How to tell if a movie sucks.

Cafe Society
21

This is pretty much exactly what I was going to post.
mmm

22

The ads say “Music by” and list a bunch of currently popular artists

It’s a comedy and nothing in the trailer is funny.

23

I pretty much have to watch a movie to tell if it sucks. Even then, I’ve seen movies a second time where my opinion has changed 180*.

What really sucks is that an asterisk is the closest to a superscript degree thingie I have on my keyboard. :frowning:

24

I seldom enjoy movies that have no big-name stars. Since I may be incompetent to notice the difference between good and bad acting, I’ve wondered why this is? No budget for good actors means no budget for good writers?

There are some big-name stars, e.g. Michael Douglas, whose movies I seldom like. I don’t know why. Is it that I don’t like Douglas’ persona? Or that he and I have very different tastes in movie scripts?

I’m glad you said “usually” not “always” :

[QUOTE=Best and best-written movie ever (Casablanca)]
Screenplay by
Julius J. Epstein
Philip G. Epstein
Howard Koch
Casey Robinson (uncredited)
[/QUOTE]

25

I don’t recall what trailer inspired this thought some time ago but it seems to me that showing a food fight is not a good sign.

I’m also pretty suspicious of any trailer that includes a fight or chase along the roof of a moving train.

26

If I don’t know the main characters names, it’s a bad movie. Once you don’t care about a character, it’s over.

27

If a car hits something and it blows up, you have a bad movie. You can directly gauge the quality of any movie by assessing how realistic accidents are depicted. Obviously there’s an exception for spoofs.

Also, any movie that displays the words “Michael Bay” on screen at any point.

28

Even the one titled Michael Bay Must Die ?

29

One of the best guidelines I’ve come up with is this:

If they start promoing it more than six months before release, it’s gonna suck. And the bigger and flashier the promos are, the more it will suck.

30

Two words: Will Ferrell.

31

I think Roger Ebert had a rule of thumb that if the title of a movie is funny, the movie will not be funny. I think he pointed to “Dude, Where’s My Car?” as an example of this.

32

My personal warning sings: if the words “historical” or “costume drama” appears anywhere in reviews of promotional materials. If the term “life-affirming” appears anywhere. If the term “heartrending” appears anywhere. If the term “deliberately paced” (i.e., slow and dull) appears anywhere. If the terms “challenging” and “offbeat” appear anywhere. I’m sure there are more, but I’ve found reviews to be VERY helpful so long as you pay attention to the terminology and not the reviewers announced opinion of the films (most reviewers associate these terms with good films).

33

Well, for me personally, any film that has zombies or vampires.
Not saying the movie won’t make money, but sure as hell not from me.
I just don’t understand the fascination with those two genres.

I think I would also avoid a film that, on the poster, has ALL of the following:

  1. A dude with a scowl and lots of tattoos holding a machine gun (or two).
  2. A chick (or two or three) in a bikini in the background.
  3. A fast car in the background.
  4. A fiery explosion in the background.
  5. Some hip misspelling of a word - “Killerz” or “Kops”
34

This is pretty much the one symbol I hate-with-the-fire-of-a-thousand-suns not having on my keyboard (okay, maybe μ and ², too). Unicode is your friend - type “Alt+0176” on your number pad (i.e. hold down the alt key while typing 0176 ) and you’ll get the degree symbol in all its glory: °

(For a complete list, try the official chart or this nifty browser - the later lets you copy and paste from directly.)

35

“Stranger Than Fiction” wasn’t THAT bad. :slight_smile:

I also liked the more recent film version of “The Producers”. Bonus surprise: Ferrell’s also a pretty decent singer.

36

If there are explosions, then the movie is braindead. If there are lots of explosions, you will become braindead. If the point of the movie is how pretty the lots of explosions are, then society will become braindead.

37

If there are [del]explosions[/del] car chases, then the movie is braindead. If there are lots of [del]explosions[/del] car chases, you will become braindead. If the point of the movie is how pretty the lots of [del]explosions[/del] car chases are, then society will become braindead.

38

Personally, I almost always enjoy a Will Ferrell movie the first time I watch it. But if I try to watch one of them a second time, I can’t stand it.

39

For reasons lost in the mists of time, he is known in my head as “that guy who’s not James Remar”.

40

And I think Gene had two:

  • If I’d rather be watching a film about these same people making this movie, it’s bad. Oceans 12 and 13 are examples of this.

  • If nothing happens by the end of the first reel…usually nothing will happen the rest of the movie.