending? It was lacking in closure, just some hammering noises and moans that I recall, and THE END. And there didn't seem to be a POINT to it, it was like Dracula was some superstition that just up and moved to London for no reason.
Because of all this, we caught all kinds of plot holes, like Dracula blaming Renfeld for leading Van Helsing to his hideout when Dracula friggin told 'em all where it was, while also telling everybody to listen to Van Helsing! I recall that we talked about the "vampire magic" and "if vampires are actually semi-corporeal spirits" because of how Dracula's brides could walk backwards in those long, trailing gowns without tripping over them (as well as not getting dust and cobwebs all over them--and Dracula's white vest, too), among other things simply because we were bored enough to pick it out. (Oh, yes, we broke out laughing because one of Dracula's victims got out of bed already wearing high heels!)
All in all, in our opinion, this movie is WAY over hyped and we were bitterly disappointed having expected much better. My apologies to those I've offended.
I think an underrated movie was Persepolis, a brilliantly animated (kinda rough but very expressive) biography of Marjane Satrapi, a girl who grew up in Iran (and also Vienna). Seeing her grow and Iranian history from the eyes of a young girl who likes Iron Maiden was at times charming, other times hilarious, and other times sad or horrifying. Even though it's based on history I kept being surprised by what happened next, and it kinda blew my mind when the main character sings an off key "Eye of the Tiger" (and why) in her accent. Rarely has a movie made me laugh or cry or fall in love with a character like this one has.
I'm tempted to share how I think The Invasion (the last Invasion of the Body Snatchers that I know of) was a lot better than many say it was and adjusted to our political myths of today just as the previous versions were adjusted to the myths of their time and how the Lost in Space movie was actually very true to the original series save the 90s cynicism (and somewhat role reversal of the mom & dad, another 90s-ification) as well. But as they're not favorites of mine I find it too hard to share my thoughts. Maybe later.
Moving on...
One of the most overrated movies IMO was the original black & white Dracula with Bela Lugosi.
I'd heard so much how awesome this was, etc, that when I saw this with friends (none of us had seen it), it wasn't just a movie night, it was an EVENT. At least that's how we had it set up. Unfortunately, we were to be disappointed by the absolute lameness of it. (The ONLY thing we agreed to was that there was an intensity about Bela Lugosi's eyes, and he'd be awesome telling stories around a campfire given his face, but that's about it. None of us felt lust or awe towards him, and I not only rolled my eyes when he commanded, "Obey!" but one of the other women sighed wearily.)
Now there ARE a few extenuating circumstances. One being that the director and actors came from the silent film era, which didn't translate all that well to actual movies with audio (as they focused more on expressions, dramatic pauses, etc), and they weren't that practiced in the new form yet. Another bit, at least for me (and a lot of this would apply to those who watched it with me) is that we've seen more modern versions of Dracula, were used to characters like Van Helsing (the action hero of the movie of the same name), Blade, and Buffy (the series, not the movie), and I'd read vampire series like Ann Rice and played Vampire: The Masquerade. This made us a jaded audience, and I'm sure Dracula was probably a lot more impressive making scary faces at Renfeld back in the day when it was fresh and new.
Nevertheless, we were not only unimpressed, mystified by how people found this scary or sexy, but boggled by how boring it was. Like Dracula is walking through London....and still walking....STILL walking....we should've timed it, because he was doing it for like forever. And the characters not only had the tendency to say the obvious, but repeat themselves over and over. And the ending? It was lacking in closure, just some hammering noises and moans that I recall, and THE END. And there didn't seem to be a POINT to it, it was like Dracula was some superstition that just up and moved to London for no reason.
Because of all this, we caught all kinds of plot holes, like Dracula blaming Renfeld for leading Van Helsing to his hideout when Dracula friggin told 'em all where it was, while also telling everybody to listen to Van Helsing! I recall that we talked about the "vampire magic" and "if vampires are actually semi-corporeal spirits" because of how Dracula's brides could walk backwards in those long, trailing gowns without tripping over them (as well as not getting dust and cobwebs all over them--and Dracula's white vest, too), among other things simply because we were bored enough to pick it out. (Oh, yes, we broke out laughing because one of Dracula's victims got out of bed already wearing high heels!)
All in all, in our opinion, this movie is WAY over hyped and we were bitterly disappointed having expected much better. My apologies to those I've offended.
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