Saturday, September 24, 2005

TWQ: The Worst Films

The Weekend Question (TWQ) is a reversal of an earlier question. This time, I'm asking you to name the five most awful films you have ever seen. Say a little about each one and who was in them.

Here are mine:

1: The Magic Christian starring Peter Sellars & Ringo Starr. This was a mish mash of a plot made at a time when no one seemed to have an idea of filmmaking. It's truly excrutiating.

2: Twister starring Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton Natural disaster movies have never appealed to me. This one was the worst, with cardboard characters and a flimsy plot. I was rooting for the twister to take the entire cast and whisk them away.

3: Mission Impossible II starring Tom Cruise. I thought 'Mission Impossible' was about a team working together to solve a problem. This was just one big ego-trip for Cruise to do it all himself. I only watched about half an hour of it. The movie was that bad.

4: Good Will Hunting starring Matt Damon Ben Affleck, Robin Williams. Why this film did well at the Oscars is a puzzle to me. The characters are unlikeable and the film is full of f-words. I was waiting for it to get better. It never did.

5: The War Of The Worlds (2005) Starring Tom Cruise. Another Cruise film. Directed by Spielburg, I was surprised he made such a bad movie. I saw this as I thought it might be good. The only parts of the film were when Cruise wasn't in it. Unfortunately, he was in it 98% of the time. See the 1953 original version instead, for a classic story.

Now it's over to you....

37 comments:

Star said...

Morning Jean Luc. Michele sent me. DOn't know if I can come up with 5, but definately
The Unforgiven-with Clint Eastwoo. A western for the hearing impaired. People kept repeating the same lines. ANd there wa no hero! But it won the Academy Award so what do I know?

Anonymous said...

I have to think about this... maybe... Mars Attacks.. yes, I hated that one

Here via Michele's

Anonymous said...

Just popping over from Michele's.
Hard question, if a film is bad I tend to avoid it like the plague and forget it quickly.. Hmm I'll think about this one..

. said...

Hello, Michele sent me! Five bad movies. That's a tough one. There are a lot of bad movies. I've seen the first two Lord of the Rings movies and when I got the third one in the mail from Netflix, I was anxious to complete the trilogy. But it was just awful and I took a hammer and smashed it into a thousand pieces before I realized I had to stick it back into the little red envelope. Well, it wasn't my fault it was such a bad movie, I thought. So I started gathering up all of the little shards of plastic and wouldn't you know, I cut myself! I started bleeding all over the carpet. Not just little droplets, either. I must have cut open an artery or something. And then the wheels on my rental van started wobbling and the tires started popping and, what? I realized it was just a dream. The movie was so boring I'd fallen asleep.

Bec said...

Hello Jean-Luc, Michele sent me.
My five worst films are (no particular order):
1. Weekend at Bernies, ew.
2. Beaches, should come with a high sugar warning for diabetics.
3. Amityville Horror (the first one), the one and only horror film I will ever see by choice!
4. The Wiggles Movie, they should never forgive that thieving magician.
5. Anything suffixed with the phrase "Made for the Hallmark Channel".

Anonymous said...

I can't think of a list of five, but my husband likes the movie, "Two Family House" and whenever he sees it on HBO he makes me suffer through it. It has to be over a hundred times. It's horrible....

Michele sent me.

Kim said...

Michele sent me, and I can't think of 5 from the top of my head, but The Waterboy was really stupid. Oh, and Alexander, however I didn't see it myself, my hubby has offered that one up.

utenzi said...

Michele sent me, Jean-luc.

Well, I liked two of your worst, Twister and Good Will Hunting, and a few of the ones listed above, Mars Attacks and Weekend at Bernie's.

I don't think I can come up with the worst 5 right away but here's 5 that I really hated:

1. Any of the sequels to Highlander.
2. Speed 2. In fact sequels in general!
3. Babe 2. The sequel curse again!
4. The first Star Trek movie. So boring but fortunately others that followed were better.
5. Last Action Hero.

Robin said...

Hey JL! Sorry it has been so long since I have visited. What a great question!! I have seen a lot of movies so let me see.......

The absolutely most awful movie I have ever seen, the one I HATE the most, would have to be "Gerry" starring Matt Damon. Two guys get lost in the desert and for 2 hours there is almost no dialog as you follow them around aimlessly. *Yawn*. All time worst!!

I actually liked "Good Will Hunting", barring the F word which I did not like in it at all.

Another very bad movie would have to be "Battleship Earth". I love sci-fi but this just didn't do it for me.

"Cube" was really awful. Lots of blood and killing and senselessness to it. Hated it.

Can't think of any others off the top of my head but I know there are more. I've seen a lot of movies!

I actually really liked "Last Action Hero" too. It was supposed to be a spoof on action hero movies and in that light it was good.

