There's two types of movies that make one's overrated list. Those that are okay, middle of the road, maybe even enjoyable, but they get overpraised, so the backlash begins. Then you start to see the flaws more than the things you may have enjoyed the first time. Little by little, you start to dislike the movie, maybe even hate it. It's not fair to the movie. It's actually really stupid. But that's just what happens.
Then, there's the other type of movie. And there's no mercy for these ones. There's no, "maybe I'm not being fair," thoughts. These movies suck. But they win awards, get hailed by critics, and you start to wonder what you're doing on this planet. You can not be the same species as these other people. It doesn't make sense. These movies enrage you.
Both types of movies make my list. This isn't a definitive list. That's why you won't find "most" in the title. Truth is, I thought of ten quickly, the first five I mustered up enough energy to write about struck me as some sort of editing by my unconscious. These must be the most overrated of the ten, because they're the ones I wanted to write about most. And that was that. The first four could be any order. The last is last for a reason. It makes me angry just thinking about it.
So here it is. 5 Overrated Movies of the Decade.
The Dark Knight (2008)
I imagine if you had no visuals, and you just listened to the sounds of this movie, like when you used to be able to listen to scrambled porn on your early 90's cable box, The Dark Knight would sound a lot like Tom Waits battling himself. Like some sort of schizophrenic meltdown, with great sound effects to bring his delusions to life. Ledger was obviously doing an impression of Tom's speaking voice. And you got Bale there, doing god knows what really, who's Batman was unintentionally sounding like Tom singing The Piano Has Been Drinking or some shit. It's complete madness.
Which brings me to something that I'm shocked I don't see written more often; Christian Bale is not a good actor. I don't know when the perception that he is took over the collective consciousness of movie goers. I missed that. But he's actually quite terrible, and I wish more people would admit this. His Batman, I'm going to be honest, I really have no idea what he's doing. Auditioning for a Norwegian death metal band maybe. I really don't know. But what's more troubling to me is his Bruce Wayne is just as unconvincing. When he walks into that party with a girl on each arm, it's cartoonish. I guess it's supposed to be. But you should believe that this is a part of Bruce Wayne's life. Rich bachelor, banging broads two at a time. That's what rich bachelors do. With Bale's Wayne, I don't believe that to be the case. Bale actually had me waxing nostalgic about Val Kilmer. Seriously, here me out on this one. Val was a terrible Batman. I know. But Val was a great Bruce Wayne. And here's why; You see Val Kilmer walk into a room with two girls, with that smug Val Kilmer smile, you're not going to doubt for a second that you're looking at some rich asshole who never had to work a day in his life. Because that's what Bruce Wayne is. A rich asshole, who never had to work a day in his life. And more importantly, you're not going to doubt for a second that Val will be having some sort of filthy sex with those two later that night. With Bale, I feel like he was trying harder for Harvey Dent's affection in that dinner scene in the restaurant.
Onto the movie as a whole. I liked it. Is it more than a goofy comic book movie, like some would have you believe? Absolutely not. And it can never be with Bale's performance. Batman is the centerpiece of this whole thing, and Batman is not very good. It's that simple. The sonar device thing, that's something Adam West would have been perfectly comfortable doing. It was completely ridiculous. It's a good comic book movie with one great performance in it. That's it. It didn't reinvent the genre. It didn't transcend the genre. And it is not a movie that should have been talked about like it's one of the greats of this early century. It currently is being talked about that way. That's why it makes this list. For people to think The Dark Knight is one of the great cinematic achievements of this century; a guy in a scuba suit, doing a Louie Armstrong impression, swinging off 757 planes that are in flight, one of the great films of the century? Never in a million years would I have ever guessed I would be so out of touch.
Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)
I practically worshiped Tarantino in the 90's. He was that guy as I started to develop a love for movies. Not to get all Zach Braffesque, but Pulp Fiction was the closest thing a movie ever got to "changing my life," man. Now my life didn't actually change. It was only a movie. But the way I watched movies did change. Nothing was quite the same after that. Things I used to think were awesome, seemed stupid and childish. A lot of things even still seem childish and stupid (see Dark Knight) post Pulp. So I got love for QT. And I will defend his first three movies to any little shit in future generations that don't quite get the significance or the undeniable badassness of those 3 films. That's already happening, by the way. So with all that said, I must now reveal, I did not like Kill Bill: Vol. 2. Like the picture above, I thought it was mostly Tarantino sucking.
