Fortress is wonderfully horrible. I saw it 3 times in the theaters!
Frankenhooker. Joe Bob Briggs says: “This is the kind of movie which gets a lot of laughs at the Institute for the Criminally Insane. Which, as you know, is the highest praise I ever give to a movie.”
Circle of Iron. Based on a script outline by Bruce Lee. Starring some prettyboy whose name I can’t remember. Co-starring David Carradine. Cameo appearance by Christopher Lee.
Anything produced and directed by Andy Sidaris. Sort of like those old Disney movies with Fred MacMurray or Dean Jones. Except with a lot of car chases, gunfights, and LOTS of gratuitous nudity. (but just as much beefcake as cheesecake, so your girlfriend can enjoy it too.)
40…count em FORTY and NO ONE DARES MENTION…
A devil rat monkey…a nebbish son and his cruel mother…zombies…gore…DEAD BABIES…DEATH BY LIGHTBULB…A KUNG FU PRIEST…GORE…BLOOD…Puke!..and the MASSIVE DEATH BY LAWNMOWER (still the second greatest use of appliance since a prosthetic chainsaw)
I am of course talking about…Citizen Kane
No wait…DEAD ALIVE
ARE YOU PEOPLE INSANE! This was directed by Peter “LOTR” Jackson and you can see it in this film. Just count the amount of subtle hints
they are very subtle
The movie’s media coverage and budget had little to do with the quality of the movie. It’s considered a bad movie because the two leads hammed it up the entire time. The script wasn’t very good, anyway. But then again, as I said - your opinion. 
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Well, actually, this is more about YOU not getting it than about my opinion: the whole point of those two characters is that they were bad actors and bad singers: the “hamming it up”
was entirely consistent with their characters. They were portraying two utterly talentless fucks, and if you missed the point because you thought they WERE two talentless fucks, well then you missed the point.
And as for your first point, I never said it was a law of nature, which you seem to imply I did. My point here is similar to my point just above: to object to those two films because of their ludicrous moments is simply to miss the point; you were whooshed, in SDMB parlance.
Also, anyone who doesn’t think Showgirls is a masterpiece is a victim of one of the greatest WHOOSHINGS of film history.
Cannibal Hookers
You have blood and gore, soft core porn, humor, exactly zero production value. No real acting, god awful script. What more could you want?
Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things.
Don’t ask me why I love this movie. It’s really bad.
My wife and I had a rather enjoyable, laugh-filled couple of hours a while back when we were able to catch Stayin’ Alive on TNT one evening. Definitely a “don’t miss” bad film.
Ok, I think you’re confused. This isn’t the Pit. Drop your smarmy “you missed the point” attitude. There is such a thing as a difference of opinion. Sounds to me like you’re saying if I don’t agree with you, then I’ve missed the point, which is complete crap. The movie was bad. The characters may intentionally have been untalented hacks - I don’t dispute that. Does this mean the movie must be held to a lower standard, i.e. they were supposed to be hams, therefore it’s okay that overall it was a bad movie? Terrible logic.
This isn’t making much sense - yes, they were talentless, that was the point. Are you telling me the characters weren’t? In the same post, you said that was the point - here, you seem to say they weren’t. Or do you mean Hoffman and Beatty? When did I ever say the actors were talentless? Please explain this. Maybe I just need more coffee.
I object to Ishtar because it sucked. It was a bad movie. I am not alone in thinking this. Critics and moviegoers alike believe the film is the nadir in the careers of the leads. It was an ego trip that failed miserably. Don’t play that old “it was such a clever script that it went over your head” card - if the point was to make a bad movie, then I’d have to say the filmmakers have the brains of a walnut.
Really. Are you sure you don’t mean Striptease? When Showgirls was released, it was marketed as a serious movie, not a campy, snarky, trashy movie. Striptease, on the other hand, was marketed in just this manner. They paid Demi Moore a boatload of money to go topless and counted on the movie’s titillating aspect to make it some cash. That was a movie critics took more seriously than they needed to, but it still was a bad movie. Showgirls was never marketed as a campfest - it was marketed as a genuine “girl struggles to make it to the top” movie.
