bad movies discussions and comments

[Trekker4747]

I'm fairly sure "Tip Toes" belongs on this list somewhere, though.

 

[Itisnotlogical]

Altered States. It pisses me off because it has absolutely nothing to do with established facts about genetics, evolution, or plain reality. What really disappoints me is that it has William Hurt, one of the best actors that nobody's ever heard of.

 

[scotpens]

Altered States. It pisses me off because it has absolutely nothing to do with established facts about genetics, evolution, or plain reality. What really disappoints me is that it has William Hurt, one of the best actors that nobody's ever heard of.

Well, I’ve certainly heard of him.

Agreed on Altered States — the film is a load of bollocks and a major disappointment, especially considering that the great Paddy Chayefsky wrote the screenplay, based on his only novel.

From IMDb:

There's an interesting anecdote about the Altered States script/movie. Chayefsky had an unprecedented clause in his contract requiring that the movie be shot exactly according to his script — scene-by-scene, line-by-line.

Ken Russell, the director, did just that. Still, Chayefsky demanded that his name be taken off the movie. The screenplay is instead credited to “Sidney Aaron.”

The reason? Chayefsky apparently wanted all the long speeches of the script to be spoken very deliberately by the actors, so the audience could mull them over. He hated the fact that Russell had the actors race through the dialog.

Altered States is a designated stoner movie. It’s best appreciated while under the influence of certain controlled substances.

 

[Too Much Fun]

I enjoyed "Altered States". Usually, I'm more of a dialog guy, but it's one of the few movies where I appreciated the visuals more than anything else and I thought it was a thoughtful, intelligent movie, even if the science in it was a bit silly. The evolution stuff may be rather absurd, but so what, it's sci-fi.

 

[scotpens]

^^ Well, it did have Blair Brown (a pretty hot chick back then) getting naked and sweaty.

 

[timothy]

How about all but the first universal solider movies I am not sure how many of them there are . And of course there the american ninja movies . I do like the first 2 of those .

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Dawn of the Dead. It must have had the worst, least-convincing acting of any movie I've ever seen. I read the little pamphlet inside the case before watching and I went in expecting an epic social commentary set against the backdrop of a zombie apocalypse. However, aside from a few racial slurs at the beginning of the movie, it has little relevance to anything that happens in the real world, just like the acting has nothing to do with the behavior of people in the real world.

actual viewing experience; it's the fact that many people think this crapfest set the bar for horror movies for decades to come.

THANK YOU. I've never understood why people make such a big deal about it either. I love that little satirical bit where the zombies are clawing at a shop window in the mall while commercials drone over the loud speaker, but most of the movie was dull and repetitive. I appreciated how crazy some the gore effects were, but the characters and story bored me.

I loved the original "Night of the Living Dead", though. It was a solid, straightforward horror flick with some interesting characters spending most of the movie in a single location that worked perfectly for creating an eerie and suspenseful tone/atmosphere. This is one of the cases where I thought the sequel equaled bigger and better (budget-wise), but also dumber, more meandering, and less focused.

You all didn't specify which Dawn of the Dead you mean. Could this be the cause of the incongruity between its reputation and your viewing experience? Dawn of the Dead (1978), written and directed by George Romero himself, is generally considered superior to the 2004 remake/reimagination by Zack Snyder et al.

 

[Too Much Fun]

I liked the first "Universal Soldier" movie as a fun B-movie. It's silly and not a good movie from an objective standpoint, but I find it enjoyable in a campy way. Dolph Lundgren is hilarious as an over-the-top psychopath and Jean Claude Van Damme has some funny moments like doing the splits in his underwear in the middle of a fight. "Universal Soldier 2" is a piece of garbage and one of the worst movies I have ever gone to the movie theatre for. I've heard there was a recent direct-to-DVD sequel that was decent.

I personally like the 2004 "Dawn of the Dead" more than the original. The first one is more smart, in a way, because it has that clever metaphorical scene with the zombies clawing at the glass in the mall. I don't think it has much else going for it, though. The rest of it was boring except for the gore, which was awesome in how graphically gross and detailed it looked.

