Overrated / Underrated

Jackie Mason | June 29, 2004
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Steve Dunn | June 30, 2004
The Corvette is not overrated. Quite the opposite, I think. Its performance rivals or exceeds imports costing 3-5 times as much. I actually think the Corvette is underrated because of its low price.
I agree The Godfather is overrated. I think Citizen Kane is, too. I'm sure it was a great accomplishment in filmmaking in its time. But by today's standards, booooring.

Melissa Erin | June 30, 2004
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Anna Gregoline | June 30, 2004
Chicago, definitely underrated. I don't agree with the Godfather though, I think it's a great movie.

Steve West | June 30, 2004
The Godfather remains on my personal list of Top 10 favorites. Gone With the Wind is overrated. Washington D.C. is not overrated, the best thing being little industry besides government makes for a largely clean city. It's one of the last stops for theater shows on their way to Broadway, and it's a monumentally historic place (pun intended). So many embassies that expand their own cultural desires lead to many quaint ethnic restaurants throughout the city. The local government blows dead bear but overall I can't think of a city I'd rather be a suburb of - except being at ground zero and the snow sucks.

Melissa Erin | June 30, 2004
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Jackie Mason | June 30, 2004
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Erik Bates | June 30, 2004
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Erik Bates | June 30, 2004
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Jackie Mason | June 30, 2004
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Erik Bates | July 1, 2004
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Steve Dunn | July 1, 2004
Fords suck.

I say that with all due respect. ;-)

Lori Lancaster | July 1, 2004
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Jackie Mason | July 1, 2004
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Scott Hardie | July 2, 2004
Offering my own subjective opinion for no constructive purpose (but it sure is fun):

Cars: Overrated: The Chrysler PT Cruiser is a damn ugly car. It looks like it came from an alternate reality where tastes got worse since the 1940s instead of better. Underrated: GM EV1 indeed.

City: Overrated: Tokyo. Lori likes it for other reasons, but most of the people who grew up with me only liked it because the Japanese developed so many of our favorite video games. Underrated: Vancouver, runner-up Pittsburgh. Both wonderfully clean, contemporary cities that can't shake their image as poverty-stricken, backwards, and empty.

Movie: Wasn't this originally "movie classics"? Oh well. I've been holding it in because certain people here like them a lot, but the "Evil Dead" films are the most overrated films I can imagine. They're nauseating abominations of cinema. I'm tempted to mention "A Clockwork Orange" and "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," but they're actually halfway decent films, just not the masterpieces they're revered to be. The only underrated film classic that comes to mind for me is "Doctor Zhivago." When I went to purchase it for my mother at Best Buy, it being her favorite film, the salespeople in the DVD section hadn't even heard of it. A more contemporary underrated: Anyone reading this who hasn't seen Spike Lee's "25th Hour" should drop everything and rent it this patriotic July 4th weekend; it's that good.

Novel: Overrated: The Crying of Lot 49. Did not enjoy that one for a second; it was straining way too hard for weirdness. Underrated: I don't think nonfiction qualifies, but I'm going to say The Autobiography of Malcolm X. It not only makes the threat of racism crystal-clear, it inspires you to greatness, to improve your life and others.

President: Overrated: Jimmy Carter. He cannot be praised enough as a human being, but as a president? One mistake after another. (And no, I don't want to argue about this with you, Kris. ;-) ) Underrated: So the League of Nations didn't work out, but every president should aspire to achieve as much in the name of world peace as Woodrow Wilson.

I'm coloring outside of the lines!

Musicians: Overrated: Nirvana. Look, I grew up with 'em too, and I still listen to the CDs from time to time. But my generation is determined to immortalize this band because they're so hungry to be on equal footing with the giants of the past. Cobain is simply not in the same league as Hendrix as a musician or Morrison as a lyricist, the two men with whom he's often compared, simply because they all died too young. And inspiring bands for a decade is only so worthwhile when the vast majority of them sucked miserably. In rock history, Cobain deserves warm regard, not idolatry. Underrated: Black Sabbath. At least Cobain will get his place in the Hall of Fame & Museum; Ozzy finally refused to be nominated any more after they were on the ballot so many times and still didn't get accepted. That's not just ignorant of their influence on heavy metal music and hard rock, it's disgraceful.

