5 Bad Movies You Love

robeiae said:

Across the 8th Dimension.

/geektest

But yeah, I like that too. And Dark Star.

But I have to take issue with Flash Gordon, along with The Fifth Element (mentioned upthread). Those aren't bad movies at all, in my book. They may not be great movies, but they both were received fairly well, from what I remember (not from all critics, but from more than enough, I think). YMMV, of course.

Click to expand...

You're right, it's "across the eighth dimension."

You're right that Flash Gordon was intended to be a summer blockbuster, and some reviewers liked it. It was so awfully corny and campy, though. I guess its saving grace was it didn't take itself too seriously. But there was so much about it that was just so silly, from the winged dudes to the star's "dry look" hair style.

I liked the Fifth Element, but that movie felt "better" in many ways than the ones I listed here. It was silly, but it had all kinds of great little sight gags. Like that elephant thingy in the villain's cabinet. What in the heck was that?

Though Dark Star started out as a student movie project that was lengthened into a feature-length film, and it was (I think) John Carpenter's debut.

@Heza: If my girlfriend were making a list, White Chicks would be #1. That scene with Terry Crews alone...

Maryn said:

Oh, this is a fun question. I suppose it's open to discussion whether any movie someone names is really bad, but my list would include plenty that definitely can't be called good.

A Knight's Tale

Click to expand...

Myrealana said:

Last Action Hero - "You know tar actually sticks to some people."
A Knight's Tale (Changed, because I had forgotten about this one) My husband hates it for the anachronistic soundtrack, and I love it for the exact same reason. Also Alan Tudyk.

Click to expand...

These are not bad movies at all, imo. I've read historians saying that the anachronistic soundtrack on A Knight's Tale was actually perfect because it does such a good job of conveying to a modern audience what a joust was to people at the time - ie, something akin to a world cup or superbowl.
And Last Action Hero was a brilliant send-up of bad action movies, but not at all bad in itself.

There are alot of "bad" movies that I love!

Cocktail
Twilight(please don't throw tomatoes at me *ducks in shame*)
Grease 2
Die hard 2
Jaws 3

Yeah, I can't count The Room in the "so bad, it's good" category. It was so bad, it was stultifyingly horrible in its badness. I find no compelling reason to watch it ever again.

-- Barbarella (I bought the soundtrack and the DVD at the same time.)
-- The Last Dragon (again, bought the soundtrack [WHICH DOESN'T HAVE ANGELA'S SONGS SO I DEMAND A RECOUNT] and DVD. There's an endless series of YouTube videos that gush with endless praise over Tymak, the lead actor, and the wonder of the greatness and the greatness of the wonder of his acting.)
-- Never Too Young To Die (another one with Vanity in the cast, this time with John Stamos as the heir to a secret agent/super spy legacy and Gene Simmons wearing a costume Lynda Carter wore in one of her TV specials. He was the only one who realized what a screaming honker he was in and he ran with it screaming. Literally. At least three times.)
-- Showgirls (though I have to skip the rape scene. Typical "we have to show how horrible show biz can be so let's make somebody suffer horribly" tripe. Otherwise, is Elizabeth Berkeley having an orgasm or a seizure in the pool? And Gina Gershon didn't seem to have any illusions that she was making High Art™, so she just rolled with it.)
-- Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls (a better movie quote source than The Princess Bride could ever hope to be with a shockingly good soundtrack)

Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers Movie (the original) So campy, but the actors seemed like they were all having a blast making the movie. It's hard not to have fun right along with them.
Battle for Los Angeles - aliens invade L.A. from the ocean in what is largely a ground offense. I actually consider this a good movie, but nobody else seems to agree.
Battleship. Pure summer blockbuster schlock, but who can resist thundering AC/DC while using the storied USS Missouri to battle alien invaders?
2012. I love, love, love world-ending disaster movies and this is just totally over the top with the destruction.

Watched the Gene Simmons vs. Lynda Carter clips. Yowzah!

You're right that Flash Gordon was intended to be a summer blockbuster, and some reviewers liked it. It was so awfully corny and campy, though. I guess its saving grace was it didn't take itself too seriously. But there was so much about it that was just so silly, from the winged dudes to the star's "dry look" hair style.

Click to expand...

