Overrated? Oh yeah!

Finding underrated films is easy. Everyone can tell you a bunch of movies that they love that really didn’t get noticed by the general public.

The same can be said for movies that everyone loved that you believe shouldn’t have tons of attention. For me there are so many, most recently with “Sin City” which I walked out of and demanded my money back (I have a little problem with men smacking around women… and when it happened for like the fourth time that was it.)

But for the purpose of this blog I decided to focus in on two movies that are seriously overrated. I used a simple way of choosing these films; both of these films won an Academy Award for Best Picture and shouldn’t have.

<>First is “Titanic” which at the 1998 Academy Awards beat out three of the best films in the 1990s; “Good Will Hunting,” “L.A. Confidential” and “As Good As It Gets.”

It not only beat those films for Best Picture, but won 10 other awards (basically sweeping the night.) I still feel the same way about “Titanic” now as I did almost 10 years ago… “Uh… people liked this movie?” We know it wasn’t the best acted film of the four, “As Good As It Gets” had three acting nominations and two wins. “L.A. Confidential” nabbed Kim Basinger a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. And say what you will about Robin Williams, but no one can argue that he was an acting tour-de-force in “Good Will Hunting,” and won the Best Supporting Actor award.

No, I do not know why “Titanic” made billions of dollars… nor do I care. It was not the best movie of 1997 by any means and therefore is vastly overrated.

<>Another head scratching Best Picture winner is “Gladiator.” I still remember my initial thoughts walking out of the theater, “It was long and some parts really dragged.” Now I am not disputing Russell Crowe’s performance or Best Actor win, but the film was nowhere near as good as two other Best Picture nominees that year; “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Traffic.” Both of those films were so well made that you were so emotionally invested in the characters. <>I am not saying “Gladiator” is horrible (I don’t want Crowe to throw a phone at me or something) but it is really overrated. I especially love the horrid mistake visible in the film of the gas canister that is shown to flip one of the chariots over during one of the fight scenes (someone should have caught that) and Best Picture winners shouldn’t have such glaring errors. The error can be seen here:

http://www.bsnews.org/pictures/images/1153466988_movie_mistake_gladiator.jpg