Shit films that you want to discuss - Opposed to the film recommendations thread, I suppose

[Man vs persistent rat]

The last one I remember actively disliking or thinking was awful was Arrival. That film about the linguist trying to communicate with Aliens. Everyone raved about how great it was, but god did I find it boring. It's not bad in the sense of having bad visuals or acting, but it's just boring. You can see the twists and turns miles away. I think it was the only time I actively got out my phone to browse the internet during the film while in a cinema, and no one else seemed to give a shit that I was doing so.

The Arrival was average as hell, but as a well-made exercise in its genre I found it to be okay. It's kind of like Life (2017) - derivative, offers little new, but was produced to please people who like that genre (although I found Life to be far more of a mega-bore than Arrival tbh).

Considering its director and his reputation, it was a bit of a nothing film.

 

[Overly Serious]

The last one I remember actively disliking or thinking was awful was Arrival. That film about the linguist trying to communicate with Aliens. Everyone raved about how great it was, but god did I find it boring. It's not bad in the sense of having bad visuals or acting, but it's just boring. You can see the twists and turns miles away. I think it was the only time I actively got out my phone to browse the internet during the film while in a cinema, and no one else seemed to give a shit that I was doing so.

I think there's a whole class of films that become hits because people who are less intelligent find them ground-breaking or surprising when the rest of us don't. The ideas and twist in Arrival was probably amazing to some but kind of obvious to us. The Usual Suspects was another such film, imo. I remember everybody raving about it. I watched it and at the end thought, "well - obviously." All of this was coming from one individual without corroboration. Why would you trust any of this? To other people though, it's an amazing twist.

The Arrival was average as hell, but as a well-made exercise in its genre I found it to be okay. It's kind of like Life (2017) - derivative, offers little new, but was produced to please people who like that genre (although I found Life to be far more of a mega-bore than Arrival tbh).

Life was well-executed pap, agreed. To me the most annoying thing in the movie was the ending. The character and audience can't be allowed a triumph. It has to end, like most such films these days, on a "it was all for nothing after all" final scene. Hate that.

 

[Man vs persistent rat]

I think there's a whole class of films that become hits because people who are less intelligent find them ground-breaking or surprising when the rest of us don't. The ideas and twist in Arrival was probably amazing to some but kind of obvious to us. The Usual Suspects was another such film, imo. I remember everybody raving about it. I watched it and at the end thought, "well - obviously." All of this was coming from one individual without corroboration. Why would you trust any of this? To other people though, it's an amazing twist.

A friend of mine coined this group as "Movie Bros" - the type whose favourite films are invariably stuff like Fight Club, American Psycho, Usual Suspects, Being John Malkovich, Se7en, There Will be Blood, Inherent Vice, everything Christopher Nolan produces, Looper, etc. The most lamestream "clever"/"meta" content. Not really a criticism of those films, as I consider all of them to be at least good, but there is a pattern.

 

[Raging Capybara]

A friend of mine coined this group as "Movie Bros" - the type whose favourite films are invariably stuff like Fight Club, American Psycho, Usual Suspects, Being John Malkovich, Se7en, Inherent Vice, everything Christopher Nolan produces, Looper, etc. The most lamestream "clever"/"meta" content. Not a criticism of those films, as I consider all of them to be at least good, but there is a pattern.

Well, there're the ones who always put "Bergman" and "Tarkovsky" movies on their lists of favorite films who are pretty annoying as well. They always brag about how they "understand" what real cinema really is and so on.

 

[Jason Wynn]

Well, there're the ones who always put "Bergman" and "Tarkovsky" movies on their lists of favorite films who are pretty annoying as well. They always brag about how they "understand" what real cinema really is and so on.

Pfft! You didn't include Méliès, Bunuel or Cocteau in your list? What a rube! How dare you even call yourself a film aficionado. Why not go toddle on back to your George Lucas, kid?

Film snobs suck and are just as much a tryhard faggot as book snobs.

On topic: The Paperboy is a shitty movie, but fun to watch. Psycho teen develops a crush on his neighbor and starts killing people so he can be part of her family. The actor was going through puberty during shooting so he sounds like the Squeaky Voiced Teen on The Simpsons when throwing a tantrum or trying to be menacing.

 

[Overly Serious]

Well, there're the ones who always put "Bergman" and "Tarkovsky" movies on their lists of favorite films who are pretty annoying as well. They always brag about how they "understand" what real cinema really is and so on.

Oh, THAT is the most annoying thing in the world - people who assume if you don't like what they like that you don't get it because you're not as smart. Comes up especially with movies.