I agree that Showgirls was mis-marketed; what’s your point?
And Striptease was a huge disappointment: a great book and a great director FOILED by a talentless fuck with contractual tits.
In any case, sorry if I came of Pitty; but I do roll my eyes at people who were whooshed by Ishtar. Claiming you’re not alone in your opinion will only get you another eyeroll.
Contrary, once again, to your assertion, I do not say that if you disagree with me, then you’ve missed the point as any kind of general rule; but I DO say that if you didn’t get Ishtar, specifically, then, well, you didn’t get it. Critics be damned; the only critics that matter, IMO, didn’t trash it; but then they weren’t part of the general din so they were ignored.
I’m just saying I don’t think Ishtar was supposed to be a big joke. Do you have any evidence for this, or is it just speculation?
I ask that in all seriousness. A lot of critics can easily be whooshed - but at some point, you’d think the makers of the movie would have explained it was a big joke that no one got. Maybe it was, but I missed that explanation.
I can’t believe that nobody has mentioned Eric the Viking. Deliberately bad, occasionally hilarious, it costarred Eartha Kitt as a Viking Omen Reader. That level of authenticity.
The evidence I have is the movie itself. If you were to watch a few of Elaine May’s movies (*Mikey and Nicky, The Heartbreak Kid, * e.g.), you’d get an idea of her “idiom.” Her style is kind of, how shall I put it, absurdist Casseveteism; she’s kind of a Dogme comic. Watching Ishtar from that perspective is a much more rewarding experience than just lining up for the latest big-budget, big-name mainstream flick. The problem with Ishtar was that, due to a combination of bad marketing and cheap gossip about the film’s rocky production, the audience that went to see it had absolutely the wrong idea about what they were in for, and as a result, simply didn’t get it. When I first saw it, I didn’t know I was supposed to hate it, so, as an Elaine May fan, I loved it.
As far as “backing up” what I’m saying, I don’t feel much need to do so: I trust my own artistic/critical judgment as much as that of any critic; more than that of most mainstream critics. But for what it’s worth, the Chicago Reader’s own Jonathan Rosenbaum—a critic taken as seriously in the cinematic world as any critic working today—was a lone voice in the wilderness as regards Ishtar:
And while we’re at it, here’s Rosenbaum on Showgirls:
And another Reader Critic, Lisa Alspector, on Starship Troopers:
Starcrash- with a young David Hasselhof.
I’m amazed no one has mentioned two of the most hilariously bad movies of all time:
Breakin’ and
Breakin’ 2: Electric Boggaloo
Pathetically silly early-80’s ‘dance movies’, with pre-requisite ultra-cool dancers who turn innocent daughter of disapproving bourgeouis parents into ghetto-fabulous dancing machine. It’s like Footloose without Kevin Bacon, only many times worse and more cheese-filled.
Perhaps another crappy horror flick? Stuff Steffanie In the Incinerator springs to mind, as do several newer direct-to-video releases, a personal favorite being Komodo, starring some lady from TV’s Law & Order and featuring all the standard monster-on-the-loose cliches: hunky scientist, traumatized child, ersatz weapon manufactuary during final ‘trapped somewhere surrounded by wild beasts’ scene, relentless big cool explosions, determined yet inept female lead, disbelieving local constabulary, cover-up plot by vaguely sinister forces, crusty yet loveable monster expert; unsuspecting first victim; ludicrous dialogue, painful acting, gaping plot holes, and a basic ignorance of simple biology/physics on the part of the scriptwriters. (Have I missed anything?) Boa definitely falls into this category, as do Lake Placid, Anaconda, Octopus, Python, Crocodile, and another of my personal favorites King Cobra. These all sucked badly, but with a touchingly naive comedic flare.
