Movies that are crap, but you like anyway

Cafe Society
81

I can’t speak for anyone else posting here, but I tend to view a crap movie as any movie where any of the flaws you mentioned interfere with my enjoyment of the movie as a whole. That doesn’t mean that a movie can’t be enjoyable in spite of its flaw. Nor that a movie I call ‘crap’ won’t excell in certain aspects of cinematography.

As an example, let me go back to Adventures in Babysitting. It was written and played as unabashed cheese, I believe. It starts with a mundane situation, and goes surreal with high speed. The acting is pretty good, the script carries off the situations so that the audience gets carried along beyond the more outrageous points without too many ‘speed bumps’ and provides an enjoyable show.

It’s also a movie that must go quickly, because if the audience is ever allowed a chance to think about the story the bs flags will start flying. And that single glaring flaw, in my opinion, keeps it from being anything but a guilty pleasure.

Perhaps instead of using the term ‘crap’ for these films ‘guilty pleasure’ should be substituted, instead. Note, also, I’m making a distinction between whether I enjoyed a film, or whether I think it’s a good film. I can speak to any number of excellent films that I really didn’t enjoy, including Animal House and Porky’s. But that’s not because they’re comedies or such, just that they don’t speak to my particular tastes.

Nor do I think that film must be a drama to be considered a good film. To continue with the genre of surreal comedies, let me suggest the Cary Grant film, I Was a Male War Bride. (A film I reccomend to all viewers, btw.) Now, much of the surreal nature of the film is based on something I find completely believable, i.e. military regulations chewing up some poor slob. That may make me able to accept the piling up of surreal factors that I can’t accept in Adventures. But there are only one or two coincidences that are required in the plot to keep it moving. Rather the surreal aspects come from people (and regulations having been written) having the assumption that all military bringing back a spouse from Europe would be men, bringing back wives.

If I may paraphrase something I said in a thread recently touching on judicial matters: I can accept a single coincidence in a plot without a hiccough; when they start piling on, especially in a manner that is necessary to continue the plot evolution, my suspension of disbelief gets weaker and weaker with each added signifigant coincidence.

82

OtakuLoki, so why do you think that almost no drama films have been mentioned in this thread? Many of them have the same problems that the films that have been mentioned here. They are great in certain ways, but the acting isn’t great, or the dialogue isn’t as good as it should be, or the plot doesn’t make a great deal of sense, or the cinematography isn’t very good, or the special effects are slightly ridiculous, or whatever.

Look at the films that have been mentioned in this thread. Virtually every single one of them is a comedy, a horror film, a science fiction film, an action film, or a western. (Besides Animal House and Airplane, another movie that probably belongs on a list of the 250 best films of all time is _The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, which is what I presume is meant by the mention of the spaghetti westerns.) Nobody is listing drama films as “crap films that you like anyway.” I think that people just refuse to believe that the virtues that they see in these supposedly crap films are true virtues. Furthermore, I think that people fail to see that many good films of all sorts are wildly uneven. The fact that a film is deficient in one way doesn’t mean that it can’t br brilliant in other ways. Yes, a truly great film is more likely to be evenly great, but that’s not what we’re discussing here. The films mentioned here are not crap films but good films with flaws.

Furthermore, even great films have flaws. The notion that you can identify great films by giving each film a report card and then only calling a movie great if none of its grades are below a certain level is wrong. Indeed, this is true of art in general. A great film or a great novel or a great short story or a great poem or a great painting or a great sculpture or whatever is not in general a flawless work of art. An evenness in its qualities may make it more likely that it’s not a great work, but flaws in general don’t mean that it can’t be great.

In any case, the fact that the plot of a comedy is full of holes is mostly irrelevant. If you really think about it, the plots of even great comedies are rather silly. If it made more sense, the characters would act more rationally and then the comedy wouldn’t work. This is particularly true of farce as opposed to more genteel sorts of comedy. Not only does the plot have to be a little bit silly to even be funny in a farce, but the acting has to be a little bit over the top (which wouldn’t work in a drama film).

This is why I think that the films listed here are not mostly crap films. Please note that this doesn’t include all the films here. A few of those mentioned are truly poor films with only one scene or one character or one plot point that works. I think that the people posting to this thread should quit putting down their own tastes.

