Critically Acclaimed stuff you don't 'get'

[JourneyThroughHell]

The Departed, most probably.

I mean, I like crime dramas, I like Martin Scorsese's films (Well, his early stuff), and I liked Infernal Affairs. But the Departed came off as so utterly full of itself. I didn't enjoy it at all, yet everyone, I mean everyone, I've ever talked to about it except for my dad (who watched it with me) thinks it's a masterpiece.

It seems you were right, we are polar reflections of each other.
I loved the hell out of that movie.
Also,

the novel War and Peace

YES. Dear God, yes. That thing is an abomination.
Hell, I could write an entire review on why that thing sucks. Since I'm Russian, I forced myself to suffer through it and I hated it. How? Well let me count the ways.
1) It was long, unnecessarily so, since half of the book is basically rambling nonsense about the role of a person in history.
2) It is not deep. The first two parts I liked but those were essentially TV series format. I am not kidding, there wasn't a second of this when I didn't think of soap operas.
3) When it gets deeper though (3rd and 4th parts), it starts getting immensely boring. The part about Moscow under siege was an absolute chore, to the point where I nearly stopped reading.
4) The epilogue is horrible.
5) The characters are absolutely hateful and you don't feel for any of them. Pierre is, while a bit likeable, an idiot, Natasha is at first an annoying irresponsible little girl and, then, BAM! - she turns into a motherly caring individual just like that. Boris is a career whore and while I was genuinely interested in his personality, he contributed NOTHING to the story. Nikolai had a horrible mancrush on the Emperor to the point where I was wondering if I should read it and Peter appeared in the story to instantly get killed. Maria is a pseudo-phylosophical wreck, thus, Andrey was the only good character in this mess.
6) The guy can't describe war. Like at all.
7) His take on Napoleon is jarringly stupid, but that's just me.

 

[crotalidian]

Spider-man 2. I thought that movie was really dumb. I mean, I think spiderman is dumb in general, but I enjoyed the first one. The second one was funny and bad. The third one.... oh goodness. Lets just say I'm happy Sam went back to horror with dmth. VERY. HAPPY.

the issue with Spidey 3 was that Raimi really di dnot want to include venom, he was a huge sandman fan and wanted to expand on that character, bringing the Hobgoblin is was probably a mistake but he only put venom in because the studio made him (one of the main reasons he left I believe)

OT: Twilight (obviously), Modern Warfare 2: MW1 was fantastic, but the story in MW2 didnt hold together and I'm not an online player so to me its just meh (ok I 'get' why people like it but just really dont think they should)

 

[Ocelano]

Battlestar Galactica.

Justin Bieber, and anything that is shat out by the Disney corporation nowadays.

Since when was Justin Bieber critically acclaimed?

These recent months and thanks to the incident in Australia which only proves how stupid fangirls are.

I live in Australia, I must know what happened to apologize on behalf of my country if we did something retarded.

A crowd at his concert got so excited before he was even there that they were taking people off in ambulances and then because of the huge commotion they cancelled the entire show leaving groups of sobbing teen girls some of whom had come from the other side of the country and for some reason this whole mess about some stupid concert became drastically newsworthy and instead of the concert he instead did like one song on a stupid morning shw

 

[PeterDawson]

Brokeback Mountain and Slumdog Millionaire come to mind. I thought Brokeback was a pointless movie that tried to milk its so-called 'edgy' (not my word, I'm quoting a critic) content and got weak performances from its great leads. Slumdog I thought garbled its message, I think it has a terrible life message. Of course, Slumdog was the indie that could, and like Hurt Locker after it (I actually liked Hurt Locker, I just felt it wasn't the best pick for best picture, being an Ingorious Basterds fan) managed to score big at the Academy awards due to its indie status. The Academy seems to love indies that could.

