After watching the movie, the least I can say is that the movie should be having ratings at least in the lower 8s just for the great performances it has.
In addition the movie knows when to laugh, cry or care for it's characters showcasing if you will the "humanness" of it's characters.
Because it's not "The Godfather" or "There Will Be Blood" or "Fight Club" or another macho movie about men and men interacting.
Movies about women, not matter how great are rarely placed in top 10 lists (by AFI or anybody else) because these list (like this website) are decided on by men and men are drawn to stories about men.
I always found this movie an over-rated contrived weepy, even in 1983.
I'm with bijou on this one, a movie is not great just because it makes you cry. I wept a little at the end of Rocky 2, but heck I don't think it deserved to win an Oscar or anything else for that matter.
Saving Private Parts: Your Guide to Safe Sex
the music in this movie was ridiculously annoying and helped talk the viewer out of the picture. it tried to be too sentimental.
shareIt's ok but not great,I agree with the other post about it was trying to hard at some parts.
shareFinally!
I have been scouring this board trying to find some mention of the awful sappy, sentimental music.
It was revolting... and I love music -- I can usually find something to like about any kind, but this score was quite simply offensive.
Thank-you for commenting, I could not believe I was the only one who thought this way.
[deleted]
Ah, right. Thanks for pointing that out... don't know what I was thinking.
shareWow, I love the music and don't think it's overdone at all! Just a perfect complement to the emotional situations. Oh well, to each their own.
shareRocky 2 didn't win any oscars...
shareThank you! I agree. And I am a woman, for the record.
"It's only with the heart that one can see clearly. What's essential is invisible to the eye."
"Movies about women, not matter how great are rarely placed in top 10 lists (by AFI or anybody else) because these list (like this website) are decided on by men and men are drawn to stories about men."
Freddie, maybe you should look at the voting statistics, before commenting on that. Males and females voted pretty much the same thing in average, for this film.
older films are usually judged more harshly, probably because they are not being voted on so much by young people who think everything they like is a 9 or 10
shareThe "young people" who don't like old movies don't even watch them. And, this movie was watched by people who went out of their way to watch it 'cause they were interested in it, or they came across it while surfing the channels. So, yeah, stupid excuse is just that, stupid.
Also, I take it that you don't like young people and people who vote everything they like as 9 or 10 (those people vote that way for every other movie as well). So, for some moronic reason you have combined your 2 hates with the fact that you can't live with the fact that others don't share your tastes, to come up with that stupid comment.
AFC to PUA. That's the dream.share
´Cause some voters are dumb?
shareThis is one of the great films. It has perfectly drawn characters portrayed by the only actors who could have done the material justice. It is not a movie about the tragedy that eventually does happen, but about the relationships of the characters. It is a rare and wonderful film!
Last Film Seen: The Dark Knight {A+}
21 Grams {B+}
The only thing worse then a "ratings system" for an entertainment product are people that concern themselves with them!
Ignore them like you would a troll and they'll go away soon enough.
Comparing "Terms of Endearment" to "The Godfather" is unfair to this film. I would use more revelant comparisons, such as "The Graduate" 8.2 and "Splendor in the Grass" 7.5, and then you'll see that 7.3 is a generous ranking.
shareBecause there were so many poor knockoffs - Steel Magnolias, Beaches, - and Terms unfortunately gets lumped in with them. But the sophisticated film goer can recognize why Terms is in a different league.
share[deleted]
By reading the majority of the posts on the "Terms of Endearment" board, I would say most of the posters are men. Let me repeat that; most of the posters on the Terms of Endearment board are men.
If most of the posters on chick flick boards are men, it should be assumed that for the most part most of the movie raters are men and we generally don't care for chick flicks.
That being said this was a very well made movie with terrific dialogue and acting. Too often when the Acadamy Award's best picture goes to a chick flick drama (Shakespeare in Love, The English Patient) the movie does not stand the test of time, but this one truely was the best picture of 1983.
I liked this movie but best picture of 83? What about Return of the Jedi, rumble fish, trading places ,videodrome, scarface?
shareAre you serious? Its because none of those movies are worthy of Best Picture. Don't get me wrong, I like some of those films, but they are not Oscar material.
The Ayatollah of Rock n Rolla!
I completely agree, it's simply one of the best films of all time and was nominated for several Oscars and should be in the top of the IMDB countdown. I never get tired of this movie and the chemistry and scting between all the characters is simply brilliant! Come on all you "Terms Of Endearment" Lovers, let's take this to the top where it belongs!
shareI'm a man who likes the usual action, horror, and thrillaramas just as much as the rest of them, but T.O.E. is, flat-out, THE chick flick of our generation (I'm 33). I've seen it probably a hundred times, and actually, I quit watching chick flicks around 2000, because I've seen enough to know that everything fails when matched up to the perfection that Brooks gives us.
The more you see it, the more you understand how it is the quintessential blueprint for this type of film. Every last detail means something on an enormous scale, and there are so many layers of this film, I've really only found a few things that I even question about how this movie unfolded.
And the main one is, (drum roll), I think the transition from Emma & Flap being newlyweds into the whole tie argument scene is a little awkward and almost forced. However, it is a long film....
But that's really all.
Me: male who likes action and loves this film. Following lyrics tell the tale:
I do remember one thing.
It took hours and hours but..
by the time I was done with it,
I was so involved, I didn't know what to think.
I carried it around with me for days and days..
playing little games
like not looking at it for a whole day
and then.. looking at it.
to see if I still liked it.
I did.
[...]
The more I look at it,
the more I like it.
I do think it's good.
The fact is..
no matter how closely I study it,
no matter how I take it apart,
no matter how I break it down,
It remains consistent.
I wish you were here to see it.
I like it.
(King Crimson: Indiscipline)
Imdb ratings are, more than anything, a reflection of how much enjoyment and entertainment people get from a movie. It's really that plain and simple, nothing else. And the bottom line is that people don't find sitting through this movie as entertaining as they do one that is rated higher. There's nothing more to it. In my opinion, it's hard to say a movie is 'underrated' or 'overrated' on here. There are so many people voting that it actually is a pretty true reflection of the average enjoyment people get out of a movie; you can tell by some of the comments on this thread that a lot of people, probably more than in 1983, consider it a little sappy and overly sentimental. So that will bring the rating of it down---because it doesn't as universally appeal to everyone as much a movie rated higher than this.
shareExactly. This is a great movie.
shareI think this movie is more unknown than underrated. Only 27,000 people voted on it. Where as other oscar winners are rated higher and get a lot more votes. If you look at Shawshank there's over 900,000 votes on it and only 27,000 here. Then again there's a lot more votes on lots of other movies so I'm guessing a lot of people on imdb just haven't seen this or it would get more votes. I looked up the past of the imdb top 250 and apparently even before the TDK wars (people voting other films a 1 to put Dark Knight at the top) this wasn't even in the top 250 then. It's a shame.
"You want me to roll 6,000 of these!? What? Should I quit my job!?" George Seinfeld