Country: United States
Genre: Drama/Action
Director: Steven Spielberg
Year: 1998

Rating:

CLASSICS I HATE
First off, I don’t want to take anything away from director Steven Spielberg’s main accomplishment with Saving Ryan’s Privates: his depiction of the battle at Omaha Beach is a masterpiece of sound design, art direction, special effects, acting…hell, basically the entire arsenal of filmmaking. It’ll blow […]

Country: United States
Genre: Blackploitation
Director: Melvin Van Peebles
Year: 1971

Rating:

CLASSICS I HATE
It’s too bad in a way — Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song could have been a powerful motion picture. As it stands, it’s an interesting social document.
In the prologue, we find out that our hero Sweetback (Melvin Van Peebles) was snatched off the streets as a […]

Country: United States
Genre: Blaxploitation
Director: Michael Campus
Year: 1973

Rating:

CLASSICS I HATE
There isn’t a whole lot of action in The Mack. Sure, there’s a shootout before the opening credits, and Goldie AKA The Mack (Max Julien) wastes a few scumbags that went after him and his people late in the flick, but most of the running time […]

Country: United States
Genre: Action
Director: Andrew Davis
Year: 1993

Rating:

CLASSICS THAT I HATE
The Fugitive is by no means a terrible movie, but it isn’t the deathless classic people imagine it to be either. I put the esteem people hold this movie in down to three things: Tommy Lee Jones’ performance as U.S. Marshall Girard, a seemingly suicidal […]

Country: United States
Genre: Comedy
Director: Greg Mottola
Year: 2008
Rating:

CLASSICS THAT I HATE
Superbad is a funny movie. Not ha-ha funny, although occasionally it is that, too.
There are a handful of laugh-out-loud one-liners during the running time of Superbad. Just in case you decide to ignore my advice and watch the movie anyway, I’m not about to […]

Country: United States
Genre: Action
Director: Wolfgang Petersen
Year: 1997

Rating:

CLASSICS THAT I HATE
For me, the first warning sign that I wasn’t going to like Air Force One much was the uber-patriotic score played over the credits, before a single image has been viewed.
Maybe I’ve just lived through too many bad presidents, but I find that sort of […]

Country: United States
Genre: Action/Drama
Director: Ridley Scott
Year: 2000

Rating:

CLASSICS I HATE
Let’s get something straight. I don’t hate Gladiator, but when a movie gets practically universal acclaim, wins the Oscar for best picture and isn’t very good, I figure it’s my responsibility as a critic to say something.
Ridley Scott is a damned good director. He made the […]

Country: United States
Genre: Drama
Director: Marc Forster
Year: 2002

Rating:

CLASSICS THAT I HATE
You might think Monster’s Ball is a serious film about serious subjects like the death penalty, grief, racial prejudice and so on. After all, didn’t Halle Berry win the Oscar for her portrayal of Leticia Musgrove, the widow of a con executed by Old Sparky, […]

Country: United States
Genre: Action
Director: John McTiernan
Year: 1988

Rating:

CLASSICS THAT I HATE
Die Hard is probably the single most influential action film of the last quarter century, followed by Lethal Weapon and The Rock. How odd that none of these movies is very good, but I digress.
What are some of the major innovations to the genre cited […]

Country: United States
Genre: Action
Director: Michael Bay
Year: 1996

Rating:

CLASSICS THAT I HATE
The Rock, along with Die Hard, stands as one of the two most influential action movies of the past quarter century. That’s really bad news, because The Rock is also stick-a-finger-down-your-throat awful.
Brigadier General Francis X. Hummel (Ed Harris) hires a bunch of mercenaries to steal […]