Entertainment Weekly has published a list (warning, it’s in a slideshow) of classic films that they feel are overrated. While I do agree with some of the choices, some of them are just egregious.
To spare you from the mindless drivel and the obvious attempt at trolling, here’s the list:
- The Way We Were (1973)
- Love Story (1970)
- The Sound of Music (1965)
- His Girl Friday (1940)
- Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
- An Affair to Remember (1957)
- The English Patient (1996)
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
- Forrest Gump (1994)
- Gone With the Wind (1939)
- Citizen Kane (1941)
- The Exorcist (1973)
- Doctor Zhivago (1965)
- The Wizard of Oz (1939)
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
- Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
- Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)
- The Philadelphia Story (1940)
- To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
- Annie Hall (1977)
Annie Hall? This list just feels as if it were written by self professed film geeks with an incredibly narrow world view of cinema. Not every movie needs to be directed by Tarantino, Spielberg, or George Lucas for it to be good. I’m sure the staff can’t fathom the reason Annie Hall won over Star Wars for Best Picture. I think it’s time to accept that Star Wars isn’t that great of a movie.
EW also lists Forrest Gump as an overrated film:
Tom Hanks is simply not good in this movie— he found an accent from a 10-year-old and used it throughout…and that’s about all his performance is. There are so many freakin’ flaws in this movie…still surprised how many people find it to be ‘’one of the best ever
You’re so quick to claim that the film is flawed, but don’t list any. I refuse to accept Hanks’ performance as a flaw. Sorry, it is probably his greatest performance, filled with incredible range, and subtly. There is one scene, I think, that clenched the Oscar for him.
When Forrest visits Jenny in her apartment, he meets his son for the first time. Forrest asks, “Is he smart or is he…?”
Hanks delivers the line with such elegance; filled with such fear and sadness, that it’s easily the best scene in the movie.
EW, please, do me a favor and get your heads out of your asses, learn a thing or two about the art of film (Just because The Sound of Music is partially lit in shadow does not, by any means, make it a “bad film”), and actually watch these movies without the pseudo-hipster attitude that this article is filled with.