Bad movies we love!

[James Steven Beverly]

I would love to hear everyone's top 3 bad movies that they love to watch everytime they come on. The definition of iwhat you consider "Bad" up to you and if you feel like giving us the reasons you like them even better.

[Filip Plesha]

The mummy (1959)

 

Bad because, well its so linear and childish, like an episode of Scooby doo, even worse

but I love it for it. The cheesyness makes it classic stuff, and I love the cinematography

in the combination with the 50's film stock aesthetics.

Also it gives me that creepy but warm feeling of Scooby doo episodes that I grew up with.

 

Starship troopers (1997)

Why is it bad? Well I'm not sure, depends. If it was literal, then its really bad, but if it was a satire of some sort, then I think its not that bad. Now I think it might be satiric in a way, but am not sure about the intentions. But judging by Pauls previous movies, I'd say its a pretty direct movie, and not a satire.

In that case, its very one-dimentional in my opinion.

Why I love it? It looks so colorful, snappy and warm in terms of photography and art direction

It also has some of the most realistic CG effects I have seen in a movie. Not that its mastered any better then say CG in movies like Episode 3, it's just that it blends better with that kind of photography.

I feel that CG used to blend better with older film stocks (this movie was shot entierly on EXR stocks)

 

Jesus Christ superstar (1973)

A sort of cheesy, low-budget forgotten movie. But I love it. The locations look beautiful, and I love its simplistic photography, it feels like a documentary. Feels very anti-Hollywood, very spontaneous.

[Tom Bays]

INFESTED :D

 

Ghosts of Mars

 

Sin City

[Phil Rhodes]

SWAT.

 

Colin Farrell's eyebrows are the main attraction in this otherwise forgettable popcorn movie, ably supported by Michelle Rodriguez playing, well, Michelle Rodriguez. Samuel L. Jackson is clearly slumming it in his role as Hondo Harrelson, which was apparently to be handed to Schwarzenneger in an attempt to distract him from finding ways to allow the good citizens of California feel good about taking their children to school in six-litre Humvees. Jackson struggles gamely with lines clearly intended for the Austrian Oak, but never really succeeds in deflecting attention from Farrell's supra-ocular facial topiary.

 

In many ways there was never a more generic summer movie, but it's made for me by the writers' DVD commentary (an uncommon and very welcome addition) in which it is made very clear that it was never intended to be more than that.

[Josh Bass]

I'm not gonna obey the original intent of the thread, 'cause I can't remember every movie I've ever seen. So here are three bad movies; I'm just not sure they're the top three.

 

Bad Taste - I'm not sure this really bad so much as "culty". An early Peter Jackson flick, made on a low budget. Ridiculous story, characters, FX.

 

Dirty Work - Agreed by most to be bad, I think it's "brilliantly stupid." Just another dumb comedy, but one of the better ones, to me.

 

Stay Tuned - same, except I think everyone BUT me and maybe one other person truly hates this movie. I liked the concept, and everything was good, for me, except the storyline with kids rescuing the parents. Axe that, keep all the "Hell" stuff, you got yourself a great movie. Come on. . ."Driving Over Miss Daisy?" fu**ing brilliant!

 

You call Jesus Christ Superstar a "forgotten movie". Isn't it rather popular?

Edited March 22, 2006 by Josh Bass

[David Mullen ASC]

"1941", "Legend", and "The Ten Commandments".

 

Now all three have some technical / artistic merits, but all three fail as movies for various reasons, although "The Ten Commandments" works overall better than the other two. But the turgid melodrama of it is enough to qualify it as a "good bad" movie in my mind.

 

Or I might replace that choice with "Mission to Mars", a film made watchable for me just by the set design and effects work.

 

A favorite as a kid was this spaghetti western called "My Name is Nobody" but I haven't taken a look at it in a while. "Duck You Sucker" (aka "Fistful of Dynamite") is another mess of a movie that is fun.

[Arni Heimir]

"1941", "Legend", and "The Ten Commandments".

 

Now all three have some technical / artistic merits, but all three fail as movies for various reasons, although "The Ten Commandments" works overall better than the other two. But the turgid melodrama of it is enough to qualify it as a "good bad" movie in my mind.

 

Or I might replace that choice with "Mission to Mars", a film made watchable for me just by the set design and effects work.

