Name your "Stupid Movies"

[monolith94]

"what nobody diss's Pulp Fiction. That movie is the grand daddy of them all."

Yes, to people who haven't seen more than a hundred movies.

[Dis]

bah!

you are all uncultured slugs!!

[Dis]

hey another stupid movie, but it actually looks like it might be funny is coming out.

Bad Santa. I like Billy Bob Thornton. This movie looks funny.

[Space05us]

Pulp Fiction. It's just some guys walking around being cool and no real story.

Pulp Fiction is deep. Its about one mans struggle to come to terms with his past and move on in life, what could be more touching. And that steamy sex scene with the cop in the basement of the pawn shop



I liked Pulp Fiction, but only because its the kind of movie I wanted to watch when I saw it.

Babes do not automaticly make good movies...they only make the movie less boring.

Well I like Armageddon and for all of the two times Ive seen it I still cant tell you what the hell the plot is, other than they make Liv Tyler cry at the end those butt heads!! Who would make such a beautiful young woman cry?



off topic: Has anyone else noticed that in the beginning of Gladiator the German war chant is the same exact thing the African warriors chant in Zulu? (or at least really similar)

[MrFun]

Lost in Space -- DUMB movie

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by -Jrabbit
Let's remember the "most people seem to like" bit, and not let the thread degenerate into slagging on movies that were crap from the get-go.

Oh, well in that case:

1) Blair Witch Project - if only it had really been a documentary; then, at least, I would have had the satisfaction of actually watching the filmmakers die, and die horribly.

2) Forrest Gump - sentimental dreck that sinks below most other sentimental dreck by suggesting that the best way to deal with history and politics is to just not think about them. Now there's a message America needs...

3) Schindler's List - I admire Oskar Schindler. I hate Nazis. But this was a largely lifeless exercise that only exhibited bursts of energy when it devolved into shameless manipulation. Not that I would expect any less from Spielberg.

4) Casino - Scorsese just phoned this in; there's not a single thing in it that he hasn't done better in another of his own films, and at times he seems to be parodying his own style -- except that the result is painful, not funny. Just appalling.

5) Special group award: all Tom Hanks dramas. Yep, even "Saving Private Ryan," to say nothing of "Philadelphia," "The Road to Perdition," "The Green Mile," etc. And, of course, the aforementioned Gump. The fact that Hanks has 2 Oscars is simply outrageous.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by MrFun
Lost in Space -- DUMB movie

Hey, that was one of the best movies ever made, where the story takes place in outer space...

...unless you're talking about the old movie, which I've never seen, and probably never will...

[molly bloom]

I second Rufus's 'Philadelphia' slagging, and also excoriate 'Forrest Dump', which I actually managed to watch all the way through some months ago without lapsing into a diabetic coma. In the first film Hanks is so saintly, I thought he might transform into a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary or at the least St. Ursula, and whip out a mammary and start feeding his sister's child. Look! A long term gay couple who don't kiss each other! Gah.
In the second, Sally Field didn't die soon enough. 'Life is like a box of choglets.' "Choglets!!!???!! Oh, chocolates. In Britain and Australia boxes of chocolates come with a legend indicating for instance that the strawberry shaped one contains....strawberry creme, and not crunchy frog, for example. Perhaps Hershey's like you to live dangerously in the U.S.- 'is this the one with the tainted Tylenol centre?'
Would have been more interesting if perhaps a link with the 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' could have been established, or 'Southern Comfort' or 'Deliverance'. I'd have paid good money to see Hanks and Mom flayed and eaten. Slowly.

'Pulp Fiction'- evidence that Tarantino has seen other people's better films. Oh look, a male rape. Oh look, a syringe in the chest- how shocking. Well, to anyone who hasn't seen Paul Newman get one in the heart in 'Exodus', that is. The rape scene had such a corny, predictable pay off- 'don't tell anyone about my secret shame and I'll let ya go." Right. Kill him, and no one will know.

'Four Weddings and a Funeral.' Call it five funerals, and it would be a better film. Andie McDowell does the imitation of a plank surprisingly well- I thought she was a beauty/fashion model, but clearly she had 'branched' out into carpentry or woodworking, too.

'The Avengers'. Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman have the sexual chemistry of cold tapioca and a tub of lard.
Sean Connery thinks he is Al Pacino playing Sean Connery in 'Scent of A Woman', except sighted, and proceeds to chew scenery, the carpet, his kilt, et al.
Uma Thurman takes a leaf out of McDowell's arbour, and does the wood comes to life schtick, but unfortunately it's petrified.

