I couldn’t think of an elegant way to title this, but let’s say Plan 9 featured cinematography by James Wong Howe, or Battlefield Earth had a killer soundtrack- one still might watch these otherwise atrocious films for that one good element.
Other “elements” might be plot, script, acting, score, direction, etc.
Two I can think of I like for the setting. Shadow Hours, an otherwise hokey “Satan is alive and living in human form in L.A.” film starring Peter Weller & B. Getty, has a setting I really dig- a gas station, night time, in a “gritty” section of L.A.
Similarly, Jimmy Hollywood is an abysmal comedy starring J. Pesci & C. Slater, but the main setting is one of those cool retro L.A. apartment complexes, which I also dig for some reason.
I don’t know that it quite fits your category, but the movie Dreamer comes close.
The plot is one of those where everything that can go wrong does go wrong, except when it improbably goes right. In a nutshell, a racehorse called Dreamer breaks her leg, is not put down, and thus is given a chance to recover.
(I will omit a description of the complications. Suffice it to say that there is a mixture of stuff which is likely and logical, and stuff which is just miserably unfortunate).
Due to the faith of the young girl, played by Dakota Fanning, it turns into a heartwarming family film.
The one great element is that the way they portray the Horse Racing World is very true to life–or at least life as I know it, I’m not actually in the business, but what I’ve read in the papers, seen on TV etc.
For example, there is mention (repeatedly) of two brothers who are Sheiks from Dubai. The details are off, in the way that such details are usually off, because they aren’t intended to be the actual sheiks from Dubai, but the big picture fits what I know of the actual sheiks from Dubai.
So while I wouldn’t be in a hurry to watch it again, and the plot was convoluted at best, I have told more than one person that the background of the horseracing world was surprsingly realistic.
Biggles: Adventures in Time. It’s badly written, has a silly plot and a an annoying musical score, but it’s worth watching for Neil Dickson’s performance as Biggles. Dickson is terrific. The man should have become a major star.
“High Spirits”–in which an Anglo-Irishman concocts a plan to save Castle Plunkett from foreclosure. He’ll market the place as a haunted castle/hotel & the faithful family retainers (extra droll in that “Irish” way) will dress as ghosts. The plan falls through–but then the actual family ghosts appear. Wackiness ensues. The action drags at time & some of the effects are truly cheesy.
BUT: Peter O’Toole, as Peter Plunkett, chews the scenery with great vigor.
(Not to discount a very young Liam Neeson. He makes a fine figure of a ghost–especially in the shower scene.)
Gary Graham was in an awful sci-fi movie called Robot Jox. The acting and plot could have used a lot of help, but the robot models were great. Had they the budget to remake this now, it probably would have been all computer generated imagery.
I’m not sure if this fits your OP, exactly, but for me it is Titanic. Overall, a horrible, horrible movie. But the scenes that revolve around the crew, just before the iceberg is hit, and dealing with the situation afterward, as well as some of the reactions of minor characters, seem amazingly realistic and heartbreaking (unlike most of the rest of the movie).
I used to watch **Excalibur ** just for the throwing-the-sword-back-in-the-water scene…but I realized it was the *music * I liked (Siegfried’s Funeral), more than the movie. I got a Wagner’s Greatest Hits CD, and haven’t seen the movie since.
I say it every time- One scene saves “Daredevil” from being a waste.
The scene where Daredevikl returns from a night of superheroing and you see how horribly awful the toll on being a street level superhero would be on the human body.
Cloris Leechman has one scene in “Hanging Up” with Meg Ryan and Diane Keaton. Its the only good scene in the movie. “Motherhood… it just didn’t take.”
I’ve watched Star Wars Episde 3: Revenge of the Sith a half dozen times over the past few months. Why? Because HBO-HD keeps showing it, and, perhaps because it was shot digitally to begin with, it looks unbelievably gorgeous in HD. I mean, it is clearly a flawed movie, but so many screenshots and moments are just gorgeous. And of course the big fight scenes don’t suck.
A waste as a movie, but the cameos are great, as are a couple of throw-away jokes. My favorite is when the heroes are being chased by the bad guys into a concert. As each group runs past Security, they show their passes. Pass, pass, submachine gun… Then watching the bad guys get stuck on stage in front of a world-wide audience, and them trying to pretend they’re dancers. Small moments, but worth it.
I like to watch one or two parts only of Independence Day. I like to see Will Smith dragging the downed alien around the desert, and I love Brent Spiner’s performance as the xenologist who gets turned into a ventriloquist’s dummy. The rest of the movie is a wash.
I also like to watch the tripod emerging from the ground, chasing a wetting-his-pants Tom Cruise, and then vaporizing large parts of New Jersey in War of the Worlds. I also enjoy Tim Robbins’s performance as the bonkers preacher, plus a few other select scenes. Thank goodness for scene selection on movie DVD’s.
Relentlessly stupid, and degenerates into abject silliness with a vampire subplot, but there are some genuinely hilarious moments, including Dame Edna declaring that “lesbianism has always left a nasty taste in my mouth!” Directed by Bruce Beresford–who has a talent for extremely low comedy…
