The Dude’s High 5s: Top 5 Movies I Hate Yet Everyone Else Loves
We all have movies that we hate yet everyone else we know seems to love. Those movies that are brought up in conversation that we have to bite our tongue lest we incur the wrath of the public. Well in today’s High 5 I’m taking a stand. I encourage all of you to take a stand with me. Yell from the rafters how much you hate a certain classic movie. Or yell at me for hating these particular movies.
5. Drive
I’m going to catch hell for this one, I know. But oh my god did I hate this movie. There is virtually no substance to this film. It’s all over the place. Am I supposed to care about the driver? Does he have Asperger’s? Did the writers only have imaginary friends growing up? It seems like they shot two movies and just mashed them together. The caper related items play very little in the family life the Driver inserts himself into until they are conveniently hurled together. I also despised the silent protagonist approach they took. I like Ryan Gosling and all but he is not Clint Eastwood. By the same token he shouldn’t reach John McClane level quiptitude. His dialogue that is in the movie is clunky at best. It feels like his lines were written by someone who has never actually interacted with humans before. This is odd as other character’s dialogue is great. Brian Cranston and Albert Brooks are excellent and do the best they can to save this stinker. Drive to me was like the Napoleon Dynamite of Action movies. Yea, there are some cool scenes, but overall this movie bored me to tears.
4. Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas
This movie is big in my circle of friends. Every time its mentioned I excuse myself, go the bathroom, drive to the movie theater, realize there is nothing I want to see, go home, rifle through my collection, pick out a movie I like, watch it, then head back to the social engagement and HOPE they are done talking about this movie. When I voice complaints or criticisms about this movie I am met with “Do you have any idea how hard stop motion is?” Yes I do, but just because something is hard doesn’t mean it is enjoyable. Driving a car 230mph with 30 other people in a small enclosed track for 5 hours is also hard, does that mean I should watch NASCAR? NO! I understand that this is a musical and its geared towards kids. But I saw this when I was a kid and I’ve hated it since then. I should also state that I hate pretty much every film Tim Burton has ever made so I may have bias, but that’s his fault for making movies that I find boring.
3. The Hangover
I try not to be a contrarian. I don’t think I’m a band-wagoner. If something is popular and I like it, hey, I like it. No apologies. If something is unpopular and I hate it, then so be it. However every once in a while something comes along that becomes a craze that I have to hate it. I saw the movie during its theatrical release and never again have I watched it. The film itself was ok at best. However a few days later the world exploded at how awesome this movie was. So much so that it spawned a sequel (that I have not seen, nor will see) that looked exactly like the original.
I wondered if I missed something. Did I see a different version of the film? Was my version of the Hangover the lite version … like with splenda or aspartame? I talked with a fair amount of people and I surmised that we had indeed seen the same movie. Often when discussing the movie people would point out what they liked and I would ask them to clarify why they liked it so much. This started the slow burn that lead me to despise the movie. Normally I am all for the suspension of disbelief, but this movie asks a lot. I hear people ask during movies “Why didn’t they do X?” I would come to the movie’s aid and say “Well doing X would make for a boring 5 minute movie.” However in the Hangover I asked myself “Why didn’t they check the roof first? They all had drinks up there, it’s the last place they really remembered.” In this instance I would have taken the boring 5 minute movie. The rest of the antics are over the top tomfoolery that feels like it was written by people who were never invited to a college party and always yearned to be.
2. Ghostbusters
I hate this movie. I hate the sequel, I hate the cartoon, I hate the toys, and I hate pretty much everything Ghostbusters. However unlike the rest of the movies that appear on this list, I fully understand that it’s me and not the movie on this one. I think my problem with the movie is that I saw it when I was too young to appreciate most of the dialogue and just wondered why they weren’t chasing ghosts 100% of the time. Then when I saw it when I was older, another roadblock stumbled in. I hate Dan Aykroyd. Outside of Grosse Point Blank I can’t name a movie where I liked the fact that he was in it. And I only like him in Grosse Point Blank because he gets a television dropped on his head. The rest of the cast is awesome. Bill Murray is excellent, Harold Ramis is wonderful, and it’s always great to see Ernie Hudson get work.
1. The Godfather
I heard about how great this movie was for a long time before I saw it. When I finally sat down to watch it I was confused. People liked this? This was a thing that people enjoyed? A bunch of unlikable asshole Italians sitting around talking about stupid shit for three hours? If I wanted to watch this I’d attend those family gatherings I lie my way out of (For the record I’m predominantly Italian).
Besides being as boring as fuck, the Godfather had another big problem. It turned almost everyone who had a drop of Italian blood into thinking they were a wise guy with connections. It glorifies and creates hero worship of horrible, despicable people. I’m not saything as a knock against the movie, it’s more of an analysis of its loyalest fans. When I watch a movie, read a book, play a video game, I like to personalize it. What would I do in this situation? In the Godfather I would have walked away from all of these pieces of shit and wished for them to die in fire.
Ok, let’s hear it. You liked one of these movies and you want to call me out. It’s ok, feel free to, you have the floor. However are any of you brave enough to call bullshit on movies everyone else loves for reasons you can’t fathom?