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March 28, 2024, 03:46:26 PM

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1001 films that are NOT worth watching

Started by Depressed Beyond Tables, December 15, 2010, 05:28:51 AM

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Saucer51

Copland - starring Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro and Ray Liotta. What could possibly go wrong? Well in this case it's Stallone. No, I'm being mean. The whole film seemed like a great missed opportunity.

Serge

Yep, 'Copland' is pretty fucking bad. Ray Liotta is good in it, though, and for the ten minutes he's in it, so is De Niro. Unfortunately, it was one of the first roles that Keitel obviously did for the money, because sadly, he seems to be unable to fake enthusiasm for films he doesn't care about.[nb]See 'Red Dragon' for the best proof of this.[/nb] Stallone was pretty average, true, but the film wasn't helped by the fact that the director had delusions of Scorsese, filling minor roles with Marty stalwarts such as Frank Vincent, and thinking that would be enough to fool people into thinking the film was any good.

SavageHedgehog

Nah, I like that one, it's definitley one of the last decent films most of those guys have been in. Veto! Can we veto?

Also I'm not sure whether Kietel did it for money considering they were all paid scale. Mind you that was still something like $60,000!

Quote from: quadraspazzed on December 27, 2010, 04:48:01 PM
Life Without Dick

Just a warning, in case a girl/boyfriend ever arrives home with a copy in the mistaken belief that it may in some small way be slightly entertaining.

A sequel to The Man Without a Face?

Pedro_Bear

Requiem For A Dream. Here, I'll sum it up in three words so nobody has to sit through it for the first time even again: "DON'T do drugs".

Admittedly it has a rich subtext to it: "women are whores" which Aronofsky eventually resolved to "women need saving" in another one to miss, The Fountain.

I am confident that Black Swan will resolve to either "women are stupid" and/or "women are evil" judging by the bullshit already being typed about it. No, I won't be watching it.

El Unicornio, mang

No, it doesn't do either. You should watch it, it's good. (as was The Wrestler)

Johnny Townmouse

And Pi is a good way to find out how to deal with migraines.

madhair60

Blade Runner.  Just kidding, that's got some good set design.

ChocolatShrek 2.  The Nightmare on Elm Street remake.

lipsink

Quote from: Serge on December 28, 2010, 07:29:31 PM
but the film wasn't helped by the fact that the director had delusions of Scorsese, filling minor roles with Marty stalwarts such as Frank Vincent, and thinking that would be enough to fool people into thinking the film was any good.

It also has Robert Patrick who's usually great in whatever he's in. It really should've been a better film shouldn't it.

Quote from: Pedro_Bear on December 29, 2010, 03:49:48 PM
Requiem For A Dream. Here, I'll sum it up in three words so nobody has to sit through it for the first time even again: "DON'T do drugs".

Admittedly it has a rich subtext to it: "women are whores" which Aronofsky eventually resolved to "women need saving" in another one to miss, The Fountain.

I am confident that Black Swan will resolve to either "women are stupid" and/or "women are evil" judging by the bullshit already being typed about it. No, I won't be watching it.

You forgot Pi. Eraserhead for dummies.

ThickAndCreamy

Quote from: clingfilm portent on December 30, 2010, 01:33:44 AM
You forgot Pi. Eraserhead for dummies.
I enjoyed both really, although the more I think about Pi the more the pseudo-science stuff becoming irritating. It's obviously not as experimental or atmospheric as Eraserhead but I still see it as a good film.

Depressed Beyond Tables

Quote from: El Unicornio, mang on December 29, 2010, 04:43:12 PM
No, it doesn't do either. You should watch it, it's good. (as was The Wrestler)

I was just thinking recently I'm not sure whether The Wrestler was actually all that good. In a way it's directionless, self-indulgent, boring, and also pointlessly depressing.

It didn't annoy me at the time but I've been struggling to remember any appeal it has. I don't think I'd watch it again so I suppose that says something.

HappyTree

Quote from: gmoney on December 15, 2010, 09:15:29 PM
Lost In Space (LeBlanc) is a stinker.

I would place this in the category of "the worst film I've ever seen that gave me the most enjoyment". It was last spring in Salamanca, visiting my best friend and I picked it from the local library's DVD collection as the evening's sci-fi entertainment. We spent the whole film laughing at how bad it was and I got mercilessly teased for being the one who chose it. Haven't laughed so much in ages, but by God it was terrible.

I'd nominate the 4th Terminator film as being not worth bothering with. I lost interest halfway through and haven't been back for the rest yet.

Pedro_Bear

Quote from: clingfilm portent on December 30, 2010, 01:33:44 AM
You forgot Pi. Eraserhead for dummies.

