This is a big-ass grasshopper (not the binomial name):
One time when I was a kid, one of those big-ass grasshoppers launched itself at my head and got stuck in my hair. That freaked me right the fuck out — the grasshopper too, probably.
Last night’s bad movie thread was a revelation: Some of you simply do not appreciate great art and/or high camp! Who could actually dislike “Plan 9 from Outer Space”?
And others of you have clearly not seen enough truly awful schlock to know a dreadful movie when you see one. “Joe vs. the Volcano”? Really? I’m not saying it was a great movie, but you’ve led a pretty sheltered cinematic life if you deem it the worst.
Anyhoo, opinions differ. Free to discuss whatever.
gbear
Put me down as a fan of Plan 9, but the real test of how much you love camp movies is ‘Robot Monster’. That one really gets into the weeds…
opiejeanne
That truly is one BIG-ASS GRASSHOPPER!!!
I liked Joe vs the Volcano, and frequently quote the boss.
“I’m not arguing that!”
We hear people who sound like that every now and then.
Origuy
I’ve mentioned my involvement in orienteering a few times. The NYT has an article today about the current world champion, Theirry Gueorgiou, including a video from a meet in the US featuring a current US Team member, a former 5-time US champion, and a lot of less athletic folks. The video is short and fun to watch. If you want to see what a map looks like, here’s the men’s course on today’s Junior World Championships.
Sherparick
Of the bad movies I have exposed myself to, I always thought “Speed II” took the cake (runaway cruise liner). And speaking of stupid, the House Republicans have decided that now is the time to let their “freak flag fly” so to speak.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/house-republicans-vote-display-confederate
This could not work out any better for the Democrats. I look forward to this issue being thoroughly discussed at the upcoming Republican Presidential debates along with “all Mexicans are rapists, except those who are also murderers mumble, mumble, something Democrat Sanctuary cities” as well as the need for Americans to work longer hours (pay optional) to pay for the tax cuts we are giving to our donors.
I share Voltaire’s prayer: “In my life, I have prayed but one prayer: oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it.” He certainly has.
geg6
Sitting in a park, waiting for Lovey to get out of recovery. I was absolutely gobsmacked to find that she weighs 9.2 pounds. I thought maybe 8, at most. So far the only bad thing is that she threw up all over me on the way to the facility. Which wasn’t even all that bad since she hadn’t eaten since 6pm last night.
Brachiator
@gbear:
I hate camp. I hate the idea of camp. I probably dislike most people who like camp. I hate camp so much, I don’t even like to go camping.
John
I am firm believer that the mark of a great movie is quotability (not really but go with me).
Plan 9: “You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!”
also: “We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.”
Joe v. the Volcano: “You mean you were diagnosed with something called a brain cloud and didn’t ask for a second opinion?”
I cannot count the number of times I have had a headache and when someone asks me what’s wrong, I wave my hand over my head and say “Brain cloud”.
Paul in KY
That there’s an eatin grasshopper!
Mike J
I’m with you Betty. People kept listing movies I truly enjoy,.
geg6
@Brachiator:
I can live with camp. But I’d rather stick ice picks through my eyes than go camping. It would be much less painful.
Haydnseek
@John: Joe v. the Volcano iconic early scene: A line of obviously depresses employees trudging into the building past the sign: “Home of the Anal Probe!” Genius, I tells ya! Genius!
Punchy
@Origuy: I work with a woman who was US National Age Group Champ a few years back, and her husband (IIRC) was US National Champ (Age grourp) a few times. They have no kids; its all they do, it’s all they talk about, it’s like an obsession. She could school an Eagle Scout in map reading, and utilize a compass upside down in mud on a Tuesday and still find her proper destination.
Germy Shoemangler
I’ve never understood what happened with Ishtar. I’ve seen clips from it, but never the whole film. It makes most “worst movie” lists.
But Elaine May is hilarious. If I were a producer putting up money, I would have bet that any movie with Elaine May at the helm would be a work of genius. I would have bankrolled it and I would have lost my shirt.
What goes wrong?
Haydnseek
@opiejeanne: ” I know he can get the job, but can he do the job? The equivalent of a rotating tagline at a place I used to work. We would say it loudly enough to be heard several cubes away, but not quite loud enough for our asshole boss, to whom the line was directed, to hear it in his office.
WereBear
@gbear: That one practically melted my brain. Soooo much stoooooopid.
For my husband, it’s The Killer Shrews. Even MST3K couldn’t get him to like it!
WereBear
@Germy Shoemangler: It was a funny movie. But it’s wasn’t $50 million worth of funny, and that was the problem.
Belafon
@Sherparick: Your link only works for TPM prime members.
Last night I tweeted “If slavery and segregation are a Democrtic thing, then why are Republicans trying to keep the Confederate flag flying?” (I can’t use twitter at work.) I’m not important enough to have people following me to disagree with me, so I couldn’t get an answer from the “Democrats are the real racists” crowd.
Mike J
@Sherparick:
There was a group of Republicans who were going to vote against the billing funding Interior because they wanted to use the bill to kill the EPA. When the Dems added the no treason flags in parks amendment, all of a sudden it became the most important thing in the world to pass the funding bill with no new amendments.
The hard right got rolled and didn’t even know it.
kindness
Are you sure it isn’t a locust? Maybe the Biblical times are upon us.
gbear
@Brachiator:
I love camp. but I still hate Sgt. Pepper’s Lonley Hearts Club Band (the movie).
@John:
I think the correct quote is “We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are GOING TO SPEND THE REST OF OUR LIVES!!!.”
Germy Shoemangler
@Belafon: I had a wingnut tell me La Raza is a racist organization.
WereBear
@gbear: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonley Hearts Club Band.
I was at one of the premieres for that, with a lot of movie and PR and music people. Dear heavens. That was so bad it was physically painful.
Germy Shoemangler
@WereBear: Is that the same as Invasion of the Bee Girls under a different title?
Origuy
@Punchy: Yeah, it gets to be an obsession with some people. I’m not as consumed by it as some people; if I were, I would train more and be in better shape. Most of my vacations, though, are to some big meet. I’m going to the Canadian champs next month in the Maritimes.
Belafon
@WereBear: We tried to watch the MST3K version of the Girl in the Golden boots, and had to stop half way.
Germy Shoemangler
@WereBear: I remember the advertising build-up to the Sgt. Pepper’s movie. I was talked into seeing it and hated every moment. I also hated the soundtrack.
