This should be Kieran’s thread really, since he came up with the concept. But, having made that acknowledgment, I’ll jump in. His first nomination is the truly awful Chasing Amy: I watched 15 minutes before deciding that there was a perfectly good toilet to clean in the other room. henry (not the famous one) proposes You’ve Got Mail, which sounds plausible. But my nomination is more serious: The House of Sand and Fog. I rarely dislike a movie enough to warn people against it, but this is one of the worst, and most unpleasant, movies I’ve watched. (I see that someone has vandalised the wikipedia entry on this one, saying, hilariously, that it and some of its actors were nominated for awards!)
The premise is implausible. A woman has her house taken from her, by mistake, for failure to pay a business tax that she did not genuinely owe. She had 8 months to correct the mistake and did nothing. Now, the only possible explanation in the circumstances is that she was severely depressed. Whatever plausibility that explanation has is undermined by the fact that, on screen, the actress has no sign at all of being, or ever having been, depressed. She seems bratty, to be sure, but not ill. Now, an exiled Iranian general purchases the house at a steal at an auction from the County. He is, unfortunately, played by Ben Kingsley, who seems to be the only actor in the movie who can act, thus unwittingly preventing it from being hilarious (up to the point at which it turns gratuitously nasty). He is also, understandably given his own circumstances, unwilling to give up the house and the bounty that it represents, so a battle of wills ensues, in which Jennifer Connelly is assisted by the most wooden actor I’ve ever seen in a big movie (he makes Arnold, on a bad day, look like Olivier by comparison—Dolph Lundgren territory), a rogue cop who leaves his happy family for a depressed alcoholic (Connelly) – that part of the story seeming plausible only because Connelly is manifestly not a depressed alcoholic, but looks healthy, happy, and well-made up every time she appears onscreen.
Why did I watch to the end? Well, the box promised a surprising ending, and the only morally acceptable ending seemed to me to be one in which the general kept the house and Jennifer Connelly and her beau descended into the pits of daytime TV. Below the fold is a short spoiler that will save you from wasting your time:
Connelly tries to commit suicide with a gun just outside the house (she can’t even manage that), and Kingsley saves her, and tries to nurse her to health with his wife. She tries again, this time with pills in the bath, and while they are dragging her around, the cop comes back with a gun, and locks them in the bathroom. Next day he takes Kingsley and his son to the courthouse so they can get $45,000 for the house and give it to Connelly and cop to start their new life together. Kingsley breaks free of the cop, his son picks up the gun, and another cop kills him (the son). Kingsley goes home, poisons his wife and suffocates himself. Cop goes to jail, Connelly survives, seemingly unscathed. The end. Badly acted, poorly written, gratuitously unpleasant. Don’t bother.
{ 937 comments }
One of the worst movies I’ve ever seen: The Lake House.
It makes no sense and has both Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves.
Ugh.
I was really surprised at what a bad movie House of Sand and Fog turned out to be—I loved the book and it seemed like it had potential to work really well as a movie. I liked Kingsley’s acting a lot though.
(Somewhat relatedly: I read Blindness this winter and was blown away by it, as how could anybody not be, and was excited when I heard the movie was being produced—as I was reading the book, I was imagining it as a movie, as a really good movie. But the review I read of them movie screened at Cannes makes it sound just awful.)
I know it’s an oldie, and it’s a long time since I’ve seen it, but ‘Going Places (French: Les Valseuses)’ by Bertrand Blier sticks in my mind as a truly reprehensible, vicious, heartless awful movie.
In terms of Hollywood, ‘Contact’ was pretty bad. As the guy says in South Park: ‘I wait two hours for the alien and it’s her goddammned father!’.
Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes also deserves some kind of award for simple relentless incomprehensibility, including a twist ending that negates the rest of the movie and can only be explained if the cocaine which drives LA is now regularly cut with angel dust.
‘Signs’ is terrible too. Mind you it has Mel Gibson in it, so you probably didn’t need me to tell you that.
Crash, both of them Paul Haggis’ and David Cronenberg’s, are to be avoided, especially back to back.
Crash
This is a bad movie. I don’t know anything about a movie of that title by David Cronenberg but the other one is a bad movie.
About a bunch of Irish people who die. My family called it “The horse movie” because it opens with a dead horse floating in the ocean and each time someone dies they pan up past the horse to the dead people floating in the ocean. It is the standard against which all bad movies are compared in my household.
As in “Is it as bad as the horse movie?”
There was the thriller with what’s-her-name, Rebecca De Mornay IMDB tells me, where she was a nanny who wants to murder the wife and take over the family, and then there was the thriller where she’s a lawyer whose client is guilty and tries to kill her. IMDB tells me the names of these two movies, which must never be watched again, are “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle” and “Guilty as Sin.” The second one is especially pointless as the entire plot is that her client is a bad guy, he tries to kill her, and she ends up having to kill him, and isn’t that just what life is. The first one gets extra points for misogyny.
Sorry, Hidari, but I disagree: Signs is actually damn good. Yes, an alien invasion is way too large a plot device to effectively use as a simple McGuffin for the film’s actual story, with the probably to-be-expected result that the aliens and their invasion plans were ultimately cartoonish and lazily conceived. And Shyamalan’s insertion of himself into the movie was too much, clearly. Still, the family drama works on multiple levels, with the result that the movie’s tension is genuinely earned. Feel free the trash Shyamalan’s subsequent films, but I maintain that Signs stands as one of those Last-Decent-Film-Before-The-Director-Lost-His-Talent movies. (See Rob Reiner’s
Now, if we’re talking about truly atrocious movies that one must avoid seeing at all costs, the answer is pretty simple: Superman III. The only movie that I have ever, after actually having paid the price of admission, walked out on.
My Dinner with Andre. If you liked it, let’s be sure we never are seated next to each other on a trans-oceanic flight. We’ll both be happier that way.
Don’t see any recent serious movie set in Western Europe before the sixteenth century. They will get the Middle Ages totally wrong, they will get classical Greek or Rome wrong, and not in a so-bad-it’s funny-way, but in a ‘why are they such idiots way?’ I talked once to someone whose house had been used on the set for ‘Robin Hood Prince of Thieves’. The film-makers had brought mistletoe in from France, but they couldn’t work out the difference between a Saracen and an African-American. They are that stupid, they all are (except for the Pythons).
