Worst Film You've Ever Seen

[Mr. Tea]

Some of the humour in LofG is almost in laughing at the way that they have deliberately made it as horrible as possible even at the expense of humour - I'm not sure whether or not that is what is intended but that is how I take it.

Hmm, it was going this way in the second series, I think, and fully got there in the third (which coincided with it getting a lot less good, too). The first series and Christmas special are still brilliant, though.

 

[noel emits]

I think Happiness was an uncomfortable - possibly even bleak - and amoral film that took an unusual stance towards the subject matter and that, every now and again, had moments of real humour to sweeten the pill. The League of Gentlemen and South Park are clearly set in cartoony and unreal worlds where it is possible to go further in terms of "darkness" without affecting people in the same way so I don't think that it's necessarily that instructive to compare Happiness to them.

Yes, being blatantly silly is a completely different kettle of brown fish, that's just giving the audience what they want without really confronting anything.

 

[IdleRich]

"Hmm, it was going this way in the second series, I think, and fully got there in the third (which coincided with it getting a lot less good, too). The first series and Christmas special are still brilliant, though."

Well, I wasn't necessarily criticising, just saying that it was a different kind of thing and creates a different kind of nastiness from Happiness. Happiness seems a lot more real so it's not surprising that its implied child rape or the sweaty and desperate but believable phone pervert might offend someone who has no problem with seeing the bestial shopkeepers of Royston Vasey burning a customer alive.

 

[noel emits]

The guy who directed Requiem also did Pi right? I was expecting great things from that when I read the reviews but the film itself seemed a bit half-arsed.

Pi? It was done on a very low budget - $60,000 according to the wiki page, that's pretty amazing. I liked it, at the time it coincided with a few things I was interested in which had the effect of adding an extra layer of synchronicity.

 

[Amplesamples]

I think Magnolia is totally-overrated, if not completely awful. The whole 'isn't this world amazing and cosmic?' type shtick grates really quickly, and doesn't really explain anything about anything. It was just a bunch of soap operas with raining frogs at the end. Tom Cruise was great in that movie though.

As for worst flms ever, has anyone ever seen Baise-Moi? It's the most pitiful piece of shit I think I've ever seen. After seeing interviews with the folks behind the movie, you'd think these people are Bunuel, Lynch and Guy Debord combined, rather than a bunch of half-arsed porn directors with a penchant for incomplete storylines and conceptual bollocks.

 

[vimothy]

I do think some of the films in this thread don't really qualify. I take "worst" to mean difficult to sit through. Certainly a film that's "so bad it's good" doesn't make the grade. Films with character but no budget don't make the grade. Really bad films are films you regret ever having seen. I would council absolutely no one to watch Meet Joe Black, ever, not even if they are interested in seeing a really bad film. It is without merit in any aspect, IMO. Just isn't worth it. (Actuallly, Brad Pitt does get run over at the start. If you must watch it, turn the DVD off here. It doesn't happen again).

Stuff like RFAD, Eternal Sunshine etc, are just annoying and overrated. They're not horrendously-"I'd rather have stared at the wall for the last three hours"-bad, though.

 

[IdleRich]

"Pi? It was done on a very low budget - $60,000 according to the wiki page, that's pretty amazing. I liked it, at the time it coincided with a few things I was interested in which had the effect of adding an extra layer of synchronicity."

Yeah, fair enough, it was low budget and it looked good and it had an interesting premise. All that, combined with glowing reviews had built it up and I was hugely disappointed, it just seemed that they kind of thought "maths, noone will understand it so we can peddle any old crap" and it really ran out of steam. Don't get me wrong though, I'm not nominating it as an all time stinker, just saying that everyone loves this guy and I've only seen two of his films both of which left me underwhelmed.

"It was just a bunch of soap operas with raining frogs at the end. Tom Cruise was great in that movie though."

I think everyone was so pleased/surprised to see Tom Cruise play a role other than that of a righteously angry shouting good guy (and play it well) that they immediately gave the film loads of bonus points.

"As for worst flms ever, has anyone ever seen Baise-Moi? It's the most pitiful piece of shit I think I've ever seen."

It is a load of nonsense but at least it's watchable. It is annoying when trash has intellectual pretences though - I remember watching the similarly knockabout Dead Babies which is about on the same level. Passed a couple of hours happily enough, no harm done, then I happened to watch the extras and they were all banging on about how controversial it was and how it was going to shock people and what an important piece of work they'd been involved in - absolutely laughable. Don't think I've heard anyone who wasn't involved in them say anything good about either Baise-Moi or Dead Babies though so it's not so annoying.
Irreversible is a greatly overrated one though. It happens backwards - that's amazing!

