Great masterpieces... that suck!

[godfist88]

i never liked the mona lisa. seriously, i just don't get what's so great about.

 

[Deathlord665]

i never had any trouble with the hacking but then again i am a puzzle nerd

 

[Thundero13]

Citizen Kane, whenever I say I don't like it people just say "oh you're just too young, it was the first film to ever do what it did" i'm not exactly sure what it did but even so, truly good movies just be able to stand the test of time, like 12 angry men which is a brilliant film.
Also 2001 after half an hour of monkeys leaping around I fell asleep.

 

[TheDarkestDerp]

Most of Willie Shakespeare's library, I.M.O. Whiney emo-ish protagonists generally in situations of their own creation and continuation that I can't empathize with... The language used is generally we-structured and beautiful, the man was a wordsmith without a doubt, but I just could never bring myself to care for the characters in his tales.

I liked most of his plays that I read, but I will agree with you that he's much better as a poet than a playwright.

Anyway, I utterly despise anything by Jon Steinbeck. Some idiots have apparently decided that he's some literary genius, and made his crap mandatory reading for high schoolers everywhere. I'm just glad that I don't ever have to read that load of boring donkey poo that was The Grapes of Wrath ever again.

Totally! Shakespeare's use of imagery and tone in language is striking, I'll always agree, but I just haven't been able to really give two hoots about most of his literary works.

Oh... and Steinbeck did get awfully long in the tooth, didn't he?

 

[TheDarkestDerp]

Most of Willie Shakespeare's library, I.M.O. Whiney emo-ish protagonists generally in situations of their own creation and continuation that I can't empathize with... The language used is generally we-structured and beautiful, the man was a wordsmith without a doubt, but I just could never bring myself to care for the characters in his tales.

Congratulations, you have no idea what tragedy is supposed to be about.

Congratulations, that was rude and uncalled for.

Tragedy is sorrowful and mournful catharsis in characters brought about by circumstances, but I've never been able to feel very sorry for the mouse that continues to push the cheese button and get shocked over and over. This is behaviour we see all over Shakespeare's characters, self-induced circumstances which are acknowledged by the protagonist and even cultivated to their eventual climax. It may be tragic, but not from my viewpoint. It's more bull-headed and ignorant if anything. Some of his greatest works, at least in the eyes of most of society, "Hamlet", "Romeo and Juliet" involve characters doing what they know will destroy them, all the way up until they get exactly what they knew would happen. Hardly tragic to me...

 

[Max Goldfine]

I didnt like the metamorphasis one bit.

 

[Vykrel]

ive never been a big fan of the Mona Lisa. its the most well-known painting in the world, and everyone loves it... people enjoy her "mysterious smile" or whatever they call it.

it just looks very regular to me. nothing against DaVinci, but that painting is just very ordinary in my eyes.

also, i dont like how people can make art a thousand times more spectacular nowadays, but nobody will remember them nearly as much as paintings like the Mona Lisa.

Actually,I myself don't find anything good about the painting.
Maybe it was because of the graphics? As I have seen many old paintings and they looked so shitty compared to mona lisa.
We can say that Mona lisa was Crysis of its time and it also proves that graphical whores existed before the invention of computer

i see it that way too. its just a huge shame that the Mona Lisa overshadows everything else. even when other works are clearly better.

 

[Patrick Dare]

When talking about older works of literature it's important to remember that most books are written with themes, etc. that are relevant to the time period that may or may not continue to be relevant. So something that was once provocative, new, exciting, social commentary, etc. may now seem boring and pointless. Some of these works may remain relevant to modern society but many will not.

To answer the OT. I'll second whoever said The Great Gatsby, I found that book (and subsequent movie) incredibly boring and it was the only book I was supposed to read in high school and didn't.

The Mona Lisa, I never understood what the big deal was with that. Always thought The Beatles were overrated, especially their early stuff. I always thought Halo was overrated as well.

Edit: If you want to read an old book that is awesome pick up Adventures of a Simpleton, that book was written in, I think the 1600's, it's about the 30 years war and I loved it. If you can find it get a translation of the original, the one I read had a bunch of stuff taken out that is apparently some crazy, fantasy-esque stuff, not sure why they did that but it was still great.

Edit 2: I don't know if this is considered a great work or not but Indian Summer. That was one of the most painful books I've ever read. I can get through a slow book if there's some deeper meaning or something to make it worth it but unless I missed something about that book there wasn't really much there. Just an old dude and some young guy talking about old architecture and growing plants, etc.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

I've got a few. Some are genuine and I suppose some are simply feelings of bitterness induced by days being spent forced to read them for GCSE English.

Books I read for GCSE English:
Of Mice and Men
Great Expectations

Both of these are supposed to be very well written and are regarded as classics... but I just don't see it. Maybe it was the two hour sessions where I was forced to hang back half a page whilst the slow readers caught up. Or maybe it was the dull stories and bland characters; predictable plots and pointless shock tactics?