The re-make doesn't have a message as it's basically just a straightforward action movie, so it's more shallow, but I also think it's more entertaining. Its action sequences are exciting and its characters, while simplistic, are more interesting. It has a very nice, underrated cast with people like Ving Rhames and Sarah Polley.

 

[Kirkman1987]

Dawn of the Dead (1978) is somewhere in in my top 10, I love that movie.

I watch a lot of MST3K, and sometimes I actually kinda like the movie. One that stands out is The Beatniks, a 50's film about a drifter and his relationships with a girl and a naive guy he takes under his wing. a bland drama, and the ending is really out of left field and dark, but I kinda dug it.

Also, while on the Subject of Horror films, I liked a few of John Carpenter's later films which are generally trashed. In The Mouth of Madness in particular is an excellent film, and Vampires is a lot of fun. Escape from L.A. is fun, but if you compare it to New York, you'll hate it.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

^ How about John Carpenter's "first" film, made with Dan O'Bannon?

Of course I'm talking about Dark Star, which is also in my collection.

 

[Kirkman1987]

^ How about John Carpenter's "first" film, made with Dan O'Bannon?

Of course I'm talking about Dark Star, which is also in my collection.

I like Dark Star as well! It's rough in spots, but there's some great scenes here and there. The bomb character towards the end and the scene of the crew fighting their collective boredom stick out as highlights. I never cared for the extended Alien chase though. It's far too plodding. The ending is great though, and manages to be strangely touching as the surviving crew part ways. The movie should be seen by anyone who is a fan of Carpenter, Alien, or Red Dwarf.

I'm also partial to those awful 80's Cannon action films. Death Wish III is an amazing guilty pleasure.

Even Better was Project Kill, featuring Leslie Nielson and Gary Lockwood in a fung-fu battle.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DJAb0vl1pw[/yt]

 

[ElBurro]

Van Helsing. In the run up to it's cinema release, they released the old Universal monster films on dvd so I got them and totally fell in love with them. There are a few extras about Van Helsing, including one where Stephen Sommers is talking about how he's a big fan of the old movies and bragging about how he's going to be true to them etc.

I watch Van Helsing and they have Frankenstein's monster quoting the Bible It's supposed to pick up from right at the end of the original Frankenstein story. The Creature isn't able to talk at that point and when he does learn to talk in the sequel, it's broken 'caveman' speech.

I know that Van Helsing is a stand alone film in it's own right, but I don't think that you can change a character so drastically, if you say you are going to be true to the original story.

Also, at the risk of sounding like I'm obsessed with this, I vaguely remember someone referring to the Creature as Frankenstein at one point, though I may be mistaken

 

[CorporalCaptain]

It's sort of difficult to answer the OP without some additional clarification on intent, as there are differing interpretations and many hairs to split. For example, if you like it anyway, then it must really be good after all. Nevertheless, I'll assume that by "bad movies that you like", it is meant a movie that is critically panned, a commercial failure, or one that violates some specific personal standards for what makes a movie good, but which I like anyway.

Some examples of "bad movies that I like", in science fiction and fantasy, are:

1) Thunderbirds Are Go
2) Thunderbird 6
3) The Rocky Horror Picture Show
4) The Lord of the Rings (1978)
5) The Black Hole (1979)
6) Flash Gordon (1980)
7) Heavy Metal
8) Brainstorm
9) The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
10) Big Trouble in Little China
11) Mission to Mars
12) The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
13) A Scanner Darkly

This is not a complete list.

 

[Too Much Fun]

Escape from L.A. is fun, but if you compare it to New York, you'll hate it.

This is quickly becoming one of those threads that constantly consists of people saying the opposite of what I think. I was just happy to see someone else say they like "Escape From L.A.", but then you had to throw in that line about "Escape From New York". I like "Escape from L.A." WAY better.

It's more crazy and has more memorable characters (Pam Grier! Bruce Campbell! Steve Buscemi!). People like "Escape From New York" because it's more serious and hence easier to take seriously, but I'll take a more entertaining campy movie over a dull drama any day.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

I had no effin' idea what the hell was going for the entire duration of this film. I didn't understand who the characters were, what the story was, what happened, how it ended, and ultimately what the point of it was. And yet...I loved it!

