Well, it does say the worst film you've ever seen, and I've avoided Battlefield Earth like the plague. In general, I have a low tolerance for bad movies, so I haven't actually seen a lot of notoriously bad films, especially those of the summer blockbuster variety.

But I did forget to mention The Neverending Story II: The Next Chapter and The Neverending Story II.  I remember seeing both of these in the theaters as a kid and being so angry at how bad they were. And that was before I read the book I realized what terrible adaptations they were. The author sued to have the title of the original film changed because he felt it differed so much from the source material; I sometimes wonder if his anger after seeing what they did in the second and third movies isn't what did the poor man in.

Wait a second, wait a second. Any film with Eddie Murphy? What about all of really great movies Eddie Murphy made in the beginning of his film career. Certainly things have been pretty dire for the past 20 years or so, but there are some real gems in that first decade. Partly, this is the girl behind the nostalgia glasses talking, I know, but having recently re-watched Beverly Hills Cop and 48 Hours, while far from perfect and showing their age quite a bit, I still found them both to be genuinely entertaining. Remember, the reason they've let the man make a seemingly endless stream of crap movies in recent years is because at one point he was both a true talent and cared enough to try and make good movies.

Yes indeed - Trading Places, 48 Hrs, and Beverly Hills Cop are enough to guarantee Eddie Murphy a spot in cinema history, regardless of what happened since.   (A lot of people like Coming To America as well, but it's not a personal fave.)   

The Murphy phenomenon was almost exactly like the Jim Carrey phenomenon a few years later - both became stars in tv sketch comedy, got a shot at a movie and ended up with a huge hit, then another, then another.  And then... not so many hits after that.    For whatever reason, Carrey just had the sense to stop making bombs faster than Murphy did.

48 Hrs - Murphy's movie debut - at the time was really quite something, and still mostly works like gangbusters.  And it's yet another movie that goes on the "they would NEVER make this movie now" stack.  Murphy's hilarious, but personally I love Nick Nolte's unapologetically racist sexist cop who's only the tiniest bit "redeemed" by the end of the movie.  It was a brave role then, it'd be unheard of now.

Hell, now I need to see Blowout and 48 Hrs again.  Off to Netflix to check...

EDIT: Sure, Battlefield Earth is "bad" but it's kind of fascinating as well.  I'd watch that one twice before I'd watch BattleSHIP again.

EDIT 2:  Edited the above upon discovering the official name of the movie is indeed "48 HRS" and not "hours"

A truly awful movie (I only managed to watch it whole on my third attempt), but still better than most Friedberg & Seltzer works (these guys aren't even trying to wrap a story around their crude jokes).

I think it's still a little better than Revenge Of The Fallen (it has Leonard Nimoy and no racist robots that "don't do much reading").

The real problem about Transformers is the existence of sequels. One stupid movie about fighting robots would've been more acceptable than three of them (and we're going to get a fourth one). I can still enjoy the first one for what it is, but the sequels are just annoying.

Oh my god yes. I absolutely loved that book and was so excited for that movie. But...Paul Walker. Nuff said.

This thread is beginning to hit Poe's law for me.

If asked I would have said at least half the ones in here are supposed to be sarcastic... but...

Ugh, you people.

Jeez, if I knew you loved Superman IV so much, I wouldn't have mentioned it!

I can name, off the top of my head, several movies that I like that WAYDM (formerly [redacted]) found bad, implausible, annoying or otherwise stupid and just have to shrug and say "Ok, I don't get it."

I mean, these guys got their start ripping Phantom Menace to shreds, to shreds, and yet that movie still gets defenders. One thing I have learned on the Internet is something I like to call the "Omni Law" (because I'm not if it has a name). Omni law states that there will ALWAYS be someone out there who will defend ANYTHING at ANYTIME. We recently saw a resurgence in the Attack of the Clones thread, where many, including myself, defended it as a fun film and not the worst of the PT. So, beauty, as with many things, can be subjective. I think some of the more beautiful films are child's films because they better capture a sense of innocence and play that is often lacking in more maintstream films.

With all that, don't we encourage discussion here? Isn't that the point? I think that "Fight Club" is an atrocious film-there I said it!

Ok, now what?

Personally, I have never been impressed with that movie though it seems that I am one of the few. The idea of this guy becoming a grassroots terrorist because he needs serious, serious, psychiatric help and succeeds, is not my idea of a protagonist that I can readily identify with (though I get the insomnia thing, so I might someday understand).

Honestly, I might have to revisit it (sans children so I'll see it when I retire ) because I did find the ending to be an incredible twist. But, I wasn't really engaged in the film until then. I watched it because people said "This film is amazing!"
*shrugs*

Last edited by fireproof78 (2013-07-22 04:04:41)

I do understand that, though I have not personally experienced it-my wife has, as she writes fan fiction.

Personally, and this will sound rather arrogant but I don't mean it as such, but I look at things kind of sideways. Movies don't work for me in the way that most of you regard them. I take films at more than face value, wanting some sort of meaning in the work itself and not just a "popcorn movie." Films can be entertaining in that regard, but if it doesn't engage me on a character level or a meaning level, then I feel kind of hollow afterwards. I am sure that I sound overly critical or picky so I'll just leave it at that. I really don't know how else to describe it

How about them Dodgers?

Well for my money, I rarely label a movie as really bad. My imdb ratings even for movies I kind of hate are always in the 3-4 range for the most part. I may find no enjoyment in them, but there can also be technical of artistic competence present which I usually want to acknowledge, even if I still hate the movie. That's why I cannot agree with anyone bringing up Fight Club in a "worst movie" thread. Though I guess if you never watch anything with less than a 7.0 IMDb rating your pick of the worst you've seen would be a bit different from mine.

That said, for me the Epic/Date/Disaster Movies that came out a while back are pretty much the worst thing I could imagine sitting through. I can find no redeeming qualities in any aspect of those abominations. The movies themselves are basically cash-ins with the minimum of effort put in, since they basically just take scenes from other movies and add jokes to them as punchlines.
I can sit through most bad movies for the most part because there may always be some aspect of the production I can enjoy or atleast look closer at, but these things are not just incompetently made, they're also constantly turning to me and going "... eh? Funny, right? right?". The lack of self-awareness this implies just makes me want to destroy every copy of the films because I am embarrassed for everyone involved.

I can sort of understand George Lucas for wanting to destroy the Star Wars christmas special. That's how I feel about these disasters.

I actually find Transformers 2 to be the most enjoyable of the 3 films. It's fun and has some good exciting action scenes. Transformers 1 is flawed but perfectly watchable. Transformers 3, however, is so incoherent I wonder if anybody actually watched the edited cut before it got sent to the printers. It's bad in the Asylum sense of a shoddily written and put together movie - quite aside from the action scenes and sensory overload. I can't remember ever being so bored with so many explosions and robot on robot carnage.

The question we have to ask, though, is if the Conservapedia listing for Poe's Law is in fact an example of Poe's Law?
http://conservapedia.com/Poe%27s_law

Last edited by Invid (2013-07-22 16:40:50)