 

[Ocelano]

Oh yes and as far as overhyped stuff

Avatar obviously semi decent remake of the 15ish year old kiddy movie "Fern gully: The last rainforest" just swap out itsy bitsy pixies for 12 foot tall smurfs enjoyable maybe but not worth the hype.

The grudge(english) god damn that movie was really hyped by all the customers I asked a frequent review given to me was "The scariest film I have ever seen" then I watched it and almost fell asleep has absolutely nothing on the original. But that said I say that about most to all american remakes and if their black version of death at a funeral does anything to change my mind I shall be shocked The british one is still one of my favorite films over the last two years and is in english(shocking I know merely put that point in to emphasise the pointlessness of a remake) For a movie to legitimately "need" an american remake it must be either ancient, ie over 10 yearas old, or in a foreign language that said they will still be sub par.

 

[scrambledeggs]

I don't really like an very popular stuff.

Not because i'm intentionally trying to be different, just.. because.

 

[Ocelano]

Snip.

snip

I must agree. It was entertaining, but dear Lord, did people try to make it a masterpiece that it wasn't.

I also don't get Titanic, the novel War and Peace, and Green Day, among other things.

Oh thank You I knew there was one I was forgetting titanic a bigger shipwreck than the real one that said I liked the 10 -15 minutes when the ship was actually going down it was just the other 2-3 hours that were total shit

 

[slowpoke999]

Battlestar Galactica.

Justin Bieber, and anything that is shat out by the Disney corporation nowadays.

Since when was Justin Bieber critically acclaimed?

These recent months and thanks to the incident in Australia which only proves how stupid fangirls are.

I live in Australia, I must know what happened to apologize on behalf of my country if we did something retarded.

A crowd at his concert got so excited before he was even there that they were taking people off in ambulances and then because of the huge commotion they cancelled the entire show leaving groups of sobbing teen girls some of whom had come from the other side of the country and for some reason this whole mess about some stupid concert became drastically newsworthy and instead of the concert he instead did like one song on a stupid morning shw

Haha they deserve it lol, seriously they come from the other side of the country and because they are so exited they scared him off LOL

 

[Downfall89]

I don't get why people love Pulp Fiction. Don't hate on me, I know it's supposedly an incredibly great movie, but I don't see why..

Could someone briefly tell me why they love it so?

 

[Deadlock Radium]

Twilight, Harry Potter, stupidity...
Other people thinking some FPS are stupid... Especially Gears of War...

I just don't get it. At all.

Agreed.
Others are "Tokio Hotel" and rap music, I just don't get it.

 

[Jamielordofgingers]

Any and all horror films released since Saw. It just seems that they've become a conduit for torture fantasies, or remakes of older horror films. I fail to see what's entertaining about them at all

 

[Maquette]

Napoleon Dynamite. I know that it's supposed to be a comedy film but I genuinely didn't find any of it funny. Or cute. Or quirky. The same can be said of any movie that has Michael Cera in it. Perhaps I should just put it down to my lack of ironic facial hair.

 

[Koganesaga]

I don't get why people love Halo. I also don't understand the love for Left4Dead... And plenty of other games now that I think about it.

Outside of gaming I generally like popular things, but I don't get the appeal of Star Wars or Lord of the Rings... I can see why people like them, but why they're so incredibly popular I just don't see. Personally I find them boring but that's just me.

Halo...I dunno, first popular FPS with aliens? And L4D is obvious, your shooting zombies with friends, what more do men need?

Though on the whole I don't get shit about shit, as everyone makes a big deal about something and yet it makes no sense, kinda like why we should care which celebrity just publicly falcon punched a pregnant women (though I must say I would care to hear about that in the morning news but you get the point).

 

[Apophis47_NZ]

I don't get why people love Pulp Fiction. Don't hate on me, I know it's supposedly an incredibly great movie, but I don't see why..

Could someone briefly tell me why they love it so?

It just has so many memorable scenes, and the dialog, particularly between Julez and Vincent is fantastic.