 

[Jacques Strap]

I think you're all just salty because your IQs weren't high enough to understand the complexity of Inception

 

[The Curmudgeon]

I see no one has mentioned Mac and Me:

YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

youtu.be

It's an E.T. rip off. One of the most notorious scenes is a big dance party at a McDonald's. You read that correctly.

 

[Overly Serious]

The Cats thread reminded me of a perfect film for this thread: Repo! The Genetic Opera.

A low-budget sci-fi musical about organ repossessions that sucked in Anthony Stewart Head who I guess was trying to transition from TV to movies, Alexa Vega (girl from Spy Kids) who I guess was trying to transition from kid's movies to adult ones, Paris Hilton who I guess was trying to transition to acting entirely (well, she plays a wealthy heiress so how much acting is required is another matter)... and Sarah Brightman who was, is and always will be too batshit crazy to care what she's in, she'll still give it everything she has and God bless her for it as she belts out incomprehensible numbers about holographic eyes and chasing mornings which I think is symbolism but who knows?

This is a glorious mess with terrible pacing, deeply unclear world building, an annoyingly catchy song about surgical drugs and at least half the supporting cast appear to be strippers.

I'm just going to drop the trailer here for those who've never heard of it.

 

[Man vs persistent rat]

Okay so there seems to be more Italian rat films than I realised. There's the notable Rats: Night of Terror, but I just discovered whatever this is - has anybody seen it, or know of any other European rodent-extravaganzas I am missing.

 

[BrunoMattei]

I want to discuss at length the Super Mario Bros. movie. Imagine we're in a college class, I'm holding all of you hostage and have taped pins under your eyes ala Argento's Opera.

#1 Opening scene.

They had no fucking money and it looks like shit but someone high up thought "We have to explain right away wtf is going with dinosaurs, alternate dimensions and dinosaur people."

So Daisy's mother leaves her at a church at the beginning. That old cliche. But wait a second, how do dinosaur people know about this shit? Is this a thing in the dinosaur world where orphans are dropped off at church's? How did she know about this? Do dinosaur people believe in god? What is the dinosaur god? So many questions and we're 2 minutes in.

Why the fuck did the Mario Bros. go to this plumbing job when there's already plumbers? Is undercutting such a thing with NYC? I don't think it is.

I read that the original cut was closer to 2 and half or 3 hours and the first hour was just Mario and Luigi in Manhattan doing shit. In this instance I agree with the suits in charge to cut most of the bullshit out. Also, not even even touching on Mario's last name being Mario for some reason but they fucked up the casting. In the games, Luigi is the older brother of Mario. But they reversed it and state that Mario adopted him when he was fairly young. Why do you need that? I think Leguizamo and Hoskins were fine in the roles but why even tease that they have Brother/father-son relationship?

For a kids movie there's a strong underlying threat of rape throughout the movie. At least in this part and later with Koopa. But there's more, I'll get to that. The mafioso looks at Daisy with rapey eyes.

How did Spike and Iggy teleport back to the archaeological site after kidnapping Mario's girlfriend? Like, they had to grab her, maybe drug her, bring her through all this shit, hop through the portal, get to Koopa's, get scolded, get told to go back and now they're here. That's easily 4 hour trip.

The movie forces the catchphrase "Egg suckers!" on us. And you get it, it's the kid movie equivalent to cock sucker. But waitasecond, we've established the people in the dinosaur world are born through eggs. Which means that "egg sucker" has an entirely different context in this world. So in essence, "egg sucker" in the dinosaur world means to go fuck a baby.

Skipping ahead, the car chase where they ripoff Mad Max 2 AKA Road Warrior. Mario and Luigi give no fucks about killing cops. The sexual undercurrent that we never got as kids continues:

"You know what they say about little girls? They never forget the first time they were kissed by a lizard!"

Here's the thing about Koopa's plan: it makes no sense. He wants to merge the worlds so he can take over. Okay. But, all of the world's military won't let that happen? What does Koopa have that could threaten humanity? He has de-evolution guns, okay, but he can't use them on masses of people. That's not going to stop a nuke. And he can already invade because the portal to our world is open and Spike and Iggy have been using it constantly. You could say "Well, maybe the Goomba's are really tough soldiers and can't be brought down by small arms fire?"

WRONG

Koopa invades "I'm going to take over the world!" And the National Guard just annihilates him and his troops in an afternoon. Then we could have invaded the dinosaur world and take advantage of their technology. Mario and Luigi did everyone a disservice by saving the day, there may have been a few casualties but Koopa would have gotten his ass handed to him.

