If you could eliminate five films from human existance, which would they be?
- Ishtar
- Seven Brides For Seven Brothers
- Berlin Alexanderplatz
- The Other Side Of Midnight
- Godzilla, the U.S. version
- Joe and the Volcano
- The Sound of Music
- Most woody Allen movies
- The Crying Game
- Eyes Wide Shut
I assume by “movie”, you meant real movies, not Sandy Franks or Wes Craven type shlock.
These were the first 5 that popped into my head, I’m sure there are worse.
Off the top of my head …
Planet of the Apes – the recent one.
Krippendorf’s Tribe
Pearl Harbor
Lost in Space
and the piece de resistance …
Battlefield Earth – which I’m watching on Cinemax right now against my better judgement. It’s making me want to dig my eyeballs out of my head in order to prevent me from seeing anything so hideous ever again.
What? A little over the top?
Seven Brides? Good heavens, why?! Gene Kelly coreography, not-entirely horrible music, a mostly-harmless plot, barely-competent acting. It’s not a masterpiece (except for some of the dancing) but it’s certainly not in the same category as your other picks. I’m curious as to your reasons for this one.
My executed movies:
Superman IV, which made my eyes bleed to watch
Inchon
Ishtar
Such Good Friends: Burgess Merideth. Nude. 'nuff said?
Second Sight
Fenris
Rocky
Rocky 2
Rocky 3
Rocky 4
Rocky 5
I always feel kinda sad when I see people putting that one down. Don’t get me wrong: the movie sucked. In fact, it supersucked. However, “Ishtar” also happens to be my sweet little cat’s name.
Note: She was named after the Babylonian goddess. Not the crappy movie.
Related anecdote: My cat goes outside (I live in the sort of neighbourhood where this is relatively safe). One day, back when she was still new to the whole outdoor scene, I was out calling her name, and my neighbour - staring at me in disbelief - asked me “you named your cat after a shitty movie???”
OK, maybe I should have taken that tidbit into consideration when I named her, but I like that name, dammit. Oh, and the goddess was pretty cool too. They better not come up with some shitty movie with my other cats’ names, dammit.
Oh, and I agree with lieu about all the Rocky sequels, but I thought the first Rocky was pretty cool.
Oh… my list… sorry 'bout the hijack.
1- Gone With The Wind
2- Thelma and Louise (I’d explain why, but I’ve ranted about this enough IRL)
3- Superman IV (I probably would have forgotten all about this piece of crap flick, if Fenris hadn’t brought it up. [sarcasm]Thanks, Fenris. [/sarcasm]
4- Dirty Dancing
5- Most movies with Tom Cruise (am I cheating?).
Michael Kidd did the choreography, not Gene Kelly. Stanely Donen directed, that’s probably where you got mixed up. And I agree, not a bad movie at all (then again, I have a bit of a crush on Howard Keel anyway).
My picks:
Armageddon
The Black Hole
Once Upon a Crime
Born Yesterday (the remake with Melanie Griffith, not the original with the wonderful Judy Holliday)
Streets of Fire
You know, the only film I’ve ever seen that didn’t have a single redeeming feature was Highlander 2. Hell, even Armageddon was bearable in comparison.
I’m agreeing with Gary and Czarcasm here.
Both Ishtar and Highlander 2 gotta go.
I also harbor peculiar hatred for:
The Mexican
Metropolitan
I had a tough time coming up with the last one. Then I remembered.
Quest of the Delta Knights
You know, folks, I hate how I made a fool of myself in front of Cindy Verschuur nine years ago, but I don’t wish I hadn’t done it, because now I know not to repeat the incident with someone else.
Some bad movies are uniquely bad, and we need to keep them around as object lessons.
Ishtar is such a movie, for it teaches us that an all-star cast and an Elaine May script can’t save you if your director (May again) doesn’t know the basic rule that you don’t go on LOCATION to spoof the Hope/Crosby “Road” movies, which were all shot on soundstages. And you don’t ad-lib half the scenes, either.
Same with Heaven’s Gate, where Michael Cimino went way over-budget by rebuilding all his sets when he learned they used copper nails in the Old West. Memo to Michael: method acting doesn’t apply to inanimate objects.
