Bad Movies I Have Seen

[Elisabeth]

Well as usual I can't sleep... so I'm watching this dreadful movie from 1979 (the 1970s were an especially good decade for awful movies), The Rose, starring Bette Midler as some senile aging Janis Joplin-style rock singer, without any of Joplin's talent of course, much less her genius. Normally I like Midler but in this film she overacts to such an extent you wonder if the director was on a coffee break through the whole thing.

I also finally saw Black Swan recently, on cable TV (I never get to the movie theater these days, and what's the point anyway, when you're just annoyed by people talking and eating popcorn noisily). I don't understand why this movie was so incredibly popular. Did the media just make up this popularity or what? Okay, so granted, Natalie Portman is brilliant in the role, it's her very best role since her child star turn in The Professional (which, by the way, is a far superior film to Black Swan). And she's gorgeous. And the ballet dancing is better incorporated into the script, and better filmed, than any other so-called ballet movie I've ever seen (better even than The Turning Point with Mikhail Baryshnikov and Lesley Browne). I especially loved the ever-charismatic Mila Kunis in her role as the "bad" girl, Lily, the satanic rival ballerina who keeps tempting Natalie's character to stray from the straight and narrow nun-like existence of the dedicated dancer.

However, for all the kudos I'm giving it, frankly speaking this film makes no sense to me whatsoever. Natalie/Nina's spiral into madness is completely incomprehensible -- what does she suffer from, paranoid schizophrenia? But are the symptoms she manifests really those of schizophrenia? They just seem totally random to me. Worse yet -- the ending of the film, which explains nothing and in fact only confuses matters further. Here Natalie/Nina is bleeding to death after having danced the last two acts of "Swan Lake" with a fatal stomach wound. Did the filmmakers just not realize that ballet is a strenuous activity, and that anybody bleeding to death, however gradually, couldn't make it through a few pliés, much less 32 fouettés en tournant, as the Black Swan has to do in Act III of "Swan Lake"? Forgive me, but I found all of this more than a little ridiculous.

Anyway, I thought we could all share our thoughts on "Bad Movies We Have Seen."

[Olga Bernice]

Well, this isn't a bad movie, but it is rather unusual. It's called Beach Blanket Bingo - one of those Frankie Avalon 1960's beach movies - and it is HIL-ARI-OUS!!!!!!! Has anybody else ever seen it? It is the perfect movie to watch (guess where?) at the beach with a cold cup of Coke at night. 

[TimM]

Solaris with George Cloony.  Slow, dull, and plodding.  Two and a half hours of my life I'll never see again.

[Elisabeth]

Solaris with George Cloony.  Slow, dull, and plodding.  Two and a half hours of my life I'll never see again.

George Clooney's Solaris isn't the worst movie in the world, although granted, the much earlier Soviet production is far superior, in fact a classic.

Speaking of science fiction, though, I think some of the best "good" bad movies (the movies we can watch over and over again, because they're so bad they're good) have to do with aliens and space exploration or invasion or some other doomsday scenario, such as Independence Day and The Day After.

Not to mention all those great bad 1970s disaster movies like The Poseidon Adventure and Towering Inferno. Marvelous.

[Kimberly]

Oh my. Its got to be Eraserhead, David Lynch's first film. Very much a "cult" surrealist film, and apparently deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". Well, its the biggest load of carp I've ever seen and I've seen plenty of carp in my time........

[TimM]

The 2005 remake of The Fog sucked big time. The F/X were improved, yes, but the story was vastly inferior to the original.

The pointless love triangle between Nick, Stevie, and Elizabeth added nothing to the plot. Why bring it in? Notice how young the cast of the remake was. It was like the Fog rolled into Dawson's Creek.

Tom Welling just phoned it in. Looks like he was in a hurry to get back to the set of Smallville.

Why did they turn Father Malone into a clone of Crazy Ralph (the nutty guy from the first two Friday the 13th movies that went around saying "You're all doomed")? In the original movie, the character was much more believable.