Focusing here on movies I see generally discussed as good, as opposed to the insight that a particular bit of trash actually is trash…
The Magnificent Ambersons. So this guy, he’s a jerk, and he goes around being a jerk, and everyone around him suffers, and finally he gets his comeuppance. It’s like watching a teleplay of some random blogger’s life.
Ok, I screwed up the html there pretty badly. Let’s try again:
“(See Rob Reiner’s A Few Good Men for another example.)”
And, of course, Superman III is still the nadir of modern crap moviemaking.
What’s wrong with My Dinner with Andre?
Nobody’s mentioned the most recent spate of Star Wars movies? Or maybe any Star Wars movie that is not Star Wars?
Marie Antoinette
Demolition Man
My Dinner with Andre. If you liked it, let’s be sure we never are seated next to each other on a trans-oceanic flight. We’ll both be happier that way.
I did like it. But partly that’s because I had a friend who actually attended the strange actor’s camp-in-the-woods in Poland with Jerzy Grotowski that Andre Gregory talks about in the film.
Moulin Rouge!
The new Indiana Jones, which is actually worse than the MacGyver film that it rips off, because Brian Blessed doesn’t appear in it.
Boxing Helena.
Junebug billed as a “wise, bittersweet … comedy,” in reality none of the above. Just awful, leaving out the grotesque misrepresentations on the dvd jacket.
Boxing Helena.
There should be a special category for “it was just a crazy dream” movies. Or the “magical way out” movies, like Wild at Heart.
I had a friend who actually attended the strange actor’s camp-in-the-woods in Poland with Jerzy Grotowski that Andre Gregory talks about in the film.
I haven’t watched that movie in so long…was that the scene when Andre is talking about some monster emerging from the woods? Weird, great movie. (The thing that makes it for me is the waiter, whom I seem to recall reading somewhere was played by a prestigious Eastern European actor whose name I don’t remember. They way the camera would keep cutting to him, staring at Andre and Wallace Shawn as they talked…it was unnerving. Like having Banquo’s Ghost watching your meal.)
Powder.
Don’t see any recent serious movie set in Western Europe before the sixteenth century. They will get the Middle Ages totally wrong, they will get classical Greek or Rome wrong, and not in a so-bad-it’s funny-way, but in a ‘why are they such idiots way?’ I talked once to someone whose house had been used on the set for ‘Robin Hood Prince of Thieves’. The film-makers had brought mistletoe in from France, but they couldn’t work out the difference between a Saracen and an African-American. They are that stupid, they all are (except for the Pythons).
Thanks, but I think I’ll still be able to enjoy movies that are set in the past, as long as I don’t A) become an expert on the particular time period of the movie, and B) devote most of my attention to looking for signs of accuracy or inaccuracy.
Hard to beat Superman III. But as for recent films:
—The Golden Compass, for being the worst insult against the book on which it’s based. I managed as far as when the Gyptians show up to rescue Lyra from the Gobblers before I started screaming. Never begrudge an author the right to make money from writing, but for God’s sake I hope Philip Pullman donated his cut to Amnesty International or something.
—Any Lars von Trier film, on principle. I couldn’t get a half-hour into either Breaking the Waves or Dancer in the Dark; I just couldn’t watch him keep shoving Emily Watson and Björk into his cinematic meat grinder.
—Gigli. ‘My eyes! The goggles do nothing!’
The sheer deeply misogynistic offensiveness of Boxing Helena, what I saw of it, made it hard for me to judge aesthetically.
I enjoyed it, but that’s because I have a soft spots for movies with an accidentally mal-theistic cosmology.
Let’s never have Signs and “damn good” voiced in such close proximity, ever again. Even after having had the inane surprise ending spoiled for me some two years earlier, I was so taken aback by how dumb it was I spent the next week complaining about the two hours I wasted on that mind trash.
Thanks, but I think I’ll still be able to enjoy movies that are set in the past, as long as I don’t A) become an expert on the particular time period of the movie, and B) devote most of my attention to looking for signs of accuracy or inaccuracy.
Likewise, almost any movie involving hacking, except maybe Sneakers is ruined if you’re a computer programmer.
Eyese Wide Shuty, in which everyone involved seems o have forgotten that a nineteenth century novella can’t be set in 2000 without a few adjustments. So the contemporary New York City doctor seems unacquainted with the possibility that women might have sex for pleasure.
Later, when the doctor’s elderly patient dies, someone calls him at his home after hours, and he immediately heads over to the patient’s home, since that’s what doctors always do when their patients die. The corpse has been dressed in a suit and laid out for viewing on the family couch, naturally. That the doctor and some floozy have sex in front of the corpse is the least implausible aspect of the vignette.
Also, the writers can’t write dialogue, and Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman cannot act. For nonactors, they are surprisingly incapable of expressing the slightest bit of affection towards each other, even though at the time of filming had been married in real life for several years.
My priest showed House of Sand and Fog as part of a film series to discuss the place of God in our lives. This movie was meant to show how all of the characters had opportunities to listen to each other, and to let God work through them, but never did. I disagree with the criticism of Jennifer Connelly’s acting. While she may have looked too nice (it is Hollywood, after all), her behaviors did seem plausibly depressive to me. And the cop was very disfunctional himself, desperate to help Connelly’s character but not listening to what kind of help she wanted. It isn’t a perfect movie, but it isn’t awful either.
I agree with Superman III, though. And I’d offer Julie Taynor’s Titus, a horribly brutal version of Titus Andronicus. The only movie I’ve rented that I refused to watch the second half.
‘Feel free the trash Shyamalan’s subsequent films…’
Oh I will don’t worry. Incidentally, I am fully prepared to agree, for the sake of argument, that Shyamalan’s films after Signs are even worse. The Sixth Sense was pretty good though, and I would even be prepared to ‘stand up’ for ‘Unbreakable’ if only on the grounds that it’s not as bad as ‘Signs’.
Incidentally, I thought I would just be the first person to mention ‘Titanic’. I’ve never seen it, but it’s the movie that people most want to warn you about. In a Kurtz-like ‘The horror…..the horror….’ kinda way.
I have also been warned off anything Woody Allen has done since he stopped making his movies in New York.
Likewise, almost any movie involving hacking, except maybe Sneakers, is ruined if you’re a computer programmer.
I can remember, long ago, once asking some hacker friend of mine exactly what was impossible or unrealistic about War Games. He went on a rant which lasted for about 30 minutes. I felt, shall we say, rather foolish.
