Metacritic's 15 Movies The Critics Got Wrong

Wrong how

It was a Predator ship.

Cabin Boy all day, all the way

Freddy Got Fingered so close second

Freddy Got Fingered, Fire Walk With Me and the Final Destination movies all genuinely better than their reps.

Thought Clue and Scrooged had achieved total cult resuscitation by this point.

I think the idea here is that they were all panned at the time, and are well regarded now.

I love Clue and Scrooged, will probably vote for one of those, haven't seen Cabin Boy in way way too long to know if I'd still enjoy as much as I did back in the day. I'm alright with the first Ace Ventura, but totally hate Happy Gilmore (where I'll tolerate Billy Madison and some later Sandlers). Tried to watch Speed Racer and Final Destination recently and neither held my interest. But I'm A Cheerleader was very shrill and annoying to me. Would probably watch Hudson Hawk and Predator, will get to the Twin Peaks movie after I finish the series. No interest in any of the others.

Fire Walk w Me is one of the best movies of the last whenever, so the poll kinda looked silly orig

Summer School is enjoyable enough, but why it is included here is a little baffling.

I've seen only Scrooged (OK as far as it went, wish they'd filmed O'Donoghue's script -- he hated the result) and The Outsiders (only worthwhile for Emilio Estevez and all the 20-year-old beef).

Final Destinations (mostly on the strength of 2) just barely edging out Clue

btw is there some law that any time reviewers talk about ace ventura they are required to use "rubber-faced" somewhere in there?

The law of laziness.

happy gilmore, scrooged or predator all worthy

Well, Fire Walk With Me is far and away the best, so I have to give my vote for that. But Clue is indeed excellent, it deserves some votes here.

I will grudgingly rep for the setpieces in the Final Destination franchise - they are set up very well, and despite the thin-ness of the plot/scripting that connects them they come across like finely crafted slapstick rather than unneccessary torture porn. I don't really like slapstick, mind you.

haven't seen Cabin Boy in way way too long to know if I'd still enjoy as much as I did back in the day.

It only gets better, imo.

I voted for Clue, though, lest Cabin Boy shut everything else out. It's the obvious choice, though.

Pretty sure But I'm A Cheerleader made me cry.

Not one but TWO movies with Lee Ving on this list.

I've never seen Flashdance. Should I bother?

it's no roadhouse imo

But is it a Footloose?

well duh if it was a footloose doncha think you'd have heard?

"Flashdance" is decent enough and iirc I liked it at the time because it had boobs in it

godfather:godfather II :: flashdance:showgirls

they didnt got nothing wrong

xp: awesome movie is to awesome movie as awesome movie is to awesome movie?

Jennifer Beals could be fantastic on The L Word, but I don't remember anything but the chair dance from Flashdance. Biggest surprise here is Predator, but maybe its cheesiness grew on people. Never saw Clue!

"Clue" is fucking great.

HI DERE loves everything .com

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective

classic beyond classic

Definitely not Freddie Got Fingered. Being utter garbage shouldn't be confused with daring to defy comedy studio convention.

HI DERE loves everything .com

you clearly have not seen posts I've made on this site re: "Freddy Got Fingered"

Fire Walk With Me has extraordinary things in it, and others as rank as Cabin Boy.

The Outsiders is one of those had-to-be-there moments: a teacher aired it every year from fourth to eighth grade. Are those Hinton novels still popular with today's yoots?

Are those Hinton novels still popular with today's yoots?

my 18 year old cousin reads Hinton and he's not a particularly bookish sort either.

daddy would you like some sausage

there's a bunch of good stuff here...I can't believe Summer School made it. But, I mean, it's gotta be Fire Walk With Me.

Ace Ventura or Fire Walk With Me

pov:

fire walk with me
summer school
ace ventura
happy gilmore
scrooged

what i need to see: but i'm a cheerleader

what should be here: the first TMNT movie

Ace Ventura or Fire Walk With Me

― admrl, Wednesday, June 23, 2010 5:43 PM (32 minutes ago) Bookmark

Read this as Ace Venture: Fire Walk With Me

the fact that a movie based off the board game clue is pretty watchable is sorta mind-blowing. happy gilmore and scrooged are better movies, but they didn't have to overcome the burden of being based off a board game.