Magazines: Overrated: People. Doesn't anybody realize it's just a tabloid with a bigger budget? It's not a real magazine! Underrated: Pornographic content aside, Playboy, for which the death knell has been sounding for years. It's viewed as a dinosaur of style, out of touch with today's young men, but if you ask me, they're out of touch with it. I'd sooner learn some lessons in masculinity from Playboy than from Maxim. (Example: Only one gender looks good in earrings.)

Soft Drinks: Overrated: Mountain Dew, all marketing and no product. Underrated: Barq's Root Beer, still the best-tasting of the major root beer brands.

Chain Restaurants: I don't know what the most underrated one is, but I gladly nominate Carrabba's for most overrated. It's not bad exactly, but it's a pale shadow of Olive Garden if you're in the mood for bland, generic, overpriced Italian classics. Browsing one city's tourism web site, I saw Carrabba's mentioned as one of their finest restaurants, and I thought man, that town's in trouble.

Steve Dunn | July 2, 2004
Nirvana's lyrics are stupid. All due respect, of course, but come on. Smells Like Teen Spirit makes no sense at all.

Anna Gregoline | July 2, 2004
It's hard to make sense when you're on heroin all the time.

Jackie Mason | July 2, 2004
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Anna Gregoline | July 2, 2004
Nirvana is great, in my opinion. They weren't the best band of all time, and I am exhausted with everyone treating Kurt Cobain like he was a god (exactly what he hated and what he wasn't), but I love their music. I just think it has an amazing sound and energy behind it.

Erik Bates | July 3, 2004
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Lori Lancaster | July 3, 2004
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Denise Sawicki | July 3, 2004
Erik, yeah, that's a hilarious scene :)

Scott Hardie | July 4, 2004
With the exception of "You Know You're Right," at least Nirvana fans haven't been subject to an endless string of "new" releases that were never meant to see the light of day like Tupac Shakur fans have.

Jackie Mason | July 4, 2004
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Melissa Erin | July 4, 2004
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Anthony Lewis | July 5, 2004
Chicago is definitely an underrated city. Chicago is the only place I've been to that reminds me of NYC...so it feels like home when I'm there.

Washington D.C.? Definitely overrated. Since D.C. is like my second home town, I can tell you that there are two sides to this place. There's the side that the tour buses get to see, and the side that the tour buses dare not go into. You have this one corner of the city that is punctuated by the government buildings, tourist attractions, and rizy homes. That's about 25-30% of the city.
The other 70-75% of the city is a veritable slum. I mean, if you ever REALLY go though Washington, D.C....you'll wonder why this town would be considered the "Nation's Capital". Heck, you can walk 5-6 blocks away from the Capitol, and be in the ghetto. There is a housing project named after the former mayor (Barry Farms - for Marion Barry), and IT'S a slum.

Unfortunately, the tourists don't get to see it, because unlike in NYC, you don't have to pass though the bad areas to get to the airports.

Jackie Mason | July 5, 2004
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Anna Gregoline | July 6, 2004
I thought D.C. was definitely a slum in the majority when I went there, and we didn't venture far out of the tourist area. I wouldn't want to live there. Besides, isn't it one of the gun capitals of America for violence?

Jackie Mason | July 6, 2004
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Lori Lancaster | July 14, 2004
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Anna Gregoline | July 14, 2004
I can't read that at work (it is deemed "unacceptable" by our firm's filter) but if it's about how Cobain might have been murdered instead of "suiciding" (to use one of our President's made-up words), I register my crabbiness.

Jackie Mason | July 14, 2004
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Anna Gregoline | July 15, 2004
I hate that drug one - it's a well-established medical fact that addicts have to keep taking higher and higher doses of a drug in order to feel a rush - what would fall you or me in a second would probably have been a normal dose for him.

Kris Weberg | July 19, 2004
Actually, Scott, I think Carter was a very poor president. A big helping of naivety, and paradoxically the same kind of selfless optimism that makes him so great now made him really lousy as Prexy in the late 70s.

