There are a whole bunch of movies that I once thought were the bestest movies ever. I would watch them at least once a month, worship them, practically make love to them. But I see them now and wonder what the hell I was thinking. They are some of the stupidest and least watchable movies ever made. What was I smoking when I liked them?
I’m betting that you have a few of these too. What are they? Show your work.
My first entry: Gremlins
Too many things to nitpick, but why is it that in bad movies there’s always a wise old Chinese man who gives someone some magical yet destructive thing, then after all hell breaks loose, he takes it back, saying “Westerners are not ready for this”?
When I was a kid, I used to love the Police Academy series of films, Short Circuit 2 (where the robot goes to New York and meets Michael McKean), and those made-for-TV Spider-Man movies from the '70s with Nicholas Hammond as Spidey and lots of wah-wah funk music. I also remember loving Misfits of Science, which we rented many times in those days (the mid-'80s, when we got our first VCR). I wouldn’t mind seeing it again today, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be very good.
Yar. The Black Hole. I saw it when I was six in a theater, and was fascinated with it.
Now, I know it’s fascinatingly bad. I think it should be remade, because in the right hands - with a good script and good acting - it could be a good film.
Not a bad movie at all, actually. In fact it’s one of the better “dystopia” movies ever made, if a bit heavy-handed and obvious.
I just saw it again last year and it was nowhere near as good as I remebered it being. I think the biggest problem was that movie pacing has sped up over the years, and by today’s standards Rollerball just drags.
Couple that with the aforementioned heavy-handedness of the message, and halfway through I was saying “I get it. I get it already. Just get ON with it.”
I remember having a mild obsession with the Disney live-action version of Legend of Sleepy Hollow. It featured Jeff Goldblum as Ichabod Crane — not a bad choice — and, as Brom Bones … Dick Butkus. And also the guy who played the principal on Welcome Back Kotter. Maybe if I saw it again it would just seem harmlessly daft instead of painful, but that’s how it’s lived on in my memory.
“How the West Was Won” - loved it as a kid. rented it to show my kid - embarrassing. music was ok, and the train/chase bit was ok but otherwise awful. Maybe if our home was equipped with Cinerama.
This movie has a lot going for it. I think Holly Hunter was one of the cutest girls ever. I love her smile. And it has airplanes in it. Ooh, nothing like vintage airplanes! And it was a sweet story. (Not that I’d ever admit that deep down, I’m an incurable romantic.) I loved this movie!
But it was sloppily directed.
Spielberg liked A Guy Named Joe (Spencer Tracy, Irene Dunne). It’s a good story and a classic movie. Why not remake it? At first, I liked it. Lots of eye candy for me. But there were things that always bothered me about it.
There’s a scene with a runaway tug. It starts up on its own and takes off. Marg Helgenberger says that ‘there’s something wrong with the transmission’ and that it happens a lot. :dubious: Just dumb. (The machine plays a part later in the film.)
Brad Johnson takes on some of Richard Dreyfus’s traits; for example, his ‘donkey-like’ laugh. It didn’t sound natural at all.
Holly Hunter dances with Brad Johnson, and a certain song starts after the one they were dancing to. She stops and delivers a line… delivers it poorly.
The actors really could have used some good direction. I think Spielberg was either so in love with the original that he wanted to finish his version quickly, or there was some other reason why his direction was poor. It’s sad that such a sweet, romantic story should have glaring instances of ham-handed direction.
The original starwars.
Had to say it. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy it for what it is, but I revisited it when episode 1 came out and I was like… what the hell? Just something in the pacing and story telling was so bland and lacking. (Granted, it’s probably because so many other movies have copied the format since then).
I thought The Black Hole was the coolest when it came out, too… As an adult? It’s pretty lame, but that didn’t keep me from buying it on DVD and recapturing a bit of my past. Some of the effects are still impressive, and the ships were really cool, and the music is quite good. After that, it gets kind of shaky. Robots with ESP… People floating around in a vacuum without freezing or exploding… The whole heaven/hell montage at the end… It’s all good when you’re eight or nine, though!
A remake sounds kind of scary to me. It strikes me as something that Sci-Fi channel might try to do. (Though I hear that the new Battlestar Galactica is actually a decent show.)
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. For many many reasons. But the one that gets me is the dinner scene. I have eaten at plenty of Indian restaurants, and have never seen baby snakes, chilled monkey brains, or soup with eyeballs on the menu. To me this comes down to blatent racism.
I wouldn’t sweat the meal. In a few years Spielberg will realease a ‘digitally enhanced’, politically correct version. The nasty things will be replaced with broccoli and Brussels sprouts.
[sub]Note: I like broccoli and Brussels sprouts.[/sub]
A lot of movies I saw as a kid and thought they were really cool sci-fi just don’t hold up well when I’ve seen them recently.
Beneath the Planet of the Apes
Bad acting, overly dramatic shock scenes, political tie-ins. What seemed like a very adult film at the time was probably more appealing to the actual age I was (9).
Westworld
I loved this as a kid. Watching now the thing just drags on and on. And they do these lame close ups of the guy being pursued with the “oh my gosh” look on his face.
But they already did an earlier scene in the village with a much more realistic version of what Indians eat. Rice, various sauces and some vegetable mush stuff. Looks like what I’ve had at every Indian restaurant I’ve ever been to. The creepy foods were meant to be strange.
In stride? The British colonel sort of bats at an eel or something as it flops toward him, but he gamely carries on with his “stiff upper lip, don’t act like anything’s amiss” aristocratic routine.
Jones is so busy with his verbal fencing that he’s oblivious to anything else.
All the “courses” are so over-the-top disgusting that it’s supposed to be obvious that there’s a serious problem.
When it came out, I thought it was this totally awesome, genuinely subversive Generation X statement. I recently saw it again, and at most it’s a satire of that lame Gen-X mentality, though it doesn’t seem to have the self-awareness that such a satire would require.