Ten Times I Didn’t Hate The Film or Show But Absolutely Could Not Rate The Film or Show

Monday is movies. And sometimes TV. Today, the “Top” Ten Times I watched a raved-about show or film and thought, “really? REALLY?! That’s It?!?! THAT is what EVERYONE was on about?!”

Dall-E

You know how there are those buzz films that come about? All of a sudden everyone within earshot is asking if you’ve seen Barbie or The Best Erotic Boomer Motel or whatever it’s called. And nowadays the water-cooler talk is all about the Netflix show du jour, many of them designed like wallpaper — to watch through your phone, so you can doom-scroll your reels and watch the show (apparently).

Sometimes it’s very easy to say why you didn’t like something — even if you might be the only one. Like me with Floppenheimer:

I totally owned that shit 💩 — I was super happy to say what I thought, and a few people told me their “yeah, buts” and a few people told me I was the grinch and a few people agreed. But anyway, I had wanted to be impressed by this Spectacle Film, but by the end it would have been better if I’d left my spectacles at home and just had a nap in front of the blurry-ass screen.

I’ve said it a bunch of times from back in the day, and weirdly when I’ve been asked on panels and interviews and things, 1 star reviews are easy. And 5 star reviews are easy too. The tricky ones are the 2, 3, and 3.5 star reviews; where you didn’t flat out hate it but you can’t see why it’s being raved about elsewhere.

Here, in precisely the order they arrive in my head, ten times when I watched the film or TV show because everyone said I should, and I just thought meh — then threw a glass of water in my own face to make sure I could still feel anything at all. I didn’t want to go to war with the film’s makers but if I was sitting underneath the chin of a stroked cat I still wouldn’t be able to see the fuss.

1. JoJo Rabbit I watched this one twice just to make sure. First time I was a bit tired. I was away somewhere just ahead of Covid, and the film had been playing for ages and I could not summon the enthusiasm despite its rave reviews; the trailer just did not do it for me. Eventually I went. And just walked out thinking that’s it? Sure, some great use of music, and a fine production all up — but it was basically like the irreverence of Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds and the production values and ideals of Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom met, and decided to have a dance party in Taika Waititi’s head.

2. Russian Doll This felt like the first real time a show had been created specifically for the phone-browsing audience. The premise — she dies in every episode and is ‘living’ on and in a loop — allowed for people to pay only half their attention to it. I know a large part of the TV-watching world wants to curl up somewhere near the slight gravel of Natasha Lyonne’s voice. But that wasn’t enough for me.

3. Breaking Bad I’ve been told before that this is my Hot Take. In fact I outed it as exactly that. But I did not hate Breaking Bad I just watched it through and went, really? Really? People bought Walter White coffee mugs and formed a substantial part of their personality and water-cooler conversations around that?! I’ll totally admit here that I watched it a bit late, so that had something to do with it. I watched season one, felt no need to continue and left it. Years later I decided to see what the big deal was, and I’m yet to find it, or find out. Best people can do is tell me it’s awesome and I’m stupid for not thinking so.

4. Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 This film couldn’t be my jam any more if it was made out of actual jam. I kinda loved the first film — they are meant to be stupid, as well as full of gore and blood and guts. But this one, where the world is built, developed, explained or whatever, just felt way too convoluted. I sat there wanting to like it — and then left wondering why I’d forked out for a special preview screening. Gutted. But you can’t be totally gutted when you are going to something called Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 because, on some level, you’re getting what you paid for regardless of what they give you.

5. The ENTIRE Marvel Cinematic Universe Look, I’m no completist, I haven’t seen every film, nor many of the series’ and I won’t. But I’ve sat through a lot of this stuff, and it’s not ruining cinema like some film snob would tell you, but it’s sure as hell not improving it — and the time when it was (allegedly) saving it is over. Because like Taylor Swift propping up pop music, or JK Rowling reinventing reading, these things happen. And then the bubble bursts. And people crave more than the candy floss on a stick that this sort of thing is. I’ve only seen as much MCU as I have because I have a 12 year old son who has drifted in and out of approaching fandom — he’s never quite been there, and I wouldn’t stop him from either exiting completely or diving all the way on in. But I’ll happily accompany him on whatever aspect of the journey he’s attempting. And I think a couple of the films have been fun as hell. But most have been stupid, and not in the way that would seem obvious. They’re over-long, and somehow seemingly over-produced and under-developed at the same time. They’ll be remembered as that weird time when Comic Book Adaptations were ultra commercialised and monetised and it served no real purpose: The true comic fans were disgusted, the movie nerds that did get on board didn’t move over to the comics. It is a mild clusterfuck at best.

