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Ted Neeley as a moody pinup Personal Saviour in Norman Jewison's movie of Jesus Christ Superstar
There is a certain Chicagoist staffer who treasures Andrew Lloyd Webber's faux-hippie opus as "one of my favorite musicals ... I always wanted to sing Murray Head's part." [Ed. note: Tankboy here. I admit it, it's me. That is a killer singing part and he gets all the best lines!] However this staffer classifies it as one of the worst movies he's ever had the displeasure to sit through, insincere dreck that manages to rip off Hair, Cat Stevens and Up with People in equal measure. Why folks protested The Last Temptation of Christ but not this pukey flick is anyone's guess.
This got us thinking about other movies we equally loathe. Now, there are plenty of terrible movies whose very wretchedness makes them enjoyable (Showgirls, The Room.) And there are terrible movies so uniquely awry that you can't help but begrudgingly admire them at least a little bit (Southland Tales, Antichrist.) But there's also a whole class of cinema so crushingly awful that it's personally offensive. If these relatively recent movies have anything in common it's that they tend to favor style over substance, and throat-grabbing gimmickry over honest craft. They're content to either recycle their own creators' previous work or shamelessly steal from earlier, better movies. Feel free to chime in with your own selections.
Check out our list after the jump...
1. Body of Evidence (1993; directed by Uli Edel)
Of the many horrendous Madonna movies, this is perhaps the worst. Nonsensical and boring in equal measures. Gets extra points for wasting fine actors like Anne Archer, Joe Mantegna, and Willem Dafoe.
2. The Draughtsman's Contract (1982; directed by Peter Greenaway)
This Brit filmmaker is a past master at the sort of pretentious pap that looks gorgeous and tastes like shellac, so exquisitely airless it can't be bothered to actually communicate to its audience. Apparently John Boorman once lamented "the sadism, the sex-hating, the food-hating, life-hating, child-hating, woman-hating, excrement-loving" in Greenaway's work. A supposed examination of lust and cunning that's completely unerotic and dull.
3. Empire of the Sun (1987; directed by Steven Spielberg)
Spielberg takes J.G. Ballard's harrowing childhood memoir and overstuffs it with grandiose crane shots and oodles of syrupy choral grandstanding on the soundtrack, courtesy of John Williams. Desson Howe sums it up wonderfully: "Could Steven Spielberg please avoid the following in his next movie: Boys on bicycles, rebirth, the sky lighting up like the Fourth of July and another pre-teen struggling in an adult world?" Skip the movie and read the book.
4. Fight Club (1999; directed by David Fincher)
There are those who worship this movie, and you'll surely make yourselves heard in the comments section. But to us this movie is just a piece of hypocritical designer nihilism, with a plot twist that insults the audience's intelligence. It wallows in the very elements it supposedly condemns. Also doesn't help that Edward Norton is one of the most annoying actors working today.
5. From Dusk Till Dawn (1996; directed by Robert Rodriguez)
Rodriguez and co-scripter Quentin Tarantino were never more empty and pointless than they are here, with even more blood and gore than usual. Who the hell cares? At least Four Rooms has a certain variety to it.
6. Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003; directed by Jan de Bont)
We saw this at the Brew & View. It was still too expensive. At the very least, there's no earthly reason why this movie will be remembered in 50 years. Aside from Angelina Jolie's monstrous lips.
7. Moulin Rouge! (2001; directed by Baz Luhrmann)
Sorry. We hate almost everything about this movie: the frenetic editing style, the Frankenstein-style song-stitching, the voluptuous visual design which fails to camouflage the absence of genuine human feeling. It's just a bunch of slick claptrap. We're tempted to say that a movie musical couldn't be any worse, but we've purposefully avoided seeing Across the Universe so ...
8. The Usual Suspects (1995; directed by Bryan Singer)
Kevin Spacey is Keyser Soze. There! We just saved you from having to watch it. Is there really any reason for this movie to exist aside from its plot twist? No. No, there isn't. The movie screams "filmmaker's flashy calling card" and it obviously worked. Singer will be busy for the foreseeable future.
