been nominated. It also won from it'd group of peers in the industry who probably got the message in a different light than you. As for American Beauty it was hauntingly terrific
Well...I'm not sure. The Hurt Locker was also full of cliched caricatures of soldiers on the battlefield of Iraq, yet it won Best Picture.
It mainly won because the cinematography was great (technical aspect of filmmaking), and it covered the war like no movie prior to it (even if it had contrived plot line and cliched characters), which I'm sure that the voters ate up. The movie was overrated and didn't deserve the win.
To win an Oscar, there only has to be a plurality of votes, not a majority. So, back when there were only 5 nominees for Best Picture, the winner could win with as little as 21% of the vote. 79% of voters could pick a loser.
IOW -- the fact that something/someone wins and Oscar is hardly evidence of anything resembling universal appeal.
Today, it's even less since there are more nominees.
It was a masterpiece of filmmaking technically as far as the cinematography and editing and performances are concerned, but it was all in the service of a wretched story. Hell, even Sam Mendes says it is overrated.
Eric - Among active directors? Big fan of PT Anderson, the Coens and Scorcese. Spielberg has fallen far, but his high points are magnificent. Don't love everything Kubrick did, but Paths of Glory, The Shining and A Clockwork Orange are amazing. Reprehensible piece of shit that he is, Polanski is a tremendous filmmaker.
A Clockwork Orange was terrific so at least we agree on one
Watched this one with my brother's kids after I heard about some of the buzz it was getting. The praise for this supposed "Disney classic" seemed endless. It wasn't warranted, though. What a dud. And that song "Let It Go" became so insufferable to hear it everywhere especially when it started getting regular radio play.
Bottomline: No real antagonist, no actual conflict resolution since there was never any real conflict to begin with, and a farce of a last minute villain twist that makes M Night Shyamalan's The Village look like M Night Shyamalan's Sixth Sense.
It certainly was not a laugh out loud comedy a la Caddyshack or Animal House. It was more a very subtle skewering of reality TV with its fake chit-chat and manufactured drama.
The plot hit some slow points and the wrap up was a disappointing as they come, but I still walked away thinking that it was an outstanding film and, taken as a whole, a very funny movie.
I'll never see Jacques Cousteau or Whale Wars in the same light again.
Not recent, but the suckiness is still seared in my memory.
been nominated. It also won from it'd group of peers in the industry who probably got the message in a different light than you. As for American Beauty it was hauntingly terrific
Not true in the least. There is more politics involved in Oscar Noms and awards than in most Senatorial elections. The best movie(s)don't always win.
But even if it was true, do you rely on the Academy to tell you which pictures you like? Maybe you don't but that is what your post implies.
Whether a movie is "good" or "bad" is a highly subjective decision based almost exclusively on the individual's taste. I personally make my decision on whether the movie entertained me or not and that judgement may change with my mood. I have been entertained by some of the more universally proclaimed craptastic disasters the come out and I have been bored to tears by some of the most widely acclaimed movies of the last fifty years. There's no accounting for taste.
It was very well done except for one minor detail: it was adapted from the American version of the novel, which did not contain the 21st and true final chapter. The book is a question of free will vs things like aversion therapy and behaviour modification. While Kubrick's film ends with Alex sarcastically stating "I was cured all right...", Burgess' s additional chapter shows Alex briefly return to a life of crime only to grow bored quickly. He finds himself wanting to settle down and start a family.
Burgess had a message and vision and Kubrick, as he's want to do, shit on it and made it his own thing. But don't tell his fanboys that, he only ever improves the source material.
ed, that's your interpretation, no one tells me what to watch or like
most movies made about/with the current conflicts as the backdrop pretty much suck. Maybe onsies and twosies involving special warfare missions based on real life events are ok (Zero Dark Thirty and The Lone Survivor), but most of the others are political drivel or cliched shitshows.
The Godfather Part II
Shawshank Redemption
Citizen Kane
The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Graduate
Alien
Life is Beautiful
The Dark Knight
Terminator
Caddyshack
Airplane
Thank you for reminding me of Life is Beautiful. i thought I was the only person who hated that film.
I thought as a romantic tale, the first half of the film was OK. The problem I had was the second half of the film making the Holocaust into a slapstick knockoff of Charlie Chaplain. I found that tough to stomach and watch.
