Hello, dear reader!
Avid readers of my blog are no strangers to some of my more controversial opinions - I'm constantly defending the much-loathed final season of Game of Thrones (2011-2019), the generally beloved Kill Bill films were at the very bottom of my Tarantino ranking, and I even have an inexplicable amount of love for Batman V Superman: the Dawn of Justice (2016). However, there are some opinions that I've been afraid to state, as I've thought they might alienate some of my readers due to how much they differentiate from the norms of the movie world. I figured that I've been ashamed long enough, so today I'll gather my courage and post this list of all the weirdest movie opinions that I have!
10. Lazenby is the best 007
Poor George Lazenby - Bond fans never really gave him a chance. Personally, I think that his negative reception is largely due to the fact that he was the immediate successor of Sean Connery, the original 007. People didn't want things to change, so they immediately turned against the actor who followed Connery in the role. Lazenby's performance in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) is some of the best acting from any Bond film, and he really makes the role his own. Too bad that his time in the role was limited just to that one movie.
9. Spielberg is overrated
I wouldn't go as far as to say that Steven Spielberg is a bad director - he does know his way around a camera and a film set. His films are often good, thanks largely to skilfully written scripts, high-budget production design and talented actors. However, as a director, I've always found his style to be quite bland and uninteresting. It's always some other element that blows the viewer away in his films - the visual effects in Jurassic Park (1993), the historically intriguing story in Lincoln (2012) and so on. The actual directing, however, ranges from poor to mediocre in my opinion. And to think that this guy has more Oscars than Steve Harwell...
8. Godfather III is the best Godfather
I'm not here to talk smack about The Godfather (1972) or The Godfather: Part II (1974) - obviously great movies in their own right. I just happen to see The Godfather: Part III (1990) as the culmination of the trilogy, and the overall best film in it. Al Pacino shines more than ever before in the lead role as Michael Corleone, and the presence of Sofia Coppola as his daughter Mary adds a lot of dramatic gravitas to the movie. The three-film spanning mob epic is brought to a brilliant end, making for the perfect closing chapter and thus my favorite part of this wonderful trilogy.
7. Parasite didn't deserve Best Picture
Parasite (2019) does many things right, but overall it is a bit messy and certainly not the best film of 2019 in a critical sense. It grinds my gears that in a movie year full of true masterpieces like Gemini Man, Pet Sematary and The Dirt, the most prestigious award went to this over-ambitious piece of pseudo-art. I do appreciate Bong Joon Ho's directing, but all-in-all the blend of comedy and horror elements with societal criticism doesn't really work, and the ending is quite uninspired.
6. Back to the Future is honestly pretty boring
As a kid, I was excited to see the much-hyped Back to the Future films that everyone seemed to love. Especially for a fan of time travel fiction, you'd think these movies would do the trick - sadly, this was not the case. While the sequels do improve on some of the elements and are fairly watchable, the original Back to the Future from 1985 is a notably eventless and uninteresting film to watch. The visual effects are decent for the time being, but the entertainment value and dialogue just aren't quite there.
5. I prefer the Ghostbusters remake to the original
Let me start by stating that 2016's Ghostbusters remake is far from perfect - but neither is the original 1984 comedy, that cinema buffs still continue to put on a pedestal for some reason. Between the bad guys of the film being environmentalists and the heroes being the embodiment of Republican ideals, the film is nothing short of Reagan-era right-wing propaganda. While the 2016 remake does suffer from its comedic timing a bit, it at least has something important to say with its feminist message, making it the ultimate better film out of the two.
4. Jared Leto is my favorite Joker
Choosing one's favorite Joker is a tough job, as there have been many great actors to fill the shoes of the iconic supervillain role. While I do appreciate Heath Ledger's anarchist take on the character, Joaquin Phoenix's realistic depiction of mental health struggles in the role as well as Jack Nicholson's psychopathic gangster, my favorite version of the character comes from the Oscar-winning DC film Suicide Squad, where the legendary trickster is played by Oscar-winner Jared Leto.
Leto's Joker doesn't get all that much screen time, but the way the character is written into the film is absolutely unique - it's almost like he isn't involved in the film's plot per se, but appears just to be the legendary larger-than-life supervillain, making the film all the better.
3. Forrest Gump is a terrible film
So, let me get this straight - in a year when The Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction and Kickboxer 4 came out, the Best Picture Oscar goes to this disjointed and poorly aged film. Between the film's toxic love story, clichéd soundtrack, gimmicky visual effects and glorification of the Vietnam war, I just don't see what's so great about it for the life of me. And don't even get me started on the overrated Tom Hanks mumbling platitudes for half of the film's runtime.
2. The Star Wars prequels are better than the original trilogy
The Star Wars franchise is one of those things that gets better with age. The original trilogy sets a strong foundation for the franchise, with a solid premise but a lot of flaws to improve upon. This is exactly what George Lucas's prequel trilogy does: what the franchise desperately needed in its original run was more comic relief to connect with the child audiences, more CGI to make the sci-fi world more believable (a puppet Yoda? Really, original trilogy?), and more mature and engaging plotlines such as the trade federation's embargo of Naboo. The original trilogy also failed to have a real emotional core, but the prequels more than make up for it - Anakin's (Hayden Christensen) "I don't like sand" monologue never fails to move me to tears.
1. Cats is a vastly misunderstood piece of art
As I mentioned in my ranking of my favorite movie musicals (click to view), I am simply baffled about the overtly negative critical reception that Tom Hooper's Cats adaptation got. The film is loyal to its theatrical source material, the visual effects are groundbreaking and unique, and the song sequences are just amazing. Just when you think that they won't delight you with yet another cat introducing themselves through song, they go ahead and do it again, adding to the whimsical magic of this severely misunderstood masterpiece. Cinematic art at its finest.
...Oh, and a happy April Fool's Day to everyone!
Tune in next week for some actual opinions, in the form of my ranking of the 10 greatest Modern Family episodes.
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