So if I could take my eraser to history I would remove:
North
Santa Claus: The Movie
Superman IV, as previously noted
Superman III
A Few Good Men
Annie
Shallow Hal (leap of faith here)
Steel Magnolias
Batman and Robin - I had to sit through the whole thing. I was mesmerized by it’s overwhelming badness.
Town & Country - All bad. ALL bad. Andie MacDowell and Charlton Heston? Shoot me.
Husbands and Wives - The handheld camera shots actually made me sick.
Showgirls - It couldn’t even redeem itself by being funny-bad.
The Haunting - Even Owen Wilson couldn’t save it.
There are many worse movies, of course. I just hold grudges against these in particular.
Don’t know if I can come up with five (it’s not enough). How about five categories?
-
Anything with Leo DeCapprio where he appears with people who can actually act.
-
Anything where the main star is a professional basketball player (in real life).
-
Anything with cute kids and a cute dog.
-
Anything based on a computer game.
-
Any movie where a rock band hits “the Big Time” but you can see that the audience in the “live footage” really thinks the music is crap, even though they are being paid to be enthusiastic.
- Twister
2-5. Star Wars series.
Damn. I was hoping to fit Reckless Kelly on that list. And Ishtar. And Devil’s Advocate.
First off, I have to say that I came to this thread thinking that it might be about what kind of person would be good for the position of criminal executioner. I, myself, would have to pass, but I was willing to nominate a ex-neighbor of mine. She was a reclusive and eccentric old woman who unfailingly wore the same clothes all the time. I guess I shouldn’t make the assumption that they were the EXACT same clothes. She could have been an Orsen Wells groupie or something and had duplicate outfits for each day of the week. Anyway, in one summer, she (not so discreetly) killed three neighborhood cats. If anyone would enjoy being an executioner, I’m sure she would love to take on the job. The old neighborgood would be pleased to know that she was going to be relocating to some far away place like Texas or Georgia. And to her benifit, she would be earning a little extra spending money for things she needs like rat poison and ballpeen hammers.
Now, as for the hit list of movies…
-
Heaven’s Gate; Conscience dictates that I mention this
horrible movie first. They tried to pawn it off as a
“film” but my instincts tell me better. It was a movie.
A BAD movie. The reason that my conscience comes into
play is that, not just me, but some of humanity was
gravely affected by this movie. Remember the religious
cult, Heaven’s Gate? Well it is my theory that the
guru of that cult forced his disciples to watch that excrutiatingly
bad movie over and over and over again until they either
committed scuicide or…he waited for them to fall
asleep from boredom (they were the first to go) and then
he snuck up on them and smothered them with plastic bags
from the video store. I’m not sure how the casteration
and the roll of quaters fits into my theory, but anyone
who watched that movie THAT many times shouldn’t be
allowed to reproduce anyway so… -
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar
The title alone is enough to get the axe from me,
but besides that…It was the absolute WORST movie
I’ve ever had the misfortune to see. Who wants to see
Wesley Snipes and Patrick Swazey dressed up like women!
NOT ME!! The script was horrible and the acting was
rotten!! It was, beyond a doubt, the most wasted two
hours of my entire life!
There’s a reason that this movie makes the number two
spot? It’s simple. It’s number two! -
Titanic! Need I say more?!! Okay, I will! It was
visually beautiful but the bulk of the dialog
consisted of “Jack!” “Rose!” “Jack!” “Rose!”
It was pathectic! AND!!!..to add insult to injury,
after sitting through what
seemed like hours of sophemoric drivel…there were
no funny out-takes as the credits rolled by!!! Talk
about a rip-off!!! I wanted to see all of the other
things that Kate Winslet hit while spitting out a
mouthful of KY Jelly! And all those people sliding
down the deck of the ship as it rose nearly vertical
out of the water? Don’t try and tell me that they did
that in one take!!! I’m sure there must have been some
painful ruptures and nasty splinters! C’mon! I wanna
see it! Oh, well. I guess I’ll just have to wait for
Jackie Chan’s next flick. -
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom takes the four
spot. In my opinion, it was a failure as the
link in the trilogy. What the hell was Capshaw in that
story for?!!! It was so contrived and dull. -
Eve of Destruction!!! This is a movie that I don’t
love to hate. I just plain hate it! It’s an “oldy”,
but it’s just as awful now as it was when I first saw
it, about 12 years ago. If you see it, check out the
scene in the hotel with Eve and the bad guy. His line,
“Hellllllooooo hooo” is classically BAD!!! AXE IT!!