But while I liked it when I first saw it in my late teens (and mostly because of the soundtrack, the spanning of multiple decades with him spliced into real footage gimmick, and its humor), it's not something that's aged for me. It kind of seems like a celebration of just going along with whatever you're handed, with any deviation being punished.
I can also imagine why some dislike Shawshank Redemption
I never fail to be entertained by it, and if I'm flipping channels and find it playing I'll often stay put regardless of where I find myself in the movie. It's right up there with any movie in its ability to make you hate its environment of injustice and cheer when it's defeated. But let's face it: it's melodramatic as all hell and just a tad too folksy for many tastes.
some of the more douchy BBI-ers who don't respect anything without subtitles have in fact claimed Shawshank Redemption "not great" and Braveheart "downright bad".
It's what makes BBI great and intolerable at the same time (like a microcosm of the world).
would have been better (but also probably more infuriating) if it had stuck to the way the book ended ambiguously. Get rid of that scene where Red and Andy reunite on the beach, and just leave it at Red hoping such a reunion will happen with something resembling credible hope, a feeling he'd been denied for decades. That would have been cool.
would have been better (but also probably more infuriating) if it had stuck to the way the book ended ambiguously. Get rid of that scene where Red and Andy reunite on the beach, and just leave it at Red hoping such a reunion will happen with something resembling credible hope, a feeling he'd been denied for decades. That would have been cool.
Not a huge fan of the ending, but I like some of the other changes from the book like the warden shooting himself, much more poetic than the book.
I also thought Brooks hanging himself was more powerful than the book.
but yeah the ending was disney-ish, still didn't ruin an all-time classic.
would have been better (but also probably more infuriating) if it had stuck to the way the book ended ambiguously. Get rid of that scene where Red and Andy reunite on the beach, and just leave it at Red hoping such a reunion will happen with something resembling credible hope, a feeling he'd been denied for decades. That would have been cool.
Not a huge fan of the ending, but I like some of the other changes from the book like the warden shooting himself, much more poetic than the book.
I also thought Brooks hanging himself was more powerful than the book.
but yeah the ending was disney-ish, still didn't ruin an all-time classic.
I can't remember Brooks' fate in the book, but I do remember that what-his-face wasn't shot by order of the Warden once it was discovered he knew Andy was innocent. Instead, he was transferred and Red was left to wonder if it was by what's-his-face's choice or not. I thought that was much darker/cynical, and probably more realistic, and would have painted the Warden in a way that wasn't nearly as mustache-twirlingly cartoonish.
The movie's methods of hammering you over the head and removing any doubt as to how absolutely good and absolutely evil each character was just became very evident to me in comparison after reading the short story.
would have stirred some debate with his fans. Maybe this will work:
The man fucking ruined The Shining...
It's funny, I've met people who have very vociferously argued the opposite. I never read the book and haven't seen the movie in over a decade, so I can't participate in the argument, but it always struck me as an argument someone makes simply because of an anti Stephen King agenda.
I really hate Stephen King, so I'm inclined to view the movie versions of both Shawshank and The Shining as superior despite never having read the books :)
Regarding A Clockwork Orange - no opinion, having never read that book either. I did try reading it once in high school, but found the slang inpenetrable and gave up.
would have stirred some debate with his fans. Maybe this will work:
The man fucking ruined The Shining...
It's funny, I've met people who have very vociferously argued the opposite. I never read the book and haven't seen the movie in over a decade, so I can't participate in the argument, but it always struck me as an argument someone makes simply because of an anti Stephen King agenda.
Big fan of The Shining (movie), but I will say that I found the book a bit better, especially as it goes a deeper into the path to madness of Jack. With that being said, the performances of Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall were incredible.
And yes, Shawshank Redemption (movie) was better than the novella.
Speaking of Kubrick...Full Metal Jacket sucked donkey balls. Come at me, bro!
would have stirred some debate with his fans. Maybe this will work:
The man fucking ruined The Shining...
It's funny, I've met people who have very vociferously argued the opposite. I never read the book and haven't seen the movie in over a decade, so I can't participate in the argument, but it always struck me as an argument someone makes simply because of an anti Stephen King agenda.
That's it in some cases, some people just don't respect King as a writer. I think it's plain snobbery in many instances. I'm not gonna rattle off a list of books but suffice to say I'm fairly well read. I appreciate and in many cases love classic literature. Same with fantasy (D&D nerd thru and thru. Ravenloft, Forgotten Realms, Strahd, Drizzt Do'urden...go ahead, have at it), modern comedy, biographies and memoirs, whatever. And King is one of my favorite writers.
