Another Ed Wood masterpiece, Glen or Glenda, rates very high on my list. Also gotta love the Russo-Finnish production of Jack Frost. And don’t forget Pumaman.
Changing my sig, because Wally said to, and I really like Wally, and I’ll do anything he says, anytime he says to.
These are bad, or low budget, or critically panned movies that we watch over and over?
“Overboard” – Goldie Hawn & Kurt Russell. Actually, any movie where rich snobs and trashy types face off is fun.
“Tremors” – it played off kids’ games where something was under the couch or the bed or in a hole in the ground and was gonna getcha.
“The People Under The Stairs” – geez, that couple was creepy. I love this movie.
“The Vikings” - Ernie Borgnine! That music! And Janet Leigh’s boobs were never pointier, even in Psycho.
Barb Wire, definitely. Anyone else catch the parallels with Casablanca? Or am I insane?
I’m not a fallen angel, I’m a risen demon.
Deep Throat. But thats only cause I can’t hear it, so I don’t know what they are saying.
How about “Our Man Flint” currently being shown ad infinitum on the AMC channel? Inspiration for “Austin Powers”. I enjoy the sight of a young James Coburn in a turtleneck sweater, flailing away on the dance floor with 60’s bimbos - he looks exactly like a grinning shark! Also anything presented by Joe Bob Briggs on TNT Monstervision. (I can’t say I care too much for his “other” job as a Hollywood boy toy during the showing of a “normal” movie. Not that I don’t believe it, Joe Bob can park his boots under my bed any time, but the humor seems strained. Maybe TNT is running low on good/bad monster movies.)
Manos, the Hands of Fate.
–
TMR
‘Worth seeing for the Haunting Torgo Theme alone.’
SPIDER BABY, a little know Lon Chaney, Jr. movie about a strange family.
Real Genius–Val Kilmer was absolutely yummy in that flick!
Valley Girl–Nicholas Cage was absolutely yummy…plus, it had a great soundtrack.
Those are the only two movies I’m comfortable admitting to liking at this point.
“Don’t look at me–I’m irrelevant.”
I have a fascination with what I call Gen-Xploitation flicks. They’re most of them bad, bad attempts to become anthemic for a generation, and the worst part is that some of them succeed.
The Doom Generation – as mentioned above, this is a Gen-Xploitation classic. Must see. The thickest overuse of pop-culture references you’ll ever manage to sit through, if you can even manage this one. It’s about a love affair which, according to the film’s hype, is `too pure for this world’ – although the world even harshly as its depicted in the film seems far purer than the main characters. The heroine is torn between two lovers who appear to be symbolic of the dichotomy of her own character, and in the shocking suprise we-couldn’t-think-of-an-ending ending, her innocence gets castrated by nazis for no apparent reason.
Reality Bites – In which Winona Ryder struggles with a choice between the nice guy with a job who wants to make her happy and the pop-culture spewing reprobate who goes out of his way to emotionally torment her because his parent’s generation turned him into an asshole. Won’t you be suprised who she picks!
Hackers – A movie based on The Hacker’s Dictionary. Based on the terms, that is, not on any of the actual definitions. In the world of Hackers looks are everything. You can tell the hackers not by their smell as they often say in the real world, but by their radical punkish haircuts and skateboards. Even the computers interfaces are almost completely graphical. Indeed, hacking seems to be all about being young, hip and visually-oriented. The movie should not be missed because it features Angelina Jolie as the newly-minted media archetype, the cyber grrrrl, also known as the web grrrl because in fact she didn’t appear until after the advent of the web, though she is claimed to have been at it since the days of the C64. Never mind the distinct lack of a female presence at the users’ club meetings you remember, she’s been around, presumably in a room of her own. And of course, she’s hot, because computers are now a fashion accessory, didn’t you know?
Slackers – An attempt at a deep statement about shallowness ends up making a shallow statement about depth.
S.F.W. – Cliff Spab is the ubermensch of Generation X, the man all the angsty teenagers yearn to be. Why? Because he lives the Gen X dream of being super-famous for nothing more than being a nihilistic smartass, but he’s too super-cool to care. Don’t miss the exciting denuement in which Spab comes to the subtle epiphany that nihilism runs its mouth, but giving-a-shit packs heat.
The Breakfast Club – Can’t wait for the next episode of Daria to immerse yourself in the battle of the high-school archetypes and the eye-rolling criticism of the older generation? Rent this John Hughes classic and learn the words that millions of young people have take to heart: “When you grow up, your heart just dies.” The movie that asks the essential question: “Are you blaming your parents enough?”