My faves are more numerous than 5 but here are a few: LOTR trilogy, Matrix trilogy, Braveheart, Count of Monte Cristo, Merchant of Venice, Schindler's List, Princess Bride, Search for the Holy Grail, The Forgotten, Ever After. Okay, that's enough! :)

Mise en Place said...

WOW! Really, Good Will Hunting? Shocking I know but I personally have never see the movie, much to the dismay of friends and family.

Every person I ever spoke to regarding this flick just raved! Now with this new bit of insight I may just have to rent it and see for myself. LOL!

dddragon said...

I couldn't finish Attack of the Killer Tomatos, even tho' I knew it was supposed to be stupid. I guess that I'm easy to amuse, so I don't have much of a list of those I hated. I have avoided a good many films - Cruise's War of the World, many horror flicks, and I seem to avoid those films that everyone else raves about - like Good Will Hunting. I did enjoy Last Action Hero, too. I'll have to think about this further....

Ciera said...

Oh Captain my Captain!!!

Five worst in random order:

1. Valiant [saw it just last night..."gag me"...]

2. I don't know the name of it, because I was like 6, and my relatives were watching some horror movie with a little girl sliding across the floor.....AHHHH!

3. Star Trek 1

4. Star Trek 5

5. the made for tv Dukes of Hazard movies.

BarbaraFromCalifornia said...

Not sure I can come up with 5, but I will try.

1. Mulhullond Drive, for being confusing, and taking us down a path of no beginning or return.

2. The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I love Charlie Kaufman, but this movie left was a bit non-sensical. My son, of course disagrees with me.

I'll come back if I can think of more.

Trinity13 said...

1. Lost in Translation-I was bored to tears!
2. Traffic-The only movie I feel asleep during...terrible movie!
3. Stuck On You-Supposed to be funny...it wasn't
4. Oceans 12-One of the worst sequels I have ever seen
5. Eye of the Beholder-(Staring Ewan McGregor and Ashley Juddd) I wanted my money back after seeing this craptastic movie in the theater!

Shelley said...

Okay Captain:

1. About Schmidt with Jack Nicolson. Hated it. If anyone liked it, explain it to me.

2. Legally Blonde II with Reese Witherspoon again...Ya Know.

3. War of the Worlds...might have enjoyed it if Tom wasn't in it, but the ending still ticked me off.

4. The Village. Who really believes noone knows they're on that damn piece of land?

5. Maximum Overdrive with Emilo Estevez. Circa 1985 I think. Killer vehicles. Yeah right.

Heather said...

Napoleon Dynamite was utterly stupid!

Sideways was horribly depressing.

The second Bridget Jones movie because I kept wanting to tell her to stop worrying about her figure and go fix her hair!

I am sure there are two more but I am stumped.

War Eagle said...

sahara(recent movie, got it on netfliks and turned it off after 30 minutes)

team america world police(horrible)

ocean's twelve(I was really disappointed with this one because i really like the first one)

brother bear(really bad disney animated movie)

cheaper by the dozen(the remake, steve martian has really lost it)

Jean-Luc Picard said...

You've put some great ones in so far, although there have been one or two that I've really liked, such as 'Cube', Beaches' and 'The Village'. I knew a lot of people have liked 'Good Will Hunting', but for me, it's on the 'never see again list'.

I should have added 'Oceans 11' (the Clooney version) on the worst films list as well.

Mike said...

Here is my list.
1. Star Trek 1 (just a redo of an episode of the show).
2. Highlander 2 (the first one was great this one was awful).
3. Battlefield Earth (Great book, terrible movie).
4. Casino Royale (David Niven as James Bond! That is just wrong!
5. All the Batman movies except the first and this last one that came out this summer.

Anonymous said...

I remember walking out of one film once, it was that bad, but my selective memory completely erased its name... I also don't like second parts. Can't name 5 films now but I didn't like Mr.&Mrs. Smith, they should have remained seated at the therapist's . Oh, and Michele sent me!

J Anderson said...

Regarding your comment, no, not really.

You can, sort of, using Tag Cloud, but it is NOT effective. if you want to catergorise you will have to switch to WordPress, MT, Nucleus, B2 or similar product, which requires PHP (or MT is Perl) hosting :D

rashbre said...

I usually beam myself back to the main ship as soon as I realise a film is bad. So I only have fragments of bad films and almost no recollection of their titles.

An exception is the genre of films that are so bad they are good - like Mars Attacks and films with "Revenge of the" in the title.
rashbre central

carmilevy said...

I'm watching the Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl with my five-year-old, and I can already feel the brain cells leaking out of my ears. So much so that I can't think of the other four films for this list.

Gaa!