'The Blair Witch Project'- dear god, the back story was more interesting, the scenery was more interesting, the finale in the house was the best thing in the whole film, AND WE HAD TO SIT THROUGH THE WHOLE THING TO GET THERE!!!!!!. Three incredibly irritating actors/characters, who should have died at the beginning. No, before the film began, in fact.

'The Net', possibly so titled because it was mistakenly heard for 'The Nerd', portrayed by Sandra 'Dead Fish' Bullock. Sandra Bullock as a computing whizzkid- yeah, and Damon Wayans as Nelson Mandela, or Chris Farley as Jacques Derrida.

'The Patriot'- don't like Revolutionary War history? Then make it up as you go along! It's only history, and Mel Gibson is the modern day Shakespeare. Except he isn't, and if this film had even been worthy of kissing the hem of the garment of McKellen/Loncraine's 'Richard III', it might have excused its trashing of historical events, and the cardboard British villains.

'Patriot Games'- how can you tell one of the characters is Irish? Simple- he's sat down drinking tea (out of bone china- only the best for the I.R.A.) and watching Enya on television. I shall make a film in which it will be easy to see which nationality is which- the American will be watching Mr. Magoo, whilst drinking Kool Aid out of a Reebok running shoe, the Scotsman will be eating haggis, whilst wearing a kilt, and dancing a highland jig on a dead grouse, and the Frenchman will be serenading us with the Marseillaise, whilst consuming chicory tainted coffee out of a bowl with fragments of madeleine bobbing about in it, with his feet up on the collected works of Marcel Proust.

And Uma Thurman and Andie McDowell will be playing blocks of wood- very undemonstrative blocks of wood.

[alva]

nice post Molly, nice post :b
-
Hey, noone mentioned Star wars yet uke:

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by alva
nice post Molly, nice post :b
-
Hey, noone mentioned Star wars yet uke:

Thanks alva- I should have included a Belgian cliche for you- how to spot the Belgian character in a film- he's the one eating waterzooi (or moules, frites and mayonnaise) drinking Dragon's Breath monastic ale, whilst flipping through a Herge Tintin album, with Jacques Brel's 'Port of Amsterdam' playing on the c.d. . Oh, and adopting the pose of the Mannekin Pis, of course....

[Urban Ranger]

Cider House Rules

Okay, I am not sure if most people think it's good, but to me, it's especially bad.

[Wernazuma III]

Gladiator, Armageddon, Deep Impact, Volcano, Dante's Peak...

[Buck Birdseed]

I've seen thousands of movies and I still rank Pulp Fiction as one of the best ones, right up there with Barry Lyndon, Vertigo, Airplane! and the 1972 version of Solaris. Okay, maybe not Airplane!

[-Jrabbit]

Originally posted by Wernazuma III
Gladiator, Armageddon, Deep Impact, Volcano, Dante's Peak...

I see the problem. You watch too many disaster movies. (An aptly-named genre, imho)

I agree with Molly's assessment of The Net, but don't think it qualifies as a movie that was popular with either the general public or the critics. I like Sandra Bullock in general, but the script, the production, and her performance were all disasters...

[JohnT]

Good post, Molly! I like a guy who likes his films.

I have slightly looser standards - I try to judge the movie based upon what it wants to be, not against the entire breadth and depth of cinematic history. When I watch crap like Volcano, for example I try to judge it against other "disaster" pictures from Airport to Dante's Peak to Twister. Comparing it to Fellini or Ford is quite silly, imo.

But... dumb movies. The movie always loses me in a couple of situations:

1. The protagonist(s) keeps doing things contrary to all logic, therefore driving the plot forward - i.e., if the people weren't so fvcking stupid to begin with, there wouldn't be a movie in the first place. This is such a common occurrance in movies that I can't even come up with an example, and is, in fact, the basis of 2/3rds of all romantic "comedy" movies in existence.

Oh! Sleeping with the Enemy! Gawd, Julia Roberts acted so stupid in that movie you were glad Tom Skerrit came back just so she would come face to face with her cluelessness. Luckily he did his usually brilliant job of playing a character so lacking in redeemable qualities (perhaps it's just Skerrit himself), so you couldn't exactly root for that abuser, but neither could you bring yourself to care for somebody as dumb as Julia Roberts.

2. There is such a blatant violation of the laws of physics, one that goes beyond sound in space and giant insects, that it renders the rest of the movie implausibly dumb. Alien Resurrection had such a scene where a dog "gave birth" to an alien that was seemingly three times more massive than the dog. I wasn't really enjoying myself before that point after that the movie totally lost me as an interested participant.