‘eXistenZ’.
Incidentally, I thought I would just be the first person to mention ‘Titanic’. I’ve never seen it, but it’s the movie that people most want to warn you about. In a Kurtz-like ‘The horror…..the horror….’ kinda way.
I have also been warned off anything Woody Allen has done since he stopped making his movies in New York.
I thought I would just be the first person to mention ‘Titanic’.
Could have been worse. The good part is that almost everyone dies.
The only movie I ever walked out of a cinema from was “Van Helsing”.
The scene that broke me was when Dracula had just lost one of his wives to Van Helsings semi-automatic holywater crossbow (!) and he awakens in an icecovered coffin. He then precedes to moan for 2 solid minuts in the worst eastern european accent about how awful he feels and how horrible everything is and when his two other poorly acting and heavily accented wives tell him to calm down he screams (while walking upside down for no obvious reason): “I harrrve no hearrrt, I feel nozhing!”.
WTFOMGBBQIWASLEFT!
The Sixth Sense was pretty good though, and I would even be prepared to ‘stand up’ for ‘Unbreakable’ if only on the grounds that it’s not as bad as ‘Signs’.
I actually think that The Sixth Sense falls into the same “pretty damn good” category as Signs, where I think Unbreakable is one of the great films of the last 10 years or so. To each their own.
As for Woody Allen, the world lost an enormous talent when passed away sometime in the late 90s. Who that person making movies in London with his name is I have no idea.
Vanilla Sky.
Sorry, # 8, 13 and 17, but you can’t put a sequel on the list. Sequels aren’t movies. Sequels are brand extensions.
I once was a movie reviewer for a daily newspaper, for about three years in the early 70s. A golden age, in retrospect, though most of it looked liked crap at the time. The only movie I walked out on during that period was Ryan’s Daughter. They literally couldn’t pay me to sit through it to the end.
The Secret Agent, featuring Robin Williams, of all people. The only time I have ever felt the urge to put scare quotes around the “motion” in “motion picture.”
Everyone should be sure to die before having to see Dogma. If I could, I’d be tempted to go back in time and kill myself before I had to see it. Its preachiness is surpassed only by its stupidity, every line is an insult to the viewer’s intelligence and sense of humor, and its oh-so-controversial attempts to shock are the tamest, most cowardly bullshit imaginable. The only movie of which I’ve ever read the evangelical review on capalert.com and thought, “yeah, that’s a good point.”
Also, #14 above is crazy: not only should you watch Demolition Man as many times as possible before dying, you should all that after you die, you may be transported to an eternal movie theater where it is playing non-stop. One of the most delightfully silly movies ever.
Likewise, almost any movie involving hacking, except maybe Sneakers is ruined if you’re a computer programmer.
If you know anything about cryptography, then “Sneakers”, too, is pretty unwatchable.
But the one film I’ve ever seen that actually made me feel angry at the filmmaker for having stolen my money was Jim Jarmusch’s first film, “Stranger than Paradise”. Numerous people I knew walked out of it hailing his arch minimalism, but I was convinced that he was laughing at me, personally, in every single frame he shot, for having been stupid enough to fork over the price of admission to see something that he’d obviously put so unbelievably little effort into making. Since then, I’ve resolutely refused to watch another Jim Jarmusch film ever, on the “fool me once” principle.
Damn it. Replace “all” with “pray” in the second-to-last sentence of 39.
For me, Magnolia has to be one of the most frustrating movies I’ve ever seen. In addition to being long, its original and moving enough for 2 and a half hours to make the ending endlessly frustrating.
Here’s something: Life is Beautiful was a huge disappointment based on how great Benigni was in Johnny Stecchino.
Also: I saw The Man Without a Past a few months ago and found it beautiful. Then (just last night) I saw Lights in the Dusk and found it grindingly, sickeningly depressing. I prefer “beautiful” to “grindingly depressing” but perhaps that is just me.
You’ve Got Mail is a perfectly brilliant romantic comedy that is actually about the AOL Time Warner merger, and the American corporate media landscape in general. This is, we recall, about a romance between a Barnes & Noble executive and the manager of an independent bookstore. In order to enjoy it, you need to interpret it in that way.
Larry Clark’s Kids. A perfect example of the combination of prudish condemnation of, and prurient fascination with, teenagers’ sex lives in the form of 90 minutes of vicious, vile slander on the city of New York.
Oliver Stone’s Alexander. Watched it thinking it would be mindless fun (and yes, I realize from the other comments that mindless fun is BAD…) – and it was incredibly booooooring.
Also, I’d say Battlefield Earth is a shoe-in.
Star Wars. Any of them.
Dan—I felt exactly the same way about another Jim Jarmusch movie which I can’t be bothered to look up the name of. BUT, brilliantly, just as I started getting ready to walk out, the film started burning up, and the projection room caught on fire.
aulus—Yes, I quit Dogma pretty early in the game. Awful.
miriam—I bet you anything you like that Good Morning Vietnam is even more awful. I haven’t seen either, on the principle that Robin Williams is unwatchable post-Mork and Mindy. But I just imagine that Good Morning Vietnam must be worse than any of the others.
I adore Stranger than Paradise, and feel that to associate it with arch superiority or contempt for its audience, as Dan Simon does, is a symptom of a benighted age: it’s a beautiful little movie which predates the internet and its ever-so-nuanced pseudosociological tendency to dismiss all art as hipster pretention….
I totally agree on:
The Hand the Rocks the Cradle. Awful, awful movie that manages to play in probably the greatest variety of offensive, negative racial and gender stereotypes in a single Hollywood film since Birth of a Nation. This was actually the first movie I thought of when I read this post.
Signs Unintentionally maltheistic is right! God kills Mel Gibson’s wife and then nearly slaughters all of humanity in order to reinforce his faith in Him. Wouldn’t a burning bush have been easier?
Titanic Three hours of my life I’ll never have back.
On the other hand…
House of Sand and Fog is a bad movie that I’d warn people away from, but I just wouldn’t quite put it in this category.
And I actually liked My Dinner with André and eXistenZ.
Other films that would make my list:
Out of Africa With apologies to the late Sidney Pollack, this stinker is up there with Titanic in the list of utterly undeserving Oscar® winners. And while we’re on that category….