Like Tarantino, I'm going to go out of order and bring this back to Jackie Brown. Jackie Brown was not quite as good as Pulp, in my opinion. But it was more mature. It showed a considerable amount of growth in Tarantino as a filmmaker. It was progress. That was the thing about his first three films. There was a progression in him, where you saw him getting better each time. But each film was good enough on it's own, where any one of them could have been your favorite. You'd hear stuff like, "Pulp is better, but I still like R. Dogs more." It could even depend on what day it was. What mood. After Jackie Brown, Tarantino disappeared for five years. He apparently didn't do much, partied, smoked weed, watched cartoons, bascically lived like Lance in Pulp Fiction. I feel like Tarantino's natural evolution as an artist was lost between the seat cushions of some couch in those five years. He was just never quite the same after that.
Which brings me to Kill Bill: Vol 1. In a lot of ways, Vol. 1 is what Grindhouse should have been. All out action, one fun scene after another, a Sex and Fury type of thing. It wasn't as good a movie as Jackie Brown, but it wasn't trying to be. And that's why Vol. 1 succeeded for me. But at the same time, the film-to-film progress that we were seeing in the 90's, was gone.
Which brings me to Kill Bill: Vol. 2. Vol. 2, is the opposite of Vol. 1. It's trying to be a great movie. And it just isn't. A movie about a group of female Kung-Fu assassins, should not take itself as seriously as Vol. 2 does. The overlong training act is paint by numbers anyway. Bill, in his lush mansion, comes across like a bad 80's villain. Michael Parks' most interesting man in the world thing, another over the top 80's villain. And for as a nice sentiment and personal as the Bride/Daughter stuff might have been, it's still melodrama. "The lioness has her cub." Oh, why did you write that, Quentin? And why the fuck was this little girl so quick to accept this complete stranger as her mother? "Thank you, mighty Lioness, for killing the only person I ever knew as a parental figure. I love you."
Believe it or not, there's things I like about Vol. 2. It's Tarantino, so there's always great stuff in his movies, even when I think they fail as a whole. The buried alive sequence freaked me out more than any torture porn movie could ever hope to. And then there's Bill's Superman speech. Wow, the Superman speech. Having the benefit of retrospect now, to me, the Superman speech, is probably Tarantino's last gasp of greatness. They say that about fighters. A boxer who's finished, if he's great, will have one more great fight in him. Even when he's done. The Superman speech was Tarantino's last great fight. Because he certainly looked like a shot fighter in Death Proof and Inglorious Basterds.
Tarantino still gets the praise, however. And Kill Bill: Volume 2 got it's share. I feel like it's a movie who's reputation is based mostly on past laurel's and not necessarily the sum of it's own parts, though. It's like because Tarantino is guy that goes to Cannes and talks fondly of art house cinema, people treat his own films like they are the same thing. But Tarantino stopped making art house cinema in 1997. That was a long time ago. He makes B movie schlock now. There's actually nothing wrong with B movie schlock. Not as long as you don't treat it as anything more than it is. Critics and fans alike do just that, though. And for that reason, I find Tarantino's recent output, and specifically, Kill Bill: Volume 2, very overrated.
High Tension (2003)
Although made in 2003, it finally came to the States in 2005, and that's when I saw it. All the movie buffs, and cinefiles, and whatever other cute names people refer to themselves these days, loved this movie. And for 2/3's of it, I did too. Then they hit me with the fucking Tyler Durden ending. The Tyler Durden ending blows. And it blows for a couple reasons in this movie.