83

I can’t speak to anyone else, but for me it’s simple: I generally don’t watch drama films. So I’m not going to have a drama film I consider a crap film that I like anyways. My filtering is being done at a higher level than you’re assuming. So rather than judging drama films less critically, I usually consider them to be not to my taste at all.

84

This is exactly what I meant when I drafted my OP.

Let’s think about Citizen Kane, or All Quiet on the Western Front, or Casablanca. These are memorable for a number of reasons, and everybody has heard of them. They are important, they are critically acclaimed, they are landmarks in the history of cinema. You want to sound good at a cocktail party, you drop one of those titles into your conversation and people are impressed.

That’s not going to happen if I mention Car Wash or Joe Dirt or Summer Rental. Assuming they can even remember it, people are going to think I’m some kind of tasteless piece of trailer trash if I admit to liking something like Car Wash. But I do. It makes me laugh over and over again. I would rather watch it than Citizen Kane any day. But I don’t dare admit it (except here), which is why it is a guilty pleasure. There is certainly no critical, and very little popular, support for Car Wash. The main actors are mostly little-knowns (the biggest names in the film–Richard Pryor and George Carlin–only had cameos), the jokes are as subtle as a punch in the face (you just know the college kid who quotes Mao will get his comeuppance from the real working men, in some sort of slapstick way), and the music is mostly disco or 70s soul (yep, that’s Rose Royce’s “Car Wash” you hear over and over again). No drama, no pathos, no sly or clever innuendoes or double-entendres here. Not a likely candidate for any list of Films with Redeeming Qualities, I would imagine. But I like it anyway.

I thought many Dopers would have similar films that are guilty pleasures, and I’m pleased to see that they do.

85

That sounds to me like the half-shamefaced, half-belligerent attitude that a lot of movie fans have. The highbrow films that are (usually) critical favorites and the middlebrow films that tend to win Oscars are not to their tastes, while their favorite films are lowbrow ones. Because the films they like are not usually mentioned as being great (or even good) films, they assume that their tastes can not be considered as being worthy for good films. Thus, partly in shame and partly in belligerence, they can only defend their favorite films are being “crap films that they like anyway.” Meanwhile, they quit even attempting to see highbrow and middlebrow films, convinced that they won’t like them. I think that they should both quit being ashamed of their tastes and should see more films outside their usual tastes. Good films have many sorts of virtues, and their favorite sorts of virtues are also worthy of appreciation. Incidentally, I think the common argument that films critics have seen more films than the average filmgoer sometimes doesn’t apply in this situation. Sometimes these appreciators of “crap films that they like anyway” have seen more films than the average film critic.

86

My last post was a reply to OtakuLoki, not to Spoons. Spoons, I think that Car Wash is a pretty good farce. (I haven’t seen Summer Rental or Joe Dirt.) It’s not a great film, but it has its virtues. Some scenes work and some don’t. I don’t see why the music in the film would disqualify the film from being good. That’s what people listened to at the time. Besides being a good farce, I thought it was a good perspective on the working-class types who are employed at a car wash. Many of them know that their jobs are dead ends and desperately want to find some other employment. Some have accepted their place in society. There’s nothing to be ashamed about in liking Car Wash.

87

Now we’re getting into pretty rarified territory: what makes for great art. And I’m not going to be so arrogant as to claim that I can come up with a general definition that will work on all cases. The general definition that I’ve heard is that great art should be transformative - the audience is moved and changed in some way. I’m not sure that’s a universal one, but it’s a standard that I think is worth using as a begining point, at least.

And while I enjoy comedy, a lot, it’s rare that it’s going to be the sort of story that will change the way I think. Some do, and those are usually what I consider truly great comedies. But most comedies don’t do that. Drama, especially the sort of high drama that does not include things like SF, horror, action or war films, is often the sort of story and storytelling that aspires for that transformative effect. To that end I’ll admit that I suspect many of the “great” films will be high drama, simply because of the kind of stories that get that sort of treatment.

The problem I have with the genre of high drama isn’t that it’s not important or worthy of attention, but that I find even the most careful film must simplify often complex issues to meet the requirements of the medium. So, when I want to indulge in high drama, I choose literature, not film. Add to that, my insistence on having sympathetic characters, and many films of high drama pass me by - leaving me either frustrated with their simplification of issues I think much more complex; or hating the film because I can’t stand the main characters.
On preview,

Wendell Wagner, I’ve tried to touch some of your later points, and I hope you’ll accept this post as a partial answer to your later post as well.