6. IT (2017 version) Huge Stephen King fan here, am sure I don’t need to go massively into that for justification. But, you know, started a podcast, and even collect most of the movies, let alone the books. But have never quite understood the fuss with this adaptation, the reboot of IT which is, to date, the most popular horror film on the planet. So it’s double-whammy of nonchalance from me, as both a King fan and a general horror fan. They did not at all botch this, but why did this take root in the way that it did? Barbarian is a much better horror film. The recent Scream comebacks were better reboots, Gerald’s Game was the best of the new era of adapting King, but this — a two-hour movie that is just part one of the story (sure, okay, it’s a long book, but the IT Chapter Two movie is dogshit, that should impact people’s ‘read’ of this chapter too, surely) — gets the nod? Not happy about that eh. Do not see what was so special about this at all.

7. Star Wars: Sequel Trilogy While I’m nearly ranting about multi-part things, and mega franchise properties, let’s casually place the sequel trilogy of Star Wars in the can-I-be-bothered-to-fully-start-firing line. This is Episodes VII, VIII and IX for children and, um, FULLY GROWN ADULTS playing along at home. These movies were not shit. They were almost a pleasant surprise, almost. (Low bar of the prequel trilogy helping there). Except for the fact that they served no purpose, didn’t need to happen, meant nothing, and simply repeated parts of what had happened before, with replacement characters and updates. I couldn’t get mad at this shit at all but I also could not see why people cared. Let it go. It’s not real. The original trilogy is middling at best, it just created/captured the blockbuster feel of the time. And the merchandise and marketing did the rest from there.

8. Ted Lasso Big fan of Jason Sudeikis right here. Loved him on SNL and when he joined Eastbound & Down, and several film roles. So I was excited to catch up on Ted Lasso, leaving it for a bit because of the low-key hype bubbling all the way up to, well, I’m not going to say fever pitch because of its pun-implications if nothing else, but yeah, Ted Lasso was the little show that could. And then it did! And so I started watching it and I felt the subtle/ish charm of it (it’s not that subtle by the way). But as the season rolled on I just couldn’t care. I didn’t find it terrible, I just didn’t want to find out what happened, and figured if anything it would drop off from whatever peak it had nearly climbed. I don’t miss it, am not concerned around missing out and this is the first time I’ve thought of it in years, as I search for numbers to complete this list. But yeah. Didn’t get its buzz really at all.

9. Mad Men In no world was this ‘bad’ but it was uninteresting enough for me to just leave it right in the middle. Three seasons in, I’m done. Tried again a bit later on. Loved the first couple of seasons, and the slight slow-burn of it, but also just felt it was going nowhere and they were working out Don’s arc as they wrote it. I hate that sort of TV writing. Waiting for the renewal then they can put their character in some more new hot water, or just leave them out in hiatus-land for a bit as a mystery that will return. Write your show properly. And make it good. You fucking heathen amateurs.

10. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

    I have wanted to like this — maybe even love this — for some 30 years now, since I fell under the spell of whatever Kubrick is and does. Until I saw this film, that is. I’ve loved all of his movies in some way, apart from this. This is the one I just do not care about, and do not get the fuss at all — for a while I figured it was simply that comedy, politics, and satire all date, and this being 60 years old now was already ‘out of date’ when I first saw it 30 years ago. But people say it is timeless. They marvel at the trick play of Peter Sellers turning up three times (that feels like a novelty, nothing more, no substance). And, yeah, I frankly just don’t get why this film is loved. I can see why any of the other Kubrick films that are adored have earned their stripes, but this one remains a mystery. And that includes watching it as recently as last year. So I doubt I’ll bother ever again. Will have to just leave it at that.

Dall-E

So, that’s the list. None of these things are complete duds, no way. But in my eyes, and to my ears, and in the way I view TV and movies, these are not the ‘classics’ or even “very good”s that so many people seem so sure about.

But what’s your take? Either on any of these actually being brilliant and so there. Or on the movies or TV shows you know to be ‘classic’ as far as everyone else says, and you know they’re not terrible, but they just did not do it for you. You invested the time, or started to, but you got a 2.5 star vehicle, when you were expecting a 5 star ride.