What makes a movie bad?

[David Floyd]

A movie is good if it entertains me, and bad if it doesn't. To me, the only point of a movie is entertainment. Simple as that.

[Japher]

Whoo! Threadkill!

What kind of threadkill is that!

Any movie without Nazi's or a guy that looks like Hitler in it generally suck

[Spec]

Hollywood.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Spec
Hollywood.

Others are worse.

[Dis]

hey I'm watching my big fat greek wedding right now.

Did any of you guys like this film? I kind of liked it as a chick flick.

[Dis]

Originally posted by molly bloom
What makes a film bad?

Is it based on a computer game?

(Super Mario, Mortal Kombat, yada, yada, yada)

Will it require colourful Oirish characters to do jigs, sing and say begorrah, and at all costs not be played by Irish actors? (Titanic, Far and Away, The Devil's Own, that crappy one with Jeff Bridges and Tommy Lee Jones as an incendiarist/bomber, Day of the Jackal MK. II, Finians Rainbow, Ryan's Daughter, Patriot Games, et al.)

Is it a sequel? Or worse, part three of a series?

Godfather III, Alien III, Police Academy III, and so on.

Is it a pointless irritating remake of far better classier film, or a retread of a witty amusing French/Italian/Chinese/Indian/Inuit original?

Get Carter MK.II (Sylvester Stallone? Were they mad? Is he?) Day of the Jackal MK.II, Assassin (here's a hint guys, it has two asses in the title), Three Men and a Baby, Green Card, The Birdcage, Grease II: The Sump Oil, the list is growing yearly.

Does it have Uma Thurman or Andie McDowell in speaking roles? (with the exception of Short Cuts)?

Does it have Nathan Lane in a role requiring consciousness?

Is it a vanity project for a singer/model/ex cocaine mule for the Colombian druglords?

'Glitter', any Kylie Minogue film, nearly all Sting's films, some of David Bowie's, Mick Jagger's 'Ned Kelly', 'Can't Stop the Music', 'Xanadu' Slade in 'Flame', Vanilla Ice's schlock, again, the list of debacles grows apace.

Is the film advertised as having a great soundtrack?

(The Mod Squad, Peter's Friends, containing the worst portrayal of a person meant to be drunk by a Shakespearean actor)

These are all some tips for identifying cinematic cack-ola and crappy doodoo of the highest order.

what do you have against Andie Macdowell? Okay she isn't that great an actress. But having her in a movie doesn't make it bad. I like multiplicity. I thought that was a funny movie. Of course Michael Keaton made the movie worked. He was the talent at work here.

[Dis]

and I agree with a lot of Roger Eberts reviews (I watch his show every week ). He's a lot better than Roper. He sometimes gives mindless action flicks a thumbs up. He is a good enough reviewer to know a good action film from crap like Charlies Angels 1 and 2.

There the secret's out. I like Roger Ebert's reviews.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Dissident


what do you have against Andie Macdowell? Okay she isn't that great an actress. But having her in a movie doesn't make it bad. I like multiplicity. I thought that was a funny movie. Of course Michael Keaton made the movie worked. He was the talent at work here.

It’s very simple, Diss: I care enough about films to actually want the actors to be....actors. Proper actors, not ex-models who aren’t on a religious retreat at the moment, or having a coffee high colonic enema, or ‘soul’ or r’n’b singers whose last album fell through the basement floor at high velocity.

Robert Altman showed in ‘Short Cuts’ that he could make up for Ms. MacDowell’s, ah, short comings. She actually appeared to come to life in that film, which unfortunately she didn’t do in ‘4 Weddings’.
Remember her Shakespearean delivery of: ‘Is it raining? I hadn’t noticed’.

So, you’re in a clinch with the leading man, you’re feeling love, love, love all the way, and you emote with all the conviction of the Watergate liars attempting to tell us they told the truth. Imagine, say, Ingrid Bergman doing the same in ‘Casblanca’, Or Bette Davis in ‘Now, Voyager’, or Joan Crawford in ‘Mildred Pierce’. She has the emotional punch of cavity wall insulation. Unfortunately cinemas don’t do refunds if the producers/director chose as their leading lady someone who thought she was in a Revlon advertisement, or a promotional film for wood glue.