In the original Fog, the ghosts only want to kill six people, because that is the same number of conspirators that arranged to sink their ship a century earlier. It made sense. In the remake, the ghosts basically go apesh*t and wipe out half the town for no apparent reason.

The token black guy. Why was he there? He added nothing to the story.

Don't even get me started on the end where Elizabeth TURNS INTO GHOST, and takes off with Blake and the other ghosts. WTF!?

If you want to see a good version of The Fog, buy or rent the 1980 original. The 2005 turkey is just not worth it.

[Rodney_G.]

Are we talking movies that are more or less expected to be good and weren't , or those that were just cranked out and turn out to be so terrible that they're actually funny-good, that is, true howlers?
When I was in college many years ago, there was a late-night movie time slot  called Fright Theater that ran old b-movie horror and sci-fi "classics" that were so awful-good that they provided us liberal arts major guys some of the best yuks we could ever hope to have. We'd turn out the lights , settle in, and watch some world historically awful d-movie gems whose dialogue even the dimmest college freshmen could outdo and whose costumes  my brothers and I could have created on a bad Halloween and whose "special effects " amounted to a wobbly pie tin skimmed through the air to "be" a flying saucer. One memorable line: "But , professor, how can we destroy these alien invaders?"  Professor: "science, my boy, science." I kid you not. We were howling .
I even saw "Plan 9 From Outer Space" , rightly considered  the bestworst sci- fi flick of all-time, a gem with a budget of a school teacher's salary (and it showed.

On the other hand, "Fright Theater" was hosted by Elvira, whose suggestive double entendres, and cleavage,  were always a sure attention grabber for college aged guys.

Of the conventionally bad movies, I'd have to say "Youngblood Hawke"  was the worst. It starred a young  and handsome Richard Chamberlain,soon to be Dr Kildare on TV, and was the only movie I ever walked out of. Excruciating.

[Rodney_G.]

Well, this isn't a bad movie, but it is rather unusual. It's called Beach Blanket Bingo - one of those Frankie Avalon 1960's beach movies - and it is HIL-ARI-OUS!!!!!!! Has anybody else ever seen it? It is the perfect movie to watch (guess where?) at the beach with a cold cup of Coke at night. 

Sure I saw it and it WAS funny !! The teenagers all looked to be about 32 and for some reason were interacting with "adults" with whom they were great friends. Was this one of the Beach Blanket films that featured a "Moondoggie"? , some lameass attempt by the straight adult world to portray  a hipster, someone cool to whom those wild and wacky teens could relate in their teen angst? I think this BBB series introduced Wolfman Jack, west coast DJ , and soon to be nationally semi-famous as a liaison beween misunderstood teens and their clueless parents.

ps.  Olga Bernice, where do you find beachfront  movie theaters  these days? Or even then?

[Olga Bernice]

Rodney, I honestly do not know. On our annual beach trip, all my extended family gets together for a week, and my aunts have just always had them. I would guess Amazon might have it (but I haven't looked it up), and maybe a DVD store somewhere . . . I'm not helping, am I?

[TimM]

The teenagers all looked to be about 32

There is one movie from the 50's, Earth VS The Spider (about a giant spider that goes on a rampage, and it's just that, no explanation is given to why it's so big).   Anyway, the "teenagers" in this movie look like their in their mid-40's!  It was so silly.

[Robert_Hall]

I liked Avalon/Funicello but those Beach movies were pure camp, and not very good  camp at that.
 The Blob, anyone ?

[bonbon823]

I just get such a kick out of those old Hollywood westerns where they'd use a famous actor/actress as an indian.  Too hilarious!

[thelastimpofrussia]

Not really a movie, but the old soap Dark Shadows just makes me laugh everytime. Also, the second and third Matrix movies really let me down. I mean, the fight scene on top of the semi trucks was pretty cool, but it went down the drain after that. My mother adores movies, so let me go see what I can find in there.

[Robert_Hall]

At least The Blob introduced Steve McQueen. It's only saving grace. All those 50's-early 60's sci-fis were trash but now  just too campy for words.

[Kalafrana]

Can I put Braveheart down as a terrible film on the basis of its historical inaccuracy?

Ann