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IMDB has ruined my favorite film. Fantastic, brilliant, and overrated should never be used together to describe a movie.
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Letterboxd



IMDB has ruined my favorite film. Fantastic, brilliant, and overrated should never be used together to describe a movie.
I do think it's fantastic, just not as fantastic as many people think, hence I think it's overrated. OK, maybe and probably not the most overrated ever. Star Wars and The Empire Strokes Back are even more overrated or at least Star Wars franchise more popular.



IMDB has ruined my favorite film. Fantastic, brilliant, and overrated should never be used together to describe a movie.
Yeah, as I said just at the beginning of my review, the worst thing about this film is that absurd and unfortunate awarding of "the greatest movie ever made". You can't help but let it effect you slightly, though as I said, I mostly thought it has some other problems and I still think it's a really great film. And this rewatch also helped me see it more for what it is and not what some have made it out to be.

I agree 100%. I always thought it's the most overrated film ever. I love both Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, but never been a fan of King. Don't get me wrong, it's a fantastic, brilliant film, but, as you say, it's so stiff, it couln't possibly come near to "the best film ever", if such a thing exists. Seems you and I agree on everything, this is becoming unbearable.
Yeah, it's crazy actually.

Great that someone else agrees, though I'm sure there are more than one people out there who likes it but don't think it's the greatest movie ever made.



MovieMeditation presents...
HIS FILM DIARY 2015
total movie count ........... current day count
245 .......................... 271

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August 11th

—— 1967 ——
The
Jungle Book

—— animation ——
DISNEY CLASSIC no.19

REWATCH
This animated film is definitely one of the more well respected pictures
to pop out of Disney’s huge colorful catalogue of wonderful family friendly entertainment


I honestly don’t remember if I ever saw this as a child, but there are certainly bits and pieces that come quite clear to me when I think about it; like the bear necessities buddy ballad and the enormous orangutan palace. I decided to watch it a year back, but was rather underwhelmed by it. It was a bit boring and not nearly as fun or exciting as other Disney flicks, especially not in competition with some of those truly heartfelt features from the studio. Since I’m currently going through Disney’s classic catalogue from beginning to end, I now had a chance to revisit the jungle of joy to find out if I was missing something about this film, which would make me love it…

The story of this film always felt a little fractured to me, where this orphan boy would just walk around the jungle and jump in and out of various situations and circumstances that ultimately puts his life in jeopardy one too many times. There are plenty of diverse characters but most of them just feels a little bit pointless. It is like this movie is missing a fundament for the fun and games, though I understand the concept of coming to terms with oneself by exploring the wide wild world and understanding why one doesn’t fit here. But maybe the manic meetings between Mowgli and mammals could have been just a tiny bit more weighted and thought out, had the story had better focus and more noticeable features. Many scenes and sequences in the film feel like they were laid out but never followed through with, which has the audience pulled around to various situations without learning much from them, before we are on to the next one. This movie lives and breathes because of its characters, who are not all equally interesting, but they are the ones who keeps this jungle alive.

Baloo is the best character by far, since he is likable and has a personality that is far more expanded than any other in the story. Bagheera seems like the central character for a while, but mostly he just runs around complaining and acting frustrated. Basically the opposite of Baloo, which is of course an obvious but important contrast. Sheere Khan is totally wasted in the story, which is a shame since he is a great villain. Obviously, the overall villain here is the jungle itself and all animals living there, but that tiger was just such a nice character and it is a shame to see him so apart from the story. It does have some kind of impact though, when he finally comes forward in the end and reveals his roaring self, so I understand the decisions made. The ending is a bit underwhelming and the movie is as well, but it is still a fairly fun time with a few highpoints to enjoy. Overall 'The Jungle Book' has the bare neccessities to survive in the wild mix of other animated classics.




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Master of My Domain
My thoughts on The Hustler and The Jungle Book are exactly the same as yours. Two average films that are considered classics because of the large amount of people who play pool (the former) and nostalgia value (the latter).



