Last (x) Movies you are going to Avoid

I know we all love to waste our lives inside the black box but there is only so much you can tolerate. This is a negative thread so please be that.

Youth (Paolo Sorrentino, 2015)
Anomalisa (Charlie Kaufman, 2015) - this looks terrible
Hail, Ceasar! (Coen bros., 2015) - a cast to avoid

I was just thinking this about Anomalisa, like ten minutes ago

I will not allow myself to watch A Bigger Splash. Not that trailers are remotely an indication of how good a film is going to be, but the trailer for this is so pervasively nauseating that it would be a triumph of editing were it somehow to not reflect accurately.

Now that awards season is over, I no longer feel like my avoidance of The Revenant, The Big Short, Mad Max: Fury Road, Room and The Martian is that big of a deal, so I'll just continue quietly avoiding them now.

Youth is the worst Sorrention, and the first he's made in a long time that doesn't at least have that wonderful Sorrentinoesque editing, but it's still fine. Looking forward to A Bigger Splash!

teh danish girl
steve jobs
hateful 8

o yea room also def

Brooklyn

A War! Fuck that propagandistic crap.

Youth was a shade less revolting than The Danish Girl; both movies you can point and laugh at.

will avoid:
Oliver Stone's Snowden thing
X-Men XVIII or whatever
Independence Day 2
Star Trek XXXVIII or whatever
Eastwood/Sully
Magnificent Seven remake
Harry Potter spinoff
Star Wars spinoff

will wait for streaming:
Zootopia
Deadpool, maybe
Finding Another Fish

I thought I was pretty positive & unpicky about films but pretty much everything listed so far I am either avoiding or wish I had avoided

I think the sole exception is Independence Day which I will proooobably see one day even though it looks extremely terrible

Anything Terrence Malick puts out. I have come to accept the fact I find his films shallow and boring, and can no longer be bothered to try.

(I mean, I rarely go to the cinema to catch new films anyway but I don't really see that as actively avoiding films, just... failing to go to the cinema.)

Oh right, now that Oscarbait season is done, Deadpool is thing I give the least shit about.

Might only watch Stone's Snowden thing because of JGL, but still a big maybe.

emil.y, I'm with you on Malick (after Thin Red Line).

what movies have you willingly watched recently that would make you reconsider the actively avoid list by comparison?
(my having watched zoolander2 means I can't really have an actively avoid list anymore)

how is malick "shallow"? of all the ways to go at the guy...

I don't think he's shallow, more like he's got these few things to say and repeats them ad nauseum. I will avoid the new one.

This is supposed to be a solely negative thread, so no defending! Though I guess to me 'shallow' = I appreciate the look of his films but the underlying messages and themes completely fail to resonate with me. I just get nothing deeper than 'oh, I guess that's quite pretty'. You might get something more, but I find myself unmoved.

all of them

Thirding the Malick disdain. Tree of Life felt achingly empty to me. I cannot gel with his very measured, almost clinically literary tone, and don't understand his emotional palette at all. I keep falling for the hype that surrounds him, but I don't think it will happen again.

As usual, you put it much better than I can. I often love "achingly empty" films, but that's normally when the emptiness is intentional. Whereas Malick seems to be desperately trying to impart something, but when I look I find nothing.

Youth is the worst Sorrention, and the first he's made in a long time that doesn't at least have that wonderful Sorrentinoesque editing, but it's still fine. Looking forward to A Bigger Splash!

― Frederik B, Sunday, March 6, 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The reason for this thread is that a friend & I were going to see it and then got there and it was sold out. We were both dreading it, knowing it was going to be complete and utter shit but liking some of his previous work.

Another friend dragged me to A Bigger Splash! and it was so banal - this barely disguised ad for the Italian tourist industry (even if good things don't happen) so you should avoid it if you can.

The even bigger reason is that 2016 has been terrible for films. Rams by Grímur Hákonarson looks like this quirky Icelandic film I just don't care for. The Revenant is a complete fkn joke.

In parallel the BFI has been running a Godard season and his work from the 70s onwards (never mind the 60s) has been putting everybody to shame.

Dreading the end of this (next week is the last of it). If I am able to I always like going to the cinema.

