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
The soundtrack was good too...
Regards,
"What'd you do???"
Was that a poem or are you having formatting issues? :-)
I made it through the whole thread and I don't believe anyone has mentioned Solaris or Robin Hood with Kevin Costener.
No one has been able to sit through a Kevin Costner film for many a year.
The man is so non-dimensional he makes Steven Segal look like a serious actor.
Actually its correct title is "The Unbearable Lightness of Being". I refer to it as "The Unbearable Movie"
I'll never hear "Stuck in the Middle With You" quite the same way ever again.
If that comes on the car radio, my wife will make me change it. It's indelibly burned into her brain.
SD
--My wife too, she can't listen to that song after the movie...
Regards,
I saw it on a date in High School. Guy two rows in front of us puked when the alien came out of the crewman's stomach. Nice.
Regards,
(re: Deep Impact and Duvall)
you're absolutely right. not realistic at all.
What was that gawdawful movie Cage was in where he played a self-destructive drunk? "Leaving Las Vegas" or some-such?
Absolutely horrid. I actually sat through it (on video rather than a theater, thank heavens) JUST to see if it got any better.
It only got worse. Of course, the critics ADORED it. Unbelievable crap.
There's an awful lot of Evil Dead in that O.R. scene in Spiderman 2 where Doc Ock's arms come alive and attack the doctors.
"Mighty Wind"; same folks who did the EXCELLENT "Spinal Tap". Yeah, I know........Rob Reiner's an ass, but I love that movie.
eh... No thanks.
I'm perfectly happy to remember those old movies.
Woody Allen just got too "artsy" for me, and that was before the whole "Mia Farrow/Soon Yi" thing.
That just disgusted me, and I have no wish to ever pay money that might wind up going to him.
I might catch an early Woody Allen movie on cable, but I won't go out of my way to see one.
Mark
I was talking about Adam Sandler's "Punch Drunk Love". The dumbest movie I have EVER seen.
"Take the Money and Run". Isn't that the movie where the Woody Allen character carves a gun out of the bar of soap, colors it with shoe polish, then tries to escape - in the rain? One minute he's holding the gun on the guard then the next he looks down and all he has is soap foam in his hands. That has to be one of the funniest scenes ever filmed.
You live in a garage apartment with 4 cats , dont you?
"Solaris" was pretty bad. And to think I had to sit through a bad movie AND endure George Clooney at the same time! Ugh.
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