Not looking for agreement. I know I have little of that here about those movies. My point is only that I thought those were bad movies for a variety of reasons. Obviously I am in massive disagreement with the status quo. Sue me. I do have my reasons, and I have watched a shit ton of films in my life from nearly ever country, and every year cinema has been around, and every genre, so I have a pretty good basis of comparison. And it's not like I hate all those films, or can't appreciate aspects of them. Some of them even have top notch aspects, and sometimes that's what bugs me the most, but none of those films came remotely close to the hype over them, or did anything like live up to expectations based on popularity and reviews, not for me. I am also a very harsh critic, and demand near perfection, so you don't see middle range reviews from me. It's either loved it of hated it in the vast majority of cases. Luckily for people like me (and I am not alone) so many movies get made that there will always be plenty enough good stuff for me not to waste too much time on the stuff I don't like.
As far as Irr and EtV go. I saw EtV first and I thought EXACTLY the same thing, probably worse. Sophomoric, moronic, trite, pretentious, film school grade drivel. About the only thing I liked was the CGI DMT trip, which was quite accurate, and in my opinion one of the very few good uses of current CGI. So I watched it all the way through to see if there was anything else to it. I found it, but only after the film slithered through my noggin for some time and I watched it again, then again, then again. There is an intricate nearly holographic quality to that film I still can't put my finger on, but there is much more to that onion than the skin.
Did you really watch Irreversible at all? I found nothing about that film pretentious in the slightest bit. On the contrary it was probably one of the most visceral, and truly horrifying films I have ever seen. Again, a hidden layer of complexity seeps through. Very terrific!