9. What Lies Beneath (2000; directed by Robert Zemeckis)
We thought Brian De Palma had cornered the market on Hitchcock-pilfering till we saw this atrocity. Again: a third act plot twist does not a movie make, and piling on four "endings" in a row is just stupid. For not the last time, Zemeckis seizes on some gimmicks as lazy substitutes for intelligent craft. These include the World's Slowest Draining Bathtub and, umm, a ghost or something.
Okay, your turn!
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Disagree on Moulin Rouge! Yes, that exclamation point is annoying and many of the versions of the songs are nowhere near as good as the originals. It's not the greatest movie of all time and only a few songs are used to further the plot, but it actually has a plot, although it's stolen from La Boheme. And I think that the acting is pretty good. It's not a great film, but it's not a terrible film.
1. Fresh Horses. Crappy Molly Ringwald/Andrew McCarthy movie from 1988. The movie ends with the characters meeting each other on the street and basically describing what has happened to them since they last were together X number of years ago and what the audience didn't see. Huh? Crappy writing, crappy movie.
2. Missing in Action 2: The only movie I ever walked out of. I was just sitting there and about halfway through I thought to myself "What am I watching?", got up and left.
3: Any Porky's movie.
Oh, and any of those (Blank) Movie movies. Scary Movie, Dance Movie, etc. People with no original thoughts get together and goof on other movies already made. And can't even do THAT well. We should all be movie producers/writers because of this.
I can't believe you just called Jesus Christ Superstar pukey...I think that pukey is a tad harsh. It's fun...it's not a masterpiece, it's just fun. Although I will admit that I was just a kid when I first saw it, and loved it, and when I did watch it again as an adult I didn't feel the same way about it...but sitll...pukey?
I can't believe I'm drawing a blank here on bad movies I've seen, but I can recall many a time walking out of a theatre and proclaiming "That has to be the worst movie I've ever seen in my life!"
Sample lyrics:
If you'd come today
You could have reached the whole nation
Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication
I rest my case.
LOL....c'mon Rob....it rhymes!!!!!!
and it does kinda make sense.......
I'm teasing...but I just take it for the pure entertainment value. I thought the songs were just fun and I used to love singing along with them. Good times :)
And Ted Neeley just made the cutest Jesus!
I got Tankboy's back on this one. I'm a theatre nerd from way back, though, and I've had the pleasure of being in this musical twice in my lifetime.
As for shitty (kinda recent) movies, the only one I can fully get on the hate train behind is:
Johnny Nemonic: Keanu at his Keanuyist. The worst dialogue I think I've ever heard in a movie. Poorly cast on top of that. Ugh.
An equally bad recent Keanu venture ... The Day the Earth Stood Still. Should have been called the Day the Plot Stood Still.
1. Superbad. The only movie I've ever walked out on. The name says it all. (I hate that fuzzy-haired fat kid.)
2. The Notebook, or anything else based on a so-called "book" by Nichlas Sparks.
3. Magnolia.
4. Anything with Robert Deniro after Raging Bull; anything with Michelle Pfeiffer after the Fabulous Baker Boys; anything with Kevin Costner that doesn't involve baseball; anything with Cameron Diaz trying to be a serious actress; anything with Nicole Kidman trying to be an actress of any type; anything with Ewan McGregor ever.
Also, to kick off the inevitable defense of Fight Club, I see that film as a cinematic equivalent of a Charles Bukowski poem. It's meant specifically to speak to bitter males between the ages of 22 and 26. It's good because it's only fair that this demographic have something.
On #4: How dare you; The Pillow Book was the best McGregor movie EVER!
That's like saying corn is the best ingredient in diarrhea ever.
Only if the corn is giving full frontal action while getting inked up!
I agree with most of your post, I did, however enjoy Superbad.
And I liked Nicole Kidman in The Hours and To Die For. She was also good for her role in The Golden Compass.
I will add Meg Ryan to the list of stars whose movies I won't see. Julia Roberts too.
I'm over Mel Gibson too. The only things I liked him in were Mutiny, Braveheart and the first Lethal Weapon, maybe the second.
Not a big Tom Cruise fan, but his performance in Born On The 4th of July was astounding.
