9 Iconic Films That Are Lowkey Trash

Universal acclaim isn't a thing. Near-universal acclaim? Sure, that happens. But even the mostly widely beloved films are going to have detractors. Often times this consists of stubborn contrarians, but every once and a while there's a movie that leaves you scratching your head as you watch everyone praise it. Has the whole world gone nuts? Am I the only who can see the truth?

Members of the Complex staff feel exactly that way, and it's time for us to speak out. There are so-called iconic movies that are lowkey trash, and we can be silent no longer. We realize these choices are contentious, but we must move forward nonetheless. Even the whole squad can't always agree, as deep feelings have emerged in discussion. One of us thought another should be stabbed for daring to call a movie trash. I myself would like to fire one of the staff writers for his takedown, if I had that authority, and if I wouldn't feel empty inside without his rap tourettes punctuating the days in the office.

Argue all you want (we sure will), but these nine iconic films are lowkey trash.

Due props and tribute to the holy triumvirate of hyperviolent dorm-bro thrillers: Fight Club, Boondock Saints, and Reservoir Dogs. God knows I can’t quite quantify pretense, but Reservoir Dogs is, somehow, more annoying than Boondock Saints in its fuck-you-no-fuck-you-no-fuck-fuck-fuck machismo of young white men with slightly odd foreheads clipping their way to perdition. Reservoir Dogs doesn’t have characters; it has indistinguished, interchangeable mouthpieces for curt, prototypical Tarantino dialogue; moonlighting as bodybags, of course. This whole film is cannon fodder. Fuck you, man, it’s quotable!—and so is the Bible, so is "Don’t Stop Believing," and so was George W. Bush. What Reservoir Dogs conspicuously lacks, compared to Tarantino’s other films, is vision. — Justin Charity

I knew Love Actually was a touchy pick for this list because when I was in a car full of people last weekend and whispered "Love Actually is traaaash" they all turned around, driver included, with murderous eyes, wanting to throw me out of the car. Sorry, but it's true, and critics called it upon its release in 2003. But now it's being lauded as this "beloved holiday classic" and, oh my gooood how the critics were so wrong, etc.! The critics are often wrong, but not about this. I haven't seen Love Actually in a minute (and I refuse to rewatch it for the sake of this post), but for a film considered a feel-good holiday rom-com, this is neither romantic or comedic, actually. From what I recall, there were men who started inappropriate relationships with their subordinates (see: Hugh Grant with his assistant, Colin Firth with his maid), and the WORST of all, that asshat Rick from The Walking Dead who stole Keira Knightely from Chiwetel Ejiofor. Rude as hell. — Kristen Yoonsoo Kim

As a concept, Memento might’ve worked best as a play. As a film, it’s tedious and exhausting—my god, all the solitary, amnesiac voice-over, and all that fucking shouting. The brilliant performances from Carrie-Anne Moss and Joe Pantoliano don’t make the story’s core intrigue any less convoluted or stressful or any more graceful in its prioritizing style so highly above sense. Which, hey: you could say the same about Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, for instance, but at least that pretty shitshow is linear, coherent, and doesn’t ask that I swallow six aspirin in order to follow its events and reveals properly. Memento is interesting in the very same sense that calculus is interesting; sure, I guess, God forbid you subject me to it for more than twenty minutes per semester. Memento's hits-blunt fatality of a finale scrambles its rewatch value in any case. — Justin Charity

As a book series, Harry Potter is all-time. All-fucking-time. Don't let anyone deride it as kid nor proto YA shit. As a film series though, OMG, fuck these movies. I'm talking specifically about the latter four. The first two helmed by acclaimed kiddie movie director Chris Columbus get trashed for being, well, kid-movie-esque. But guess what, those two books qualify as such as well. Not to mention, the Columbus era pulled off the bulk of what all of these movies coast on: excellent casting. Then Alfonso Cuaron took the reins next. As a book fan, the plot omissions were infuriating, but I've never been the self-serious person to get tight over adaptations in that way. Visually, the film is gorgeous. The last four made by David Yates, though? Fucking flavorless trash b.

I'm talking about the films that cast acclaimed thespian Ralph Fiennes—the Red Dragon for fuck's sake—as Voldemort and somehow managed to make him a cartoonish goofball. The films with screenplays that are for some reason devoid of all the wit and charm in each book. I don't even understand how anyone who has seen but hasn't read enjoys the back half of the franchise. It's sad as fuck when battles and face-offs that have the benefit of being souped up with special effects play better on the page. Half Blood Prince goes full hormones but Yates' adaptation is easily the most boring out of all eight films. Confession: I didn't even make it to Deathly Hallows Part 2. I gave up. Every aspect feels basic and by the books. How this fuccboi snagged a four-peat in the director's chair, I'll never know. — Frazier Tharpe

Let the critical film world tell it, 1998’s Rushmore not only kicked off the mainstream appeal of director Wes Anderson (and made Jason Schwartzman a name), but also gave Bill Murray’s acting career a second wind. The touching story of a lying-ass man-child (child-man?) who falls in love with an elementary school teacher no doubt sang to those who felt oppressed by “the man” and had the ingenuity (or the balls) to attempt to fire back, but this love story ultimately turns the movie into a pile of hipster trash.