BTW: okay, Koopa is defeated, but the portal was still open so how did no one approach Daisy about getting access to the dinosaur world?

 

[Maamtis]

October is a great time to go back and visit that rash of disposable horror films that popped up between 1998 to 2002.

Just recently saw the 2001 classic "Thirteen Ghost" or "Thir13en Ghost" (pick your poison) and I'm baffled by the insane laziness around such a great concept. I understand that in terms of running time it would be impossible to go into the back story of each and every ghost, but it's not like they were suspended for an already action-packed plot. The bulk of the movie is just the cast going up and down different hallways and screaming. The kill count is...one. Tension is zero. The only interesting thing about it was all the unique ghost and their place is the black zodiac. It's just one of those movies that had so much potential and it makes me sad to wonder what might have been.

As tired as it sounds, it would be pretty neat if Netflix somehow picked up the rights to the film and did a single season, thirteen-episode run. There could be a similar over-arching plot like the movie had, but each episode could focus on one of the ghosts.

I do like this one but it came right at the height of Hollywood's obsession with making black characters annoying cliche machines.

The Cats thread reminded me of a perfect film for this thread: Repo! The Genetic Opera.

A low-budget sci-fi musical about organ repossessions that sucked in Anthony Stewart Head who I guess was trying to transition from TV to movies, Alexa Vega (girl from Spy Kids) who I guess was trying to transition from kid's movies to adult ones, Paris Hilton who I guess was trying to transition to acting entirely (well, she plays a wealthy heiress so how much acting is required is another matter)... and Sarah Brightman who was, is and always will be too batshit crazy to care what she's in, she'll still give it everything she has and God bless her for it as she belts out incomprehensible numbers about holographic eyes and chasing mornings which I think is symbolism but who knows?

This is a glorious mess with terrible pacing, deeply unclear world building, an annoyingly catchy song about surgical drugs and at least half the supporting cast appear to be strippers.

I'm just going to drop the trailer here for those who've never heard of it.

I unironically love this movie. You would be surprised how many times I've recommended this movie to someone only for them to nope the fuck out once they find out Paris Hilton is in it.

I want to discuss at length the Super Mario Bros. movie. Imagine we're in a college class, I'm holding all of you hostage and have taped pins under your eyes ala Argento's Opera.

View attachment 1068704

#1 Opening scene. View attachment 1068737

They had no fucking money and it looks like shit but someone high up thought "We have to explain right away wtf is going with dinosaurs, alternate dimensions and dinosaur people."



View attachment 1068741

So Daisy's mother leaves her at a church at the beginning. That old cliche. But wait a second, how do dinosaur people know about this shit? Is this a thing in the dinosaur world where orphans are dropped off at church's? How did she know about this? Do dinosaur people believe in god? What is the dinosaur god? So many questions and we're 2 minutes in.

View attachment 1068742

Why the fuck did the Mario Bros. go to this plumbing job when there's already plumbers? Is undercutting such a thing with NYC? I don't think it is.

I read that the original cut was closer to 2 and half or 3 hours and the first hour was just Mario and Luigi in Manhattan doing shit. In this instance I agree with the suits in charge to cut most of the bullshit out. Also, not even even touching on Mario's last name being Mario for some reason but they fucked up the casting. In the games, Luigi is the older brother of Mario. But they reversed it and state that Mario adopted him when he was fairly young. Why do you need that? I think Leguizamo and Hoskins were fine in the roles but why even tease that they have Brother/father-son relationship?

View attachment 1068745

For a kids movie there's a strong underlying threat of rape throughout the movie. At least in this part and later with Koopa. But there's more, I'll get to that. The mafioso looks at Daisy with rapey eyes.

View attachment 1068750

How did Spike and Iggy teleport back to the archaeological site after kidnapping Mario's girlfriend? Like, they had to grab her, maybe drug her, bring her through all this shit, hop through the portal, get to Koopa's, get scolded, get told to go back and now they're here. That's easily 4 hour trip.

View attachment 1068758

The movie forces the catchphrase "Egg suckers!" on us. And you get it, it's the kid movie equivalent to cock sucker. But waitasecond, we've established the people in the dinosaur world are born through eggs. Which means that "egg sucker" has an entirely different context in this world. So in essence, "egg sucker" in the dinosaur world means to go fuck a baby.

Skipping ahead, the car chase where they ripoff Mad Max 2 AKA Road Warrior. Mario and Luigi give no fucks about killing cops. The sexual undercurrent that we never got as kids continues:

View attachment 1068798

"You know what they say about little girls? They never forget the first time they were kissed by a lizard!"