Now, I will risk painful death by arguing that Jim Morrison is incredibly overrated. He's not the lyricist that Bob Dylan or Paul Simon were, for sure; and I'll take a lot of Lennon-McCartney verses over Morrison's lyrics any day.

With Dylan, you got stunning, unconventional imagery and profounf social commentary; with Paul Simon you get the equivalent of a clever short story or character sketch. With Jim Morrison, you get platitudes about how great sex and drugs make you feel...platitudes largely disproven by his short and rather troubled life. Rock is supposed to be sex and drugs, sure, but that doesn't make writing about the subjectes all that impressive.

So unless someone wants to tell me how profound "Light My Fire" and "Break on Through" really are, in some detail, I'm not sure where Morrison got his "brilliant lyrics" cred.

Erik Bates | July 19, 2004
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Jackie Mason | July 19, 2004
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Anna Gregoline | July 19, 2004
I do think the Doors are overrated as well. I never really understood Jim Morrison's acceptance by many to be a god among men.

Jackie Mason | July 19, 2004
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Anna Gregoline | July 19, 2004
Yeah, he did kind of have the Jesus body, huh? Doing lots of drugs will do that to a person. (I'm not implying that Jesus did drugs.)

Melissa Erin | July 19, 2004
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Jackie Mason | July 19, 2004
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Erik Bates | July 20, 2004
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Adrianne Rodgers | August 16, 2006
Okay.....I'll be amazed if any one actually agrees with me, but here are my overrated and underrated picks. (Using Scott's model)

City: Most Overrated: Los Angelos. A fine place to live, if you happen to be an orange. Underrated: Long Beach, WA. It's impossible not to have fun there. Check out Marsh's Free Museum.

Movie: Overrated: The Harry Potter movies. No one really likes these. People pretend to like them because it's Harry Potter. Underrated: Tokyo Godfathers. The best Christmas movie ever isn't American!

Novel: Overrated: Pride and Prejudice. I know it's supposed to be a satire. But it could have been a good satire. Most people, even if their main purpose is to take a swipe at society, at least try to make their work entertaining. Underrated: Standing in the Rainbow. The literary equivalent of an apple pie.

Musicians: Overrated: Public Enemy and Hole. No explaination needed. Underrated: The Hives. They're just funky, and they crack me up.

Magazines: Overrated: The Globe. They have no idea what they're talking about. Underrated: Mental Floss.

Soft Drinks: Overrated: I'm with Scott. Mountain Dew. And damnit, stop it with all the spin-off flavors. They suck! Underrated: Lime Pepsi.....delicious. Diet Dr. Pepper, the best of all the diet sodas, and Pepsi Blue. Dangit, I miss that stuff!

Chain Restaurants: Overrated: In agreement with Scott again. Carrabas. A menu that makes anyone from Italy cry, and the singing waiters drive me insane. Underrated: Pizzeria Uno. Amazing stuff. If that's really how they make pizza in Chicago, I'm moving there.

And a few of my own catergories...

Fast Food: Overrated: Wendy's. Always tastes slightly off to me. Underrated: Chik-Fil-A. Superior chicken to KFC and Popeye's any day.

Actors: Overrated: Steve Martin. This guy will never be funny in a physical comedy again, will he? Underrated: Anne Hathaway. I hated all the Disney movies, but with Brokeback Mountain, she showed a lot of potential.

Child Actors: Overrated: AnnaSophia Robb. She's not Denver's sweetheart, she's really not *that* good, and I've met her. She's a snot. Underrated: Ryan Newman. Not only adorable, but reallly goood at what she does. Elle Fanning, also, but she's still stuck in the shadow of her sister.

Scott Hardie | August 16, 2006
Good list. I'm with you throughout, except maybe on Chik-Fil-A. The name is terrible, but that aside, the ones around here are constantly overflowing with screaming little kids running wild through the restaurant. I'm not talking one or two kids, I'm talking dozens, all at once. Do I have the misfortune to run into an entire third grade class on field trip every time I go there? Maybe I should stick to the drive-thru next time.