One, I'm not watching Fight Club. Note to hack filmmakers, just because something works in one movie, does not mean that it will work in your movie too. In fact, if your hack ass thought it was a good idea to rip off the ending of a recent movie, and not even an obscure one. It was a movie that literally everybody had seen, everybody had seen recently, most had liked, and everybody that did, discussed the fucking ending. So you can be damn sure, if you, the hack, thought this would be a good idea to steal that ending, there would be other hacks all over the world who would be thinking the same thing. Which means, by the time your piece of shit comes out, we will have seen this "twist" literally a dozen times, and by the time we see yours, "oh that's so clever," the reaction you were after, is not the reaction you're going to get. "Holy shit, not again," will me much more like it. And, "Holy shit, not again," was certainly mine.
And just to be clear, this is the Tyler Durden ending. Sure, movies have ended with a similar twist for years. Psycho being the most famous example. But these copy cat endings popped up everywhere directly after Fight Club. So while Fight Club does not necessarily own the ending, it's pretty clear it was Fight Club that was cloned. I mean, holy shit, filmmakers had 40 years to beat the Norman Bates ending into the ground, but they didn't. The, "They're the same person, OMFG!" ending, was only seen in abundance after 1999. So therefore, it's the Tyler Durden ending.
The second reason why the Tyler Durden ending blows, and really the most important criticism of this particular film, this wasn't even a good Tyler Durden ending. It didn't make sense. It rarely does, but this one was particularly bad. So there's only one person? Then why is there two cars in the woods? Did she fucking tow one? Did she take turns chasing herself? You watch a movie like Sixth Sense, which whether you dig it or not, was committed to it's ending. On a rewatch, it still works. Bruce Willis walks into a room, the door was already open. He sits on a chair, that chair doesn't fucking move. So here you got High Tension, and there's two cars, two fucking cars, in the woods, where a chase with one person has just taken place. That's not even trying. It's just so incredibly lazy. And you can't even forgive it's laziness, because after you saw that ending multiple times within the past year (The Machinest, Secret Window, Identity, Hide and Seek, just to name a few), it wasn't shocking enough anymore where you let it's lack of any logic whatsoever slide.
That's a movie ruiner. As much as I really dug the first 2/3's of the movie, I was so instantly furious when they hit me with that ending, that I immediately hated the entire thing. And I think the fact that I liked it so much at first, is why I have so much venom for this movie. It's like a piece of shit movie, is just a piece of shit movie. There's nothing it can do about itself. You can't be mad at it. This movie, it should have known better.
Garden Sate (2004)
I wish it was still 2004, so I could remember all the reasons why I hated this movie. Like a childhood molestation, I've blocked most of it out. I only remember vague snippets of it, like Zach Braff doing an impression of a 2x4. And there was a bunch of songs that sounded like they belonged in an iPod commercial playing in the background. I'm pretty sure they were supposed to change my life. I also remember an underlying self consciousness that made me ill, dialogue that only served as set-ups for the other person to say something incredibly unrealistic and quirky, and one of the better examples of TV spots showing too much of the film. You see that a lot these days. This might have been the worse. There was the final scene in the airport. A scene that supposed to have so much tension, but had none, because I had seen how that scene ended in every TV spot that was ever shown. Literally, every TV spot was built around the last shot of the film. So once they got to the airport, there was never any doubt that they would end up together. The film tries to build some doubt. But we fucking know; wide shot, they kiss, shit gets blurry, credits, more fun iPod music. We know.
Maggie Gyllenhaal's meat stick was in it too. That guy that sounds exactly like John Malkovich and has a name kind of like Stellan Skarsgård. He was searching for something with Zach and Natalie Portman in another unlikely series of quirky events. That vagueness is about all I remember for most of the movie. It just wasn't very memorable, even though it clearly was trying to be. And this shit made Zach Braff the indie darling for a year. He's done nothing of any importance since, showing what was really lying underneath Garden State. Absolutely nothing.
Crash (2004)
Some of these movies were maybe good, had some good things in them at least, but just not warranted of it's great hype. Crash is not one of these movies. Crash is a piece of shit. A legitimately terrible movie. I always assumed people loved it's intentions. Making a movie about how racism is bad certainly means well. But please treat that movie with critical eye you would treat any other one with less noble intentions.
