MovieChat Forums > To Kill a Mockingbird (1963) Discussion > Possibly the most over-rated film ever m...

Possibly the most over-rated film ever made.

posted 13 years ago by Melon_Blando
127 replies | jump to latest

This will cause much foaming at the mouth, I'm sure, and some people will call for the rope and demand a hangin', but I think To Kill a Mockingbird is the most over-rated, over-praised, over-evaluated, and over-esteemed film ever made.

People, it's just a hokey old B/W movie that tried to be the last gasp of the 50s, before the 60s really got going. Sentimental Pap. Formulaic, by-the-numbers mock-"Down Home" cliche.

If it hadn't had the exploitive race angle, it would have been exposed for what it is - a b-grade programmer.

[–] elskootero-1 11 years ago

You certainly have a right to your opinion, no matter how stupid it is.

[–] GiaJake 11 years ago

I have seen over 5,000 movies during my lifetime and love this movie. Attending high school during the 1960' s and 1970's, the book was assigned, but no one was ever shown the movie in class. The OP mentions in one of their posts that the movie was foisted upon students in the sixties and seventies. Not true at all. VCRs were yet to become commonplace, and no student was ever shown a movie in the classroom during that time.

In addition, the movie was several years old when I was in high school. If you didn't see it at the movies in 1962 (I didn't), you had to hope it came on Tv to view the movie. VHS was many years in the future, so you couldn't just go out and rent the movie either. I was puzzled by the statement that teachers assigned the book and presented the movie in their classrooms, which you feel has resulted in the popularity from my generation. The technology did not yet exist.

[–] ladyoftheisland 11 years ago

The technology did not yet exist.

You're offering facts based on personal experience? How dare you!

I have had in RL the "sorry, that is not what happened, I was THERE!" conversation and it doesn't even make a dent.

But I'm so old I'm astonished when I hear of students being shown film adaptations of classic novels in their literature classes, when did that start?

You just gotta laugh, there is no alternative.

[–] GiaJake 11 years ago

Yes of course, I am making a total a$$ of myself to even answer this thread that way. When the poster said they were in their sixties, I thought they would remember that the technology didn't exist. Sometimes I take myself much too seriously, but I crack myself up, LOL. I do know that my daughter saw a film in her foreign language class in the 1990's. There were a few good movies too. I would have loved to see TKAM in class!

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[–] monetvenom 11 years ago

This movie too? I'm wondering at this point how many movies exist that are "the most over-rated film ever made." At this point, I'm estimating about 47,802.

[–] GiaJake 11 years ago

LOL, I just made a comment about that exact same thing elsewhere. Every one of my favorite films have an overrated /worst movie ever threads.

[–] ladyoftheisland 11 years ago

LOL, I just made a comment about that exact same thing elsewhere. Every one of my favorite films have an overrated /worst movie ever threads.

I know! Don't they realize there can be only one "worst" film?!

[–] GiaJake 11 years ago

Yes by the very nature of the word, as you say, there can be only one.

[–] tobias_681 11 years ago

I expected it to be better. It was good for sure and I liked Gregory Pecks performance quite alot. However the direction didn't seem so superb and I thought the whole time that the book must be better and that the story does fit a book way better. The story is good (really good). But perhaps it's not a story for a movie. It feels like you should see it trough the eyes of the child and I'm 300% sure the book did that better.

My critism is not that the book was probably better. But that it felt like the book was better and that the story didn't seem like a movie story, but like a book story.

In the end it's a good movie but I don't get why this is so highly rated.

You see things; and you say Why? But I dream things that never were and I say Why not?

[–] cwente2 11 years ago

Hmmm. Question: How could it have been "better"? I mean, no matter how hard the producers may have tried, they could not have made the film into a book.

(Like all book-to-movie adaptations, it's problematic to say one is "better" than the other. It's best, IMO, to look at each as an interpretation wholly its own and in a different medium of the same, or similar, story. Appreciate each one on its own merits and for what it can offer that the other one cannot.)

