This, nevertheless, a fair point.

The Monkees established themselves as joking at their own expense in the first five minutes of their first season on television, but they were still lame.

A mediocre band named Greta released an album titled, This is Greta. Colorful letters on a dark foreboding background. I imagine you would accuse them of probably unintentional ridiculousness and/or misjudging ironical distance.

Actually, it was titled This Is Greta! As a matter of fact, I know the album—reviewed it years ago—and I would. And despite having repented of my many sins as a former rock snob, in this case I would stand by that verdict.

Ironical distance is taking oneself meta-seriously. I didn’t see any evidence of that in The Boondock Saints.

For the record, I think The Departed is objectively worse: arbitrarily misogynist, despite a lack of explicitly misogynist characters; a far more sincere attempt at intrigue with less payoff. The comeuppance Departed concludes with proves that film took itself completely seriously, as does the awful scene in which the pro(?)tagonist moans to his beloved floozy psychiatrist, “I’m Irish. I’ll put up with anything.” Maybe it was meant to be funny. It’s hard to infer. Regardless, there’s a movie that misjudged ironical distance.

Boondock Saints established itself as a weird flavor of action-slapstick in the first five minutes, right about when the boys were let off for self-defense. After winning a kind of obviously arbitrary battle by dropping something off the roof, or something. Facing rather intense danger, the Irish guy offers his Russian adversary a drink and grinningly, not-exactly-mockingly invites him to be Irish for the day. Wildly implausible. Completely goofy. Clearly slapstick.

A mediocre band named Greta released an album titled, This is Greta. Colorful letters on a dark foreboding background. I imagine you would accuse them of probably unintentional ridiculousness and/or misjudging ironical distance. That would also be incorrect.

Put it this way: if they were shooting for evident ironical distance, they misjudged the distance.

Hmm. I see a distinction between hating a film and nominating it for universal disdain. Also, you defer unquestioningly to authority institutions (Oscars, AFI) rather than setting forth some common characteristics of these movies that would make them unhateable. I have nothing against the AFI, mind you – but they’re not going to determine my taste. They won’t even significantly influence the standards by which I attempt to judge films semi-objectively. That’s probably true about most people.

[...], but it’s a big player in the Probably Unintentional Ridiculousness sweepstakes.

Are you claiming Boondock Saints took itself even remotely seriously? Seriously?

I can comprehend nominating it for Quite Obviously Intentional Ridiculousness That The Director Probably Found A Lot Funnier Than We Did LOL, but that’s an entirely different subcategory of bad (and this category has already been won, handily, by the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie).

Speaking as a hater of Forrest Gump, and simultaneously a hater of pretentious anti-”mainstream” film snobbery, I’ll explain myself.

I don’t think in any technical sense that Forrest Gump is a “bad” film. It’s well-acted, the cinematography is brilliant, it pioneered many of the technologies used to integrate the titular hero into various historic events.

I nevertheless found it hard to enjoy when I saw the central message emerging that Ignorance is Virtue. Forrest is a paragon of American heroism, successful in everything from football to war to ping-pong diplomacy to the import-export business, because he is unquestioning.

Sometimes the underlying message makes a real difference. I find “ignorance is virtue” to be a genuinely destructive and dangerous message, in much the same way (if not to quite the same degree) that I think 300 is actual in-your-face fascist propaganda rather than Totally Gay, Harmless Fun. That it comes packaged in slick cinematic technology and technique makes it more insidious and more dangerous.

Stuff like this is a big part of the reason I take such offense at the negative attentions film geeks lavish on innocuous films like Juno. There ARE really hideous movies out there that are making the world a worse place, but Ellen Paige hasn’t starred in any of them yet. (Unless Hard Candy is extremely evil, I haven’t seen that one yet.)

For Forrest Gump and A Beautiful Mind, I attribute my disaste to a strong family history of diabetes.

Adam re: Good Shepherd… okay… but how do you have feelings that strong about a movie you can’t remember? This is just a little alien to me; any true stinker I’ve sat through (Alexander, for example, which my friends wouldn’t let me leave since I dragged them to see it) is burned into my memory in the most unpleasant way no matter how dull it was.

C M R: My rejection of those films was sparked by the suggestion (of slack and others) that people who find these films to be deeply unsatisfying are necessarily disingenous.

On the contrary, one doesn’t have to be consciously disingenuous to engage in ridiculous snobbery. I diagnose the backlash as analogous to indie rock snobbery not because I think indie rock snobs are disingenuous; they are, in fact, quite convinced at any given moment of their superior honesty and forthrightness and the depth and nuance of their opinions. (And by “they” I mean “we,” this being a sin of which I’ve partaken pretty extensively myself.) What makes a rock snob/ film geek backlash recognizable is the utterly predictable pattern it follows—INDIE FILM/BAND—> ACCLAIM —> CRITICAL RECOGNITION —> AWARD SHOW —> $$$—> HERE UPON THESE STONES WE WILL BUILD OUR BARRICADE!—and the typical incoherency of the rationalizations that accompany it. Juno is, for most cases of those who have discovered a sudden loathing of precocious female teens, a perfect fit.

By way of extending an olive branch, however, I completely agree with you that Lost in Translation’s treatment of the Japanese is in some ways unsettling. Nor am I by any stretch claiming to be one of those who finds Juno or Lost in Translation or Little Miss Sunshine to be paramount works of the cinematic art; I happen to think they’re just quite pleasant films that don’t merit high dudgeon. And if others think they merit higher praise than I’m willing to give, that’s up to them.

I do have to almost agree with those who’ve nominated Boondock Saints; not worst ever, maybe, but it’s a big player in the Probably Unintentional Ridiculousness sweepstakes. The reason I say “almost” is that the Willem Dafoe “reenacting the shootout” scene is so hilariously bad that it really must be seen.

This Adam guy is a real charmer! I think his pedantry is quite insightful and not at all tedious.

But I think the response is ever so slightly disproportionate to the admittedly egregious nature of C M R’s crimes.

All us people stand as one in hating absolutely every film that has been mentioned so far.

CMR, referring to himself in the third person, has things to say. Let’s hear them:

“Now that CMR looks back at this thread, though, he notices that MOST people are just broadcasting their own opinions, and in a manner not dissimilar to CMR’s (with first person pronouns and everythign!)[sic]

CMR was earnestly and sincerely [sic] trying to get a feel [sic] for how other people on the thread feel about movies, even if CMR though some explanation of CMRs personal approach was required [sic][sic][sic][what?].

So, CMR wonders, what is it that is REALLY so wrong with him that adam took time out of his day to delibirately [sic] attempt to humiliate CMR?”

Thanks, CMR. Great message. But …

You humiliate yourself. No help required. Anyone who refers to himself in the third person is, by definition, foolish. Any native English speaker who can’t spell “everything” is, by definition, tedious beyond redemption.