Well, if you’re gonna go there, Gary, Highlander III* wasn’t any better. 
-Stil
Typically I block out really bad movies but some are so bad that they just stick with you beyond the point of just being campy.
- Solar Babies. Or was that one word. Kids on rollerblades in a post apocolyptic world fight bad people for some reason.
- Titanic. The absolute most predictable and trite movie ever.
- Beastmaster 2-infinity (don’t know which one they ended on but the first one was decent. I saw one around 5 or something.) Dar must die for permanently soiling the teenage fantasy of having animal friends. Dirty dirty dirty.
- The Highlander movie where the immortals were really space aliens sentanced to Earth from their crimes (I believe that one was Highlander 2. I concur with the other people if it is.)
- Ernest Goes to Camp. Ashamedly I must admit, at one time of severe inebriation, I thought it had some type of deep social commentary. Boy was I wrong when I attempted to watch it again.
HUGS!
Sqrl
PS. DIE ELMO DIE. (The chant DCnewsman and I said when we went to watch Elmo in Grouchland at the theatre when he fell down Oscar’s can.)
Dammit Czarcasm, you’re talking about films?
I thought… well never mind.
Well, as long as I’m here; I never saw a lot of these movies, so I can’t really comment on them, except Titanic. The hype over that movie made me hate it! And that song! ARRRGGHHHH! The same goes for The Blair Witch Project. As for movies I’ve actually seen, Highlander 2 deserves to disappear. I sorta saw The Mexican in that they showed it on an airplane I was on recently, and even without hearing the dialogue I’m pretty sure it reeked. I get one more right? Okay. Top Gun. Mostly because it irritated me no end that a bright, more or less together woman would so easily and quickly fall for an arrogant, immature jackass like Tom Thumb…err…Cruise.
P.S. I’d like to give a Dishonorable Mention to The Wedding Planner. Lopez should not try to act, ever again.
I can only think of one…
Forrest Gump
My brother and I have a scale we use, based on a movie we rented right when VCR tapes were first coming out, and you had to go to the video CAMERA store to rent them. It was a pretty big deal, and you chose your movies carefully, because it was all so new. Anyway, we were both big scifi fans so we got this one movie about a kid who finds some artifacts (a necklace and a gun) from an alien criminal who has been executed by two other aliens while on Earth. Anyway, this movie was so bad that my brother started insisting that I take it back about ten minutes into watching it, and I had to agree, but I was also fascinated by its utter badness, and watched it all the way through, helpless before a force far more powerful than mere will power or moral strength. From that moment on, I knew that no other movie could ever match this one for sheer, stinky godawfulness.
And so the Laserblast scale came to be.
Therefore, on a laserblast scale, with ten being the worst and utterly unapproachable height of wretchedness, I humbly submit the following:
LB 5- Almost any movie with Sly Stallone, (with the exception of Rocky) Just the title “Stop or my Mom will shoot!” Deserves an LB of 6.
LB 6 “Baby” the story of a baby brontosauraus in Africa being fondled by “greatest American hero” William Katz
LB 7 “Blue Velvet” an amazing feat of cinematic torture, which makes you feel as though just being the same species as Dennis Hopper is a criminal offence.
LB 8 “Caligula” the uncensored version, which, being in college at the time, I thought would be pretty cool to see, but instead I was sick for three days, and I can’t even walk through the neighborhood of the theater where I saw it almost sixteen years ago.
In no particular order:
Things to do in Denver When You’re Dead – It says something when the only likable character is the one sent to kill all the others.
Dancer in the Dark – “Bjork” has now become slang for any unpleasant bodily function.
Titanic – Others have said it better than I can.
The General’s Daughter – “Tell me everything you know.” “No.” “Tell me everything you know!” “Ok…” This is not suspense, folks.
Hudson Hawk – Would give Cthulu nightmares.