films you've seen recently and would NOT recommend

[BareBones]

lethal weapon 4 is rubbish too. 1 and 2 are good though. love that toilet scene in 2. and pretty much everyone i know has shouted "diplomatic immunity!" at some point.

worst film i've scene recently, and maybe the worst film i've ever seen, is zombie strippers, which i rented thinking it would be some 70s exploitation schlock horror thing, but turned out to've actually been made in 2008. i watched it anyway hoping it would be one of those so-bad-its-good things, but it wasn't, it was just painfully shit in every way, a soft porn film made for teenage metal kids. the zombies in it aren't even proper zombies, it's fucking stupid. so bad you feel too frustrated to even bother shouting at the screen.

 

[gumdrops]

seconded on the lost in translation/smugness hate too, but i did like the virgin suicides and somewhere. even marie antoinette had redeeming features. i dont know if there is a non-smug/irritating wes anderson film though.

 

[IdleRich]

The Black Swan - a fairly solid performance from Natalie Portman but she was constantly fighting against an overwrought script and Vincent Cassel's comedy acting. The film ls so silly (and slightly boring) for the first half that by the time things start happening you don't really care. Also so much of it is incredibly predictable (the suicide attempt of the fading star, the reveals when bits turn out to have all been in her head). And in a film this expensive there's surely no excuse for the crapness of the cgi when the wings appear on her arm towards the end.

 

[e/y]

this looks to be incredibly awful / hilarious:

 

[gumdrops]

shouldnt really be a surprise - i was in the mood for something big and dumb - but transformers 3 is pretty terrible. cant remember the last blockbuster this boring. shia lebouf also has to be one of the most useless 'big name' actors around. for most of the film he seems to just be running around either looking very angry or very unsure about himself but trying really hard to look 'focused'. hes generally just very unlikeable and i was hoping he would die somewhere along the way as apparently hes tired of the franchise now (but what will be do without it?). good 3d though. and it did have some good action sequences but i was getting impatient for it to end so prob didnt appreciate them that much.

 

[Corpsey]

I'd like to add that 'Transformers' cartoon-movie from the 70's (with Orson Welles in it) to the list. It was the worst thing I've had to sit through as an adult with a fully functioning brain. I'd rather watch ''American Pie: Band Camp'' again, honest to there-is-no-God.

 

[BareBones]

no way corpsey, i fucking love that film! it's from the 80s, not the 70s - it was the first film I ever saw at the cinema and has very weighty nostalgia value for me, eg all the "you got the touch / you got the power!" pomp-rock soundtrack etc. Plus all of the main goodie characters from the TV series are pretty brutally (for a kids' cartoon) killed off within the first 15 minutes, which i think is kind of cool. I mean i haven't watched it for many years, but still.

 

[luka]

yeah corpsey youree not my friend any more. its welles best role by a long way. the only role big enough for him.-unicron, consumer of planets- i had the tape of it as a child, casette tape, just the story. it was ages till i saw the film but when i did it blew me away. the junkyard planet, starscreem, unicron, the struggle to control the energon cubes, the dinobots, the death of optimus prime and the passing on of the matrix, the death of megatron and his rebirth as galvatron, real pathos, just an amazing film. th whole concept, so deep.

 

[IdleRich]

13 Assassins - Miike's take on a samurai film while not actually crap basically adds nothing to the tried and tested format of paper-thin storyline that borders on being nonsensical (at least to western audiences) building up to a ridiculous battle at the end where the aforementioned 13 spend half an hour of souped-up, hyperkinetic slicing, through an army of 200 people at speeds that mean it is too fast to feel any more engagement with than a chop-socky computer game. All you can tell is that when the goodies swing their swords the baddies die and when the baddies try the same they miss. Although eventually the heroes do slowly get picked off leaving a final show-down between, yes you guessed it, the leader of the good samurai and the leader of the bad guy's troops - who was also his best friend when they were at samurai school together. SPOILER The good guy wins.

 

[nochexxx]

couldn't sit through till the end of any of these.
the bronx warriors
the wanderers

i really wanna see more obscure silly/decent street trash gang films. any recommendations?