His hair showed noticeably dark roots. I don't think he ever made another movie, he was that bad. The costumes were great, but the sets were bad -- very artificial looking, like one of the original episodes of Star Trek.

I liked the Fifth Element, but that movie felt "better" in many ways than the ones I listed here. It was silly, but it had all kinds of great little sight gags. Like that elephant thingy in the villain's cabinet. What in the heck was that?

Click to expand...

The production values, stunts, and pacing made it better than it was, but at its heart it was still a silly movie with a dumb script, which is why I like it. It's great eye candy.

Cobalt Jade said:

I don't think he ever made another movie, he was that bad.

Click to expand...

He's mostly done TV since, more notably starring in a made-for-TV movie of Wil Eisner's The Spirit and a series called The Highwayman about a group of elite agents who travel the country's highways in a super-high-tech truck.

1. Terminator. There should be a special category for the Oscars. "People who cannot act but make entertaining films". I don't think anyone could have pulled off this role other than Arnie.
2. Independence Day. The special effects make up for the script. As with most Hollywood blockbusters. Spend lots of money and you can't go wrong.
3. Jaws The first one was brilliant. Great acting (especially the shark).
4. What Women Want. Mel Gibson falls in love with himself. Also features some women.
5. It came from outer space.
"Did you know, Putnam, that more murders are committed at 92 Fahrenheit than any other temperature? I read an article once. Lower temperatures, people are easygoing. Over 92, it's too hot to move. But just 92, people get irritable"
One of the greatest lines ever written.

Confession: I love Snow White: A Tale of Terror. And Interview with the Vampire.

I would never admit this in real life.

For me, the perfect so-bad-it's-good sweet spot is hit by three films. Three movies that perfectly balance being awful enough that they're hilarious without being so awful they're unwatchable--each of them is incredibly creative in its badness. Dungeons and Dragons, Jupiter Ascending, and 300: Rise of an Empire.

I actually really like Dune, and I'm mystified that almost everyone else seems to think it's a really bad movie. So I'll count that as #1, and add Beastmaster, Ladyhawke (an amazing movie but the soundtrack is pretty atrocious--with a good soundtrack, it would probably be right up there with Labyrinth and The Princess Bride), Once Upon a Time in Mexico (it's a hot mess but damn, its a helluva hot mess), and (cue the C-5 engine whine!) Reign of Fire.

ETA: I bought the DVD of Reign of Fire when I was taking French, so I've only ever watched it with the French language track. It may be worse in English .

I've seen so many bad movies, I lost count. Last night I watched Car Wash a 1975 very silly comedy with some drama near the end. Here are a few others that come to mind. Paint Your Wagon 1969 musical western with Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood, The Jerk with Steve Martin, Blade with Wesley Snipes (I hated that one, too much technology), and Vampire in Brooklyn with Eddie Murphy.

DreamWeaver said:

I actually really like Dune, and I'm mystified that almost everyone else seems to think it's a really bad movie.

Click to expand...

Have you read the book? That's why.

DreamWeaver said:

Beastmaster

Click to expand...

+1

Movies I love, but watch now and think "why the hell do I like this crap?"

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure - "Whoa"
Wayne's World - "Excellent!"
Krull - "Power is fleeting. Love is eternal."
The Neverending Story - "FALCOR!!" "ATRAYU!"

DreamWeaver said:

I actually really like Dune, and I'm mystified that almost everyone else seems to think it's a really bad movie.

Click to expand...

JimmyB27 said:

Have you read the book? That's why.

Click to expand...

The miniseries SciFi/SyFy did was infinitely better but still a bit creaky in places. The follow-up/mashup of Dune Messiah and Children Of Dune they did next was completely forgettable, except for the scenes near the end with Susan Sarandon making an entrance like she owned the place, playing the soap opera villain she's always wanted to be on TV. But none of that prevented me from buying the DVDs when they were released.

Lynch's movie adaptation was a wretched mess that I wouldn't even put into "so bad, it's good". I've read the book at least three times and while a difficult slog each time (I don't count the first since I never finished it, it was sooooooo beyond my comprehension when I tried), Herbert (who expressed absolute dismay and contempt for the final product) is one of my favorite authors and Dune one of my favorite books. There's really no comparison between book and movie in this case; the book is light years better IMAHO.