Dances with Wolves
Maxie A horrible, unfunny, and implausible comedy ghost story in which the generally awful Glen Close is possessed by the ghost of a flapper.
Autumn in New York Attempted tear jerker May-October romance that’s awful even by disease-of-the-week movie standards.
Godfather, Part III If only Sofia could act as well as she can direct!
The Natural This was always infuriating, especially because of its tacked on happy ending. Became more so when I had to watch its climax repeatedly intercut with Gibby beating my A’s in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series.
The Touch Ingmar Bergman’s first English language movie starring the often awful Eliot Gould. Potential saving grace: approaches unintentional self-parody.
The middle portion of the anthology film New York Stories. The first part, “Life Lessons,” directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Nick Nolte is quite good. The third part, “Oedipus Wrecks,” directed by Woody Allen is merely so-so. But the middle section, Francis Ford Coppola’s “Life Without Zoe” is one of the most insufferable, self-involved half hours of in all of world cinema.
City Hall. Every plot twist is telegraphed froma mile away … and then announced in advance … and then cued with ominous music … and was utterly predictable to begin with. Which I guess isn’t so rare, but it starred Al Pacino (who admittedly has been in a lot of clunkers) and the adorable John Cusack (who hasn’t). And it was based on All the King’s Men, for god’s sake—how could you so thoroughly screw up material like that?
Cabin Boy
Boat Trip
Unbreakable (Unbearable)
Obviously, only one commenter so far has seen Van Helsing.
My jaw was sore the next day, having dropped so hard and so often during the movie.
Since then, I’ve resolutely refused to watch another Jim Jarmusch film ever, on the “fool me once” principle.
Smart man. They’ve just gotten worse. If a bunch of right-wing movie critics were to gin up a pastiche of everything they imagine avant-garde, “politically correct” filmmakers are guilty of, they couldn’t do much better than Ghost Dog.
Nah, Good Morning Vietnam had a half an hour of perfectly good Robin Williams stand-up wrapped around some kind of plot or another. Basically the same formula as any action movie, except with stand-up substituting for car chases & stunts.
I successfully avoided seeing Highlander II when it came out. Good for me.
Big Jake, even if you like John Wayne for some reason.
I’ve always hated “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” I thought Ferris was an insufferable little prick.
Speaking of John Wayne: The Green Berets, though that begins to bring us into unintentionally funny territory. And unintentionally funny films can, when one is in the right mood be worth seeing. What keeps Green Berets on this list is that too much of it is just slow and awful.
Bicentennial Man. Watch it twice? I’d rather be reincarnated as cat litter.
Still, it did provoke the best nul point movie review ever.
Matt McIrvin had a great post hating on Ferris Bueller’s Day Off on his livejournal a couple years ago, but damned if I can find it.
51: I thought the “Life Lessons” segment of New York Stories was better than “quite good.” I wish the format had caught on, in view of the number of mediocre-to-bad two-hour movies that have great half-hour movies embedded in them But the Coppola contribution, as you say, was beyond awful.
And I’d offer Julie Taynor’s Titus, a horribly brutal version of Titus Andronicus.
Wait, you were shocked that Titus was brutal? Were you expecting it to be one of Shakespeare’s comedies? Baffling…
Now, The Passion of the Christ was unnecessarily brutal. Also, horribly overwrought for a film that had no story and was just Mel Gibson proving to the world that he very well could make a theological snuff film in Aramaic thank you very much, so suck it all you Jews. Horrible. I still have not forgiven the friend who convinced me to go see it.
Now that I think about it, I’ve seen, in theaters, Dances with Wolves, Batman and Robin, First Knight (with Richard Gere!), the 1998 Godzilla, XXX and The Fast and the Furious (both with Vin Diesel – now there’s some potential squandered!), and Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes remake. There’s a hall of shame for you, altho in my defense(?) the last two were on dates. Anyway, thankfully there’s not much danger of any CT readers being exposed to any of them.
Just don’t confuse ‘House of Sand and Fog’ with the quite good Brazilian film ‘House of Sand.’
I meant to say above that I also kinda liked Demolition Man. The Taco Bell and no-toilet-paper jokes alone should spare it from this list.
And to be added to the list:
Howard the Duck Simply awful without being in the least bit unintentionally funny. A comedy in which the funniest joke is a sign that says “Cajun Sushi” (and, no, it’s not funnier in context). Saw this in a huge, largely empty theater in Boston on the weekend of its release. Apparently word traveled fast. One guy in the sparse audience actually liked the film and laughed loudly throughout, which made this an oddly socially awkward experience for the rest of us.
Something Wild Practically everyone I know liked this movie. I hated it. Go figure.
Angel Heart Ponderous puzzle pic that the writers clearly thought was really, really clever. Almost rescued by a great Robert DeNiro cameo as the devil and/or Martin Scorsese.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula Hate to keep adding Coppola to the list. When he’s good (e.g. first two Godfather films; The Conversation) he’s very, very good. But when he’s bad…you get this film. Watch Keanu Reeves lose a two-hour long battle with an English accent.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (or The League of Gentlemen movie for that matter).
Also The House of Mirth – 2 hours and 20 minutes waiting for Gillian Anderson to OD.
FWIW, I loved Taymor’s Titus. I thought the film was a really interesting (and visually stunning) reflection on male violence. It’s a mediocre play (at least for a Shakespeare play), but Taymor did everything one could possibly do with it.
I nominate ‘The Island’. Most of the film is merely boring, but the abortion scene, in which full-grown adults in scientifically engineered amniotic sacs are terminated, is perhaps the most mind-blowingly imbecilic literalization of right-wing hysteria of the last couple decades.
These decommendations are all over the place, so I might as well add mine. I humbly suggest that one consider dying before watching West Side Story.
I sat through Dances with Wolves in the theater and barely managed to stay awake. I would have left if I hadn’t gone with my mother-in-law, who did fall asleep. I envied her.
My husband refuses to watch any Kevin Costner movie other than Tin Cup, but one day he did start watching DwW on TV. At one point he asked me “When does the movie get going? I’ve been watching for almost 20 minutes.” I had to tell him that he has missed the first half hour and was nearly an hour into the damn thing. And the answer to his question was “Never.”