 

[noel emits]

A mate went through a phase of downloading any sci-fi or action movies he could find and would sometimes pass a DVD of bits on to me. Some of the made-for-cable TV films are really troubling in a how-the-hell-could-anyone-think-this-was-worth-making? way. Quite a few I couldn't sit through - you'd just feel spiritually ruined by something that vapid and existentially removed.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Ha, talking of made-for-TV movies, I happened to catch a bit of a film called Asteroid! a few years ago (far too few films these days have an exclamation mark at the end of the title, don't you think?) that featured made-on-a-desktop-PC quality SFX, sound effects I recognised from Doom and a guy with the following line:

"It hasn't been this quiet since... *pause* ...hell, it's never been this quiet.

Definitely one for the 'so bad it's good' category.

On a similar tip, a mate of mine the other day was pining for the era when sci-fi films had titles that meant you didn't really need to go and see the film once you knew what it was called, like "THE DAY THEY CAME FROM OUTER SPACE AND SET FIRE TO THE AIR".

 

[droid]

A mate went through a phase of downloading any sci-fi or action movies he could find and would sometimes pass a DVD of bits on to me. Some of the made-for-cable TV films are really troubling in a how-the-hell-could-anyone-think-this-was-worth-making?

Certainly a film that's "so bad it's good"

 

[noel emits]

Yeah I had that one.

 

[droid]

Oddly enough, it was screenplayed by the very respected Joe Haldeman of 'Forever War' fame.

'Jox' or 'jocks' is also Irish slang for underpants, so that was good for a few laughs as well.

 

[vimothy]

RobotJox! Damn, I used to own a copy of that...

 

[vimothy]

And what's the film where the new kid in town gets taught kung fu by Bruce Lee's ghost? That was brilliant/rubbish.

 

[noel emits]

Yeah, fair enough, it was low budget and it looked good and it had an interesting premise. All that, combined with glowing reviews had built it up and I was hugely disappointed, it just seemed that they kind of thought "maths, noone will understand it so we can peddle any old crap" and it really ran out of steam.

It might not have lived up to what people were saying, I didn't know anything about that when I saw it on release, but I don't think that's a fair criticism Rich. The film was about the guy's obsession with mystical stuff and finding patterns in everything, there was no need for the actual maths to be rigorous or anything for that to work. And I don't think it ran out of steam particularly, where was it going to go after he drilled a hole in his head? Although maybe that was disappointing - he could have cracked it for real and beaten the stock market and Aranovfsky wouldn't have to have made RFAD.

 

[IdleRich]

"And what's the film where the new kid in town gets taught kung fu by Bruce Lee's ghost? That was brilliant/rubbish."

That sounds fantastic.

"It might not have lived up to what people were saying, I didn't know anything about that when I saw it on release, but I don't think that's a fair criticism Rich. The film was about the guy's obsession with mystical stuff and finding patterns in everything, there was no need for the actual maths to be rigorous or anything for that to work. And I don't think it ran out of steam particularly, where was it going to go after he drilled a hole in his head? Although maybe that was disappointing - he could have cracked it for real and beaten the stock market and Aranovfsky wouldn't have to have made RFAD."

Well, I have to admit that it was a long time ago that I saw it - I can't even remember him drilling a hole in his head which actually sounds pretty cool - and maybe I would get more out of it now. I just remember thinking at the end "is that it?" and everyone else I watched it with seemed to have a similar feeling. Maybe there was subconscious peer pressure.

 

[vimothy]

That sounds fantastic.

I remembered the title: No Retreat, No Surrender

 

[noel emits]

I just remember thinking at the end "is that it?" and everyone else I watched it with seemed to have a similar feeling. Maybe there was subconscious peer pressure.

Actually, just to go on about this at unnecessary length, I think the sense of being let down might stem at least in part from how the film does a really good job of holding out the promise of delivering on this great cosmic mystery. The end is honest though in that he ends up burnt out from pursuing his quest beyond the advice of his mentor figure, so it's kind of an Icarus parable. I liked the use of music as well - 'Kalpol Introl' off the first Autchre album and 'A Low Frequency Inversion Field' by Spacetime Continuum which is playing as he inspects the Ammonite spiral on the beach.

 

[Immryr]

It would kind of be acceptable if it were funny as well, but as it was I think it was a bit like watching a news report about some horrific sex crime and going "Lol, rape!".

LOL

 

[Mr. Tea]

I liked the use of music as well - 'Kalpol Introl' off the first Autchre album

Yeah, that bit was ace. Haunting, introspective - the perfect music to go with the theme of these unknowable mathematical forces that "walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen". I liked the sinister government bods, too. And it really did nothing at all to change my conviction that orthodox Judaism is FUCKING WEIRD.