Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Master” And 4 More Overhyped Films

09/25/2012 2:00 pm by

This weekend my boyfriend and I headed down to Cinerama where we eagerly plopped down $24 to see Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master in all its 70mm glory. 139 minutes later, we blinked at the rolling credits with a feeling I can only describe as, “well…that happened.”

joaquin phoenix the master 590x393 Paul Thomas Andersons The Master And 4 More Overhyped Films

Suffice it to say, we did not think it was quite the masterpiece that Paul Thomas Anderson and 87% of critics felt it was. While parts of it were quite beautiful and the actors did a fine job, it just kind of left me feeling a weird mix of indifference and a strong desire for a shower. However, it did get me thinking about other artsy, critically-acclaimed films that left a bad taste in my mouth. See, I am the sort of person who digs a lot of movies by auteurs that aren’t exactly “accessible” – David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick, David Cronenberg, Darren Aronofsky – and I certainly don’t shy away from a narrative that leaves a lot open to viewers’ interpretation. So when I see a film like The Master and react to it the way I did, I find myself wondering if I didn’t see the Emperor’s new outfit because my tastes aren’t discerning enough or if he was, in fact, as naked as he appeared to me.

Take the following critically acclaimed films, for example…

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About Snarky Amber

Snarky Amber pursued a degree in interdisciplinary studies in order to obtain a well-rounded perspective, which she now uses to make fun of people who make more money in a week than she stands to make in a lifetime.

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  • http://fathermuskrat.com/ muskrat

    I agree re: American Beauty. My friend who lives in NYC and has worked in TV and film our entire adult lives vehemently disagrees with me on this, but I saw it at the theater in 1990-something and was underwhelmed.

    • Snarky_Amber

      I think I probably loved it when it came out, but I was also 19 at the time. With older eyes, it’s really awful.

      • http://twitter.com/opticalens Mike Perkowitz

        I haven’t seen it in a long time and might think differently now (and I had some serious problems with it at the time), but I think the reason everyone liked it so much was good actors saying good lines well. Well, okay, Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening.

  • http://twitter.com/Lemmonex Lexa Lemieux

    I rewatched American Beauty about… 2 years ago maybe? My Lord. It is the WORST. The whole shit about the damn floating plastic bag. It is like a bad student art film. THE WORST.

    Also, hate Gone with the Wind. I have your back.

    • Snarky_Amber

      OH GOD THE PLASTIC BAG SCENE. Indeed, the worst.

      We should start a club for ladies who hate Gone with the Wind. It’d be a small but very tight-knit membership.

      • Beckie

        Can those of us who have never even seen it join??!! I have an aversion to seeing overly hyped movies (I’m looking at you Titanic).

        • Snarky_Amber

          You’ve never seen Titanic? I’m so jealous of you right now.

    • http://twitter.com/opticalens Mike Perkowitz

      Also the whole “Ricky is a wise outsider type and yet he is a real dick to his parents” thing really bugged me.

  • http://twitter.com/hpstrawberries Hannah

    hYou seem like a nice lady so I’ll let slide what you said about Gone With the Wind. *ahem*

    “this movie is visually breathtaking from start to finish. Honestly, there may be a really good movie in there somewhere—it’s just that it’s bookended with 40 minutes of pretentious bullshit at the beginning and end.”

    That’s exactly how I felt about The Thin Red Line. I just do not understand the fuss about Terrence Malick. I feel like his movies are damn near unwatchable and that critics only say they’re masterpieces of modern cinema so as to separate themselves from everyone who ever bought a ticket to a Michael Bay movie.

    • Snarky_Amber

      Yeah, I think I just don’t “get” Malick.

      • WhatTheFlux

        Try Days Of Heaven and Badlands. Both of those movies were flat-out frikkin’ awesome.

    • WhatTheFlux

      Ahhh, yes, Michael Bay! Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe Shakespeare wrote a pithy review about one of his flicks:

      “A tale told by an idiot, all sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

  • http://twitter.com/DanielleTodd DanielleTodd

    Get ready to hate, but I thought ET was over rated. It came out when I was about 7 but I didn’t see it until I was an adult. I just couldn’t see what the fuss was about.

    Others that didn’t live up to my expectations include: Lawrence of Arabia and Titanic.