I still haven't figured out how people enjoyed the fourth and latest Harry Potter film so much. It bored me silly from start to finish, and I liked some of the earlier ones.

Carrabbas is dead to me now. Bitch waitress kept me sitting curbside for an hour and fifteen minutes; the food was room temperature by the time I finally got it home, halfway through my favorite TV show. I'll never patronize them again.

Lori Lancaster | August 16, 2006
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Jackie Mason | August 16, 2006
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Adrianne Rodgers | August 17, 2006
Can't say I have seen Voices of a Distant Star, but now I know what to rent.

Kris Weberg | August 17, 2006
My list:

City
Most Overrated: Los Angeles, CA. Gonna have to go with consensus on this one. It's poorly laid-out, sprawls in the worst way imaginable. Basically NYC without oases like Central Park and NYU, but with three times as much Times Square and post-1980s Greenwich Village phoniness.
Underrated: St. Louis, MO. Not as good as Chicago, sure, but better than people say it is.
Totally Overlooked:Austin, TX. The only sane part of a psychotic state.

Movie
Overrated: The Matrix trilogy. Come on now, folks, it's been a few years, the bullet-time effects have become so much CGI kitsch, and the increasingly potted stoner philosophy has ben done infinitely better elsewhere. Take those things away from it, and all you're left with is almost seven hours of Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss trying to play love scenes while character actors deliver painfully overwritten dialogue to no one in particular. That, and the rave scene from Hell.
Underrated: The Man Who Wasn't There. Leaving aside the stunning B+W cinematography, the movie manages to make a sly point about just how little complacency there was in the 1950s by giving us a man whose sleepwalk through life has murderous results. It's a pity that so many people treat it as the least of the Coens' work because the protagonist's absurdity is underplayed rather than overplayed.
Totally Overlooked: Clue. This underperforming little mystery farce managed to anticipate the droll asides of Frasier by over a decade, and more astoundingly, managed to make a good movie out of that most unpromising of notions, a board game tie-in.

Novel
Overrated: The Godfather. The movie is sheer genius, but my advice is not to go back to the source, which is full of pointless subplots and makes a mess, rather than a virtue, of the claustrophobic insularity of Mob life that worked so well on film.
Underrated: Foucault's Pendulum. Imagine The Da Vinci Code if it were smart nough to make fun of itself. The double twist of the ending manages to be both poignant and funny, sad and absurd.
Totally Overlooked: The Phantom Tollbooth. Perhaps everyone here has read and loved this children's masterpiece, but with all the attention going to Wonderland, Oz, and Harry Potter, I can't help but feel that Norton Juster's amazing tour of human knowledge has been inadvertantly buried.

Musicians
Overrated: Coldplay. I remain dumbfounded at the apparent mass appeal of a droning, painfully earnest band that doesn't even seem to be having fun. Forget not being good rock, this isn't even good emo.
Underrated: The Libertines. This fantastic post-punk band was treated like just another entry in the glut of neo-garage, but unlike their competitors, these drunken, surly Brits actually manage to incorporate pop genres from across the boards into their sound. It's a shame Pete Doherty had to implode into a cloud of white power and broken bottles, but the two albums the group managed to create remain standouts.
Totally Overlooked: Harvey Danger. One of the finest albums of the 1990s was totally overlooked by a jaded music scene, but Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone? still deserves the attention it never really got.

Magazines
Overrated: Harper's. So painfully smug and self-assuredly editorializing that I dropped it, and I agree with their politics.
Underrated: Adbusters
Totally Overlooked: Literature magazines that aren't The Believer.

Soft Drinks
Overrated: Diet Coke with Splenda. Gritty, overly sweety, and generally just "off' somehow.
Underrated: Crystal Pepsi. Yeah, I'm the guy who liked it.
Totally Overlooked: Sprecher's Cream Soda. So much sugar you might as well turn in your teeth right now, but Sprecher's manages to subtly blend three distinct flavors -- cane sugar, honey, and vanilla -- into what should be the blandest soda flavor of all.

