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
Class 2 (almost became Class 3): Batman & Robin
Well it was faithful to the novel in that respect. It had one masterly set piece after another. Cruise sucked though. the opening scene of him operating vertical crane elicited titters from the audience.
Broken Arrow and Face/Off were both awful, IMHO, even though I like much of John Woo's other work. I didn't walk out of Broken Arrow, however, like I did for Face/Off.
Class 1: Igby Goes Down - Rehashed pointless crap about hateful dissafeected rich d-bags.
This Year: Red Hot Ballroom. Documentary about inner city NY kids in a dance competion - SNORE. IMHO, the thing is rigged for the hispanic students.
Class 2: The Village - I used to like Shamalan, now he just comes off as a redundant headcase.
This Year: WOTW, I guess. i was seriously let down by this piece of crap. i was hoping for Minority Report and I got AI.
Class 3: XXX State of the Union - Sequel with Ice Cube, one of the worst most degenerate movies I have ever seen. it was so shamelessly overly targeted to inner city blacks that I almost went on welfare after i saw it on my plane.
Worst movie ever.
Because of all the hype around this movie-Directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Oscar-winning Hillary Swank- I sat through the whole thing. But it didn't take long, in fact the first words spoken by Clint Eastwood, and I knew that he was trying too much. The gym was too run down; Morgan Freeman was too virtuous; Swank was too eager; and the plot was too coincidental. Throw in the unreconciled plot device of Clint's long lost daughter, and it was simply dreadful the longer it went on. However the cinematography was gorgeous. Anyway, the ending didn't really disappoint me that much because the whole set up was so outlandish.
I hated BA but Face off was funny. It was supposed to be funny. Both actors (who I can generally do without) were having a lot of fun.
I just got it on DVD.
"Where'd you get all this beef, Meg?"
"Didja see my cows out front?"
"Uh, no?"
"Ah!"
In the past few years, I have not finished watching only a couple of movies due to their stupefying awfulness (both on tape): Ian McKellan's "Richard III," and "Reds," with Warren Beatty. I love Ian most of the time, but he was actually boring as mean ol' Richard, and the director seemed to have confused Shakespeare with some slasher flick. Finally left my husband to finish it. "Reds" came in a set of two tapes and it was so boring that tape two never came out of the box.
Re WOTW, both it and "Alexander" have a special category for me: awful movies that have one good scene in them that make you wish the director had gone that way instead. WOTW scene: at the beginning of the movie when pavement is spontaneously ripping up and buildings are starting to fall -- good exciting scene that made me hope for more from the rest of the movie. (Add to that movie's list of stupid impossibilities: when the teenage boy manages to find his way back to grandma's house, after delibertately breaking away from dad and heading straight into the carnage. WTF? Does anyone believe he could not only have survived but got to grandma's BEFORE dad?) Good scene in "Alexander": When Philip takes the teenage Alexander down into the caves to show him the ancient, sacred cave paintings. Something very true and mysterious and just plain cool in that scene. But the rest of the movie just could not lumber past the awful spectacle of Alex's exploded-haystack hair.
Was the Village the one where a blind girl was sent out into the woods to get help from a monster that was created to keep the people in line?
Class 1. Spiderman
Class 2. What Dreams May Come (Stupid treacle starring Robin Williams. If I think about it, I'll vomit from the sappiness. Also the last Robin Williams movie I'll ever watch.)
Class 3. Tomb Raider 2. I'm sorry, I still ache for Angelina, but there's only so much predictable crap one man can stand.
Why pay to see a WWII movie when the History Channel has shows about it all the time?
The Blair Witch Project - a thoroughly uninteresting home movie from an unfunded epileptic film school drop-out.
LOL! None of the above...but I'm with you completely! He was pretty good in Second Hand Lions, but just couldn't shake the image of him as the robot!
And I never liked Jude Law before...and after this movie, I get nauseated just looking at him!
I liked Salvador as well. Even Jim Belushi put in a decent supporting performance. Woods plays a typically arrogant liberal journalist who treats every woman he encounters like sh-t.
my fav vietnam vet comes home movie: Deathdream, aka "Dead of Night" I'll give ya a hint: the special effects were done by Tom Savini.
I agree but I found it somewhat amusing though. The director, David O Russel (three kings) is a pseudo-intellectual boob, from what I know about him, though it seemed Wahlberg's character's neurosis was O Russel fun of himself.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.