Ghost World was an amazing film, I loved it! I really loved Enid's Don Knotts photo.
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
There are three excellent war movies I saw recently, one has become one of my all time favorites:
"The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946)
If you haven't seen it, you should. It won best picture that year. Right after the war, you can see why.
"The Enemy Below" (1957)
Never been a big Robert Mitchum fan, but...a great portrayal of anti-sub warfare in WWII.
"To End All Wars" (2001)
Recommended to me by a Freeper...an extraordinarily underrated movie. I thought this came close to portraying the barbarity of the Japanese soldiers as never before. I lived in Japan and the Phillipines, and the history is not as forgotten there as it is here.
I know, but he permeates the film, in fact, he doesn't even appear until a good 40+ minutes into it, he steals the movie before even being revealed, by a trick of light.
As for Carol Reed, did you know, his daughter is in Dr. Strangelove? She is the leggy girl in the bikini in bed with George C. Scott.
I tried to watch Primer, but I didn't care for it, never grabbed me.
Ghost World, with Steve Buscemi and that dorky girl was from a comic book? Saw it on IFC and never would have guessed.
SD
Ghost World was an amazing film, I loved it! I really loved Enid's Don Knotts photo.
I guess yeah, I'm crazy :-) I thought it was booooooooring.
I loved it. There are all sorts of subtleties in there.
I thought UHF was one of the great films of all time.
American Beauty
Cider House Rules
Million Dollar Baby
I guess if you're not big into the graphic novel world that makes sense. Comics haven't just been for kids for a while (really since Miller resurected Batman with Darknight), it is a pretty fertile ground, but one that's been going largely unnoticed by the non-geek crowd until recently. When Spiderman and X-Men made all that fat cash though it sent the Hollywood guys running to the comic book store in a desperate search for more licenses to print money though. IMHO a good thing, overall I think the comic book movies have been of pretty solid quality (with a few glaring exceptions).
Oh I know! In the case of Ghost World and HOV the framing was adjusted just so to make it seem cinematic. Very well done.
I don't go to movies
except when I take my 5 year old son
nonetheless I feel sufficiently informed
to nominate
as the most awful movie
all the movies made in Hollywood
during the past 10 (perhaps 20) years
because they all are but scenes
in one neverending awful movie.
The last movie I attended
not under duress
was "Good Will Hunting"
which got good reviews
and was recommended by a friend
and supposedly was about a prodigy mathematician
at MIT.
I made the mistake of taking my mother.
The film really was
about the use of unbelievably foul and vile language
from start to finish.
I cowered in my seat with embarrassment.
(Furthermore it was filmed not at MIT
but the University of Toronto
which bears no resemblance
whatsoever
to my alma mater)
I vowed then
never to attend a movie
ever again.
Unfortunately
having a 5 year old makes the vow impossible.
However children's movies basically are
at the same intellectual level
as 'adult' movies
(perhaps even slightly higher
and certainly more amusing).
It was not academy award, but of all the Batman movies; it entertained me.
Hollywood has lost the subtle touch - love is reduced to bodyparts, courage denigrated to beating the crap out of everybody, and the selfish anti-"hero" is the star. There are no more quality teen/pre-teen flicks that are modest - everything is basically soft porn pushing the hardcore boundaries.
"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.
That was the 1st thing that popped into my mind when I saw the question. I know I used to think it was funny, but I when it replayed this summer I couldn't believe how utterly stupid that whole movie is.
Except for: "Can you guess what I am now?"
"That's why God gave you two of them."
Speaking of comic book stinker movies:
Punisher - The Dolph Lungren one, the newer was pretty good.
Dare Devil - DD stands for Double Disappointment
Catwoman - I think Halle used 8 lives in that one
Superman (after the first couple)
I liked the first Punisher movie for only one reason: brass. It's one of the only shoot em movies I know where they actually have brass casings flying around and tinkling on the floor as something other than a plot point. Other than that it was crap.
I liked DD, very true to the Frank Miller version of the character (very dark and not particularly sane).
Catwoman was horrid in pretty much every possible way.
The first Superman was kitche fun but not really that good, then they stopped being kitche fun but still maintained not being really good.
Don't forget how the Batman series went downhill fast (crap by halfway through the second movie).
"Lemony Snickets - A Series of Unfortunate Events"
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