I know we aren't suppose to defend film, but Rams is delightful... If you all didn't see Of Horses and Men by Benedikt Erlingsson, you need to do that as well, and they're kinda the same film.

dunno if something can be both quirky and viscerally crushing but this is a thread of hatred so on we go. obv i am never watching The Revenant ever

Even though I set-up the thread no one needs to follow all the rules (not that there are any hard-and-fast rules) so yeah defend if you happen to watch and like it. Obviously I'm saying 'no way' on the basis of a trailer or a review of it or what I hear about it. xp

The rams trailer made it look like quirky deadpan comedy but it's like straight tragedy. I liked it, probably in large part because it wasn't the former - as we were leaving my friend said "imagine if that had been a British film" and we both shuddered at the thought of the fucking michael gambon rhys ifans bullshit that would be

youth really was pretty bad -- glacial male-artist sorrow (certainly the end of something or other, one would sort of have to think), that one guy who only plays quivering bureaucrats as a quivering bureaucrat, all dialogue clearly written but not spoken in esl which gave the whole movie such a stilted uncanny feeling i almost liked it. liked the giant marx tattoo i guess.

anomalisa was perfect on its own extremely limited and unpleasant terms.

the coens have been at the top of their career since burn after reading so i am very excited for this obviously slight one.

anyway, deadpool.

The Revenant, The Danish Girl, the Dakota Fanning trans boy movie, most of the foreseeable superhero movies, Zoolander 2

all of them

― mookieproof, Sunday, March 6, 2016 12:49 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm.

I am the Joey Chestnut of avoiding movies

had no idea stone was making a snowden movie; that's unnecessary. idk if there's a scene in oliver stone's whole oeuvre better than the fire alarm sequence in citizenfour unless it's the one where joe pesci's wig comes off.

Rams should be seen just for the awesome images of Iceland :) They have this whole boom of cheap films filmed around the countryside, using the landscape and many amateur actors. All of the films have names like Rams, Sparrows, Volcano, Virgin Mountain, Of Horses and Men. It's a style, kinda.

Yeah, Youth is pretty bad. Sorrentino has only made 'big-male-sorrow' films. His last three films were male-artist-sorrow, but before that it was politician and mafiosi. It's definitely the biggest failing of his filmography, and Youth is really doubling down on it. The guy is still just 45, why are all his films about men growing old and irrelevant? But he is a good picture-maker, and Youth has good pictures.

When Tree of Life came out the local alt-weekly ran two reviews: "I Saw The Tree of Life, and I Loved It" and "I Didn't See The Tree of Life, and I Hated It." I'll always love Badlands and should get around to watching The Thin Red Line but nothing after that has had much appeal.

The only 'my god what rubbish' reaction I've had to a trailer recently was for The BFG, but after the disaster of Tintin I was unlikely to see another Spielberg kids' movie anyway.

The trailer for Hail, Caesar pretty much gives the entire movie away - and does so in a far snappier fashion than the film itself. Ralph Fiennes is the standout turn in H,C but even that wasn't enough to make me see A Bigger Splash, especially after I read a really arsey interview w/ the director in Sight and Sound.

And yes, Youth was unrecoverable in any coherent critical way as a 'good' movie, but it's not an especially interesting bad movie either. The corollary of its male-artist-sorrow is a gross sexism and general disregard for any of the female characters (Rachel Weisz and Jane Fonda probably give the best performances in the film, but they're marginalised and trivialised when set against mouldy Michael Caine and mumbling Harvey Keitel). Also thought This Must Be The Place was a turd, so yeah, it def feels like Sorrentino loses something quite crucial when working with an English Language script.

The Big Fucken Giant. Never saw Tintin but I will do my duty and watch it as part of the big Spielberg project. But I get to stop at Bridge Of Spies, then my commitment ends, so the BFG can G the F O.
Never watched Avatar, Titanic, Independence Day, any Jurassic Park sequels, I watch a hella lit of bad ibdies but I can't be bothered with that shit.
Still Alice, my mother keeps trying to show me and I am "no thank you"

Fast/Furious films, Saw films, TV spinoffs...

The director of A Bigger Splash is Luca Guadagnino who made the quite good I Am Love, so def seeing A Bigger Splash.

I watched Synecdoche New York two days back and decided to give Anomalisa a pass.

guys if you're not hating on days of heaven you're hating malick wrong

its like if you're really going to hate oasis you can't just start hating with 'be here now'. you have to commit to your hate. it's like hating only the late u2: fuck that.

i am love is a garbage movie for garbage people

oh my god rain on a statues face it looks like the statue is crying fuck me did your 5yo cowrite this thing

anomalisa is a great title for a mediocre mid-90s indie record

dlh's thing on youth and esl kinda makes me want to see it, or at least make a movie that uses the same trick to some effect

Non-english speaking people has been doing this for decades.