Clue is unstoppably good. I think I've seen it 50 times?

figured something as quantization-crazy as metacritic wouldn't be into publishing lists as arbitrary and idiosyncratic as this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4faYWMi2oPk&feature=related

the fact that a movie based off the board game clue is pretty watchable is sorta mind-blowing.

But consider: Tim Curry, Eileen Brennan, Martin Mull, Christopher Lloyd, Lesley Ann Warren, and Madeline Kahn in a goofy, fast paced stage farce. I mean, doesn't it just *sound* fun?

Happy Gilmore, Predator.

But I'm A Cheerleader had potential for greatness but iirc turns boring halfway through.

I was going to say, "Clue" being awesome stops being mindblowing when you look at the cast.

Happy Gilmore, Predator.

Would watch.

Voted Cheerleader, Scrooged a close second.

Happy Gilmore, Predator.

Would watch.

That's not far off from the movie Happy Gilmore, is the irony.

Scrooged is one of the greatest films ever and the end scenes still make me cry every time I watch it.

Final Destinations are both great too

Why it’s good: Carrey’s hilariously manic energy as Ventura matched that of his In Living Color characters Fire Marshall Bill and Vera de Milo.

pretty sure the critics didn't get this "wrong."

i mean i don't think ebert moaned what a disappointment the film was after the hallowed fire marshall bill sketches.

Scrooged was a dreadful, dreadful movie. It made me want to stab myself so I could feel better.

Scrooged is awesome. David Johansen!

Most of these movies I would never seek out on my own again, but if I were to stumble on them at midnight on cable I would pretty pleased and might leave them on.

xpost

Carol Kane etc. Best version of the Dickens book no question.

I remember really liking Hudson Hawk, but haven't seen it in forever. And Twin Peaks FWWM is great. But I love Clue so so so so much, it gets my vote.

Haha I loved Clue so much as a kid that I campaigned to have it shown at a 5th grade pizza party, with the class chanting "CLUE! CLUE! CLUE! CLUE!" at the vote. Kind of been avoiding revisiting since I figured it wouldn't age well. Are y'all praising it dealing with ancient recollections too or is it busted out frequently?

I should note this was a pretty nerdy "gifted/talented" class doing the cheering

i liked But I'm A Cheerleader! campy. so that one.

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective - sequel was better
But I'm A Cheerleader - very entertaining movie
Cabin Boy - haven't seen it all the way through
Clue - i recall liking it
Final Destination / Final Destination 2 - i've heard good things, but i've never been interested
Flashdance - what a feeling
Freddy Got Fingered - masterpiece
Happy Gilmore - very entertaining, think i prefer billy madison though
Hudson Hawk - always had a soft spot for this movie
The Outsiders - zzz
Predator - fucking classic
Scrooged - i liked it as a kid, haven't seen it in years
Speed Racer - *flips off monitor*
Summer School - don't remember much except that there was a character that was obsessed with horror movies
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me - very good

you should at least see the first FD, got some really macabre moments (though more on a Brian DePalma level than more recent transgressive shit). I actually didn't care much for Scrooged as a kid but got like 75% more of the jokes when I saw it two or so years ago (Richard Burton impersonations were kind of lost on me when it came out).

I "get" the Speed Racer cult but jesus a little of that movie goes a long way, how many times am I supposed to watch heads float by

Exactly. I'm fine with colorful/energetic but I'm not THAT freakin' ADHD

Clue is awesome, I didn't know the critics had panned it. Why would they?

Haha I loved Clue so much as a kid that I campaigned to have it shown at a 5th grade pizza party, with the class chanting "CLUE! CLUE! CLUE! CLUE!" at the vote. Kind of been avoiding revisiting since I figured it wouldn't age well. Are y'all praising it dealing with ancient recollections too or is it busted out frequently?