Elton John (inspired by his brutally-honest pal John Lennon) called it “another Bob Stigwood piece of shit.”
When I watched the movie, I felt like the producers, director, writers and performers were all having a huge cocaine party in L.A. and I was one of the little people expected to pay for it.
piratedan
for lovers of Camp, I do say that MST3K has broached new frontiers in handling bad movies, they cover everything from crappy 50’s horror schlock to awful 60’s and 70’s Japanese made for TV features with their model extravaganzas. There are some incredibly craptasttic features and I have a hard time choosing just which film is truly awful in its resounding badness. For my money, Space Mutiny is some of the best examples of hammy actors, inept editing and woeful special effects that you can find. The script looks like it was cobbled together by 8th grade geeks.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@WereBear:
Come on, the killer shrews are played by friendly tail-wagging German Shepherds in masks. What’s not to love?
One of my favorite MST3K moments was during “The incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies” — Crow suddenly couldn’t take any more and started screaming, ” End! END!”
beltane
I once rented House of Sand and Fog because I liked the title and because it starred Ben Kingsley. How bad could it be? Well, it was pretty awful, and no one in the cast other than Ben Kingsley could act, making it an excruciating viewing experience. The movies that try hard, and fail miserably, are the ones that suck the worst.
catbirdman
Sorry I missed the worst film thread last night. The correct answer is, and always shall be, GYMKATA!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mkl9rtttog
gbear
@WereBear: I wish I would have seen it the way you saw it. It would have been perfect to watch the industry meltdown caused by that movie.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@piratedan:
My spouse and I have a lasting affection for “Space Mutiny” because it was on cable during our first weekend away as a couple.
“She’s presenting like a mandrill!”
Lee
Missed that thread.
Here is mine My Best Friend is a Vampire
catclub
It is always better if you: Move the dash!
Big ass-grasshopper
shell
Have you ever seen ;A New Leaf; It shows up on TCM every so often, not very well known.
Henry Graham is a man with a problem: he has run through his entire inheritance, and is completely unequipped to provide for himself. His childhood guardian, Uncle Harry (a deliciously mean-spirited James Coco), refuses to give him a dime, and Henry, completely unwilling to exercise the only solution he sees–suicide– devises a plan with the help of his imaginative butler: he can make money the old-fashioned way–he can marry it.
Henry has six weeks to find a bride, marry her, and repay the money, or else he must forfeit all his property to his uncle. With only days remaining, Henry meets clumsy, painfully shy heiress Henrietta Lowell (played by director Elaine May). She’s the answer to his prayers–if only Henry can overcome the obstacles placed in his path by Uncle Harry, Henrietta’s lawyer, and Henry’s own reluctance to wed.
beltane
Anyone remember C.H.U.D.?
Betty Cracker
@piratedan: Love MST3K. “Puma Man” was awesome. Also the werewolf flick where the leading lady pronounced “werewolf” in about a dozen different ways. Wire-woof, ware-welf, etc.
wasabi gasp
Given the choice, pretty sure I’d rather watch Ishtar than Midnight Cowboy.
shell
@Belafon: Manos, Hands Of Fate.
The only way to watch that IS with the MST3K version.
Germy Shoemangler
@shell: Good God, I’ve never see that one. I only know Elaine May from recorded comedy routines with Mike Nichols.
Is A New Leaf a good movie?
jeffreyw
Grasshoppers? Mmm… I love grasshoppers!
Belafon
@shell: Yes, it is, but while it made Manos more than watchable, some films were so bad MST couldn’t save them. Which, to me at least, means that Manos really isn’t the worst film of all time.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Germy Shoemangler:
“A New Leaf” is really good. You’ll get worried in the middle that it’s going to go in a very cynical direction, but it rights its course and comes to a satisfying conclusion.
You also won’t believe that Matthau would be believable as a spoiled upper-class playboy, but he pulls it off.
moonbat
@catbirdman: Well done.
Elie
Naw — Worst movie ever was the Cohen Bros movie “Inside Llewellyn Davis”. Pointless, stupid and endlessly boring.
BTW, just getting people’s thoughts about why Bernie Sanders, as straightforward and plaintalking as he is, has said nothing during the confederate flag controversy or to any issues on immigration or black and brown people. This is significant to me since a very important part of our electoral strategy requires black and browns to be part of the electoral solution to win. For all the bravos and cudos about his “message”, why has no one asked him anything about that? How can he push Hillary to the left without presenting a complete package on progressive issues?
gvg
Eastern lubber grasshopper romalea guttata and I find them creepy. some years they turn up in hoards and eat all your shrubbery. Hasn’t happened in awhile.
I prefer the Gator grasshopper http://bugs.ufl.edu/project/grasshoppers/ Orange and Blue. I have seen better pictures than I can find right now…
shell
Tonight on TCM, 8pm.
Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers
raven
Lubber
geg6
@wasabi gasp:
Seriously? I thought Midnight Cowboy was great. Ishtar? Not so much. Though hardly the worst. I still vote for Gone With the Wind for that.
pamelabrown53
Didn’t read the worst movies post and comments but I have a difficult time remembering “worst” movies. Probably because I want to forget them.
Right now I’m thinking of an annoying John Wayne/Maureen O’Hara movie where the estranged wife comes back to town and battles with her bigger than life “Wild West” husband. Hijinks ensue. Can’t remember the name but surely I’ve seen worse?
Maybe we should break it down to worst movies by genre.
Germy Shoemangler
Rover Dangerfield
An animated comedy with Rodney Dangerfield playing a dog. My favorite part was when another dog offers him a chicken bone during a card game. He gets offended: “You want me to choke to death??”
Sometimes the Hollywood decision-makers aren’t sure what audience they’re shooting for. Kids? Adults? Kids AND adults? So they market raunchy comedy for children, or market sappy childish crap for grownups.
I remember Howard Stern’s character “Fart Man” – the studio execs wanted to sell a line of Fart Man toys to kids. Even Stern thought it was inappropriate.
moonbat
@pamelabrown53: McClintock! is what you are thinking of, if I remember correctly.
piratedan
@pamelabrown53: that would most likely be McLintock!
quite possibly responsible for the entire tsundere genre in Japanese anime :-)
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
I once knew a guy who said The Ghost and the Darkness (Starring Michael Douglass and Val Kilmer) was the worst movie ever made. My reaction to that statement was the same as your re: Joe vs. The Volcano. Not good, but a far cry from worst ever. At least it had decent production values.
