From IMDb:

'Titanic' Voted Worst Film Ever
Titanic may be the biggest box-office hit of all time, but in Britain it may also be the most despised film of all time. The 1997 film was voted worst film ever by viewers of the BBC show Film 2003 with Jonathan Ross. In second place was Steven Spielberg's sci-fi drama A.I. Rounding out the top five were: Pearl Harbor, Vanilla Sky, and The Blair Witch Project.

Excellent!

I've never seen Blair Witch, Pearl Harbor, or Titanic - they just don't seem interesting to me.

But I liked AI and Vanilla Sky. What can I say? I have no taste.

k

I have nothing against AI or Vanilla Sky, it was only the first placegetter that pleased me - my purpose in life is to make it to my grave without having seen it.

If they think Titanic was worse than The Blair Witch Project they didn't watch either very closely. If they think those two are in the top five, they either haven't seen very many movies or they have extremely peccable taste.

...my purpose in life is to make it to my grave without having seen it.

I'm right behind you if you need support, Max. The last movie I saw in the theatre was opening day for "American Beauty", and only because a local critic *panned it...

David et al

(Rant programme initialised.

Go.)

I'm Brit and I'm proud of the first place choice. I suspect the point is not really about the worst feature film ever (Ed Wood's Plan 9 from outer space is still in pole position for that - I've seen it and know this for a fact), but about the most overhyped. My favourite, for instance, in the sphere of literature - most over-rated novel of all time: Wuthering Heights.

To that extent, I think Titanic has to take the palm. I managed to avoid watching it for a long time until, stuck in a small town in Ohio one day, I had to catch it on video, or ritually kill the two cats and the budgie. So Titanic it was and, of all the appalling bits, of course, the worst was Heartwheel. I'd avoided the song for ages on radio and elsewhere, but when Canada's worst ever export (and I'm sorry, my Canadian friends - but after Neil Young and even Bryan Adams, did you really think you'd stockpiled enough goodwill to inflict this upon us?), starts going "Nee... faaaa.... wher AIvuh u aaa [dum dum dum, and then the awful exhortation] my heartwheel, go on..." my heart quails within me. Why does this blasted woman want to get rid of her heartwheel, and what does that have to do with Kate Winslet?

I'm sorry if you consider this peccable, but no - Titanic won about 2million Oscars, and not even one of them was deserved. So there.

(Rant over.)

cheer

the sunshine "I preferred Brief Encounter" warrior

Most overrated doesn't equate to worst. My choice would be Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Whatever you may say about Plan 9 from Outer Space it wasn't too long for itself. Attack… would have made a pretty good 20 minute spoof. At 87 minutes it wore itself out very early.

But hey, de gustibus non carborundum est, as I always say.

heartwheel...... In fact, i can't stop....

Have watched the movie. No need for further comment, I suppose; with that statement, I have already been hanged, drawn and quartered.

it was only the first placegetter that pleased me - my purpose in life is to make it to my grave without having seen it .

at last. somebody is saying "I've never seen it but I think it 's awful". how do you know? how one can have an opinion without seeing at least 10 minutes of a movie? personally, I think that "Saving private Ryan" and "Gladiator" are awful. But I endured the whole length of the latter and 20 minutes of the former, I hope I can say [bold]why [/bold] I don't like it.

Titanic is appalling as well.

And I have nothing to say about AI or Vanilla Sky.

Thank goodness my intentional mondegreen was not interpreted as a genuine mis-hearing.

Thanks Maahey.

And Faldage - you may well favour the Killer Tomatoes over the fake Bela Lugosi, and there is no abrading taste, no doubt, but most of us will have obscure films we know of, but they are unlikely to make lists purely on account of their obscurity. I mean, for goodness' sakes, I grew up in India - you think anyone brought up on a diet of Bollywood films doesn't have about 15 nominees that outshine any crap Hollywood has ever produced?

I agree that overhyped or over-rated is not the same as worst - but these are cultural lists and we probably need a shared vocabulary here - movies we could all be expected to have seen, or heard of, that truly aren't worth it. Films we were peer-pressured into watching that were truly a waste of our lives. Particularly the art-house ones we watched to be with 'intellectual' girlfriends. (Come to think of it, I think Ingmar Bergman is probably the worst director ever, from that point of view - never have I felt more like giving up on life than during Cries and whispers, unless it was during Fanny and Alexander. I can do arthouse with some of the best of them. I loved Wajda. I thoroughly loved the Werner Herzog festival. But Bergman sucks the life force out of me. He is the Darth Vader of cinema.)

Oh dear. I'm not sure why it is this topic has brought out my inner ranter. Apologies to all for my curmudgeonly intemperance.

the sunshine "You have suffered until you've seen Zehreela insaan" warrior

You have a point, Ravi. But I'll still vote against Titanic. I saw it in its entirety and while I wouldn't vote for it as the greatest story ever told I didn't think it was all that bad. Not worth seeing again, but there's plenty fit that category. I forget what it got its Oscars in but there's plenty things can be done well and still not make a movie good.

As you said, de gustibus non thingem

For what it's worth, another of my favourites, for overhyped or over-Oscar-ed films is The English Patient.

