Unpopular Positive Opinion Challenge

[Mysterious Dude]

Inspired by today's xkcd:



A few that got "thumbs up" from me:

The Last Legion (2007) 15%
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010) 37%
Only God Forgives (2013) 41%
The Lone Ranger (2013) 31%
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) 48%

[transmogrifier]

All movies rotten (<60%) on RT that I score 70 or higher (my cut-off for films that I will actively defend as very good). If I included films that I like to some extent (60-69), this list would be far, far too long.

Bully (2001) - 78 (54%)
Samaria (2003) - 70 (50%)
Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005) - 71 (59%)
Fast Food Nation (2006) - 71 (50%)
Funny Games (2007) - 75 (51%)
Hot Rod (2007) - 72 (39%) [this is the most egregious - RT critics don't know shit]
Air Doll (2009) - 73 (43%)

Nothing in the last 10 years, but the number of >70 films has reduced dramatically in that time

[Dukefrukem]

Equilibrium (40%)
High Tension (40%)
The Mummy Returns (47%)
National Treasure (46%)
The Longest Yard (31%)
Shooter (47%)
Hot Rod (39%)
The Objective (33%)
The Tall Man (43%)
Dark Skies (42%)
The Colony (16%)

[Dukefrukem]

How do I even search for this?

[TGM]

How do I even search for this?

Were you able to figure this out? Or just started looking up movies individually?

[Dukefrukem]

Were you able to figure this out? Or just started looking up movies individually?

Yeh i just went to letterboxed and looked at the two decades of movies I watched, sorted it by my rating and guessed which ones were perceived poorly.

[Ivan Drago]

I really like the following movies:

Power Rangers (2017) 50%
The Box (2009) 44%
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) 52%
Southland Tales (2007) 38%
Across The Universe (2007) 53%
The Phantom of the Opera (2004) 33%

[baby doll]

Off the top of my head:

I still say Hereafter (47%) is one of Eastwood's best films as a director (Unforgiven (96%) is minor Eastwood), and Domino (18%) is undoubtedly Tony Scott's masterpiece.

Some late Woody Allen films I like more than either Vicky Christina Barcelona (81%) or Midnight in Paris (93%): The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (46%), Whatever Works (49%), and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (46%), all of which I've seen more than once.

I've come around on Battle in Heaven (49%) after seeing it a second time, and Post Tenebras Lux (53%) is easily one of the decade's best films.

demonlover is just over the fifty percent threshold (51%) but I far prefer it to either L'Heure d'été (94%) or Sils Maria (90%). Admittedly, Boarding Gate kinda falls apart after Argento lands in Hong Kong, but 32%? What's up with that? (Speaking of Argento, Scarlet Diva (52%), though far from a masterpiece, is very much worth seeing.)

Some other borderline cases: La Frontière de l'aube (50%), Manderlay (50%), Éloge de l'amour (51%), Antichrist (53%), Marie Antoinette (56%), Film socialisme (59%).

[Philip J. Fry]

The Replacements (2000) - 41%

[megladon8]

The Replacements (2000) - 41%

I always had fun with this one too.

[Philip J. Fry]

I always had fun with this one too.

*dances "I Will Survive"*

[Peng]

All these I rate 4/5.

Under the Silver Lake (57%)
The House That Jack Built (57%)
Deja Vu (55%)
To the Wonder (46%)
The Village (44%)
The Brave One (43%)
The Lake House (36%)
Blackhat (33%)

I think there are no rotten 4.5/5 or 5/5 films, although Gerry (4.5/5) comes the closest with 61%.

[Dukefrukem]

All these I rate 4/5.

Under the Silver Lake (57%)
The House That Jack Built (57%)
Deja Vu (55%)
To the Wonder (46%)
The Village (44%)
The Brave One (43%)
The Lake House (36%)
Blackhat (33%)

I think there are no rotten 4.5/5 or 5/5 films, although Gerry (4.5/5) comes the closest with 61%.

Your first three are +50%.

edit: yeh, what Isaac said. pay attention!

[MadMan]

I had a list somewhere of RT movies that have rotten scores that I love.

[Skitch]

The Box is a damn masterpiece.

[Mal]

The Rules of Attraction (2002) - 43%
is a messy blast with good performances and (for the time) wacky editing. Ian Somerhalder dancing to Serge Gainsbourg is still one of my favorite cinema moments. A lot of reviews at the time this came out said the film was hard to like because of the terrible characters, yet the film itself for me really nailed how college brings out the worst of us as we're still learning to get to know ourselves.

[Mysterious Dude]

Remember guys, it's gotta be lower than 50%. I don't make these rules, I merely enforce them!

[TGM]

Here’s some of mine:

The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) - 29%
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) - 37%
Sucker Punch (2011) - 22% (I still consider this one to be among the Top 5 best movies I’ve seen this entire decade in fact)
The Counselor (2013) - 34%
Need for Speed (2014) - 22%
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) - 28%

I’ll try and think of some more to look into. This’ll be a lot easier to do once I’m in front of a computer anyhow...

