I am sure there wll be some dissension, but “The Thin Red Line” fits that bill. Not weird perhaps but artsy and pretensious to a degree I found laughable. Apparently every soldier thinks some pretty deep thoughts about their own mortality and the meaning of it all. They also seem to find plenty of time to express those thoughts in some pretty flowery verbiage. Plenty of critics appeared to like it, but I am convinced it was favorably reviewed due to peer pressure, it is they type of movie critics are supposed to like.
Where the movie crossed the line for me was John Travolta’s appearance as an officer of some kind. Travolta has an enormous head and apparently the prop people could only find a hat that was two sizes too small so it is propped there like a beanie on his massive dome. From there I just laughed at the rest. Too bad because I liked Malick’s other films and thought “A New World” was wonderful.
Not artsy or symbolic or transgressive or mind-blowing, but IMHO weird and really bad - Where the Buffalo Roam with Bill Murray. It is the only movie I almost walked out of - and the only reason I did not was because I went with my brother & he was sound asleep.
The worst weierdest film would be one that’s not only bad, but dull and boring. You can enjoy a good entertainingly bad film, like Plan Nine from Outer Space, But a film that’s bad and boring has no socially redeeming qualities.
One such film is Dr. Terror’s Gallery of Horrors (which shouldn’t be confused with Dr. Tereror’s House of Horrors, which is a pretty decent anthology horror film. No doubt they made the names confusible on purpose). It’s also known by about ten other titles (Gallery of Horror (1967) - Release info - IMDb ) . IMDB doesn’t list the one I saw it under – Tales from the Past. Ten different titles is NOT a good sign. This is an anthology in which the writing and acting is deplorably bad, and you can see the “twists” coming fom a mile away. The BEST parts of the film are the clips syolen from Roger Corman films. John Carradine must’ve REALLY been desperate for money, because this film makes The Black Sleep look like a masterpiece.
See also (or, rather, DON’T See) Monster from Green Hell, a movie about giant bess or wasps in Africa. There are a few cool moments when you see the giant animated insects, but nowhere near enough. The rest is filler. Incredibly boring, dull filler. They didn’t even have enough money to shoot the climax, which was supposed to show the bees being destroyed by a volcanic eruption. It took me quite a while to figure out that THAT was supposed to be what was happening.
John Carradine needs no excuse to appear in a bad movie. He’s much like Jeremy Irons or Michael Caine in that regard. Lon Chaney, Jr. on the other hand must have been yet another of those sad instances where a famous horror star at the end of their career has to appear in something to pay the rent.
I’m afraid I don’t really have a good nomination. There must be hundreds of pretentious art films out there to select from. You know the kind; the ones where “plot” or “characterization” by “symbolism”. And that symbolism usually comes in two flavors: so heavy handed it has its own gravitational pull or so obtuse that you have to play “Guess why the filmmaker put that scene in”. I’ve seen more than my fair share of these movies but because they’re such non-entities they wash right over me and I forget them instantly.
I love Terry’s other films, Brazil is one of my favorites, but this one… A lot of the film has an abandoned ten year old girl snuggling up to the decomposing corpse her OD’ed dad. Ugh.
Gilliam himself appears in the intro to the DVD warning you that you may just hate this movie. In my case he was right.
The worst, weirdest and truly horrible movie, which I think was supposed to be profound and meaningful, was called something like: “Sweet Sweetback’s Badass Song” that I watched through an alcoholic haze many years ago. There was one dialogue scene where one of the characters was having a #2 and on standing up used only one sheet to wipe before pulling up his pants.
For some reason that scene was burned to my mind for the rest of the night.
I gotta go with ya on that one. I could never get through the whole movie. As a matter of fact I thought about punching Rose McGowan in the face after watching the first few minutes of it. That movie was awful. They probably torture prisoners in Gitmo with it.
Barbarella - This is the most disappointing cult film I’ve ever seen. Very impressive sets, and Fonda is obviously trying very hard to inject some life into the proceedings, but psychedelia never seemed so dull as it did here.
Jane Fonda did another movie in the early 60s. Walk on the Wild Side. My favorite line was when a woman called Jane a “hip-slinging daughter of satan.” There’s lesbians and dark street scenes. Quite awesome.
See the problem with these threads is that they could lead some people to say “THAT I gotta see”, so they’ll rent the movie. Which is exactly what should NOT happen to godawful movies.
That was going to be mine. I have it somewhere on my hard drive. It is unwatchable as far as I can tell. I have tried to watch it. One day I will make it past the first 3 minutes.