Go on, you can throw your tomatoes now...

over-Oscar-ed

You understand that one of the most important factors in who gets Oscars is who we should have given one last time but we couldn't because we were too busy giving it to someone we should have given it to the time before that.

Your reference to Bergmen movies reminded me, unfortunately, of a movie I just saw called Wings of Desire. I'd read about it on http://www.rottentomatoes.com where it had received an unprecedented 100% as well as the Cannes Award for Best Director. It's about an angel in Berlin who falls in love with a circus performer and wants to become mortal. Of course, it turned out to be one of the most tedious movies I've seen in quite some time; slow and depressing. Bergman would be proud.

I sometimes surprises me how vehemently people feel about something that has become phenomenally popular.

For instance, Céline Dion is one of the best-loved singers in America. She sells millions of records yet all of a sudden, all we hear is how people despise her. It has became uncool to like her and the Céline lovers don’t voice their opinion. Who wants to be uncool? Nobody wants to sit at the geek table so people don’t speak up...yet, as I said, millions of records are sold.

The same holds true for Titanic.

Can somebody with knowledge of psychology explain that phenomenon to me?

Oh, and for the record, French Céline – love, English Céline – not crazy about, Titanic – like enough to watch again when I’m feeling soupe-au-lait*.


I have no idea what the English equivalent of soupe-au-lait is. It’s when you’re feeling emotional and teary for no particular reason and anything will set the sprinklers flowing - a sad commercial, a misspoken word – anything. Soupe-au-lait literally translated means milk soup.

> Re: art-house
I sometimes surprises me how vehemently people feel about something that has become phenomenally popular.

Well, I disliked Titanic before it was released, so that lets me off that one, and I concur with your opinion of Céline - I like her French-language stuff, but dislike her attempts to out-Babs Streisand

I have a friend who, back in the late '60s, had decided not to read Catch-22 for the simple reason that it was on the NY Times best-seller list. In the period of about two weeks he was advised to read it by an ex-soldier, an ex-marine and an ex-sailor, all friends whose opinions he valued. He read it. He did not regret the decision.

In reply to:

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Who wants to be uncool? Nobody wants to sit at the geek table so people don’t speak up

---

I'm sorry, I thought this was the geek table, or at least the wannabe geek table.

BTW If you ever do find an English term for this soupe-au-lait thing, do let us know. I certainly recognise the feeling -- though I've generally attributed it to a blocked nose squeezing my tear ducts (without the slightest idea of whether this is actually an anatomical possibility). Otherwise the best I can come up with is "a bit weepy".

Bingley

Oh! Oh! Maybe it's...there are tear ducts and milk ducts, and...you know how, um, sometimes nursing mothers sometimes, um, well, leak with even the slightest of stimuli? Maybe that's the connection.

Could mean "milksop", I suppose, but the definition is a little wide of what I understand the mark for soupe-au-lait to be.

You understand that one of the most important factors in who gets Oscars is who we should have given one last time but we couldn't because we were too busy giving it to someone we should have given it to the time before that.

Does that mean that Peter Jackson will eventually get an Oscar for King Kong in a few years (since Lord of the Rings is being snubbed)?

I keep holding on to the belief that they are waiting to see the whole trilogy and then he will sweep the board with everything.

Bingley

I liked Cries and Whispers quite a lot. Sure, it was about depressed lives--but there was an acknowledgement of pure beauty in it. There are parts of that story--or those intertwined stories--that will never leave me though I haven't seen it in almost thirty years. Who could ever forget 'the tissue of lies' and yet the other dying woman's gift of the flower, a rose, I think. Liv Ullmann's fading beauty tinged with suspicion (or haunted hope)... It seemed (the movie) a kick to the consciousness that status quo values and behaviors can push people into little hells on earth, whether husbands and wives in loveless marriages or lovers in lustful yet loveless affairs. Maybe nothing new here--but that movie was cast in such a bounty of color and eye-awareness that Life breathed throughout it in a way that begged to be grasped. I can feel the sheets of the dying woman. That may sound depressed, but it isn't. Those sheets were clean and soft and white; and the woman who cared for the dying woman loved her.

I keep holding on to the belief that they are waiting to see the whole trilogy and then he will sweep the board with everything.

I hope you're right. I'd hate to have to boycott the Oscars.

FWIW, I found the original film treatment of Walter Lord's A Night To Remember far superior to the over-Oscared yarn...the latter I found watchable, however. Although I saw it at a theatre with a red EXIT sign blaring through the custom-mounted oversized screen.

FWIW, Bergman's The Seventh Seal, which I saw when I was 24, is one film I wish I had never seen. While classic tragedy like O'Neill or the Greeks ultimately affirms, raises life as it is, through, at least, the eye of nobility, The Seventh Seal left me exhausted in a mire of depressive nihilistic meaningless, so crushing that I actually didn't even feel like going out with two young French Canadian women (hi Bel! ) my brother had arranged a date with for us that night. It was so dark and depressing I still cringe when I thnk about that film to this day. I'd advise anyone to put Bergman's The Seventh Seal on your emphatic don't-see list. In fact, avoid it like the Plague. [that's an inside joke for those of you who've had the misfortune to see it]