I caught a little bit of The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension on cable a month or so ago. I don’t know about worst ever, but it didn’t look like it was going to make a whole lot of coherent sense. Lots of stars in it though – Jeff Goldblum, Peter Weller, Christopher Lloyd, John Lithgow, Ellen Barkin. Worst movie with an all star cast it might be.
Spirula
That very much looks to be an adult Eastern Lubber grasshopper (Romalea guttata). Adult colors vary, some very dark. Very bad tasting (can be fatally toxic to birds and small mammals). Probably why they are slow moving, poor jumpers and fliers.
Pogonip
@geg6: What? What ails Lovey?
wasabi gasp
@Elie: That’s their best one!
@geg6: I haven’t seen Ishtar since forever-ago so there’s a possibility that I’m in to deep here, but I know I can’t do Midnight Cowboy again.
Germy Shoemangler
@Mike J: Yanked?
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/10/us/republicans-back-down-on-confederate-flags-at-us-cemeteries.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
schrodinger's cat
I missed the bad movie thread.
TNG’s last movie outing, Star Trek Nemesis, must rank among one of the worst. That and interminably long song and dance potboilers of Hindi cinema that I have suffered through in my childhood. Think, Moulin Rouge *10
pamelabrown53
@piratedan:
YES! That’s it! Please tell me more about the “tsrundere genre in Japanese anime”.
Still racking my brain: “Red Dawn” or am I missing some iconic quote?
Germy Shoemangler
So Priebus asked Trump to “tone it down” and Trump called the phone call CONGRATULATORY
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/10/us/politics/donald-trump-republican-party-debate.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
Did Priebus call him Sir?
Pogonip
That grasshopper qualifies to be on Wild Kingdom. For those of you too young to remember, they’d film an animal and the guy in the pith helmet would always say, “My! He IS a big one!”
Elizabelle
Not necessarily bad cinema — some sounds quite good — TCM has “Alien Invasion” tonight, from 8:00 EDT to tomorrow morning.
8:00 p Earth vs. the Flying Saucers
9:30 p It Came from Outer Space
11:00 p The Day the Earth Stood Still
1:00 a The Man from Planet X
2:30 a Invisible Invaders
3:45a They Came from Beyond Space
The last movie is the only one not made in the 1950s; it’s from 1967.
Link to TCM programming: http://www.tcm.com/schedule/
Sounds kinda fun. DVR is set.
schrodinger's cat
That bug looks huge, I has a worried for Betty of the Crackers.
Belafon
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Buckaroo Bonzai is the 80s equivalent to Independence Day (not in explosions, but in the level of belief suspension). A lot of fun to watch if you don’t take either of them too seriously.
WereBear
@Germy Shoemangler: Nope. In this one the killer shrews are German Shepherds wearing carpet remnants.
sstarr
Star Crash. It’s an Italian made Star Wars rip off starring David Hasselhoff as the Luke Skywalker character. It features a climactic scene where soldiers break into a spaceship through the windows and for some reason the air fails to rush out into the vacuum of space.
Elizabelle
@Pogonip: Just spaying. Keeping her from Ginger’s fate.
gene108
None of you have topped A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell in terms of bad.
It is so bad it is awful.
raven
It’s Hillary!!!!
Riders on the Storm
pamelabrown53
@Germy Shoemangler:
Priebus: “Please, Sir, can I have some more”?
shell
Beg to differ. the worst Cohens movie is their remake of The Lady Killers. Not only was it a crime to even think of remaking that classic, but their version was ridiculously bad.
I dont think “Inside Llewellyn Davis” is bad. Just the most depressing movie ive ever seen.
Paul in KY
Spaceballs is absolutely terrible.
MomSense
How about some movies that surprised you by being enjoyable.
We watched the movie At Middleton right after doing a slew of college visits and had a good laugh. It stars Andy Garcia and Vera Farmiga who are delightful.
pacem appellant
@kindness: The North American locust is (sadly?*) extinct. I hold out hope there there are some surviving specimens in Yellowstone and other hideaways in the mountain west, but it is likely never going to reign bronze-age terror on this continent again.
* I like insects, and the loss from this earth of a once vital part of the North American ecosystem–even locust–is a tragedy none the less.
Germy Shoemangler
@raven: Michael J. Pollard! There was a time when I couldn’t turn on my TV or go to a movie without seeing him.
(I just did a quick google image search and saw a recent photo of him.)
WereBear
@Belafon: I’m hardcore; there is no MSK3K I don’t laugh my socks off over.
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I love Space Mutiny. So much.
gbear
@Pogonip: Huge bugs make me glad I live in MN. I travelled to TX for about a week with a band and we weren’t staying at the best of places. When I got home to MN, I unpacked all my bags on the front lawn and shook everything out before I’d bring it into the house. I had been warned that I should do this.
I had never even seen cockroaches before that trip, and the TX cockroaches terrified me. I’d scan every room the moment the lights were turned on, and when one of my hosts ran after one to stomp it, he wound up sliding across the floor. My skin is crawling while I write this…
WereBear
For those, like me, who now have all the lead actor’s fake names booming through their head:
An alphabetical list
WereBear
@Pogonip: My favorite quote goes something like, “And the giant leopard is eating Jim! How you doing there, Jim?”
Betty Cracker
@Elie: Sanders on the flag. Sanders on immigration. Sanders on police brutality, mass incarceration, AA unemployment rates, etc.
JPL
Not necessarily the worst movie ever, but Forrest Gump is pretty bad. Recently someone lent me The Life of David Gale The acting was terrific, the plot line, not so much. I really wanted to like the movie, because I’m against the death penalty but this wasn’t the movie for me.
jayackroyd
As Dougj was kind enough to post earlier this week, this week’s Viirtually SPeaking episode may be of interest to dog loving Juicers. It’s a discussion with an author of a book about cadaver dogs. Her name is Cat Warren, and the book looks more broadly at other dogs that work with scent. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/virtuallyspeaking/2015/07/10/virtually-speaking-with-cat-warren-what-the-dog-knows
If you post a question here in this thread I’ll try to ask it. You can also call in…..
Brachiator
@gbear:
Was this movie supposed to be camp? It just seemed pointless.
I guess I also hate band camp.
