Kevin's Watch

I haven't read Starship Troopers and therefore had no expectations before seeing the film the first time. The film had its flaws but the special effects wasn't one of them. One of the first times I've witnessed a convincing portrayal of capital ships being torn asunder. The "bugs" were well animated etc. I liked the film enough to have watched it a number of times.


Supergirl was another piece of crap film. A shame they drug poor Peter O'Toole into that slog but such is life.

Avatar wrote: Well, considering the original book was published in 1959, maybe not current per se. (Or maybe indicative of how little some things change.)

I prefer the book myself. Thought the satire in the movie was not obvious enough.

--A

I think part of the reason it worked so well was that they didn't hit us over the head with it. And yes, some things don't change.

aTOMiC wrote:The film had its flaws but the special effects wasn't one of them. One of the first times I've witnessed a convincing portrayal of capital ships being torn asunder.

Yes. And the soundtrack was perfect.

If it even HAS a space ship or a super hero, then it has at least one entertaining feature. Maybe they are the worst sci-fi movie, or the worst super hero movie, but they ain't the worst movie.

Avatar wrote:
Well, considering the original book was published in 1959, maybe not current per se. (Or maybe indicative of how little some things change.)

I prefer the book myself. Thought the satire in the movie was not obvious enough.

--A

Well LOL yes not 2017 current But contemporaneously current .. with the consumerism, racism, bigotry

I don't know how more obvious did it need to be? They're handing out loaded weapons to school kids!!! Hahaha.. everyone must do their part!

The Lobster. Unquestionably The Lobster. Followed closely by The Neon Demon. Both execrable. Both left me sitting confused in a chair saying why would anyone make that film?

Showgirls was an interesting one: it perfectly balanced my conflicting desire to abandon a s*** film with my desire to watch lap-dancing girls.

Hahahahaha .. The Lobster! Yes!

Haven't seen Showgirls

I cannot believe we've arrived at the SECOND page of this thread and no one has mentioned Battlefield Earth. Seriously?


Of course this is definitely a contender. Heh. Consider it had a $0 budget.

The worst movie I've ever seen was Monster A Go Go, which I saw as part of Mystery Science Theater 3000. It's a movie so bad, even Joel and the bots could not make it entertaining. I think early on, Crow says, "Joel...I think this one is really gonna hurt." Lots of screen time of absolutely nothing going on. I think they learned from that movie that the movie has to at least be watchable to make it fun for the audience. Manos: Hands of Fate people argue is the worst, but it is so much sillier than Monster A Go Go.
But yeah....Highlander 2. Was really excited about this one, and got a bunch of people to go with me to it because it was my birthday. I felt like refunding everybody's money after it.
Sorus, why it was so bad was the same trap Star Wars Episode 1 fell into: explaining something that just simply does not need explaining. Did we need to know that the Highlanders were aliens or some crap? What does it matter. The original made little sense, but it didn't need to. It had a killer soundtrack and a funky and surreal approach, as well as a bit of heartbreak of what it must be like to be immortal. All I knew and all I needed to know is that "there can be only one." Didn't matter why. And certainly didn't need to start the fight over again, as he was supposed to be the last one. The premise of any sequel to Highlander was flawed from the start. And somehow, I didn't see that coming because the original was so weird.

Any film based around the premise that it is funny to see a man remodeled as a blubbery woman (think Mrs Doubtfire et al) have got to be my least favourite genre of films as a whole.

Cagliostro wrote:The premise of any sequel to Highlander was flawed from the start.

There was no sequel!

--A

Avatar wrote:

Cagliostro wrote:The premise of any sequel to Highlander was flawed from the start.

There was no sequel!

--A

You keep telling yourself that, Av.

I know. It helps me sleep at night.

"There can be only one!" movie

aTOMiC wrote:I cannot believe we've arrived at the SECOND page of this thread and no one has mentioned Battlefield Earth. Seriously?

I didn't even try to watch Battlefield Earth. Not to suggest that it doesn't belong high on the list, but most of the things on my list were things I actually sat through with at least an expectation that they'd be decent.

aTOMiC wrote:"There can be only one!" movie

That said, I actually really liked the series.

And as for Battlefield Earth, I really enjoyed the book. I loved that where in most cases what would be the final climactic act, was actually only half-way through.

--A

Agree Av - Old Elron could write a damn good tale ......... read another one called 'Dianetics' IIRC.......

I read the whole Mission:Earth thing.

Me too, and enjoyed that as well, polemic notwithstanding.

--A

I didn't.

But, guys, this is a discussion about films. The books may have been excellent but the film was an abomination. If you haven't seen it you don't understand just how monumentally crappy it really is. Its noteworthy as a terrible film just for the over the top use of dutch angles alone. That crap worked for the 60s Batman television show but was visually distracting for a feature film. But that isn't the biggest problem by a LONG shot.

Save me the time of writing more. Just watch it.

I submit for you the legendary, almost-never-seen "The Day the Clown Cried" produced by Jerry Lewis.

"The 1972 movie 'The Day the Clown Cried' - starring Jerry Lewis as a failed circus clown who is employed to entertain and distract children as they are led into a Nazi concentration camp gas chamber during the Holocaust - has never seen the light of day."

"Lewis repeatedly insisted that The Day the Clown Cried would never be released because it is an embarrassingly 'bad work' of which he was ashamed. Despite claims the film will never be screened, Lewis reportedly donated a copy of the film to the Library of Congress in 2015, under the stipulation that it wouldn't be screened before June 2024."

"'With most of these kinds of things, you find that the anticipation, or the concept, is better than the thing itself. But seeing this film was really awe-inspiring, in that you are rarely in the presence of a perfect object. This was a perfect object. This movie is so drastically wrong, its pathos and its comedy are so wildly misplaced, that you could not, in your fantasy of what it might be like, improve on what it really is. ''Oh, My God!'' - that's all you can say.'

-- Harry Shearer, Spy magazine, 1992"

Most definitively, beyond any doubt: Highlander II. Would rather watch the Watergate trials in swahili.