'Oh look at this stupid director, he isn't even a native English speaker, and he still thinks he can make a global film! lol, what a weirdo.'

'Meanwhile, isn't Eddie Redmayne amazing as a Dane, let's give him all the oscars!'

i think there was more to dlh's claim than that tbh

Anything with "today's comedy superstars" US version - people I generally find unfunny (Louis CK, Tina Fey, The Amy's Schumer and Poehler) ---everything I've seen them in up to now a resounding dud so no thanks.
Anything by Lanthimos
"Anomalisa" was a real chore.

Also - no more Baumbach. Or Ben Stiller ( he just seems fed up in everything).

Yeah the BFI fawning over Cruise was disgusting. It's kinda weird how all discourse around him is now The Last Movie Star, Save Us Mr.Cinema, etc.

The franchise WAS good but Cruise himself has become a weird presence in them. He's just not that fun anymore.

last good movie he was in was Edge of Tomorrow. Don't talk to me about the Top Gun sequel - not going near that shite!

Better jingoism than the original

I dunno, a jingoism that won't even say who the dreaded Other is for fear of losing international box office seems pretty weak to me.

ive been thinking about the scene in minority report where cruise weans himself off a super addictive drug by force of will. an addiction that wasnt set up well and had no purpose in the plot. i imagine spielberg rolling his eyes while directing it.

Ward and Daniel otm re: BFIs behavior. What happened to #metoo? The guy should be treated a bit morrle like Polanski. Whether you want to watch it is up to you and I guess if something is good then its difficult to navigate, but institutions like the BFI should not be giving this time of day.

Yeah I guess it's more abstract than Polanski where you have an actual victim, events, etc. to point to but no matter how you cut it the church of scientology is an abusive cult and Cruise's support for it should be more of a red line than it seems to be for most.

Almost a parody of the kind of film this thread was created for:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlN1Mmj6YNo

the life of chuck: he's here to fuck

I saw a shorter trailer that was like FROM THE MIND OF STEPHEN KING… AND THE HEART AND SOUL OF MIKE FLANAGAN and there were big laughs and groans from the audience

christ, the thought of how many terrible mike flanagan monologues must be in that script is deeply troubling.

Superman, 28 whatever later..

lol c'mon xyzzz have you ever watched a Marvel/DC in the theater?

summer tentpole movie happy gilmore 2, the trailer of which seems to be imitating the ai simpsons trailer.

xp - I watched the last Nolan Batman with some work colleagues at the time. Was being sociable then.

Nothing but respect for my (unmade) Marvel movie

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/5418-marvel-mon-amour-stan-lee-and-alain-resnais-s-unmade-monster-movie?srsltid=AfmBOopGuEUuDA303Y3NkoWfXosZTbsjuSlmLvMiI3ZpxtQXYXKtXvd7

Awesome. Resnais maintained that he made v serious films because most film back at the end of the 50s was frivolous and fun.

Some of his later films were more at the frivolous end, comedy drama and musical. They got to be more frivolous and fun as films got more serious.

Afternoons of Solitude

I like Serra but yes, doubt I could watch this.

https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/afternoons-solitude-albert-serras-immersive-encapsulation-matador-life

Would like to offer myself up for an Onion interview: "Humorless Old Filmgoer Expresses Curious Lack of Interest in Spinal Tap, Naked Gun, and Happy Gilmore Reboots."

Insane to remake these films. Cinema deserves all its getting.

Don't particularly care about ST and NG even though I like the originals. HG occupies this weird space where I was chronologically the right age for the original but had no interest in it, and was even actively annoyed by the bits of it I did see. And yes, I do have one good friend my age who is totally pumped for these movies (the upcoming Spaceballs as well). Nostalgia is a weapon.

My own antipathy aside, I wouldn't claim insanity. These films will make what, a billion dollars between them? (Maybe the Spinal Tap film won't be that big, I don't know.)

Ì feel like Spinal Tap doesn't have that kind of draw for theatres but also I have no idea how the western film industry works in 2025 and I just assume everything is a tax dodge

As a Sandler vehicle, Happy Gilmore 2 is on Netflix, so we're not getting any box office numbers for that one.