I've already talked about the cliche that was the Tyler Durden ending. Well there was one more phenomenon this past decade that became an instant transparent attempt at trying to be "indy," and that was poor man's Altmanesque intertwining story. "It's all connected somehow, man." Oh, it was an epidemic. We probably have Paul Thomas Anderson to blame, who worshiped Altman, made Magnolia, it ruled, then every other writer/director wanting to be accepted by the art house crowd tried doing the same thing. Enter Paul Haggis.
Haggis's script was terrible. Besides it's entire narrative through line being what at the time was a trendy fad, as if that wasn't bad enough, he decided to insult our intelligence even more with shallow cartoon characters, with lifetime movie dialogue, and blanket opinions all in order to make some sort of social commentary on racism being bad. Thank you Paul, for going out on the limb with that one.
A movie that hates stereotypes so much, is full of stereotypes. Literally, every character is a stereotype. Haggis might be making a statement by doing that. Playing with stereotypes in order to finally break us free from them. But judging by his dialogue, and the lack of any subtlety whatsoever in getting his point across, I'm pretty convinced Haggis writes in stereotypes because he just isn't a very good writer. He doesn't know how to do anything else.
It's that kind of writing that insulted my intelligence almost immediately. I've honestly never had my intelligence insulted more in one movie. I've made the comparison to a Lifetime movie before, and that wasn't hyperbole. The over-the-top bad guy, literally a bad guy, doing something to terrorize Markie Post, or somebody that looks like her, but not at all in any sort of reality, in a heightened Lifetime movie kind of way; That's every character in Crash. Only instead of misogynists, they're racists. That's the only difference. They're just as ridiculous and the dialogue they speak is just as unrealistic. It's only purpose is to beat over your head, "THIS IS BAD," over and over again.
I've already stated my displeasure with the melodrama in Kill Bill: Volume 2 ("Mommy!"). Honestly, no hyperbole here, Kill Bill: Vol 2 seems as understated as Rohmer in comparison to Crash. "I hate your guts," would have been a subtle way of expressing feelings towards one another in the Paul Haggis universe, because Haggis himself would have wrote that phrase as, "I hate your guts...YOU FILTHY MEXICAN!"
To call these characters two dimensional, would be a compliment. They're cartoon characters, speaking in absolutes. Everything is black and white, and in more ways than one. Character arc, just as over-the-top as their original miserable existence. With heroic redemption for some, and subtle realizations for others like, my Mexican maid who I've treated like shit and berated non stop, because I'm evil and white, is actually my best friend. Come here Mexican lady, you're my best friend. "You're my best friend" is actually spoken. And when it was spoken, I groaned, out loud, by myself. While being mentally whipped having had my intelligence insulted non stop for close to two hours, I was now in physical pain. "You're my best friend." I hate to keep repeating myself, but once again, Lifetime movie quality.
Looking at my Netflix Rental Activity, I watched Crash on October 18th, 2005. So you could imagine my shock when a couple months later, Crash was nominated for an Oscar. I'm not a guy that takes the Oscar's very seriously. People get worked up about them every year, and for the most part, I don't really care. I'm usually amused when people are all outraged about them. But Crash was different. I was the guy that used to amuse me. I was that fucking guy. Following Crash's path to an Oscar win every step of the way. Shocked by the nomination, and when it won...there's certain times in life, and it's always stupid things, things that don't really matter, but they are the things that convince you, at least for a couple minutes, I am not part of the human species. There is no way. If my father got drunk, decided to fuck with and tell me he found me on what he thinks was intergalactic debris, in the fields of New Jersey, because Duran Duran's The Reflex went to number one, and that somehow summoned me to this planet, at the moment Crash won best picture, that would sound perfectly reasonable. That would make more sense. Ordinary People beats Raging Bull. Okay, you don't agree, I don't agree, but Ordinary People at it's worse, still has artistic merit, and at it's best, is a movie that you would have hoped won the year before, or the year after. Crash beating anything? I'm baffled. I really am.
One good thing has come from it. Any time I'm discussing movies with somebody, I can ask them what they think about Crash, and if they like it, I can instantly judge them like I'm a character from the movie.
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