Critically acclaimed films that are actually terrible

We all know the importance of conversation while making friends in your first week, especially the pit-falls of trying to not to sound lame. However, in spite of your best efforts to be cool, some pretentious knobber will always have something smart to say in response to your movie opinions, usually by knocking whatever you say. Let’s call him Mr Knock, for example. Well, fear not Freshers, I have produced a cut-out-and-keep guide to four really powerful movie opinions that will leave you the winner in any conversation with Mr Knock.

Requiem for a Dream is just plain awful

First off most people will venture in a popular “dark” indie film that they have seen in a little attempt to be cool, most common of these are Donnie Darko and Requiem for a Dream. Donnie Darko I love, (Tears for Fears and Echo and the Bunnymen soundtrack? Om nom nom) but Requiem for a Dream is a poorly written and incredibly poorly acted teenage navel-gaze-fest. The only reason that anyone thinks it’s any good is a master stroke of directing, by which Aaronofsky bludgeons the audience with a such a distressing penultimate scene that combined with the daze we find ourselves in after constantly getting trapped in Jared Leto’s so-hollow-it’s-captivating stare we forget that the film itself was total dross. Upon forgetting what the preceding 90 minutes of cinema were actually like, the audience forms its opinion on what it just saw, which ostensibly boils down to the following questions: “Do I like watching 2 women go at it ass to ass with a double ended dildo?” or “Do I desperately want to ravage the lead singer of 30 seconds to mars?” as the entire world will answer yes to at least one of those questions, the film gets given a substantially higher rating than it deserves. If we all lived like Phoebe in Friends, and turn off films before the distressing parts, the film wouldn’t have nearly as a high a rep as it does now.

Bonus points: say that you preferred π, citing that Aaronofsky used all the same stylistic features of RfaD but with actual actors, and shot it in black and white so it is therefore better.

Pulp Fiction is by far and away Tarantino's worst film

As we all know, the entire point of Pulp Fiction was as an elabourate vehicle to allow Tarantino to use the word “Nr” to Samuel L. Jackson’s face. Whilst a ballsy move (after all, this article is just an elaborate vehicle to get the word “nr” in to Felix... (nice try - Ed.)) it doesn’t really constitute a good film. And that whole dicing around with the chronology of the timeline just resulted in confusion and a million copycat films/episodes of ER/dramsoc productions, each one worse than the preceding. But in all seriousness, maybe it’s because at every DVD night in first year we wound up watching this bloody film that I’m sick of it. And anyway, Jackie Brown with its severely limited level of violence and incredible soundtrack makes for much better viewing.

Bonus points: use the above argument ad-verbatim with a bouncer at Brixton Academy.

Amelie is the worst thing to come out of France since syphilis

Much I’m sure has been made to the freshers about the ratio of boys to girls at Imperial, but gents, can I just stress that if you’re using the “invite her round for a DVD and then lock the door” method of seduction (or the Ollie Calderbank, as it’s known) make sure that for the love of God she doesn’t bring Amiéle. I cannot stand that film, it’s dross and boring and just because it’s set in Paris and the sun is shining and everyone is swanning around talking French does not make it a good film. Luckily at Imperial there is a very high likelyhood you will find a woman who loves Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and Big Trouble in Little china, but unfortunately she’ll probably have a beard. If you manage to lock your room mate out and a girly girl in, who insists on watching a film where people speak French and run around Paris all day, make her watch La Haine instead.

Bonus points: If she’ll still have sex with you after watching La Haine then that’s a bonus, right? Also, good effort...

The dialogue in the final scene of Brick really moved you...

This is the big one, if someone has failed to be out-cooled by everything you’ve said; and we’re including talking at great length about the advantages of black and white over colour cinema, how M. Night Shyamalayn was never any good in the first place and settled the argument of greatest soundtrack (Blade Runner vs. Apocalypse Now, in case you needed reminding), throw in, as an off the cuff remark, how your favourite dialogue in cinema is the final scene in Brick, that you found it inspired, insightful and most of all, moving.

Lots of cool people watch Brick. It’s because it’s made by attractive teenagers, about attractive teenagers, for attractive teenagers. Also fuck all happens from beginning to end, and as we’ve seen time and again, for example Napoleon Dynamite and the Big Lebowski: films with very little happening are COOL. However, no one understands what either character says at the end of Brick. Nothing. Nadda. It’s some whingy Californian cunts mumbling to each other on a noisy hillside about the fuck-all that happened in the overly trendy preceding dull-as-horseshit hour and half. Worst of all, the DVD hasn’t even got subtitles, so we’re all stuck having to turn it to full blast and get our Californian-English dictionaries out. However by pretending to have understood, and what’s more be moved by it, you will truly become a film God (douche)...

Bonus points: This takes effort, but look the scene up online, commit it to memory and if someone calls your bluff (which they are likely too, having been infuriated by it themselves) you can rattle the whole thing back.