Most awful movies (in celebration of Hollywood's fourth declining revenue year in a row)

9/28/05 | ltn72

[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

[dfwgator]

WORST MOVIE EVER: Dangerous Minds good song by coolio though.

An ever better Weird Al parody.

[Borges]

Right before Platoon, Stone made a movie called Salvador with James Woods as a leftist journalist who's a real jerk. It may be his best film.

[macamadamia]

because movie quality has objectively continued to decline



I don't agree. There has not been a year without a plentiful crop of bad movies. There will always be bad movies; there have always been bad movies. Good movies are a rarity. But most of all, mediocrity rules. The mediocre ones drive me up the wall. The stinkers are kind of fascinating in a way.

[Clemenza]

Class 3 - The Babe Ruth Story starring William Bendix

That movie has some unintentionally funny scenes, such as when Bendix orders a glass of milk (!) when he enters a bar. My personal favorite, "Sue baseball?"

Let's also not forget that truly awful "Safe At Home" where Mantle and Maris tried acting. Their bats had more personality than they did in that flick.

[dfwgator]

The worst of all-time that I actually paid to see in a theater was "Speed 2." Two hours of my life that I'll never get back.

[Conservomax]

Even Die Hard III: With a Vengence?

"The Mission" is good, IMO.

[tx_eggman]

Class 3. Horrifyingly bad movies you simply leave, dragging yourself up the aisle with your arms because your legs have gone numb from shock.

Only one winner possible here: Battlefield Earth

[kevkrom]

Let me add a class 4: Movies that were completely misrepresented by their trailers. Examples:

• Very Bad Things -- billed as a lighthearted, if somewhat black, comedy, I stopped watching after 45 minutes because a) I thought all of the characters were disgusting jerks, and b) there was no humor (dark or otherwise) at all.

• Payback -- this was actually a good movie, in a film noir style, but radically different from the way it was depicted in advertising.

[Ditter]

The really really REALLY bad movies that I have seen I forget before I get home. No sense crowding the memory space with useless crap. The bad movies that some people love but I think were awful sometimes stay with me like Titanic.

[Borges]

Reducing to Pro and Con like that is a bit reductionist. It was an Aaron Sorkin play.

[kidd]

100% agreement.

Wife and I rented this. After half an hour we shut it off. I lost my last shead of interest in Oscars after this B-flick won best picture.

[discostu]

I was just joking with a friend of mine that we must finally have the summer movie season. Usually in summer I'm at the theater every weekend, sometimes twice in one weekend. This year I went to see Fantastic Four (OK, about what I expected never having considered FF one of Marvel's more interesting titles) and then went to nothing until The Man (can't miss Eugene, funniest eyebrows in hollywood), then Corpse Bride (not as good as Nightmare but still impressive), Serenity will be this week and Wallace and Gromit next week. I finally got my July, just had to wait until September and October.

[Clemenza]

I felt like shooting Philip Seymour Hoffman evertime he came on the screen in Twister: "COOL MAN!"

I thought the acting was mediocre (what is Helen Hunt's appeal anyway? Her best acting was when she threw herself out the window in a movie of the week). I also thought that it was merely a special effects sheep show. (Best "Men on Film" voice): HATED IT!

[Central Scrutiniser]

Well, I liked it, I spent lots of time in Prague around the time they filmed it, and it gave a good look at the Prague spring when the Soviets invaded.

Plus, a naked Juliet Binoche makes any movie that much better.

[Iron Matron]

Class 1. A bad movie you sit through because of peer pressure

I gave up Hollywood a long time ago. My personal ethics do not allow for any class..particularly this one.

My Mom-in-Law wanted to see Hanoi Jane in (I think it was Monster in Law) I cant remember..she tried to make me feel guilty for not taking her "that was years ago" she said (about Jane) that "I should get over it".

I told her to "get over" thinking I'd cross my own ethical line just to amuse her

My husband took her..he promised to keep his eyes closed..

[dfwgator]

I thought "Wall Street" was good too. But he went downhill starting with "Talk Radio."

[Jhensy]

Agreed, Sid & Nancy was an excellent film!

[I still care]

I thought Constantine was the worst movie I've ever seen. I'm not brave, though - I don't even try to see movies where Hollywood tries to preach to me, so I've never seen "American Beauty" or it's ilk.

I like really stupid movies with good special effects. I do have to understand whats going on, though.

The best is when a movie gets really panned and you see it anyway, and find you like it.

[dfwgator]

And then there is the class of movie where all of the good parts of the film are featured in the trailer. Case in point, Men In Black.

[Syco]

I couldn't agree more! You could be a purple, three headed, lesbian, Marxist and I would still feel a kinship with you because of your reaction to this movie. It was the most gut wrenchingly awful piece of garbage I've ever seen in my life. It literally made me feel physically sick. And sadly, every time I see Haley Joel Osment in anything I can't shake the image of him as that little robot. It's like a virus. It ruins every other movie that he's in for me too!