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Review: 6 Overrated Films From The IMDB Top 250

 

In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m this guy who runs his own website. This makes my opinion only slightly more valuable than some random guy in a baseball cap who signed up for IMDB and gave The Truman Show 10 stars. Only slightly more valuable, but more valuable nonetheless.

So you just know that when I decide to review of a number of fairly old films which I believe to be wrongfully beloved, people are going to listen. And by “people”, I mean “not very many people at all and possibly nobody”. And by “are going to listen”, I mean “are going to skim the intro and maybe the first paragraph and before clicking over to an article written by somebody with actual talent”.

In any case, here is a short list of movies I don’t really like that somehow made it on the IMDB Top 250, causing me to become slightly exasperated.

In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m this guy who runs his own website. This makes my opinion only slightly more valuable than some random guy in a baseball cap who signed up for IMDB and gave The Truman Show 10 stars. Only slightly more valuable, but more valuable nonetheless.

So you just know that when I decide to review of a number of fairly old films which I believe to be wrongfully beloved, people are going to listen. And by “people”, I mean “not very many people at all and possibly nobody”. And by “are going to listen”, I mean “are going to skim the intro and maybe the first paragraph and before clicking over to an article written by somebody with actual talent”.

In any case, here is a short list of movies I don’t really like that somehow made it on the IMDB Top 250, causing me to become slightly exasperated.

Also it should go without saying that these rankings are bound to change over time. As films (and people) grow older, the shine on expensive blockbuster films begins to wear off, and most intelligent humans start to realize that “Hey, maybe Return of The King WASN’T the best movie of all time, and maybe I should obsess over a film which actually deserves it”. One would hope so, anyway

1. GRAN TORINO (CURRENT RANK #90)

To be clear: This was not an awful movie. The idea of creating a “Clint Eastwood Growls Racial Slurs At Minorities While Brandishing Firearms” is not a bad thing. However, squandering the idea of a “Clint Eastwood Growls Racial Slurs At Minorities While Brandishing Firearms” movie by creating am unintentionally hilarious laughable, clichéd parody of one, is. Which is why the only top 250 list Gran Torino should be on is a list of the top 250 “Clint Eastwood Growls Racial Slurs At Minorities While Brandishing Firearms” films (in which case it would probably sit at #3.)

Three Films Which Apparently Suck More Than Gran Torino The Great Escape (#101) Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade (#102) Unforgiven (#104)

2. LEON (CURRENT RANK #34)

Near the top of my list of inexplicably beloved films is Leon, a dreary little eurotrash box-office failure starring D-List French “superstar” Jean “Neckbeard” Reno and a young Natalie “I Like The Water” Portman. It was written AND directed (ooh la la) by Luc Besson, a man whose only other notable filmographic achievements are being “that frosty-haired fat guy who made The Fifth Element even more goofy than it should’ve been” and subsequently “the director of the Fifth Element who went on to direct a bunch of unknown French films but I’m sure that’s not because he couldn’t get any other work it was probably because he wanted to do something more personal yeah I’m sure that’s it”.

I’m not even saying that Leon is a bad film, and I can completely understand why nerds would like it (Namely: “The Prepubescent Body of Natalie Portman” (icky), “There Are Guns”, and “It Seemed Pretty Artsy To Me, A 14-Year Old”) but I really don’t understand how any adult male could pledge his undying love and devotion to this movie with a straight face.

For example: At the time this is being written, Leon sits at #34 on the top 250, right between Citizen Kane and Apocalypse Now. Let me just say that again: Right between Citizen Kane and Apocalypse Now. It just isn’t right.

Three Films Which Apparently Suck More Than Leon: The Professional Taxi Driver (#39) Lawrence of Arabia (#42) Terminator 2 (#41)

3. CRASH (CURRENT RANK #216)

Hey everybody! That bald guy who wrote for Walker: Texas Ranger thinks racism is bad and wants to relay this idea to us in the broadest and most eye-rollingly awkward manner possible! Let’s all celebrate it’s humorless absurdity and total disregard for anything approaching authenticity by showering it with undeserved praise and awards and never watching it again!

