100 Films in a Year is five years old today, and to mark the occasion I’m having five days of top fives from the past five years. Yesterday I bemoaned the five worst films I’ve seen as part of this project, and today it’s…
March of the Penguins
I think March of the Penguins gained such popularity in America because they don’t have the rich history of wildlife documentaries that the BBC has bestowed upon us Brits. This is a solid documentary, but it has a narrow focus and isn’t a patch on something narrated by David Attenborough. I don’t care for it.
Million Dollar Baby
Bad Best Picture winners are two-a-penny — as most film fans know, the Oscars aren’t the be-all-and-end-all of filmic taste that they’re widely perceived to be. Million Dollar Baby isn’t a bad film, but I don’t think it’s a very good one either. It’s also 161st on IMDb’s Top 250, a list I wouldn’t let it near if it was up to me.
No Country for Old Men & There Will Be Blood
I’ve lumped these together as the two titans of the 2008 awards season, which now sit on the IMDb Top 250 at #131 and #164 respectively. 
And I didn’t really get either of them. I don’t think they’re bad films, but I struggled to get what they were for (especially the latter), and I certainly didn’t like or enjoy either. You don’t have to like a film for it to be great, but these two… Maybe I need to take the time to re-evaluate them, but I’ve already seen No Country two or three times and I’m not sure I can face it again.
Point Break
This isn’t overrated in the traditional sense — it only has 6.9 on IMDb for example, far off troubling the Top 250 — but in recent years it’s garnered a significant cult following, praising it as a great action movie. I blame Hot Fuzz, and probably Swayze’s death, and maybe even Bigelow’s Oscar win. It’s mediocre at best.
Honourable Mention: Avatar
Despite being on the IMDb Top 250 when some of my other choices aren’t (#223 at time of writing), Avatar is down here because I think there’s plenty of dislike for it. There’s no doubt those who really praise it tend to overrate it, especially blind followers of Whatever The Oscars Say (even though it didn’t win), but there’s enough people who know it’s good-not-great, or even outright hate it, to balance that out.
You’re reading this post on my new blog!
Congratulations, you have the good taste to be reading this post on my snazzy new blog (though I do still love the old one). Doesn’t it look great even in this little thumbnail?
For more on why I’ve started this so-called simul-blog, please look here.
Tomorrow it’s the turn of the five most underrated films from my last five years of viewing.
100Films.co.uk 
Really like the look of the new blog – clean and smart, and the header/banner is quite classy.
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Thanks Colin. I’m very pleased with the new style too. Obviously it’s just one I selected from WordPress’ myriad options, but it’s pretty much exactly what I was hoping to find.
At first I wasn’t sure about having a huge chunk at the top of every page given over to a picture, but I’ve quite quickly fallen in love with it & really enjoy choosing each picture. Which is painfully sad of me, really.
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Since moving full time to WordPress the aspect that I’ve appreciated most is the degree of control over appearance. To date, I’ve only made minor tweaks to my own site but they’re generaly easy to manage, and the option is always there for a major refit if I feel like it.
The ease with which you can keep in touch with what’s going on is a big plus too.
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