So I nominate another Costner stinker, The Postman. And you thought I was going to say Waterworld. But The Postman gets the nod for its inspiring message: Even if everything’s all post-apocalyptic-y, if people get mail, it’s all good. Plus that godawful scene where the little kid is holding up the letter that The Postman missed, and he turns his horse around, we got into slomo, the heroic music swells, and as it reaches its crescendo, he GRABS THE LETTER! We’re saved!
I always say that Costner’s best performance was in The Big Chill.
I’ve always hated “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” I thought Ferris was an insufferable little prick.
You’re not watching the movie for Ferris; you’re watching it for Cameron. He’s the only interesting person in the whole film (though why Starfleet later made the mistake of putting him in charge of a starship is anybody’s guess).
“Don’t see any recent serious movie set in Western Europe before the sixteenth century. ”
I enjoyed Kingdom of Heaven even though it has all kinds of inaccuracies (neither Raymond nor Guy were Templars for one thing) and Legolas in it. There are historical inaccuracies and then there are historical inaccuracies (like suggesting that Uto-Aztec and proto-Incan/Queche are related languages as was done in the most recent Indiana Jones movie). I can put up with the former if it somehow advances or enhances the movie (and everyone knows Templars were bad anyway)
Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Ah, no, it’s got its moments. “I have rossed oceans of time to find you”: that shit is funny, man.
“I loved Taymor’s Titus”
I thought it was pretty good given the awfulness of the actual play – which TS Eliot called the worst place ever written. Also after you read Titus you look at Shakespeare’s other works in a different light and realize that he wasn’t all that since many of the stupidities of Titus are present in the other plays just in a less obvious manner.
“West Side Story.”
Whoa, that’s just wrong. One of the best musicals of all times. Even if the movie ain’t your thing the soundtrack is awesome. For the more adventurous I’d recommend trying to find the “Punk Side Story” (easy enough to google)
You’ve Got Mail on this list? Why does it sound like a plausible candidate? Henry didn’t say anything to back up that nomination. I completely disagree. It’s a very good romantic comedy with lots of interesting commentary and witty script (plus a cute story).
And Star Wars? Puhlease.
Also, lay of off Jim Jarmusch folks. Ghost Dog is a very good movie? What exactly’s wrong with? It even has a plot and stuff. Mystery Train is a masterpiece though.
Howard the Duck Simply awful without being in the least bit unintentionally funny.
Oh, sweet heavens—I’d hoped that I’d never remember that date again. When Howard crashes through the wall of the bathroom and they show you a nice full-frontal shot of the female duck showering…gaaaahhh. Possibly the worst moment of my entire 18th year.
Angel Heart…Almost rescued by a great Robert DeNiro cameo as the devil and/or Martin Scorsese.
Ok, Ben, thank you: now you’re making me laugh. (The “and/or” really does it.)
Never seen Demolition Man. But I have seen The Running Man which is super-duper awesome. And as for West Side Story, you can take the plot, the dialogue, the casting, even the music, but you can’t ignore the dancing. Best choreographed film musical ever, period.
Sorry Harry, I think you’re off base as far as House of Sand and Fog is concerned. It’s not a great movie, but a decent to good movie. People do such stuff when they’re depressed, especially when they also have an alcohol problem. And Jennifer Connelly is doing a fine job portraying this mixture of lethargy, self-loathing and defensive aggressiveness. She’s not the greatest actress in the world, but she can be very effective and in this movie she’s good. Also the film is beautifully shot by Roger Deakins. I agree that the script is a bit clunky and heavy handed at times, but by god, if that’s a criterion, then you can put 75% of all movies on your worst list.
As for movies to avoid, here’s my pick:
Vanilla Sky
Year of the Dragon
Suspiria
Insomnia
Grave of the Fireflies
No Way Out (the 1987 Kevin Costner thriller) A film that proves that a surprise twist isn’t so welcome when it relies on the film’s actively lying to you for two hours. Bonus points for including a gratuitously evil gay character and for featuring Sean Young, who’s awful when she’s not playing a cyborg, as a seductress.
How Green Was My Valley.
forgot one:
Kingdom of Heaven
A film that proves that a surprise twist isn’t so welcome when it relies on the film’s actively lying to you for two hours…
…which is how some of us felt after viewing The Usual Suspects.
I forgot to second Vanilla Sky, which made me want to throw large objects at the screen.
I have a soft spot for Dario Argento, however, so I can’t agree with Suspiria.
Oh, try to miss Gods and Generals unless you’re particularly fond of the Lost Cause. Gettysburg is a good miss too, but I liked it more when I saw it.
I’ll see your Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula and raise you Branagh’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Unless you like seeing Helena Bonham Carter’s heart ripped out of her chest. And I’m just not that big a fan of Emma Thompson. Badda-bing!
Speaking of Robin Williams;
No embalming fluid is strong enough to wash off the taint of having seen Patch Adams.
No one has mentioned Contact yet? It let’s us in on that profound secret that faith and science can conflict, especially when faith is the dreamy Matthew McConoughy. Add the 4 or 5 false endings….man, that movie is bad.
It’s a bit too easy to find just any old turd worth avoiding, isn’t it? For heaven’s sake, let’s have some standards! Here, for example, are some placers in the AFI top 100 the avoidance of which will enhance the quality of your life:
E.T. the Extraterrestrial
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Forrest Gump
Notwithstanding my call for standards, I have to say that “Battlefield Earth” is indeed very impressive. I only sneaked a 37-second peak on the way out from watching another film, but those are 37 seconds I’d desperately like to have back.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Are you on crack?
“Straw Dogs.” The bits that aren’t like “Home Alone” are cringeworthy. Before I saw it, I wouldn’t have believed Dustin Hoffman was capable of such bad acting.
novokant@79:
I thought “Grave of the Fireflies” was beautifully made, from an aesthetic standpoint, but ultimately a manipulative, heavy-handed downer.
Michael Winner’s remake of The Big Sleep starring Robert Mitchum.
Novakant, do you mean the original version of Insomnia with Stellan Skarsgård, or the Robin Williams & Al Pacino version, the latter of which was terrible by comparison?
My nominations:
The Village
Anchorman
Resevoir Dogs:
Ever since I saw it in a theater full of frat boy types who were vocally thrilled to see the police officer tortured, I have had trepidations about watching films in public.
And, having seen and read about Tarantino’s more recent “work,” I wonder if I misunderstood the intent behind Resevoir Dogs—perhaps Tarantino really was simply trying to gratify his audience’s baser urges.
