Popular (book, movie, etc) that you simply don't like.

[diebitter]

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I kept waiting for Commodious to introduce his friend Biggus Dickus.

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Goddamit, I missed this earlier. Dam ya eyes, you just made me laugh really loud in a really packed, really quiet office.

[sharkbitten]

TV-I despise any reality show.

Movie-Independence Day
Everybody raved about it when it came out and I actually bought it on Laser Disc [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] sight unseen, watched it, and thought it was pretty stupid.

[tuq]

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The Bible

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LOL.

Regarding Independence Day, that's a great answer because it seemed like a very popular film with a huge box office and the only reason my friend and I enjoyed it in the theater is how ridiculously contrived everything was. Huge fireball shooting down a freeway tunnel? Hey no problem I'll just duck into this small nook and survive just fine! Randy Quaid & Co. drunk off their ass? No problem, they'll sober up and learn from scratch how to fly fighter planes inside of an hour! So bizarre that people bought into this film.

[tuq]

As for reality TV, that's fine if you don't like it, but if you're looking down your nose at it because you think you're better than the entire genre, I think you're missing out on some good stuff.

The Amazing Race continues to be a compelling show even after all these seasons. There is a bit of an eyeroll at the constant "bunching", but some of these teams are so much better than others that they would be days ahead of some of the others and the logistics of getting people and equipment to certain places for each challenge dictates that they all be fairly close together. Plus if they didn't have the bunching there would almost never be a close finish. This show has a great mix of teams that you really like and teams that you really hate. Good casting.

That said, my two favorite "reality" shows ever were two that make fun of the genre. My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss unfortunately didn't even make it through the season, although the rest of the episodes were later released online. It had the misfortune of being scheduled opposite one or two blockbuster shows so the ratings were terrible. It featured a fake CEO getting contestants to complete ridiculous tasks and being a jerk, like referring to the women as "broads" just to test their reaction.

The best though was probably Joe Schmo II, an incredibly hilarious show that also suffered from weak ratings. It also had a really awesome ending. It was a cast of fake, obnoxious contestants built around two real ones, was wonderfully written, and managed to actually have a touching resolution.

[Blarg]

I guess the thing is, so many of even the best ones seem utterly random and trivial. I can't imagine caring who wins a race or treasure hunt or whatever. It's not straight out looking down your nose at all of them, though that might figure in, but that the appeal to so many seems non-existent. The shows seem to exist just to fill time, and I need something more than that. So much so that I'd find watching lots of these shows actually outright depressing.

[Droogie]

I agree with loads here...

Reality TV
Gladiator (horrible movie)
Deer Hunter
Scarface
Lord of the Rings (how to rape a fantastic book)
Dan Brown's books.

I will add:

American History X. It's okay at best, don't like the ending and find the sudden change of mind in the main character very unconvincing. Also the curb scene does nothing for me.

Schindler's List. Have tried to watch it 3 times now, have not managed the 45 minute mark yet as it bores me to death before that point. Will try again in the near future.

Will and Grace. Let's throw a few homosexuals in and this will be funny. No it isn't. Even worse than Friends.

The Departed. Just a terrible ending and overall just the worst Scorcese movies I've seen so far. My biggest peeve with it is that if you would take out the female psychologist alltogether, the movie would be exactly the same. And since I loathe such Hollywood fluff, well...

Signs. Even though many people don't like it, it still got good reviews. Worst plot ever, the whole movie makes no sense whatsoever. Absolutely terrible movie.

And one last thing I'd like to add are superhero movies/books/comics/whatever. I don't like them at all, in any shape, form or way. No Batman, Superman, X-Men, etc. for me.

[Blarg]

Agree on The Departed, definitely. A gigantic disappointment from Scorcese. Shame on the Academy for ignoring him for so long, only to finally give him an oscar for that crap.

[daveT]

The Departed was a movie that you could only see on the big screen. I would never watch on a TV.

As for Stiller, he is so far off my own map that I never realized he was popular.

[tuq]

Regarding The Departed, I really enjoy that film and I'm predisposed to disliking formulaic flicks. When my mother was visiting earlier this year, she made a point to rent that so we could watch it together. It was the only one she rented. Also, I was hanging out with a friend in LA a couple of weeks ago and that was on HBO and we found ourselves drawn into it. Twice, both in the afternoon and after we'd gotten in from the bars.

On top of the interesting storyline (aside from the pointlessness of the love interest, even though she *was* hot), it was loaded with actors I think are outstanding - DiCaprio, Marky Mark, Matt Damon, Nicholson, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin.

Blarg, regarding reality TV, I do think you're being curmudgeonly about it. Which is fine, it's not important to me whether you like any of it or not. I don't like most of it either, but some I do enjoy. The thing is, just like a scripted series, these shows are edited to give us villain, heroes, and drama. As an aside, the networks must love successful shows because they pay the cast members next to nothing, vs. a show like Friends where towards the end all six cast members were getting the king's ransom per episode to stick around by the end of its run.

[Blarg]

Yeah, the savings are enormous, so there's a lot of appeal on the supply side for them.

I am curmudgeonly about lots of things, and plenty deserve them. Regarding "reality" shows, I am bothered by their lack of reality -- much of it is actually scripted, I'd bet, and the rest is very far from how people would act without a camera on at the time -- and their implied assertion of reality at the same time. It feels like a silly gyp. They are neither fake nor real, but something grotesque in between that we are asked to play along with in order to believe and care about. I don't really feel like playing along. I don't see the point. I feel hustled and like an extremely shallow and stupid part of me is being assumed to exist, and then being pandered to. I don't particularly want to live in that world which is created on the assumption that I'm a vapid idiot and then sets out to reward me for being a loyal one and buying in. No thanks. I don't want the t.v. to be a friend to me, especially one that presumes I'm a moron.

I'll play along on some shows, the type where people actually have to display concrete skills, like Survivorman or Top Chef, rather than dumb ones made up on the spot, like throw a coconut and vote each other off the island. That just seems imbecilic. If I'm that tragically exhausted that I would want to watch a bunch of douchebag wanna-be actors doing stuff that's basically random, it's time to turn off the t.v., maybe take a nap or something until I regain my focus and self-respect again.