The Very Definition of Overrated

Good evening people, there’s a subject I’ve been wanting to get into. As you may have gathered from the title of this blog, that it is the definition of the phrase overrated.

I’m one of those people who believe that like too many words and phrases in the English language this has several definitions, or rather variations derived from one principle concept. For example we can define overrated in terms of film as a film that is not as good as others think it is. However what exactly does that statement mean? I’ll try and answer that question in notoriously long winded fashion, so read on. I’m not going to bother defining overrated in terms that don’t apply to film, so we’ll save some space on that front.

The very term overrated is faulty because it implies a matter of imperfection. Namely it relies on a human factor, what one thinks of a particular film. Rather in this case what at least two people think of a particular film. Simply put the concept of overrated is like a game of Stratego, it won’t work with just one player, unless you suffer from schizophrenia, which is separate problem altogether, I digress. Simply put all you need is one person to say something is great an another to say it isn’t to get an opinion of overrated from one of them.

So I’d say let’s take a look at a few separate examples of what’s overrated via some hypothetical scenarios, substitute your own films for those mentioned:

Scenario 1

My friend told me this Donnie Darko movie is awesome, I watched it and was very under whelmed, seems a tad bit overrated to me.

Ok in this scenario you’re saying a particular friend’s opinion let you down. You followed one friend’s film recommendation, didn’t think as highly of it and therefore you’re of the opinion Donnie Darko is overrated. Now it doesn’t matter if other people agree with you that the film isn’t worth a damn, or that it didn’t win any major awards, or if any critics gave it high praise, it’s still overrated based on an opinion you trusted. Now as you can infer the larger the group of people recommending a film the greater the degree of disappointment could be.

The plus side from this is the fact that you can attribute this to someone acting alone. In other words when just one person gives you the recommendation and it disappoints the problem is with their taste not yours.

Scenario 2

The King’s Speech? How the hell did that win a best picture Oscar?

Now we’re taking out the individual. Sure you might have a friend or family member who saw the latest Oscar winner and thinks the world of it, but you’re not going to say your brother, friend, or aunt are crazy for thinking a film that wins a best picture Oscar is great. This is again one of degree to some extent. After all a contemporary film getting some award season buzz is different from a classic “masterpiece”, but that’s another scenario. In other words your puzzlement at a film winning a best picture Oscar usually involves an immediate substitute. For example, The Social Network should have won over The King’s Speech, or Saving Private Ryan over Shakespeare in Love, etc. You might not necessarily think The King’s Speech is best picture material, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s utter shit.

Scenario 3

So yeah, Tokyo Story . . . Boring

(Forgive me this is hypothetical I love this movie) We’ve all had this happen. While sitting in film school, or tackling some recommendation (possibly from me even) and you’ve come to the conclusion that everybody is high. That’s your first instinct, the second one is that maybe there’s something wrong with your taste. I call it the Captain Beefheart effect. Perhaps you even watch the film a second or third time thinking that you will eventually get it. How it fits the bill of overrated is again multi-faceted. In the example above the masterpiece in question was boring. Perhaps it is brilliant, but 30 minutes in you’re in a deep slumber. In another example you may just find a film not all it’s cracked up to be.

Ok so I’ve thrown a few examples all of which may illustrate how something could be overrated. Some dope on IMBD might say a film is great and it sucks. A film like The Help might get nominated for awards but it’s clearly shit. Your buddy might think The Boondock Saints is the best film ever and you wonder if he’s high or if he’s seen any “real movies”. Now there’s another area I’d like to get in, the preposterous notion that a film could be overrated and still be good.

I mentioned before the thought of a film being good but not “that good”. It’s certainly possible for even some of the greatest films to be overrated by many of us. After all no matter how often Rules of the Game or Battleship Potemkin might show up on lists of the ten greatest films of all time I’d still rather watch Predator. Now I’d give both Rules and Potemkin 5 star ratings, but I don’t think they’re anywhere near top 10 of all time material. Hell I don’t even think they’re the best films from their respective directors. Doesn’t mean they’re bad, just overrated.

Now there are some films that I think are crap that are praised. At the risk of alienating many of you I’ll refrain from the films that I don’t “get”. Again this is the “Captain Beefheart effect”, in case you’re wondering what that means listen to Trout Mask Replica and let me know if you think it’s a masterpiece, yeah thought so. Ok to hell with that Pedro Costa’s films are just awful to me, there I said it, sorry if you like his work, but good god it’s just terrible to me.

