Saturday, July 30, 2005
CBG: "Worst Movie Ever!"
I was flipping through the channels tonight and the Patrick Swayze movie Roadhouse was on Spike TV. There are a couple of movies that will always make me stop flipping channels and watch them in their entirety, the Robert Redford movie Sneakers or a great movie like Casablanca. Roadhouse is one of those movies as well, but for entirely different reasons.
I've had a couple of jobs where, among other things, I was required to keep at least one eye on movies. So I've seen a lot of movies, from all time greats to low budget slashers and everything in between. I've seen movies that are so bad that you simply find it hard to believe that anyone would have financially backed such a stinker. Likewise, I've seen little films that received zero press that were absolutely fabulous.
Roadhouse is just an absolute trainwreck of a movie, but I simply can't bring myself to look away. Another favorite bad movie is John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China, but, unlike Roadhouse, Carpenter's film was (I sincerely hope) a tongue-in-cheek send up of a Hong Kong action film, relased when most of us didn't know what a Hong Kong action film was. Big Trouble in Little China is chock full of, what TSA refers to as "shitty goodness." Roadhouse is just shitty.
It did get me to thinking what the worst movie of all time is. Everyone is going to immediately blurt out Ed Wood, Plan 9 From Outer Space. Hard to argue with, and it certainly is a shitty film. But if you talk to movie reviewers, they will admit that they judge different films differently. You have to take a lot of factors into account. A Hong Kong action film, for example can't be judged by the same criteria as a studio's big budget prestige release. Different things are expected out of different films. No Jackie Chan film is known for it's compelling dialogue, but The English Patient didn't have an absolutely hilarious fight scene at a construction site. So Plan 9 is an unbelievably bad film, but it was directed by Ed Wood on a nearly nonexistent budget, not much was to be expected.
The worst movie of all time, in my opinion, is the Warner Bros. release Twister. This big budget crap-o-rama is unbelievable. Besides not being based in any sort of reality, the movie is quite irresponsible as far as tornado safety goes. Big tornado barrelling down on you? Get out of your vehicle, don't lie flat on the ground, instead run accross a large open field to a structure. A structure? Why the hell are you going into a building that will simply just fall in around you? Unbelievable! I'm sure a few fools who aren't familiar with tornadoes but have seen the crap-fest get killed every year because of this stinker.
But Twister has it's own "shitty goodness" factor that, like Roadhouse makes it impossible for me to look away. In one word, "continuity." There is the person on every set with the title of "continuity." If the person doing continuity for Twister is still working in Hollywood there is absolutely no justice in the universe. Most movies have continuity errors to some degree, in Twister they literally reach out from the screen and slap you in the face. The prime offender? That red GMC pickup that they drive around through out the movie. It has a broken winshield, it doesn't have a broken winshield. It's hail damaged, it isn't hail damaged. You can see stuff in the winshield of the truck that simply shouldn't be there constantly. I derive perverse pleasure from seeing all of these things every time I happen upon this shit burger. We're not talking a no budget Ed Wood film here, this was Warner's huge summer release. Pathetic.
While I'm on the subject of continutiy, though, I need to call attention to the biggest error of them all. Helen Hunt spends the whole movie in a skimpy tank top and no bra. Hey, it was the one enjoyable thing in the film for me. I would have enjoyed it more if someone had remembered that it can get a little chilly in a thunderstorm, a kind of chill that most likely should have caused an appropriate physical response in Ms. Hunt. Pathetic.
BOJ
I've had a couple of jobs where, among other things, I was required to keep at least one eye on movies. So I've seen a lot of movies, from all time greats to low budget slashers and everything in between. I've seen movies that are so bad that you simply find it hard to believe that anyone would have financially backed such a stinker. Likewise, I've seen little films that received zero press that were absolutely fabulous.
Roadhouse is just an absolute trainwreck of a movie, but I simply can't bring myself to look away. Another favorite bad movie is John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China, but, unlike Roadhouse, Carpenter's film was (I sincerely hope) a tongue-in-cheek send up of a Hong Kong action film, relased when most of us didn't know what a Hong Kong action film was. Big Trouble in Little China is chock full of, what TSA refers to as "shitty goodness." Roadhouse is just shitty.
It did get me to thinking what the worst movie of all time is. Everyone is going to immediately blurt out Ed Wood, Plan 9 From Outer Space. Hard to argue with, and it certainly is a shitty film. But if you talk to movie reviewers, they will admit that they judge different films differently. You have to take a lot of factors into account. A Hong Kong action film, for example can't be judged by the same criteria as a studio's big budget prestige release. Different things are expected out of different films. No Jackie Chan film is known for it's compelling dialogue, but The English Patient didn't have an absolutely hilarious fight scene at a construction site. So Plan 9 is an unbelievably bad film, but it was directed by Ed Wood on a nearly nonexistent budget, not much was to be expected.
The worst movie of all time, in my opinion, is the Warner Bros. release Twister. This big budget crap-o-rama is unbelievable. Besides not being based in any sort of reality, the movie is quite irresponsible as far as tornado safety goes. Big tornado barrelling down on you? Get out of your vehicle, don't lie flat on the ground, instead run accross a large open field to a structure. A structure? Why the hell are you going into a building that will simply just fall in around you? Unbelievable! I'm sure a few fools who aren't familiar with tornadoes but have seen the crap-fest get killed every year because of this stinker.
But Twister has it's own "shitty goodness" factor that, like Roadhouse makes it impossible for me to look away. In one word, "continuity." There is the person on every set with the title of "continuity." If the person doing continuity for Twister is still working in Hollywood there is absolutely no justice in the universe. Most movies have continuity errors to some degree, in Twister they literally reach out from the screen and slap you in the face. The prime offender? That red GMC pickup that they drive around through out the movie. It has a broken winshield, it doesn't have a broken winshield. It's hail damaged, it isn't hail damaged. You can see stuff in the winshield of the truck that simply shouldn't be there constantly. I derive perverse pleasure from seeing all of these things every time I happen upon this shit burger. We're not talking a no budget Ed Wood film here, this was Warner's huge summer release. Pathetic.
While I'm on the subject of continutiy, though, I need to call attention to the biggest error of them all. Helen Hunt spends the whole movie in a skimpy tank top and no bra. Hey, it was the one enjoyable thing in the film for me. I would have enjoyed it more if someone had remembered that it can get a little chilly in a thunderstorm, a kind of chill that most likely should have caused an appropriate physical response in Ms. Hunt. Pathetic.
BOJ
# posted by Blind Orange Julius @ 9:38 PM 