There are bad movies that are genuinely bad by most aesthetic standards. Most people agree on them. Then there are movies that just don't play by accepted rules - these can range from Dune to Never-Ending Story. Are they bad? I suppose it depends on what parts of your soul the play upon.

For example, I agree that Ladyhawke is amazing, but the person who chose the soundtrack needed to be locked in his room with a collection of 80s pop guitar cds and left there while someone with a sense for the delicate subtlety of the story did the soundtrack. I don't think that makes Ladyhawke bad. It's a good movie with a significant, but not fatal, flaw.

One I think might be headed for this territory is Valerian and the City of 1,000 Planets. So much goodness mixed up with so much badness! Why did Luc Besson cast two leads who (despite what IMDB tells me) appear to be 15? Why are these 15-year-olds playing out a "romantic" dynamic that was dated in 1975? Why is the mentor character almost indistinguishable from the bad guy? Why doesn't the plot make any sense? And yet, why are the visuals so stunning?

I'd certainly watch it again. But I don't like the characters. Even on the first viewthrough, I never felt "Oh, gosh, character I like could DIE! Live, character, live!" It's more "Huh. That was freaky. Yeah. That didn't really work. Nice colours, though. Oh, that's Rihanna. She's probably the best part."

Hard to narrow it down to just 5, but I'll try.
In no particular order:
Demolition Man
Jason X
Con Air (really anything with Nic Cage)
Overboard
Starship Troopers

Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever is widely considered one of the worst films of all time (0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes with 116 reviews), and I just don't understand why.

Maybe I'll just forever have rose-colored glasses about it. I originally learned about the film when "Ecks vs. Sever" was released for the Gameboy Advance. The game was based on the first draft of the film's script, and it was a blast to play. It was well-reviewed, and got my pumped for the film. Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever was released the following year in theaters, and I saw it twice in theaters. I loved it. I was juuuuust starting to get into movies at this point, and maybe I'd been brought up unexposed to a lot of action/violence in film, but I distinctly remember exclaiming after leaving the theater, "If there was an Academy Award for Best Action Scene, this movie would win!" I loved it so much that I bought it on DVD the day it came out.

I revisited the film last year, for the first time in well over a decade. I expected a disaster, but was pleasantly surprised that - although yeah, it's not very good - it's not HORRIBLE either. Lucy Liu is solid in it, and Antonio Banderas, Gregg Henry, and Ray Park all ham it up delightfully. Maybe I'll always have a skewed view because it hit all the right notes for my high school self.

Last night I watched Car Wash a 1975 very silly comedy with some drama near the end.

Click to expand...

I wish I could find this on DVD. It's the most perfect encapsulation of mid-seventies LA ever. The costumes, hair, characters, vehicles, music, everything was on the mark.

1. People Under the Stairs <-- ROACH
2. Escape from NY
3. Escape from LA
4. Back to School (Dangerfield & Sam Kinison butting heads)
5. The Toy (Gleeson & Pryor butting heads)

I've seen Car Wash as part of a four dvd set in places like walmart and dollar general.

robin hood (the one with kevin Costner, who I thought sucked, but it also had Alan Rickman, so...yeah, loved it)
Earth Girls Are Easy (with the BESTEST soundtrack!)
That Darn Cat (an old Disney. Is it bad? I've heard people say so, and it's older, but I loved that movie!
Lethal Weapon 2
and then there is
the Last of Redmen, really a class by itself for sheer awfulness (Buster Crabbe as Magua, FFS). But, the actual filming is hysterical (it is not meant to be)--the "Indians" ride horses with blankets with large bulges in the front and back, EXACTLY as though the blanket were thrown over a saddle! A man dives into the water to fight an "Indian" but has his sword with him, so tries swimming with the sword...very funny (unintentionally) The "Indians" do not know how to paddle a canoe at all, so it zig zags back and forth...just so awful. My grandfather loved to sleep at movies but he didn't miss a minute of this one.

Also loved Office space,gross point blank, Foul Play, Cutting Edge, other random romcoms I thought were fun but were never going to win any awards!

then there are movies people liked that I loathed --- > pretty woman, sleepless in seattle, Legends of the Fall, No Country for old men, There will be blood