I think the Hours is to 28-35 year old women what Fight Club is to 22-26 year old guys. I'm out of the demographic and therefore can't agree with you on its value, but I'll let you have your fun. :-)
I'm with you on most everything else. Braveheart was the last thing Mel Gibson did that was any good. Everything he's done since has been remaking Braveheart in a different time period. And I can't get behind Born on the Fourth of July, but that has more to do with my hatred of Oliver Stone than Tom Cruise.
Why the hate for Oliver Stone?
Did you see 'W'? I thought it was pretty good. When I first heard about the movie being made I thought for sure it was going to be a real Bush Bash...but it wasn't.
(although the best scene with George W. Bush in a movie, has to be when he's getting high with Harold and Kumar :)
Oliver Stone's one of those guys about whom I could write enormous treatises that discuss cultural movements and sociological degradations, and nobody here wants that. But I'll summarize.
1. Platoon-the film that first fetishized Vietnam and inspired a million boomers who never touched a gun to declare that war is hell. This is just Boomers wallowing in self-pity. Born on the Fourth of July continued this fetishizing, and expanded it to a love of hippie protest culture. I have a theory that these two movies created the reactionary culture that directly led us to so willingly accept Iraq.
2. JFK-the film that legitimized the conspiracy theory. Three hours of unconnected and unfounded nutcase rambling that hasn't stopped since. Also, it's more Boomer wallowing and self-pity ... "We had it so bad because our president was shot and we had to watch his little boy salute in the street." Oh, boo fucking hoo.
3. Nixon. So much of this film is deplorable, but it all pales in consideration of the moron who thought Anthony Hopkins would make a good Nixon.
4. The People Vs. Larry Flynt. Skin peddler equals First Amendment crusader and defender of our very way of life. Plus, aren't drug overdoses and paralysis cool! I'm happy Flynt won his case, sure, but I don't agree that the man deserves our adoration simply for making fun of Jerry Falwell. So what.
I could go on and on. Also, I did not see W, so I don't know what the deal is there.
#4 was directed by Milos Forman ...
But your points are well taken. The only Oliver Stone movie I can really get into is "Talk Radio." Somehow he was the perfect guy to direct that material.
You're right. Somehow, I've always seen that as an "Oliver Stone film," even though he only produced it.
Ooh..thanks for the heads up on Pirate Radio. I was going to see it, but don't think I will now.
I'm guessing you haven't seen Trainspotting, Shallow Grave, A Life Less Ordinary, Young Adam, The Pillow Book or Velvet Goldmine.
I have not seen Shallow Grave or Young Adam, but have seen the others. I thought they all sucked. Trainspotting was as overrated as the book it was based on.
Also regarding #4, "For the Love of the Game" is a terrible Costner baseball movie. More importantly though, how anyone hate "Goodfellas" which is post-Raging Bull DeNiro. I can see people thinking it's overrated but flat out not liking it? Come on!
It seems like most of whats mentioned here falls under the list of "most overrated recent films" more than anything else.
I have a personal dislike of mafia movies, because I think they've all been roughly the same movie since the Godfather, only moreso. Worse, Scorsese movies have less and less emotional center as time goes on. They're efforts in technical skill without much in the way of good storytelling. I think Goodfellas falls into that category.
And I've been looking at this as a discussion of overrated rather than just bad films. There are certain films you know are bad, but it doesn't matter as they're not purporting to be anything else, nor does anyone claim they're any good. Armageddon, for instance, was horrible, but nobody ever pretended it was anything more than a silly disaster flick. I think when Rob wrote his list above, though, he was discussing more the bad movies that have an undeserved following rather than the movies that were just bad. I've been looking at the big budget films that draw the acclaim and adoration of critics or that attempt to be some kind of Hollywood masterpiece, but in my opinion fall short.
I just watched Goodfellas on tv the other night. I cannot not watch that movie whenever it's on. Another one is the Untouchables. I could watch both of those over and over.
Oh...since nobody has brought it up, I think I'm the only one in the world who has not seen Titanic. Have no desire to. I've seen the trailer, I've seen clips...I think it would bore me to death, it looks corny and overblown and the Kate Winslet character...I think I want to slap her.