I saw Clue as a kid on the Finnish TV and taped it and watched it over and over, because I thought it was awesome. Kinda had the same fear as you when I rewatched it with my friends a couple of years ago, because I hadn't seen since my childhood, but it held up surprisingly well. My friends liked it too, and none of them had seen it as a kid.

Voted Ace

Are y'all praising it dealing with ancient recollections too or is it busted out frequently?

I didn't see it until some point in my early 20s - still thought it was great.

i'm with you guys all the way about fire walk with me and clue. had no idea people had started championing summer school? seemed okay, but does it really belong here?

Summer School is another movie me and my friends loved when we were kids, but I haven't seen it ever since. I can still recall the gore scene and the "100 word essay" joke, we used to find them hysterical.

I've watched Clue (or parts of it) on cable several times in the last year or two, and it holds up really well imo

ami the only person who'd never even heard of Summer School before this list?

nope

It was movie that almost no one saw when it came out, and I would hardly call it a cult classic. I liked it when I saw it, but I was shocked to see it on this list. xp

My elementary school used Clue for years as the perfect anodyne afterschool movie.

Motherfucking Predator.

one day I'll get around to watching Cabin Boy and maybe even Freddy Got Fingered, but until then i gotta go with Summer School.

Are y'all praising it dealing with ancient recollections too or is it busted out frequently?

Because of this thread, I watched it last night. The girlfriend had never seen it. It's got a lot of big laughs. It had been long enough since I'd seen it that I got jokes that I always missed as a kid. Like Curry getting misty when explaining that his wife had friends who were (*choke*) socialists. And: "Why is J. Edgar Hoover on your phone?" "He's on everybody else's phone, why shouldn't he be on mine?"

i haven't seen 'clue' since about 1991 but i thought it was lol then fwiw

hudson hawk is fucking execrable imo

I assume you have to be American to get anything at all out of "Freddy Got Fingered"?

tom green presumably thought it was ok and he's canadian.

i'm not sure tom green comes from earth, let alone america

Freddy Got Fingered is pretty much proto-Tim and Eric Best Show, Great Job!. Your reaction to that statement will pretty much parallel your reaction to the movie, I'd guess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9hgSZOSBFc

People liking Ace Ventura is baffling to me. I'm reminded of Lisa Simpson on Carey: "He can make you laugh with a mere manic flailing of his limbs".

Freddy Got Fingered is pretty much proto-Tim and Eric Best Show, Great Job!. Your reaction to that statement will pretty much parallel your reaction to the movie, I'd guess.

Probably, as I've never heard of "Tim and Eric Best Show"

no excuse for that after a hoy hoy's sterling 00's decade tv poll tbh

Never heard of that either

I don't really get the recent championing of "Freddy Got Fingered" as some masterpiece of surrealism or postmodernism.

i think the championing of it is the surrealism aspect, tbh

Hi, everyone. Lots of these movies are available on Blu-Ray so be sure to check them out. Come in and ask for Jason. I'll also help you discover how to get the highest resolution on your new HDTV.

holy lol

google ads really upping its game imo

I don't really get the recent championing of "Freddy Got Fingered" as some masterpiece of surrealism or postmodernism

I enjoyed a lot of FGF, but the way I'd enjoy it if someone yelled "FREE RANDY NEWMAN!" while streaking at the Grammys. Fine to see someone waste their 15 minutes on creating goofy shit but can't pretend their next-level thinkers.

they're, rather

i'll sit through any "this person is momentarily famous, so we, the hollywood money men, will let the inmate take over the asylum in case he turns out a hit" movies at least once.

A selection, strongo, for your perusal:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_1oCvOtxoTFI/R4vo2x6GL-I/AAAAAAAAAcM/UDF-ib-xnjM/s320/cover.jpg

http://moviechopshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Penn__Teller_Get_Killed.jpg

http://recaparama.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/chairman_of_the_board-1.jpg

http://moviesthataregay.com/fromjustintokelly.jpg

http://www.coolcinematrash.com/wp-content/gallery/cant-stop-the-music/poster.jpg

I love Tim and Eric, hated Freddy Got Fingered.