The Eraserhead analogy is very generous. Pi is more likely to have been inspired visually by Tetsuo The Iron Man, although that wrecks the three-word thing. That sort of "smashed up technology as set dressing" vibe is of that just-pre-mobile phone era, rather than Lynch's love of steampunk.

Pi ("Film school project") was black'n'white-for-no-reason boringness, written presumably on the back of the soon-to-believe-himself-auter reading a light US magazine article "3.142 Amazing Things You Didn't Know About Maaaaaath".

Quote from: Depressed Beyond Tables on December 31, 2010, 02:25:33 AM
I was just thinking recently I'm not sure whether The Wrestler was actually all that good. In a way it's directionless, self-indulgent, boring, and also pointlessly depressing.

It didn't annoy me at the time but I've been struggling to remember any appeal it has. I don't think I'd watch it again so I suppose that says something.

The Wrestler: "wrestling is 2deep4u" which, you know, if we like that sort of thing, we'll have already seen Beyond The Mat anyway. Couldn't have been more redundant if it tried, and yes indeed, all the key Aronofsky subtexts were present, "DON'T do drugs", "women are whores", and the ubiquitous "dragging means deep".


The thing is, Aronofsky will make a watchable film one day by accident. Like other self-styled, self-delusionally arty auters such as Greenaway, this sort of faker lingers for years and years, throwing semi-digested crap at the audience until by sheer probability of combination and permutation of whatever their key obsession is (with Aronofsky presumably: "why didn't girls like me at school?") they produce something someone else can enjoy without casing the mark that the tedium is indicative of emotional depth.

Quote from: El Unicornio, mang on December 29, 2010, 04:43:12 PM
No, it doesn't do either. You should watch it, it's good. (as was The Wrestler)

Has Portman delivered since Leon? Seriously. That performance is cinematic awesomeness, and the halo effect on damn nearly everything else she did up until Star Wars pretty much elevated the half-arsed nothingness on screen. That she dropped the much-publicised no nudity clause so very quickly is another clue.

Portman masochistically going through a gauche re-adaptation of Swan Lake overlayed with Aronofsky's deep-seated loathing of women for what will seem like hours and hours and hours is something I really don't need to see to appreciate.

guys

hey

guys

you guys

guys

hey

guys wait

guys... it followed the plot of the ballet... omg... OMG guys


I lost when I saw the film was being hawked as "Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan", 0.00 seconds. I lost reading the title. As for the inevitable fake pornography... I have an internet connection, I can watch someone fuck a dog. The draw of tame softcore, or even body-double faked hardcore for fake arthouse is over. Add to this Malice In Lalaland - a hardcore pornographic movie stealing from art movies instead of the other way around - has just redefined sex scenes in arthouse forever, and the cold cyncism of getting people to part with money to see Portman gay-for-pay for a few seconds becomes even more clear.

El Unicornio, mang

Yeah but softcore Mila Kunis eating out Natalie Portman is way better than some ropey spray-tanned skank being piledriven by three hairy old men. IMHO.

Seriously though, give it a chance. It's not even that long.

Johnny Townmouse

Last Days

I have a lot of time for Gus Van Sant - I've seen everything he has made and some of it I like a lot (Drugstore Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho) and some of it I love (Elephant, Paranoid Park). Which makes my hatred of this semi-fictional-bio-pic all the more odd (given that it is the first in the trilogy of his 'death' films, of which the following two films I think are his strongest). I understand what he is trying to do - I understand how conventional narrative cinema cannot accurately show the extreme, pathological introspection of some forms of pre-suicide depression. I know that the protagonist is retreating, that time functions differently to him, and that all the people he was surrounded with just want things. But for fucks sake, this film is turgidly boring. Pitt always toes the line of being fucking irritating - a pretentious art-film wannabe, and therefore his mumbling presence has me watching the film through my fingers.

I rather like his Psycho. That should put into perspective how much I hate this film.

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Pedro_Bear on December 31, 2010, 11:26:12 AM
self-styled, self-delusionally arty auters such as Greenaway
Aww, I like Greenaway. Although my favourite film of his is his pre-fame 3-hour beast "The Falls".

Pedro_Bear

Greenaway hits the nail on the head on occassions, and when he does, he pretty much blows cinema around him out of the water. This is as much to do with his solid background in, and love of, history of art as getting across his personal obsessions of ownership within relationships and whatnot. I got the feeling he was waiting for Jarman to die so he could relax and get on with it, The Tulse Luper Suitcases and that, instead of always comparing himself to the guy, you know? Now, Jarman, there's an auter with the gift of broad communication, but even he had to get over his obsession with "homosexuals are victims" to dazzle.

