'Not Fade Away'
A place to talk about movies--Old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
In fact, they said it was one of the best written screenplays they'd read.
But...but...the anvils! The reminder every five minutes that HEROES WILL BE REMEMBERED and THEIR NAMES WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN. The Dawson's Creek dialogue of Paris and Helen. The complete lack of narrative connection between scenes. I don't understand how it could read so well on paper.
But Sean, what I'm describing are structural problems: unless "the script" bears no resemblance to what the actors learned their lines from (in which case I'm not sure we can call it the script), then those structural problems in the finished product had to have been there in the script.
Like, you can do an on-set rewrite to punch up crappy dialogue, but I don't think there's a script doctor in the world who can completely restructure a plot once the sets are built and everyone's in costume.
Highlander 2 was a great measure of badness, but true absolute zero of ill-conceived movies for me will always be Red Dawn.
What, Hayden, you gotta problem with highschool Reaganite counter-revolutionaries? You don't believe we could be invaded and subdued by Cuba at any moment??
Pinko.
Two words.
Endless. Love.
My Measure-of-Badness movies are Meet Joe Black (long, long, LONG, dull, AND it has Clare Forlani in it, being supremely annoying.) and Eight Heads in a Duffle Bag (Stupid gross-out humor. I saw it for free and still felt ripped off.) If you haven't seen either one ... don't.
The worst movie I've seen in recent years is Pearl Harbor. One critic said that he was making a list of every line of cliched dialog, but he stopped when he realized he was writing down half of the lines. And the entire love-rivalry plot was groan-inducing.
I'd also add Showgirls, but that falls in the "So bad it's hysterical" category.
What, Hayden, you gotta problem with highschool Reaganite counter-revolutionaries? You don't believe we could be invaded and subdued by Cuba at any moment??
No, I believed all of these things as strongly as I believe that ketchup is a vegetable, but to name the high school mascot the Wolverines? Completely unbelievable.
Pinko.
Why do you hate America?
I think I'd rate Hardware, Highlander 2, and The Punisher (2004) as some of the worst movies I've seen in the theatre. Since I'm a Brandon Lee and Mark Dacascos purist, no need to delve into the worst I've seen on video.
I'd also add Showgirls, but that falls in the "So bad it's hysterical" category.
I'll add Barbarian Queen to that list. I saw it the evening after my last final one semester. On a scale of 1 to 10, it started at -3 and went downhill from there. Just what I needed.
It's best remembered now because it starred Lana Clarkson, whom Phil Spector is accused of having murdered.