@Belafon
Why would anyone even try to take Buckaroo Bonzai seriously? It proudly waves its freaky spoof flag. And when you have alien characters with names like John Bigbooté, I mean, well, come on!
Paul in KY
@pamelabrown53: Did like the one where he was a retired boxer in Ireland. Thought it had entertainment value.
WereBear
@JPL: I have a similarly bad track record with some popular movies. Disliked Forrest Gump and was actively squirming during Titanic.
Amir Khalid
@Paul in KY:
But it’s the only movie you’ll ever see in which the bad guys find out where the good guys went by renting the movie they’re in on video, and then fast-forwarding it. That joke was pure genius, I tell you.
Paul in KY
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: You have to watch Buckaroo Banzai stoned and take a drink anytime someone says the word ‘John’. It will make more sense.
Arm The Homeless
Betty, do you have any opinions about the FL Supreme Court throwing the Congressional districts into the blender?
I eagerly await the shit tornado the legislature is going to be as they try to game the maps, yet again.
I wish it were a sexier issue to flog the GOP with, but I am afraid it’s going to be another kabuki circlejerk where a city like Tallahassee gets split between two districts again. Looks like Gwen Graham is going to have a hell of a time keeping her seat if Jax and Tally get amalgamated.
dexwood
Sometimes I like camp. Guilty pleasure – Killer Klowns from Outer Space, 1988.
JPL
@WereBear: During the Titanic my sons cell phone rang and my niece beat him over his head with her purse. That was pretty entertaining.
Steve in the ATL
@catbirdman:
I concur–that movie raised (?) the bar for bad. I haven’t spent that much time in shadowy Eastern bloc nations, but I doubt that any of them keep an army green pommel horse in the village square.
raven
@JPL: If you knew Sammy Davis you wouldn’t feel that way.
http://www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,MoH_Sammy_Davis,00.html
Brachiator
@pamelabrown53:
Probably “McClintock.” And, wait for it… The movie is loosely based on Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew.”
Paul in KY
@JPL: I thought Forrest Gump was a pretty cute movie. It is a comedy.
pamelabrown53
@JPL:
I liked “Forrest Gump” but I’m a sucker for cornpone. I loved how his mother instilled right versus wrong in him and he would not deviate. Plus it’s hard for me to agree that Tom Hanks has been in a truly bad movie.
bemused
A movie that doesn’t belong in worst movie category but one that I failed to see why it won awards was Oh Brother, Where Art Thou. I should rewatch it to see if I still feel that way but I was totally bored watching it the first time.
Roger Moore
@pamelabrown53:
Wolverines!!!
Paul in KY
@Amir Khalid: Mea Maxima Culpa Amir & fellow juicers. I meant ‘SPACEJAM’. The absolutely horrible movie Michael Jordan made. Sorry, I like Rick Moranis movies (generally). I actually sorta look like him.
Pogonip
@WereBear: “Well, Marlin, he IS a big one, and he seems pretty hungry…”
Germy Shoemangler
@pamelabrown53: John Wayne/Maureen O’Hara: The Quiet Man?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quiet_Man
Whoops, no I think you’re right; it’s McClintock. One of those big Comedy Westerns that were so popular at one time.
Steve in the ATL
@JPL:
This movie turned Hollywood tropes UPSIDE DOWN–the guy with bad teeth was a good guy!
Uh, spoiler alert.
Mike J
@Brachiator:
Buckaroo Bonzai was the subject of a great road trip. A dorm mate, two girls from the gymnastics team, and I drove to St Louis from Columbia. Hung out in U city all day in record stores and bars and saw Buckaroo Bonzai and went to see REM at Wash U’s Graham Chapel, with the dBs opening. Holsapple taught Peter Buck See No Evil on stage during an encore. One of the best days ever.
geg6
@Pogonip:
She had her spay surgery today. Gotta pick her up in about an hour.
dexwood
@Elizabelle:
The Day the Earth Stood Still always sucks me in. I first saw that on TV in ’58 or ’59.
Belafon
@Brachiator:
Totally agree. It just seems that a lot of people go into movies with the bar set at “Make me question my beliefs or it’s a failure.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Elizabelle: Science Fiction Double Feature
jayackroyd
@Steve in the ATL: Also sorry to have missed that thread. Dune. The original release. Hands down.
Pogonip
@gbear: You should see the crickets. We were stationed at Fort Hood when I was little. The basement was full of enormous Texas crickets. My brother declared war on them. He’d go down there with a shoe and you’d hear–whap! whap! whap!
WereBear
@bemused: My husband and his family stared at it blankly while I rolled on the floor with laughter. But I can report it grows upon one. With each viewing my husband reports it became more amusing, and now we own it. And he loves it.
Germy Shoemangler
@Paul in KY: Space Jam was such a disappointment. It was billed as the big comeback for all the warner bros. cartoon characters. My sons were little at the time and I took them to see it. I couldn’t relate to it because the “classic cartoon characters” didn’t sound or act like the originals, and my sons were bored because they didn’t idolize Jordan and didn’t care about the characters.
We watched quietly, and then quietly left the theater when it was over. The most enjoyable part of the experience was when I took them for burgers and ice cream afterwards.
It almost as horrible an experience as when we went to see Wild Wild West, the grotesque and disgusting remake with the giant mechanical spider.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
That movie has donated too many lines to the lexicon to be dismissed as a purely bad movie. If anyone refers to you as “monkey boy,” they got it from that film.
Also, John Lithgow has a rip-roaring great time as the villain, which makes it fun to watch.
JPL
@raven: That’s a nice story.
piratedan
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Buckaroo Banzai is awesome! Sit down and pay attention with a cold and frosty beverage. Same guy wrote the script for Big Trouble in Little China,
The tsundere genre is based on taking the “hard to get” female archetype to an extreme…
Betty Cracker
@Arm The Homeless: “Shit tornado” sounds about right. I’m glad the court called them out, but I don’t have much hope that it will actually improve.
@bemused: “O Brother” is pure genius, IMO. But there’s no accounting for taste. I thought the “Mad Max” reboot was a pointless, boring mess, and everyone else seems to think it is the greatest drama produced since Shakespeare laid down his quill.
Elie
@Betty Cracker:
Ok. I stand corrected.
raven
@JPL: He’s a really good guy. He came to our vets thing in Athens a couple of times and we met up with him in DC.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@shell:
Still wrong. The worst Coen brothers movie is “Hudsucker Proxy.” Someone should have made Jennifer Jason Leigh pick an accent.
