Posted on 09/28/2005 9:11:34 AM PDT by pabianice
Movie theater revenues are down 10% in the past three years because of home video technology and because movie quality has objectively continued to decline. We Freepers occasionally review a movie here for fun and to warn others not to waste their money.
So, for a change of pace, let's discuss really bad movies we've seen for one reason or another. I propose three classes of bad movie:
Class 1. A bad movie you sit through because of peer pressure
Class 2. A really bad movie you force yourself to watch because, darn it, you paid for it!
Class 3. Horrifyingly bad movies you simply leave, dragging yourself up the aisle with your arms because your legs have gone numb from shock.
Examples:
Class 1: "The Incredible Lightness of Being" -- stupifyingly bad writing and performances, polished off by a plot involving a serial adulterer physician ruining the lives of all around him for his own sexual gratification – won numerous awards in Europe
Class 2: "The Strawberry Statement" -- I still remember the poster: "The Vibes Were Good, but the Times Were Bad" -- horrifyingly bad performances around a story of beautiful, gentle hippies going to college in San Francisco and lovingly protesting the Vietnam War, only to have the experience ruined by Cylon-like police in riot gear gassing and clubbing them to death during a sit-in for peace; also includes some of the worst dehumanization of women ever portrayed on the screen
"Coming Home" -- what can you say about a movie with Jane Fonda that tells the tale of a maimed vet coming home from the Illegal Vietnam War on Terror to win the heart of a military officer's wife who realizes that her Marine husband is actually a monster (who's also lousy in bed, of course) and so leaves him for the maimed (but good in bed despite the loss of most of his appendages) and virtuous war-protesting vet; movie ends with Marine drowning self by walking into the ocean to atone for his evil acts of national defense
“War of the Worlds” (2005) – This is one big mess of a movie; Aliens have already visited Earth in the distant past to leave their Tripods but then wait until we have atomic weapons and armies before they decide to come back and wipe us out; they arrive at nearly the speed of light in capsules that burrow underground and would be instantly vaporized by the impact; they need human blood to fertilize their Martian Kudzu (“Soilent Red is People!”); it never occurs to the Martians that they need to get flu shots before invading another planet; as the aliens sicken, they conveniently lower their shields so as to be suddenly defenseless against anti-tank rockets; the list is almost endless; the 1954 movie was far superior
"Getting Straight" -- yet another Vietnam vet comes home to attend college and is faced with a school faculty who are all repressed homosexuals and psychotics who determine to drive him out of college; he's saved by heroine who encourages him to Stiock it To the Man!; story ends with the vet kissing his male teacher on the mouth, creating a riot on campus, and then having sex with the heroine on the staircase as the riot and tear gas swill about them in a wonderful collage of color and self-congratulation -- ah!
Class 3: "The Happy Hooker" -- no plot, no production, no acting, but lots of frontal nudity and smashed beds
"Darling" -- critically acclaimed piece of crap about a beautiful, talented, rich woman with the IQ of an end table struggling to make her way in a world of rich men who throw themselves at her feet and take her to fabulous vacation spots
Special Category – What Would Have Been Good Movies But Ruined by One Bad Scene: “A Few Good Men” – Very entertaining story about good and evil in uniform ruined in the courtroom climax, when LTJG Caffee says to the colonel: “I’m a Navy officer, and you are under arrest, you son of a bitch!” Those last five gratuitous words by a screenwriter clueless about the military instantly makes Caffee guilty of disrespect towards a superior officer (a court martial offense) and lower him to Jessup’s level
The Blair Witch Project was the most profitable movie ever made.
I remember watching it, thinking "Just sink already."
I would respectfully disagree. In "A Few Good Men," the military was portrayed as, for the most part, an ethical institution (Cruise, Bacon, both the younger marines, Moore and Pollack) that was capable of weeding out the corrupt colonel. The only area where I think it strayed into typical liberal agitprop was the need to make Keifer Sutherland's psycho Lt. into a born again Christian.
Class 1: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Ugh.
Class 2: Stone Mountain. Double Ugh.
Class 3: Legends of the Fall, Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988). Shootmenow Ugh.
I'm still wondering how the Aviator won the Oscar. Worst winner in some time...
"The Choirboys": One of the first of the "Take a Decent Book Then Hack And Slash It Into Irrlevance" Movies.
