The famous film critic Roger Ebert lost his long, cruel battle with cancer this past week. He died on Thursday at age 70, just days after writing what turned out to be his final blog post that talked about a new cancer scare.
Ebert penned 10,000 movie reviews during his career of nearly half a century.
On Thursday, Mental_Floss published a list of 10 Movies Roger Ebert Really Hated.
That got me thinking about movies I really hate. I managed to come up with seven that would qualify, although these aren’t necessarily my seven all-time least favorite films; I’ve seen so many over the years that it’d probably take me a year of serious contemplation to pen that list, and as the popular meme goes, “Ain’t nobody got time for that.”
7 Movies I Really Hated
1. Star Wars Episode I: Phantom Menace (1999)
This is the only motion picture during which I’ve actually fallen asleep in a theater. My first words, once a buddy elbowed me and I looked back up at the screen, were something to the effect, “They still aren’t off this planet, yet?” I hated the idea of a “prequel” to begin with; I wanted to know what happened next to the characters we’d come to love. But this movie was so incredibly boring that I never bothered watching episodes two or three.
2. Psycho (1998)
A Hitchcock movie?!? No. This one was a Gus Van Sant remake of the classic 1960 Hitchcock movie. When you put “Hitchcock” and “remake” into the description, that’s practically enough reason right there to hate the film. Van Sant, however, gave us even more: his was a shot-by-shot remake, with the only primary differences being a different cast, a bit of nudity (which Hitchcock proved was totally unnecessary) and color (which Hitchcock avoided because he intentionally didn’t want the movie overly gory. The original, of course, would be on my list of seven movies I really love, but you probably already knew that.
3. Out of Africa (1985)
I was probably too young to be in this film’s target audience, but it was one of the slowest-moving films I’d ever seen. I kept wishing I could get “out of the theater.”
4. The Godfather (1972)
I apologize to fans of the series, but I just can’t get into mafia movies. No interest at all. I get that it’s a well-down film, but I’ll pass on a viewing.
5. Pulp Fiction (1994)
I have friends who’ll never let me hear the end of this, but this convolution of violence and forced hipness just didn’t do it for me. Not at all.
6. Dumb and Dumber (1997)
Any movie with Jim Carrey being that goofy, silly character is not one I care to sit through.
7. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgondy (2004)
I feel the same way about Will Farrell that I do about Jim Carrey.
I know you have a list of least-favorite films! Why not share?
Which movies have been your least favorite?
I’ve only seen (parts of) one of these movies. I keep getting told that I “have to” watch your last four because they’re “so good.” Mmmm, no thanks. Can’t stand Will Ferrell, don’t like gratuitous violence (so most movies), and/or Jim Carrey. I didn’t even like Carrey on Living Color.Â
There are so many movies made every year that I have no interest in. I’ve sort of given up on the whole concept.
Interesting. I don’t know if I have a list of movies I hate. Perhaps I try to block them from my mind. I do hate all of those Scary Movie movies that are spoofs of actual scary movies. I just don’t like slapstick comedy.
1. The Fly II. This isn’t the remake, it’s the sequel to the remake. I hate this movie more than any other I have ever seen. I have only seen it once, around 1990 or so, and I’ll never watch it again. The reason for this is the infamous dog scene/substory: the main protagonist’s golden retriever is horribly mutated in an experiment, and turned into a monsterous mess of flesh. Yet it still recognizes its owner and crawls up to him, whining and trying to wag its tail. He then kills the dog to put it out of its misery. I don’t frequently cry watching a movie, but I sure did watching that scene, and had to go hug my dog of the time, a golden retriever. I hate it when they kill dogs in movies. You can imagine how wild I was about Old Yeller.
2. Dumb & Dumber, and pretty much any “funny” Jim Carrey movie, or anything with Will Farrell or Adam Sandler.
3. Any of the American Pie movies.
4. Brokeback Mountain. I honestly did not mind the gay sex scenes, I knew they were there going in, although I could have lived without them. I wanted to see the movie because it was so acclaimed. Frankly, I found it extremely boring. The performances were great, but the story I just found uninteresting.
5. Titanic. Yes, I could tell that Cameron poured a lot of money into it, and I enjoyed the story of the actual ship going down, as there is an element of thrill to it, the real-life tragedy aside. The old woman and the DiCaprio/whoeverthewomanwas love story, on the other hand, was so horribly cliché and predictable that you’d have to pay me to suffer through it again.
6. Last Tango In Paris. If you haven’t seen it, I’ll spare you the details of why this movie was so…famous? I don’t mind erotic scenes in movies, but at least have some sort of interesting drama going on so I don’t feel like I’m watching a cheap softcore. Just so boring, so very, very boring.
7. Pretty much any of the Marvel movies with perhaps the exception of the first X-Men and the Ironman movies, although I only gave a hoot about the Ironman ones because I like the actor whose name escapes me; I like him pretty much anything he is in, with the exception of the Sherlock Holmes movies, but that’s just ’cause I am somewhat of a Conan Doyle purist.
Great topic for Sunday Seven, btw.
msalakka oh! I completely forgot about Titanic! It was horribly slow and drawn out. I was bored with it.
I think you’re thinking of Robert Downey, Jr.
I dislike most Jim Carrey movies and most Will Ferrell movies, as well. Â It’s a shame because I’ve seen Jim Carrey in productions that prove the man can actually act but I guess some folks just want him to be the funny man. Â I’m not so sure that Will Ferrell has even a bit of that talent. Â But, I digress… Â I’ll play along. Â These are in no particular order and just ones off the top of my head
1. Dumb and Dumber – I really dislike movies with stupid characters
2. Citizen Kane – I truly wanted to like this movie but I just couldn’t get into it.
3. Fargo – K’s cousin convinced us to watch this and declared that it is his favorite all-time movie. Â I just hated it.
4. Star Wars Episode 1: Phantom Menace – I had the same issue you did – I really didn’t care about those characters at all –  but I thought much of the acting was atrocious!
5. Fight Club – *yawns*- though in fairness, I never did make it all the way through this one.
6. The Dirty Dozen – Yeah, I know… Â it’s a classic. Â I just have such a hard time getting interested in a war story
7. Forrest Gump – I’m sorry but I just don’t get the attraction of this film. Â I really don’t.