Two weeks ago I posted a Facebook query asking friends to volunteer a movie most others like but they don’t. I got a load of wide ranging responses, everything from “Avatar” to “Zoolander.” There were many anti-Avatars and considering how much money that film made, I can see how some would check it out and then go “meh, not for me.” Lots of women did not like “The Godfather.” My guess is they didn’t enjoy seeing how in 1940’s Mafia life the women were treated like second rate citizens.
Everyone has their favorite and least favorite movies. It’s a subjective issue and there’s no right or wrong, only opinions. So with that I give you three films that were very well received both critically and at the box office,.and I don’t like them!
GHOSTBUSTERS- I know why this one was such a money huge maker but it had nothing to with the quality of the script or the acting. Director Ivan Reitman had two former Saturday Night Live members in the cast (Bill Murray & Dan Ackroyd), a hit theme song “Ghostbusters” from Ray Parker Jr. and the logo of a ghost with a circle and a slash through it, just when international signs like that were taking hold. T-shirts with the Ghostbuster logo were a big deal and worn by many. By the way, Ray Parker Jr. was sued for ripping off musical riffs from Huey Lewis’ hit “I Want a New Drug” and the money matter was settled out of court for the always popular “Undisclosed Amount.” The first third of “Ghostbusters” was mildly entertaining with Murray, Ackroyd and Harold Ramis trying to drum up business for ridding buildings of bad spirits. Then we had Murray’s mugging for the camera and being Mr. Glib when trying to romance Sigourney Weaver. At this point things were slipping and as soon as ghost number one was removed from a hotel banquet room, the movie died for me. It became a supernatural beast chasing farce with the Stay-Puf Mashmallow Man as its key character. The special effects took over “Ghostbusters” and I found it to be lame. I know I’m in the minority with this one but I still see the movie as nothing more than an elongated SNL bit with a catchy song and not much more.
“FIGHT CLUB” I’m a big fan of Director David Fincher who has brought us dark movies like “Seven,” “Zodiac”, “The Game”, “Gone Girl”, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and “The Social Network.” However, “Fight Club” was a disappointment to me and I’ll never get what people saw in it. Well, you did have a buff, shirtless & very scummy looking Brad Pitt to look at. Then there was the curious but clueless venturing of Edward Norton and a really filthy sex tramp in Helena Bonham Carter. There WAS one key line that people took from this movie and still quote it to this day. “The first rule of Fight Club, you do not talk about fight club.” One line of dialog does not a movie make. Ugh. The story plodded along with escalated brawls and a mystery as to what may happen at the end. The film ended with the flat taste of a glass of Coke that was left in the sun all day. Sorry Brad, Edward, Helena and Mr. Fincher, but when it comes to praising good movies, my first rule is to not talk about “Fight Club.”
“FIELD OF DREAMS”- I saved this most overrated (in my opinion) movie for last. Again, there’s a catch line filmgoers latched on to like barnacles on an old rusty fishing boat, “If you build it, they will come.” Jeesh. Here we have farmer and family man Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) listening to weird voices that tell him to construct a baseball field in his acreage so some old time players from the disgraced 1919 Chicago White Sox can come out of nowhere. Really? This is your idea for a film? It sounded like one of those ‘wonderment’ stories from “The Twilight Zone”, certainly not a 107 minute love letter to baseball romantics. Full disclosure, I played years and years of baseball and still enjoy watching the game, but this story reeked of maudlin sappiness. I’ll never forget when the film ended; I was walking out with the crowd at the Oak Brook movie theater and grown men were sobbing, crying like their hearts were broken! I felt like smacking these wimps in the face but that would’ve made them cry harder. Not long after seeing “Field of Dreams” I read the best critique of the movie. The comment was: “Field of Dreams was designed to make the Reagan generation feel good about baseball.” Wow! Truer words were never said, and I didn’t need this trite movie to appreciate America’s favorite past time.
Sometime in the future I’ll have to tap in to two of three films that I find to be underrated and underappreciated.
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