The Most Overrated Movies of All Time:
An Ongoing, Narrated List by Jon Reed

JR notes : I don't know what bothers me more: critics doing a circle jerk over a supposedly brilliant piece of art, or nacho-snarfing morons piling into theaters to show their financial support for the foulest movies, which leads to two things I hate even more than overrated movies: overrated sequels to overrated movies, and the resulting frenzy of "turnstyle worship," as the lemmings who pose as "entertainment journalists" fall over themselves to put on their Hulk gloves (shame on you Joel Siegel) and rank movies according to how many fannies filled the seats. Pretentious movies make me sick, but that doesn't change this simple fact: art is not a popularity contest. A "successful" movie means two things: first and foremost, it must have entertained its target audience; and, in most cases, it should have made a profit (and I count video rentals, where many underrated films have their final say). I'm more impressed by how profitable a movie is than I am by gross sales. Some of these "blockbusters" that grossed $150 million cost upwards of $100 million to make, and while that may still be a sizable profit, if you gave me $100 million to make and promote a movie, I could do pretty well, and I'll bet you could do too. Spending $10 million to make $60 million is much more impressive. There's one more distinction you'll need to understand before we begin the massacre: I make a distinction between a "successful" movie and a "truly successful" movie. In my world, a "truly successful" movie not only entertains its audience - it takes some creative risks and gets people to look at the world in a different way. Heck, it might even inspire them to dust off their own screenplay or treat the people around them a little differently. We need to remember that the bar for cinematic accomplishment is much higher than we think. Recall that many folks thought Harry Potter was a pretty darned good movie until they saw Lord of The Rings and were shamed - as was much of Hollywood - by the greatness of what they had forgotten was even achievable. Therefore, sometimes a movie is overrated simply because it is elevated to the status of a "truly successful" movie, when it was nothing more than satisfying but disposable entertainment. Nothing wrong with entertainment - as long as we don't mistake box office revenues for true cinematic greatness.

This list is a work in progress, so email me with your nominations for inclusion - I'll credit your name next to your suggestion if I decide to add it. And if you take issue with something on this list, know this: I've been known to revise my opinions based on persuasive and thoughtful arguments. So if you object to something you see here, instead of flaming me, email me with some original thinking of your own, and I'll give it some serious consideration. Just remember that I'll give more weight to a description of how a film changed the way you look the world than I will an attack on my own opinions.

Matrix II : Not the worst offender, just a recent example of a creative team becoming infatuated with itself as the fawning entertainment press breathlessly reported the record-breaking sales figures, as if anyone had anything better to do than to check out the most anticipated sequel of the year. Most critics and fans seemed to understand this was a lesser movie than the original, but Matrix II still did alarmingly well at the box office. The creative team will therefore assume, a la George Lucas, that they have further permission to indulge themselves with over-hyped special effects and under-nourished plotlines.

Spiderman : OK, this was a decent, cute, passably entertaining film with a campy touch. It deserved to make a profit; it did not deserved to be hero-worshipped by the entertainment press. When the Spiderman DVD came out, I was led to believe that Western Civilization was peaking. If you really think this movie was that good, try watching it for a second time. The Spiderman of my youth was a flawed, half-mortal superhero with a bit of a dark side - a hero deserving of a much edgier movie than a pasty Tobey Maguire could have delivered.

Gosford Park: Yes, Robert Altman is a genius; yes, this movie is an act of technical filmmaking virtuosity, and yet, when my movie-loving ex-girlfriend started snoring next to me, I had my rebuttal to the avalanche of critical blowjobs. The kind of people who love this movie are the kind of music fans who gave a career to Yngwie Malmsteem. I don't think I felt a single genuine emotion during this fussy film - it was too busy fanatically documenting its own universe to care about me. That's what Ken Burns is for. This film should have been shown in libraries. Rachel, our webmaster, leapt to the defense of this movie when she reviewed this page: "Hey, don't knock Gosford Park. That was an excellent nap I took!"

Moulin Rouge: Just like Lord of the Rings made the folks (above the age of 13) who loved the first Harry Potter film look a bit like frontrunning asses, Chicago reminded us of what a musical can accomplish when it's not bending over backwards to cater to an attention-deficit-disorder MTV generation. True, if not for Moulin Rouge, there probably never would have been a Chicago, and true, Moulin Rouge was an innovative film that captured a fair amount of emotion for a stylized romance with no character development. Problem: I saw more five star reviews of Moulin Rouge than I'm willing to put up with. It shows you how badly we miss Rocky Horror when college kids form cults around Moulin Rouge.

The Crying Game: Great surprise the first time through, but try watching it again.

The English Patient: Otherwise known as The English Impatient.

Sleepy Hollow: Sure, Johnny Depp is a pretty cool dude, but wasn't I supposed to be scared at some point during this movie?

Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace: A disappointment like this comes along once a generation (or, as we found out, until George Lucas puts out another installment). A wild success for the target audience of 5-10 year old boys.

Pulp Fiction : OK, let's get it on. I thought this film was pretty entertaining when it came out. It packed some pretty snappy dialog - although one of the main reasons I liked it was watching John Travolta raise his career from the dead. Whoops! I guess I can even understand the notion that Pulp Fiction is some kind of cultural Zeitgeist, a movie whose influence went well beyond its box office receipts. But at the end of the day, I see a movie with sensationally graphic moments that doesn't really go anywhere. I ask you: does this movie have a soul? And is cleverness really the quality we admire most? And speaking of Mr. Tarantino, doesn't his subsequent celebrity-craving buffoonery go a long way towards invalidating his subversive credentials? I'm guess I'm glad that Quentin is around to make some interesting films - I really liked Jackie Brown for one - but in some circles he's regarded as a genius, and Pulp Fiction is usually cited as exhibit A. A decent film, all in all, but hardly on a par with Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, another movie that was ordained as a cultural/filmmaking "breakthrough." One thing we can all be happy about: Pulp Fiction was a major step in the Samuel Jackson emergence.