Here's the thing about Koopa's plan: it makes no sense. He wants to merge the worlds so he can take over. Okay. But, all of the world's military won't let that happen? What does Koopa have that could threaten humanity? He has de-evolution guns, okay, but he can't use them on masses of people. That's not going to stop a nuke. And he can already invade because the portal to our world is open and Spike and Iggy have been using it constantly. You could say "Well, maybe the Goomba's are really tough soldiers and can't be brought down by small arms fire?"

WRONG

View attachment 1068804

Koopa invades "I'm going to take over the world!" And the National Guard just annihilates him and his troops in an afternoon. Then we could have invaded the dinosaur world and take advantage of their technology. Mario and Luigi did everyone a disservice by saving the day, there may have been a few casualties but Koopa would have gotten his ass handed to him.

BTW: okay, Koopa is defeated, but the portal was still open so how did no one approach Daisy about getting access to the dinosaur world?

I think this film's biggest weakness was also it's draw and that's having the Super Mario property attached to it. I think if it didn't have the Mario name on it it would be considered a cheesy cult classic but as it stands is one of the worst video game adaptions in film history.

Still one of the worst films for mine is a movie Man From Earth which is a pretentious piece of shit about a man who reveals a secret to his friends at his going away party. That secret is...

Spoiler

that he is actually over 2000 years old, knew almost all of the great historical figures and was (accidentally) Jesus.

the whole thing plays out like something my friends and I would come up with in high school when we'd been drinking/smoking and were trying to be deep. The film is actually rather well-received so maybe I just don't "get it." *shrugs*

 

[Overly Serious]

I unironically love this movie. You would be surprised how many times I've recommended this movie to someone only for them to nope the fuck out once they find out Paris Hilton is in it.

Fun fact (which you probably know): Paris Hilton supplied her own outfits for her role. They didn't have much budget (which is obvious) and she just turned up with a pile of trashy expensive outfits including that bondage-looking thing she wears in the "little glass vial" number. All hers!

Paris gets so much flak because she's a rich, blonde, socialite heiress. But actually when I've seen her on things like Top Gear she actually comes across as someone who'd be nice to hang out with.

Still one of the worst films for mine is a movie Man From Earth which is a pretentious piece of shit about a man who reveals a secret to his friends at his going away party. That secret is...

Spoiler

that he is actually over 2000 years old, knew almost all of the great historical figures and was (accidentally) Jesus.

the whole thing plays out like something my friends and I would come up with in high school when we'd been drinking/smoking and were trying to be deep. The film is actually rather well-received so maybe I just don't "get it." *shrugs*

I've seen that! I think it helps to view it as a play which is what it originally was. Hence why nearly everything takes place in one room and is 99% dialogue. It's one of those old school slow character reveal style plays like God of Carnage or Abigail's Party. I probably had different expectations but I enjoyed it. Watching it late on an evening when no-one was around and I had been working long hours and just wanted something super low-key probably helped.

 

[BrunoMattei]

I do like this one but it came right at the height of Hollywood's obsession with making black characters annoying cliche machines.



I unironically love this movie. You would be surprised how many times I've recommended this movie to someone only for them to nope the fuck out once they find out Paris Hilton is in it.



I think this film's biggest weakness was also it's draw and that's having the Super Mario property attached to it. I think if it didn't have the Mario name on it it would be considered a cheesy cult classic but as it stands is one of the worst video game adaptions in film history.

Still one of the worst films for mine is a movie Man From Earth which is a pretentious piece of shit about a man who reveals a secret to his friends at his going away party. That secret is...

Spoiler

that he is actually over 2000 years old, knew almost all of the great historical figures and was (accidentally) Jesus.

the whole thing plays out like something my friends and I would come up with in high school when we'd been drinking/smoking and were trying to be deep. The film is actually rather well-received so maybe I just don't "get it." *shrugs*

I've read that defense before and even if you remove everything to do with Super Mario Bros. (and the movie has little to do with the games anyway) it would still be bad and make no sense at all.

 

[Biffo]

I've read that defense before and even if you remove everything to do with Super Mario Bros. (and the movie has little to do with the games anyway) it would still be bad and make no sense at all.

I agree, only real reason anyone enjoys Super Mario Bros the Movie is the same reason they like Troll 2 or the Room, the Mario ip just adds to the weirdness and without it would have been forgotten long ago .

 

[Mister Qwerty]

Bill, the Galactic Hero based on Harry Harrison's science fiction novel. A crowdfunded film directed by Alex Cox, the same guy who directed Repo Man and Sid & Nancy. One of the most amateurish movies I've ever watched by a director who made one of the greatest cult movies of all time. Makes Space Cop look like Citizen Kane by comparison.

