Universally agreed terrible film(s)

catalog

Well-known member
i have actually worked on one of the terrible films mentioned in this thread but i'm not going to say which one. it was a hellish experience though and convinced me to get out of that industry once and for all
 

HannahB

Well-known member
@sufi
Hmm - I agree about the 80s but is it not also bad costuming and too much smoke machines? I actually cried about the movies in the 80s how horrible they looked when I was 11, it depressed me… 90s was invention of HMI lights I think (daylight corrected) but not sure how far into the 90s? and was 80s the disuse of carbon arcs? Did carbon arcs still get used in the 70s? They use full spectrum more than any other (esp. xenons). Always wishes I had operated one, dreamed I did.
LEDs don’t get me started on that hate. Not only in digital but also everywhere and their horrible ultrasonic noise. Just say no.
90s developed (haha) some great film stocks I suppose, fine halide grains. 70s - you would have to research each film, don’t know.
Lenses: I mean Zeiss Super Speeds are still used and their design is pre 80s but they were last built in the 80s and their glass has lead in, now banned… All those lenses (especially Russian) had toxicity because the minerals sparkle and give colour better obviously…
I don’t know what daylights they used in the 80s - are the daylight scenes the disliked ones or the interiors? And which particular films?
Bla bla. I guess gotta be more specific otherwise I can’t answer
 

HannahB

Well-known member
Malick? Yeah, bash Malick!
Yep! Walked out of that RIDICULOUS film Tree Of Life at the diplodocus scene and cannot imagine seeing another of his Christian films. I only like Days of Heaven and that is bc of magic hour natural lighting and Sam Shepard not bc of the movie which is actually quite tedious; also love all the grasshopper and close ups of the wheat and nature etc
 

HannahB

Well-known member
Argento paid a lot of attention to heightening the visual dimensions of film, and it's a general feature of Italian filmmaking of the period. See also the masterpieces of Vittorio Storaro: The Fifth Cord, The Conformist, Apocalypse Now, One From the Heart...
Does anywhere in London still have film projectors not 4K dig? Conformist is so beautiful.
 

HannahB

Well-known member
You know how everyone agrees Citizen Kate is great? Or at least everyone except perhaps four people or so. It is so universally acclaimed that it has become simply a shorthand for a masterpiece, magnum opus type thing.
"This film is a good genre piece but it's no Citizen Kane... " and so on. The same perhaps is true of The Bicycle Thieves and maybe a few other garlanded heroes of the cinematic world...

But we know all about those. What about the other end of the scale? Are there any films that are universally despised in the same way?

I think the problem might be that if a film is really bad and also a commercial failure then it might just be forgotten, it can't be remembered in the same way cos people don't seek it out to watch, quite the opposite in fact. You don't get retrospectives saying remember that bad film from twenty years ago? It's still really bad.

Of course there are stinkers that everyone did see but these become cult classics - Ed Wood or the like have this kitsch appeal which muddies the waters. I just want some suggestions for films that are bad - very bad in fact - and everyone knows it, but which have no cult appeal or any particular redeeming features. Films whose only unique element is that they are worse than virtually all other films and everyone knows it, and, as a result of this they could become a useful shorthand. A kind of redemption in the afterlife for a film that failed its makers and backers and actors but which nobly performs a service and becomes useful to some people at last as some kind of apology for being so shit.

So, suggestions please? Of course it's tempting to say Tree of Life but some freaks do like that one so it may not be the right choice. I would probably go for The New World but what about the rest of you? Any thoughts for other films? Perhaps even something not by Malick, I dunno, hit me, maybe there is something obvious I'm missing.
I can’t stand Citizen Kane and all how a captain of industry made it big —— sooooo boring. Also Lady of Shanghai, beautiful mirrors scene but the rest of it!
 

HannahB

Well-known member
A good illustration of the fact that men who go out of their way to look very, very hard often also look very, very gay.
Haven’t seen it. Is he muscular curvy? I read a book on westerns from 15 years ago saying Bruce Willis camped the action hero where the super buffness emulated curvy lady. Is this what you mean by “looked very, very gay” or what?
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
I remember thinking badlands was sort of alright so I went to see tree of life at the cinema when it came out, and my partner was severely pissed off with me cos she"d wanted to see something else and it was like torture. We didn't walk out but we should have.

The thin red line was shite as well with that stupid voiceover all the way through.

The only film I have actually walked out on at the cinema was the matrix 2.

I've fallen asleep (or tried to) several times during kids films at the cinema over the last few years. FML. I just can't watch films anymore, I've practically given up on them.
 

HannahB

Well-known member
You could probably add any Adam Sandler film then, but he's made loads so some people must presumably enjoy them.
NOOOO! Uncut Gems 💎!!! It is really a great watch! The film I was waiting for to finally prove it hat I believed all along, that Adam Sandler isn’t bad… What is that other one, Punch Drunk Love… haven’t watched it since but wasn’t it ok?
 

HannahB

Well-known member
I remember thinking badlands was sort of alright so I went to see tree of life at the cinema when it came out, and my partner was severely pissed off with me cos she"d wanted to see something else and it was like torture. We didn't walk out but we should have.

The thin red line was shite as well with that stupid voiceover all the way through.

The only film I have actually walked out on at the cinema was the matrix 2.

I've fallen asleep (or tried to) several times during kids films at the cinema over the last few years. FML. I just can't watch films anymore, I've practically given up on them.
Oh yeah forgot about Badlands. Bit tired of torture psychos that way now and that music is sampled in every history of the movies doc ever made
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Oh yeah forgot about Badlands. Bit tired of torture psychos that way now and that music is sampled in every history of the movies doc ever made
Yeah I'm sure I'd find it creepy and unpleasant I if I saw it now but I can't really remember much about it. Wasn't it sort of a forerunner to natural born killers or something?
 

HannahB

Well-known member
Yeah I guess. And Resevoir Dogs then
I saw natural born killers at the Rio when it came out with a friend. We walked back to Homerton. There was nobody then, just closed Turkish bread shops. We walked in the emptiness and it rained mildly, I remember the lights of swerving buses and we loved that film
 

HannahB

Well-known member
The couples therapy ones are usually derided:

Brangelina's By the Sea
Beniffer's Gigli
Guy Ritchie and Madonna's Swept Away

But none of us have seen them, so who knows?
Attended a Swept Away themed Halloween night once and someone had a really bad feathered seagull with a ping pong ball head. God that film is bad.
 

woops

is not like other people
i've been doing "research" watching all the tarantino and affiliated stuff recently. i thought NBK had aged really badly personally all that canned-laughter family psychosis seems really heavy handed, didn't think Woody H's performance was up to the role really or maybe he just annoys me.

Four Rooms was unwatchable, turned it off

True Romance holds up better in a very 90's almost 80's way, plot defined by a big packet of cocaine, better than Jackie Brown in that way although JB was very watchable for a long film.

Deathproof was a lot better sillier and kitschier and less annoying from than what I remembered.

Sin City was good that holds up alright, better than Kill Bill was lays the references and clichés on a bit thick

The novelisation of once upon a time in hollywood is about 10 times better than the boring film. Over the course of the book you get a MUCH better idea of why QT finds this material fascinating

tHREAD DERAIL - Research continues
 
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