#1
I remember reading a professional review that ended basically with (not verbatim, and I may be misquoting, but it’s close) “And if after reading this review you still want to see it I have completely failed you as a journalist. This was not a movie, it was 2 hours of having my soul r*ped”.
Whenever this topic comes up, so do the usual titles. If we’re talking about movies that changed the way we view life as a whole, Steven Spielberg’s Jaws pops up in everyone’s minds—so much so that even clinical psychologists from Columbia University were made to believe that their lingering phobias of sharks and the open sea are “as sensible as fearing a T-Rex attack in Manhattan.”
The Final Destination film series likewise created a similar impression. The story revolves around impending doom from freak accidents like slipping into a bathtub or getting cooked alive in a tanning bed, which has caused some deep-seated trauma.
#3
Watched it as an inflight movie.
Then there are the cringeworthy movies that left an unpleasant taste in the mouth. These films felt like nothing but wasted time and money. But what exactly makes a ‘bad’ movie?
Film director Peter Markham, whose credits include The English Patient and Gangs of New York, wrote an article where he laid out some descriptions of what he thinks makes a film unpalatable.
“[It] proselytizes. Evades the moral questions it prompts. Has story problems. Shifts genres to fix its story problems. Uses transitions to avoid story issues. Churns out the same old tropes and clichés. Pulls its punches. Has no punches to pull.
“Leaves no traces in one’s memory, no heart, no challenge, no sense of itself, nothing. Panders shamelessly to contemporary culture and assumptions, whether they be facile or laudatory.”
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#8
Tastes in films vary from one person to another. Critics weren’t a fan of Scarface when it first hit theaters in 1983. Simply put, they weren’t fans of the violence. Here’s what Newsweek’s David Ansen wrote about the film at the time:
“If Scarface makes you shudder, it’s from what you think you see and from the accumulated tension of this feral landscape. It’s grand, shallow, decadent entertainment, which like all great Hollywood gangster movies, delivers the punch and counterpunch of glamor and disgust.”
Fight Club is a similar case. With a budget of $63 million, it grossed a mere $37 million at the box office. Critics have deemed it a flop because of these poor numbers at the onset.
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Despite further criticisms about promoting stereotypes against Cubans, Scarface eventually became a cult classic that everyone began quoting. "Say hello to my little friend" became a notable catchphrase. A-list rappers like Jay-Z and Nas saw themselves in Manolo Ribera and Tony Montana, respectively, the film's main protagonists.
For the late renowned critic Roger Ebert, the film depicted realism that people could relate to. As he wrote in his review, "[director] Brian DePalma and his writer, Oliver Stone, have created a gallery of specific individuals, and one of the fascinations of the movie is that we aren't aren't watching crime-movie clichés, we're watching people who are criminals."
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As for Fight Club, critics credit its success to the affinity it developed with the younger market. Here's an excerpt of Variety's review of the film in 1999:
"Despite certain hostility from some sectors, especially in the U.S., this bold, inventive, sustained adrenaline rush of a movie about a guru who advocates brutality and mayhem should excite and exhilarate young audiences everywhere."
#19
