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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Least cool movie evah!!!

21:15 / 24.02.06

I was moved to start this when the Coolest movie thread took this inexplicable turn:

Weirdly enough, B.Potemkin is not a cool movie, but the rip-off/"homage" of its famous stairway scene in The Untochables is.

Am I taking crazy pills? What is cool about stopping your movie so you can prove to the most annoying audience members that you've been to film school? I believe you've been to film school! The scene makes no sense (why the fuck are sailors jumping up and down?), the baby carriage bit is annoying (for Christ sake why didn't he just pick up the stroller and carry it to the top quickly and efficiently?), the slow motion angst!!! is stupid, and the drama is undercut, just a little, by the fact that the whole point is to try and get Al Capone's book-keeper to testify against him for tax evasion. Oh yeah, that will show the murdering ganglord.

So I would like to nominate The Untouchables as the least cool movie evah. God, Brian de Palma directs Robert de Niro as Al Capone, Sean Connery chews up lines like, 'if he brings a knife, you bring a gun. If he puts one of your men in the hospital, you put one of his men in the morgue. That's the Chicago way!' - on paper this is the perfect movie. But God, Brian - did Scarface and Carlito's Way teach you nothing? Why is this movie about the uptight Kevin Costner instead of the charismatic, scene-stealing de Niro? How is anyone supposed to be on Costner's side? De Niro's big crime is he sells liquor during Prohibition! Okay, so he blows up a little girl, but come on - haven't there been days when you'd blow up small children for a beer? I think its totally forgivable.

Plus, gangster movies can never just tell a story about gangsters and be done with it. It always has to be some Portentous Saga of Masculinity and Honour or something. When it works, it's fire. When it's Costner earnestly announcing, 'I have foresworn myself. I have broken every law I have sworn to uphold, I have become what I beheld and I am content that I have done right!' - sorry, I got so bored typing that out I've forgotten what my point was.

NB, the first person who thinks its funny to nominate the Britney Crossroads gets slapped.

miss wonderstarr

22:15 / 24.02.06

I tentatively nom Road to Perdition I don't think this is the least cool movie ever, but I feel it's along the right lines.

-- moody "neo-noir": anything trying to recapture 1930s gangsters or film noir is grasping at borrowed cool for starters.

-- Tom Hanks as gangster: like casting Pilsbury Dough Man as Scarface. This guy is pale podgy soft stuff.

-- Jude Law uglies up for the role: I don't like this kind of novelty value, like a starlet in a fat-suit or some cutie wearing false teeth, so the cosmetic work is all you notice when they're in the scene.

-- ostentatious show-off cinematography. As I recall it just draws attention to itself and is harped about by reviewers, rather than serving the plot. I have bad feelings about a gangster film that sells itself on its cinematography -- it's like an Alex Ross comic book, where every panel is slowed down by Norman Rockwell heavy photorealism of frowning middle-aged men with creased super-suits. Which brings me to:

-- "based on the cult graphic novel." Something riles me about the way the obscurity of the original comic, and some vague publicist's sense of comic books' minority cachet, was used to try to work up an aura of cool around the film.

-- I don't remember a thing that happened in it.

-- Except for, I believe, some overworked father and son blarney instead of any kind of narrative drive.

15:37 / 26.02.06

I suggest this hunk of drek as a definite contender-

Cool as ice

Yup, indeed. Vanilla Ice hit our screens for more than those few horrific minutes of "go turtles, go turtles, go" in "secret of the ooze".

That I remember said moment is indicative of its scarring powers.

Now, imagine the raw, undiluted horror of an ENTIRE FILM dedicated to Mr. Vanilla and his horrible hair.

Bastard.

Good thing they didn't find time to include a coherent plot. That woulda just been WRONG.

19:32 / 26.02.06

Both Road To Perdition and The Untouchables? Yeah, you guys are crazy.

19:56 / 26.02.06

And as far as Vanilla Ice's cameo in Secret of the Ooze goes: Word to Your Mother, Mick!

22:54 / 26.02.06

Actually, I think Cool as Ice is legitimately worth seeing. Like you say, they don't bother with a coherent plot, but they do go bugfuck insane with set design, costumes, and cinematography - you know, how it looks. Like they hired the cheapest, and hence most art-damaged, candidates they could find. Plus, Drop the zero and get with the hero = coolest pickup line evah!!!

On the other hand, I feel Slim has thoroughly rebutted by argument about the Untouchables. Probably not as thoroughly as I have with this post, but pretty well anyway.

00:38 / 27.02.06

Jackie Susann, I loved your book but the movie was not that cool.

I think maybe... I sympathise w/your goals here, Jackie, but I think DePalma gets an exemption, not because The Untouchables is not uncool but because it is intentionally uncool. He is a very perverse director. All of his movies are designed to be frustrating for the audience. In a medium where so much effort and expense goes into pampering, pandering to, and flattering the sensibilities of the lowest common denominator, I find his subliminal sabotage really... well, not good exactly, but worthy. They are critiques of genre.

Actually, maybe I now have to reconsider my abysmally low opinion of M. Night Shamalayan. He is sort of DePalma's twisted homonculus.

I'll have to think about uncool. I don't usually finish watching movies I don't like. I stopped watching Napoleon Dynamite when it became clear that Pedro's only role was to be stupid and Mexican. The Ray Charles biopic that everyone seemed to love so much, that was pretty incomprehensible. The dubbing in 2004's Man On Fire needed a good kicking.

00:46 / 27.02.06

I stopped watching Napoleon Dynamite when it became clear that Pedro's only role was to be stupid and Mexican.

But if you vote for him... all your wildest dreams will come true.

01:05 / 27.02.06

Jackie Susann, I loved your book but the movie was not that cool.

Valley of the Dolls or Isn't She Great?

I don't know if I buy the de Palma argument. I've only seen a few of his movies - Scarface, Carlito's Way and Carrie - but they all seem to be straight-up fuck-yeah good movies.

You know he's got Untouchables: Capone Rising coming out some time soon. I think I will like that a lot more.

03:06 / 27.02.06

I don't know if I buy the de Palma argument. I've only seen a few of his movies - Scarface, Carlito's Way and Carrie - but they all seem to be straight-up fuck-yeah good movies.

yeah I didn't quite get that either. How is Scarface designed to be frustrating for an audience? I remember seeing one of his films (Femme Fatale) that was frustrating because it wanted to be so much better than it actually was. IMO though, Scarface is a by the books violent cult film.

Maybe the problem here is that we haven't defined un-cool? Is there a loose sort of standard for un-cool in the same way there seems to be for cool? Is it the opposite of cool? Can a film go from being cool to un-cool? If so, should our definition reflect that?

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

14:46 / 27.02.06

Do movies that are "so un-cool they end up being cool" count?

IF so I think Michael Mann's interpretation of Red Dragon Manhunter qualifies.

This move was SO 1980s perfect that I can hardly watch the actual film with Ed Norton.

You have the guy from CSI in little 80s running shorts, and the BEST end of movie fight scene chock full of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, a giant, and a freaking out blind woman.

This movie, in retrospect, is so un-cool I can't stand it, but I own the dvd and watch it every few months.

Regrettable Juvenilia

15:11 / 27.02.06

What the fuck are you talking about? That IS the actual film.

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

16:33 / 01.03.06

poor word choice on my part, I meant the more faithfull adaptation of the book.