I’ll disagree about the original Robocop. That film, like The Terminator a few years earlier, took m by surprise. It was clearly satire, and a wonderful dark comedy, with cute and knowing shout-outs to pop culture and to sf. It’s not Stupid, but it is Awesome.
The sequels, however, were undoubtedly stupid, but not really awesome. For the first sequel they tossed out the original script by the guys who wrote the first one. They brought in Frank Miller, then tossed out most of HIS script. Then they cobbled together a script utterly lacking in intelligence and the spirit of dark comedy that the first had, substituting ham-fisted oafishness and over-the-top violence with no point. Compare the fake “commercials” in the sequel to those in the original to see what I mean.
Neil Young’s Human Highway is awesome and stupid, to an amazing degree.
It stars Neil, Devo, Dean Stockwell, Dennis Hopper, and others. It’s not easy to find; I had a vhs version that literally wore out.
Neil plays a dumb guy that works at a gas station. Russ Tamblyn is his friend who wishes to work at the gas station. Devo all work together at the nuclear power plant, and they glow red throughout the movie.
There is a cool soundtrack with Trans era Neil songs, and a recurring It Takes A Worried Man from Devo. Must be seen to be believed.
Well that would explain this Wonder Woman comic coverthen. I was puzzled. (The page linked to is completely safe for work hence no spoiler box, the rest of my site has many NSFW pages however).
3 pages deep…THREE PAGES DEEP…and not one mention of the greatest cult classic of all time? Sheesh!!
THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW
“Don’t get strung out by the way I look - Don’t judge a book by it’s cover.
I’m not much of a man by the light of day but by night I’m one hell of a lover!”
While it made radical changes (and, to my mind, it would’ve been much better if filmed straight), it’s FAR from the worst book adaptation ever. Besides the obvious answers you’d expect (Starship Troopers, or ** I, Robot**), I offer The Osterman Weekend, Ice Station Zebra, and most movies based on the works of Edgar Allen Poe, Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, H. Rider Haggard, H. P. Lovecraft, and Robert Sheckley as being much, much worse adaptations.
the Running Man at least kept close to the basic idea and something of the plot (even if that was, as has been suggested, ripped off from Robert Sheckley’s own The Prize of Peril, which actually got filmed in France and Germany before “Richard Bachman” wrote The Running Man )
Plus, The Running Man has a treat for those of us who appreciate such things – Little Erland van Lidthe de Jeude (who played Dynamo in the film) finally got to sing in his own voice (although you can barely hear it over the thunder and explosions). When he appeared in Stir Crazy, I was shocked at the voice, because it wasn’t his. It was clearly dubbed.
Don’t worry, man. I’m gonna bookmark this thread and use it for suggestions of what to watch when I’m bored, since most of my favorite movies have been mentioned!
Agreed completely. “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” screams stupid. The premise of a society built on the premise of “Be Excellent to each other, and Party On!” The premise of a time traveling guitar god. The premise of two stoner idiots traveling through time to collect historical figures so they can put on a report so they will pass history class. The stupid over the top acting. Lots of stupid. And yet, so fun. So entertaining.
I agree that it does have a smart element in the most creative use of a time travel device I’ve seen in a movie: “We don’t have to do it now, we just have to remember to do it later.” That is AWESOME.
That movie has a sci-fi premise that doesn’t work, but everything else is well done and not stupid at all.
That works.
Great addition.
Another great addition.
Absolutely.
I can get behind this. They were exciting and fun with a plot that was crap.
Lots of great suggestions, plus a bunch I’ve never seen, mentioned above.
But really, no love for Dark Star? Is it not sufficiently stupid? My guess is it’s right up the alley for anyone participating in this thread. If you haven’t seen it, make a point, but remember it was filmed WAY before the MTV generation, so it’ll seem slow, meaning you have to commit to watching it with no distractions. John Carpenter’s first film.
