Friday, March 21, 2008

Worst Popular Movies of all time

Reading KSK's movie endings mock draft reminded me how much I hate 'A Few Good Men,' which got me thinking about movies I can't stand but remain, mystifyingly, popular. Or at least, not unpopular and riduculed, which is what they truly deserve.  

10. The Sixth Sense (1999)- There's no way Bruce Willis didn't figure out he was a ghost before that. I mean, his marriage is so bad that his wife wouldn't talk to him that whole time? And it's annoying when people think kids are good actors just because they're kids acting (ie., anything with Dakota Fanning).  

9. Pulp Fiction (1994)- "Royale, with cheese?"  Are you kidding me with this shit?  

Douche 1: "Oh, look how cool John Travolta is.  Wooooah.  Oh man, he was in 'Look Who's Talking' and now he's a hitman.  That's some fuckin' range, dude."

Douche 2: "Man, and Tarrentino is a fucking artist, man.  'You shot Marvin in the face.'  Shit, dude."      

The whole thing is sound and fury signifying nothing.       

8. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003)- A very good movie for the first two and a half hours. Yeah, fucking Sauron got his ass fucking kicked! Then Peter Jackson decides the film needs to devolve into some nonsensical shit in which sap and mush and turd is thrown in your face. Eowyn to the Witch-king, "I am no man," right before she kills him? Dumb.  Dude, Frodo awakens to have most of the fellowship file into his room in order of story significance?  Dumb.  I can't even watch the last hour. Spluh. Schluck. The worst of the trilogy, yet the only one to win "Best Picture."

7. War of the Worlds (2005)- Steven Spielberg is amazingly innovative as far as shot-making and techniques in directing, but holy crap he seems clueless about actual good story-making. Remember when Tom Cruise's kid dies because he's a stupid shit and follows the military trucks into battle?  But we find out he didn't really die because when Cruise and the aforementioned Fanning show up at Cruise's ex-wife's house the son comes out even though every single person in the audience had written him off as dead and wasn't too busted up about it. Dude, why not let the kid just be dead?  That is both bad writing and not giving the audience any credit.  Speaking of the trucks heading into battle, why do they come back over the hill, on fire, in unison?  Of course it's meant to be some powerful, awe-inspiring scene, but comes off as just, kind of, stupid.  

6. Top Gun (1986)- Another Cruise movie? Yes. Awful. Is it still popular? Beats me, really. But it at least was popular for a long time. Dude, awful. "Talk to me, Goose. I'm a brooding, humorless, 4'7" pilot that doesn't play by the Navy's rules.  I play volleyball in my jeans and ride a motorcycle and my girlfriend/instructor and we make out on it."    

5. Cast Away (2000)- I really wanted to like this movie.  I guess I did, for the most part.  Tom Hanks is good.  No, great.  Helen Hunt ruins it though.  It's at the point that I can't watch the parts in which she's on screen.     

4. The American President (1995) - Come, on.  While Michael Douglas is busy saving the free world as the presidential ideal, Republicans are in a back room plotting his demise by stooping to traditionally Republican lows?  It's Rob Reiner's attempt, with a gigantic assist from Aaron Sorkin, at propoganda disguised as art.  Ultimately it just looks naive and short-sided.  And really, the whole thing is not compelling at all.        

3. The Rock (1996)- Sean Connery is rad. Ed Harris is rad, but less so in this.  Nicholas Cage sucks, Michael Bay sucks, Jerry Bruckheimer sucks, and 'The Rock' sucks. "C'mon, General. Let's be all we can be." But you're Marines, not Army.  That car chase scene when William Forsythe holds the CB in front of his face and Bay shakes the camera to make everything seem so intense is brutal.  Bru. tal.  From wikipedia,

"It was Nicolas Cage's idea that his character wouldn't swear; his euphemisms include 'gee whiz' for Jesus Christ; 'A-hole' for asshole; and 'Zeus's butthole'. Cage had to fight the producers and director to keep the butthole line, but he agreed to deliver the lines "Do you know how this shit works!" and "Eat that, you fuck!" as swearing is a staple of the action genre, and to show how the mission had changed Goodspeed."

Brilliant.  Subtle.  These guys are totally genius.  God, this is like movie making for 3 year-olds. 

-I'd put Pearl Harbor on here, but I don't think it's very popular. Most people know that, you know, kids weren't playing Little League games that early in the morning when then Japanese attacked.  I'd probably put almost every Bay movie on here, because he sucks, but they are all the same and thus, one should do it.

2. Titanic (1997)- Overacted and shittily acted. How many times does Leonardo DiCaprio say, no, scream, Rose's name at the end of a sentence throughout the movie? 2,435 by my count.

1. A Few Good Men (1992)- Overacted and shittily acted. Reiner is such a crappy director at times.  How does he make "The Princess Bride," or "Stand by Me," or "The Jerk," or "Misery," but make this other shit?  There is barely an overarching tone for the entire movie, there is no subtlety anywhere, characters' actions are inconceivable, and and truth regarding the Navy and its conduct is coincidental. And at the end, there's a huge, ginormous "The End" written out across the screen, as though we've just finished watching a 1940's love story. Fuck, what an awful abortion of a vomit.


1 comment:

Unknown said...

Nice post, my man...although you neglected to mention Dakota Fanning's INCESSANT screaming throughout the entire movie (War of the Worlds). If she wasn't screaming, she was whining. Just horrible.