As for The Shining, I really don't understand how someone who has read the book and seen the movie could prefer the latter. Aside from changing the ending (drastically, and in one aspect considered by some to be Kubrick giving King the figurative middle finger as King made his displeasure known the more Kubrick deviated) he made the characters little more than props. Hey look, it's Jack Nicholson being Jack Nicholson. Shelley Duvall could have been replaced by an ironing board.
And, honestly, it's kind of a mess. Definitely prefer Full Metal Jacket despite its flaws. The first half is simply amazing and dead on (despite a few demerit points for being filmed in England and looking nothing like Parris Island).
would have stirred some debate with his fans. Maybe this will work:
The man fucking ruined The Shining...
It's funny, I've met people who have very vociferously argued the opposite. I never read the book and haven't seen the movie in over a decade, so I can't participate in the argument, but it always struck me as an argument someone makes simply because of an anti Stephen King agenda.
That's it in some cases, some people just don't respect King as a writer. I think it's plain snobbery in many instances. I'm not gonna rattle off a list of books but suffice to say I'm fairly well read. I appreciate and in many cases love classic literature. Same with fantasy (D&D nerd thru and thru. Ravenloft, Forgotten Realms, Strahd, Drizzt Do'urden...go ahead, have at it), modern comedy, biographies and memoirs, whatever. And King is one of my favorite writers.
As for The Shining, I really don't understand how someone who has read the book and seen the movie could prefer the latter. Aside from changing the ending (drastically, and in one aspect considered by some to be Kubrick giving King the figurative middle finger as King made his displeasure known the more Kubrick deviated) he made the characters little more than props. Hey look, it's Jack Nicholson being Jack Nicholson. Shelley Duvall could have been replaced by an ironing board.
That's why King remade it in a made-for-TV movie that was much closer to his vision (and predictably nobody watched it). He had a topiary and everything. But that's part of the problem when you hand a book off to a guy who is no less iconic than the author; he is going to have his own vision. And while Kubrick's The Shining wasn't entirely faithful to the book it was a fine film in its own right.
would have stirred some debate with his fans. Maybe this will work:
The man fucking ruined The Shining...
It's funny, I've met people who have very vociferously argued the opposite. I never read the book and haven't seen the movie in over a decade, so I can't participate in the argument, but it always struck me as an argument someone makes simply because of an anti Stephen King agenda.
That's it in some cases, some people just don't respect King as a writer. I think it's plain snobbery in many instances. I'm not gonna rattle off a list of books but suffice to say I'm fairly well read. I appreciate and in many cases love classic literature. Same with fantasy (D&D nerd thru and thru. Ravenloft, Forgotten Realms, Strahd, Drizzt Do'urden...go ahead, have at it), modern comedy, biographies and memoirs, whatever. And King is one of my favorite writers.
As for The Shining, I really don't understand how someone who has read the book and seen the movie could prefer the latter. Aside from changing the ending (drastically, and in one aspect considered by some to be Kubrick giving King the figurative middle finger as King made his displeasure known the more Kubrick deviated) he made the characters little more than props. Hey look, it's Jack Nicholson being Jack Nicholson. Shelley Duvall could have been replaced by an ironing board.
That's why King remade it in a made-for-TV movie that was much closer to his vision (and predictably nobody watched it). He had a topiary and everything. But that's part of the problem when you hand a book off to a guy who is no less iconic than the author; he is going to have his own vision. And while Kubrick's The Shining wasn't entirely faithful to the book it was a fine film in its own right.
The made for tv one was pretty bad too. It stuck to the book right down to the ending but the kid who played Danny was awful. Like, Anakin in Episode 1 awful.
For a long time I hated the movie, just let my bias and the differences influence me too much. I wwtched it again recently (it's been on HBO or one of them a lot recently) and decided to go in completely open-minded with no thoughts on the book. Taken as its own story I can't deny that it is a very good movie. But if a filmmaker like Kubrick stuck to the script...now that would've been a great movie.
collectively praised by critics though? I honestly don't remember, since it came out a time in which you really only had access to a few major reviews. I just took a quick peek at IMDB's archived reviews and there are departures to be found.
I do remember everyone loving it. It had a lot of gimmicks going for it. The double-disk soundtrack was ubiquitous, everyone was all like, "How did they superimpose Tom Hanks onto video with JFK and make it look like he was talking to him!!?!" 60's and 70's nostalgia almost always goes down easy, etc.