Yeah, discussions about anything overrated or underrated usually makes for better debate anyway. I'll still defend Goodfellas to the death but if you have an aversion towards mob flicks I can understand your sentiment.
I think the worst big-time mob movie I've ever seen is "Prizzi's Honor" w/ Jack Nicholson and Kathleen Turner. I think it was John Houston's last movie and he must have had a foot in the grave making it b/c it was unwatchable. It has to be Nicholson's worst role/performance ever.
Every shitty remake that Hollywood has made in the past 10 years. WTF, is there a shortage of talented writers who are capable of writing an original screenplay?
Speaking of diarrhea ... Brad Pit's 2004 Troy!
Whatever man, Jesus Christ Superstar rocks. Obviously the movie is a bit dated at this point, but the songs are good, campy fun. It's an interesting perspective on Jesus' final days. It's not The Passion, but it isn't trying to be.
Also, the movie/musical HAS been protested. No, I don't have links, but I swear I've seen them.
It was protested because there was only one black disciple and he was . . . Judas.
Not to be an ass, and not that the production has ever gone for historical accuracy, but I have to wonder why there'd be any black disciples at all. Shouldn't they all be of Hebrew descent? Shouldn't they look Middle Eastern?
http://tinyurl.com/y8ammfu
I LOVED Jesus Christ Superstar, not the movie though, the musical. The music is very different, more lo-fi, tighter, and generally just less hippie-weirdo. It's just a faster piece over all. Of all Weber's crazy over the top nonsense it's my favorite. He should be punished for Joseph. Oh yes.
Movies?
1: Any John Carpenter Remake (Halloween, the Fog, Assault on Precinct 13) I heard some bastards were even going to dig into "Escape from NY". Again, punishment. What made Carpenter's B Movies work was the fact they were B MOVIES made by a guy with more talent than money. Now you have people with more money and less talent trying to take the flicks REALLY SERIOUSLY. Which leads to
2: Anything by Rob Zombie- Seriously. Screw Rob Zombie and his Hot-Topic Goth bullshit. The Devil's Rejects was about as scary as the neighbor kid let loose in "Fantasy Headquarters" for two hours.
3: Pirate Radio- I saw this in the UK. It has basically every great current generation British comic you can think of (save for Simon Pegg) plus Bill Nighy and Kenneth Brannagh and still manages to be an hour too long and have no story, no interesting characters and waste Philip Seymour Hoffmann's time.
4: Almost Famous- When they start singing "Tiny Dancer" I was praying for a bus crash
5: Serenity- Yeah, the big screen adaptation of the "Firefly" tv show. I was with a girl who loved Joss Whedon's whole...thing. The tv show was not bad, the movie was an exercise in not murdering everyone around me with pieces of popcorn. Two hours of fan wanking with an ending that killed off half the cast and left the girlfriend weeping and her friends SCREAMING IN MY EAR for the rest of the night about how AWFUL IT WAS that WASH DIED.
Fuck you Joss Whedon.
I, too, hate Whedon, though I have to disagree on Serenity. I think it was the only thing he ever did that was any good.
Anything Shyamalan's touched since Unbreakable, especially Signs. (I didn't see The Happening, but probably that too.)
Oh gosh yes! I forgot all about "The Village." Rod Serling would be turning over in his grave about now. He always said that 20 minutes was the optimal length of time for one of his tales.
This goes way back, but the film version of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978) was one of the worst films I've ever seen, imho. The only reason I saw it was because I was 15 and had a huge crush on Peter Frampton. But even at 15 I knew it was a piece of crap. Any movie with Adam Sandler or Ben Stiller is worthless as well.
I still have both Superstar LPs from my childhood. London Cast and movie soundtrack. Loved it, and I still do.
Who mentioned Braveheart?! Why isn't that soap opera on this list? Mel's god-complex reached new heights of boorish melodrama with his reheated "cultured barbarian" archetype. Suddenly Richard Dreyfus was on the History Channel three nights a week waving a tartan and babbling to anyone who'd not changed the channel yet that he was related to Wallace.
And ditto on Platoon. Full Metal Jacket was superior in every way. Oliver Stone can eat the peanuts out of my sheeyit.
