Most Overrated Movies

There are some absolutely brilliant British movies:

Zulu
The Ladykillers
Local Hero
Shaun of the Dead
Hot Fuzz
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Snatch
Love, Actually
Four Weddings and a Funeral
etc

I just didn't connect with Don't Look Now.
When I had a look at the top 100 British film lists, the first one I picked was this http://www.timeout.com/london/film/1...-the-full-list
No. 1 movie - Don't Look Now
Maybe it's just me!

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“The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson

I particularly like the early Guy Ritchie movies.

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Fear and Loathing in MoFo... The Gunslinger 45's Top 50 Favorite Films

In the 10 Ring: Gunslinger45's reviews

Just FYI some of the directors Honeykid mentioned as well as a lot of other directors from the UK (including ones from the past 25 years) are held in very high esteem by David Bordwell and Jonathan Rosenbaum types. You're missing out out on a lot. For instance when we look back on 2013 it might be that the two most important, critically acclaimed movies were directed by Steve McQueen and Jonathan Glazer. Some other UK directors who have made movies that I think are really great/important from the past couple of years that Honeykid didn't mention are Clio Barnard, Andrea Arnold and Bart Layton

This is probably true of most worthwhile movies but it rings especially true with Don't Look Now. I still think it's as silly as the first time I saw it only now I also think it's great

I have no judgments yet on Glazer's work but it seems to me it will be impossible for Steve McQueen's film to be anything but critically acclaimed due to its subject matter and apparent use of graphic violence. I don't have much faith in McQueen to produce much of anything better than his previous two films, which I thought were terrible films. Filled to the brim with art film cliches and pretentiousness (and I hate to use that word, I feel it's much overused), McQueen's films are fundamentally flawed in their construction and I can't see them getting any better no matter what increasingly difficult or serious subject matter he takes on.

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Mubi

I'll allow the use of pretentious to describe Steve McQueen movies

I'm sure Donnie Darko has been mentioned a zillion times on this thread. At least it should be. I love the movie but it's the most typical 'best movie ever' for hipster college kids who've only seen action movies. Apologies for not reading back but it's a huge thread and I'm posting from work (shhhh)

Well, it's true that the canon of British cinema is smaller than US and Japan. Though the UK is not

I am not sure about France though. They don't produce many movies per year but many French movies show up in the Sign and Sound poll but I find them weaker than American and Japanese movies.

In relative comparison I would think that we could rank the number of masterpieces produced by country as follows:

Tier 1:
USA
India
Japan

Tier 2:
France

Tier 3:
Russia
UK
Italy

Tier 4:
Germany

India and Japan have developed much stronger cinemas than any European country. That's because:

1 - India and Japan are bigger in population than any Western European country.

2 - Their cultures are quite different from the west, in Europe the highest grossing films are American because cultural affinity, in India and Japan, some American films are popular but most of their most popular films are domestic.

3 - In the case of Japan, it's because they are an economic superpower greater than any western country besides the US and so they have the domestic market to support a large cultural industry like the US. India is quite a large market as well, specially if you take into consideration the differences in price levels.

I wouldn't think that Korea and China could be said to be major. They are big now but over the course of the last 100 years their output has not been comparable to these 8 countries.

This movie was tons of fun. I enjoyed it on a most sarcastic level as a propaganda film showing the civilized brave white men imposing their supremacy over the primitive savages in Africa.

These two are also great.

Pretty fun movie as well.

Though neither of these 4 movies can be considered to be art, IMO.

I think Korean cinema could be more temporary, but China on the other hand, is only growing. In the last 100 years, China was in a relative period of decline relative to its history. China has always been a major and powerful nation, we think of China as developing, but really China only seems to have hit a road bump in its timeline.

Ha take that, directors who thought they were making art

I dare you to list all the Indian masterpieces

I'd like to speak up for Edgar Wright, a modern comedy director who knows how to use framing to make a joke, a la Tati. I call that artful comedy.

Lawrence of Arabia is a British film that I guess can be regarded as art. Hot Fuzz is a very, very fun movie but it is not art because it lacks that elusive quality that I see as art. Its a quality that I am loss for words to describe.

You can easily find lists of top Indian movies on the internet. India is the world's largest producer of movies, producing over 1,100 movies per year and it's the world's largest film market in terms of tickets sold, selling 3 billion tickets per year, compared to 1.4 billion for the US. Overall, it's possible that India produces more masterpieces per year than the US, though due to India's lack of cultural power projection, people outside of India lack the chance of being influenced by Indian cinema that doesn't mean it exists.

Here is a list of top 300 indian movies:

http://mubi.com/lists/best-indian-films

You can find many of such lists on the internet. If you don't know any of these movies? Well, time to get educated about Indian movies. I have watched half a dozen Indian movies. While I liked them all I still found them to be quite simplistic if compared to Japanese movies.

In fact, Indian cinema can be said to be the most underrated cinema of all. Even more underrated than anime, though in India their cinema is respected.

Well full disclosure I haven't seen anything outside of Satyajit Ray, a couple of the most famous non-Rays of the 50s/60s and whatever random other commercial films from the past 15 or so years. So yeah of course I'm not an authority on Indian film. But for example I looked through that mubi user's top 300 Indian movies and even this person who probably loves Indian cinema had to make a lot of questionable calls on some terrible looking movies, including scraping the bottom (I hope) of the Merchant Ivory barrel, to fill out their list. Not to mention a lot of it is just the entire filmographies of acclaimed directors from their Golden Age copy and pasted in there.

Anyway my point was it's hard to stick India with the US/France/Japan group if they're only there because by your logic they churn out so many movies they must've produced enough great ones by now

I understand that "interested" is very subjective however, given those you don't care for, however I'm genuinely interested in which American directors you feel challenged by.

Allow me to point you towards Peter Greenaway and Derek Jarman.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

Maybe it's because I saw it at a freind's house instead of a theater but I don't see what's so special about Avatar. The visuals are impressive but other than that it doesn't much going for it IMO. No idea how it got a Best Picture nom and became the highest grossing movie ever. If it was in 3d then that might explain the box office take but it must have been a pretty weak year for it to get a BP nod. It's not bad or anything but doesnt seem like Oscar fare to me.

I would say mostly Terrence Malick with his eccentric and difficult editing style and structure; David Lynch with his logically all over the place but emotionally sound narratives; and Linklater with his extremely naturalistic use of formalistic techniques. These are the working American directors that I feel most challenged by in the context of their recent work off the top of my head. If it included all of American film, the list would be much longer, as well as if it was open to non-American directors. I'm not interested too much in American film at the moment, while I still probably watch more American films than any other specific country (partially because, in a small college town, it's what I have the easiest access to) but I definitely don't watch more American than non-American film.

Hence the word "cult".

Actually, I think it is pure garbage.

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Have you ever held a lion in your arms? I have. He smelled funky.

Rocky is a masterpiece of film. One of the top 100 films of all time. A great story. Great (real to the bone) acting. And genius directing. Pure film - pure art.

As far as being "overrated" - I judge this by how much green they have made.

Avatar - This movie is some kind of sick trick played on idiots.
Titanic - Pathetic date night movie.
Iron Man 3 - Hollywood at its worst.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Retarded, by a director that should be making aftershave commercials.
Skyfall - Yawn.
Spider-Man 3 - Garbage.
Inception - Meh.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen = Dog ****.
2012 = Worst movie ever.

A movie can be so bad it stinks up the pavement (2012) but if it makes a ton of cash it becomes a formula movie for the big studios (Iron Man 3) - even if it is a semi-retarded piece of crap (Avatar) = and this is why 99% of all Hollywood movies suck.