Quote from: El Unicornio, mang on December 31, 2010, 12:04:43 PM
Yeah but softcore Mila Kunis eating out Natalie Portman is way better than some ropey spray-tanned skank being piledriven by three hairy old men. IMHO.

Seriously though, give it a chance. It's not even that long.

See? I could guess there'd be fake gay-for-pay crowbarred in without even reading a review. Spoiler: Portman's character dies, yeah? It's so awful in its pretentions without even watching it. However long it plays to it's going to feel at least twice that. If Portman's character fucks herself over with drugs, or by some heavy-handed misuse of visual symbolism turns out to be her own rival or something equally as absurd, then Aronofsky has not moved one little bit from way back Requiem.



Fuck off Yui. I don't demand that films be excellent, I just want them to be entertaining. If they can't be entertaining due to the subject matter, then I've got to be moved for the correct reason of identifying with the plight of the protagonists. Gummo and Rat Catcher peel back a glimpse of other lives next door to our own, and as cinema they are very good indeed. Fake lesbians, well-trodden arthouse norms, and dragging pace in place of emotional revelation do not good films make.

Depressed Beyond Tables

Anyone care to comment on Antichrist?

It was like a turd yet rough around the edges. The thing is I can't say whether it's worth watching or not. Watching it has saved me the bother of sitting through another von Trier exercise in excess.

God loves von Trier. Antichrist clearly doesn't.

Johnny Townmouse

Quote from: Depressed Beyond Tables on December 31, 2010, 02:49:10 PM
Anyone care to comment on Antichrist?

I loved it a lot. It seemed like a huge puzzle to be deciphered, but one in which Von Trier himself does not know the answer. It's evoking of Tarkovsky was interesting to someone like me, and overall I found it a rather beautifully shot piece of cinema. Some people found the opening scenes to be shot like a Xmas perfume advert, but I thought it was jaw-droppingly great. A bit of Don't Look Now style guilt then comes full force.

Pedro_Bear

The first clue that sets alarm bells ringing is that Antichrist is dedicated to Andrei Tarkovsky. Now, if we are publically announcing we are side-stepping Ingmar Bergman in favour of his influences, we have to deliver. This is not up for debate.

Does it? Does is fuck. Well, yes. Yes it fucks. And sucks, literally and metaphorically. Basically... we all know John Waters, yeah? Take those early John Waters films, remove all humour and character, inject the result into two photogenic characters along with a healthy dose of batshit Fundie Christian guilt, lock them in a remote location steeped in gloom and introspection, give them a box of sharp implements, multiply the shock tactics Waters employs to disgust his audiences until the film is overly-long, and then employ a director of filmography who knows their stuff to film it all.

Antichrist thinks it is about "are women evil?" but actually resolves to good ol' fashioned "women are evil". It's not a horror movie in the sense that we feel scared per se, more so that we wonder how the "auter" could possibly hate other people so much as to film these endless violations of the living flesh. Like a gore thread, you know? That sort of disgust of love and emotion born of rejection so deeply seated that it manifests as finding mutilation arousing. I am aware I'm making it seem more interesting than it plays out on screen. It's no Dogville, put it that way, even though the central obsession with hating women is writ big there too. Dogville's spite had purpose which gave it teeth; in Antichrist it's just there, pushing the same button for the whole movie. We get it Lars. No, we get it. Fuck me, WE GET IT. Is this it for the whole film?

Fittingly, renouned and unashamed artfilm snob and very accurate critic of arthouse cinema, John Waters,[nb]No joke, Waters is one of the very best arthouse commentators in my opinion.[/nb] loved it. He listed it just behind Import Export as his movie of the year in 2009. Personally, I think Dancer In The Dark is von Trier's best film, one which delivers on its set-up, albeit it takes too long for us to tap into the emotional mainline that maximises the horror of the conclusion.

Johnny Townmouse

Quote from: Pedro_Bear on December 31, 2010, 03:51:50 PM
The first clue that sets alarm bells ringing is that Antichrist is dedicated to Andrei Tarkovsky. Now, if we are publically announcing we are side-stepping Ingmar Bergman in favour of his influences, we have to deliver. This is not up for debate.

Yes it is.

I don't think anyone took the dedication to Tarkovsky very seriously, anymore than a dedication to Bergman would have (or one of Bergman's own prior influences).

El Unicornio, mang

Quote from: Pedro_Bear on December 31, 2010, 01:49:00 PM
Gummo and Rat Catcher peel back a glimpse of other lives next door to our own, and as cinema they are very good indeed.