I agree that simply by having her in a film doesn’t necessarily make it bad, but it helps. I loathed ‘4 Weddings’ with a vengeance much as I did ‘Peter’s Friends’. It’s hard to believe that Great Britain used to produce society comedies as far back as Shakespeare’s day, through the Restoration, the society wits of the Regency, Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, Noel Coward, Terence Rattigan, and then we get Hugh sodding Grant. Who can play Hugh Grant, but unfortunately no one else who does not in some way resemble Hugh Grant. Which reminds me- ‘Notting Hill’ with Julia ‘Are My Lips Big Enough Now?’ Roberts. If she exposed any more teeth, I’m thinking an oceanarium might believe one of its sharks was missing. She’s another actor who has such a tightly circumscribed range, it could truthfully said to extend no further than her epidermis. When called upon to portray someone completely out of her experience (Mary Reilly, Dr. Jekyll’s maid, or the love interest in ‘Michael Collins’) what you get is a close approximation of the heat death of the universe. But less interesting.

Now can one actor ruin a film? I’d say no, but how about Pia Zadora?

[Dis]

well I haven't actually seen 4 weddings. But I did like Multiplicity as a light-hearted comedy. It was no great film, but I found it funny.

And I agree with Julia Roberts. I haven't seen Erin Brokavich though, but it didn't look very good.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Spec
Dude, you repeated exactly what I said!

Did not.

For example, I wrote "Is the story a natural disaster?", not "Is the story based on a natural disaster?"

There's a difference, you know.

[Dis]

I'm sure there have been good natural disaster movies.

Thinks back... There has to be one... Didn't that one asteroid one... Well maybe not.

[Sikander]

Julia Roberts is death to a movie. If she somehow manages to not ruin a film with her wooden "acting" she instead ruins a film because everything she is in has been given the big predictable Hollywood movie treatment. That's the smell of death strangers!

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Sikander
Julia Roberts is death to a movie. If she somehow manages to not ruin a film with her wooden "acting" she instead ruins a film because everything she is in has been given the big predictable Hollywood movie treatment. That's the smell of death strangers!

What I find scary is that someone thought she'd make a a passable prostitute in 'Pretty Lady'.

Yes, wear a bad fitting wig, a mini-skirt and high heels you too can look like a whore. Which must be why she looked almost exactly the same (except for the wig) in 'Erin Brockovich'. The story of the L.A. hooker who does pro bono work on the side.....

Really, if any prostitute was that good looking, guess what? They wouldn't be pounding the pavements. Much like the gaggle of street walkers in 'From Hell'. If anyone has seen the post mortem photographs of Jack the Ripper's victims they looked like what they were- women on the margins, alcoholic, worn out and more than a little rough around the edges. It would be nice if Hollywood didn't treat everyone as though they were simpletons.

I agree with the assessment of the pointless remake of 'Psycho'. Even down to the shot where in the original, Anthony Perkins gulps, and his adam's apple bobs up and down in nervous tension. Except in the remake, Vince Vaughan don't got no pronounced adam's apple....

Has anyone seen the remake of 'Night of the Hunter' with Richard Chamberlain as the psychopathic preacher? I promise you, if you know the original it's enough to make your toes curl inside your shoes.

Oh- 'Rising Sun'. A waste of Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes. I can only think Sean Connery is attempting to outdo Richard Burton in his choice of late career crappy roles.

'Jurassic Park'- all of them. A triumph of special effects over acting and plot. Look, the Tyrannosaurus Rex is so heavy, it makes the earth shake! Except of course at the end, when it tiptoes in ballet pumps to surprise everyone and the intellectual velociraptors. Poor Bob Peck, a marvellous actor who somehow found himself in this primordial poop juice.