5 movies that...

...are massively overrated. The first in an occasional series where I write (what I hope to be) controversial stuff about movies. In this installment, let's look at five of the films that are generally regarded as classics but leave me colder than an ice-cream in the Artic. First up:

5: The Godfather: Very well made, and with a sense of reality often missing from the many mob movies that followed. The big problem with it is that it is boring. And not just a bit boring:really boring. And that is pretty much it. It basically consists of Al Pacino looking intense and Marlon Brando mumbling like a stroke victim. I whooped when Brando's character died - if only because I assumed that the film must nearly be over. More fool me...

4: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings: Fuck me, this was a massive anti-climax when I first saw it. I'd read the books when I was a teenager and loved them. The radio series was even better - it transported me to Middle Earth. Then came the film... where Middle Earth was a barely civilised version of rural Wales filled with earnest over-actors trying to be gritty as they protect eminently punchable actors playing irritating hobbits. But what was worst of all was that this film showed me just how bad the original novel was. It can literally be broken down to "walk-fight-walk-fight-walk-fight-walk-fight" until the novel (and the faithful film adaptation) had gone on for long enough to appear to be an epic - if only because everyone was too numb to claim otherwise.

Oh, and don't tell me that the series got better. I've seen The Return of the King and its endless bloody ending. I hate it more that the first film in the series, but by that time I didn't expect to enjoy the films in this trilogy. It was the first film that crushed my expectations.

3: The Blues Brothers: I think I know how this film was written - through people sat in a room, with some decent-ish music in the background, snorting coke, drinking beer and saying "wouldn't it be cool if..." The end result? A cold, clinical movie that should be funny, but ends up just, barely functional. As an action movie it fails to be breath-taking - it has car crashes and little else - and as a comedy, it fails to be amusing. It is a lot like that person everyone knows who is able to take a funny joke, retell it, and rob it of everything that made it a good joke. I genuinely think that this film is the first manufactured (as in "we're going to tick every box to make this film successful" as opposed to "Jeez, I hope this works") "blockbuster", and is as soulless as many of those fabricated blockbusters that have followed in its stead have been.

And you want to know why people still like this anodyne, bland film? Because they don't like the film - they like the (admittedly not bad) soundtrack. Sit them in front of the film, and they get restive and start talking about the music. If you sat them in front of a version of the film without the soundtrack, then they would get bored, angry and resentful. Which is how I feel when people eulogise about this movie. Or when they try to get me to watch it.

2: Leaving Las Vegas: I do believe that any film starring Nicholas Cage has a 99% chance of being total crap. This film would be a classic example of that, but - unfathomably - seems to have been a Cage picture that has won critical acclaim. And I really don't know why. My only guess is that it makes people feel uncomfortable, and therefore they assume it must be worthy. They're wrong, of course. It is just shite.

A self-indulgent drunk goes to Las Vegas to drink himself to death, and meets a prostitute. They strike up some sort of relationship - as good a relationship as two maladjusted oddballs can do. The drunk fucks it up, then dies - with his prostitute friend fucking him as he does so. Few acclaimed films have a sense of de facto necrophilia in them, but that is what is happening in the final scene between the drunk and the prostitute.

I dare say that if you live a cloistered, unthreatening middle class life then there is something groundbreaking about Leaving Las Vegas. However, you should probably come and watch the winos in the park opposite my flat as they go on their morbidly focussed booze journeys. The show is free to watch, if you are so inclined, and also has the added benefit that it doesn't involve Nicholas Cage.

1: Star Wars IV: A New Hope: Oh, don't get me wrong, I can sit through this one - in fact, I find it far easier to do so than any of the others in this list. But what I cannot stomach is the level of applause this movie has got and continues to get. I must be missing the point somewhere, because as far as I can see this is just a well-realised romp in space. It isn't the greatest film ever made, or a genuine work of art, or the creation of another world in film. It is just a sci-fi adventure film with above average special effects. It is a good film. It is entertaining. But I'd argue it is a real stretch, based largely on nostalgia and an undeserved reputation, to say it is anything more than that.

So go ahead - agree, disagree, offer alternatives in the comments section, my people!