Paul in KY
@jayackroyd: Yeah, they absolutely butchered the book’s plot. Did think they got some of the visuals right, though.
Brachiator
@Elie:
Oh, no. I don’t like all the Cohen Bros stuff, but I wanted to see this one. I thought that Oscar Isaac was great, had tremendous presence in “Ex Machina,” and it made me curious to see his earlier work.
@Elizabelle:
Too bad there’s no “Invaders from Mars.”
Elie
@shell:
Man, I am sorry… Llewellyn Davis WAS depressing BECAUSE it was so bad. It was a movie that didn’t like ANY of its characters. Its like living a life where everyone you knew sucks. The bros chose to tell that story that way with that script and directed it that way to result in not only a depressing movie, but one that lingered in your memory for how bad it made you feel.
Paul in KY
@Germy Shoemangler: I took my nephews & it was about the longest 80 – 90 mins I’ve ever spent. They might have liked it, I forget though.
Elie
@Brachiator:
see my comment at 121. No way.
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I think John was havin the time of his life. One of those where he can’t believe they are paying him money to chew the scenery like that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
My calculator doesn’t have that many digits, but I’m pretty sure that’s just over $400K per donor. I’m sure it all came from his supporters working overtime.
bemused
@WereBear:
I remember my spouse & I were having trouble staying awake until the end. We both sat there blankly too but kept thinking it had to get better by the end as so many people seemed to love it. I may give it another go if it shows up when channel surfing.
Betty Cracker
@Elie: You’re right about “Llewellyn Davis,” though. I love the Coen Bros. usually, but I hated it too.
A Ghost To Most
Betty, you asked what was the worst movie we have ever seen.
I stand by ‘Joe Versus the Volcano’. Some movies are so bad, they approach genius.
JVTV just sucked balls.
trollhattan
@Mike J:
You could have stopped at ” two girls from the gymnastics team” and it would already have been the Best Day Ever.
jayackroyd
@Paul in KY: I’ll grant you the portrayal of the Baron. But it was completely incomprehensible if you hadn’t read the book–and insultingly stupid if you had.
Now a big budget HBO GoT treatment……
Not quite Game of Thrones in Space, but not far off.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: D’oh, more like $10,000 per donor.
Paul in KY
@jayackroyd: I was thinking more about the scenery, special effects, uniforms, etc. The guy playing Harkonnen wasn’t bad. Completely fucked up the plot, etc.
Are you saying they are making a Dune miniseries?
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
I think both of them are pure genius. But “Mad Max: Fury Road” has better songs.
More seriously, I have mixed feelings about the remake of “True Grit.” Too much of it is arch, lifeless, phony. On the other hand, I didn’t think much of the original.
@bemused:
I loves me some Homer. I thought the way “O Brother” weaved in references to “The Odyssey” as a farce was just plain fun.
gene108
Am I the only person, who has seen A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell?
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
And that is what Jeb told Mitt to get him to stay out of the race. Now Romney can sit back and let the clown pack chew on Jeb for a while.
Corner Stone
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Now somebody better hold the fucking phone, right here! What kind of nonsense is this?!
Buckaroo Bonzai was delightful and produced a number of formative quotes for a tender yoot to lean on whilst figuring out their place on this spinning blue marble.
Amir Khalid
@WereBear:
Apparently, it was while making O Brother Where Art Thou that its star discovered he was the only Clooney who couldn’t sing. George’s recording of the lead vocal for Man of Constant Sorrow turned out to be a disaster, and they had to bring in George Tyminski of Union Station to sub for him. Clooney told the story on BBC’s the Graham Norton Show this year while promoting Tomorrowland.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@jayackroyd:
But it has Star of the Future Kyle MacLachlan!
Kidding. He turned out to be much more suited for TV (and comedy). He looked like a little kid playing dress-up in that movie.
Corner Stone
@Paul in KY:
You’re damn right you’re sorry! You and I, sir, were bout to have words.
gbear
@Germy Shoemangler:
Your story reminds me of another movie I hated: ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’ Total waste of Bob Hoskins, and RR was the least sympathetic, most obnoxious character ever. The only line I remember is Jessica (?) screaming ”oh my GOD. IT”S DIP!!
Germy Shoemangler
Re: Trump, the GOP and Foxx Newz:
Here’s a paranoid theory of mine: Does conservative media want a democratic win in 2016?
We understand that the GOP is alarmed by the attention Trump is getting, but I’ve always gotten the feeling that people like Lush Rimbaugh and Hean Shannity sort of prefer heckling “liberals” from the sidelines, rather than defending conservatives in power. It’s more fun and profitable for them to yell “look at the mess they’re making! If OUR guys were in charge, everything’d be perfect!” rather than “Our guys are in charge. Stop listening to the whining crybabies. Everything’s fine…”
Corner Stone
@Brachiator:
This surprises absolutely no one.
Germy Shoemangler
@gbear: Yeah, the whole movie was parodying things the children didn’t understand. Old film noir, urban planning….
Paul in KY
@Brachiator: Did like the remake of True Grit. Liked the original too. Thought the remake was closer to the book (which I read after I saw the remake).
Germy Shoemangler
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Kyle MacLachlan should have played George Reeves in Hollywoodland. I don’t know why he was replaced with Ben Affleck.
Betty Cracker
@A Ghost To Most: Fair enough. But I suspect you never saw “Garbage Pail Kids.”
@Brachiator: I thought the “True Grit” remake was wonderful — nothing lifeless or phony about it at all, IMO. “Fury Road” had a score? I remember some Gene Simmons wannabe absurdly wailing away on a guitar on a high-speed sound stage, but surely you’re not referring to that? Anyhoo, more evidence that tastes differ!
Paul in KY
@Corner Stone: I can only beg your pardon.
Omnes Omnibus
I have always hated Napoleon Dynamite.. I welcome your hatred.
Paul in KY
@gbear: Once again, have to watch that one when you’re stoned. The cartoon town is a hoot.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Corner Stone: part of me can’t believe Willard thinks he could run again, part of me says, “of course he does,” and part of me can’t believe John McCain didn’t try it.
Mustang Bobby
I had one of those grasshoppers — they’re called Eastern Lubbers — on my patio last weekend down here in Miami. Harmless except to vegetation and apparently unappetizing to birds, but still scary-ass big.