Books that started off good and got meh:
The Inheritance Cycle
Harry Potter
Lord of the Rings
The Dark Series (Christine Feehan)

I started reading all of these (and finished most). They all started off brilliantly, I was immersed in the world and I wanted to read more. But Eragon got dry and self righteous; Harry fluked a win (woo for 'chosen one' plots) and Lord of the Rings and The Dark Series just dragged on and on.

Films
Avatar (James Cameron's)
Harry Potter (again)
The Dark Knight
Rocky
The Matrix

I know you said not modern examples, but I feel that such highly revered movies have a place here. There was a lot of hype (still is) about these films and I just can't get into any of them. Anytime I told someone that I hadn't seen them (in the case of Rocky) or that I didn't like them (in the case of everything else) I get chewed out big time. I was eventually coerced into seeing every Rocky flick and found myself only mildly entertained.

 

[M Rotter]

I hate A LOT of old things. Dunno why, and I can't say I'm biased since I don't even know they're old before I hate them. It's just one big coincidence.

I hate classic rock all the way through the obnoxious hair metal people like to play in Intro to Guitar classes. I also don't like classic metal (Megadeth, Motorhead, old Metallica, etc.). I like a lot of newer metal genres.

I hate old movies for their lack of...interesting things to do. I dunno, they're just boring.

If you've ever taken an AP English class, you'll learn that almost all of the classic books of "literary merit" run a dull gamut of the same themes. They're pretty much centered around the different types of conflict: person vs. person, person vs. self, person vs. society, which then divulge into relationship, political, ideological, etc. The fact that one AP prompt can be addressed by somewhere around 50 of these books is a testament to this. Plot's not important CUZ U SEID SUMTHNG PROFUND!

I do like Baroque classical music though. Much better than Romantic era stuff.

Most conflicts do boil down to those three (and i got the same handout) and i feel like maybe your opinion of the books is colored because that was explained like that. Sure some authors might have sat down to write a book exploring those themes, but most wrote a story that was meaningful that fit into one, two, or all three. That English handout exists because of the books not the other way around

 

[Kenbo Slice]

Fuck Shakespeare. Fuck every movie we watched in my film class. If I had to watch one more shitty French New Wave movie I was gonna shoot someone. I don't care if it's "revolutionary" it's fucking boring. Also fuck Citizen Kane, two hours of nothingness.

 

[Starke]

Fucking Dune. The only book I've ever read where the author gets confused by his own subplot about half way through the book and decides to start over by killing off almost all the characters.

 

[M Rotter]

ive never been a big fan of the Mona Lisa. its the most well-known painting in the world, and everyone loves it... people enjoy her "mysterious smile" or whatever they call it.

it just looks very regular to me. nothing against DaVinci, but that painting is just very ordinary in my eyes.

also, i dont like how people can make art a thousand times more spectacular nowadays, but nobody will remember them nearly as much as paintings like the Mona Lisa.

also i think the painting became famous because of michelangelo and why he painted it and the mystery behind all that jazz, probably why people ask what shes smiling about. It became famous that way and stayed famous because word of mouth (and, he's michelangelo). People say its ______ and so it is. Im not awed by it either really, i like his slaves to the rock much better (especially since theyre put in the hallway leading up to the David, so David is contemptuously mocking them with his freedom)

 

[Rararaz]

The level of idiocy in this thread is astounding. And these are the people who get their panties in a twist when Roger Ebert says something daft about video games while not even seeing the irony in somebody who doesn't know the difference between Mantegna and Della Francesca calling Leonardo "shit" because he prefers deviantart.

Canon exists for a reason, gentlemen. Somebody who says that, say, Faust "sucks" says WAY more about himself (and none of it very flattering) than about the quality of Goethe's work.

That said, OT: Ayn Rand. With an asterisk, since nobody who knows the first thing about literature considers her to be more than a megalomaniacal, autistic hack. But God, are there legions of retards who love her.

Thank you for saying this. There is a difference between disliking something and it being a bad piece of work. Do I like Jane Austen's books? Not particually but I can very much understand why they are considered to be held in the regard that they are. It frustrates me that people seem to be so used the fact that they are spoon fed things by the vast majority of video-games and crappy hollywood films that you sometimes have to do some work as well.

That said I fully appreciate that everyone have their own likes and dislikes I just wish that people would stop confusing them not liking something with it "sucking". On that note I think that Avatar and Bioshock are not worth the praise that they garner. I think that in retrospect Avatar will be seen for what it is, not sure about Bioshock though, think I just hate it.

 

[Buzz Killington_v1legacy]

Romeo and Juliet(I don't care if it's Shakespeare, this play is terrible)

Easily Shakespeare's worst work

Hah! You haven't read Cymbeline, have you?

 

[Gahars]

Catcher in The Rye
House on Mango Street
My Antonia

While at least My Antonia was just painfully boring, Catcher and House are two of the worst books I have ever had the displeasure of reading. I cannot fathom how they possibly could have received so much critical acclaim.