My pick: The Silence of the Lambs

Literally never got the hype, it’s an aggressively mid movie. Not scary. No deeper message. Just a snoozefest of a movie.

Bonus Pick: The Godfather

Although I did like the movie, I didn’t think it was top tier like its commonly placed. There’s a ton of pro-AmeriKKKan propaganda and undertones in it as well.

Bonus bonus pick: The Matrix

I can see why people enjoyed it, the themes are interesting first time around. I just found the action scenes and Keanu Reeves character incredibly cringy. Kind of ruined it for me.

Alright Hexbear what are the most overrated movies in your opinion? Feel free to call me an uncultured pleb in the comments too.

  • PKMKII [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    39·
    3 days ago

    Based off the IMDB list and the AFI list:

    Forrest Gump. Just a nostalgia montage, and the “mentally handicapped guy ends up being ridiculously rich by chance” plot in retrospect feels less heartwarming, more emblematic of how much the boomers got life handed to them on a silver platter. Plus it’s the poster child for the “you never go full r****d” problem with dramatic acting.

    Wife’s choice: Gladiator. Overrated acting, overwroughtly manly man schtick. Like, fine as an action film but not Oscar-caliber. Plus, I knew someone who was deep into ren faire and historical recreation and she was so annoyed it won the best costume Oscar despite there being costume elements involving metal working techniques that didn’t come along until the middle ages.

    • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      24·
      3 days ago

      It won the best costume Oscar despite there being costume elements involving metal working techniques that didn’t come along until the middle ages.

      That’s hilarious. I had no idea.

      • Belly_Beanis [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        27·
        3 days ago

        There’s a bunch. Rome wasn’t white marble, they painted the shit out of everything (also dicks graffiti’d everywhere). Over millennia, the paint wore off and people in the Renaissance didn’t have the technology to scan the marble, so they thought it was plain white. All the fascination with Greece and Rome during that era resulted in depictions of Rome as a white marble city. The show, Rome, has a more accurate representation of what the city would have looked like.

        In the opening scene, the “catapults” are trebuchets, something invented hundreds of years later for destroying castle walls, not launching fireballs. It’s like if you had a movie about the American Civil War and the Union calls in a drone strike using flag signals. Also, flaming arrows were never a thing (a lot of movies do this).

        The forest isn’t right, either. It’s a monoculture forest, which wasn’t something that existed until early industrialization when Europe had cut down too many trees. To make up for overharvesting, they planted as many trees as they could, using whatever they had available. Germania during the Roman Empire would have forests that were incredibly diverse, even during winter. There would have been dozens of species.

        You don’t slash/cut with a Gladius. You can because it’s still a sharp sword. But the primary method of using it was stabbing. They were meant to expend as little energy as possible while fighting in tight formations. The blade could easily slip between two shields while the shields were held up to block. Opponents with other weapons would have trouble staying in packed formations like the Romans could while wearing themselves out. Gladiator isn’t the only movie guilty of this, though.

        Those are some of the main ones. It’s still one of my favorite movies, but it’s about as accurate as Enemy at the Gates.

      • Kefla [she/her, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        15·
        3 days ago

        Any “historical media” that isn’t run by a complete history nerd with absolute control over every decision is going to have tons of shit like this. It’s almost all terrible for anyone who has a clue about the time periods being represented.