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: You & me both, good sir. I think the only time in that movie when I briefly chuckled was when the van ran over something. Absolutely do not understand why people thought it was a good/funny movie.
joel hanes
A bad dream I had overnight reminded me that the worst movie I’ve actually paid money to see
was Sylvester Stallone’s “Cliffhanger”
Germy Shoemangler
@Paul in KY: Often when I see a film debate with 1/2 the people saying “It sucked!” and 1/2 the people saying “It was the greatest!” I always assume the folks who loved it were the ones who got high before the viewing, while the straight viewers were simply baffled.
I went through a phase where I couldn’t see any film unless I’d gotten high first. The phase lasted about twenty-five years.
Mike J
@Omnes Omnibus: Anchorman was completely horrible, but for some reason people think it’s funny.
Brachiator
@Elie:
Thanks for the warning, but I may have to see it anyway. I notice that the film made some top 10 lists and got nominated for a lot of awards. This doesn’t always mean much, but it did win a lot of cinematography awards. This alone has me curious.
And as I said, I want to see Oscar Isaac in one of his (relatively) early screen roles.
But I will be prepared to bail on it if it is too bad.
Paul in KY
@Germy Shoemangler: I’m probably still in that phase :-)
raven
@Mustang Bobby: Like I said! One of Tom Levonson’s friend’s dad was an expert on lubbers. He’d come to our house and collect them.
shell
@Amir Khalid: But he sure can do some good step-dancing
Roger Moore
@gbear:
That isn’t even her most memorable line, which is, “I’m not bad. I’m just drawn that way.”
joel hanes
@WereBear:
Marlon Perkins:
“Don leaps into the muddy water to wrestle with the crocodile.
It’s touch-and-go for a while: the croc is a big one, and gets a good grip on Don’s arm.
Good think he’s wearing a heavy shirt”
“Just as Don needed protection from the crocodile’s teeth,
so too your family needs protection from Mutual of Omaha.”
WaterGirl
@Germy Shoemangler: Ishtar! I kept trying to think of the name yesterday so i could join the conversation about worst movies.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@gbear:
Sorry, but you are completely wrong. Patty cake? The song in the club? Shave and a haircut? Not to mention the dozens of nods to both film noir and classic animation.
Germy Shoemangler
@WaterGirl: I remember a Far Side cartoon where a man finds himself in hell (flames all around) and for some reason it’s a video store with a thousand titles all ISHTAR.
Mike J
@WaterGirl: Ishtar wasn’t a bad movie. It was a movie about bad songwriters. Big chunks of it were *supposed* to be bad.
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I see you took my advice ;-)
Brendan in Charlotte
Darn it! I missed the bad movie thread last night as well. I thought I’d seen some bad movies, until I saw the Rifftrax version of “The Room”. The only good parts of the movie were the Rifftrax commentary…
les
@piratedan:
ditto on Buckaroo; followed up by Earth Girls are Easy. What’s not funny about a space ship in your swimming pool?
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
I liked some of it, especially most of the acting. For some reason, Jeff Bridges did not work for me. And while the Coen Bros are never “realistic,” their vision of the Old West was too wrongheaded, and in some places deliberately pandered to dumb audience expectations.
I was joking here. “O Brother” has a wonderful soundtrack and great songs. The stuff in “Fury Road” works as part of the sound effects, but not as music.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mike J: People I trust have told me Death To Smoochy is a very dark comedy that people just didn’t get. I have yet to test this theory.
Germy Shoemangler
Here’s why some movies turn out rotten:
1. Talented director and screenwriters, but the producers re-edit and cut the film to pieces, or insist on pointless re-writes (this happened a lot during the old studio system)
2. Untalented director but good screenwriter. The director misses the point of the script or doesn’t work well with actors.
3. Talented director with bad screenwriter. Director knows the film will be bad, but hopes to make enough money to fund the film he REALLY wants to make. Movie ends up looking great but makes no sense.
etc.
WaterGirl
@A Ghost To Most:
That would be Airplane!
WereBear
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It’s also not very good.
A Ghost To Most
@Betty Cracker:
You are correct; never even heard of ‘Garbage Pail Kids’. Is that what unwanted Cabbage Patch Kids become?
Linnaeus
@WaterGirl:
Airplane! is one of my favorite movies ever.
Corner Stone
@Mike J:
That.Is.FUCKING.IT!!
*furiously checks flight schedules to wherever Mike J is*
Ma! Pack my whomping clothes!
jibeaux
We should have a thread for “popular culture everyone or most people like except me.” I choose Pulp Fiction, which I didn’t laugh at once and turned away from multiple times. I’ll watch almost anything on MST, but my favorite in circulation is The Final Sacrifice.
WaterGirl
@Mike J: All I remember is that I went to see it at the dollar theater and that I felt I had overpaid. We kept looking at one another in disbelief at how bad it was – two really top notch actors and it was awful.
I felt it was the worst movie I had ever seen, and I have never seen another movie so bad that Ishtar got bumped off the “worst movie ever” perch.
Corner Stone
@Linnaeus:
Only a candidate for top comedy of the modern film era. What a cast, and each nailed it all the way down the line.
Germy Shoemangler
@jibeaux:
Except that might lead to fist fights.
People take this stuff very seriously.
WaterGirl
@Linnaeus: Mine, too!
ThresherK
@sstarr: I’ve never heard of that movie, but the snarker in me is praying that one of the characters said, “One of you kids is going to have to pay for that!”
Aleta
@geg6: All that vigor must be packing on the muscle. Or does she lift weights?
trollhattan
@joel hanes:
You have captured the oeuvre with great accuracy.
Friends and I used to make up various wildlife-related fates for Jim, always punctuated with the Mutual of Omaha lead-in.
“Like the mommy jaguar feeds Jim’s leg to her hungry young, so too will Mutual of Omaha take care of your family in their time of need.”
WereBear
@jibeaux: That one’s a beaut!
jibeaux
@Germy Shoemangler:
well, sure. Plenty of people are wrong about things on the internet. I once heard tell of a guy who didn’t like Office Space.
trollhattan
@Corner Stone:
You are evidently enamored of lamp.
gbear
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):I was looking forward to all the nods to classic animation when I watched it but I thought they missed the mark. “Shave and a haircut” was the point that I started wishing that RR would DIAF.
Roger Moore
@Corner Stone:
It’s also a remarkably quotable movie. “I am serious … and don’t call me Shirley.” “Oh, stewardess! I speak jive.” “Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.”