[–] tobias_681 11 years ago

Hmmm. Question: How could it have been "better"? I mean, no matter how hard the producers may have tried, they could not have made the film into a book.

I felt it could have been directed in a more exiting way.

(Like all book-to-movie adaptations, it's problematic to say one is "better" than the other. It's best, IMO, to look at each as an interpretation wholly its own and in a different medium of the same, or similar, story. Appreciate each one on its own merits and for what it can offer that the other one cannot.)

That wasn't what I said. I have not read the book. But the movie made me feel that the book was probably better. The Harry Potter books are better too. But the movies work in their own ways. The adaption might have been to straight from the book.

You see things; and you say Why? But I dream things that never were and I say Why not?

[–] cwente2 11 years ago

"I felt it could have been directed in a more exiting way."

Sorry. I didn't take your meaning as being that simple. And, of course, you're entitled.

"That wasn't what I said."

I know. It was about what you seemed to imply. I put the paragrapbh in parenthesis to set it apart as a general comment. It wasn't intended as an accusation.

Best

[–] Alex_Lukas 11 years ago

Been there before. Some egocentric guy watches a very popular movie that doesn't resonate to him - so, he figures, I am the one and only human being in the world with the universally objective opinion, so there is something wrong with those people who love the movie, and I must go and save them by exposing them to my Holy Opinion. And then goes the rationalization of why those people who love the movie are inferior to you in one way or another. And don't bother to prove your points - that's really not necessary when you make assumpions about thousands of people. And Thank you, OP, you've saved us from self-decieving of loving this classic piece of cinema! You've opened my eyes and gave me a brand new view on the world!!! And by the way, I will write you a personal letter some time later, asking weather I am allowed to consider Italian pasta as one of my favourite dishes or is it just because I am too inexperienced in eating food. Or I am experienced enough but those other guys who love pasta aren't. So, pasta is partially rated that high because of inexperienced food-eaters? But that doesn't mean I'm one of them, does it? See, I get confused without your guiding and universally objective opinion.

Hey, Mel, and how about another opinion that this movie is underrated and partially so because of some guys in their sixties who regard their opinion too high and just doesn't have the ability to invest themselves in the viewing experience. You wouldn't deny that, would you? I mean, I said the magic word 'partially'. The movie is rated 8.5 partially because of crazy clowns from Atlantis who love slaughtering little kangaroos, for what I know.

[–] jax1492 11 years ago

You don't have any idea what it was like at that time, if you did you would not feel this way. its a good reminder for people like "you" would would just gloss over the past.

[–] fdr3345 10 years ago

I find it insane that someone would dislike a film that much. If it's not to your taste, style, liking or you just dont get it, then fine move on. However, when you start a thread calling this wonderful film,the most overrated blah blah blah, That astonishes me and it seems like you just want to rile people up.

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[–] maniuis 10 years ago

Agree 100%

[–] srinath_r_htanirs 10 years ago

This film condemns prejudices and assumptions and that's exactly what I find a lot of posters in this thread guilty of. For example, I've had a lot of exposure to the works of some of the widely accepted great filmmakers like Lynch, Tarkovsky, Bergman, Kubrick, Kurosawa, Cronenberg, Godard, Allen, Antonioni and the likes but have not been specially into American Cinema. One can't play the lack of exposure, and picking out a favourite card. One can't play the peer pressure or impact of critics card as I had no idea of the accolades this film received and I'm from the modern generation, I just stumbled into this film and I think this is a masterpiece.

Emotionally, apart from the race angle, it evoked childhood memories by doing the little things right. This film also quashes common prejudices. A lonely, eccentric man living alone in a corner house has to be sociopath, right? This film is an American Classic, so it has to be the critics shoving it down the younger generations, right? People can't just like it on merit. That's just moronic.