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
LOL... Sounds like Sling Blade would have been another good choice.
The Hulk. Daredevil.
My most recent contribution to a bad movie list is "Crash." Like "American Beauty," critics have fallen over each other in praising this piece of simplistic tripe.
The movie's message? Everybody's racist, and racism is bad.
I loved Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
But if the catagory is movies you won't admit to liking, then by definition, how can we admit to liking them?
So I will just say, in this catagory for me is tons of disaster movies. My secret passion. Especially the "movie of the week" type ones I used to watch when I was a teenager.
I will admit to Gidget Grows up, which was an awful UN movie, but had Karen Valentine and Paul Lynde.
Oh, the North Ave. Irregulars. My kids loved that, and I watched it with them. I loved when Cloris Leachman broke her nails.
For me it really made the movie about 'mr. glass', that did not happen until you found out what he had done..
That movie is the absolute worst piece of trash I have ever seen. I fell asleep halfway through it and my husband woke me up because he wanted me to see what I had wasted my money on (I rented it).
The scene with the child Alexander wearing an incredibly bad blonde wig had me laughing my butt off though.
Nightfall. Outstanding science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov w/ Robert Silverberg, an expansion of one of Asimov's old short stories. A movie was made of it that was literally unwatchable.
Nope--he was in "Aliens"--one of the best movies ever made. Even he was good in it.
The movie "Easy Rider" was an important movie for the anti-war generation. I was probably about 11 or 12 when it came out, and all my brothers' hippie friends, like a lot of the early Baby Boom generation, thought it was absolutely the most poignant, right-on statement's of repressed youth versus the staid Establishment ever filmed! Then, about 15 years later, I was over at the home of a lot of those same ol' hippie pals to watch it on video. Everyone was so excited to see it, to relive the legend, to get back to basics! ....... We all settled down in the living room after dinner with wine and great anticipation. And the movie was SO EMBARASSINGLY LAME! It was such a sucky, stupid, vapid, ridiculous flick!You could see a kind of crestfallen look on everyone's face! I kind of snickered a bit, but kept it under my breath out of respect for those who sat there in shock; I was, after all, just a baby sis ... best and kindest to keep quiet while they absorbed the shock of total disillusionment ...!
Another time, in the mid '80s, I went to an Art Theatre, patronized by the very Hip, to see a screening of the ol Marlon Brando classic, "The Wild Ones." You know the movie: black and white, counter-culture hero Marlon Brando is the leader of a young motorcycle gang that takes over a small town, and enlightens the youth as to the futility of their present state, and the total hipness of rebelling against parents and rules.
The movie was way before my time, but it was a classic and there wasn't much else to do that night. The crowd was mostly the very early hippie and old Beatnik generation, looking grim and earthy.
The movie started. As it went on, it became more and more disturbing ... because Marlon Brando looked like a total GEEK, I swear, really! It was the way he was dressed, in Levis with the pantlegs rolled up!! And his sappy lines, and his stupid hat ... it was chilling. No one spoke; everyone in he audience pretended that he was just as seriously relevant as ever. I was attending with a friend, and in our usual tradition, we had snuck in with "hand grenades" (those mixed cocktails in cans that fit very nicely into large purses) and were getting a pretty good buzz.
My friend was about five years younger than me, into Cyndi Lauper and the whole New Wave movement and way too young to have any decent respect for what Brando represented to the gray-bearded, salt-and-pepper-pony-tailed rebels in the audience. She squirmed, tried to behave, and then she just couldn't hold back any longer. She leaned over to me, giggling, and whispered a little too loudly, "Look at his pants!"
You could have heard a pin drop! The audience was scandalized ... for about 20 seconds. Then you could hear other people snickering under their hands throughout the audience, and it remained that way for the rest of the movie. My friend had utterly broken the spell! She RUINED it for so many .. they looked broken and sad when the movie finished. It was hilarious!!!
I thought Mars Attacks wss brilliant satire of the Dems and the Clinton Administration. I particularly enjoyed Martin Short doing Stephanopoulis (Sp.?) Laughed through the whole thing, especially Nicholson doing the "Can't we all just get along" bit. Also loved the satire on Clinton done by Jack Lemmon and James Garner as the two ex-presidents the Gore character was trying to kill. The critics tried to bury both of them because of they are basically knee padders.
"They got it about half right."
Well, this doesn't really fall into your categories, but when I bought a DVD player, the manufacturer included a DVD... The movie version of "Lost in Space." You know, the one with Matt Lablanc...
Anyway, I put it in and was watching it, and as it went on and on, I was watching it sort of the same way you feel you have to watch a train wreck. I remember telling myself that "there's no way it could possibly get worse..." But it did!
In the end, I did watch the entire movie. But I was quite angry. Somebody owes me for the nearly two hours they stole and wasted in my life!
Mark
Well, I don't know... There was that "Die Hard" movie where he had the worst german/austrian accent! He was one of the most ridiculous and funniest villans I've seen in a long time!
Of course I'm sure they didn't intend for Irons to be the comic relief...
Mark
Oh, fine! Ruin the movie for the rest of us!
Well, I'm going to ruin a movie for you! You know the movie, "Titanic?" Yeah, well the ship sinks!
So there!
Mark
Better version by Weird Al, though! And Coolio seems to have gone nuts over it!
I love "Living in an Amish Paradise!"
Mark
Good pick.
WHOA, that was painful!
Dan
There's an entire class of movies... Well two additional classes...
Bad Movies that are still fun to watch... A few examples that come right to mind would be Bruce and Mila in "The Fifth Element," and "Starship Troopers." Any movie with aliens, gunfire, and semi-nekkid women get special consideration.
Then there are those movies that are SO BAD, you just have to love them. Like "Mars Attacks" (although a lot of people would say this belongs in the previous category). And all three Evil Dead movies ("Evil Dead," "Evil Dead II," and "Army of Darkness.")
Mark
"Take the Money and Run" and "Sleeper" are masterpieces. The "playing cello in the marching band" and bank robbery scenes are hysterical (from TtMaR).
Mark
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