I CANNSTANNUMM!!! As Jean Hagen would say in "Singin' in the Rain". There are some movies which are universally praised; critics love them (as well as the general public) and they've won countless awards. They're known as film classics the world over and I can't stand them. Surely there are some movies like that for you. Now, I'm not talking movies you hate (like Van Helsing) which everyone pretty much agrees are crap; I'm talking about the movies everyone says are classics but you hate. Here is a partial list of those films which I think suck and the world mostly loves: 1) Forrest Gump - The movie without any plot whatsoever. As I've said ad nauseum, the film is just a series of scenes hooked together with no other reason to exist than to show what they could do with CGI. The key giveaway is that Forrest Gump was based on a book that WASN'T a book; it was merely a collection of sayings. There ain't no plot in that so naturally there ain't no plot in the movie. This one is so bad it's offensive. 2) Chariots of Fire - No matter HOW bad a movie is, I always watch it all the way through. This piece of crap, however, I had to shut off after 15 minutes. Just because something has an English accent doesn't make it art, folks. 3) The Misfits - I find it to be an incoherent mess. Arthur Miller must've been pissed off at Marilyn and ready to divorce her when he cobbled together this one. How could a film crammed full of such fine actors be such a bore to watch??? 4) The Sound of Music -- Don't make me vomit, please! I love Mary Poppins; I hate Sound of Music. The fact that I also can't stand Rodgers and Hammerstein might have something to do with it as well. I love Rodgers and Hart; hate Rodgers and Hammerstein. 5) Dr. Strangelove -- Also not a fan of Kubrick. Dr. Strangelove is simply not funny. In the least. And don't tell me I don't understand it because it's black comedy because I LOVE black comedy. Sadly, this ain't it. Read "The Loved One" by Evelyn Waugh; now THAT's black comedy. 6) Gone With the Wind -- what a indulgent bore-fest! The only part of the movie I like is when Scarlett O'Hara pukes in the field. The rest you can keep. It seems I come by my dislike for this film genetically because I later found out that my mother saw it in the theater years ago and walked out. 7) Rocky -- Oh no, not ANOTHER bore-fest. This movie is like watching paint dry. Only without the intellectual stimulation. Sorry Ms. Henri, but it's a dog! 8) Once Upon A Time in the West -- Sergio Leone don't know how to make westerns. I'm entirely convinced the only reason this film has the reputation it does is because of the casting of Henry Fonda as an evil, slimy no-good rat. Interesting casting; bad BAD movie. 9) All That Jazz -- God, I hate this film! What an unpleasant, badly directed mess! I suppose the only reason they intercut shots of real open-heart surgery into the film was to wake up the audience. Terrible music, too. 10) The Odd Couple -- This is a comedy that's not funny. There are few greater sins that I know of. There is exactly ONE funny line in the film: this involved Felix leaving a note for Oscar saying "We're out of corn flakes (or whatever the line was) -- F. U." and Oscar says it took him a few days before he figured out F. U. stood for Felix Unger. That's the only laugh in it. Jack Lemmon is PARTICULARLY annoying in this film (a failing he sometimes lapses into). How could Tony Randall make Felix's honking and wheezing funny when Jack Lemmon makes it tedious. 11) For Whom the Bell Tolls -- Ernest Hemingway adaptation. Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman as your stars. Endless, interminable yawn fest of a movie. The filmmakers were desperate to have Bergman star in the film; what did they have against HER?!?!?! 12) National Lampoon's Animal House -- Here we go again. A comedy that's simply not funny. 13) The General -- Almost universally declared to be Buster Keaton's silent film masterpiece. I don't think so. I'll take "Sherlock Jr." over this yawner. 14) Dark Passage -- a COMPLETE WASTE of Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Agnes Moorehead et. al. 15) Harvey -- For years and years I wanted to see this movie since it was called a comedy classic. What it really is is stupid. James Stewart manages to be annoying and cloying as he overplays "eccentric" for all he's worth. A promising story about a man who sees a 6 foot invisible rabbit is pounded into the ground flatter than a pancake. 16) Nightmare on Elm Street -- For years everyone told me "All the other Elm Street movies suck but the FIRST one is AWESOME". Let me change that to "AMAZING". The first Nightmare on Elm Street is without any scares whatsoever and actually becomes remarkably dull throughout much of the running time. I'd rather watch Wes Craven's "The Serpent and the Rainbow" than this made-for-TV clone. 17) Taxi Driver -- Not only is this one of the most overpraised movies ever made, the oh-so-original "You talkin' to me" mirror scene that DeNiro supposedly came up with on his own was actually stolen almost completely from an old Twilight Zone episode called "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room". Seek out the episode and watch Joe Mantell deliver the same line in the same way in a scene VERY similar to the one in Taxi Driver. Gee, perhaps it was Robert DeNiro's version of an "homage" to Joe Mantell. Or maybe DeNiro just hoped no one would ever notice. 18) Best In Show -- not only is this yet ANOTHER comedy that just isn't funny; I can tell you why Chris Guest movies ALL seem not to be funny. That's because I've learned that his films are ad libbed for the most part by the actors. What? Could no one be bothered to write a script before setting out to make a film?!? Ad libs are not funny enough to base an entertainment upon 9 times out of 10. That TV show "Whose Line is It Anyway" causes me physical pain due to this inescapable fact -- all that ad-libbing isn't funny, it's embarrassing and makes me cringe; why would I expect a movie made along the same lines to be any different?

