I love films. All genres, good movies, bad movies, crap movies. I’ll watch them all. I don’t necessarily like them all, but there’s not much I won’t try to watch once.
With this in mind, I thought I’d offer a service to the SDMB crowd. Any film out there you’re curious about but don’t want to shell out the $3 or however much for the rental: I’ll watch the movie for you! You want to know if Battlefield Earth is really as bad as the rumors? Was North really worth Ebert’s scathing review?
Why was Heaven’s Gate such a famous flop?
I’ll subject myself to these films so you don’t have to and post my findings here. Now obviously, I won’t be able to watch every movie that gets tossed up for consideration, so we’ll do this by vote. Toss out some films (you can vote for more than one) and by next Wednesday, I’ll watch whichever one gets the most votes (and is available for rental newar me) and write up and honest review for it by Saturday. Then we pick a new film to subject me to. The only rule I can think of off the top of my head is no TV movies or straight to video stuff. I want films that have gotten theatrical releases.
Think of me as your own personal Joel Robinson/Mike Nelson.
By the way, people, this reminded me of a good point. Help me out and let me know what section I’m likely to find the movie in. Comedy, drama, action, etc, ok?
Can we just pick movies that we want explained to us and make you watch them until you figure them out? I’m thinking along the lines of Lynch’s whole ouvre, some Egoyan films…
I saw this once in a Blockbuster and never found it again, even after repeated visits.
The name’s Icebreaker, and it stars a bald-headed Bruce Campbell as the bad guy, with Sean Astin as a ski instructor or something who stops terrorists while his wife’s parents come to visit! Oh no!
It should be in the Action section. I’m ashamed to have let it slip by when I had the chance.
White Lightning - sure any movie can be recommended and I can do my best to decipher them.
Biggirl - re-nominate those when they come out on video. I guess I should have clarified that in the OP.
Guinastasia - whatsamatta? Don’t you love me anymore? An un-MSTied Mitchell?! And IIRC, The Audrey Hepburn Story was made for TV, therefore out of the running.
BraheSilver - I know exactly what you’re talking about. I’ve seen it at Blockbuster and have already rented and watched it. It’s not Sean Astin’s parents that visit, but his fiance’s father (played by Stacey Keach, who naturally doesn’t like that “slacker” Sean Astin). It’s your average wannabe action film, best described as Die Hard on the Slopes without a budget, good dialogue, or good action. What really bugged me about the ending was:
[spoiler]Campbell’s charater refers more than once to a videotape he has. We are told on this tape is the reason he is holding the resort hostage. At the end of the movie, the bad guys are dead, Astin has the tape (and its been a while since I’ve actually seen it, so bear with the fuzzy details) which somehow gets destroyed, so the world (and the audience) never knows Campbell’s motives for his deeds.
Now I ask you, if you’re gonna cop out of telling the audience the bad guy’s motivation for being the bad guy (other than the film needs a bad guy for the ahem “plot” to work), why even hint that there’s a motivation there to begin with?[/spoiler]
So far, the list of films to choose from (or add to the list) is:
Some sort of indecipherable David Lynch-type film to drive to drive me mad while I try to figure out what it means.
An un-MSTied version of Mitchell
Sleepaway Camp
Mr. Nanny
The Blue Iguana
Films that were suggested in chat are: Freddy Got Fingered
Battlefield Earth
and an assortment of Pauly Shore movies
I guess I should add that since it’s been a while since I’ve seen Icebreaker, if people want a complete review instead of the half-assed review above, feel free to put in your votes for that one, too.
Timeline is the worst book I ever [started to] read.
Having said that - the second worst was probably one of the roald dahl books, and I loved those (when I was young enough that reading them was appropriate)
huh? how did that happen? I clicked on Crichton’s “Timeline”: Another Jurassic Park?, typed the above post. clicked submit, and then it appeared here in Let me take a movie-watching bullet for you.
Man, you mean if I waited a week I could have gotten you to watch Monster’s Ball for me? I don’t know which was harder to believe, that a troll like Thorton was supposed to be Heath Ledger’s dad, or his relationship in the movie with the female lead.
I had a few people tell me I should watch it since “well, you’re Wiccan and it’s about witches.”:rolleyes:
It has IMO, the two most annoying actresses on the planet, Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman. It has a scene where women dance life affirmingly around a table to an old song. It has Nauseating Cute Kids. It sucks dried donkey taint.
It made me hate Goran Visnjic. Almost.
Do Not Watch If Diabetic or After Eating.
Sinci you’ve already seen it, it’s out of the running unless someone else nominates it.
Let me re-interate the point of the thread for everyone else who may not understand what I’m after here: ahem
(bolded for emphasis) The point is not to make me watch bad movies, but to watch movies that you’re not sure if you want to see and then get my opinion of it.
Wanna hear something funny (kinda)? I’ve seen most of the movies listed here already. There are some real stinkers here.
Ooh, I’ve got some - “Perfect” with John Travolta and Jamie Lee Curtis, and “Stayin’ Alive” with John Travolta (he’s starring in a disproportionate amount of these stinkers).
Oh, come on, now! Hudson Hawk is a great movie. You just can’t be in a serious mood when you see it. I actually own a copy rewatch it every once in a while. What other movie lets you sing along with the break-ins?
Why couldn’t you have started this thread sooner? Before I rented The Exorcist III strictly on the recommendation of another SDMB thread, where people said it had some of the scariest moments ever? It was awful! It had a car chase with an elderly George C. Scott chasing Satan (more or less) in the form of an elderly nurse!!!
Anyway, maybe you can help pare down my netflix queue, with the movies that I’m curious about but keep pushing down to the bottom of the queue out of fear:
Event Horizon (either horror or sci-fi) The Dish (comedy about some Aussies or Kiwis and a sattelite dish) Yes Madam (action/foreign, a Hong Kong movie starring Michelle Yeoh who’s the only reason I’m watching it but it’s a modern movie so I’m not expecting much)