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back : It may not be fair to call such a trivial, despised film "overrated" - a quick glance at other reviews yielded lines like "an ego trip of mammoth proportions," and "an exercise in idiocy," but my criteria is that this film was overrated the minute it was even released. A.K.A "Kevin Smith Goes to Hollywood," this film is a 90 minute infomercial about how cool it is to be Kevin Smith. It reminds me of that sickening story of the geek in junior high school who gets picked on by the "in crowd," but, upon being accepted by the cool kids in high school, ends up as a spineless mascot, never seeing how the cool kids are patronizing him and neutering whatever originality set him apart in the first place. Such is the story of Kevin Smith, as documented by the "Hey, look at me mocking myself while I hang out with Kevin Smith and reinforce my own hip credentials" cameos that taint this overwhelmingly stupid film. And I reject the notion that this was a "for fans only" project. If Kevin Smith betrayed anyone with this farcical farce, it was his rabidly loyal fans. Jay was one of Kevin Smith's great characters, a profane voice from the center of the twisted male psyche. He deserved a better send-off. There is a rebuttal, of course - a cult following always has a rebuttal. Supposedly Kevin Smith already gets all this, and he's intentionally satirizing himself and his oversized ego in this film. Yeah, and the "Bud Light Ladies Mudwrestling" commercials mock sexist attitudes about women. In the end, Budweiser wanted to find an acceptable way to show cleavage, and Kevin Smith wanted to find an acceptable way to be a massive tool. In the process, he made a truly unwatcheable movie. If I ever do a list of the most underrated films of all time, Kevin Smith's Dogma will have a prominent place on it. But that doesn't bring Jay and Silent Bob back from the abyss.

Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?: I'm sure to get some hate mail about this one. Just tonight, I found a web page that listed the Coen brothers on a short list of "Gods of Film-Making." Please. Now, don't get me wrong. I do think that the Coen brothers are an innovative force in Hollywood, and there is no shortage of talent and vision in their family. The film world is better off with the Coen brothers than without them. But the Coen brothers have always struggled with the temptation to be clever for clever's sake. They seem to elevate quirkiness into an unimpeachable quality, letting their egos spill over their films as they see fit. True to form, there is a cult of Coen brothers fans that worship their idols' refusal to conform to conventions of story-telling that have been honed over thousands of years of human history. Deviating from conventional formats for creative reasons is to be admired; deviating from them just to show off that you can is another matter entirely. The Coen brothers have done their share of both. When they reign themselves back in the service of their craft, the results are stunning. Look no further than Fargo, a film so brilliant that even a non-Coen guy like me had to admire it. But on the flip side is Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, one of the most self-indulgent films I have ever seen. Once again, let's give some props to the Coens for their inclusion of genuine Appalachian music in this film. The runaway success of the soundtrack was a Coen brothers spanking of the sensibilities of Hollywood executives. I happen to hate the soundtrack personally, but I can't deny the value of bringing music like this to the mainstream. It was a little disappointing to have to listen to the woman in front of me singing along with the entire soundtrack during the film, but I got over that about a year ago. But a movie requires more than a soundtrack in any case, and this movie was a light and wacky feather. There were all kinds of half-assed touches throughout. I guess there was a story in there somewhere, but the plot tension was as slack as a wet noodle. While I'm a huge free speech advocate, that goofy Klan scene was not the most sensitive piece of film-making. That scene was like a cheap film school stunt - just one more example of a scene that made no sense, accomplished nothing, and left no lasting impression with me except a respect for the amount of creative freedom the Coen brothers were given after Fargo. The big question since Fargo has been: will these guys do as well with a long leash as a short one? I have to wonder. These guys are as talented as they come, but if they want to become real film-making Gods, they have to check their egos at the door a little more often.

Hannah and Her Sisters: It's not easy to put Hannah on this list. It's a very well acted movie, deserving of the Oscars it received. And it's a far better film than Woody Allen cranks out these days. But there's something a bit off about the stature awarded certain Woody Allen films. Generally, Annie Hall, Manhattan and Hannah and Her Sisters are seen as the best films Woody Allen ever made, the trilogy at the heart of his achievements. And Hannah is often cited as the best of the three. I have nothing but respect for these three movies, but to me, Crimes and Misdemeanors is Allen's towering achievement, one of the darkest, funniest, and most morally provocative movies ever made. No, one of the greatest films of all time, period. Elevating Hannah and the trilogy obscures the significance of Crimes.The first time I saw Hannah, I was still in high school, and I thought it was one of the most boring and plodding films I'd ever seen. Hannah has aged well for me over the years, and I understand some of the nuances better than I did back then. But Annie Hall and Manhattan both have a crackling energy that Hannah lacks, and I still find myself yawning my way through it, until the final scene, which I must admit is truly graceful film-making. But if you want to talk about a Woody Allen film that takes an incisive and probing look at the intricacies of monogamy and desire, I would point to Husbands and Wivers. This film didn't receive one tenth of the acclaim of Hannah, but I prefer it. It's funnier, sharper, and while it may have its flaws, it's a more courageous piece of film-making, with Woody Allen examining his own attraction to a woman half his age. Give me a courageous movie with flaws over a technically perfect movie like Hannah any day.