Such excellent bad cinema!

Ow! Ow! Those are some awful ones! As Count Floyd would say, "Really, really scary! And in 3-D!" In fact, y’all have reminded me of so many wasted hours, and raised so many bad-movie vistas, that I’m going to have to think awhile, and maybe come back tomorrow with my own list. (Besides, I just got in after 10 hours on the road driving back from Memphis.)

How will I ever narrow it down? In fact, I’m wondering — should we have two categories? One could be, "movies that you would expect to be awful," such as "Plan 9" or anything from Ed Wood. I think "Night of the Lepus" and some like that would fit in that category. (I mean, as opposed to those Bruce Campbell vehicles that should have been bad, but turned out to be such classics.)

Second category would include such big-budget, much-anticipated flicks as "Dune," "Waterworld," and AAAUUGGHHHH "Dances With Wolves." I had forgotten some of those movies, they were so bad. Those are some great suggestions. In fact, I can see a whole wonderful SUBcategory of "books you liked or even loved, and looked forward to the movie for years, but were excruciatingly disappointed." "Dune" would by no means be alone there. Think, "Bonfire of the Vanities." (I’ve got a really bad feeling Tom Hanks may be about to repeat that mistake in "The Da Vinci Code." You know who should have played the lead in "Bonfire?" Kelsey Grammer. He has the chin, the accent and the precise pompous air that the character needs.)

Oh, and in a whole other field, here: Extra points to Uncle Elmer for coming up with "Pi." Excellent choice, my friend. It shows an excruciating dedication to seeking out the worst in cinema.

Oh, one other thing: As a golfer, I must defend Mr. Costner for having made "Tin Cup," and for his goofy turn in "Silverado." And I enjoyed "The Untouchables," although the largest credit for that belongs to Sean Connery (AND Charles Martin Smith AND Andy Garcia). But "Dances with Wolves" pretty much threw away any merit those performances got him. I’ll bet that one made more sense in German, Herb, nicht wahr?

In fact, let’s kick him again for one nobody mentioned: "Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves."

18 thoughts on “Such excellent bad cinema!”

  2. Dave

    Mark, I liked a few scenes from Apocalypse Now, especially the one where Duval was watching his guys surf with the strafing in the background, and he says, “Nothing is like the smell of napalm in the morning”. A classic. Overall the movie was really bizarre.

  3. Herb

    It’s not just actors that make bad movies, but much more the directors, and the prize, in my opinion, goes to Oliver Stone and his revisionist history lessons.

  5. Mark Whittington

    When Colonel Kilgore rips off his shirt on the beach amidst the mayhem surrounding him, evidently he was going berserk (i.e., in the Viking sense), so he seemingly did not have fear of being killed. It has been a while since I’ve seen this movie, but I think my favorite line is the one right after the famous line where when kneeling down and grasping the sand in his hand, Kilgore morosely states, “Someday this war is going to end”.

    Kilgore lacked sound judgment and he was nearly insane. Kilgore loved the war and the Army loved him because he fought it their way. Colonel Kurtz on the other hand fought the war in his own way. Kurtz had a sound mind but an insane soul. The horror of the war had cleft his being in two. Kurtz couldn’t reconcile his morality with the atrocities he’d committed in order to win the war, and it drove him insane.

  6. Phillip

    Mark, I think we can safely say anything with Kevin Costner onscreen for very long is bad. How ’bout another list with worst or most overrated and overexposed actors and actresses? For example, who decided Jennifer Aniston is a movie star? She’s created a whole new category of actress, the “smaller-than-life.”
    I’ve been lucky enough to avoid most bad films due to advance research, but then, there are those long trans-Pacific flights. Now thanks to in-seat entertainment even in coach on some airlines, forced bad-movie-viewing may be a thing of the past there as well.
    Sometimes you hear about a movie and think, “Why on earth did they make that movie?” Ex., the new Pink Panther with Steve Martin. What was he thinking? How could he possibly NOT be unfavorably compared to Peter Sellars, unless they took a radically different approach, with a completely different nationality and accent for example?
    Only movie I actually ever walked out on in the theatre was, oddly enough, Atom Egoyan’s “Exotica.” It’s weird because I love his other movies. Plus, his sister is a great pianist. But I digress.