Speed Racer then Final Destination.

i liked Summer School, but I wz pretty shocked to see it on this list, which is prolley why I overrated it a bit in the above pov post...it has the whiny hot chick from Melrose Place who I've always had a thing for, and of course Kirstey Alley in it...

Penn and Teller Get Killed is a really odd duck. I kind of like it.

http://recaparama.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/chairman_of_the_board-1.jpg

haha i forgot this was a real movie and not just a beautiful norm joke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL0WayC7jW0#t=03m11s

3:11 btw

hey yeah that's the Melrose Place chick...!

del that might be my favourite youtube clip ever posted here ever...

The Clue writer-director is a Brit whose subsequent filmography takes quite a nosedive after My Cousin Vinny:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0528718/

I taught The Outsiders to an 8th-grade reading class of Somali kids and they loved it, but the movie felt wooden.

BTW, I meant I was surprised critics hated Predator, not that audiences like it; same with Ace Ventura and Happy Gilmore. Is it that these particular figures were inspiring a backlash along their popularity arc?

Hudson Hawk and Scrooged seem more like cult films, though I liked them okay on video.

Speed Racer has a wafer thin plot, pedestrian dialogue, a twist you saw from the start and hideously annoying fat kid/monkey comic relief and is about an hour too long. It is absolutely astonishing to watch and the hyperreal, super saturated look is a sugar rush for the eyes.

Scrooged can't really be a cult film, it was the 13th biggest box office hit of 1988

Penn & Teller Get Killed was so bad and ridiculous – Penn Jillette's ego is just epic.

The climax is him showing up at this psychic surgeon's place of work and brashly debunking the shit out of him in front of an admiring crowd. iirc he also brags to a chick he is trying to seduce that he knows Lou Reed. It is the movie that quickly made me sad he had ever been a hero of mine.

he also brags to a chick he is trying to seduce that he knows Lou Reed

Haven't seen the movie in eons, but surely this was a self-deprecatory touch? (or a Hey This Is Just a Character with My Name wink) I saw a lot of P&T onstage at the time, and while it didn't afford such pleasure, it seemed totally in keeping w/ their established image.

The Clue writer-director is a Brit whose subsequent filmography takes quite a nosedive after My Cousin Vinny:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0528718/

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Thursday, June 24, 2010 6:36 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

he/his distributors just massively fucked up the release of his newest only this week. a caper movie a la 'fish called wanda' with emily blunt which came and went w/o press screenings or indeed any promotion whatever. i saw a trailer for it in about march. sterling effort all round.

It is the movie that quickly made me sad he had ever been a hero of mine.

And it's directed by Arthur Penn. Serious WTF.

Haven't seen the movie in eons, but surely this was a self-deprecatory touch?

I read it that way, too.

basically the only dialogue I remember is Penn saying how women hate the 3 Stooges

can't stop the music has one really good scene

When I finally saw "Speed Racer" I thought it was pretty awesome, but I watched it over the course of an afternoon, pausing now and then and picking it up in-between chores. Not too sure I would ever want to watch it again.

Count me as one who doesn't get the "Freddy Got Fingered" = surrealist masterpiece cult. Last time I saw it, it seemed to rely too heavily on child molestation & incest jokes.

it's really more autobiography -- at least two of the scenes are pulled from his life growing up in Canada.

I voted "Predator" because on multiple levels it is one of the defining movies of my generation. Crazy alien vision, amazing one-liners, two body-building governors, the gratuitous mid-air arm wrestling contest, etc. A simply amazing, infinitely perfect distillation of 80s muscle-head action flicks.

Speed Racer is pretty decent! Bear in mind it's purpose is just to be goofy eye candy, but just for the crazy technical achievement in how it got its superflat look, it's worth something.

Too hard to vote b/w Scrooged, Predator, Clue and Gilmore, though.

I haven't seen Speed Racer bcz slocki said it was like "being inside of a migraine," which was exactly the type of description that kills any interest I have in a movie.

the fact that the Wachowskis don't know how to make a movie should be enough to keep you away from Speed Racer.