[Skitch]

Here’s some of mine:

The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) - 29%
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) - 37%
Sucker Punch (2011) - 22% (I still consider this one to be among the Top 5 best movies I’ve seen this entire decade in fact)
The Counselor (2013) - 34%
Need for Speed (2014) - 22%
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) - 28%

I’ll try and think of some more to look into. This’ll be a lot easier to do once I’m in front of a computer anyhow...

I like most of these movies.

[TGM]

Here’s some of mine:

The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) - 29%
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) - 37%
Sucker Punch (2011) - 22% (I still consider this one to be among the Top 5 best movies I’ve seen this entire decade in fact)
The Counselor (2013) - 34%
Need for Speed (2014) - 22%
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) - 28%

I’ll try and think of some more to look into. This’ll be a lot easier to do once I’m in front of a computer anyhow...

And now for a handful of more:

The Time Machine (2002) - 29%
Underworld (2003) - 31%
The Punisher (2004) - 29%
Constantine (2005) - 46%
Kingdom of Heaven (2005) - 39%
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009) - 34%
Remember Me (2010) - 27%
Resident Evil: Retribution (2012) - 29%
Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) - 18%

[baby doll]

Underworld (2003) - 31%

I've been meaning to read the book for ages; I didn't know there was a film. I quite liked DeLillo's White Noise when I read it a few years back.

[Irish]

The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) - 29%
The Counselor (2013) - 34%
Underworld (2003) - 31%

I'd put these on my list.

I saw "Riddick" in the theater and was in a spasm during the entire runtime. The movie was one of the best experiences I've had --- and, from memory, it's over-the-top ridiculous but goddamn if I didn't get a huge kick out of it.

"Underworld" had a low-key charm -- maybe the closest we've come to a legit heir of Universal monsters --- but I think it was made retroactively worse by an inevitable parade of sequels.

"The Counselor" was unfairly maligned and I'd actually go to bat for that one. It's messy, sure, but the cast holds nothing back and the direction is smooth and assured as anything Scott had done previously. I wish more movies were as wild and daring as that one hoped to be.

(Although, tbh, of the 3, I'd only want to see "The Counselor" again.)

[baby doll]

"The Counselor" was unfairly maligned and I'd actually go to bat for that one. It's messy, sure, but the cast holds nothing back and the direction is smooth and assured as anything Scott had done previously. I wish more movies were as wild and daring as that one hoped to be.

I don't consider The Counselor a successful film, and having read two of McCarthy's novels (albeit not the popular ones), my sense is that plot isn't his strong suit: Suttree is frankly episodic and Blood Meridian is basically three hundred pages of affectless beheadings punctuated by landscape description. Some of the dialogue in The Counselor is amusing for McCarthy's use of anachronistic language (Fassbender barking "Hemlock!" in response to a waitress asking him what he wants to drink just after receiving some very bad news) but mostly it's just awkward (Fassbender telling Penelope Cruz she has "the sweetest pussy in all of Christendom"; the Mexican drug kingpin's monologue about actions having consequences).

[Irish]

I don't consider The Counselor a successful film, and having read two of McCarthy's novels (albeit not the popular ones), my sense is that plot isn't his strong suit: Suttree is frankly episodic and Blood Meridian is basically three hundred pages of affectless beheadings punctuated by landscape description. Some of the dialogue in The Counselor is amusing for McCarthy's use of anachronistic language (Fassbender barking "Hemlock!" in response to a waitress asking him what he wants to drink just after receiving some very bad news) but mostly it's just awkward (Fassbender telling Penelope Cruz she has "the sweetest pussy in all of Christendom"; the Mexican drug kingpin's monologue about actions having consequences).

Oh, I don't consider it a successful film either. But I do think what it tried to do (and sometimes does) was waaaaaay more interesting than most of the "product" loitering about contemporary theaters.

Or, as I put it back in 2017:

One last note: I've developed a soft spot for sci-fi movies that contain ideas, or elements I've never seen before, despite completely fucking up their narratives or generally half-assing it in other areas. I'd rather watch movies like 28 Days Later, Solaris, Aeon Flux, Automata, The Rover, and the Robocop remake than most of the stuff in The Playlist's top ten. They aren't "better," just a helluva lot more interesting. (Automata, for one, is almost a complete clusterfuck but contains an idea I've literally never seen represented in another feature film).

"The Counselor" isn't sci-fi but the idea still holds, ie, from the same thread, "the stuff that interests me most are the movies that swung for the fences and almost totally whiffed it." This is an area of film that rarely gets discussed, because it doesn't fit into the "thumbs up / thumbs down" or "fresh / rotten" binary, which too often captures the conversation.

[Philip J. Fry]

And now for a handful of more:

The Time Machine (2002) - 29%

I enjoyed that one.