This is the only movie I've ever described that way and probably the only one I ever will describe that way. I just knew it was hilarious. John Lithgow's character shooting Christopher Lloyd's character for complaining about the engines and correcting him on the pronunciation of his name is one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

 

[timothy]

Hey I loved both escape from new york and l.a. fantastic movies espescaily the first one . kurt russel is one of my favorite actos . the soilder , sky high , they live! Big trouble in little china just to name a few . I would love to have seen star wars with kurt as han solo .

now has any one ever seen ROBOT WARS or ROBOT JOX ?
ROBOT JOX being the superior I love that movie.

 

[Kirkman1987]

It's not just the more serious tone of New York, it's the superior cast (imo). I also think L.A. apes off the first film too much, and lacks the awesome soundtrack of New York.

Don't get me wrong though, it's still a fun movie. I love the basketball scene.

 

[Gepard]

Rachel Getting Married is the worst movie you've ever seen? Not even close in my book. If that's the worst you can do, I applaud your skill in selecting worthwhile movies to watch. I thought it was one of the best films of 2008--and so did many of the critics.

Now, The Room, there's something bad.

I say again, "Birdemic" is worse than The Room by orders of magnitude.

I tried to watch Birdemic last week...and I agree with you. Even with the Rifftrax, I made it about 15 minutes and had to turn it off. It was excruciating. I'm not going to complain about stuff like how they shot it with a cheap video camera or whatever, because they obviously had a very low budget. But there was a ton of stuff wrong that would have been easy to get right if they'd known what they were doing. Some lowlights:

• They hired a cinematographer who had no idea how to set the white balance on their camera. Seriously. Every single shot is corrupted yellow or green.
• The audio jumps, pops, and changes quality between shots. Even different angles in the same conversation will have different audio levels, static that appears and disappears based on what audio track they're using, and so on.
• There's a weird lag in the editing where the editor left a half second to full second of dead space at the start and end of each shot. When the lead was in his car on the phone with this girl he'd just met, every time it cut to the other half of the conversation, we had to look at the actor just sitting there for a beat, waiting for their cue before popping to life and delivering their line. Wash, rinse, repeat. For every conversation. It was unbearable.
• The framing of the shots was bizarre. For example, the film opened with a POV shot out of the inside of a moving car, where for some reason the image was dutched by about 10 degrees. There was no reason for it, and I'm not even sure it was intentional. It looked like somebody dropped the camera on the dashboard and decided whatever crooked angle it landed would be good enough to use. Bizarre.
• And the acting is horrible. Really, unbelievably horrible. It made The Room's acting look polished by comparison. All the actors appeared to be in their late teens to early 20s, as well, including the "news anchor" visible on a TV in one scene. It looked and sounded exactly like one of those TV ads on a local access station, made by a couple college students who have no interest in acting and no idea how to make a commercial, but have to do it anyway for class credit. Or whatever. Only in this case, apparently, these were folks who thought they could, in fact, make a movie. Oh, how wrong they were.

I stopped watching after the in-car cell phone conversation, so I can't comment on the rest (especially the terrible VFX I've heard about.) But the opening scenes were bad enough.

As far as I can tell, the only thing separating Birdemic from a couple of of college kids goofing off with a camera one weekend is that it got a DVD release. Somehow. It's horrible.

 

[MLJames]

I liked the first "Universal Soldier" movie as a fun B-movie. It's silly and not a good movie from an objective standpoint, but I find it enjoyable in a campy way. Dolph Lundgren is hilarious as an over-the-top psychopath and Jean Claude Van Damme has some funny moments like doing the splits in his underwear in the middle of a fight.

For years I've used one line to sum up this movie: when Dolph Lundgren is the best actor in the movie, you know you're in trouble.

 

[timothy]

and then there is johny nuemonic .

 

[timothy]

okay we have a new winner for possible the worst scy fy channel made movie . It's the 200 th movie and the title it the battle of los angeles which is sopposed to be a pun on a great movie battlefield Los angelos . I swear to god this has to be biggest
piece of $#!t ever made .