Anthony Newley has a shot at one of the most awful films ever made, but it might be recommended viewing for its DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES DO THIS effect.
I probably shouldn’t say this, but man, are you people young. There are some awful movies cited, but two, in my memory, stand out.
When I saw it, I thought “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” (1962) had to be the worst movie ever made that was intended to be good. Starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford (the rest of the cast is pretty forgettable, and, perhaps, best forgotten), directed by Robert Aldrich (who had a long, if not distinguished career: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000736/). Someone thought this would be a major movie. As it turned out, it became, quite quickly, the butt of a billion jokes.
But then, two years later—and directed by Robert Aldrich (he sure had a bad couple of years)—”Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte,” which was essentially the same movie, but not as well done. 7 Academy Award nominations! Bette Davis (also having a bad couple of years, Olivia deHaviland, Joseph Cotten, Agnes Morehead. If this isn’t the worst-intended-to-be-good movie of all time, I hope I never see the champion.
Perhaps notably, both screenplays were by Henry Farrell…also having a bad couple of years.
I’m a little torn about Lemuel Pitkin’s nomination of Kids. On the one hand, everything he says about the movie is true. If anything, he dramatically undersells what vicious, evil pieces of shit Larry Clark and Harmony Korine reveal themselves to be via that movie. On the other hand, it’s fucking gorgeous: you can certainly make a case of it as the most beautifully composed, shot and edited teen exploitation flick ever made.
Luckily, no such caveats apply to my own personal recommendations for movies to avoid at all costs: the entire oeuvre of Gregg Araki. Awful scripts, terrible acting, crappy editing, boom mics in frame: he’s basically the gay punk rock version of Kevin Smith, except substantially less competent as a filmmaker. Specifically, I cannot stress enough that time spent watching “The Living End” and “Nowhere” is time that could be more productively employed flossing your teeth.
Its more than 20 year since I’ve seen it, but The Bride Wore Black is one I’d have really liked to walk out on, except it was a date with a guy I liked…
Are you on crack?
I share Lemuel’s opinion of this movie. Wind blows, lights flash, strangeness suggested. Very sleep-inducing.
I thought ‘House of Sand and Fog’ was a vile book for just the reason you mention, the gratuitously unpleasant plotting. It was well written, didn’t hurt to read the prose, but I found nothing edifying in it.
Starship Troopers gets my vote for appalling brain-sucking movie horror. It’s closely followed by Last Tango in Paris: though here again it may be revulsion from nastiness, rather than a considered response to the art of the thing: though the movie was immensely tedious as well as nasty.
Leaving Las Vegas
Not a bad movie, really, but there’s no upside whatsoever. After seeing it, I wanted to drink myself to death.
I have a soft spot for Dario Argento, however, so I can’t agree with Suspiria.
I only checked out Argento recently and thought Tenebrae was entertaining if clumsy, which I didn’t really mind. But Suspiria – sorry, no.
E.T. the Extraterrestrial
nothing personal, but you have no heart ;) – also,
Drew Barrymore as Gertie is the best child actor ever!
I thought “Grave of the Fireflies” was beautifully made, from an aesthetic standpoint, but ultimately a manipulative, heavy-handed downer.
I agree, it is beautifully made, but the latter part of your description made me turn it off, I just couldn’t stand it. I kinda liked Spirited Away though.
do you mean the original version of Insomnia
No the Nolan/Pacino version, nothing really worked in that movie at all. Is the original worth getting? I like Skarsgård.
When I saw it, I thought “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” (1962) had to be the worst movie ever made that was intended to be good.
Same here, totally over the top, seems to be some sort of gay cult film though.
I rather enjoyed Demolition Man, but I regarded it as just a goofy comedy. It’s the only Stallone movie I’ve ever seen (and that’s only because I’m slightly acquainted with the screenwriter).
I laughed nonstop through Cabin Boy, which is the epitome of stupidity. I couldn’t tell, though, whether it was intentionally the way it was or just a lucky resonance with the exact frequency of my funny bone.
Anyone remember Arthur? The only good thing in it was Gielgud. No one else in that movie generated even a scintilla of empathy from me.
I loved My Dinner with Andre, and have enjoyed most of the Jim Jarmusch I’ve seen. (I’m not too keen on trans-Atlantic conversations anyway, thanks very much.) I highly recommend Dead Man as one of Jarmusch’s best.
I’ve seen so many really bad movies, the titles have mercifully melted away. I do think that Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil was unredeemable though. In all fairness, it may have been because of studio editing but my impression was that Charlton Heston acting in the manner of Victor Mature had its effect.
I kinda liked Spirited Away though.
This prompts me to ask, are you on crack? “Kinda” nothing, Spirited Away is one of the greatest kids’ movies ever. I’m pretty taken with (almost) all the Ghibli films though I have not watched “Fireflies” yet. But Spirited Away is right at the top of the list, jostling up against Howl’s Moving Castle. And, well, Porco Rosso too…
Even their truly treacly pieces (e.g. Whispers of the Heart, which could be an after-school special) are worth watching.
Troy
And the worst thing about it was watching the emaciated and nearly lifeless corpse of Peter O’Toole, looking not all there, and making a damn, sad fool of himself in such a clunker.
I second the badness votes for A Few Good Men.
I happen to like Eyes Wide Shut very much. And I don’t think Coppola’s Dracula was bad at all.
If this thread demonstrates anything, it is that matters of taste are hard to debate objectively.
That said, I was trying to recall if I had ever seen a movie more unwatchable than Toys. At which point, I remembered the existence of Hook.
Now I need to kill some stored memories with drink.
Pretty much anything by Catherine Breillat. Titanic. Visitor Q. Irreversible. The Skin by Liliana Cavani. Pretty much anything by Lina Wertmuller. Any remake of a Lina Wertmuller film. Cousin, Cousine.
Ironweed.
Re: Howard the Duck and general topic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucxqC8sH83Q
The HtD part starts at about 5:37 and gets really funny/creepy at 6:57
(not really sfw (I mean, this is HtD) but nothing really bad either)
Cousin, Cousine
Does this have an audience outside high school French classes?
It shouldn’t. I just remember when it first came out everyone raved about it and I thought it was absolute crap.
I can’t believe that you drew me out of lurkerdom with this thread.
Anyone remember Arthur?
Dumped a boyfriend who took me to see it on a date. He said afterwards “it was the saddest movie I have ever seen.” Why? “Because the main character had all that money and I don’t.”
