I can’t figure out why some songs, TV shows, films, etc. are loved by millions of people but do nothing for me—or worse, I can’t stand them. Some examples:

Tim Burton. If you’ve seen one Burton movie, you’ve pretty much seen all the others. Burton movies usually look like an Edward Gorey cartoon come to life, the storylines are incoherent, and characters are usually weird or unlikable (or both). 

• Batman: Some good lines, but Nicholson’s Joker overshadows the Caped Crusader.
• Batman Returns: Too confusing, too silly (penguins used to deliver weapons of mass destruction) and too many villains. 
• Planet of the Apes: Crap with an ending that makes no sense. 
• Nightmare Before Christmas: TV-holiday special crap. 
• Edward Scissorhands: “Hey, kids, Suburbia is weirder than anything a mad scientist could create!” Wow, what an original message.

Steven Spielberg. Spielberg has his moments of brilliance—Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and The Color Purple were great—but my God, does he put out some crap: 1941, Temple of Doom, Hook, Jurassic Park (I and II), War of the Worlds, A.I., etc. Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Ehh. E.T.? Maudlin tripe. And I despise Saving Private Ryan so much that I have a special entry about it. 

Saving Private Ryan. Have you ever noticed how everyone talks about the first 30 minutes of the movie but not the rest of it? That’s because the first half hour is sheer brilliance and the rest is crap. One would think that the story is about a mission to recover Private Ryan, who is behind enemy lines. But inadvertently, it’s the story of how bad a leader Tom Hank’s character is. Given the task of getting Ryan, Hank’s Captain Miller goes off-mission several times, losing men in firefights that they can easily avoid: in the first such fracas, his medic gets killed! After finally finding Ryan, he lets the private bully him into sticking around for another easily-avoidable battle that gets more of his men (and himself) killed. I’d be all right with the movie if it really WAS about how much of an idiot Miller is, but as it’s not meant to be that, it just makes me shakes my head as to why people fall all over themselves praising it. 

Harry Potter. I’ve read the first three books and seen the movies, and while I don’t think Harry Potter sucks, I just don’t see what everyone is so revved about. My older daughter disagrees, having read each of the Potter books (six, as of this writing) several times and has seen all the movies (four, currently).

Stephen King. When I was a teenager, I devoured King’s stuff and loved ‘Salem’s Lot, The Shining, The Stand, and Pet Sematary. But he started to lose me with Firestarter, and it only got worse with Cujo and The Talisman. After reading It and The Dark Half, I was done with King. Just because one can write two books a year and publish anything with one’s name on it doesn’t mean that one should. King is verbose and many of his endings are weak, and I don’t waste my time on his fiction anymore. 

American Idol. And we need more bubblegum pop singers because…why? And we need another reality-TV show where ordinary people are humiliated for the amusement of the great unwashed because….? 

The Matrix. Yeah, the martial arts moves are cool, but pardon me if I don’t emit a Keanu-like “whoooooa” at The Matrix. You see, I just can’t get past its fundamentally silly premise of humans being kept as a source of energy. What—it’s easier for the all-powerful machines to create and maintain a thoroughly-convincing virtual reality, imprison millions of people, and fight the insurgency led by Neo and friends, than it is to build and run a nuclear reactor that would supply the machines with all the power they need? Sorry, I like my movies with something more than cool martial arts and stylin’ clothes. 

Here's some more stuff I don't care for....
 

Posted August 2006