My thoughts on The Hustler and The Jungle Book are exactly the same as yours. Two average films that are considered classics because of the large amount of people who play pool (the former) and nostalgia value (the latter).
Glad to hear that, Gats. I was a bit worried I was the only one thinking lesser of The Hustler.

Jungle Book I have seen twice, so I feel fairly confident when with the rating I have given it, while the former needs a rewatch to be sure. But yeah, non of these really gives me enough to really like them.

Thanks for your comment, Gatsby!



MovieMeditation presents...
HIS FILM DIARY 2015
total movie count ........... current day count
245 .......................... 271

__________________________


August 12th

—— 2014 ——
B i R D M A N
or
( THE UNEXPECTED ViRTUE OF iGNORANCE )

—— dramedy ——
CINEMA REVIEWS

REWATCH

After what must be my fourth watch of this picture I finally feel like I can get my head properly around it. I still stand by pretty much all I said in my original review, but my rating has actually gone up. This film want to say so much that it can be hard to catch it all. You can't help but write it off as pretentious or overly ambitious, but I really don't think it's neither of those things anymore. It's ambitious but somehow controlled. I could say a few new things about it that I noticed but I'm a little tired now. This rating feels pretty damn solid for me now though. What a film. You can read my initial thoughts below from my full review back in January...

CLICK FOR FULL REVIEW




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It's cool that you don't love Jungle Book, but it's interesting that you do love Alice in Wonderland, because if you were to draft a list of their flaws they would be basically identical. Episodic, meandering, not having a payoff with most characters, the main character doesn't really change (and they both go through literally the exact same development arc), etc. If anything, I think The Jungle Book is better entirely on the strength of its great soundtrack.



Women will be your undoing, Pépé
I guess I'm one of those pool-playing critics that rave about The Hustler. Your critiques are valid and I can see how they took away from the movie. I'd like to hear what a re-watch would do for how you felt about it at some future date.

regardless, several great reviews.

I've also been reluctant to revisit ET and perhaps at some point I'll remedy that.

Haven't done any re-watches for Birdman though my initial reaction was pretty damn high.

I was also so-so about Jungle Book except for the two songs "Bear Necessities" and the one with the Orangutan King and ironically, love Alice in Wonderland as ursaguy pointed out both movies have a similar structure. Though I can't remember any song except for "Happy Un-Birthday".



It's cool that you don't love Jungle Book, but it's interesting that you do love Alice in Wonderland, because if you were to draft a list of their flaws they would be basically identical. Episodic, meandering, not having a payoff with most characters, the main character doesn't really change (and they both go through literally the exact same development arc), etc. If anything, I think The Jungle Book is better entirely on the strength of its great soundtrack.
But I don't? I don't like Alice in Wonderland.

So I don't know where you got that from. Both are so-so film though I like Jungle Book slightly better but not by much. I gave Alice a lesser rating of
- and you can read the review here:

http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=1346191#post1346191



I love The Jungle Book. I don't think it's popular because of it's nostalgia value either, it's popular because it has endearing characters, and it has fantastic songs. Sorry you don't like it more MM , but never mind



MovieMeditation presents...
HIS FILM DIARY 2015
total movie count ........... current day count
245 .......................... 271

__________________________


August 13th

—— 1932 ——
FREAKS
—— drama ——



The love story of a siren,
a giant, and a dwarf...


What may be more fascinating than the freakish film itself is in fact the story behind the making of this human monster movie. Not only was ‘Freaks’ poorly received, panned by critics and banned cross-country for being absolutely disgusting and downright sickening to look at, but the career of the prior 'Dracula' director also fell completely apart, because of his reputation for ruining cinema with that foul freak show of a film. It wasn’t until later that it gained a cult following, where people finally began to recognize the movie as a brilliant and barrier-breaking piece of work. Unfortunately, people never had a chance to watch the weird and freakish film in its entirety, since this creature feature was completely cut to pieces by the studio for being too dark. Personally, I would have loved to see a darker and more daring version of this film, which was obviously the director’s initial intention, where it would evidently include a castration scene, continued by the person singing in falsetto. If you ask me, that sounds absolutely brilliant and it is such a shame Tod Browning didn't get a chance to expand his wild and wonderful vision...