The Craft – In case you didn’t know witches were hip and sexy, rent this film and get an eyeful of education. It’s not high Gen-Xploitation, because it is light on pop-culture references and parent-bashing. But I count it as Gen-Xploitation by virtue of its obvious grab for the Goth demographic.
Romeo and Juliet (DiCaprio) – Your kids don’t like to read? Rent this film to teach kids that Shakespeare is `edgy’ and that extended metaphor is, like, an acid trip, dude. This movie features several fine actors taking a well-deserved break from acting to show kids that you don’t have to understand Shakespeare as long as you can sound it out phonetically.
There are several more great films in this exciting genre, but I think you get the idea. Sadly, this genre seems to be dying out. But in a decade or so we’ll be talking about Gen-Xploitation films the way that critics now talk about film noir. So, see these films now and stay ahead of the cutting edge.
Wait, I can’t believe I forgot to mention:
Empire Records – The movie’s poingnant slogan is They’re selling music, but their not selling out and its lesson is that smart girls are probably on speed, sluts are people too and even a weak attempt at suicide is a great attention-getter. Rent it now and play the `Find the Improbable Plot Point Drinking Game’ – but you better drink fast, because they come on like gangbusters right to the end.
Second a lot of the above (Glen or Glenda, Deathrace 2000 (Well, anything by Roger Corman, and Empire Records, especially.), and add Last Days of Planet Earth (Nosutoradamusu no daiyogen) - when I first saw it I was convinced it was 6 or 7 completely different movies spliced together. I simply could not follow it, I didn’t hold out any hope of following it, but I couldn’t stop watching!!!
Eschew Obfuscation
Wild Things. We were absolutely howling through this ridiculous, unintentionally hilarious movie. There’s a scene where Kevin Bacon’s character, trying to act tough, yells “You wanna come back here and say that to my face?” and I swear the entire theater nearly busted a gut.
Neve Campbell’s courtroom scene is worth the admission alone.
One nit - Tremors was neither bad nor critically panned. It was actually a critical hit. I don’t think I ever saw a bad review for it, and Siskel and/or Ebert thought it was one of the 10 best of the year in 1990.
GRABOIDS!
I gotta say once again that, even though no one likes the movie and I’m probably the only person on Earth who owns it on DVD, I love Cutthroat Island. It’s a sickness.
In my defense, I must say that the final battle, ship-to-ship, cannons blazing and swords flashing, is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen on film. Screw computer graphics; give me real stuff blowing up!
And Dawg Brown (played by Frank Langella) is a marvelous movie villain. Surveying the flaming ships through the thick gunpowder smoke, screaming “I love this! I love it!”…DAMN, that’s cool.
Even if you can’t stand the movie, hell, just fast-forward to the end…
I nominate greasy, dopey,50 year old Dean Martin as Matt Helm, secret agent, in a couple of mid-60’s gems, The Silencers and Murderer’s Row. MUCH closer to Austin Powers, baby! Judith Crist, movie critic, sums it up: “Dean Martin started his smutty-leery Matt Helm series…portraying a half-asleep, perpetually plastered, sun-tanned, lecherous buffoon roused to fits of satyriasis at twenty-second intervals. Stella Stevens as a dumb redhead is the only bright element in this stupid mess.” Has to be seen to be believed, it is like eating one of those cheap, no-name donuts on sale at the gas station for $1.59 a box, tastes terrible, goes down hard, but sometimes you just have to have one.
Also, a sci-fi classic, forgot the name, starred John Saxon and a futuristic race of women who kept all the men as slaves and called them “Dinks”. My friends and I almost peed in our pants laughing back when this was on TV! Dink, Dink, Dink! Bring me my Dink! Obey me, Dink!
Speaking of Roger Corman:
Little Shop of Horrors – the original version, with Jack Nicholson playing the masochist at the dentist’s office.
Feed me!
For my own choice it has to be “Toxic Avenger”. I haven’t seen the sequels to this movie and I’m not sure I want to. The dialogue was very bad, and I’d like to think it was mostly intentional–but you never know.
“It’s only common sense,
There are no accidents 'round here.”
One word: “Frankenhooker”
Enright3
City of Women.
That sorta remake of The Wizard of Oz, the
one staring Wilim Defoe and Nick Cage.
The original Killer Tomatoes movie, with it’s species-saving song “Puberty Love.”
I even wonder if The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover doesn’t belong in this catagory. Don’t you really enjoy it as keich? Quick, somebody tell me how to spell keich!
Earth Girls Are Easy. Wonderful! The movie that destroyed my ability to judge a movie by its title.
regards,
wiploc