See, it all comes down to how you perceive the movie, not just how the movie is presented. How many people who saw Ishtar for the first time had seen her other movies? Which to me means there are two types of people who watch her movies - and I’m basing this on what you’ve just said, nothing more - the people who follow her work and are therefore expecting an absurdist-type movie and the people who are just plain looking for a new movie to watch (the latter group would have to be a lot larger than the former).
Now, if Elaine May’s idiom is to present absurdist movies, then yes - I was whooshed, as were millions of others. And that’s fine, because the movie can be viewed on different levels by different people. I considered it a bad movie, but I still liked it somewhat, in a dumb/bad kind of way.
After Ishtar, she didn’ write another movie until The Birdcage in 1995 (directed by her pal Mike Nichols); I liked this, and didn’t see it as an absurdist movie at all. Had she simply gone mainstream? And her most recent movie (as of summer 2002) was Primary Colors, also directed by Nichols; I didn’t like it much at all, but I also didn’t see it as absurdist.
So I don’t dispute your take on her movies at all, but I do wonder if she’s moving away from absurdism, or if I was whooshed again.
I was referring to her style as a director. As a writer, she often gets called in as a “script polisher”–to add a little punch to a sagging script. The movies you mentioned were not “her” movies; she was more of a dialogue consultant on those. Because of the warped reception Ishtar got, she hasn’t directed another film since then. Do yourself a favor and track down Mikey and Nicky and The Heartbreak Kid, then join me in lamenting that Ishtar has cost us a brilliant director. (Keep in mind that The Night of the Hunter was so roundly and unanimously blasted by critics that Charles Laughton never directed a second movie. After he died, it was reconsidered and is now seen to be a masterpiece of American cinema and one of the most influential films of all time. So critics can be “wrong,” and destructively so.)
In VideoHound, she’s the only writer credited for The Birdcage. On the more-reliable IMdB, she’s credited as the writer of the screenplay, but four other people are credited with having written an “earlier screenplay”. Sounds like she was responsible for the final rewrite. If she was nothing more than a dialogue consultant, who wrote the script? VideoHound also credits her as the only writer for Primary Colors; IMdB says she was the screenwriter there, too, with Joe Klein getting credit for the original novel. If she was the dialog consultant and nothing more, then someone got shafted out of a credit.
Besides, didn’t she have other opportunities to direct after Ishtar? It’s not as if she were just starting out; she had credibility up the wazoo. Not sure if it’s fair to blame the reaction to Ishtar for the end of her directing career. (She is still alive, after all.)
By the way, in keeping with the OP, I thought of another one: They Saved Hitler’s Brain, from 1963.
Gonna drop this highjack after this post.
Both The Birdcage and Primary Colors were adapted from other works; her own films were all her own original scripts. Whether she functioned as more than a “dialogue consultant” (I probably should have said “glorified”) on those two films or not (I didn’t research them specifically before I posted; I just know that nowadays she’s known as a script-polisher), there’s no comparing The Birdcage and Mikey and Nicky.*
And whether it’s “fair” to blame Ishtar for “ending her career”–first off, I didn’t say ended; I said she hadn’t done anything since then. Second, it’s not like I said it’s a law or anything (this is officially the last time, dan, that I’m going to respond defensively every time you infer a law of nature from some insignificant statement. It’s also the last time I’m going to say “that’s not what I said”: if you can’t read what I’ve written, then forget it.)–just that, perhaps like Charles Laughton, who chose not to direct again because he received such abuse from tiny-minded critics, she may just be wary of providing the critical idiots with a target. After Ishtar, can you blame her?
*More on Mikey and Nicky and May’s reputation as a director, from the Boston Phoenix:
For a fair view of Ishtar, watch it in a double-feature with 1986’s Chevy Chase/Dan Ackroyd vehicle Spies Like Us. That’ll bring out both the virtues and considerable flaws of Ishtar.
Better yet, watch a triple feature with the old Bob Hope/Bing Crosby Road to Morocco, a better movie than either and the inspiration for both.