Overrated films of 2003

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With awards season in full bloom, and many of us generally agreeing that 2003 was another mediocre year of movies, I thought this question might generate some sparks.

I thought House of Sand and Fog was ridiculously overrated. It's a good movie in spots, but it's basically a good movie drowning in its own excesses. The characters go to pieces at the drop of a dime simply because the screenplay wants them to. The last half-hour is so overblown, it winds up being more annoying than interesting. I admit, I saw greatness up there on that screen, but subtly is a valuable lesson Vadim Perelman needs to learn.

I was also disappointed by Northfork and Better Luck Tomorrow, two films that play like a string of great scenes with emptiness at their cores. What pisses me off, too, is that I rented both of these at the same time, and wound up having to pay a $14 late fee to Blockbuster. Fourteen dollars thrown to the wind...

By the way, Roger Ebert gave all of these movies four stars. I was beginning to grow suspicious of Ebert's taste in recent years, but this just topped it off.

― Anthony (Anthony F), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 23:27 (twenty-two years ago)

i loved House of Sand and Fog--you're right it's excessive, but i bought it. tragedy works that way, and with the exception of that ONE problematic character, the protagonists get drawn into it against their will and to their own disbelief. in other words, the excessiveness is part of the point.

― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 23:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Northfork
Lost In Translation
Mystic River
American Splendor
21 Grams

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 23:32 (twenty-two years ago)

i really admired that it when for full on tragedy instead of pulling back when sense and good taste should have told them to stop.

i think the arty lyricism would bother some people too, but i loved that also! (i was so caught up in it my judgement may be off tho, so i need to see it again someday to make sure)

― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 23:34 (twenty-two years ago)

21 Grams is an abomination

― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 23:34 (twenty-two years ago)

The arty lyricism in HoSaF worked for me at first, then just got annoying as hell.

I'm up in the air with Lost in Translation.

I liked Mystic River, although the book is a lot better.

― Anthony (Anthony F), Thursday, 29 January 2004 01:16 (twenty-two years ago)

some reviews led me to believe that the book is a lot different too. true?

― ryan (ryan), Thursday, 29 January 2004 02:12 (twenty-two years ago)

irreversible is rated highly in some circles, which completely baffles me.
northfork was a big waste of my time.

― todd swiss (eliti), Thursday, 29 January 2004 02:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Every movie I saw and liked this year has been called overrated. The only three movies I saw that were duddy were How to Lose a Gay Guy in Ten Scenes, Matrix Revulsions, and Boys Life 4. None of them were overrated too terribly much.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 29 January 2004 03:42 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm glad we can all agree on the general shittiness of Northfork.

Though I'd give them all a thumbs up, I think that Mystic River, American Splendor, and In America were all overrated.

You know my feelings on Big Fish. (The thing is, there are probably dozens of movies I'd rail against with as much vehemence -- I just don't happen to see them. And you'll remember, I was dragged to see this one.)

I just checked, and Ebert gave four stars to 26 (!) films last year. I'm not sure whether Roger's getting way more lenient in his old age, or whether he just doesn't consider four stars as exclusive a category as other critics seem to.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 29 January 2004 06:02 (twenty-two years ago)

My understanding was that the Laura Linney character played a bigger role in the book. Which makes sense -- that whole Lady Macbeth scene at the end sorta came out of nowhere for me.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 29 January 2004 06:04 (twenty-two years ago)

(Mystic River, obv.)

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 29 January 2004 06:04 (twenty-two years ago)

I was reading the new Film Comment and J Hoberman's one tough bastard, handing out "bomb" decisions like they were going out of style!

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Thursday, 29 January 2004 06:13 (twenty-two years ago)

American Splendor, most overrated "indie" film of the decade (so far).

― Girolamo Savonarola, Thursday, 29 January 2004 13:40 (twenty-two years ago)

demonlover!!!

Regarding 21 Grams: it's way overdone, overambitious, but there's some great material in there. Personally I'd have done away with the Del Toro plotline and left the love story.

― Robomonkey (patronus), Thursday, 29 January 2004 16:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Lost In Translation, although I have it in my queue for next week. So i'll give it another go and then comment further.

― Chris V (Chris V), Thursday, 29 January 2004 17:30 (twenty-two years ago)

What's not to like about American Splendor? No classic, sure, but I don't get what's so wrong with it to get so many mentions here.

― Chuck Tatum (Chuck Tatum), Thursday, 29 January 2004 20:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Lost in Translation by a landside. What a piece (as noted elsewhere).

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 29 January 2004 20:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Thirteen. Saw it last night and thought Holly Hunter was great but the rest of the movie was blah. Granted it was co-written by a thirteen year old, but who cares. I had a headache from the camera work. And I thought the blond chick overacted. My wife loved it and yelled at me for calling it a shit sandwich. Maybe she liked it because she was a 13 year old girl once.

