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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

When bad movies are made by good movie makers

10:11 / 08.01.04

David Lynch's 'Wild at Heart' was such an entertaining flick. It was freakin horrible!

What other examples can you think of?

12:10 / 08.01.04

Hey, Wild at Heart is brilliant! It's a bit sort of.. rambling I suppose ..there's a certain tension between the relatively happy-go-lucky storyline and the Lynchian ultra-discomfort which makes it seem a bit hardgoing in places.. but nevertheless almost any given scene from it contains many kinds of genius..

But back to the topic in hand:

Ridley Scott - Bladerunner and Alien surely mark him out as an absolute master filmmaker, but the vast majority of what he's done since? um, no thanks..

John Hughes - from 'Sixteen Candles' to 'Flubber' is one hell of a career decline..

16:59 / 08.01.04

"This is a snake skin jacket. It's a symbol of my individuality and belief in personal freedom."

Hahahaha.

What the hell was Flubber?

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17:19 / 08.01.04

George Lucas?

17:36 / 08.01.04

"This is a snake skin jacket. It's a symbol of my individuality and belief in personal freedom."

"Ah ahpahlahgize for referrin' to you gennlemen as homosexuals"

i go back and forth on Wild at Heart. all the weird Wizard of Oz stuff and the super-cheezy acting are either awful or brilliant, depending on my mood. i always like

to address the main topic: why are none of Adrian Lyne's other movies half as brilliant as Jacob's Ladder?

17:45 / 08.01.04

That's a question for "When Bad Filmmakers Make Good Films."

17:56 / 08.01.04

Francis Coppola. What happened? Maybe I stand alone in loving Rumble Fish, but has he made a film since which hasn’t been quite astonishingly shit?

20:50 / 08.01.04

Another big example that springs to mind:

Tim Burton: what was he thinking putting his name to a film so impossibly shit as Planet of the Apes..? The only dignified explanation is that maybe he was completely strung out and just sat in the corner dribbling while somebody else made the film..

01:41 / 09.01.04

That's a question for "When Bad Filmmakers Make Good Films."

"But I came here for an Argument!"
"Oh! Oh! I'm sorry! This is Abuse!"
"Oh! Oh, I see!"

Jack The Bodiless

10:55 / 09.01.04

The GODDAMNED Hulk. Ang Lee, showing he has no idea how to handle a comic book movie, to the extent of even cocking up the bit he's supposed to be good at - pace, narrative structure, characterisation, plot. I could go on, but I can't be arsed. It's that bad. And I love both Ang Lee's previous stuff and the Hulk as a character/concept. Christ on a bike with no saddle...

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14:13 / 09.01.04

Ooh, I'm glad that came up as there's no point posting to the Hulk thread this late in the day.

Anyway, I saw it for the first time on DVD over Chrimble, and have to say that it was the most abjectly pointless bullshit I have ever wasted 2.5 bastard hours gazing at. Jeepers Creepers was more fun.

Shit, Spawn was more fun.

Back to the thread.

15:03 / 09.01.04

Hulk rocked. You're mad. Now back to the thread.

19:31 / 09.01.04

Hulk rocked. You're mad.

i'm with you on this one. parts of it were a little odd, but it was really brilliant except for the kinda shoddy CGI Hulk himself, which killed it a bit for me.

23:36 / 09.01.04

I third the Hulk sentiment, but I'm not sure if I'm insane on that or not.

I enjoyed it a lot. Silly rubbery Hulk effects aside, it was a sustained, fun, silly ride - Nick Nolte overacts so hard that he nearly has an aneurism on screen. (Side Note: Did you know that Ang Lee was actually the human actor for the digital Hulk model? The behind the scenes shots of him smashing shit and freaking out while hooked up to the mo-Cap equipment are fantastic.)

In retrospect it occurs to me that RIdley Scott actually WAS a good filmmaker at some point long ago - I was so beaten down by the sheer, unwavering WWF terrible-ness of Gladiator and everything since that I'd nearly forgotten he was the director of Blade Runner.

I'd like to think that particular film was amazing despite him, rather than because of him.

On the Tim Burton/Planet of the Apes subject - if you go back and watch anything after Beetlejuice you may notice that while it's all very charming & fun, it's not very good - Edward Scissorhands included (Except for Ed Wood, which is brilliant).

03:29 / 10.01.04

Spawn was more fun.

sorry, was it an argument or abuse you were after?

03:29 / 10.01.04

Spawn was more fun.

sorry, was it an argument or abuse you were after?

04:10 / 10.01.04

I was so beaten down by the sheer, unwavering WWF terrible-ness of Gladiator and everything since that I'd nearly forgotten he was the director of Blade Runner.

i didn't utterly hate Gladiator, but it pisses me off that it's one of his worst movies but it's the one that got the Oscar. not for his directing, thankfully, but still...

On the Tim Burton/Planet of the Apes subject - if you go back and watch anything after Beetlejuice you may notice that while it's all very charming & fun, it's not very good - Edward Scissorhands included

first of all, Edward Scissorhands is Burton's second best movie, and it's so much better than Beetlejuice it's not even funny. Beetlejuice is overrated. it's not actually very good at all.

and Mars Attacks! is fucking classic, ina stupid fun sort of way. for Christ's sake, Tom Jones vs the Martians, man, Tom Jones vs the Martians. ACK ACK! ACK! ACK ACK ACK!!!

"dark is the sway, that mows like a harvest..."

yes, anyway. the Batman movies are a bit overrated (but better than the Schumacher ones, obviously). Sleepy Hollow and Planet of the Apes sucked. Big Fish is a significant improvement.

and that leaves...