    • http://www.facebook.com/kathy.dychton Kathy Bradshaw Dychton

      My 34 year son is scared s**tless of ET. AND he’s no wuss!!

    • Gardengirl

      Much different as a grown-up. But this movie was a suspense thrillin’ tear jerker to a 4 year-old in the 80′s (me).

  • http://twitter.com/happyphantom Krispy McGrumpypants

    I <3 Huckabees. TERRIBLE.

    • Snarky_Amber

      Aww. I really liked it when I saw it, but I doubt it wears well.

  • SuzyQuzey

    The Tree of Life sucked SO HARD. So did Melancholia, which I saw this weekend.

    I like Gone With the Wind. So there.

    • Snarky_Amber

      “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.” :)

    • HeatherMSM47

      YES Melancholia made no damn sense to me……..I only made it through 20 mins

      • SuzyQuzey

        You missed the payoff of the last 3 seconds when all those annoying, sad, nothing people were destroyed. It was…anticlimactic.

    • IslandGirl

      i’m glad know about Melancholia, now grateful to Netflicks for stalling out and won’t waste the time trying again

  • DianaCLT

    I am going back a bit, but hated…HATED!!!!…The Piano. Woman whores herself out to get her piano back, key by key. Woman’s daughter + friends spy mama whoring herself out, and underage tree-humping ensues. Woman’s husband chops off finger in fit of rage at her whoring. Woman’s…john…rescues woman and daughter. No. Just….NO!

    Also? Like Water for Chocolate. Girl and guy are in loooove but guy marries girl’s flatulent sister. Girl raises kids who are spawn of her true love and farty sister. When old, guy and girl finally consummate their loooove, and he dies in the act. Girl eats matches. Fire ensues. The veryfuckedup end.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=525936928 Ed Horch

      My wife feels the same way about The Piano.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=525936928 Ed Horch

    Forrest Gump. “Run, Forrest, run!” I wish someone had given me that warning on my way into the theater. Treacly celebration of blissful ignorance and Disnified history.

    • Snarky_Amber

      PREACH.

    • http://goodwillhunting4geeks.blogspot.com/ The Goodwill Geek

      TESTIFY!

  • http://www.sweetney.com Sweetney

    Schindler’s List? Pretentious crap. Spielberg trying – and failing, painfully – to make an art film. Yeah, I said it.

    • Snarky_Amber

      *fist bump* you nailed it.

    • SuzyQuzey

      I never saw it, and I never regretted not seeing it.

    • picnicfun1450

      Loved Schindler’s List. Not overhyped in the least. Showed the horror of the Nazis as it was.

    • WhatTheFlux

      And the whole red dress thing totally didn’t work.

  • hmbalison

    I hated Singles (pretentious movie focused on a bunch of whining 20 somethings..), The Royal Tenenbaums (just stupid), and Blade Runner (I actually walked out of the movie theater). Disagree on GWTW.

    • SuzyQuzey

      The Royal Tenenbaums…GLARGH.

  • Jaime

    I feel that way about No Country For Old Men. And I think it got nominared for so many awards because there was so much hype and no one wanted to admit that they didn’t know what the hell was going on, either. It was stupid.

    • Jaime

      NOMINATED! Grrr!

      • http://goodwillhunting4geeks.blogspot.com/ The Goodwill Geek

        I agree on No Country For Old Men. What a sucktastic way to end the movie. I don’t care how subversive or off-the-hollywood-ending path they were trying to stay… SPOILERS SPOILERS AHEAD: When they kill of the protagonist off screen without any fanfare it leaves the viewer feeling like they’ve wasted time following the story. I enjoy a good dark ending, but that was just an ending that told the audience to go suck it. SPOILERS UP IN HERE!!!

    • Snarky_Amber

      I disagree with you on that one.

  • http://twitter.com/MamaKaren Karen

    I strongly disliked Titanic. Had I just seen it on cable years after it came out and it hadn’t been hyped as the BEST MOST ROMANTIC FILM EVAH by everyone and her sisters I may have liked it OK. I had huge expectations for it, and none of them were met. I just kept thinking “For God’s sake, when is the damned boat going to sink?!” Also, Dances With Wolves. The only good thing about going to see Dance With Wolves in the theater was the delicious broccoli pizza I ate for dinner right afterwards.