Sucked? I dunno, I'd watch it again I'm sure, and I'd laugh at the funny parts, but it wouldn't hit me like it did when I was in my late teens.
IIRC a lot of critics thought Pulp Fiction should have beaten Gump
at the Oscars. It was a nice, safe choice that was enormously popular with audiences, but as I recall it mostly got good but not not great reviews.
I don't think it's a stretch to say that it was hugely popular largely as a nostalgia vehicle for Baby Boomers who still dominated the viewing public in 1994. At the time the Boomer generation was in the 30-50 age group, and the movie tried to shoehorn in as much cultural detritus from their era as possible.
Of the films mentioned that I didn't care for much or at all: The Darjeeling Limited, Lost in Translation, Eraserhead, Life Aquatic, Revolutionary Road, Silver Linings Playbook. I VERY rarely see films that totally suck because I avoid films I think will be less than at least very good after reading a few reviews & seeing what the IMDB rating is, etc. If it's under a 7 I usually don't bother.
The film The Shining was great but the book was even better. Ditto for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Thought Clockwork Orange was better than the book, which also was great. Never read Shawshank. Speaking of crappy films, The Stand was an excellent book but the TV film sucked royally.
Well...I'm not sure. The Hurt Locker was also full of cliched caricatures of soldiers on the battlefield of Iraq, yet it won Best Picture.
It mainly won because the cinematography was great (technical aspect of filmmaking), and it covered the war like no movie prior to it (even if it had contrived plot line and cliched characters), which I'm sure that the voters ate up. The movie was overrated and didn't deserve the win.
IOW -- the fact that something/someone wins and Oscar is hardly evidence of anything resembling universal appeal.
Today, it's even less since there are more nominees.
Very interesting...thanks for the insight.
Eric - Among active directors? Big fan of PT Anderson, the Coens and Scorcese. Spielberg has fallen far, but his high points are magnificent. Don't love everything Kubrick did, but Paths of Glory, The Shining and A Clockwork Orange are amazing. Reprehensible piece of shit that he is, Polanski is a tremendous filmmaker.
you don't know now but someday you will
Half Baked?
Bottomline: No real antagonist, no actual conflict resolution since there was never any real conflict to begin with, and a farce of a last minute villain twist that makes M Night Shyamalan's The Village look like M Night Shyamalan's Sixth Sense.
It certainly was not a laugh out loud comedy a la Caddyshack or Animal House. It was more a very subtle skewering of reality TV with its fake chit-chat and manufactured drama.
The plot hit some slow points and the wrap up was a disappointing as they come, but I still walked away thinking that it was an outstanding film and, taken as a whole, a very funny movie.
I'll never see Jacques Cousteau or Whale Wars in the same light again.
Not true in the least. There is more politics involved in Oscar Noms and awards than in most Senatorial elections. The best movie(s)don't always win.
But even if it was true, do you rely on the Academy to tell you which pictures you like? Maybe you don't but that is what your post implies.
Whether a movie is "good" or "bad" is a highly subjective decision based almost exclusively on the individual's taste. I personally make my decision on whether the movie entertained me or not and that judgement may change with my mood. I have been entertained by some of the more universally proclaimed craptastic disasters the come out and I have been bored to tears by some of the most widely acclaimed movies of the last fifty years. There's no accounting for taste.
Here's a toast to movies that entertain.
It was very well done except for one minor detail: it was adapted from the American version of the novel, which did not contain the 21st and true final chapter. The book is a question of free will vs things like aversion therapy and behaviour modification. While Kubrick's film ends with Alex sarcastically stating "I was cured all right...", Burgess' s additional chapter shows Alex briefly return to a life of crime only to grow bored quickly. He finds himself wanting to settle down and start a family.
Burgess had a message and vision and Kubrick, as he's want to do, shit on it and made it his own thing. But don't tell his fanboys that, he only ever improves the source material.
Shawshank Redemption
Citizen Kane
The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Graduate
Alien
Life is Beautiful
The Dark Knight
Terminator
Caddyshack
Airplane
All lame. So, so lame.
- BBI
I thought as a romantic tale, the first half of the film was OK. The problem I had was the second half of the film making the Holocaust into a slapstick knockoff of Charlie Chaplain. I found that tough to stomach and watch.
It's what makes BBI great and intolerable at the same time (like a microcosm of the world).
