Movies that I Don’t Like…

But lots of people do.

I did a blog on various movies I should have seen by this point in my life. Sadly for me, I’ve apparently spent a small portion of that time on some other movies that either other people told me I’d enjoy or are considered “classic” by the world at large. What follows is a handful of those movies, and why I never really either “got” it or just why I don’t care for it.

If these happen to be your favorites, just remind yourself that I am also the guy who likes A Knight’s Tale and you’ll quickly forgive my stupidity.

Funny Games

This is one of those critically acclaimed movies that I had never heard of before I stumbled onto it one late night. And I watched this strange horror movie play out much like many horror movies play out. Two youths who have little to nothing better to do end up terrorizing a family throughout.

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Nothing to see here, right?

Except the main villain constantly breaks the 4th wall, a twisted Ferris Bueller. And while strange, I don’t have a problem with the idea of talking to the audience. It made things a little different, and offered a little bit of spice to the viewing.

Until the villain is able to literally rewind the movie at a certain point to change the outcome back into his favor. I immediately checked to make sure I hadn’t done it myself, or just been in a dream world along with the characters in the movie, but no… that just happened. And for some reason where I was willing to go along with every other tweak or oddity… that was just too much for me to deal with.

And really, that should have been the very thing which put it over the top for me.

A Clockwork Orange

Fundamentally I don’t get the love for this movie. Oh, I get the idea of showing the future as something disturbing, a distopia where violence is celebrated by the youth of their time. And is forcing someone to not be the way they were supposed to be, “curing” them of their afflictions the right way to go about helping bad people or is it a case where you have to want to change. You have to want to be cured?

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All great questions.

But watching the movie I felt like it was an assault on my senses (and not in a good way). Violence shown for the sake of violence being shown. Kubrick certainly does his job of putting us in his protagonist’s world where feeding oneself is the only rule that you should have.

It was just one of those that I don’t think I could deal with. Too much.

Raising Arizona

Chalk this one up to seeing it on HBO on an almost daily basis back in the late 80s. At first it was this funny little movie about a couple stealing a baby and the guy’s wacky convict friends trying to get involved and then there is a bounty-hunter at the end.

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And it was fine (a word my wife thinks is a 4-lettered word when I say it).

But as time has gone on it became this rallying cry for people I knew. Everyone had seen it. Fine (there it is again!). But they all LOVED it. I mean this was one of the greatest movies they’d ever seen. They spoke glowingly of this stupid movie where the convict buddies are “birthed” during their escape. It was almost like they wanted to apply some higher-level thought to what should have been a fairly simple movie.

And for some reason, with every utterance of glory heaped upon this movie, it transformed from “Fine” to “Ugh” to “that f-ing movie, really?!?”

I haven’t watched it since. I can’t do it, because while there is a thin hope I will find enjoyment in it once again, there is just as much of a chance that I’ll remember every little “glorious” idea, and it will grate on me during the entire viewing.

Airplane!

Wait! Don’t click away. I have an excuse. I had just gotten my wisdom teeth removed that day. Hopped up on painkillers my friends decided to stop by and brought something they thought I’d get a chuckle out of. Instead what I saw was a slough of things that my drug-addled mind just did not think was funny.

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Nothing will make you realize how surreal things are when you are the only one NOT laughing at a funny movie. And that was my experience for EVERY joke they told.

Given the circumstances, I’m willing to give it another try, but I can never bring myself to actually do it. I’m sure if I did it would end up giving me some kind of psychedelic style flashback where I’m 18 again and worried about some high school test.

That is not what I’d like to remember, thank you very much.

 

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John McGuire

John McGuire is the author of the supernatural thriller The Dark That Follows, the steampunk comic The Gilded Age, and the novella There’s Something About Mac through the Amazon Kindle Worlds program.

His second novel, Hollow Empire, is now complete. The first episode is now FREE!

He also has a short story in the recently released anthology Beyond the Gate, which is free on most platforms!

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.