Chain Restaurants
Overrated: Olive Garden. "Man, is this salad fantastic! What entree are you getting?" "Entree?"
Underrated: Red Lobster. Two words: free cheese rolls. Three more words: Snow Crab legs.
Totally Overlooked: Steak 'N' Shake. The best reason to live in central Illinois anyone ever came up with. And no, it's not "fast food" if they cook to order.

Fast Food:
Overrated: Hardee's/Carl's, Jr. Just. Not. Good. And they dropped the greasy, salty perfection that was the Mushroom Swiss Burger.
Underrated: Chipotle's. Yeah, they're everywhere, and yeah, it's one more taco stand no asked for, and yeah, the decor is painfully hipsterish, but somehow it actually tastes good despite the fact that it really shouldn't. Earns bonus points for having a hot salsa that's actually hot, and a mild salsa that doesn't taste like mis-mixed ketchup.
Totally Overlooked: Sonic's. Good burgers, good shakes, usually very fast. A dependable little drive-thru.

Actors
Overrated: Samuel L. Jackson, Jr. Oh, look, he said "muthafucka!" again! Now he's projecting hip gravitas! And now he's making use of one of his two facial expressions: slightly more serious! Oh Samuel, you're so badass.
Underrated: Matt Damon. Is the pretty-boy/Ben Affleck hate sufficiently exhausted that we can once again admit that this man can actually act? See also: Leonardo DiCaprio.
Totally Overlooked: Benicio Del Toro. Not handsome, not especially famous, but one of the best damned actors working today.

Actresses
Overrated: Glenn Close. Just hammy, sorry.
Underrated: Parker Posey. Not here at TC, but certainly in Hollwood, where the "Queen of the Indies" can't get anything resembling a decent role in a big-name or prestige picture.
Totally Overlooked: Catherine Keener. She's been quietly proving her versatility for some years now, but it took Capote for anyone to notice.

Amy Austin | August 17, 2006
Benicio Del Toro. Not handsome, not especially famous, but one of the best damned actors working today.

I disagree. (With the "not handsome" part. I also think dating Scarlett Johannsen gave his notoriety a bit of a boost, too.)

Tony Peters | August 17, 2006
Scarlett Johannsen is definatly overrated...

Amy Austin | August 17, 2006
Agreed.

Lori Lancaster | August 17, 2006
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Jackie Mason | August 18, 2006
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Steve Dunn | August 18, 2006
Kris, I'm so with you on Harpers. I resolved long ago that if I ever run into Lewis Lapham on the street, I'm going to punch him directly in the snout. I still read it, but it's getting worse and worse. Every single month there's a 20-page feature about how horrible Bush is, written by someone with no particular expertise in the subject at hand.

I've been enjoying the New Yorker a lot more lately. And every now and then I'll read every word of every article in The Atlantic. Smithsonian started sucking several years ago and I can't even read it anymore. Smithsonian always has a couple articles worth reading, complemented by the usual anti-Bush dreck.

I've never gotten into Coldplay.

Scott Hardie | August 19, 2006
I can't be the only one looking forward to seeing Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon in the same Scorsese movie together in a few months, even if they barely have screen time together. Both men were highly regarded as actors before their popularity ruined their reputations. Maybe Benicio del Toro is better off.

Amy Austin | August 19, 2006
Ha! Good point. I'm always defending Leo, because I think he *is* a great actor... even if he is a pretty boy. Reminds me of the pre-Interview with a Vampire days with Tom Cruise (and, to a certain extent, Brad Pitt). Now, everyone just hates on him (and Mel Gibson) for being nutty (and on Brad for having it all) -- but I would still argue that he's also a very good actor... though with fewer diverse roles these days.

Tony Peters | August 20, 2006
Liking LEO must be a girl thing...I have yet to see him in a movie where I liked him though in truth I haven't liked many of the movies that he's been in

Amy Austin | August 20, 2006
Did you not see The Aviator? Gangs of New York?? The Man in the Iron Mask wasn't bad, either.

Adrianne Rodgers | August 20, 2006
I can't say I liked The Aviator that much. That could just be because I have the attention span of a- oh, hey, something shiny!