Nonetheless, the two movies that truly scarred my youth:
Disney’s The Black Cauldron. Yeah, I know the Mouse is famous for raping great children’s books. But this one is special, not only for its truly spectacular display of Missing The Point (see also, Pocahontas, The Little Mermaid, and, God help us, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but for perverting one of the good role models for young girls in fantasy fiction into a Disney Princess.
And my obscure gem: Nasty Habits. An amazing cast and some fine writers who decided to use all of that talent in a parody of the Watergate scandal. Except with nuns.
Ben Alpers at 84: You thirded Vanilla Sky. I firsted it at 37.
Somewhere near the end (but not near enough), Tom Cruise ran out into the lobby of an office building. Someone behind me said at the top of his voice, “Please somebody shoot him, so this movie will be over!” Everybody cheered.
Speaking of Kevin Costner, what was the the name of the one where he was an escaped convict? And got shot, and took about ten very long minutes to die? That was a bad movie. Eastwood was in it, and Laura Dern.
And Hook, oh God yes. As Pauline Kael said, positively drenched in flop sweat.
The Postman by Kevin Costner. Long long long and nowhere near funny enough except for the final fight.
I haven’t seen the Robert Mitchum remake of The Big Sleep (strange movie to remake, although I guess Lauren Bacall sort of did), but his version of Farewell, My Lovely is almost good. The really bad Philip Marlowe in the movies is Elliott Gould. I saw part of his version on an airplane and was ready to be let off in midair.
“Drew Barrymore as Gertie is the best child actor ever!”
Fair enough.
Cabin Boy was the only movie I’ve ever paid for only to walk out on. And it was the last five minutes. I decided that if anything, at least I could salvage those.
I thought Titus was visually beautiful, which counted for a lot. Vanilla Sky, as well, I found visually appealing.
Thanks for mentioning Forrest Gump, too ;)
You have missed “Being John Malkovich”.
And, if you are of a certain age, the film version
of “West Side Story” was so painfully bad that the
“Star” – Richard Beymer – actually tried to buy all
of the prints before it was released.
O Lucky Man.
Not for the viewer.
Star Trek: Nemesis.
Of course Star Trek V must be included. I have never watched First Contact all the way to the end, but my husband tells me it was watchable.
Field of Dreams!
The people who made Field of Dreams made it too sentimental and a father/son story when it was only in part. Eddie/Kid Scissons should have stayed in the movie even if J.D. Salinger could not under his own name.
Eyes Wide Shut certainly the worst movie I’ve paid to see, including Independence Day.
But as for classics, no one has brought up Bringing Up Baby. Hepburn manages to singlehandedly turn this into the most nauseating film outside of Dawn of the Dead. When she starts faking piano play, the sympathetic embarrassment shames Ricky Gervais. Do not live to see this movie, if you have been so far spared.
re 118: This may be why Dave Marsh preferred the Crystals/neighborhood kids to the mannered choreography of “West Side Story”.
Richard Beymer – actually tried to buy all
of the prints before it was released.
True story? I’d love to read about this if you could point me to a source.
Speaking of Kevin Costner, what was the the name of the one where he was an escaped convict?
A Perfect World. Costner has been in rather a lot of these, hasn’t he?
David Lynch’s Dune is a terrible movie that will strangely grow on you over time. I think it might be tolerable if one altered one’s brain chemistry sufficiently.
But it might be one of those ‘so bad it’s good’ ones.
Dear #54,
There is no one who would (willingly) watch Cabin Boy and not love it. Lighten up.
Baby Mama.
Boondock Saints.
El Topo.
Costner has been in rather a lot of these, hasn’t he?
Did anyone here make it through Waterworld? Is it funny?
130:
No; and no.
Liquid Sky and Betty Blue. Every now and then I remember sitting in the theater, staring at the stupid, desperate to figure out why someone had recommended either of these. The first was later clarified: “No, I said whatever you do, DON”T see this movie.”
Christ Almighty. By now I thought at least someone would have proposed Natural Borne Killers. I hope this is because no one has seen it. It was the only/worst movie I was ashamed of myself for not walking out of. I kept promising myself I would leave when the protagonists were killed. Dumbass! Nothing could have kept that crapfest going but the survival of the miserable protagonists. I hope that film failed financially or we are all in big trouble.
Let’s see. Of course we want to avoid
1) various ghastly remakes, most of which I have been careful to avoid (Breathless, The Vanishing, various J- and K-horror). But I did get suckered into Vanilla Sky, Planet of the Apes, and Insomnia (the original is good).
But as someone said, that’s easy. And so is
2) anything with Kevin Costner, Robin Williams, Nicolas Cage, or Keanu Reeves (with a extra-special double bonus vote for Matrix III, whatever that atrocity was called).
We knew these things already. But we don’t want to be simply contrary either. For example, if you don’t like musicals, that’s fine. But West Side Story is a perfectly entertaining film. And we’ve all had too much indie cool; but Stranger than Paradise was a hoot.
Myself, I’m coming up fairly empty, but I would like to second and/or mention these:
The Usual Suspects (and while we’re talking about Spacey, let’s add American Beauty)
A Beautiful Mind
The Shawshank Redemption, which is unaccountably high on imdb’s Top 250
Ferris Bueller, sure
Chasing Amy, my stars, yes; but the worst part is toward the end
Something Wild, oh yes
Batman and Robin, yikes
Punch-Drunk Love, an Adam Sandler movie in which he is not the problem
Much recent Godard, especially the insufferable In Praise of Love
Russian Ark
Where the Truth Lies
Alien Resurrection (well, it could have been good!)
After Hours – !?
and yes indeed, Bringing up Baby. Wow.
Let me think about it some more…
I too loathed “Being John Malkovich”. Truly nasty and depressing.
“I Heart Huckabees” was soul-vacuuming.
Finally, “Arsenic and Old Lace” is highly unpleasant – no mean feat with Cary Grant on the set.
Requiem for a Dream. Two hours of my life I’ll never have back, never, never!
Second to Troy. I just watched it on tv last week. It’s basically poorly made soft core porn for women, but not even a naked Brad Pitt can make up for the overall crappiness of the movie.