I don't think Alex Cox has ever made a decent movie since Repo Man. Has anybody here watched Repo Chick?

 

[BrunoMattei]

There's a Repo Chick?

Also, I have this weird desire to re-watch The Crow: City of Angels.

 

[Maamtis]

Fun fact (which you probably know): Paris Hilton supplied her own outfits for her role. They didn't have much budget (which is obvious) and she just turned up with a pile of trashy expensive outfits including that bondage-looking thing she wears in the "little glass vial" number. All hers!

Paris gets so much flak because she's a rich, blonde, socialite heiress. But actually when I've seen her on things like Top Gear she actually comes across as someone who'd be nice to hang out with.



I've seen that! I think it helps to view it as a play which is what it originally was. Hence why nearly everything takes place in one room and is 99% dialogue. It's one of those old school slow character reveal style plays like God of Carnage or Abigail's Party. I probably had different expectations but I enjoyed it. Watching it late on an evening when no-one was around and I had been working long hours and just wanted something super low-key probably helped.

Sounds like it might work better in that setting. It could very well be a problem with how the play was adapted.

 

[Overly Serious]

Sounds like it might work better in that setting. It could very well be a problem with how the play was adapted.

Yeah. Imagine it as one of those one-room, two-act plays where people talk and slow revelations and breakdowns happen and I personally think it's not bad. Think of it as a movie and you're sitting there thinking "why is everyone just sitting in a room and there are only three camera angles?"

Twelve Angry Men is a film that has the same genre (for want of a better word). But there the one-room style was a great critical success. But I honestly think if Twelve Angry Men were released today, even with modern techniques, it wouldn't be a success simply because modern audiences aren't primed for that style of drama. A Man from Earth works for me because I'm used to old school theatre and enjoy it. The artifice of a whole dramatic arc just being dialogue in one static setting is a conceit that I'm innured to. For an audience not steeped in that (I'm not trying to speak for your reaction, just general audience) it's going to feel artificial. Look at the old Importance of Being Earnest film adaptation vs. the more recent one with Colin Firth. The former is very close to the play with a minimal number of rooms. For the more recent the director clearly understood that modern audiences needed a more filmic approach and dialogue which would formerly been in one setting is split amongst multiple locations and scenes. Modern audiences have moved on from the constraints of old theatre forms. And also perhaps because most people don't interact like that in real life, now. People don't run salons anymore!

Off-topic: I'd love to run a salon. Articulate, educated guests gathering for tea and scones whilst discussing interesting matters of the day. But these days people just want to get wasted and bone with any intellectual conversation being provided by online echo-chambers forums. Or maybe I just need worse friends.

 

[Maamtis]

Yeah. Imagine it as one of those one-room, two-act plays where people talk and slow revelations and breakdowns happen and I personally think it's not bad. Think of it as a movie and you're sitting there thinking "why is everyone just sitting in a room and there are only three camera angles?"

Twelve Angry Men is a film that has the same genre (for want of a better word). But there the one-room style was a great critical success. But I honestly think if Twelve Angry Men were released today, even with modern techniques, it wouldn't be a success simply because modern audiences aren't primed for that style of drama. A Man from Earth works for me because I'm used to old school theatre and enjoy it. The artifice of a whole dramatic arc just being dialogue in one static setting is a conceit that I'm innured to. For an audience not steeped in that (I'm not trying to speak for your reaction, just general audience) it's going to feel artificial. Look at the old Importance of Being Earnest film adaptation vs. the more recent one with Colin Firth. The former is very close to the play with a minimal number of rooms. For the more recent the director clearly understood that modern audiences needed a more filmic approach and dialogue which would formerly been in one setting is split amongst multiple locations and scenes. Modern audiences have moved on from the constraints of old theatre forms. And also perhaps because most people don't interact like that in real life, now. People don't run salons anymore!

Off-topic: I'd love to run a salon. Articulate, educated guests gathering for tea and scones whilst discussing interesting matters of the day. But these days people just want to get wasted and bone with any intellectual conversation being provided by online echo-chambers forums. Or maybe I just need worse friends.

Now you mention it I'm reminded of an Australian play I studied in school called Cosi which is about someone who produces a play in a local psychiatric hospital. What I loved most about the play was it's nuance when it came to its portrayal of the mentally ill. Found out there was a movie and watched it only to turn it off after 20 minutes when I realised they'd turned them all into "wacky" stereotypes.