Some Of My Unpopular Opinions:
* The death of Scarlett O’Hara’s daughter is the campiest scene in GONE WITH THE WIND, unintentionally hilarious as dramatized.
* And aside from a few effective set-pieces, the movie as a whole isn’t much better.
* Bob Dylan *is* great, but some of his more esoteric images that get debated endlessly are just a guy trying to find any shit that rhymed. The guy who walks around with a Siamese cat, in “Like a Rolling Stone?” Is only there to rhyme with “that.” And much of “Blowing In the Wind” is guilty of the same sin.
* Ditto Lennon and McCartney. In some of their more surreal songs, they were honestly throwing shit at the wall and hoping it stuck. It just did. (And the same is true of Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”)
* Despite my adoration of Harlan Ellison’s work, and I can name any number of examples, the aired version of “City on the Edge of Forever” is better than his original teleplay, in multiple ways.
* Similarly, I am not a fan of “The Deathbird,” “The Region Between,” and a number of other stories of his that get excessive praise. (I am a fervent partisan of others that don’t get enough. I think “The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore” was brilliant.)
* People need to stop climbing Mt. Everest.
* Keanu Reeves and Ben Affleck can act. And Wil Ferrell has been known to be brilliant. Multiple times.
* The Geico Cavemen commercials presented some of the most incisive satire about the impact racism has on its targets, of modern times.
* H.P. Lovecraft was terrible. And in many ways he’s been bad for horror.
* In fiction, uncomplicated good guys are not always inherently less interesting than characters who dwell in darkness. Dick Tracy, for instance, is not less interesting than his gallery of villains.
* Except in spots, 2001: A Space Odyssey doesn’t hold up very well at all. A Clockwork Orange is a better movie…and so is Barry Lyndon.
* Woody Allen got better after ANNIE HALL.
* Pears taste better than apples.
* THE GIRL WHO LOVED TOM GORDON is one of Stephen King’s great books.
* THE MOSQUITO COAST is Harrison Ford’s best work.
* With only a couple of exceptions, Tim Burton is not very good at this moviemaking trick. Indeed, for the most part, he really sucks. He has some visual sense, but his storytelling is incoherent and often cloying.
* David Lynch’s best movie is not any of the ones that play with dream-like imagery, but his most conventional, THE STRAIGHT STORY.
* In both comics and movies, the Joker needs to go away and not come back for a long, long, long time. So does the Kingpin.
* The Penguin is a GREAT villain, as written by some.
* In the real world, Captain Bligh got a raw deal.
* Wyatt Earp is still a legendary figure because he lived long enough to make friends with movie people.
* Zombies are not only not hackneyed, but a rich literary and cinematic trope, of great potential that is only occasionally realized. And George Romero is wrong about THE WALKING DEAD “ruining” the device.
* I don’t want to see the Taj Mahal, nor do I want to go to Venice. I have been apprised of the *full* sensory experience, and no thank you.
* No, I don’t think the movie theatre is a place to see special effects extravaganzas, while reserving smaller and more personal movies for home. Similarly: I don’t think the opportunity to turn off my brain for two hours is a plus, when picking my entertainment. I want my brain and my feelings engaged. I am not depressed by sad movies, only by empty ones. I left the most recent STAR WARS movie feeling a little disgusted with myself for having seen it.
* Hamsters make terrible pets. Rats, however, are great.
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