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
Everybody just lay off of 'Equinox!' That's a scary movie, and I'm still scared of park rangers.
Not necessarily, though that's what many Americans seem to want. But a good one would have been nice. At least two of those other three endings would have been a much better place to stop the movie (tossing out the child once the real child was cured and sitting in front of the statue under the sea) than the horribly muddled and unsatisfied ending that the movie mercifully stopped with.
I'm curious, though. On what ground do you consider it "ambitious"?
I saw Santa Claus Counquers the Martians a few weeks ago on our local high school cable channel. One very very very weird movie.
But hey... Santa has a reindeer named "Nixon."
And who can forget:
S-a-n-t-a-c-l-a-u-s
Hooray for Santy Claus!
You spell it
S-a-n-t-a-c-l-a-u-s
Hooray for Santy Claus!
Hooray for Santy Claus!
Yeah yeah for Santy Claus
He's fat and round, but jumpin' jiminy
He can climb down any chim-neyyyy
When we hear sleigh bells ring
our hearts go ting-a-ling
cause there'll be presents under the tree
Hooray for Santy Claus!
Now all year long at the North Pole
He's busy making toys
but he knows just what you're doing
so you better be good girls and boys
Hang up that mistletoe
soon you'll hear ho ho ho
on Christmas day you'll wake up
and you'll say
Hooray for Santy Claus!
Yeah Yeah
Yeah Yeah
Yeah Yeah
Hooray!
Hang up that misteltoe
soon you'll hear ho ho ho
on Christmas day you'll wake up
and you'll say
Hooray for Santy Claus!
S-a-n-t-a-c-l-a-u-s
Hooray for Santy Claus!
You spell it
S-a-n-t-a-c-l-a-u-s
Hooray for Santy Claus!
Hooray for Santy Claus!
Hooray for Santy Claus!
I think I was 12 when it came out, Naj. Forgive me, for I have sinned.
When I saw Blair Witch, Mike Tyson was a few rows behind me, that was scary.
I just sat there trying not to yell at the screen during that movie.
Agree, but I would gladly accept the $150 million the movie took in plus the $24 million CD income and all the merchandising megabucks the movie has made and will continue to make. It's a $$$$ bombshell and Hwood can't figure it all out..
Never saw it because it seemed too long for me....
A good war movie that I saw, and was surprised at it was "Enemy At the Gates". Its about two Snipers trying to kill each other during the battle for Stalingrad. I thought it was a hell of a war movie..
Hun,
If you knew the movies *I* loved as a kid!
Like I just LOVED the Monkee's movie :)
Did you cover your ears?
Haven't been to a movie all year so I don't even know what's playing. Used to enjoy the movies but the liberal leftwing crap coming out of H'weird coupled with the high price of a ticket to support liberal leftist demoncRATs lifestyle turned me off completely. The last movie I saw was LOTR--Return of the King in January 2004.
You mean "Head" the one Jack Nicholson directed?
That's wild.
I love Finding Nemo. I have watched it half a dozen times and think it's a great movie.
Huh? When a science fiction picture can't even get the science close to right, it puts the whole premise into question. Even the sappy "The Day After", a hokey, made-for-TV POS about the after effects of an A-bomb attack on Kansas, had the good sense to get the effects of the Electro-Magnetic Pulse right.
It's the little things that make the difference between a flop and a blockbuster, if you ask me!
"What was I thinking?" Yea ... I had a moment like that when I saw "Animal House" last summer for the first time in 20 years.
Oh yea.
Poseidon Adventure
I saw a new movie over the weekend. Well, it was new for me. "The Court Jester" with Danny Kaye had me in stitches. There were no explosions, no sex scenes, no curse words, and no openly gay characters. Hollywood doesn't make movies like that anymore.
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