Aleta
Bad movies: If minutes of pain while sitting through the entire movie in a darkened theater is the unit of measurement, there’s Eraserhead, and Woman in the Dunes.
low-tech cyclist
@A Ghost To Most: I agree. JVTV is not the worst movie I ever saw, but it’s solidly in the bottom 10.
About the ‘brain cloud’: Suspending disbelief is something we routinely do when watching movies. There are no such things as hobbits or Jedi knights or an Ark of the Covenant with supernatural powers, but we enjoy these movies anyway. But you take your cues from the movie itself on whether and when to suspend disbelief.
In this world, any normal person would go ‘WTF?!” at a ‘brain cloud’ diagnosis, so OK, you’re in a slightly alternate reality where brain clouds are real and fatal, just like you’re in a slightly different reality where present-day people get sacrificed to volcanos.
So being told at the end that anyone should have seen through the ‘brain cloud’ diagnosis didn’t just say Joe got conned; it says we were conned as well. What suckers we were to suspend disbelief and accept the movie’s alternate reality, in our lame attempt to give the movie the benefit of the doubt and try to enjoy it! And it wasn’t remotely enjoyable before this concluding taunt.
Brachiator
@Corner Stone:
The full statement was clearly hyperbole. Why would you try to make something out of it?
Fortunately, we are not in the Eighth dimension, we are over New Jersey. Hope is not lost.
Germy Shoemangler
@Roger Moore: Good example of a comedy film completely changing the career of a formerly “serious” actor. All these older guys who specialized in drama and action, saying these funny lines… and then it became almost a cliche: Take an old action star and put him in a comedy.
I think the same thing happened years later with Baldwin. After guest-hosting SNL, he was cast in 30 Rock, and then suddenly a whole new career!
wasabi gasp
@Aleta: I don’t get how Eraserhead, or anything by Lynch (and some other out-there filmmakers), gets on the worst list. It’s like hitting yourself on the head with a hammer, while preferring Tylenol.
ThresherK
@Germy Shoemangler: Wild Wild West: Gawd, what a waste of Branaugh, Smith and Kline, an almost mathematically impossible amount of acting appeal and charm to squander.
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I must disagree. I love The Hudsucker Proxy: Perfect Horatio Alger story turned sideways, perfectly ’30s studio throwback. Plus I think my wife would throw me over for Tim Robbins (should the chance arise), and frankly maybe I wouldn’t blame her.
Although I am right there with you on Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
“One too many refrigerators dropped on his head?”
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
Take it easy on me Buckaroo fans – I’ll have to watch it start to finish sometime but coming in somewhere in the middle, it doesn’t make all that much sense. I recall a reggae guy with superpowers, a couple of rednecks who find some kind of spaceship, Jeff Goldblum in a cowboy outfit…and Christopher Lloyd with wild hair because of course. It definitely had camp in spades, I could tell that much.
Corner Stone
@trollhattan: Damn, where is Midnight Marauder when you need him?
ThresherK
Hey, any list that includes Plan 9 and Robot Monster must have a place for Eegah!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Germy Shoemangler: there’s a good thread, actors giving an unexpected or career-changing performance. The mention of Jeff Goldblum puts me in mind of Igby Goes Down, without spoiling he made my blood run cold. Good, weird performance by Susan Sarandon, too.
Brachiator
@Germy Shoemangler:
If it’s a good picture, it’s a Miracle!
Germy Shoemangler
Did Heaven’s Gate get any mention?
I remember the shitstorm that erupted when that one came out. Battle between director and studio. Critics fighting each other. Endless discussions in magazines and newspapers about it.
What a time!
Matt McIrvin
@Germy Shoemangler: Ishtar wasn’t so much a real “worst movie,” as a movie that became an infamous bomb just because it went so far over budget, and never made the money back.
Considered on its own… well, there was some stereotypical Middle Easterny stuff in there that would probably be considered offensive today. But I remember some of the humor about the Dunning-Kruger-stricken songwriters actually being funny. It’s basically a Hope-Crosby road movie that somebody spent too much on.
Matt McIrvin
@piratedan: Well, at least the spaceship shots in Space Mutiny look great…
but it’s because they’re all stock footage obviously lifted from the original Battlestar Galactica.
Germy Shoemangler
@Matt McIrvin: I see Sony Pictures Home Entertainment put out a director’s cut version of Ishtar. If there were budget issues, I wonder if the studio interfered with Elaine’s final cut.
Someday I’d like to see it. I always liked Elaine May.
wasabi gasp
@jibeaux: Hated it! /snap snap
trollhattan
@Germy Shoemangler: Utterly avoided Heaven’s Gate in the theater and when I got around to seeing it years later I liked it, in sum. Which takes me to the theory that a truly horrible film has to have pretensions of greatness. Roger Corman can’t make a truly horrible flick because he doesn’t present his with delusions of greatness.
Give me anything with Madonna in it after “Desperately Seeking Susan” and I’ll show you a Truly Bad Movie.
Matt McIrvin
@sstarr:
And Marjoe Gortner as the other Luke Skywalker character!
And Caroline Munro wearing almost no clothes, which one ought to admit is a point in its favor.
And Christopher Plummer as the Emperor of the Universe. “Imperial battlecruiser… HALT THE FLOW OF TIME!”
trollhattan
@Corner Stone:
Heh. The saying grace to baby Jesus scene in “Talladega Nights” is one of the funniest I can name, even if I can’t recall much else about the movie, so comparing it against something else is an impossible thing for me. My hunch is it was only sketchily scripted and the cast just ran with it.
NotMax
@Matt McIrvin
As schlocky and predictable as the Road To… movies were, Hope and Crosby had a real camaraderie and even chemistry on screen. Their training and abilities were utilized to play off each other.
Hoffman and Beatty had zero camaraderie and even less chemistry on screen. Their styles played at each other. Also too, neither could carry a tune in a bucket.
Germy Shoemangler
@trollhattan:
Yes, that’s the “vanity” school of filmmaking, where a pop star decides to try the movie thing, since they’re so good at the other thing they do. So we have Madonna, or “Give My Regards To Broadstreet” with Paul McCartney, or “Purple Rain” with Prince.
Germy Shoemangler
@NotMax: There was a weird feud between Dustin Hoffman and Jules Feiffer over the “Popeye” movie. Hoffman wanted Jules OUT. Finally, Hoffman left, and Robin took over.