 

[craner]

I would like to chip in some support for Transformers - The Movie -- a completely cosmic, amazingly imaginative, infinitely moving film. A fitting end to Orson Welles -- as a gigantic planet-eating robot. Whereas these new fims are mere CGI-parasites, feeding off the carcass of an originally fine beast, Transformers -- The Movie was the awesome, ferocious, beautiful monster that originally killed that beast. The death of Optimus Prime and the unhinged, terrifying meglomania of Galvatron, the planet of Junk, the pool of robotic pirhanas and the judges, the near-annihilation of Cybotron, tragic Ultra Magnus losing the Matrix, spunky Hot Rod ripping it away from Galvatron, Galvatron vs. Unicron ("I belong to nobody!" "You belong to me!") -- these are all amazing, primal, poetic scenes. The original movie was vast, uncompromsing, ridiculous, and quite heroic: the new ones are totally devoid of ideas and drama. They are narrow, ugly, mechanical, empty. I knew this would be the case before I even watched them, and I wasn't going to bother but my kid brother loves them, alas -- you see, he has been reared on games consoles, and, it seems, has no need for drama or ideas or aesthetics, he is happy with an unending stream of sensations. A giallo would be like Bergman to him. Then again, that must be bollocks, because he's still attached to Toy Story, so he's obviously a sentimentalist, and The Simpsons, so maybe he understands satire too.

 

[luka]

well put oliver craner. i forgot about the judges and the pirahnas. wow.

 

[viktorvaughn]

Tree of Life. Rubbish.

 

[Corpsey]

I dunno, I think 'Transformers' must be one of those things that you have to see as a kid to fall in love with.

I saw the third film the other night (I was persuaded/forced to go). It is terrible. It reminded me of the cartoon - comedy that isn't funny, storyline that goes on and on and on and on, complete lack of emotional attachment to the supposedly heroic and noble (/funny + streetwise) robots etc.

I just couldn't give a single fuck about anything that was happening on screen. The only exception to this was in the last half an hour (of TWO AND A HALF HOURS) when the big worm/snake-robot wrapped itself around a skyscraper and snapped it in half and the people inside the skyscraper all went sliding towards their dooms - that bit was great. The rest of the TWO AND A HALF HOURS was divided between awful AWFUL comedy/relationship-issues scenes (the lead actor is almost as bad as the Victoria's Secret Model) and bewildering/boring images of CGI bits smooshing together to become one impenetrably mangled up bit (this was supposed to be 'fighting', I gather).

Then again, it wasn't AS bad as I'd expected, having read reviews of all three films. I preferred it to 'Avatar', for example... It was at least self-aware and didn't take itself too seriously. I'll put my hand up and admit that I enjoyed looking at the Victoria's Secret Model, too, cos she is WELL FIT. Also it has its fair share of bizarre and gargantuan images/special effects in it... The fact that Michael Bay is so tasteless/juvenile (and well-funded) means that he can create OTT images that you don't find in even the average blockbuster. I quite liked the willful obnoxiousness and give-a-fuck absurdity of it all... sometimes. Sometimes it offended me and bored me. But I think that night I dreamed about CGI robots fighting in Chicago. 2 1/2 hours of that stuff + only a small bag of maltesers for sustenance is a potent/horrible combination.

I feel bad for slating a film that so many love (talking about the cartoon here), but it just bored me to tears. The stuff with Orson Welles and Megatron arguing was quite good... there was a lot of visually arresting images etc... but all the good stuff was drowned in a sea of wisecracking robots.

I DID enjoy the 80's power-rock soundtrack, actually.

Maybe I should give it another shot?

After all, I love the fucking Lord Of The fucking Rings which is ridiculously over-long, pompous and full of shit comedy.

I have the same problem with 'Star Wars' that I have with Transformers, btw... Although I recognise the light-year-length-gulf between the two (film) franchises in terms of quality.

 

[Corpsey]

I mean i haven't watched it for many years, but still.

I'd like to know if this also applies to luka/craner.

 

[luka]

i last watched it when i was supposed to be revising for my gcses about 15 years ago.

 

[baboon2004]

Tree of Life. Rubbish.

But what persuaded you into the cinema to see a film with the worst title of all time? Ok, Terrence Malick, but 'This is Shit' would have been a more enticing title.

As to TM, i thought the Thin red Line was one of the most boring films I've ever seen> Badlands = good, Days of Heaven = beautiful but actually quite boring if you watch it without opiates. This guy is trading on rapidly-dwindling mystique big time...

 

[luka]

malick is the pits. ive ranted about him here before after enduring that fucking pochahontas film and evryone got their feelings hurt. its not even beautiful, except in that easy national geographic high gloss way. middle brow at its worst.

 

[IdleRich]

"But what persuaded you into the cinema to see a film with the worst title of all time?"

Ha, my girlfriend keeps saying what a terrible name that is, I think I'll still watch it though.

"malick is the pits. ive ranted about him here before after enduring that fucking pochahontas film and evryone got their feelings hurt. its not even beautiful, except in that easy national geographic high gloss way. middle brow at its worst."

The New World - awful awful film. Only saw it last year but you've nailed it there completely. No plot but no art to compensate for it, just empty middlebrowness is exactly right.

 

[nochexxx]

i had no idea who Mailick was until this week. i stumbled upon this article , which piqued my interest. the only film of his i;ve seen is Badlands. nothing else worth watching then?