Re: Name the first legitimately bad film on IMDB's Top 250
 

I'm gonna have to agree that Mockingbird is overrated but I wouldn't call it bad.

Re: Name the first legitimately bad film on IMDB's Top 250
 

WALL*E. It's not a good enough movie to be on top 250. Pixar did bad on this one.

Re: Name the first legitimately bad film on IMDB's Top 250
 

Strangers On A Train and Good Will Hunting are hardly in the top 200 films ever made. I don't really trust the list- very Hollywood-centric and very popularist.

I think the book's very overrated and its reputation is built on the fact that it's about racism rather than any merit it has as a novel. I haven't seen the film but I doubt whether Peck's performance topped O'Toole's in Lawrence of Arabia.

How could it be anything but popularist, when it's compiled by popular vote? It might not be the best indicator of quality, but it doesn't deceive. It shows us what IMDb voters think are the best movies. Just like the Oscars tell us what middle aged white men liked in any given year. Neither claim to be anything but that.

Re: Name the first legitimately bad film on IMDB's Top 250
 

Bad? Well, the top 250 of the IMDB is perhaps the best film list ever made. Why? Because its fully democratic nature and its voting system means that every film with more than 25,000 votes has a chance of appearing on the list, so popularity beyond a certain threshold is not required.

Among the highest ranked films of the list the ones that I watched and personally didn't like very much (gave a 6/10 or less) were:

25. Casablanca (never understood it, maybe because it has a certain cultural appeal to americans). (rated it 5/10)

56. Toy Story 3 (quite mediocre and formulaic) (6/10)

65. The Intouchables (very medicre and formulaic film: a mediocre film for mediocre minds, as an IMDB reviewer put it). (5/10)

79. Chinatown (boring) (5/10)

118. The Seventh Seal (boring, lacked the drama of other Bergman films like Cries and Whispers) (6/10)

126. The Hobbit (again, it will fall out of the top 250 like Avatar did previously, I think that movies should have a 1 year cooldown after release before they could become candidates for the top 250) (6/10)

Overall, I didn't find anything in the top 250 to be really, really bad. Like Battleship and the Transformers movies. Usually I found these movies either boring or formulaic, but well executed nonetheless.

Actually, the top 250 of the IMDB shows movies that nobody dislikes. The films with high IMDB ratings are the films that everybody likes, not the films that anybody thinks are the best.

Some films have love/hate relationship with the IMDB users and so their ratings fall to relatively low levels (i.e. The Tree of Life), while there is a very large user population that loves these movies and think they are the best ever while others don't like it.

Overall, the IMDB ratings should be taken as a statistical indicator of the probability that you might like or dislike a film. It doesn't filter masterpieces but only good films from bad ones.

Interestingly since I consider it their stronger movie.

That's an important point... though I think the list is generated via popular vote. It would say more about the users of IMDB than it would about film fans in general.

Justification RE: Oldboy
I personally dislike the Korean penchant for over acting. I liked everything about the film, production wise, but I felt as if I were being shouted at and I'm a guy who really, really appreciates subtlety. It's a cultural thing, I wanted to like I Saw the Devil but couldn't for the same reasons.

Re: Name the first legitimately bad film on IMDB's Top 250
 

Uh-huh. More spam.

You're going to get called out on a few of those around here :P But at least you've justified them and said that you don't particularly find them bad. I agree with you to some extent on Casablanca and Toy Story, although I found both to be great films I can see why someone my dislike Casablanca which is pretty much a straighforward Romance film, and although Toy Story is formulaic and very deliberate in its structure that it plays off the first two I still thought it was really good and I couldn't help but enjoying it having really enjoyed the first two.

But Chinatown though? Boring? I think you need to watch that one again, for me it was anything but boring, intriguing, mysterious and thrilling with its darks noir feel and fantastic use of sound, give this one another watch I think ;)

Wait, you liked everything about the movie except that there was too much shouting, yet the whole film is a mess?

As a side note, I agree it's no masterpiece, but compared to the manga it's freaking Shakespeare.

That's the worst comment I've ever seen. No offence buddy.

This is my point. I would also say that it is influenced by Oscar hype a lot.

Re: Name the first legitimately bad film on IMDB's Top 250
 

it's 65th on the list?! some time ago,everyone was talking how great this film is and since I liked almost every French film I saw (I haven't seen much but still) I was disappointed by this one.It's was like a bad version of Forrest Gump. :D

I also agree with you on Casablanca(I'm not into romance films),Chinatown (interesting but that's all),Seventh Seal (not my type).

I said the production... I liked the cinematography, the 'dinginess' of the scenes etc.

I'm using the word 'shout' in a less literal way than you are. There was nothing subtle in portrayal or dialogue.

Yes it's a mess because the over the top acting ruined what was good about it.

Re: Name the first legitimately bad film on IMDB's Top 250
 

On Polish movie portal Filmweb The Intouchables is on 3rd place. Only The Shawshank Redemption and The Godfather are higher. http://www.filmweb.pl/rankings/film/world#

Those internet best movie lists are pretty much identical. They only shift the movies around but they are always the same that appear near the top spots. This one appears to be even more biased towards new movies than the one in the IMDB, though.

Glad to see 4 Ghibli films at the top 100, though.

This Brazilian film site has a much more conservative list:

http://melhoresfilmes.com.br/listas/melhores

Citizen Kane at 1st place, Rules of the Game, 2nd place, Vertigo 3rd place, 8 1/2, 4th place and 2001 at the 5th place.

I can't say that I have watched all the movies on the IMDb Top 250 or even close to it.
So I have less movies to choose from but still it turned out to be an impossible task.

There are several films I'd easily chuck out of the Top 250 but can't with hand on heart say that there's any I would call bad films.

The worst would probably be Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and then Batman Begins.
But I do like both those films and think that calling them bad films is a bit of an overreaction.

Besides those two Leon is the "worst" mvoie. I personally like it but the whole Portman-Renp relationship is quite odd and I find it baffling that it's so high up on the list.
I could perhaps see it cracking into the top 250 but not much more.
I guess that just proves what demographic IMDb most represent.

Double post. This post can be deleted.