I'm excited for the Naked Gun reboot, due to the talent involved and having laughed at jokes in the trailer rather than any attachment to the franchise.

Spinal Tap I was never huge on and I certainly don't think new laughs can be wrung from the concept in 2025.

Happy Gilmore 2 is almost certainly like every other piece of Sandler netflix product, not interested.

I don't think any of these will be huge hits commercially tbh but who knows.

The Naked Gun was lame.

Le Shock

I love original RoboCop and Karate Kid and Naked Gun, but the last thing in my mind is to even check these remakes out. Thinking that the actors could simply be replaced, the story tweaked, the imagery updated and hey presto! Is that it? Its no biggie, I've not ever engaged that much with entertaining Hollywood output since I was a teenager.

But I can think of maybe one remake in the few I've seen that is comparable with the original.

https://solzyatthemovies.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/12-Angry-Men2.jpg

12 of them, but two are smiling. They don't look angry at all.

That new Aronofsky thing. Trailer is absolutely hideous.

Still recovering from Mother!; that and Pi are all I've seen, hated them both.

One Battle After Another

Just jk. I was either nonplussed and couldn't stand There will be Blood but like Inherent Vice a lot so will be watching.

Seeing OBAO tonight with my boys. Stoked!

i mean OBAA

I'm not a fan of There Will Be Blood either but have found much to admire in most of his subsequent films.

I loved Phantom Thread but refused to see Licorice Pizza because I was sick of lovingly recreated 70s scuzz. If I see OBAA it will be the 70mm print at AFi Silver. Thank you to everyone who has posted in this and other threads blocking for spoilers.

This thread may or may not be the safe space for stating that I hated One Battle After Another. Brash, superficial and altogether too pleased with itself to pay any attention to character development, coherent plotting or insightful subtext. "But that's the point!" they say, and they'll be wrong. Reminded me of why I didn't like Raising Arizona either, or most other screwball action flicks come to that.

By all means post!

What scenes seemed pleased with themselves?

I sensed a general air of smugness, too much self-conscious Tarantino-esque* dialogue and contrived scenarios like DiCaprio's tunnel escape and the Lockjaw/Perfidia boner scene. What can I say, I might enjoy those scenes in another film but something about this rubbed me the wrong way. If I'm groaning in despair at the 20-minute mark I have to admit I'm not enjoying it!

Also the 'Lockjaw joins a secret society' subplot was stupid and should have gone. Those people would have been fine with him forcefully impregnating someone non-white so long as he made sure to abandon the resultant offspring! Makes no sense. Perfidia just disappears from the storyline halfway through, or did I miss something? A day after seeing it and I can't even recall anything about DiCaprio's character. Various other characters - the nuns, Willa's grandmother, most of the French 75 - come and go so fast you barely notice them arriving.

It's a shame because there were elements of the story that could have made for a worthwhile film - showing what a military takeover of civilian areas might look like, or how political disillusionment can set in among former radicals. The revolutionaries are in many ways doing what they do for the same reason (an amorphous idea of 'freedom') as the military. Everyone's politics are utterly half-baked and confused. That could have been a bleakly ironic plotline if they'd followed it.

On the plus side, Chase Infiniti and Benicio del Toro were excellent. The story should probably have been about them and Perfidia, not the sub-schlub stoner guy.

* I haven't seen any of this guy's films past the horrendous Kill Bill Vol.1, I admit

I'd prefer if you pasted these comments in the proper thread; some people won't see it.

Didn't want to stink the thread up with my negativity! Or get into a lengthy argument about it, I wasted enough time watching the thing in the first place. I think PT Anderson is not for me...

Anyway to return to the thread premise, the next movie I'm going to avoid is the Guillermo del Toro Frankenstein thing, looks dire from the trailer I saw.

you're making it sound awesome, lol

sorry i was referring to OBAA

Perfidia just disappears from the storyline halfway through, or did I miss something?

have you ever seen any other film in which every character doesn’t appear in every scene

do they all link arms and dance toward the camera singing in the final shot or

the film is set in California

With Matt#2 on Del Toro's Frankenstein. I wish he'd go back to Spain and shoot something there - my favorite films of his were made there. He peaked for me with "Pan's Labyrinth".

Saw a trailer for Nuremberg yesterday, which seemed like a massive exercise in exploitative bad taste, with Russell Crowe as Hermann Göring the capper:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/sep/08/nuremberg-review-russell-crowe-rami-malek