Three Films With Apparently Suck More Than Crash Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (#217) The Battle of Algiers (#221) The Conversation (#229)

4. V FOR VENDETTA (CURRENT RANK #168)

I can think of about a hundred and eight reasons why this angsty little cum-dripping of a film should not be on a list of the “top” 10,000 movies ever made, let alone 250. But due to circumstances maddeningly beyond my control, this astonishingly mediocre film about some mumbling asshole in a stupid-looking mask “socking it to the man!” has become immensely popular among a small group of people which I assume is comprised almost entirely of elitist 13-year-old trenchcoat wearing loners who split their free time between jerking off to scat videos and walking around suburban shopping malls without swinging their arms.

How this joyless piece of shit made it on the list while the vastly superior (and, to be fair, equally joyless) Equilibrium did not is beyond my comprehension. Wait, actually it isn’t: Marketing.

Three Films Which Apparently Suck More Than V For Vendetta Casino (#176) Night Of The Hunter (#178) Children of Men (#186)

5. THE TRUMAN SHOW (CURRENT RANK #240)

What do you mean “A slightly above-average Jim Carrey movie I might not mind watching if I came across it on The Hallmark Channel doesn’t deserve a place on a list of the best 250 movies of all time”? Have you even seen the truman show? I doubt it. Because if you had, you’d know that it’s really deep and emotional and uplifting and stuff. Jim Carrey is living in a FALSE WORLD man, it’s like, a microcosm of life. Like, if you went to college you’d know that it’s like that old philosopher’s story. You know, the one about how we all live in a cave in chains and the world is all paintings and shit. Seriously, you should watch it, it’ll blow your mind. Check out this featured IMDB review (which was obviously written by a fuckin’ rogue scholar or something) if you don’t believe me:

“When I first saw ‘The Truman Show’ I came out of the theatre amazed. This is your first clue that you are watching something different from your normal Jim Carrey movie. I love the dialogue, camera shot, performances, direction, music, and running time of this movie. There is nothing I would do to change it. I came away from ‘The Truman Show’ feeling inspired which is the goal of good filmmaking Jim Carrey was outstanding as Truman, underplaying him, not making him too comic or too dramatic, but giving true sincerity when asked. ”

Hell yeah son.

Three Films Which Apparently Suck More Than The Truman Show Spartacus (#241) Shaun of The Dead (#242) Monsters Inc. (#243)

6. AVATAR (CURRENT RANK #93)

I think it’s safe to say that I didn’t much care for Avatar (AKA Dances With Wolves 2, AKA The Last Samurai 2, AKA Delgo 2, AKA James Cameron’s Fern Gully 2: The New Batch, AKA Jizzblanket 2: Jizzasaurus Jizz, AKA Overlong-And-Mediocre-Yet-Heavily-Promoted-And-Overproduced-Thus-Universally-Beloved-Film-Oh-God-Do-I-Ever-Loathe-It), but I know better than to criticize an obscenely successful blockbuster film which has somehow managed to successfully blind the vast majority of humans on planet earth to its shortcomings with a brilliant combination of 3D effects and rock stupid dialogue which seems to have been penned collectively by a group of elementary students well-versed in stereotypical movie character tropes.

So maybe I’ll just go ahead and keep my fat mouth shut about Avatar.

Three Films Which Apparently Suck More Than Avatar Cool Hand Luke (#124) There Will Be Blood (#129) Akira Kurasawa’s Yojimbo (#139)

SO THERE YOU HAVE IT

The worthless, unasked for opinion of a faceless run-on-sentence-using jackass who runs a piece of shit website and has little else to do but write a half-assed, overlong article about what is essentially the world’s more unimportant popularity contest as judged by preteens and slit-eyed obese men who watch Naruto and play Japanese rape simulators. Or something.

But you can’t really blame me for getting annoyed. I mean, come on, The Truman Show, one of the best movies of all time?!

It’s insane!