― Chris V (Chris V), Friday, 30 January 2004 14:52 (twenty-two years ago)

American Splendor was the biggest disappointment of the year for me, bar none.

It just wasn't that good. Made me laugh in a few places, that's it...

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Friday, 30 January 2004 16:14 (twenty-two years ago)

I liked American Splendor well enough (I thought Giamatti was great and was reasonably entertained throughout) -- but I didn't think it was remarkable enough to be the 4th most acclaimed film of the year.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 30 January 2004 16:30 (twenty-two years ago)

"Kangaroo Jack"

And I had such high hopes for this film....

― jay blanchard (jay blanchard), Friday, 30 January 2004 22:12 (twenty-two years ago)

But no matter how good the screenplay for Kangaroo Jack was, there was no way they would ever capture the essence of Sartre's novel.

― BabyBuddha (BabyBuddha), Friday, 30 January 2004 22:14 (twenty-two years ago)

The thing with American Splendor was that it was pumped as the indie film of the year. It's not a bad film, no. It's not a spectacularly wonderful one, either. As far as hype:reality goes, I think it's got the worst ratio.

By the way, I'm really surprised that Lost in Translation isn't getting enough play on its references to Hiroshima Mon Amour. But so it goes. I haven't seen it yet, so I can't really talk too much, I guess. Still, I figured that would be the softball angle.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Sunday, 1 February 2004 03:37 (twenty-two years ago)

The thing with American Splendor was that it was pumped as the indie film of the year.

Ugh... the local ad campaign is what turned me off to even seeing this one. A cartoon cutout guy complaining about how there's only one measly poster hanging in the display window, saying something like "I guess if there's no superheroes or big special effects the studio won't shell out to promote your movie!" Pandering to the basest indie movie reflexes.

(But, of course, the movie could've been fine and I let the advertising do my decision-making for me, which is of course no better than if it were to lead me nose first into the theater.)

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Sunday, 1 February 2004 03:42 (twenty-two years ago)

21 Grams was indeed the movie that made be fee; 'guilty of a crime I didn't commit'. On an aesthetic level, people spend millions and millions of dollars to make video look like film -- now we have film trying to look like video. Fucking made me feel like yacking...

― ModJ (ModJ), Sunday, 1 February 2004 21:54 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't understand that - surely a producer would insist that if they want that look to go shoot on video?

― Girolamo Savonarola, Sunday, 1 February 2004 23:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Lost in Translation by miles and miles.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Monday, 2 February 2004 00:01 (twenty-two years ago)

I've gotten the impression that no one is more surprised by the film's success than S. Coppola.

Was it in the Village Voice critics' poll that Hoberman pointed out that it made a ton of critics' top tens but very few of them put it in their top spot? (scores low on the "passiondex") So it's one of those films everyone praises for being good, not great. That's why I think the backlash is a little unfair. It *is* a good film. It *isn't* a great film. The assessment is right where it should be.

― Robomonkey (patronus), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 18:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Cold Mountain. Basically a ponderous, brooding Harlequin romance with shitty overworked costume design and ham fisted a-c-t-i-n-g.

― PVC (peeveecee), Thursday, 5 February 2004 23:32 (twenty-two years ago)

City of God. Just imagine the director saying "Gee, why don't I make Goodfellas and set it in Brazil? And oh, oh, why don't I have some chilluns beat the crap out of each other?" Manipulative, intentionally pessimistic pseudo-artsy crap. If the flick needed a new tagline, it should be 'Gained in Translation'

― Jeremy Coombs (Atila the Honeybun), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 21:17 (twenty-two years ago)

City of God seconded along with all those other overrated South American films (Y Tu Mama Tambien, Amoes Perros).

All the real girls.

Cold Mountain.

― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 19 February 2004 18:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Uh, Y Tu Mama Tambien and Amores Perros are Mexican.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 19 February 2004 19:16 (twenty-two years ago)

i wasn't really that disappointed in northfork; but then if there was a lot of hype it never made its way to me. i can imagine it being incredibly tough to sit through on video though.

― andrew s (andrew s), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 18:42 (twenty-two years ago)

oh and let me throw my weight behind stone reader as most over-rated documentary. as for city of god, which came & went in a flash here in chicago (pre-oscars©-inspired second run), what do people have against goodfellas!

― andrew s (andrew s), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 18:49 (twenty-two years ago)

"don't understand that - surely a producer would insist that if they want that look to go shoot on video?"

not necessarily...as bizarre as it sounds, the "make video look like film" aesthetic has caught on strongly, yet the major studios are still wary about video resolution issues for 35mm theatrical blow-ups and post-work (color correction, effects, etc. that don't hold up well on mediums like miniDV). so it's become "shoot film to look like video that looks like film".

friggin' bizarre...

― jay blanchard (jay blanchard), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 19:17 (twenty-two years ago)

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