 

A favorite as a kid was this spaghetti western called "My Name is Nobody" but I haven't taken a look at it in a while. "Duck You Sucker" (aka "Fistful of Dynamite") is another mess of a movie that is fun.

 

David, you mentioned "Mission to Mars" did you like the music by Morricone?

 

 

I, for one, found "Duck you sucker" to be brilliant. Just proves that failure is relative. Unless you look at box office receipts alone.

 

The films I can call "quilty pleasures" are "Freeway", "Showgirls" and "The Avengers". Well, those are the ones who come to mind.

[Josh Bass]

I don't think freeway was bad at all. With Reese Witherspoon? Good stuff.

[Arni Heimir]

I think that is the thing about bad movies - some of them are surprisingly good. It is when movies try to achieve a certain level of greatness and not fulfilling on their promise. Ergo, "Pearl Harbor".

 

Funny that no one has mentioned "Pearl Harbor" and I am sure no one will.

[Leo Anthony Vale]

The mummy (1959)

 

Bad because, well its so linear and childish, like an episode of Scooby doo, even worse

but I love it for it. The cheesyness makes it classic stuff, and I love the cinematography

in the combination with the 50's film stock aesthetics.

Also it gives me that creepy but warm feeling of Scooby doo episodes that I grew up with.

 

---My favorite scene in 'The Mummy' is where Peter Cushing deliberately insults the Egyptian priest by questioning why anyone would worship such a cheesy, low rent god such as Karnak.

All that blue fill light and the opening funeral procession are quite enjoyable.

 

As for Hammer films, I'd go with 'She'. Almost the same reasons as above, with the addition of HammerScope, larger scale cheesy effects like the prisioners being lowered in to the lava pit, Ursala Andress

and a score I still find myself humming.

Might as well Peter Cushing and Ch.Lee sword fighting.

 

For the big three I'll go with 'Scared to Death' (1947), 'The Mysterians' (1957) and 'The Alamo' (1960).

I almost went with 'Khartoum' on the last one, but being subtley pro Viet Nam war doesn't really make it bad enough. Maybe I should have gone with 'The Green Berets' instead.

 

'Scared to Death' is Bela Lugosi's only starring film in color. Very good Cinecolor. All interiors, so art directed for the color range. & Bela wears his red lined cape constantly.

Can't decide if it's straight or a spoof. Also has Geo.Zucco and Nat Pendleton. Almost a compendium of cliches.

 

'The Mysterians' is one of the first TohoScope movies. Has Takashi Shimura is Dr.Adachi. Ishiro Honda, the director, apprenticed with Kurosawa. They were best friends, Kurosawa delivered the eulogy at Honda's funneral. Honda also did second unit on Stray Dog and was associate producer on some of Kurosawa's later color movies.

Anyway, the Mysterians destoyed their home planet Mysteroid ages ago in an atomic war, leaving behind the asteroid belt. Since then they've been living on Mars. Now they've come to earth for a bit of land on Mt.Fuji and cute Japanese girls. They wear sun glasses under their space helmets.

Good score by Akira Ifukube. The scene wher there's a flame thrower fight with a giant tailed and bird beaked robot is a great, musical piece of editing.

 

Running out of time, maybe I'll do the alamo later.

 

---LV

[Guest peter orland]

My grandad was a cinema projectionist and he has a video and dvd collection that dates back to the dawn off time; he loves them all.

 

My favourite good/bad movies off the shelf are.

 

1: Flesh Gordon (not to be confused with Flash Gordon) - stupidly funny with a bit of T & A and some great Dynarama effects.

 

2: Billy Jack - Peace love and mungbeans mixed with a bit of head crackin.

 

3: Blazzing Sadles - even though I must of sat down with my dad a dozen times - with a dozen beers - to watch it, I still haven't seen it as he insists on giving me a running commentary on what and why it is such a great movie in amongst laughing his head off. "Watch this bit, watch this bit"

[kata]

anything by Uwe Boll.

 

actually, no. I would never watch it if it came on....

Edited March 22, 2006 by kata

[Sean Azze]

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"

 

"Short Circuit"

 

"Robocop 2"

 

I'm a child of the 80's, what can I say. No matter how old I get, I always see these movies through the eyes of a 9 year old!

[Matt Pacini]

I must admit, I do get a kick out of a bad movie, if it's campy enough and doesn't take itself too seriously, unless it's SO bad that you can't stand it.