Joe Wambaugh was absolutely right to have his name removed from this poorly written, acted and directed piece of cinematic dreck that even James Woods, Don Stroud and Louis Gossett Jr. couldn't pull up from the sewer!
Special Category: "Full Metal Jacket": Kubrick should have stayed stuck to Gus Hasford's "The Short Timers" as he had for 3/4 of the novel (Which is superb!) as it was written!
Having Joker, Cowboy and the Lust Hog Squad sent to Khe Sahn. Where the squad falls victim to another ambush where Doc is shot. Cowboy goes after him and is shot. Joker takes charge, decides not to risk any more men and shoots Cowboy dead!
"Hedwig and The Angry Inch": A very popular IFC film. Though, I just can't get the hang of a rock band with John Cameron Mitchell in drag leading it. Far too pretentious for its own good.
Jack.
I just watched Canstantine last night. I like dark movies, and it's pretty much all about dark.
I don't remember the novel saying anything about the pre-positioned war machines.
The worst movie ever made: AMERICAN MOVIE
Amazon.com essential video
Struggling filmmaker Mark Borchardt is the subject of American Movie, and he may also be the most determined man you'll ever meet. The straggly haired, fast-talking, Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, native lists his greatest influences as Dawn of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He began making horror movies as a gangly adolescent, and is now set on finishing Coven (which he pronounces like "woven"), the "35-minute direct market thriller" he has worked on for two years. In the process, he steadfastly battles immense debt, the threat of losing his kids, and birds chirping gleefully through scenes set in the dead of winter. His mother would rather do her shopping than be an extra, his brother contends he's best suited for factory work, and his father just wants him to "watch the language."
Standing by him through it all is Mark's childhood buddy, Mike Schank, who is the strongest weapon against drug use a task force could ever hope for, and Uncle Bill, begrudging financier of Coven, who appears to be wasting away before our very eyes. In less perceptive hands these two could easily become caricatures--the burnt-out stoner and the crotchety old coot--but through director Chris Smith's lens we see why Mark loves them, why they love Mark, and why each of these stories is uniquely compelling.
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, the film has been compared to Spinal Tap and Waiting for Guffman--two unquestionably hilarious mock-documentaries--and, indeed, American Movie has plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. But in the spoofs, we feel encouraged to point and giggle at the poor slobs trying to get a piece of the action. Smith, however, offers us a funny and overwhelmingly affectionate portrait; you may sit down expecting to laugh at Mark's pie-in-the-sky hopes, but you soon find yourself bursting with admiration. "The American dream stays with me each and every day," Mark says, and by the end, we want nothing more than for it to come true. (The DVD version includes the complete short film "Coven.") --Brangien Davis
Two favorite scenes from Sid n Nancy:
Nancy calling her mother from a pay phone in London telling her she's married and to send money and the part where the kid is getting picked on in the vacant lot, Sid comes to save the day, and ALL the kids run away when he sayd "I'm Sid Vicious".
Someone stole my copy of Sid and Nancy a long time ago and I ache for it to this day. Sighs while waxing nostalgiacally.
BTW, Central Scrutinizer, is that screen name a throw to Zappa's Joe's Garage??? It's got some lazy neurons snapping in my head and I'm not so sure.
"Mystery Men." She suggested it, I paid. Never went out with her again.
Class 3: Can't remember the title but it was the movie 3-4 years about a reunion of a folk singing group. I rented it but it was so bad I pulled it out after about 30 min. Whole story line was the same tedious joke or it seemed like it to me.
Superb? Maybe if you have the hots for Tom Cruise.
I went to see it with some friends, and told others to rent the video. The 1950s version, that is. End to end, it was so chock full of ludicrous happenings (scientific impossibilities, continuity problems, unexplained scenes) that I thought Ed Wood had directed this thing.
It didn't win.
I agree, the original was a metaphor for the Post War/Cold War world. A warning which we have failed to heed.
The remake would have been a good movie had the original never existed.
"A Mighty Wind" or "Waiting on Guffman"....something like that? Both total parodies...bad, but funny.
Prelude to a Kiss - was on a date (thought it would be a good date movie) zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Chariots of Fire - Heard all the hype, then stunned by the sheer boredom of it!
Most anything with Will Smith in it. Talk about ham-handed acting! And that black ghetto schtick is getting really old. Hey Will, that was funny 20 years ago in that TV sitcom, now get over it!
BWAHHHAAA! Reminds me of how I felt about "2 Fast, 2 Furious" which I "watched" with my nephews.
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