Yeah, that was about as bad as I expected.

Cafe Society
1

Tommy, the musical, was on the other night. I love the album, but never saw the movie because it looked like it blew chunks. Still, in my continuing quest to be culturally literate, I felt I needed to sit through most of it. My assumptions were borne out, from Ken Russell’s over-the-top imaginings to my sincere belief that neither Oliver Reed nor Jack Nicholson could sing. I had heard Tina Turner’s version of “Acid Queen” before and was not impressed, and Elton John’s “Pinball Wizard,” which I have always hated, turned out to be a high point.

Even Ann-Margret, a professional singer, was dreadful, though this was filmed during her pass-around-pack period so she was the most visually-interesting part of the movie. I even liked her in the beginning, when, without makeup, she looked like the Swedish farmgirl on Jack Benny, fourteen years later. Overall, is sucked as bad as I expected and if there had been anything else on I wouldn’t have watched it. Actually, something else started ten minutes before it ended so I didn’t see all of it.

I could never stand Philip K Dick as a writer, but I borrowed the audiobook of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? because I love Bladerunner, and wanted to see where it differed. The differences were enormous as expected; the concept was good, but the execution was bad–Dick all over. Ridley Scott and the scriptwriters threw away 99% of the book for good reasons. But I did do something I have never accomplished when reading a Dick book–I sat through to the end. Usually, I get thirty pages from the end and realize that I disliked every character and didn’t care what happened to them. I did not wish them dead; just didn’t care about them one way or the other enough to find out. I didn’t care here, either, but trudged on because my commute was long.

So, what has entirely lived up to your negative expectations, but you sat through it anyway? A book a friend recommended and you didn’t want to hurt their feelings? A rom-com or action film your SO dragged you to? A TV show everybody at work insisted you’d love?

2

Mrs. Burpo (late 40s) is a huge Harry Potter fan–has all the books, dragged me to all the films (except the last one). I gave it a whirl: I read the first book all the way through; three weeks later, I thought I should really give that first HP book a try, completely forgetting I had read it recently. Didn’t remember a thing about it. The only feeling I get from the films is not that someone is telling me a story, but that I’m being manipulated.

3

My uncle’s published a few books, mostly historical fiction. I haven’t the heart to tell him that I couldn’t finish any of them, because…well, his writing style is kinda not good.

But he’s far from the worst author I’ve ever read. (Terry Brooks, I’m lookin’ right at you…)

As for movies & such, the one were my worst expectations were not unfounded has to be the Star Wars Holiday Special. “No, it couldn’t be THAT bad,” – nope. It’s beyond bad. :eek:

4

Tommy is clearly “so bad it’s good” territory. Russell clearly had no imagination and no sense of humor and the result is just plain hilarious.

I didn’t expect much from the musical version of Happy Days that came around here about five years ago as a trial before Broadway. It was awfully dull with just one funny line (Howard: You’re like a son to me. Fonzie: You mean like your older son, Chuck? Howard: We don’t talk about him) and completely unmemorable songs. It never opened on Broadway and I can see why

White Christmas came through in a similar tour. I don’t care for the movie much – it’s far too sentimental and cloying, the situation is preposterous, and most of the songs are far from Berlin’s top work. But the musical version was far worse. They did improve the songs, but the systematically removed all the best parts of the original story and replaced them with nothing worth seeing.

5

I never saw all of White Christmas, but I saw all of Holiday Inn, which is pretty much the same thing except the songs were probably worse. Liked the cast, love Berlin, but it belongs in a “No, I did not expect it to be that bad” thread.

I played the Home Game yesterday. My wife was zoned out in front of a Shirley Temple marathon, and with a glance I knew the first was The Little Princess (costumes and Technicolor that looked colorized), and figured out the second was Wee Willie Winkie from a couple rooms away (a bugle call that sounded too complex to not be British, which ruled out The Little Colonel and Fort Apache. That 90% of my brain I “don’t use” is crammed with pop-culture trivia).

I pointed out Cesar Romero playing a sorta-Sikh to a daughter who is a Batman fan, then when passing through later, there were lots of people playing offensive caricatures of Indian people. I thought I heard Temple’s father call someone a “mongrel.” I expressed surprise at the gentleness of the term, and listed off some worse things the Brits called the indigenous people.

“No, Dad, he was talking about a dog.”

“Them? There? Then? Same thing. Is the station posting any apologies or warnings before these movies?”

My wife answered, with glee in her voice because she loves the sheer tackiness of it, "No, and the next one is The Littlest Rebel!"

I ducked my head in after that and saw that the marathon was over. I heard “Pachelbel’s Canon,” never a good omen, and saw they were starting Ordinary People. We never saw it when it came out, I’ve never seen it because it looks awful, but I’m not sure if she had seen it, as she has a more-refined appreciation for shitty movies than I. Meaning that she’ll watch crap I won’t even watch and do a MST3K thing in her head. When I heard “Pachelbel’s Canon” again, about two hours later, I figured it was safe to come out of the basement. I asked her if it was as bad as she expected.

“Pretty much.”

“That movie somehow caused that song be played at every wedding since 1980.”

“Yeah. Sick, innit?”

6

The Bridges Of Marion County, which I only watched because a friend was visiting, she was going through a rough patch, and nobody else would watch it with her. This takes perfectly fine actors and draaaaaaaags them through hours of will we/won’t we, and it’s all more than predictable down to the very long end. I can sit through most “chick flicks” without utter disdain, but this one burned cigarette butts in my soul.

7

Twice in the last couple of months, I downloaded some Vampire Weekend song because some reviewer said it was in their “top 10 of 2013.”, and both times it sucked majorly, but I listened to the whole thing because I assumed it had to get better. It didn’t.

I had completely forgotten I’d gone through this once already, when I did it the second time (with a different song.)

$1.98 and seven minutes of my life, both gone forever.

8

ETA: “bad as I expected” because, on some level, I should have known: every year, critics praise some bunch of white 20-something guys (often from Brooklyn) for their “catchy rock,” and it’s always craptastic. But I’m a dummy, so I keep giving them another chance.

9

I never saw the 2001 movie Pearl Harbor until I happened to catch it somewhere in the middle last night on cable. Talk about clichéd…