Stanley Kubrick > Oliver Stone
No question. And Charlie Sheen? Previous movie = The Wraith.
Rob,
Bravo on USUAL SUSPECTS and FIGHT CLUB. Both worthy targets. Boooo on MOULIN ROUGE and, to a lesser extent, WHAT LIES BENEATH, which I had completely forgotten about until now.
A quick defense of SIGNS, which was lambasted above, in that I think it relates to WHAT LIES BENEATH in that both are films featuring a top-shelf lead (Gibson, Ford) totally slumming it in a genre film by a fairly top-shelf director. They are derivative, yes, but less deplorable than maybe forgettable as exercises. Also: if every video game movie was as good as TOMB RAIDER, I would probably still be into video games.
Can I add AMERICAN HISTORY X to this discussion? Cheap exploitation at it's criminally worst.
Oooh, Sorry! Not meant for you. Comment fail. I agree with you!
Mary Antoinette was the worst pile of crap i have ever had the misfortune to see ever.
I like Sophia Coppola, but I think she was on some sort of powerful anti-depressent when she made it.
It's a magazine photo shoot that somehow got turned into a movie.
Agreed. Only at least most magazine photo shoots are somewhat interesting to look at...
This will probably get me killed, but I absolutely HATED Donnie Darko.
God, so did I! We need to form a support group for ppl that loathe that one.
As long as we're doing movie confessions...I'm indifferent to most Wes Anderson, and hated Royal Tanenbaums. Turned it off after fifteen minutes.
I find it all the sort of style-over-substance strained quirkiness that seemingly every advertising creative director I worked with fawned over.
"Oh look, Ben Stiller's wearing an ironic track suit and being totally neurotic in front of his kids."
So says the guy with the Aviator Sunglasses, Handlebar Mustache and Mullet avatar.
:)
Already mentioned but....I HATE Trainspotting. I don't believe for a moment that being a homeless heroin addict (and smelling like feces and robbing people) can be kind of charming and darkly funny as long as you've got the friends to bond with over your repulsive lives.
I still like Fight Club for the first half of it. It's a very MODERN movie that says fuck you in capital letters to America's present establishment, one whose new-age sensitivity has shielded the most ruthless kind of corporate consumerism ever force-fed to Americans.
Isn't anyone going to join me in declaring Natural Born Killers and Grizzly Man equally putrescent as anything listed in this post or comment thread?
NBK almost made my list actually but I love me some Herzog.
Yep, Herzog does little wrong imho.
Just watched "Aguierre: The Wrath of God" last night for the first time and it absolutely blew me away. I have no idea how they filmed some of those scenes. If anybody reading this hasn't seen it check it out especially if you have any interest in the age of exploration and conquest.
Grizzly Man was pretty good too I think.
Yeah, you can't really go wrong with the Herzog/Kinski combo. Everyone should see Fitzcarraldo once too.*
*yes I know it's cliche to gush about Fitzcarraldo, but it really is something.
Fitzcarraldo is the follow-up or quasi-sequel to Aguierre right?
Either way I'm putting in my Netflix que as we speak.
Not that I know of except that there are some similarities in the obsessions of the characters Kinski plays in both. Make sure if to watch it with commentary after you watch it regularly, Herzog's commentary is fascinating. Lots of crazy things happened while making it, there's actually two other films that cover the making of the movie itself.
That personal obsession is at the heart of most Herzog. Burden of Dreams--the making of Fitzcarraldo--fits right in as a study of Herzog's obsession(s). Its basically the same story as Fitzcarraldo, much more intense. Mothrfckrs nuts! Rent it, then watch it.
Oh, if only Herzog had made Jesus Christ Superstar. If only.
What didn't you like about Grizzly Man? I think WH puts together a fairly captivating profile of Treadwell, which is as objective as it is sympathetic.
Although I strongly disagree with Fight Club's presence here (as predicted), the idea that it's worse than any of Roland Emmerich's films is laughable. His films fit your idea of bad movies to a TEE, my friend.
Whoever thinks the film Jesus Christ Superstar is junk knows nothing about art. This film is a classic on many levels.
also check out My Best Fiend.. all about the Herzog/Kinski relationship. wow.