 

1. Kung Fu Rascals.

This is the movie that made me decide to go ahead and make a Super 8 feature, instead of waiting until god knows when, when I would get enough money to shoot on 16mm.

 

 

2. Orgy of the Dead.

Funnier than hell watching this Ed Wood stinker, because you can see how obvious it was that he got to use someone elses sets for a couple days, and figured out a story where he could have endless topless babes dancing around for pretty much no reason.

 

3. Legend.

Actually, I thought this was pretty good, probably my favorite Tom Cruise film (not a big fan...). And this started my Mia Sara obsession. HUBBA HUBBA!

 

MP

[Josh Bass]

Is that obsession ongoing? Cause she's a little. . .well. . .different now.

[Guest Ian Marks]

"Fear of a Black Hat" was a good/bad movie. It's the black "Spinal Tap," a mockumentary covering a year in the life of the fictional rap group N.W.H., which stands for . . . well, I'm not going to say. This movie features Casi Lemmons, who went on to direct "Daughters of the Dust" and "Caveman's Valentine," as the documentary maker. Some funny stuff, but don't see it if you're easily offended by vulgar language.

[Kim Vickers]

Bad movies I love (guilty pleasures):

 

BLUE THUNDER: Helicopters are very cinematic (see also: Airwolf), but after a promising start the story just becomes totally absurd in the third act and devolves into an unintentional laugh-fest. I love anything with Warren Oates and some of his lines are priceless, but the movie takes you for a complete idiot, and that's bad in my books. Still, I own the DVD.

 

SHAKEDOWN: Lame Peter Weller vehicle with an OK car chase. The scene at the end with Sam Elliott hanging on to the landing gear on a Lear jet above NYC is one of the most laughably wrong-headed things I've ever seen in a movie. Makes Knight Rider look like A-list entertainment. Very bad and very funny.

 

TOP GUN: As one critic put it, "It's 60 pages of gay innuendo punctuated by great flying sequences." Excellent (unintended?) laughs and the aerial sequences are still the best ever filmed.

[Joe Taylor]

What happened to Mia Sara? Her "innie" isn't an "outie" now, is it?

 

Oh, "On Golden Pond" "Strange Brew" and "Johnny Dangerously"

[James Steven Beverly]

I just looked up her picture on IMDB. She looks pretty good to me. I love Johnny Dangeriuosly. " You Shouldn't otta slap me like dad, Johnny. My mudder slapped me once....Only Once."

Edited March 23, 2006 by Capt.Video

[Josh Bass]

I saw on one of the myriad VH1 interview based shows. She looks different.

[James Steven Beverly]

I also love those old 50's scifi flicks. There are some classics like the Thing but I'm talking about the really bad ones. They're great.

[Alex Wuijts]

films like Zoolander and Anchorman are pretty bad in an ingenious way. Deathwish 5 with Charles Bronson is another one i would watch if it came on tv.

[Jonathan Spear]

1. "The Hot Chick" -- ironically, Rob Shneider is the only decent, semi-entertaining character in the film. The movie has such a cheesy, Gap/Xbox/Starbucks-carbon copy-American-teenager feel to it that watching it can cause nausea and high blood pressure. On the other hand its fun to watch when you're stoned.

 

2. "Waking Life" -- Blah blah blah blah blah. Cheesy, pretentious, boring, no budget, glorified oral diahhrea. Pure indie crap -- this film is the reason those not familiar with the indie scene hate it with a passion. But the atmosphere it sets can put me in a creative and inspired mood.

 

3. "Batman & Robin" -- Batman #1 was incredible. #2 just as good. #3 sucked, but had Jim Carrey. #4 is an insult to Batman, DC comics, and fans of the series. Arnold is not an actor. George Clooney lacked that Batman ruggedness, mystique and grace. Uma and Alicia's roles seemed uninspired and mundane. But on the other hand, if you're into animation, set design, wardrobe design, the film packs a lot of inspiring ideas and themes.

[Filip Plesha]

Uma Thurman must be my favorite actress, not because of her acting as much as I like to look at her face on screen for a long time

[Marty Hamrick]

"Empire of the Ants" had this incredibly funny scene where giant ants were crawling up a pier.The effect was so bad it was hilarious.Worth sitting through the bad movie just for that.You feel like the should be playing chorus line music when the ants are introduced.