When considering the title and titular characters, 'Freaks' didn't make me look with any kind of emotional response other than slight boredom and confusion. There were so many side stories and sub plots during the beginning of the movie, that I started to lose interest quite quickly and stopped caring about what was going on. I won’t deny the natural sense of interest when looking at abnormal beings, but I would also like to say it is more something that can impress at times rather than invest my mind. Honestly, we don’t fall off our chairs anymore when we see people who look funny, therefore I would guess this is probably also the most outdated aspect of the film. When watching a man, who is missing both arms and legs, light a cigar with nothing but his mouth I obviously think that was rather impressive, but I wouldn’t mind just watching the main storyline and save the gags for a rainy day. This aspect isn’t exactly character development, but is mainly there to show off, which just doesn’t work anymore. Maybe you could call it a weird form of world building, but I don’t think it is executed in a way that creates an atmosphere or anything.

Overall I didn’t care for that freakish exploitation outside of the main plot, but certain scenes do award it with a darkly daunting charm, which compliments the craziness of the film nicely. The actual story doesn't grab me until the end, where the freaks carries out their revenge against the "normal" people, who betrayed them and their freak-friends. The finale of the film is absolutely brilliant, where the direction, sound and set design really comes together to create an intense final act. I can't believe this was made in the 30s; the thunder and rain and underlying feel of terror is absolutely haunting. It is just too bad it never gets seriously dark, though it was supposedly supposed to be from the beginning. As a whole, this film had a bad start, a decent middle and a great end, which makes for an uneven but fairly good film. It only got better and more interesting as it went along and I liked the themes and overall obscure subject matter. It had some great moments, most of which came towards the end, but ultimately it feels underdeveloped, which makes for an unsatisfying experience. This movie is very different though and I can understand and appreciate this film and its director for making it when people weren't comfortable with such things. I'm glad I watched it, but I have no interest in watching it again.


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MovieMeditation presents...
HIS FILM DIARY 2015
total movie count ........... current day count
246 .......................... 272

__________________________


August 14th

—— 1983 ——
The Outsiders
—— drama ——



They grew up on the outside of society. They weren't
looking for a fight. They were looking to belong


Without having seen the original shorter version of this film, I feel like I can easily say it is probably better than this updated 'Complete Novel Version', which I happened to see since it is hard as hell to a get a hold of the original cut. I heard the new version was more true to the book, which I couldn't care less about since I haven't read it, but I also heard Coppola added tons of new things to the film and even scratched most of the original score in place of 60s contemporary pop music – even inserting music where it didn't even mesh or was there to begin with. I'm quite an outsider to this movie myself, though my mom often mention it as one of her favorite films, which was what eventually made me watch it...

'The Outsiders' really didn't seem to have much inside knowledge of how young rebellious teenagers are actually acting and behaving. In many ways, this casual Coppola flick looks like a cheap rip-off of 'Grease’, though without the cool singing and dancing or fun and fancy storyline. The characters are even called "Greasers" in this film and wears mostly black and behaves mainly cocky and cool, though coming off as caricatures of the cinematic and actual time period where this story takes place. The 'Grease' gesture could be debated, but the obvious comparison to other much better teen dramas is undeniable. There isn't much new under the sun, except for the highlight quotation from the film, which is said as the sun goes down, ironically. It is a poem, which also connects to the main song of the film, Stevie Wonder’s “Stay Gold – another good thing about this film not really about this film. The main story is disappointingly dull without much depth or sense of coherence. It kind of feels like Coppola has taken little highlights from the source material and general teen activity and just crammed it into this two hour time-lapse tour through the average teen's life, while also pushing more rebellious and heroic themes into the story to appear more important and exciting.

