To me, it was three and a half hours of a movie that was three hours and twenty-eight minutes too long.
To you, it might have been the greatest cinematic representation of America’s darkest hour.
If it was, please have yourself sterilized, but first, explain why…
I thought it was way too long with lots of irrelevant stuff, but it’s nowhere near the worst movie ever. It’s just mediocre.
Personally, I think it’s not fair deploring a movie just because don’t like it, calling it the worst ever.
Ok, the reasons are enough to say it’s mediocre. But curiously, the most famous movie called “the worst”, Plan 9 From Outer Space, it happens to be so bad that it’s good…
Pearl Harbor, the worst movie ever? You, sir (ma’am?), have never seen Battlefield Earth.
There are a couple of ways to judge “worst.”
These movies are unadulterated, talentless crap; movies that not only are bad, but never, at any point in their development, had any chance of being “good.” No one involved at any level of production had any form of skill or talent. These are the cheapos. The exploitation flicks. The B-movies. The Super-8 films financed with mom’s credit card. This is the domain of Plan 9 form Outer Space and Manos: Hands of Fate. However, these movies are generally so little known and pathetic, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. It’s like making fun of student films. The very worst of these films, however, often have such an earnest charm that it is hard not to like them inspite of themselves.
Then there are the films with real budgets. Films that cost a lot of money to produce very little result. Usually either the pet projects of succesful actors (John Travolta’s Battlefield Earth) or the bizarre mis-calculations of otherwise talented artist (John Boorman’s Zardoz) As bad as these films are, they often have a hypnotic, train-wreck fascination to them. How does a guy go from Deliverance to having a giant stone head floating across the screen vomiting firearms and shouting radical feminist slogans in only two years?
Finally, there’s The Gilded Turd. Soulless, formulaic exercises by clearly talented filmmakers who have obvious contempt for their audiences. Flashy, stylistic, and utterly cynical, these films are absolutely irredeemable. They are not enjoyable in any way, and the only thing more galling than their naked manipulation is the success they achieve at the box office. This is where you find you Michael Beys and Jerry Bruckheimers, your Pearl Harbors, your Titanics, and your Armageddons.
Plan 9 From Outer Space is now so well known it is a cult movie and quoted as the worst even by people who have never seen it. However, it was done on a very limited budget and with no great pretensions. IMHO those movies that waste a lot of talent and big bucks are far worse, in the context of their pretensions.
The Worst Fifty Movies of All Time is a good investment.
I was just wishing (in another thread) for a worst movie ever thread so I could mention that I actually sat through Neil Diamond’s the Jazz Singer. (Somebody made me. Really.) The last thread happened when I’d still been successfully blocking that memory out. There are no words to describe actually wathcing that thing. The only thing worse would have been if I completely loathed Neil Diamond’s music, which I actually don’t.
Unfortunately this is really more of a Pearl Harbor thread, and all I can say is that Pearl Harbor is three and a half hours of a movie that I didn’t see.
Last Year at Marienbad is always a safe reply: it is a shocker. As is Twelve to The Moon- but for different reasons. I have never seen The Jazz Singer- and after the write up from Tea Roses I doubt whether I will
It’s too mediocre to be the worst ever. But it was one of the most disappointing. The dialogue was about the corniest I’ve ever heard, the love story was pretty trite and boring. Add to that a total lack of Hawaiians and bizarre 21st century political correctness (come on, it’s 1941 and not one single person on a military base smokes?). Disappointing, sure. Just like Gods and Generals. But hardly the worst ever.
Actually, I kind of liked Zardoz.
“We’ve been used!”
“And *re-*used!”
“And abused!”
“And amused!”
I remember reading an article in Starlog that said the head was originally built as part of the Argonath for a Lord of the Rings movie, but there wasn’t enough money to make LotR. (It didn’t say who wanted to make LotR, or how Boorman got the head.)
Just wanted to say that I liked Pearl Harbor. So what if it isn’t the smartest, most amazing film of the year, or what ever.
I liked it. I liked the costumes, I liked the actors, and I liked the acting.
So there!!
I liked it too. Call me crazy, but I enjoyed it enough to get the DVD. Now, I didn’t find the romance aspect of it very interesting personally, but the dogfight scenes were very cool.
My favorite scene, though, was on the Japanese carrier when they were preparing the attack. (Though one thing that bothered me was the sake drinking ritual- I thought only Kamikaze pilots did that?).
The problem with a movie like this, is that its impossible to make it as it is (with every aspect of 1942, things like smoking and racism and stuff) because filmmakers are too chicken to show how things REALLY were even if the reality was a bad racist one to some extents. They pulled a lot of punches in an effort to avoid offending people, which was the entirely wrong way to make a movie about a historical event.
I thought Pearl Harbor was great, excluding every single part that wasn’t a war scene. The romance, for example, was… infuriating. I’m truly tired of writers throwing a romance into the middle of every movie, simply to try and sell to women as well. Honestly, women don’t buy into this crap either.
The worst part of “Pearl Harbor” was the unrealistic love story.
The worst part of “Titanic” was the unrealistic love story.
The worst part of “The Muppets Take Manhattan” was the unrealistic love story.
Michael Bay should stick to craptacular actionfests; it’s what he’s good at.
Worst movie ever? Hell no.
Have you seen The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course? Biggest waste of film ever. It’s a high school play spliced into a Discovery Channel tv program.
The saddest thing about it was that when the movie suffered a barrage of criticism about the historical inaccuracies they wheeled out excuses about it being a love story and not about an historical event. Yeah right. So, pretty poor, agreed, but by no means the worst.
I was cajoled through severe emotional blackmail to go to the cinema to watch ‘Maybe Baby.’ It was so awful that I cannot even think of any witty disparagement to write about it.
The only good thing about it is that I now get to choose what we watch more often.
Pearl Harbor was absolutely horrible but I don’t think it’s worst movie ever material. I think it’s horrible because of what it tries to do. It tries to be inspirational. It tries to be an entertaining historical film. It tries to be a romance. Tries but never succeeds. The timing of Pearl Harbor’s release was really unfortunate: the summer of 2001.
I’m just waiting for Michael Bay’s take on the Holocaust. He’ll probably throw in some doomed love affair between an inmate and a sympathetic Nazi officer. And there will be explosions and Ben Affleck’s big stupid head somehow.
I guess I’m the minority, but when I go to see a film like Pearl Harbor or Titanic, I LIKE the unrealistic love story. I go to the movies to escape reality. I like when a film tries to be as true as possible to a time period, but I don’t expect every aspect of a film to have actually happened. I don’t go to see a documetary. Otherwise I’d go to … um… a documentary.
I must not be alone, because TONS of people saw these movies.
I have to agree with Miller on this. As an avid MST3K fan and a collector of cinematic trash, there’s quite the range of what makes a film ‘bad’. I’d have no problem sitting down to Plan 9 from Outer Space one evening, because it’s a fun film to watch – I can’t rate it as the worst movie of all time because it’s so entertaining. But it’ll be some time before I sit down to watch “Invasion from the Inner Earth” again. (Before I do, I want someone to explain to me why there’s a pink Starship Enterprise on the box art. Or why the movie description on the back of the box bears no resemblance to the actual movie.)
Don’t even ask me about “Robovampire.”
–Patch
“The Pod People” is the worst movie ever. Not even MST3K could save that one. “Pearl Harbor” could never, ever compete.
You saw that too?