As for the person who mentioned Arthur, I assume you mean Jerry Bruckheimer’s Arthur movie? Because that’d be a top contender. Clive Owens doesn’t utter a single line that isn’t a cliche (we kept track), the movie is completely self serious, yet the plot is laughably implausible, e.g. Kiera Knightly, a Wiccan priestess fights of multiple 300 lb Saxons in hand to hand combat.
My parents should get an honorary award for picking out obscure European dud after dud. In 20 years, my mother’s never yet not rented a clunker. One was a French movie that involved nuns, and pigs farting (or maybe it was the nuns?), anyways, it’s our equivalent of the “horse movie.”
Finally, I wouldn’t say not watch it, but think twice before you rent a 3 hour movie described as a “Japanese Icelandic vision quest.”
Aap Mujhe Achche Lagne Lage
Hrithik Roshan did his best, but the script sucked big rocks through a straw and Amisha Patel was HORRIBLE. All she can do is simper and cry. I wanted to throttle her.
Y’all keep bringing up recent Hollywood movies. Bollywood or the Hong Kong martial movie industry could surely beat Hollywood. In a face-off between Bollywood and Hong Kong for worst movies evah, I don’t know who would win.
…which is how some of us felt after viewing The Usual Suspects.
Don’t watch “The Usual Suspects” before reading the Foundation Trilogy.
The English Patient . . . just plain godawful.
And I’d offer Julie Taynor’s Titus, a horribly brutal version of Titus Andronicus.
I’d argue that, given that she’d decided to film Titus Andronicus in the first place, it wasn’t a bad effort.
I mainly wanted to say that the title of the post should be “101 Movies to Die before you see”
My nomination “Shakespeare in Love” – combining sappy teen romance with lame script from Tom Stoppard who is (IMO) having a bad couple of decades.
The worst movies are the disappointments, so I think these would belong on any list: Magnolia, There Will Be Blood, Gangs of New York, The Darjeeling Limited
1- Black Book, by director Paul Verhoeven. Carice van Houten was great in it, but it felt like watching a mashup of Shindler’s List, Pulp Fiction, and Pearl Harbor. No relation to Orhan Pamuk’s novel, The Black Book.
2- Pearl Harbor
3- Sweeny Todd (the recent one with Johnny Depp)
A bit more on Black Book… the review in the NYT (I think) said something along the lines of “it was not really a serious movie”, yet a lot of it was about the holocaust, the main character is a Jewish woman in hiding from the Nazis, and the story was framed at the beginning and end by idyllic scenes of Israel, complete with blooming desert. Then, at the very end, there is gunfire from unseen attackers as the holocaust survivors take refuge (the year is given as 1956). The NYT reviewer loved the movie, but they wished that the current “struggle for Jewish survival” in Israel got more attention. So, The Holocaust = not something a movie has to treat seriously. Israel = the real struggle for Jewish survival. Go figure.
I guess you could say there were a lot of good things about how the ambiguities of war were portrayed (few clear goodguys and badguys), but I didn’t see anything all that special there, to me it seemed more like just a big mess where everybody was crooked or at least very misguided and most of them ended up shooting at each other anyway. Perhaps the most endearing character in of all was the S S officer (or was it gestapo?) who has a romance with the main character lasting most of the movie (provided you put his job title out of your mind).
The Illusionist. Talk about getting lied to, but totally knowing that that’s the only way they can save the movie. It’s like a two-hour version of Law & Order
I don’t know what’s worse, being lied to, or the ‘Murder She Wrote’-style plot where the bad guy is always the special guest.
Oh! I want to play!
Two stinkers from 1991: Queens Logic, Meeting Venus. Films so hopelessly corrupt they could have had Robin Williams in them and it wouldn’t have made them any worse.
I thought I had a hat trick for that year, but I just checked IMDB and it turns out Mr. Holland’s Opus was 1995.
And Zora—I’ll see your Aap Mujhe Acche Lagne Lage and raise you one Ham Dil De Chuke Sanam. Although my fellow victim and I amused ourselves by hypothesizing that the censors cut the scene towards the end when Ajay gives Salman a big ol’ BJ in a Budapest public urninal, which would have given the story some semblance of coherence. And class.
Did anyone mention Keanu Reeves? I recently watched Sweet November on TV. After noting that it began with Boy meets Girl and then nothing much happens for a while except that Girl is cute and wacky! and zany! and madcap! and lovable, I said to teenage daughter: “I know what’s happening. She’ll turn out to have a terminal disease.”
Daughter: “How do you know that?”
“Seeing many, many telemovies like this in the 70s, my child.”
Pushing Tin.
Walked out, and got my money back.
Nuns on the Run. There can only be one Sister Act, (in which horrible nun cliches somehow work) and this wasn’t it.
Defenses of movies that are really okay:
A Perfect World. Eastwood directed it too, and it’s one of the few things I like by him. (I didn’t see the one about the female boxer, but I’ve been told it’s pointlessly nihilistic and nasty, which seems to be a theme in this thread). There is a Costner Hindsight Effect, in which decent movies fall under the shadow of Kevin’s late career.
Dances With Wolves. More Costner Hindsight. A movie with Lakota language was a good thing to do, and it had landscapes. You urban sophisticates just don’t get it.
Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte. I never realized it was supposed to be good. I thought it was the best bad movie of all time. I Walked With a Zombie is in the same vein, I thought. Now I realize HHSC was big budget, with major stars, while IWWAZ (best Bronte adaptation ever) is the opposite.
ET. Drew Barrymore; and what’s wrong with sentiment?
Touch of Evil. I thought it was great, but even if not, the opening shot should keep it out of the reject pile.
And . . .
I agree, Jarmusch’s Dead Man is a great movie. Johnny Depp and Neil Young’s guitar have a lot to do with that. Never could get into any other JJ movies.
On the Shyamalan things . . . isn’t his problem that he ends the movie just when the story begins? They might be interesting if the ending were the premise, and they proceeded from there.
Waking Life. Pretty to look at, but people offer bullshit through the entire film. Like My Dinner With 100 Stoned Andres.
Oh, yes, I forgot about Mr. Holland’s Opus. Just as programmers can’t watch movies with hackers, no teacher can watch MHO without thinking “what an ass” and “why is he alone in a room with her?” and “how did he not get fired?”.
I submit that the Scorsese “Life Lessons” part of New York Stories is just as horrible as the Coppola “Life Without Zoe.” It shares with Mr. Holland’s Opus a hateful main character who we are supposed to admire somehow. In this case, the character does not even c