Visiting from Michele's. Must go back there to save my soul :)

Kimberly said...

"Good Will Hunting" is one of my favorite movies!! I'm not sure I can come up with a list because when a movie is bad I usually fall asleep and forget all about it.

Anonymous said...

ahhhhhhhhh! i loved twister! i loved it. a lot. i adore helen hunt. bill paxton, i agree, not so much. but i got past him. i loved the movie that much.

as for movies i hated...there are probably tons but the first one that came to mind was the movie version of the book Flowers in the Attic. They butchered that book. a book i loved as a teen. and they thotoughly murdered it in a way that has not been seen before or since. i was so disappointed.

here via the lovely and talented michele.

kitty said...

Hi michele sent me.. The only movie I can think of right now was the one with Halle Berry, Cat woman I think it was called.. Just stupid! haha

Twisted Cinderella said...

Team America is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. As I watch it I keep telling myself to turn it off. I keep thinking this is terrible. Why am I watching this and yet I keep watching subjecting myself to this horrible torturous tribute to bad filmmaking until the absolute end.

Carol said...

I can't even remember the movies I like...

Jon the Intergalactic Gladiator said...

This one is tough for me, I am a fan of cheesey movies. I got one though, and I'll build from there.

Top Gun. I don't like Tom Cruise. I don't like his cocky jerk character who wins everyting in the end. I could go on and on, but I'll keep this short.

Robocop 2 and 3. Yeah, they're sequels, but they were written by Frank Miller, who is a great comic writer. Something happened between writing and it's realease that killed these things. These movies just missed what the first one accomplished.

Star Trek Insurection. This thing may have killed the franchise. It was a weak knock off of Wrath of Khan, they killed Data needlessly, the desert chase was pointless and tacked on. They just totally missed the mark with this.

Forever Young and As Good as it Gets. I didn't really hate these movies. But I fell asleep during them, so I think that's a pretty big indictment.

dddragon said...

Trinity13 - oh, yeah, Lost in Translation. I didn't get why it got raves.

And mike is right about Star Trek: The Motion Picture - as much as I love ST, that movie was BAD. It was obviously a remake of The Changeling.

M. C. Pearson said...

Hi, like your blog...

Number one on my most hated list is The Abyss. My husband loved it. I liked it up until the ending...Disney ending. Oh brother, they could have done some cool things there but they dropped the ball.

Second would have to be the Sponge Bob Movie. I love Sponge Bob but that movie made me hurl.

Third would have to be Speed 2...I loved the first movie but Sandra Bullock could not hold the sequel without Keneau Reeves (or however you spell his name!)

Forth must be Batman and Robin...I haven't seen the latest but I really don't care to.

Finally, Return to the Blue Lagoon. Come on, they all died...somehow the kid survives? It was awful.

Lish said...

Hi and thanks for visitng my blog. This is a hard question.... let me think....
1. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason- really great book, movie did not do it justice, but do they ever?
2. The Notebook - another book movie, this was just too sad, I was weeping the whole time
3. Legally Blond- way too blonde
4. Zoolander- someone once told me this was the greatest movie ever, WTF? I don't see it.
5. The Grudge (American version)- so not scary and that noise the creepy girl made was just stupid

BarbaraFromCalifornia said...

Have come back, and I agree with Waterworlds. JLP, you may kill me for this statement, but I cannot watch Star Trek. When I was in college, I took a philosophy class, and every lecture was preceded by a morality tale, if you will, on how the particular philosophical principle we were studying related to Star Trek. Not being a science fiction buff, I was always left blank!!! The truth surfaces.

White Rabbit said...

Wait, Braveheart made soemone's bad movie list?! Are you mad...???

I'm trying to come up with my five. I have the same problem - bad movies just sort of trickle out of my memory. I'll be back, though.

Jean-Luc Picard said...

Great answers, everybody. I see that Tom Cruise and Kevin Costner naturally featured high on their lists.

Sorry to all those who liked 'Good Will Hunting', but we all have different likes.

Jon, it's Star Trek: Nemesis you are referring to.

Natsthename said...

My least favorite would be:

Ishtar - The worst film EVER! Bad story, bad acting by the likes of Beatty and Hoffman, and just plain boring!

The Philadelphia Experiment - ZZZZzzzzz.

Titanic - Bloated piece of overacting, with a horrid theme song by Celine Dion.

Duece Bigelow (I, and I refuse to watch #2) - Total dreck! UNFUNNY!

The first Star Trek movie (Star Trek:The Motion Picture)- Oh GOD, that was horrible to sit through. That cast didn't hit their stride until #2, I would say, and only with the help of the Khan character.

Jon the Intergalactic Gladiator said...

Whoops, you're right, Captain. Insurection wasn't that good, but Nemesis was far worse.