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 actually liked A Few Good Men, although it was about as realistic as an episode of Ally McBeal. I thought that with the exception of Col. Jessup, all the Navy and Marine personnel were portrayed honorably. It was something of a rip off of the Caine Mutiny, however.
You missed it that we were planted here by them kind of like a farmer planting a field of corn. We were food or fertilizer on this planet.
Truly painful, and the most nasal thing I've ever heard in my life.
My favorite war movie has to be Patton. I could watch it over and over.
If you have ever seen Pork Chop Hill with Gregory Peck (not to be confused with Hamburger Hill) it's good too.
With the exception of the scene where he sits down at the piano and starts singing "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" from Monty Python's "Life of Brian". I was busting a gut at that one, although nobody else in the theater seemed to understand it!
My favorite war film of all time is Apocalypse Now, written largely by NRA board member John Milius, btw.
I have old no frills disks with no extras for those two. I need to get the collector's edition copies.
Greg
That would be "Enough" which starred J-Ho and Jesus, er, Jim Caviezel.
That would be "Enough" which starred J-Ho and Jesus, er, Jim Caviezel.
From Volcano (and I looked it up to make sure I didn't make bad writing worse):
Kelly Roark: Paper beats rock, but scissors beat paper.
Tommy: I'm not paper; I'm lava... what beats lava?
Kelly Roark: My dad... I hope!
Æ
Speaking of Academy Award stinkers, how about The English Patient?
Wow, I sure did miss that part of the story line. Guess that is why I prefer the 1950's version of the story.
My favorite line: "all right. listen up, you primitive screwheads!...." I put this movie on my list of all time faves.
That line was well delivered. Premise of the movie was ridiculous and it had the usual leftwing nonsense (they bankrupted the RNC at the end) but I thought it was fairly harmless and decently acted.
That movie was called, "ENOUGH!"
I enjoyed that movie because we watched it with our daughter's fiance, and my granddaughter's sperm donor.
He was an abuser, we knew it but my wife and my daughter were not allowing me to rip out his nuts and feed them to him.
But, he got the message after seeing the movie. He moved out the next day.
Expecting realism from Hollywood is like expecting sobriety from a Kennedy.
Jim Caviesel played the bad guy? I never made the connection.
Doesn't the term 'Hollyweird' ever get tired? Anyway it was an intelligent and genuninely romantic film that was actually popular with a mass audience. There's no reason why it didn't deserve its success both in and out of the industry.
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