Which leads me to the next point, what about a director/actor/actress/writer being overrated? This can be a harder thing to define. I say Pedro Costa’s films are torture because I’ve seen In Vanda’s Room and Colossal Youth and they were excruciatingly awful to me. I’ve since seen more of his work and I stand by my opinion. Perhaps however it’s easier to play devil’s advocate with a better known filmmaker, so why not the best known Alfred Hitchcock.

So you think Alfred Hitchcock is overrated. He meets the criteria of being highly rated in the first place. He’s easily one of the three directors that immediately come to mind when someone mentions a film director and I hope everyone who reads this has at least some familiarity with his work. Now the distinction that he might be the greatest of all directors puts him in a particular hot seat. In other words if you think anyone is better than Hitchcock his status as the greatest might make him seem overrated. If you recognize the fact that he’s one of the greatest, then perhaps you won’t object to someone giving him that distinction. In other words you might not think Citizen Kane is the greatest film ever made, but if its in your personal top 20 you can’t really call it overrated, or at the very least barely overrated.

Now my question if you think Hitchcock is overrated, say he isn’t in your top 10, 20, or well you think of him the way I think of Pedro Costa, how familiar are you. Should I watch every single Costa film including his early shorts before passing my final verdict? Sure that would be the most fair thing to do, but if you don’t like what you’ve seen, why torture yourself watching more? In other words first impressions are key because they may determine whether there’s a second impression to be made. We’ve all had a bad first date that didn’t lead to a second date even if you’re sure it couldn’t possibly be any worse, same can be said for a filmmaker.

So what Hitchcock have you seen. Did you watch Vertigo and say “It’s overrated, therefore Hitchcock is overrated”? Or worse yet did you see a bunch of second rate Hitchcock films. Maybe you saw some of those old public domain Hitchcock films and after watching Champagne, Rich and Strange, The Manxman, and The Farmer’s Daughter you’re wondering what the big deal is? I’d say you aren’t watching the right films, but this could in fact happen. Now if you’ve seen Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, and Psycho and are still of the opinion that Sir. Alfred is overrated, then you are entitled to your opinion, but personally I think you’re crazy.

Directors hide behind a film. Some impart their own unique style, that whole “auteur” thing that I won’t bother getting into here. However an actor is present and their capability to be overrated is completely different. For starters can an actor or actress really be overrated? Very few thespians earn universal praise, it’s quite a shortlist; Meryl Streep, Daniel Day Lewis, Marlon Brando, and Laurence Olivier. There are a few others, but if you’ll notice I can only think of two living actors who seem to be incapable of choosing a bad role. Sure some of us saw 9 and laughed at Daniel Day Lewis singing like Jason Segal in his Dracula musical in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but the man is ok for a dud here and there. He acts his ass off routinely so I won’t say he’s overrated. Now if you’ve seen My Left Foot and There Will Be Blood and think he didn’t deserve either best actor Oscar then maybe you do think he’s overrated.

So for the mortal actor we would have to assume that their ability to be overrated should be relegated to a performance. Does anyone really think Halle Berry is a great actress? I offer Catwoman and the X-Men movies as examples for starters. However she was pretty damn good in Monster’s Ball where she won her Oscar. I won’t go anywhere near saying she’s a great actress, but clearly she is capable of at least one great performance. Some of you might think Monster’s Ball was overrated and she didn’t deserve the Oscar, so be it, it’s her performance that’s overrated not her specifically.

Now if you think someone like Meryl Streep is shit it brings up a whole separate problem. Whenever you get a dozen Oscar nominations it’s pretty well established you’re pretty damn good as an actress. This is a human problem however, sometimes we just don’t like people. Have you ever seen a preview for a film with a particular actor and decided immediately you weren’t going to see it? I’m dealing with this problem now as I try to tell people that Moneyball is in fact a pretty good movie, but the fact that Jonah Hill is in it makes several people I know not want to even sit through it. Now comparing Jonah Hill to Meryl Streep is something that until now I believe has never been done before but my point is your problem may be with the person rather than their ability. Have you ever met a complete and utter stranger perhaps while standing in line somewhere and just decided for no reason at all that you hate them? Well imagine that person you randomly hate for no reason happens to be an actor, starting to see what I mean?

Writers are a whole separate problem, so I’ll leave that for someone with a literary background to divulge. Since the large majority of people don’t know or care who writes movies this point isn’t too relevant here. To quote Sunset Boulevard “They think the actors just make it up as they go along”. Most of the best known screenwriters to the general public happen to also direct it makes their situation more relevant to the director.

So anyone think this post is overrated yet? Perhaps one day my list happy ass will return with my own list of films I think are overrated, trust me there's quite a few.