88

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. My college roomie and I would watch this whenever we wanted to bring ourselves to the brink of pissing our pants from laughing so hard. Seriously, Ed Wood looked down from heaven on this film and thought to himself, “How ghastly. No frontal nudity, even.” And he was right.

UHF, Bio Dome, and Cool Runnings are classics in my house.

89

Dude! I came into this thread to mention this movie!

“If you kept up with your 12-point maintenance program, we wouldn’t have to jump-start you like this.”

That movie was how my now-husband and I learned we were Twin Souls. :stuck_out_tongue:

90

That’s because the cons talk like cons. It would have the dialog bleeped to incomprehensibility.

I nominate A Knight’s Tale. Jousters as present-day jocks complete with 70s rock soundtrack. But it’s the first movie where I noticed Paul Bettany and Alan Tudyk.

91

Latter Days. Fairly trite and overwrought, but… come on, hot gay Mormons! Do you know what I had to go through to find a movie like that?

92

Ooooh A Knight’s Tale! I saw most of that on TV once and found it highly entertaining cheese, with some nice eye candy. Hmm… I should rent that some time.

93

A couple of the movies mentioned here may or may not be crap, depending on your personal standards. But they are ones not likely to achieve the list of great, or even good American films. Among them in my list of guilty pleasures are** Flash Gordon** and The Fifth Element. I would add to that Barbarella and Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes, both of which, along with the first two I mentioned, I would watch any time they came up. I must be sick. (We need a pukey smilie here.)

In Flash Gordon I especially like the performance of Max von Sidow as Ming the Merciless. And who can resist the sexy opening scene of Brabarella with Jane Fonda stripping while hanging weightless in space. That still winds my clock. Whatever you may think of Jane politically, I still think she is (was) one sexy chick.

94

Damnation Alley

Futureworld

Logan’s Run

Rollerball

Stepford Wives

Collossus: The Forbin Project

The Omega Man

Silent Running
Can’t get enough of that bad 70’s SF. I was expecting more of the same with Star Wars when I went on opening night… :cool:

95

That’s a puzzler, I like Commando too for the cheesy one liners, the surname and the fact that know I’m a father I can quote the “She is my little girl” line :smiley:

Personally I like Star Trek The Motion Picture. A long drawn out remake of an episode from the 1960s, it still appeals to me, mostly because of some nice shots with a sense of scale missing from other episodes and films.

96

This is the way I looked at it when I sugested “Starship Troopers” and now I submit any Bruce Campbell movie or even television work. You just cant get one liners like that anywhere else.

The “Evil Dead” series for movies and “Jack of All Trades” for television are my favorites.

97

A fabulously pointless film. Keanu Reeve’s perky nipples, in the scene where he wakes up on the beach, are a high point.

So nice to know there are other people out there who value this movie. My ex and I used to quote from it. Extensively. And pointlessly.

98

By what definition are those crap? They’re classics; Once Upon A Time In The West is probably my favourite movie of all time. Do you really class them as guilty pleasures? Sure, there’s hammy bits in them, and the dubbing is jarring if you’re not used to it, but these are really trivial issues in what are, for me, simply fantastic cinema. Be proud of liking them. :slight_smile:

My weakness is for the entire output of Jean Claude van Damme. It really isn’t a proper rubbish movie unless he’s playing at least two identical characters, to show off both of his facial expressions. I even wrote to his publicist suggesting a new marketing strategy, to be used as a tagline for all his films:

“If it’s not van Damme, it’s not crap.”

Works for me. Who’ll get the beers in?

99

Oh, yeah! How could I forget Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!

“Ma, tomato’s eatin’ Jimmy.”
“Yup.”
“Poor Jimmy.”

Now I’m going to have to go try and rent that, it’s been years since I’ve seen it.

100

Sigh.

G.I Jane (I own this one)
Coyote Ugly
Stone Cold (Brian Bosworth and Lance Henrickson as a biker)
Walking Tall (yummmmm, The Rock)
Runaway (the old 80s robot movie with Tom Selleck)
Point Break
Boys on the Side
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