It's like being inside of a migraine more or less like any given anime is. So if you can bear to watch anime, try it out! It's not just one long podrace, either...

i fell half-asleep throughout all of it so it was the opposite of a migraine (an ambien?) the half-dream felt like skittles.

the fact that the Wachowskis don't know how to make a movie[

I think they may have forgotten. But don't know how?

voted for speed racer, figuring that fire walk with me is gonna crush all competition (that and predator). the racing scenes in speed racer are mostly a drag, crucial flaw, but i loved the movie overall. very faithful to its inspiration, but still fresh & modern. take out the endless loop-de-looping, and the rest of the film isn't at all migraine-like. it's bright and cartoony, but not terribly aggressive. charming, really, despite the saccharine gloss.

clue is awesome though. probably should have gone for that.

it's really more autobiography -- at least two of the scenes are pulled from his life growing up in Canada.

― Philip Nunez, Thursday, June 24, 2010 6:28 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

if every movie that had a couple scenes based on the filmmaker's own experiences was considered an autobiography...then, well, almost every movie would be an autobiography.

human centipede

at least two of the scenes are pulled from his life growing up in Canada.

Also true of Speed Racer, Predator, and Clue.

I think they may have forgotten. But don't know how?

yeah I think their formal skills are atrocious - my mind boggles at their success

Speed racer is a really fantastic film, I think. It's sort of stupid-clever (which is to say, clever and thoughtful about being stupid) rather than clever-stupid (which is to say, stupid about being clever and thoughtful -- i.e. their version of V), and they do a good job with the deeper theme running through it, which is a different sort of twist. feels a bunch like Josie to me, actually.

"yeah I think their formal skills are atrocious - my mind boggles at their success"

what do they do exactly, though? the martial arts was outsourced to a respected HK pro, and I can't imagine they can get super-hands-on with the CG, other than "I like it to shine this way, not that way" I don't feel like any of their movies stand or fall based on narrative skill.

i love speed racer, i'm loling just thinking about that christopher hitchens looking guy's giant rotating asshole head

I pretty much like the ten or so of these that I've seen. I'd be more willing to accept FGF as some undersung work of absurdist genius if Tom Green's TV schtick didn't make me want to impale my eyeballs with a rusty coat hanger. I am actually a bit curious about it tho tbh.

but in the end it is:

Leland/BOB vs. Predator

What would be better than all of these: a feature-length monologue of Norm Macdonald ripping on Carrot Top.

I'd be more willing to accept FGF as some undersung work of absurdist genius if Tom Green's TV schtick didn't make me want to impale my eyeballs with a rusty coat hanger.

See, the problem with this being the critical reevaluation of choice is that, even though I do like the movie, I wouldn't in a million years call it a work of genius. It's a stupid comedy with a lot of absurd and frequently very dark humor, and I'd say it's about on par with Dirty Work in terms of laughs and quality. For every scene that never fails to crack me up, there are two or three that just don't work.

As an aside, when I saw Ace Ventura 2, it was with my dad, and when it came to the rhinoceros scene we both laughed harder than we had ever laughed before!

too bad about the rest of the film, but yeah, rhino scene in AV2 is all-time classic megalols

"I wouldn't in a million years call it a work of genius."

As awesome as the sausage keyboard is, there isn't the kind of invention that would normally qualify as a genius, but It's certainly work of a singular, personal vision,
and closer to David Lynch than Michael Bay on the auteurism axis. I'm in favor of more bad movies failing in this way than say, like Stealth.

two body-building governors

"I ain't got time to bleed" became title of Ventura's book. So wait, can I blame this movie for paving the way for Tim Pawlenty? I will say of Ventura's governorship, it was rich to see the looks on the newscasters' faces the night he won.

Carl Weathers 4 guvnah 2010!

this stuff will make you a goddamn sexual tyrannosaurus, just like me

Correction: Carl Weathers Bill Duke 4 guvnah 2010!

fwiw, Tim Pawlenty could never convincingly sport a fucking gattling gun & approx half-mil rounds of ammo & make it look like its no big thing. So I guess that means "no cred"

Pawlenty been pushing too many pencils!!!

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