  7. GS Gantt

    Anyone know where to find instructions or any kind of help in creating a “blog site”? Other than typepad.com or godaddy.com. Any books available, or classes?

  8. Dave

    I have to admit Forrest Gump actually fascinated me. While watching it, each saga of his fictional and aberrational life was incredible. From learning to dance from watching Elvis, to the ‘Bama football team, to Vietnam, etc. was truly a delight. The music embellished each scene.

    Apocalyse Now was a lot like Vietnam the war itself, sometimes fascinating to observe and follow, yet unfulfilling in the end. The flick was done back when I thought highly of Martin Sheen but what a left wing goof he became later in life with the entire West Wing.. The guy began to think he was art imitating life.

  10. Brad Warthen

    Oh, Dave, speaking of the West Wing, which I’ve never been able to watch for more than a minute (I mean, what’s with all the dark shadows? I’ve walked around through the West Wing, and they DO have electric lighting.):
    Did you ever see the hilarious skit when Al Gore was hosting “Saturday Night Live,” and he visits the set of “The West Wing,” with Martin Sheen and another character there, and he asks permission to sit behind the desk of the fake Oval Office, and after sitting down with GREAT relish, refuses to leave? The scene ends with him sitting there alone, picking up the prop phone and saying “Get me Putin!”
    I’ve known Al Gore since he was a congressman in 1978, and I had never seen him demonstrate that capacity for mocking himself and his ambitions. I was sort of proud of him for that.

  11. Dave

    Brad, I think I remember that skit, but either way it had to be pretty comical. I have seen Gore show a good sense of self denigration on several occasions. Remember when, at the Dem convention of 96 I think, he announced he would demo the Macarena, and then simply stood still. That got a lot of howls then re: his wooden image. But now I think this guy came within 537 votes in Florida of being the leader of the free world and is that a scary thought? His public utterances of late have been borderline deranged. The bellowing, screaming, and anger from a former VP are a little scary. I heard recently that his possible ’08 slogan may be “Re-elect Al Gore”. He may never be able to put the past behind him from what I see. I don’ think he could even get elected again in his home state, which he didnt carry in 2000. Amazing.

  12. Brad Warthen

    By the way, when I made the reference above (in the original post) to Bruce Campbell’s "Evil Dead" series, I had wanted to quote the wonderful tagline that had initially attracted me to "Army of Darkness" in the video store:

    "Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas."

    That accompanied a Frank Frazetta-style painting of Campbell, chainsaw on one hand (actually, in PLACE of the hand, but that takes explaining) and a shotgun in the other, looking too tough to tangle with, with a voluptuous B-movie babe sitting adoringly at his feet with her hand wrapped sinously and suggestively around his thigh.

    It just sort of screamed, "Witty, tongue-in-cheek sendup of the horror and action qenres."

    Well, I finally found the quote (which was right under my nose all the time). And the place where I found it had several OTHER cool taglines I had forgotten:

    "1 Man, 1 Million dead, The odds are just about even."

    "They move. They breathe. They suck."

    "Sound the trumpets, Raise the drawbridge, and drop the Oldsmobile."

    "How can you destroy an army that’s already dead?"

    "In an age of darkness. At a time of evil. When the world needed a hero. What it got was him."

    It almost hurts to think of so much creativity squandered on such campy, cultish stuff that most people of my generation will probably never see (although most of their sons will have).

  13. Uncle Elmer

    Weren’t the Evil Dead movies the ones that gifted us with “Shop smart! Shop S-MART?” And the mispronounced magic word…these weren’t bad movies, they were great movies! Or at least, they were way more fun than “Dances with wolves,” which I admit still leaves some room between them and great.

  14. Brad Warthen

    Absolutely! S-Mart is both where Bruce’s character “Ash” works, and where he got his shotgun.
    And they are indeed much, much closer to “great” than DTW will ever be.

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