I think it's clear we have very different taste in films cos I thought Rat Catcher was awful, and Dogville too. I don't want to see a glimpse of people next door, I see it every day.

Zetetic

Quote from: Pedro_Bear on December 31, 2010, 03:51:50 PM
Antichrist thinks it is about "are women evil?" but actually resolves to good ol' fashioned "women are evil".
Do you think that a film is a bad film if it's about "women are evil". (I suppose that's slightly tangential to whether it's worth watching or not.) There a certainly quite a few books and films where I disagree with author but I still think that they've produced something interesting. Or do you just think that "women are evil" is just too boring a message for someone to push in a film, no matter how they do it?

(I'm even prepared to say that I think Requiem for a Dream is certainly worth watching, because it's remarkable in heavy-handedness and didactic nature, and I suppose a decent enough typical demonstration of a type of film-making, cinematography and so on, at that time.)

Pedro_Bear



"Open your Bibles to Genesis..."

BITCHES AND WHORES is a memetic dismissal from elsewhere for the sort of unwarranted, blinkered self-hatred expressed so vividly by far too many arthouse auters these days. How many more millenia are we going to keep fuelling this lie? To what ends? What, exactly, do we win when by sheer brute force the idea is accepted at face value by all?

I have no issue at all with "that woman is evil / a whore / bisexual (therefore distrustworthy in heterosexual relationships)", but it really pisses me off when muthafucking arthouse stoops to the adolescent venom of rejection, and for what?

Aronofsky is a totally lost cause. He appears utterly consumed (IT BURNS IT BURNS) with getting back at the girl who turned him down at whatever early age it happened. Lars von Trier should damn well know better. This is the guy who gave us The Idiots, he knows better than anyone that the dark nature of humanity has nothing to do with gender. Antichrist undermined everything he aimed for with Dogville. And I appreciate fully that was the point, to challenge the previous challenge. Didn't happen.

Thing is, arthouse can show us damn nearly anything it likes within legal paramaters, and even then arthouse is notorious for pushing the envelope. Was. It enjoys a freedom that the mainstream simply can't imagine. And that is what passes for arthouse auter in the new millenium? What the fuck?

When Sasha Grey, bless her 4th ed DnD playing naivety, can force hardcore pornography to bend to something more than masturbatory fantasy, there are really no excuses for self-styled auters to be this lazy and utterly pathetic. Jesus fuck a dog, Japanese cartoons for children and emotionally stunted adults wouldn't dream of putting this sort of blank, bland misogyny out there, and this is a genre where schoolchildren traditionally get raped by tentacle demons.

And... yeah... AND... IF we're noticing the technical prowess of a movie for anything other than homework in film school it's a shit film, so piss poor we've been reduced to commenting on the camera angles.

Johnny Townmouse

Quote from: Pedro_Bear on December 31, 2010, 09:00:30 PM
And... yeah... AND... IF we're noticing the technical prowess of a movie for anything other than homework in film school it's a shit film, so piss poor we've been reduced to commenting on the camera angles.

Sorry, but are you a troll? I'm asking because that was so wilfuly stupid I can only assume that it was designed to piss someone off.

Subtle Mocking

Speaking of commenting on camera angles...

Battlefield Earth
One of those classic 'funny because it's fucking terrible' films. About 99% of the shots were at a canted angle for no apparent reason.

Pedro_Bear



Quote from: Johnny Townmouse on December 31, 2010, 09:12:27 PM
Sorry, but are you a troll?
I nostalgia'd... but then I remembered I placed my blade beneath my heart...

Even us friends of Dorothy know that if we pay attention to The Man Behind The Curtain the illusion is shattered. By that measure of technical competency, Dan Brown and Jeffrey Archer have added positively to human literature for all time... and this is from someone who quite enjoyed Angels and Demons as a no-brainer film.

Quote from: Subtle Mocking on December 31, 2010, 09:14:52 PM
Battlefield Earth
Well that filAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHHAHA

Quote from: Subtle Mocking on December 31, 2010, 09:14:52 PMAbout 99% of the shots were at a canted angle for no apparent reason.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_angle

QuoteThe Dutch angle is an overt cinematographical technique that can easily be overused. The science-fiction film Battlefield Earth (2000), in particular, drew sharp criticism for its pervasive use of the Dutch angle. In the words of film critic Roger Ebert, "the director, Roger Christian, has learned from better films that directors sometimes tilt their cameras, but he has not learned why."

Johnny Townmouse

Quote from: Pedro_Bear on December 31, 2010, 10:37:13 PM
I nostalgia'd... but then I remembered I placed my blade beneath my heart...

Coffee, water, and tomato juice, tabasco and vodka. You'll be as right as rain by mid-day. Happy new year!