The repetetiveness gets a little old, though. I have nothing against people with OCD, but I'm not going to pretend that I enjoy listening to people say the same things 30 times in a row. I think there's such a thing as too realistic. After the fifth time he spelled quarantine, I was saying, "I get it! He's obsessive compulsive! Now let's talk some more about the planes!"

Scott Hardie | August 20, 2006
There was also his pre-Titanic work in Basketball Diaries and What's Eating Gilbert Grape. Dude was nominated for an Oscar for it.

Tony Peters | August 20, 2006
everyitme he does a movie that I think I might be interested in there is some quirk that turns me off (i.e. Avaitor). It's this reason that I have been putting off rentting The Beach just because he's in it.

Jackie Mason | September 24, 2006
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Erik Bates | October 13, 2006
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Scott Hardie | October 15, 2006
Just being opinionated here, sorry guys, but I wouldn't call Del Toro overlooked. He won an Oscar and seems to me almost a household name for starring in Traffic, 21 Grams, Sin City, The Hunted, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but maybe that's just because those are my kind of movies and I'm biased. Either way, his big expensive Che Guevara movie will probably firmly establish him as a household name.

Steak & Shake is a deserving hit up north, but most people I meet here in Florida seem to avoid it like cancer, which is a shame because 24-hour joints here in Sarasota are damn hard to find. Years ago, Kelly would drag me to Steak & Shake at least weekly; now I manage to get there once or twice a year and I still enjoy every trip.

Jackie, did you watch Happiness with us our final year at WIU? The same director made the similarly-depraved Storytelling starring Selma Blair (link) and I recommend it if you don't mind seeing her in something extremely non-PC.

Amy Austin | October 15, 2006
I concurred with "underrated", not "overlooked"... and like Lori, wanted to clarify that I also found him handsome. Can't be doing too bad with the chicas, either... last I knew, he was with Scarlett.

John E Gunter | October 16, 2006
I love Steak & Shake! Only problem I have is that as I've gotten older, I can't eat a whole double chesse bacon steak burger platter and finish the chocolate shake. So I end up getting a Coke with the burger instead.

Adrianne Rodgers | December 30, 2006
Pah. I never liked shakes. They aren't really much of a thirst quencher. Over the years, the only thing I've noticed that is useful about shakes is that they're really great to have if you want 4:00 to roll around and be wondering if it's just gas or if it really is check-out time. And now, to go several pages back on the whole Nirvana thing:

Yeah, they are kinda overrated. My sister loved them when I was a kid, and I admit that when I was...twelve or so, I thought Kurt was adorable. I admit, some of the things I read about him doing still crack me up today. He seems like a guy I could sit down with and have a beer or something. But let's not belabor the point: unique as the man was, his lyrics sounded like he was trying to be Dr. Seuss Who Plays Guitar. Especially Teen Spirit.

But I have a theory on the whole Morrison/Hendrix/Cobain/Joplin/Whomever idolization. I think it's just the "dead guy as saint" phenomenon manifesting itself. Once somebody dies either prematurely/of anything but natural causes, all negative speech about them becomes taboo. You only remember the good things, and all their flaws get quietly kicked under the couch. You never hear anybody say, "That JonBenet, she was a right pain in the ass," or "Emily Keyes, man, something was wrong with that girl." And even when it's not cases I'm only hearing about from the media, I still see it. There was a girl in my grade who was killed during our sophomore year. She was never very popular, and the cheerleader types used to tell jokes about how ugly/dorky they thought she was behind her back. (And in front of her back, ocassionally.) But after her death, those same girls were talking about how smart and funny she was, how she brought everyone together, etc. From what I remember, she wasn't a bad person, but when she was alive, no one really thought about her. But in death, she was everyone's favorite person. People said such nice things about her at her memorial service that it's really a shame she only missed it by a few days.

Joe Ball | February 25, 2007
I think older movies that we like to quote get categorized as "over-rated" unfairly sometimes... like The Godfather (especially), and other movies that everyone assumes everyone SHOULD see can be a let down once you actually see it -- Gone with the Wind was that way for me.