Most Overrated Films

Let me first start by whipping out an apology from the bag.
Overrated is a vulgur term. It assumes superior taste to the masses and envokes images of self-opinionated dickwads with an infinity-probing ego.
Still, the title beats the softer-around-the-edges version that is 'Films Considered Great By Critics That I Thought Were Pretty Crap Or At Least Not Good Enough To Get So Much Praise'. So you'll have to rock out with an apology and an ego-centric title.

Lawrence of Arabia (1962) - Before I'm cast out and the villagers start gathering the torches, let me soften the blow. Firstly, I watched it on a channel so inadequete in the signal department that Peter O'Toole looked like a pixalized fuzzball in a turban. Secondly, there was a critical underestimation of the duration time and my plans of a mini camel and sand afternoon film failed miserably. Long before the final reel of film flickered on screen, either the sofa moulded to the shape of my ass or my ass moulded to the shape of the sofa. But excuses aside, this was one lengthy piece of borefest and I'd rather sell my soul to the arabs than have to undergo that strained-out sword brandising experience again.


The Rules of the Game (1939) - In case you missed it written thinly between the lines, I'm neither a film student nor an elbow-patched, corduroy wearing high-concept-art-favouring critic who psychoanalyses each nanodetail to enclypoedic levels. So watching this early French high society romp didn't move me in any direction bar the one leading towards the eject button. Sure, my ears have been filled to the brim by praise and the symbolic 'society dancing on a volcano' prewar angst but I refuse to squint, squander and pretend to see great depths where I can only ogle a shallow pool.


La Dolce Vita (1960) -This film was a tough nut to crack. With the raving appraisals and high-footed status this Italian flick is perched on I was damn right expecting the ground to move, a holy light beam to stream into the room and a major philosophical revolution to occur. So imagine how high my eyebrows were arched in suprise when I found neither profoundness nor deep-setted meaning but a run of the mill, overly-stylised version of the 'the ponderings of the upper class and pseudo-intellectuals' genre that was bundled and filmed the world entire. My expectation of an understated but effective melodrama was shattered by orgies, big busted babes strolling through fountains and textbook high-society musings.


The Searches (1956) - I should begin by not side-stepping around the topic and stating that the fickle hand of 'cowboy and indians' films has never tickled my fancy for several reasons: the deep-rooted smotheringly patriotic American 'manifest destiny' messages spread and stretched from the opening to the closing credits and the moulding of the west into a simple good guy-bad guy structure to help viewers digest popcorn without any guilt or conscience-itching. The Westerns that I always turn to involve a spewing, spurting, cigarillo-chomping, full-on-the-cojones heroic renegade dumping iron bullets into cussing, spewing whiskey-glugging gangsters. So, unsuprisingly, the bucket-load popularity of this John Wayne and John Ford outing is nothing bar a mystery to me. It was long, tedious and had as much appeal to me as a bathing in excrement.
Titanic (1997) - A film that received golden statuettes from every direction, shattered and stamped the box office records, filled James Cameron's pockets to the brim with the president-toting green paper and caused herds of women to tear-gush their way through Kleenex boxes. However, I've always found it to be a stereotype-strewn formulaic romance that slung the sinking chunk of metal as a slight-of-hand backstory to churn out more tickets. James Cameron. Stop dunking your hands deep into the piggy bank already.