Not a huge fan of the ending, but I like some of the other changes from the book like the warden shooting himself, much more poetic than the book.
I also thought Brooks hanging himself was more powerful than the book.
but yeah the ending was disney-ish, still didn't ruin an all-time classic.
Quote:
would have been better (but also probably more infuriating) if it had stuck to the way the book ended ambiguously. Get rid of that scene where Red and Andy reunite on the beach, and just leave it at Red hoping such a reunion will happen with something resembling credible hope, a feeling he'd been denied for decades. That would have been cool.
Not a huge fan of the ending, but I like some of the other changes from the book like the warden shooting himself, much more poetic than the book.
I also thought Brooks hanging himself was more powerful than the book.
but yeah the ending was disney-ish, still didn't ruin an all-time classic.
I can't remember Brooks' fate in the book, but I do remember that what-his-face wasn't shot by order of the Warden once it was discovered he knew Andy was innocent. Instead, he was transferred and Red was left to wonder if it was by what's-his-face's choice or not. I thought that was much darker/cynical, and probably more realistic, and would have painted the Warden in a way that wasn't nearly as mustache-twirlingly cartoonish.
The movie's methods of hammering you over the head and removing any doubt as to how absolutely good and absolutely evil each character was just became very evident to me in comparison after reading the short story.
The man fucking ruined The Shining...
The man fucking ruined The Shining...
It's funny, I've met people who have very vociferously argued the opposite. I never read the book and haven't seen the movie in over a decade, so I can't participate in the argument, but it always struck me as an argument someone makes simply because of an anti Stephen King agenda.
I thought both movies were excellent; in some regards better than the book(s). Deviating from the stories in some areas, but they were both excellent.
there are a lot of cases where I feel the book to movie translation is awful, neither of these two fit that bill.
for me.
Regarding A Clockwork Orange - no opinion, having never read that book either. I did try reading it once in high school, but found the slang inpenetrable and gave up.
Quote:
would have stirred some debate with his fans. Maybe this will work:
The man fucking ruined The Shining...
It's funny, I've met people who have very vociferously argued the opposite. I never read the book and haven't seen the movie in over a decade, so I can't participate in the argument, but it always struck me as an argument someone makes simply because of an anti Stephen King agenda.
Big fan of The Shining (movie), but I will say that I found the book a bit better, especially as it goes a deeper into the path to madness of Jack. With that being said, the performances of Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall were incredible.
And yes, Shawshank Redemption (movie) was better than the novella.
Speaking of Kubrick...Full Metal Jacket sucked donkey balls. Come at me, bro!
I'm kidding of course
"Eddie Murphy and Robert DeNiro.. you can't go wrong"
wrong
This thread is cracking me up and this is my favorite post. Honorable mention to the Forrest Gump haters
Only on BBI would there be so much collective agreement that movies that are collectively praised by the masses and critics are steaming piles of shit
Quote:
would have stirred some debate with his fans. Maybe this will work:
The man fucking ruined The Shining...
It's funny, I've met people who have very vociferously argued the opposite. I never read the book and haven't seen the movie in over a decade, so I can't participate in the argument, but it always struck me as an argument someone makes simply because of an anti Stephen King agenda.
That's it in some cases, some people just don't respect King as a writer. I think it's plain snobbery in many instances. I'm not gonna rattle off a list of books but suffice to say I'm fairly well read. I appreciate and in many cases love classic literature. Same with fantasy (D&D nerd thru and thru. Ravenloft, Forgotten Realms, Strahd, Drizzt Do'urden...go ahead, have at it), modern comedy, biographies and memoirs, whatever. And King is one of my favorite writers.
As for The Shining, I really don't understand how someone who has read the book and seen the movie could prefer the latter. Aside from changing the ending (drastically, and in one aspect considered by some to be Kubrick giving King the figurative middle finger as King made his displeasure known the more Kubrick deviated) he made the characters little more than props. Hey look, it's Jack Nicholson being Jack Nicholson. Shelley Duvall could have been replaced by an ironing board.
Quote:
In comment 11869627 j_rud said:
Quote:
Speaking of Kubrick...Full Metal Jacket sucked donkey balls. Come at me, bro!
I'm kidding of course
+1
The man fucking ruined The Shining...
Don't you talk about Kubrick like that! He is awesome!
lol
Quote:
In comment 11869627 j_rud said:
Quote:
would have stirred some debate with his fans. Maybe this will work:
The man fucking ruined The Shining...