19) Mr. and Mrs. Smith -- This supposed screwball comedy was directed by Alfred Hitchcock and it's not funny in the least. It's an ordeal to sit through, if you wanna know the truth. Hitch would later succeed at comedy with the classic "The Trouble with Harry"; here's where that successful black comedy I mentioned before comes in again. "The Trouble with Harry" is a very funny black comedy; Dr. Strangelove ain't. And "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" just isn't funny. Period.

20) The Princess Bride -- It boggles my mind how so many people rave about this movie. It's not funny, it's not charming, it's not entertaining, it's not fun -- it's dreary and seems MUCH longer than it actually is. This looks like what a friend of mine calls a "lunchtime production"; that is, some Hollywood folks had a lunch hour with nothing to do so they made this film.

21) Beat the Devil -- This so-called classic is a sad attempt to recapture past glories and tarnishes the reputation of so many truly talented people it's mind-boggling. Directed by John Huston, co-written by Truman Capote, starring Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Peter Lorre, and Robert Morley (in the Sidney Greenstreet part), everyone looks tired and washed out (due in no small part to the incredibly ugly, washed-out photography of Oswald Morris). This is not Casablanca and it's not the Maltese Falcon; why is everyone pretending that it is. Sad and not entertaining.

22) Funny Face -- the only movie I can think of that managed to make both Fred Astaire AND Audrey Hepburn tedious and uninteresting.

23) The Greatest Show On Earth -- this "Best Picture of the Year" Oscar winner is a bore-a-thon of the worst order. Cecil B. DeMille instills every negative directorial quirk he's ever had while an all-star cast stumbles around with little idea what they're supposed to do. When the train derails, one only wishes it had crushed the film itself instead of the circus animals. Every other film nominated for "Best Picture" that year was ROBBED!

24) They Drive By Night -- this film is sometime mistakenly called film noir (Oh boy, it ain't!) and stars Humphrey Bogart and George Raft in a movie about truckers. Yes, believe it or not, it's even LESS interesting than that sounds. I swear the film is actually 6 hours long; it sure SEEMS that way. This is duller than watching baseball, watching golf OR watching farming. The golden age of Hollywood lost it's lustre on this one!

25) The Wrong Man -- Alfred Hitchcock is such a phenomenal director that I can't let this one sneak by without stabbing at it. Henry Fonda stars in this very un-Hitchcockian Hitchcock film about an innocent man on the run for a crime he didn't commit. Sounds like Hitchcock, I hear you say. Yes, it does. Then why, oh why, did Hitch decide to film it as a bland police procedural with absolutely NO Hitchcock touches and absolutely NO Hitchcock suspense. The only suspense caused by THIS movie is whether your heart will stop from sheer boredom. Even a master stumbles; here's where Hitchcock did.

26) 2001: A Space Odyssey. This is without doubt one of the most over-rated, self-indulgent, yawn-inducing steaming turd of a movie ever made. Again. . .not a Kubrick fan. Can you tell. The ENDLESS, interminable long shots on spaceships and space stations would try anyone's patience; a PROPER director would have realized that special effects quickly become outdated and surpassed so one shouldn't leave the camera on a model of a space station for 20 SOLID MINUTES!!! People jumping around in monkey suits? FASCINATING!!! Endless, pointless psychedelic light shows taking up the final third of the film. Now THAT'S storytelling! Arthur C. Clarke couldn't find the slightest vestige of his book in the movie. Neither could we.

So OK, that's my ranting and raving about the movies everyone else loves but I hate. I know my loyal readers MUST have there own list (I can hear Finky sharpening up his pencils for Sunset Blvd even as we speak). SO let's spit some venom and hurl some vitriol, people!