White Chicks - The Wayan Brothers aren’t even remotely convincing as women - but I love this awful, awful film anyway
I know Ah-naud has been mentioned but I’d like to give a special shout out to **Twins **& Kindergerten Cop.
And his character’s name is “John Matrix.” Isn’t that great? John Matrix. “Alright, we need a name for the hero. Never mind that he has a German accent, just make something up that sounds kickass.”
And for totally different reasons, “Dumb and Dumber.” “Fell off the jetway again.”
Clash of the Titans. I wasn’t quite born yet when it came out in 1981, but watched it recently and was quite amused by how hilariously bad the special effects are. I’m sure in its day it was really cutting edge and I like to imagine audiences of the time being wowed by the spectacle and snicker softly to myself.
Also the acting is pretty bad too, but I get the impression the special effects were supposed to be its key selling point.
Oh, I* love* Clash of the Titans! Medusa is still scary, if you ask me. Great movie (just ignore that stupid golden owl).
I know! John Matrix was a pretty laughable name. And I had nominated Dumb And Dumber earlier in the thread, so you can’t claim it! Its mine, all mine!
I saw that movie in the theater when it came out when I was in 7th grade and it was pretty bad special effects for even then. Its *painful *to watch now.
The owl kicks ass, leave it alone! It clicked, it whirred, it flew, its eyes goggled…it was like a Swiss timepiece without a purpose! It made perfect sense!
Ah, ah, ah. As a Ray Harryhausen fan from the time I saw Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (in the theater, but a couple of years after its initial release), I couldn’t disagree more. It was Harryhausen’s last effort, and he went out with a bang. Go-motion and computer blurring to eliminate “strobing” was already being done in films like The Empire Strikes Back (made, i n part, as a tribute to Harryhausen), and films like Dragonslayer were about to come out and show what a major production effort, with a huge team of technicians could achieve. Harryhausen’s staff was pretty small (with Jim Danforth helping out with the animation, and someone else doing a lot of sculpting), and that sort of thing just couldn’t compete, not with CGI just beyond the horizon.
nevertheless, it had a literate script by veteran screenwriter Beverly Cross (who’d done Jason and the Argonauts, and is supposed to have worked on Lawrence of Arabia) – there’s a surprising amount of stuff in that script the average filmgoer wouldn’t notice. It had a stellar cast, including Maggie Smith (Cross’ wife), Ursula Andress, Burgess Meredith, and (drumroll) Laurence Olivier. Say what you will about the acting and direction, I think they’re far better than the general run of Harryhausen’s had been. My major complaint is that damned mechanical owl, clearly put in as a clone of R2D2. It’s unlike anything else in Harryhausen’s (or Cross’) work, so I strongly suspect studio pressure was responsible for its being there.
Some of the effects weren’t up to snuff – the matting of the waves over the Kraken, for instance, or the surprisingly clumsy work under the opening credits, but most of it I’ll stand by – especially the non-animation work with the projection of Thetis’ face onto the statue. And the shortcomings, i fear, were as lame back in 1981 as they are now. And audiences were starting to become too sophisticated for simple stop-motion masquerading as Real Life.
The remake – due out now on April 2 (moved up from March 26, because they’re retooling it for 3D) – is definitely based on the earlier film. So someone still has a soft spot in their heart for it. A lot of script elements seem to have been borrowed from the 1981 film and not from myth or literature – the Scorpions, Medusa being in a Temple*, the scenes with Zeus (Athena and, to some extent, Hermes, were Perseus’ patrons in the myth). Most of the script, though, seems to be taken from the Duisney version of Hercules. It’ll be interesting to see.
*Don’t come to me with cites about poisonous creatures being born from Medusa’s blood, or Ovid’s saying that Medusa was seduced by Poseidon in a temple – those are some of the hints by Cross that I said were in the screenplay. But they were never a major part of the story or, more important, its iconography before the 1981 film.
Where is the love for “Red Dawn”?
WOLVERINES!!!
I thought about that, but it’s actually a pretty well-made movie. It just has a goofy premise.
“Hi guys! Big Gulps, huh? Well, see you later!”
I watched this film last night. Oh god was it terrible.
Some of my favorites:
**Freddy Got Fingered
Better Off Dead
The Lair of the White Worm
Cube 2 - Hypercube
The Toxic Avenger
Hackers
**
I always liked “It feels like you’re running at an incredible rate of speed!”