God, Dustin Hoffman would have been a terrible popeye.
But that movie was another disappointment. Great actors, great songwriter… and a muddled piece of poop.
NotMax
@Germy Shoemangler
Ditto Gymkata‘s Kurt Thomas then current Olympics fame.
Be thankful that Mark Spitz or Greg Louganis never made Swimkata.
:)
Matt McIrvin
@Germy Shoemangler: The thing about Popeye is… it’s not really a good movie, per se, in fact it’s kind of a mess, but it’s fascinating viewing just because it’s so puzzling that it even got made.
It’s a Robert Altman movie, directed as a very very Robert Altman movie, with all these aimless slice-of-life scenes with dozens of characters mumbling overlapping dialogue. About Popeye the Sailor Man.
How did that happen? Why would anyone do that?
Robin Williams is really giving 110%, though.
Germy Shoemangler
@Matt McIrvin: I agree. It could have been such a great movie, if they’d film what Jules Feiffer wrote. The performances were great, the set was beautiful.
OFF TOPIC:
Trump vs. Modern Family creator in epic twitter battle
Zuker taunts Trump about outsourcing to China, his bankruptcies, and tells him every self portrait he posts is a dick pic.
NotMax
@Germy Shoemangler
Ever see The Loved One?
Stellar cast and a concept overripe for plucking and satirical puncturing, yet turned out to be a disappointing muddle as a whole (albeit with flashes of real brilliance).
Another one from the same time in which accomplished actors miss the mark is John Goldfarb, Please Come Home.
Oh, and a movie so astonishingyly bad that had to delve into the sub-sub-sub-basement of the memory to dredge up the name:
Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?
Have no problem with actors chewing the scenery, but Anthony Newley devours it, vomits it back up and then spreads the mess around like jam. (Joan Collins as a character named Polyester Poontang ought to be giveaway enough of its mighty crapitude.)
Germy Shoemangler
@NotMax: You’re right about The Loved One. There was a time when stuff like that was tumbling out of the studios.
NotMax
@Germy Shoemangler
IIRC, the director was hot off the raging success of Tom Jones and thus was granted the blanchest of cartes, as it were, for The Loved One.
Ridnik Chrome
Sorry I missed that bad movie thread. Did anyone mention Peter Greenaway? I’d have nominated pretty much anything by him, but particularly “A Zed and Two Noughts”. Awful, pretentious trash…
Omnes Omnibus
@Germy Shoemangler: You need to take a step back from your Purple Rain assertion.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@trollhattan:
Very few people will get this joke, but I’m going to repeat it anyway:
“Do you think maybe ‘Video Watchdog’ is wrong and Roger Corman is actually a terrible director?”
Though to be fair to Corman, when he had a reasonable budget, a decent cast, and a good script, he could make a good movie. The Poe movies he made with Vincent Price still hold up very well, especially “Masque of the Red Death” and “Tomb of Ligeia.”
J R in WV
That’s a pretty good bug. I would rather have a rattlesnake on the floor than that bug on me, not hating on the grasshopper, I just don’t freak out about snakes much while bugs, well, I got stung a bunch by a wasp when I was like… 3, maybe?
So for a long time I was kind of phobic about bugs generally. It went away, mostly, but still, if I had to pick, I’ll go with a reptile before a big bug.
MomSense
@Mike J:
The only funny scene in that movie is when the NPR journalists show up looking just as you would expect. The rest of the fight scene and the movie are meh.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Corman is a national treasure. Many of his films are serviceable, some are very good, and a few are just bad. But it’s interesting to see how many talented people he worked with and gave a break. Some of them did some very, very bad work under him (Jack Nicholson in The Raven, holy god!), but you do get a sense that a lot of people learned their craft, even if the work was uneven.
But I didn’t realize how many talented, and well known writers Corman worked with. Yep, the Poe films are very good, and some of them were written by veteran SF and fantasy writer Richard Matheson.
Like producer William Castle, Corman was responsible for a lot of solid genre work.
NotMax
@Brachiator
In their heyday, drive-ins were insatiable.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@low-tech cyclist:
Good point. There are few things more annoying than a movie that treats its audience like idiots for actually believing the world that the movie created.
The only movie I can think of where “ha-ha, I fooled you!” kind of worked was “The Opposite of Sex,” where the main character lies in her voiceover and then mocks the audience for believing her. But she changes by the end of the film, so it still feels like they play fair with your emotions.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Brachiator:
Robert Towne (screenwriter of “Chinatown” among many others) also got his start with Corman.
Germy Shoemangler
@Brachiator: I remember reading about James Cameron getting a job with Corman. Had to figure out a way to make worms wiggle for a special effect.
wasabi gasp
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Worse are movies that conclude with a dream state explanation. The Wizard of Oz excepted.
wasabi gasp
This is Spinal Tap
/final answer? yes. final answer.
opiejeanne
@gbear: That’s the line you remember from Roger Rabbit? Not Jessica’s, “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way?”
raven
Lord Love a Duck!
opiejeanne
@Omnes Omnibus: My younger daughter and my husband persuaded me to watch Napoleon Dynamite. By the mid point I had shut it off and was yelling incoherently at the tv. They then convinced me to watch the second half, that it would get better. I don’t think it did, I think it just sucked enough brain cells away that I could no longer withstand the horror and just let it wash over me.
Terrible movie. Bad. Stupid. Awful.
Mormon prom dresses. That and Vote for Pedro are what I remember.
opiejeanne
SuperBad. Why hasn’t anyone named that one? It’s TERRIBLE.
Omnes Omnibus
@opiejeanne: I’ve never even tried to watch it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@opiejeanne: I was gonna mention The Hangover and Bridesmaids (associated in my mind cause someone recommended it as “The female version of the Hangover”). Bridesmaids had a couple good scenes– the plane– and I think Melissa McCarthy is very funny, she moves funny, but mostly was pretty weak. I can’t really remember anything particularly funny in the Hangover, not quite painful, but forgettable.
opiejeanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That’s what I thought of Bridesmaids and the Hangover.
my adult children and their friends kept insisting that SuperBad was awesome, and we were talked into watching it by our guests after a dinner party. It was so unpleasant I felt like I needed a shower afterwards. Something extra scummy about watching it on Christmas Eve.
Paul in KY
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: OK, just catch a good buzz & watch it from beginning.
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: They all got paid a lot of money.
Paul in KY
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The insane bearded guy had some good moments in The Hangover.