    • Snarky_Amber

      Dances with Wolves. ARGH! That’s where my lifelong Kevin Costner hate stems from.

      • http://www.facebook.com/vaneaton1 Justin Van Eaton

        The extended version makes much more sense. This is one movie where the cut scenes should have been left in.

    • chimaera42

      The only redeeming thing about that movie is the part where the guy hits the propeller.

      • Gingerette

        My brother said exactly the same thing. He tells us to shut up so he can hear the BONG as the guy cartwheels off the propeller. Then he laughs loudly.

  • Kenz

    Recently watched Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut and let me just say, WTF. I googled the ending and what I kept coming up with were all these conspiracies about the Illuminati. Still confused about it.

    Oh and totally disagree with GWTW.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Commentary-Fortytwo/100003484442763 Commentary Fortytwo

      I agree completely! That certainly deserves the list. Same for Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange and that ridiculous Fatal Attraction. Walked out on both of them.

      • Kol Drake

        I got to see a double feature at a drive in theater (talking early 70s) and saw THX-1138 and then Clockwork Orange. Took a couple of decades to ‘get’ the subtext of what those tales were trying to express. Seen PLENTY of worse films then those though over those same decades.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Commentary-Fortytwo/100003484442763 Commentary Fortytwo

    What? No Waterworld?

    • Kol Drake

      Or ‘The Postman’… both Cosner ‘classics’.

  • WhatTheFlux

    Gone With The Wind did truly suck. So did Chicago, the Hurt Locker, and Inception. And then there was that Irish jig dancing video that my sister made me sit through, the one where all the chicks like up kick their feet around and don’t use their arms, like soccer exercises or something, I dunno… That sucked, too. But it was a doc and not a flick, so does that count?

    • picnicfun1450

      Loved Chicago.

      • WhatTheFlux

        Sorry. All the characters were jerks (including the dames) and I didn’t care if they lived or died, or rotted in prison. Cellophane Man, however, was magical. He was brilliant, he tore my heart out, and so did the song. But the rest of them? Put ‘em all in a bus and drive it over the cliff.

        Worst of all, Richard Gere never broke into a song-and-dance tap dance routine in the courtroom, while he was addressing the jury. Talk about a missed opportunity for a Golden Moment!

    • http://goodwillhunting4geeks.blogspot.com/ The Goodwill Geek

      Loved Inception.

      • WhatTheFlux

        Shoulda been a novel. Fully half the dialogue was expository – one character telling another character what was going on. Sorry, but that’s just bad screenwriting.

        And, nobody but nobody dreams like that, so even if the dreams were shaped to influence a person’s waking decisions, it seems to me that the mark would be mighty suspicious that their dreams were being shaped – particularly since there was no indication in the storyline that the dream-shaping technology was a complete secret.

        And finally, the guys in the black Mercedes SUV couldn’t hit the broadside of a white van full of good guys in downtown rush-hour traffic, and yet the driver of the van, a science nerd, gets off a shot with a pistol, while he’s driving, and nails an assassin? And this happens in a dream level wherein if you get shot, you get shot. Who were the guys in the black van, Imperial Stormtroopers on leave?…

        Hey…. on second thought, maybe all of this would qualify Nolan to do the new Stars movie – interminable expository dialogue, a convoluted plot, bad guys that can’t shoot straight, and all of it rendered with very groovy, elaborate effects.

  • chimaera42

    You are 50% correct about Gone with the Wind: Scarlett IS awful -_____-
    And that stray plastic bag you’ve got there is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

  • picnicfun1450

    You’re an idiot. Gone With The Wind more than lives to its billing. American Beauty is a masterpiece. The others I care less about or never saw. You should have put out 25 movies and given yourself some room. The Seventh Seal? Who has seen that lately? Throw it Wuthering Heights while you’re at it. The Aviator was overhyped. So was “Inglorious Basterds”. Pick something current to criticize if you’re going to do this. And be halfway right about it.

  • Kammil gran

    We are a country of morons and a movie like A Tree of Life is simply not made for the same brain that is tuned to the Kardeshianes or American Idol. What is next ? War and Peace is overrated or 2001 is too long. Stick to your moronic life and leave the name Ingmar Bergman off your writings ! Although I agree with American Beuty. He brings melodrama into the new Bond flick and turns it into a bore!

