Movies to Avoid at All Cost
Submitted by DaveMog on Tue, 02/20/2001 - 09:14
Tags:
- Soldier
- Alien Resurrection
- Jurassic Park II: The Lost World
- Wishmaster (all movies in the sequence)
- Ravenous
- See No Evil, Hear No Evil
- The Postman
- Gloria
- Medicine Man
- Deep Impact
- Leonard Part 6
- Tremors
- The Golden Child
- Hudson Hawk
- Contact
- Congo
- Sphere
- Battlefield Earth
- Mission to Mars
- The 'Burbs
Have to disagree with you on ALIEN RESURRECTION and RAVENOUS. I would place them in the "Confronting Films" category. In fact, come to think of it, I may make a new list under that title when I get time. Thanks for the inspiration!
Is there somehow a contradiction between "Confronting Film" and a film to avoid? Are there "confronting films" you'd want to avoid?
By the way, I consider Alien Resurrection so bad that to have it appear in even a remotely positive way on any list is completely disgraceful.
Your rejection of the films on this list is not "by the way", it's the main street. You owe us reasons for these rejections.
My answers to your questions are: (1) no, the two concepts seem to get along fine, and (2) no, I think it's healthy to be occasionally confronted by a film rather than be fed pablum ad nauseum.
I'm NOT jumping in with a disarming comment, bertie. :) I do think you owe us a better definition of a "confronting film." Perhaps in your new list?
Yes, and I, for one, will pay my debt. The list is coming.
I felt pretty much the same way when I saw it in the theater. I was all psyched because it was being made by the Delicatessen/City of Lost Children folks, so my expectations were high. My first words after seeing it? "Boy, that sucked." However, I watched it again a few months ago when I was stuck in a hotel with nothing else to do, and I liked it better. Still disappointing, but better. I don't really know why, but I am no longer comfortable making a blanket "it sucked" statement.
AR is a deliberately ugly film. It's about sin: the sin of pride. "She continues to make us all very proud".
OK, ALIEN RESURRECTION is an ugly film and about sin, etc. You can believe what you'd like. The reason I hate it so much, and there are not enough words to describe it (if I hadn't been with others to see it, I would have walked out), is that is not just completely far fetched, but that it lacks any spirit whatsoever of all the prior movies. Not to say that the third installment was any prize. Ripley remade. Aliens swimming in the water. Aliens mating with humans. Ripley being the surrogate mother of the alien/human hybrid. The faux-smile the alien/human hybrid gives her "mother." It is all absolute crap. Theme or no theme, deliberate or not, this movie sets new depths for movie sequals. It substitutes action for plot, lacks any kind of originality or emotional breadth, and I for one do not sympathize with Ripley whatsoever like I do in the first two movies. OK, she's not human anymore, but without her senses of fear, humanity, and conviction, the core of the ALIEN movie series sits emotionally vacant. What can save a movie with such a deficiency? Maybe something can, but it doesn't here. I think it is just totally dreadful.
Yeah, in other words, you were confronted. The film took all your hopes and expectations and threw them back in your face. You need to recognise the important difference between a film that disappoints and confronts you and a worthless crappy movie. I'm not saying AR is great - e.g., scientifically it's nonsense (for one thing, it would have taken huge air-pressure in the 'Betty' to blow the hybrid alien out through that little hole in the window). And did the scientists just forget that alien blood will eat through the aliens cages? Apparently, we're supposed to believe they didn't know about acid-for-blood. On the other hand, I don't see your problem with swimming aliens.
I'll end this comment with a quote: Call: "You're not her." Ripley 8: "I'm not her." But, by the end of the movie, isn't it the old Ripley that emerges in the final scenes?
Folks, JURASSIC PARK: THE LOST WORLD isn't as bad as it's painted either. If you pay attention to the dialogue, it's funny; and the fx are even better than in the first JP.
Watch that last twenty minutes again, with the dinosaur running through Los Angeles (or whatever West Coast city it is), and then try to convince me otherwise about this movie. Not that I liked the first one either. I do agree that the effects are better (one need only go to the first movie and watch the scene of the Brontosaurus sneezing on the children in the tree to notice the big difference), but a good story would help this out a lot. I don't want to open a can of worms here, but perhaps if they actually used the book as a basis for this movie...
Although I completely disagree with "Wishmaster" the first one (which I reallly thought was quite cool), I wish (ha ha) you would come over to my Worst Movies Ever list and add some on. I want my list to grow and grow!
Ravenous was a good movie, and a very funny one at that. I gotta disagree with that choice.
RAVENOUS "very funny"? Did we see the same movie? I agree it's good, but I don't recall laughing much at it. However, I have observed that some people react to horror with laughter - it's a kind of denial.
Tremors? One of the greatest midnight films of all time? Surely you jest...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
lol 'midnight films' lol funny cus its true :0
uh..THE BURBS!!! :( thats a great movie another on at 12 - 1am in the morinning classic! dammit i love that film