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
"Broken Arrow"
I hope you're talking about the one with John Travolta, and not the western with Jimmy Stewart and Jeff Chandler.
WORST MOVIE EVER: Dangerous Minds
good song by coolio though.
Nobody is really interested in war flicks anymore, particularly WWII.
Its called "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" from a book by Czech author Milan Kundera.
It featured the amazingly beautiful Juliet Binoche, along with the beautiful Lena Olin. It was filmed in Prague just after the velvet revolution. I had no problem with it.
As for movies that were a steaming pile? "Independence Day", the most hackneyed, brain cell losing, ham acted piece of crap film I've seen in years. Take any Tom Cruise or Julia Roberts flick in the last 20 years as well, formulaic, predictable garbage.
Just god-awful...all of it. And "stuckonstupid-wood" gives oscars for this piece of trash!
You mean Alexander the Fabulous?
Class 3: napoleon dynamite
I thought Platoon was decent (and at least he had the good sense to employ Captain Dale Dye as an adviser on the movie).
Class 3 - The Babe Ruth Story starring William Bendix
Yes, yes, I'm aware of all that.
And yet the movie still sucked.
I wasn't alive to see the great Jimmy Stewart flick in the theatre. I was referring to the awful Travolta/Cage flick of a few years back.
Sid and Nancy was hilarious, IMO. I was never a fan of punk rock, but Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb were dead on in that flick.
GAH! I hated DM.
Class 2. A really bad movie you force yourself to watch because, darn it, you paid for it!
Dune
Class 3. Horrifyingly bad movies you simply leave, dragging yourself up the aisle with your arms because your legs have gone numb from shock
Bridges Over Madison County
I think pretty much "Pearl Harbor" sank that genre.
Class 2. A really bad movie you force yourself to watch because, darn it, you paid for it!
Dune
Class 3. Horrifyingly bad movies you simply leave, dragging yourself up the aisle with your arms because your legs have gone numb from shock
Bridges Over Madison County
Class 3: American Beauty
I gotta disagree with you on 'Twister'.
Maybe it was my love of storms and tornadoes that made me go - but I thought the acting was decent and the special effects and chase scenes to be second to none.
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