  • SusieQ

    Hated Steel Magnolias even though it was filmed in the lovely town of Natchitoches where I used to live. It made southern women look utterly stupid. Another dispicable movie was The Help. It made southern women look stupid and mean. I’m so tired of movies like that. Walked out during The Help.

  • guest

    I don’t know what you could’ve been expecting from The Master, but whatever changes you would have would certainly ruin the whole movie. It’s understandable, it’s a new, bizarre, cryptic work. But I agree with the others on the list except The Seventh Seal. How much of an idiot do you really have to be to dislike that movie? Seriously, you shouldn’t be writing about film.

  • KMC

    My friend thinks Spielberg’s “AI-Artificial Intelligence” is the greatest thing since sliced bread; I think it’s an emotionally manipulative snooze-fest. Now GWTW has always puzzled me; cinematically, it’s breathtaking, the costumes are to die (saw them at the MET) but I’ve never understood the fascination with Scarlett. So many people think the a great example of a strong, determined woman. Really? She’s self-centered, manipulative, and I’ve come to think she’s borderline sociopathic. Read the book…she can charm the birds from the trees, but she has no empathy..everything…even the Civil War..revolves around her. She cannot step outside herself to see anything in any other way besides her totally narcissistic one. So much of what drives her is her “love” of Ashley…for all that she’s grown up around him, she doesn’t know him and has nothing in common with him…she’d be bored with him in a month. She’s clever, but she’s not intelligent. And what a lot of people probably don’t know…she’s only 16 when the story starts. She is, in fact, a spoiled, sheltered, immature child; brought in a society where girls were expected to remain innocent, inexperienced and decorative until they married…and then they had to run 100 person households.

  • Lunyme

    Thank goodness I’m not the only one who thought Gone with the Wind was horrible! I’ve tried to watch it twice and have yet to make it more than 20 minutes. I thought Titanic was incredibly obnoxious but that my have been circumstances rather than the movie itself. I’ve never felt any desire to try and re-watch it in order to see. I also have never understood the appeal of ET or Its a Wonderful Life. It pains me to say this because i have always loved Jimmy Stewart but I think the first round of critics were probably right on that one

  • corvus

    The Seventh Seal is about a boring chess game? Right. Credibility of writer = lost.

  • IslandGirl

    Fargo, yuck yuck yuck

    • http://goodwillhunting4geeks.blogspot.com/ The Goodwill Geek

      No.

  • paul

    Um, I’m sorry, but Gone With The Wind is a great movie. Vivien Leigh was amazing as Scarlet O’Hara. It won 9 Oscars and is considered to be a “Classic”. The film was even better than the book (which doesn’t happen very often). I’m interested to find out what you would consider a “good” movie? Maybe Magic Mike is more your style???

  • http://twitter.com/Richsue2 Susan Miras

    Gone with the Wind was awesome.. Sure you really saw it? I agree with the rest.

  • thecheekychick

    I’ve not seen any of the movies on this list except for small pieces here and there of GWTW. Those small pieces did not make me want to see the entire film. In any event, the movies you listed were ones I never had an inkling to see because they came off to me as totally boring or something I would have no interest in watching. Good to know, from one snarky person to another, that I did not waste my time!

    For all those hating on parts of this list, you’re allowed your opinion just like Snarky Amber is allowed her own. Pipe down!

  • Jack_Kennedy

    after his first two ………….everything else by tarantino

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001067208309 Ken Morgan

    Stage play to movie – “Chicago” is most over-hyped awful movie.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Michelle-Kaye/1388297677 Michelle Kaye

    I hate the acting in Gone with the Wind thought it was horrible I guess it was the times and the taste back then.The book was better and I read that as a teen.
    American Beauty was horrible!
    to the poster below I adored Inglorious Basterds!

  • N. Agbaje

    I hated, absolutely, positively HATED the Hurt Locker!!! Didn’t care for it, couldn’t care less about it. Not saying the story didn’t have merit but to find Jeremy Renner’s character as believable was a total crap shoot for me. Bottom line: seen better!

  • jphighwater

    I haven’t seen the other films, but I put Gone With the Wind in the same category as Citizen Kane. Both were boring overly long movies with lousy endings.

    But that is my opinion, and like many of the others I read, it probably stinks, too.