Sunday, September 2, 2012

The "So Bad It's Good" Collection

Alright, a few weeks ago, I posted a list of my all time guilty pleasures. Those were the movies that I enjoyed in spite of them being bad-ish. This is the list of movies that I am telling you to watch just so you can marvel at how dog gone horrible they are. If you are a humor junky like me who just loves to find stuff to make fun of, this list will be a goldmine to you. I'm actually kind of excited about this list, cause it's one that a friend and I have been putting together for the past few months. Some of these, I am proud to say, we actually quote on a daily basis because they are just so much fun to blurt out and we just can't help but laugh whenever we manage to work it into everyday conversation. Having said that, let's get started.

  1. The Room- If you watch the trailer for The Room, it claims that it's a "quirky black comedy written with the passion of Tennessee Williams". Last I checked, Williams didn't write a whole lot of comedies, and he sure didn't write stuff that was quirky. That error in logic is one of many reasons that you have to watch this movie. It has some of the worst acting you will ever see in your life, dubbing that makes translated Japanese films look spot on, and on top of that, it was written, produced, directed, executive produced and starred the same person. Now, in some cases, this can work out, Clint Eastwood and Kenneth Branagh do it all the time. However, when all of those roles are filled by a zombie with an undefinable accent... Yeah, you're pretty much DOA on that one. I would go into the plot of this movie, but I really want you guys to see it, so I'm not going to spoil anything. And here's the other thing that I have to bring up: You know how when people do comical impressions of Christopher Walken or William Shatner, that isn't how they really talk, they just did that once and we never forgave them? Well, ask anyone who has seen this movie to do an impression of the main actor in this movie, and it is actually going to be pretty dead on. No exaggerations whatsoever. 
  2. The Star Wars Holiday Special- Before you ask, yes, this actually exists. And instead of telling you about everything that's wrong, and how that makes it enjoyable and everything, I'm just going to give you the following fun piece of trivia: George Lucas has gone out of his way to ensure that nobody ever watches this again. George Lucas, the creator of midichlordians and Jar-Jar, said that this was a bad idea. Are you not sold on its awfulness yet?
  3. Showgirls- I only learned this recently, but apparently, this movie was supposed to be a big hit, it had a huge budget behind it, had a ridiculous amount of money given to the screen writer, and they even took the risk of going all out with a NC-17 rating, hoping the awesomness of the picture would carry it to success. But it ended up tanking at the box office and setting a world record for Razzie nominations. And to tell you the truth, I'm kind of surprised. I've watched this movie, and it has some of the best written dialogue since the days of the bard, including lines like "Man, everybody got AIDs and shit"(which was just yelled out randomly, mind you) and "You like nice tits?" "I like having nice tits"
  4. Battlefield Earth- yet another movie that was expected to be a hit. It was based on a best-selling novel (that was actually kind of crappy itself, from what I hear), and had a cast that included John Travolta, Forrest Whitaker and the Nazi guy from the third Indy movie. So where does the movie fail? EVERYWHERE. The most notable failure is the fact that every shot in the film is tilted for no real reason. In fact, if you ever hear someone criticize the film or make fun of it, they almost always bring that up. A close second on the epic failure scale would be John Travolta hamming it up with lines like "While you were still learning how to SPELL YOUR NAME, I was being trained to CONQUER GALAXIES!!!"
  5. Birdemic- I'll admit I have not seen this one, but my friend has, and has shown me clips of it on Youtube. And it honestly doesn't even look like an actual film, it looks like something a college student would have filmed using his dad's old camera
  6. Thankskilling- Okay, I'm puting this low on the list because this was written with the sole intent of being awful. The filmaker's goal was to give us a movie that we would point and laugh at the entire way. And they do a pretty good job of it.
  7. Troll 2- Only watch this movie because there is a scene where a kid just randomly yells out really  loudly, and yet really nonchalantly "Oh my Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooood!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
  8. Dungeons and Dragons- It really breaks my heart that Jeremy Irons is showing up anywhere on this list, even though one of his movies did show up on my guilty pleasures. But I recently read something where Irons basically admitted that he knew the project was going to be bad from the start, so he decided to take the money that was given to him and buy a castle with it. You can tell that was his plan all along by watching the movie and watch the way he acts. If you've ever seen Irons in other movies, you'll know that he is not one who favors hamming things up or chewing scenery, and yet that's all he does in this movie.
  9. Batman and Robin- We live in a strange world my friends. A world in which the same character is at the center of 2 films: One is regarded as being a groundbreaking action-packed drama that went to depths we never would have expected from a comic based movie and is even one of my all time favorite movies. The other is on this list. And how can it not be? I know I ripped the shit out of it a little while back, but there is still so much to enjoy about this movie. From Clooney not giving a shit about the role, to Arnold's puns, to the bat nipples to some of the icicles being so blatantly rubber that it's almost painful. Probably the best part of all the awfulness (apart from the Bat Credit Card) is the way they did Bane and how it is just so much of a blessing that Nolan decided to include him in his universe. Of course there is so much more to this movie to love/hate, but those are just the first things that come to mind when I hear this title. I was actually talking about this one last night with someone at work, and I mentioned that Joel Schumacher, the director, is gay, and he just said "Wow, that explains a lot"
  10. Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus- Oh Sci-Fi channel, how can you not show up here at least once? Now, the Sci-Fi channel has made a lot of these movies in the past where they have these really terrible scripts with these horrible stories and actors that have had no theatrical training whatsoever, and effects that look like they belong in a Pixar movie rather than a live action movie. I wanted to include one of their movies on here, and this is the perfect one, in my opinion. Only because there is a scene where a giant ass shark jumps out of the water and destroys a plane right out of the sky. If you think that sounds silly, just watch the clip, I think you can find it on Youtube somewhere, it will have you on the floor laughing, it is that bad. Note to self, when writing a screenplay, NEVER include the word "vs" in your title