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
Hun,
I'm ANCIENT!
I mean the 1966 Monkee's movie :)
'cept I didn't see it until about 4 years later, but you get the drift.
Good point. "AI" was one of those movies that ended 10 minutes after it should have. Another in that genre of recent note was "Unbreakable", I think it was called, with Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson. Willis played the guy who was in all kinds of accidents but never was injured.
Danny Kaye was a genius with words and dialogue.
"The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle, the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true."
"Nooo! The flagon with the dragon has the pellet with the poison. The vessel with the pestle is the brew that is true."
"The Court Jester" is one of my all-time favorite movies! "The vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true ...."
Just remember to lock the door. Cause nobody #$%$ing knocks anymore. ;-)
SD
'Shakespeare in Love' wasn't written by a Hollywood type but by Tom Stoppard. Who doesn't need any help to be high brow. It was a very witty and intelligent script.
I thought about this and here goes:
Cat 1: The Sound of Music (stop SINGING my head is gonna explode)
Cat 2: Cujo (Damn, I can't believe I saw the whole thing. What was wrong with me.) And all of the Star Trek movies, ALL OF THEM, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM.
Cat 3: Too many to submit...but I'm fascinated by movies this bad. Just saw Hercules and the Moon Men. Yikes!
We recently rented 'Alone int the Dark' with Christian Slater and Tara Reid. It was supposed to be a sci-fi thriller about an alien creature that gets awakened and wreaks havoc on mankind. The special effects were laughable, plot lame (a rip-off of every alien movie ever made) and of course acting atrocious. It wasn't even worthy of the Sci-Fi channel. It could have been some film student's mid-semester project, and yet it was out in theaters! My husband and I actually sat through the whole thing because it was so bad that it was worth a few laughs. We just kept wondering how much worse it could get.
Another stinker was 'Constantine'. I made it through only 20 minutes of that before turning it off and going to bed.
Ok... am I strange in saying that I liked this movie? I thought it was one of the best pieces of science fiction (as opposed to SciFi/Space Opera) to hit the screen in ages -- the premise of: what would be the social effects of introducing this type of technology.
It's the best movie I've seen in the last few years. It broached so many interesting subjects like: the persistancy of love, the question of whether it was better to love and lose than to never love, whether we can change or if we will fall into the same patterns of behavior.
Brilliant. Of course, you need to see the end first in order to understand the beginning.
SD
A poster after my own heart. However, we are talking bad movies today.
AoD would fit in the Best Underappreciated Movie Ever.
BTW, I have Bruce Campbell's autobiography. He signed it, "Good...Bad...I'm the guy with the gun" - - Bruce Campbell
And, NO, I won't sell it.
Agreed. One of the greatest anyway.
People of a certain generation grew up watching the Pirate Movie on HBO. Director Ken annakin is still alive in his 90s and Lucas named Darth Vader in his honor.
Class 3. Horrifyingly bad movies you simply leave, dragging yourself up the aisle with your arms because your legs have gone numb from shock.
Four Weddings and a Funeral. Didn't see it at the movies; my wife and I rented the video. Starts off with a word I would never say in the presence of my wife. Then the word is said again. And again. And again. Over and over. We look at each other and I said "Do you want to keep watching this." She said no. So we rewound it and took it back to the video store. I have no idea what the movie was about and have no interest in knowing.
It may have been scripted and in production pre-9/11, but it didn't come out until 2002... which makes it even worse, in my book.
==" American Beauty (Rose?)
Just god-awful...all of it. And "stuckonstupid-wood" gives oscars for this piece of trash! "==
This was the movie that made me almost completely stop going to movies. I went directly home and took a shower, just like I did after walking out of that Burt Reynolds porn flick.
"The Sixth Sense" was the same year, and it was the real class of the field.
Well WOTW was a commercial blockbuster so...anyway Science Giction is no more written for scitnists then Ghost stories are written for ghosts. you can pick up apart just about any fiction in that matter if that's what you set out to do. It's pedantry imho.
"Johnny Guitar" was the worst movie ever made. I nearly got my ass kicked over that movie.
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