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
I agree completely, although...
I did enjoy "Everything you wanted to know about sex"...
Particularly the scene with Gene Wilder and the scene in the guys head...
See the restored version of "The Big Red One", one of the best war movies ever.
The Day After Tomorrow. It was so funny I thought it was a comedy. The effects are amazing, though.
Crimes and Misdemeanors is a remarkable film about morals, expertly acted and told.
"Hieronymous Merkin" was one I walked out of back in the late 60s or early 70s, but I remember nothing about it. Another boring, pretentious disaster from that era was "Marat/Sade," beloved of the Left and pseudo-intellectuals.
It was 'Crime and Punishment' taken to its logical conclusion without the tacked-on ending that Dostoevsky gave his novel.
I just finished "F for Fake" very odd documentary/film from Orson Welles, off key and odd, but worth a watch.
BTW: Would you characterize "The Chosen" as a bad movie?
The graphic novels look pretty much exactly like the movie, probably about 1/3 of the novel frames are in the movie in as exact a replica as digitally possible. The movie is really 3 of the 7 graphic novels (1 of the novels though is actually just a collection of smaller stories). I don't think that relationship is more fully explained, Sin City is really about mood and tempo, relationships are only described as deeply as absolutely necessary.
It's interesting how some graphic novels are turning into unlikely films. 'Ghost World', Cronenberg's latest 'A History of Violence' which is fascinating btw.
What is maddening is that there are flashes of Welles brilliance here and there, but never enough to do a whole film. The DVD has a great documentary about all his unfinished projects.
Damn few better films than Citizen Kane and The Third Man.
Everyone would stand in line to laud him as a giant, but no one would finance any of his work.
'The Third Man' was actually a Carol Reed film. Welles claimed he did not give Reed any advice but it sure looks like it.
I'm not sure how unlikely it is. Graphic novels are pretty much storyboards to start with so from a standpoint of production they should be a little simpler (you could really see that in Sin City where it was pretty obvious that if they storyboarded they did so by cutting panels right out of the books). Maybe some of the graphic novel they're choosing are a little unlikely, but there's always been a market for dark and wierd, and given the ascendancy right now of comic book movies it seems pretty natural for somebody to decide they want to do a comic book only a dark and wierd one. Which is great for folks like me that are long times fans of Miller, Moore and Gaiman (too bad Constantine was so definitively mediocre compared to Books of Magic though, and lets not mention League more than absolutely necessary).
I want to see History of Violence but it might get lost in my shuffle, Serenity is must see and life is getting busy and I really hate seeing movies that have been out more than a week and scratched up by lazy projectionists (still no all digital theaters here).
Primer, I forgot what a stinker that was.
Memento was another stupid movie that didn't make any sense.
Oh, and any movie in which the terrorist bad guys are Serbs. I mean, what did Serbia ever do to the U.S.? If I were a Serbian-American, I'd be really pissed at always being portrayed as the terrorist. The Serbs need to get together and form an organization like CAIR to protest Serbophobia in Hollyweird.
Unlikely in the sense that you would never guess from a film like 'Ghost World' or HOV that it came from a graphic novel. They've been an unsually fruitful source for very good films.
I think Primer was made by the son of a Freeper.
That was another 'Scientology' Special project. When the mother is shooting the daughter in the head....thats when you know there's definately an agenda....
"The Chosen" was mediocre, but not bad. I would definitely characterize Yentl as really bad.
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