I have to say the only film Ive ever seen based solely on good reviews was "No Country For Old Men" and that was the most boring and dull rubbish I have ever seen.

In terms of games, I dont get why Half Life 2 is so revered. Yeah sure it's good, but the weapons are dull, the vehicle sections are horrible, and the fact that none of the characters ever explain what the heck has been going on since Black Mesa is really annoying!!!

 

[thefire]

Movies, i dont enjoy watching them and i HATE going to the cinima. I dont get the appeal of paying $10 to sit on your arse for 2 hours.

 

[HitsWithStyxx]

BioShock. A thousand times over, BioShock.

That game was just mind numbing. No drive was given to complete it.

 

[Cody211282]

AVATAR
oh DEAR GOD, Avatar. A thousand times over, Avatar.
Critically acclaimed (to some degree), rabid fanbase, and yet, I disliked it. But BECAUSE of the overhype and stubborn jackasses who state it's the resurrection of God, my dislike turned to absolute hatred.

I loved it but even that managed to turn to hatred. Really don't get what the fuss is all about anymore.

Thousands of people went into depression because they wished they were blue (best friend included) >.<
I don't think any film deserves that kind of attention unless it's the best damn thing ever created, after all it's just a damn film

You think the depression thing is bad, we had a kid at school kill himself over it. I don't know how these people don't also get depressed that they aren't jedi as well(because that would actually be cool).

OT: Avatar and Half-Life, Avatar just plain out sucked, and I found Half-life 2 to be fun but not rabid fanbase fun.

 

[NoNameMcgee]

Halo...I dunno, first popular FPS with aliens? And L4D is obvious, your shooting zombies with friends, what more do men need?

First popular console FPS with aliens. On the PC, AVP came before it and Half-Life came before that, and then waaay back was Doom. There are probably a tonne of others but I'm no expert on gaming history from that far back. But anyway what I don't get about it is that made it so popular, in my opinion it does nothing particularly special at all. Halo 2 was bland as well. I haven't played any of the other Halo games though. I played Halo 1 through and it just got boring very fast, so I never finished it.

As for L4D; I love Valve, but it's one of the most repetitive games I have played. Maybe it's because I'm not mad on zombies like most gamers seem to be, and I'm not big on multiplayer gaming either, but seriously it's just the same 4 very very short campaigns over and over with no underlining story to give any point to what I'm doing, just shooting everything that moves and having to be rushed along by my dickhead teammates. I just fail to see the appeal of that.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Half Life 2, it's a FPS with great physics and a mediocre story.

It's good, but I never want to replay it. EVER.

 

[Koganesaga]

Halo...I dunno, first popular FPS with aliens? And L4D is obvious, your shooting zombies with friends, what more do men need?

First popular console FPS with aliens. On the PC, AVP came before it and Half-Life came before that, and then waaay back was Doom. There are probably a tonne of others but I'm no expert on gaming history from that far back. But anyway what I don't get about it is that made it so popular, in my opinion it does nothing particularly special at all. Halo 2 was bland as well. I haven't played any of the other Halo games though. I played Halo 1 through and it just got boring very fast, so I never finished it.

As for L4D; I love Valve, but it's one of the most repetitive games I have played. Maybe it's because I'm not mad on zombies like most gamers seem to be, and I'm not big on multiplayer gaming either, but seriously it's just the same 4 very very short campaigns over and over with no underlining story to give any point to what I'm doing, just shooting everything that moves and having to be rushed along by my dickhead teammates. I just fail to see the appeal of that.

Well I should have clarified with Halo, and I'm not going to count Doom, personal reasons.

As for L4D, the appeal is the zombie Apocalypse feel with co-op/vs and the the terror that you could be run down by fast zombies at any moment. Also (as of L4D2), you get more of the sense of panic and urgency you would feel in that situation, the knowledge that you have to keep moving or you're fucked. At least that's what I liked about it.

P.S. if you don't like zombies, odds are you're not going to like L4D anyway.