Sure, Max Fischer can’t be blamed for getting hot for teacher; many-a red-blooded American male has had some kind of late-night fantasy about that fire faculty member that you couldn’t wait to get detention for… hell, there are numerous stories of teacher reciprocating that affection—straight to jail. Never do you see these boys befriending an old-ass millionaire who is trying to smash said teacher, then doing battle with said old-ass millionaire. Hell, you’d think the old-ass millionaire would be like “listen, son, you’re going down a ridiculous path. You have your high school years to mess with high school girls. You want this teacher to get arrested? What can you even DO for this woman?!” ESPECIALLY WHEN SAID OLD-ASS MILLIONAIRE IS MARRIED… WITH CHILDREN!

Nah, we end up getting some ridiculous pissing contest that the man-child (child-man?) could never win. And for what? To show that smart-ass boys literally can’t do shit until they turn into old-ass millionaires? Oh, it’s cute that Herman sees so much of himself in Max, and Max is practically a poster-child for "never give up" throughout the film. But seriously, for all of the indie rock montages and witty retorts Rushmore throws at you, the basis for the love triangle in the plot can hardly be taken seriously.

Wow, I got through this without mentioning the practically color-less world Wes Anderson paints. Oops, nevermind. —khal

Sorry I'm just out here shitting on your favorite romance films from the early aughts. You know that scene in One Tree Hill in which the girls "Notebook" the guys? Like, forcing the dudes to watch it on a date? That would be a great method for torturing boys (a pastime of mine) because watching The Notebook is just that: TORTURE.

I don't care how hot Ryan Gosling is, you can't just threaten to kill yourself on an amusement park ride in order to get a girl to go out with you. That's not how dating works, man. The rest of the film is sappy nonsense that I can't even dignify myself to explain. Plus, if you watch it now, it's just a painful reminder of the Ryan Gosling-Rachel McAdams relationship that is no longer. — Kristen Yoonsoo Kim

I've only seen this movie once. I was going to try and rewatch this long ass shit for the purposes of this post, but I then I figured this stat just sells my point even more. Basics would have you believe this is one of the greatest modern movies made. A marvel. A contemporary cinematic wonder and achievement. Me? I'm just bummed James Cameron, director of two contenders for best action movie of all time—Terminator 2 and Aliens, obviously—is dedicating the foreseeable future of his career to some truly mediocre shit.

Rewatching Avatar at home shouldn't be a factor anyway. Apparently this was supposed to blow me away in theaters. I saw it at my favorite theater with my boy at the best IMAX screen in New York (maybe in the East altogether, AMC Lincoln Square, what's really good?) We saw it two or three weeks late, already an inherent sign that we weren't too jazzed on it, film student geeks notwithstanding. And the movie that would go on to such commercial acclaim turned out to be... Pocahontas in Space? OK? But wait, I was supposed to be wowed, visually, that's the real draw right? Well, I wasn't. Sorry, Jim. The pictures are pretty, on paper the technology is impressive, Zoe Saldana is always the realest but this still comes in under True Lies in the great James Cameron ranking in my humble opinion. Please, please find the time to do something else in between making Avatar 6. (Sam Worthington is so fucking bland that I can't even remember if he was actually trash in this movie or just, you know there. Nor can I tell you what he's done since this and Terminator 4). — Frazier Tharpe

Yo, who decided all the classic gangster movies need to push three hours? The Godfather, The Godfather: Part II, Goodfellas, American Gangster, and The Departed all approach the monstrous 180 minute running time or surpass it entirely. All are good enough to get away with it, at least. But Scarface and its 170-minute running time? Get the fuck out of here.

Your cousin may have had a giant Scarface blanket hanging in his living room and touted it as a classic gangster film, and you may have been inclined to agree as an impressionable child. But now it’s time to admit Al Pacino adopting an over-the-top Cuban accent and bravado to match the over-the-top action for damn near three hours was overwrought garbage. Even when Tony Montana wasn't shooting or shooting the movie was doing too much. It took everything in me not to kill the power on my TV upon rewatching the tongue scene.

None of the characters are as developed as those in the timeless flicks listed above, and they sure as hell aren’t as likeable—even on some anti-hero shit. Tony Montana is little more than a blood and power hungry monster without the ultimately misguided but still valid motivations of Pacino’s Michael Corleone. The genre deserves better, as did poor Al Pacino. — Ian Servantes

Forrest Gump is a film directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Tom Hanks that filters momentous events in world history from the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s through the lens of a not particularly bright and remarkably literal Southern white man named Forrest Gump. Woodrow Wilson allegedly described the pro-KKK silent epic Birth of a Nation as "writing history with lightning." Forrest Gump, then, is like writing history with mayonnaise.

It smears real history—violent, bloody crucibles like Vietnam and the American Civil Rights Movement—with gloopy white mayo in the form of Hanks’s character and the treacle-y, sentimental screenplay he springs from. The script—the fault of Eric Roth, adapting a novel by Winston Groom—is the real problem here. "I’m sorry I ruined your Black Panther Party" is its neat way of taking, you know, a pivotal and often grossly understood facet of the American past and smearing it with treacle-y sentiment. Nothing to see here, folks, the film says about Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale’s organization—this is just another occasion for the dim-witted white man to steal the show and flatten history into a piece of cardboard for said white man to drool and dribble on.

There’s nothing wrong with turning the pain and suffering of others across time into a joke, so long as it's a good joke. A joke that’s about something, that says something about our particular cultural moment, or offers some insight into how myopic our understanding of the past can be. Forrest Gump remakes history so that you'll sympathize with Tom Hanks. Who the fuck needs that? — Ross Scarano