(Except for Ed Wood, which is brilliant).

yes, Jesus, for the love of God, i was reading your post and i thought you were sweeping away Ed Wood with the other bad Burton movies, and i was going to reach through my screen and ill you. or "kill" you, even. damn typos.

oh, and he should get some bonus points for producing The Nightmare Before Christmas.

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09:00 / 10.01.04

toksik :

Spawn = so utterly risible after 10 minutes, you can safely go score, return, and get loaded for the rest of the movie ripping it to shreds and having a basically enjoyable anti-moment with friends.

Hulk = so utterly bogged down in its own ponderousness and trying so hard to ooze gravitas and depth that only when the laughably inadequate CGI arrives can one begin to relax and start laughing hysterically. Real release only arrives with the - and I'm stifling a guffaw just thinking back now - three mutant hulk dogs. Now THAT shit was funny. Unfortunately, subsequent to this high comedy, its back to ponderous faux gravitas and shit storytelling. And what the fuck was all that shit at the end about? Who cares?

Now, seriously, back to the thread.

01:22 / 11.01.04

and Mars Attacks! is fucking classic, ina stupid fun sort of way. for Christ's sake, Tom Jones vs the Martians, man, Tom Jones vs the Martians. ACK ACK! ACK! ACK ACK ACK!!!

Disagree. Boy, do I disagree. Sure, the idea itself may be fun, but the execution is terrible. I've yet to find anything amusing in that film other than the basic concepts.

09:07 / 11.01.04

That's how I feel about most of Burton's work - great in concept, poor in execution. Don't get me wrong, dizfactor - Edward Scissorhands is a fucking great story, but it's not a very good movie. Things move along at a jerky pace & the whole thing's so... obvious, I suppose. And Anthony Michael Hall kinda stinks up the joint...

I had my issues with Big Fish, even if it did make me cry. I was terrifically pissed off that a movie I thought was largely mediocre could pull a tear-jerk on me at the last minute.

And while it absolutely drips in Burton's design sense and springs full-grown from his imagination, I think the cohesiveness and just sheer completeness of The Nightmare Before Christmas can be largely attributed to Henry Selick and his team.

So how 'bout that Stanley Kubrick? Did Eyes Wide Shut suck up the end of the otherwise sterling career of a master filmmaker or is it misunderstood?

And how 'bout Vincent Gallo's Brown Bunny? Or Steven Soderbergh's Solaris (although I don't blame him for that one, and I still enjoy a lot of the movie)?

16:06 / 11.01.04

eyes wide shut was brilliant.

the acting therein wasn't fully kubrick's fault.

i'm just glad Nightmare Before Christmas hasn't been brought up as "best of Burton".

01:03 / 30.01.04

Where's the love for Batman Returns? It's probably the most twisted mainstream action film ever released, with incredible character work, and one of the best scores in any film. And when watching it today, it's amazing to see real stuff being destroyed. No CG, just a bunch of explosions and sets or models toppling.

As for the topic of the thread, Wild at Heart needs to be mentioned, I barely made it through. And Terry Gilliam's Jabberwocky was pretty awful. It was like Holy Grail, but without the humor.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

01:40 / 30.01.04

Bruce obinson with Jennifer 8. You mean the genus behind Withnail & I and How To Get Ahead in Advertising also did this piece of fetid yakspunk?

(And yes, I too love Edward Scissorhands. And Mars Attacks! Planet of the Apes truly did blow goats, though.)

07:33 / 05.02.04

Jaberwocky - is Gilliam's first time out, and not unforgivable.

Big Fish-- Sorry -- but it's lame. I like all of the Burton stuff- especially the crap-- but this is schmaltzy crap. Not good. I wanted to like it, but no.

Ridley Scott does suck and it's goddamn amazing that he made Duelists, Alien, and just impossible that he made Bladerunner.

IMHO Renny Harlin is the luckiest man alive. He makes shit. He never makes money with shit. And he keeps on going. Unsinkable! Anyone else burning in the crotch over his entire reshoot of the new Exorcist. Poor Paul Schrader. Replaced by such a sorry monkey.

EWS - is actuallly a masterpiece.

06:58 / 13.02.04

I don't know about Jabberwocky. The first time I watched it I felt it was just un-justifiably icky, and not in that fun spanky way. I was expecting a fun segueway between the mad-cap of Holy Grail and the monstrously large vision of Gilliam as a director but instead what I got was enormous piles of filth and rubbish in every scene. For some reason I rented it again two years later and I actually enjoyed it. Either I changed or I simply went in with different expectations but I really enjoyed the ugly little platypus of a movie. I think it comes from a different understanding of the humour. Not funny like ha-ha; more funny like the sudden realization that the taste of blood and greasepaint in your mouth means that at some point in the past few hours you had been chewing on a clown's face.

Curiously, in reading this thread, I've seen probably the highest per capita amount of unilateral, single-sentence praises and denigrations without any attempt to justify them yet concentrated on the 'lith. And yet it was still an all in all enjoyable read. Bless this board. Bless it.

07:25 / 24.02.04

hm.

Let's see...

Richard Donner gets a nod for flip-flopping between greatness and pure shit! For every Lethal Weapon, SuperMan, The Omen he does he fucks up and makes Radio Flyer and Assasins (and i heard Timeline was pretty cruddy too).

Coppola definitely has lost his mind. I share the sentiment of "what the fuck happened to him"

George Lucas had one good idea, handed it over to other people to improve on and then made the mistake of trying to do it himself afterwards!

Tim Burton isnt really much of a storyteller in the first place, with the exception of Ed Wood and Nightmare his stuff isnt usually that well written.

Peter Jackson definitely gets a "WTF!" after seeing Meet the Feebles!