It was pretty fun to see all these actors who would eventually become A-listers or at least fairly known in Hollywood, though I didn't exactly care for any of the characters they played. When people died or were in danger, I was in the distance trying to put myself into the story, only I simply couldn't. It didn’t help when Coppola made a catastrophe with is new cut, editing in music where things are supposed to be intense and exciting. The story mostly moves along because of weird choices by the characters and overall this is a weak film and a forgettable teen drama in the mist of much greater ones.


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But I don't? I don't like Alice in Wonderland.

So I don't know where you got that from. Both are so-so film though I like Jungle Book slightly better but not by much. I gave Alice a lesser rating of
- and you can read the review here:

http://www.movieforums.com/community...91#post1346191
Completely mistook you for someone else then.



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
That's merely a sum up and if you read the review you would understand why I come to that conclusion.

I don't rep people and respond to them with a critique WITHOUT reading their damn review. I did read your review and I stand by my comment. I know what you said. I read those words that you strung together. I still don't get it. not due to my stupidity (although I am pretty dumb) but due to the oxymoron.


When I hear people talk about "GREATEST FILM OF ALL TIME" I hear Citizen Kane, 2001, The Godfather. Rarely do I hear Shawshank Redemption. I always hear that yes, it's great, but never *THE GREATEST*.


To each their own though. It makes me love the film more when people don't see, or fail to acknowledge the greatness. (Which you apparently do acknowledge, but hold against it).
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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews



I don't rep people and respond to them with a critique WITHOUT reading their damn review. I did read your review and I stand by my comment. I know what you said. I read those words that you strung together. I still don't get it. not due to my stupidity (although I am pretty dumb) but due to the oxymoron.

When I hear people talk about "GREATEST FILM OF ALL TIME" I hear Citizen Kane, 2001, The Godfather. Rarely do I hear Shawshank Redemption. I always hear that yes, it's great, but never *THE GREATEST*.

To each their own though. It makes me love the film more when people don't see, or fail to acknowledge the greatness. (Which you apparently do acknowledge, but hold against it).
Bah, you still don't understand...

Talking about the absurd and wrongfully given title of being "the greatest movie ever made" and criticizing it for being too "safe", melodramatic and unexciting is two VERY different things.

I merely mention the former, but what I really talk about is the latter, so I don't know why you keep mentioning that freaking "greatest movie ever" when I'm clearly on YOUR side that it is NOT the greatest movie ever and that it WASN'T even acknowledged like that during release.

I may don't deliver my opinion fluently, but shouldn't it be pretty basic to understand that a movie that seems to try to be so perfect can easily fail to be just that to you personally, because it just moves from A to B without having me that excited about what's going on. There's objective perfection and subjective perfection.

It's not a paradox statement or whatever you think you want to call it, though it may come across like that. I'm not saying this movie is perfect, only not perfect, though it seems like that is what you get out of this... I'm saying this movie feels universally perfect but is not subjectively perfect, namely because it doesn't do much to me personally... I can't deny that I see the appeal and I understand it. I even gave it a solid rating, so I don't see why this needs to go any further, I'm not sh*tting on your favorite movie or anything...



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
I don't rep people and respond to them with a critique WITHOUT reading their damn review. I did read your review and I stand by my comment. I know what you said. I read those words that you strung together. I still don't get it. not due to my stupidity (although I am pretty dumb) but due to the oxymoron.

When I hear people talk about "GREATEST FILM OF ALL TIME" I hear Citizen Kane, 2001, The Godfather. Rarely do I hear Shawshank Redemption. I always hear that yes, it's great, but never *THE GREATEST*.

To each their own though. It makes me love the film more when people don't see, or fail to acknowledge the greatness. (Which you apparently do acknowledge, but hold against it).
It's not a paradox statement or whatever you think you want to call it, though it may come across like that. I'm not saying this movie is perfect, only not perfect, though it seems like that is what you get out of this... I'm saying this movie feels universally perfect but is not subjectively perfect, namely because it doesn't do much to me personally... I can't deny that I see the appeal and I understand it. I even gave it a solid rating, so I don't see why this needs to go any further, I'm not sh*tting on your favorite movie or anything...
Consider me more confused

Also if you click on my favourites list. This film is not in my too ten. Soooooooo......