It's funny, I've met people who have very vociferously argued the opposite. I never read the book and haven't seen the movie in over a decade, so I can't participate in the argument, but it always struck me as an argument someone makes simply because of an anti Stephen King agenda.
That's it in some cases, some people just don't respect King as a writer. I think it's plain snobbery in many instances. I'm not gonna rattle off a list of books but suffice to say I'm fairly well read. I appreciate and in many cases love classic literature. Same with fantasy (D&D nerd thru and thru. Ravenloft, Forgotten Realms, Strahd, Drizzt Do'urden...go ahead, have at it), modern comedy, biographies and memoirs, whatever. And King is one of my favorite writers.
As for The Shining, I really don't understand how someone who has read the book and seen the movie could prefer the latter. Aside from changing the ending (drastically, and in one aspect considered by some to be Kubrick giving King the figurative middle finger as King made his displeasure known the more Kubrick deviated) he made the characters little more than props. Hey look, it's Jack Nicholson being Jack Nicholson. Shelley Duvall could have been replaced by an ironing board.
That's why King remade it in a made-for-TV movie that was much closer to his vision (and predictably nobody watched it). He had a topiary and everything. But that's part of the problem when you hand a book off to a guy who is no less iconic than the author; he is going to have his own vision. And while Kubrick's The Shining wasn't entirely faithful to the book it was a fine film in its own right.
And Next of Kin.
Quote:
In comment 11869635 santacruzom said:
Quote:
In comment 11869627 j_rud said:
Quote:
would have stirred some debate with his fans. Maybe this will work:
The man fucking ruined The Shining...
It's funny, I've met people who have very vociferously argued the opposite. I never read the book and haven't seen the movie in over a decade, so I can't participate in the argument, but it always struck me as an argument someone makes simply because of an anti Stephen King agenda.
That's it in some cases, some people just don't respect King as a writer. I think it's plain snobbery in many instances. I'm not gonna rattle off a list of books but suffice to say I'm fairly well read. I appreciate and in many cases love classic literature. Same with fantasy (D&D nerd thru and thru. Ravenloft, Forgotten Realms, Strahd, Drizzt Do'urden...go ahead, have at it), modern comedy, biographies and memoirs, whatever. And King is one of my favorite writers.
As for The Shining, I really don't understand how someone who has read the book and seen the movie could prefer the latter. Aside from changing the ending (drastically, and in one aspect considered by some to be Kubrick giving King the figurative middle finger as King made his displeasure known the more Kubrick deviated) he made the characters little more than props. Hey look, it's Jack Nicholson being Jack Nicholson. Shelley Duvall could have been replaced by an ironing board.
That's why King remade it in a made-for-TV movie that was much closer to his vision (and predictably nobody watched it). He had a topiary and everything. But that's part of the problem when you hand a book off to a guy who is no less iconic than the author; he is going to have his own vision. And while Kubrick's The Shining wasn't entirely faithful to the book it was a fine film in its own right.
The made for tv one was pretty bad too. It stuck to the book right down to the ending but the kid who played Danny was awful. Like, Anakin in Episode 1 awful.
For a long time I hated the movie, just let my bias and the differences influence me too much. I wwtched it again recently (it's been on HBO or one of them a lot recently) and decided to go in completely open-minded with no thoughts on the book. Taken as its own story I can't deny that it is a very good movie. But if a filmmaker like Kubrick stuck to the script...now that would've been a great movie.
I do remember everyone loving it. It had a lot of gimmicks going for it. The double-disk soundtrack was ubiquitous, everyone was all like, "How did they superimpose Tom Hanks onto video with JFK and make it look like he was talking to him!!?!" 60's and 70's nostalgia almost always goes down easy, etc.
Sucked? I dunno, I'd watch it again I'm sure, and I'd laugh at the funny parts, but it wouldn't hit me like it did when I was in my late teens.
I don't think it's a stretch to say that it was hugely popular largely as a nostalgia vehicle for Baby Boomers who still dominated the viewing public in 1994. At the time the Boomer generation was in the 30-50 age group, and the movie tried to shoehorn in as much cultural detritus from their era as possible.
The film The Shining was great but the book was even better. Ditto for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Thought Clockwork Orange was better than the book, which also was great. Never read Shawshank. Speaking of crappy films, The Stand was an excellent book but the TV film sucked royally.