Most Overrated...?

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dustystreet

New Member
List your choices of what you think are the most overrated. Note that this is an opportunity to list your own choices, not to disparage or discuss other people's! You may list two for each.

Film: Apocalypse Now, followed by Citizen Kane

Book: Catcher In The Rye, followed by The Bible

TV Show: Big Brother, followed by Eastenders
 

jimboalee

New Member
Location
Solihull
Film: Breakfast at Tiffany's & Thunderbirds, the movie (live action).

Book: Top Gear Annual 2010 & Top Gear Annual 2009.

TV Show : Darling Buds of May & Strictly come dancing.
 

WeeE

New Member
Star Wars (Zzzzzzzzzz....)
Dune (Zzzzzzzzzzz) (Most Pretentious Book ever. At least Dune the movie had one chuckle per hour, or it would be even duller than Star Wars.)
 

Flying_Monkey

Recyclist
Location
Odawa
Is there is any point in just listing things, without being able to discuss them?

Anyway, since posters don't make the rules here, I'm going to say Dustystreet and RT - Apocalypse Now, Citizen Kane and Bladerunner - WTF? That's all! A agree with you about the Thomas books though - the originals are beautiful and evocative and I have them all still.

Anyway, my choices - which are open season for discussion...

On films, the Lord of the Rings films must be the most overhyped overrated films ever. The books were pretentious enough (although of course I loved them as a kid) and then were given this awesomely hyberbolic over-emoted, unsubtle treatment where everything was just SO EPIC!!!! (and I mean the capitals etc.). But then most recent films are overrated and overpromoted... and since this one is the 2nd best film of the new millenium according to IMDB voters, it is definitely overrated.
Of supposedly quality films... I just have to pick The Shawshank Redemption simply because it is the popular choice for 'best film ever' and it quite clearly isn't by any stretch of the imagination. It's not bad, indeed it is a better than average film that tugs at the heartstrings certainly, but there are several hundred better films that are superior in all kinds of ways, including the three voted for by previous posters, so it gets my vote as most overrated just for that reason.

Music. Rush. Or is that just the worst? I don't know. But I run in sheer terror and in fear for my eardrums when I hear them. And yet so many people (especially men of a certain age) seem not only to be able to tolerate them, but to actively love them. And U2. Best before sometime in the 1990s. And Bono is not the messiah, and he's no longer even a naughty boy, he's just an irritating combination of earnestness, stupidity, ego and the writer of the worst lyrics ever (e.g. "a mole, digging in a hole, digging up my soul" gotta think of somehing else with 'ole'... awful).

Don't watch TV...
 

Ashtrayhead

Über Member
Location
Belvedere, Kent.
Films: Any of the 'Lethal Weapon' series - ridiculous plots, bad acting

TV:- Shooting Stars - I just don't find it remotely funny. Vic Reeves doing a very poor attempt at being Eric Morecambe.

Music (as FM introduced it!):- Led Zeppelin - dull, uninspired, boring drivel. No wonder they made so few songs. It's only the drummer who made a couple of songs listenable.
 

WelshYiddo

New Member
TV - aside from the obvious XFactor/Strictly/Celebrity nonsense I'd pick Only Fools and Horses :sad: Its not a bad comedy program, far from it. However I cannot see how it's constantly lauded as being the funniest thing ever. Que irate posts....

Music - Queen

Film - Titanic and (my wife will hate me for this) It's A Wonderful Life
 
U

User169

Guest
Music: The Lark Ascending (regularly seems to top the Classic FM charts)
Foodstuff: Fillet steak (prefer something with a bit more fight in it)
Actor: Al Pacino (yes, we know you can shout)
Item of clothing: cufflinks (why would you want to look like a barrister's clerk?)
Painting: Edvard Munch's "The scream" (adolescent daubing)
Film: Andrei Tarkovsy's "The Sacrifice" (watched several times - still can't make head nor tail of it)
Book: Brett Easton Ellis - American Psycho (not half as shocking as it likes to think it is -although not entirely sure whether it's "rated" in the first place)
TV: Anything presented/narrated by David Attenborough
 
TV Monty Python's Flying Circus. It had its good bits, but a lot of it was just juvenile.
Wild life programmes in general.

Book, Lord of the Flies. I was forced to read it at school, it put me off fiction for life.

Film, er, I have to admit to never going to the cinema, or watching many videos or DVDs so I won't comment on that.
 

tyred

Legendary Member
Location
Ireland
Film - Titanic - pointless and boring
Music - U2 - Irritating, pointless and boring and the lead singer is a total twat.
Book - Sir Nigel by Arthur Conan Doyle. I'm a big fan of Conan Doyle as a general rule but I just couldn't get in to this one. Much longer than it needed to be with no obvious plot.
TV - Any number or "reality TV" programmes or Eastenders, the most depressing TV series in history which seems to consist of nothing but people shouting at each other.
 
U

User482

Guest
Well, I thought LOTR was hugely enjoyable, and did a pretty good job of adapting the book. I don't think it was trying to be anything other than great entertainment, and in that, it succeeded.

But turning back to "overrated" - I give you The Great Gatsby. I must be missing something as I just found it to be extremely dull.
 
U

User169

Guest
User482 said:
Well, I thought LOTR was hugely enjoyable, and did a pretty good job of adapting the book. I don't think it was trying to be anything other than great entertainment, and in that, it succeeded.

But turning back to "overrated" - I give you The Great Gatsby. I must be missing something as I just found it to be extremely dull.

I think views on LOTR might well depend on what you think of the books; I've never got beyond the first 100 pages or so.
 
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