We all have them... the guilty pleasures... the movies we know are really bad, but we still love them for (in)explicable reasons.
So which are your favorite terrible movies?
Why are they terrible?
Why do you love them?
1) Caveman starring Ringo Starr. It's terrible because it's a cheap-ass campy sendup of The Quest for Fire starring Ringo Starr. I love it because it's a terrible sendup of The Quest for Fire starring bad claymation, Ringo Starr, Dennis Quaid and Shelley Long. 2) The Blue Lagoon. It's terrible because Brooke Shields is pedophile bait for like the whole film. I love it because it's a gorgeous piece of cringe. 3) Michael Bay's The Island, but only with the director's commentary. It's terrible because it's a Michael Bay movie, and his first real failure as a director. As in it's not even a good Michael Bay film. It's just awful. I love it because the director's commentary is all about Michael Bay not willing to live with the fact that it's a terrible failure and him enthusiastically throwing everyone else under the bus for two hours. 4) Less Than Zero. It's terrible because it's a hail-mary adaptation of a completely unadaptable book where clearly, more than half of the budget went up the nose of the director and Robert Downey Jr. It's awesome because the other half went into the art direction, which is pretty much a self-parody of '80s cocaine chic, while the soundtrack was supervised by a young, hip Rick Rubin such that it's got Bananarama doing Hazy Shade of Winter and Slayer doing Inagaddadavida, as well as some of Thomas Newman's finest work. 5) Freejack. It's terrible because Mick Jagger is a terrible actor and a worse villain. I believe this is the movie that convinced Anthony Hopkins (briefly) to stop acting. I love it because Rene Russo, Buster Poindexter, Ministry in the soundtrack, and some poor enterprising sound designer decided that in the future, bullet ricochets are James Brown saying "Huh!" 6) Hardware. It's terrible because it's a cheap, poorly-edited catastrophe of a Miramax techno-horror film that doesn't make a lot of sense. I love it because the dialogue is bizarre, the acting is tortured, the cinematography is fuckin' off-the-chain and the art direction was Chris Cunningham before the world told him he was a genius.
I have got to see Hardware. That soundtrack is fantastic... the "Stranger Things" crowd would go bonkers for that! And that cinematography... I just want to see that playing projected on the wall at The Mercury behind some DJ grinding out classic Ministry and 10k Homo DJs....
My "network TV" story: My wife had a friend in high school who was (and is) one of the nerdiest nerds on earth. One fine day in college, back when we were friends but not dating, he came up to see her. As I was pretty much fooling around with her best friend/roommate, her best friend/roommate and I ended up babysitting this schlub. He was not a charismatic person, nor was he particularly outgoing. He wanted to watch a movie. What movie? 'Less than Zero.' It's his favorite. I ask him twice, to make sure we were talking about the same film. Yep, we were. We rented it (in person - from Blockbuster - on VHS) and popped it in the VCR. And his eyes bugged out. Apparently he'd never seen the theatrical release of his "favorite" movie, having only rewatched the exact same CBS taping he'd recorded late-night four years previously. He spent ninety minutes saying "Well this wasn't in the version I've seen" as Morton Downey Jr. clearly fellates men for money, lines of coke are snorted and Jaimie Gertz has sex under dappled light. It was some of the best entertainment of my college years. EDIT: Robert Downey Jr. That would have been an entirely different kinda movie.
I'd watch that, if only so that he would be in front of a camera and not screaming SHUT UP! at people. Less Than Zero was a shit book; sounds like the movie kept true to the original source material. I ended up reading Lunar Park not realizing it was the same author. The book was a mess and I don't recommend it.He spent ninety minutes saying "Well this wasn't in the version I've seen" as Morton Downey Jr. clearly fellates men for money, lines of coke are snorted and Jaimie Gertz has sex under dappled light.
The book was pretty much stream-of-consciousness about unredeemable assholes. The movie shoehorned two or three events from the book into a conventional three-act structure, complete with inciting incident, character arcs, redemption stories and antagonists. Imagine if someone tried to cherry-pick The Great Gatsby out of some of Brett Easton Ellis' notes. And then set it to early Def-Jam. It's spectacular in an inside baseball sort of way.
Remembered another one: Mad Max The original one. With the bad overdubbed dialog. And the "Brown Shoes" scene. And Toecutter's histrionics over Johnny The Boy's death. And Goose. And Fifi. And really everything... Except the vehicles. I especially liked Mad Max's wife's little wagon:
Darkman Why it is terrible: I don't know if "terrible" is a fair way to describe it. It's a Sam Raimi masterpiece. It would be booed out of Cannes most likely but it doesn't belong there anyways. It takes it's DNA from campy 80's action and comic book heroes, only before comic book movies had their shit together. It's not always clear if you're supposed to be laughing, but you are anyways. Why it's awesome: Young Liam Neeson being anything but the cool badass he's known as now. Lovable campiness. Ridiculous plot. There's a reveal in the final seconds that is too good to spoil.
There's this movie called Wirey Spindell that no one has seen. The IMDb description is even wrong. Most critics think it's worse then AIDS. After googling it it seems some peop like it on rotten tomatoes but metacritic is 15%. It's the only romantic comedy I like but the consensus is that the writer/director/costar is an unlikable narcissist. Here's an AV Club review.
Far and Away is a 1992 romantic adventure drama with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. It's a predictable and silly romance with a blue-blooded Uptown Girl opposite a fearless lowerclass boxer moving to America in 1892 to escape a crowded Ireland, searching for land in the Oklahoma Territory. The tenements of Boston put Cruise's character on firmer footing, and Kidman must learn how to wash clothes and earn a living. The Irish accents aren't half-bad and the historic sets are pretty fascinating. My family watched this last night, loving it.
Disqualified for being good? Because maybe I'm confusing "terrible movies" with "movies that I don't like admitting I watch anytime it's on".
Far and Away is corny but so is everything by Frank Capra. The cinematography is top-notch, the acting is impressive, the story is highly entertaining and the soundtrack is legendary. Nobody is going to call it a masterpiece but it sure ain't terrible.
First on the my list has to be Gentlemen Broncos. Why it is terrible: I'm not sure, actually, but everyone I know who has seen it (except for ONE GUY) thinks the movie is terrible. It's similar comedy to Napoleon Dynamite, but I don't find ND funny, and I think GB is hysterical! Weird. Why I love it: First off, Sam Rockwell. He is a fantastic actor that just doesn't get the credit he deserves. But second, I love the idea of the young kid writing his fantasy story, and visualizing it in his head... and the people who steal the story from him visualizing it in completely different ways! It speaks to me as a writer. I write something on the page, but I have no idea how the reader is perceiving the stuff I wrote. This movie illustrates that beautifully, showing how the exact same words can have a completely different result when acted differently.