Worst Movie ever

Subject: Worst Movie ever
From: Bert
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 01:21 AM

Has just got to be Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.

If you can write fantasy then write your own. If you can't then how in the hell do you think that you can write a sequel to Alice?

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: alanabit
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 01:46 AM

I think this thread is soon going to go downstairs. I have not seen this film yet Bert - and I will take your word for it that it is not good. However, I have seen other Tim Burton films and with all the competition out there, I would be most surprised if he achieved this dubious distinction by common consent.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Bert
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 02:11 AM

Most of his films are a bit weird. But 'Alice' should have borrowed more from Lewis Carroll and less from "The Nightmare Before Christmas"

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 02:48 AM

I think that the problem with Tim Burton, is he actually BELIEVES his own press!
GfS

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 03:09 AM

I haven't seen the film yet, but from the reviewws I read I got the impression that the Tim Burton bits were excellent but most of the film was Disney.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Acorn4
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 06:18 AM

What about "Sex and the City -2"?

Mark Kermode on "Sex and the City 2"

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Stu
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 06:43 AM

I saw 2012 the night before last. Why doesn't Hollywood hire feckin' scriptwriters who can write? Looks like it cost a fortune, but that's as good as it got.

Trite and bordering on the embarrassing.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: RangerSteve
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 06:55 AM

Alice was nice to look at, and interesting at times, but not the classic that it could have been. I'm starting to believe that TB is actually twins, one good (Big Fish, Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood) and one evil (Sweeney Todd, Sleepy Hollow).

Yeah, I just said Sweeney Todd sucked. I saw it on Broadway and consider it one of the high points of my life, but the movie, for some reason, took place entirely at night, hardly a bright color anywhere, and where the stage version had some dark humor, the movie was just plain dreary. The time I spent watching it is time I'll want back at the end of my life. And "Sleepy Hollow" is another instance of a perfectly good story that Burton played around with and ultimately, messed up. And, like "Alice" was nice to look at, but with an awfully dreary story.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: GUEST,Patsy Warren
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 07:50 AM

It has to be Intersection with Richard Gere, Sharon Stone. What boring dross it was and it is one of those films that goes on and on until thankfully Richard Gere (I can remember if it was an accident or suicide) but he crashes his car and I was thinking halleluyah for that we can go!

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: bubblyrat
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 08:02 AM

It has to be the film where the Americans capture a U-boat and the "Enigma" coding -device inside it , if only because it's a load of RUBBISH, especially since it was the BRITISH who captured the U-Boat & enigma machine ( Actually !!!).Second worst film is "The Great Escape", if only because,at the time of the real-life escape,there were NO AMERICAN prisoners in that particular camp--so just WHO was Steve McQueen supposed to have been, then ?? Eh ??

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 09:25 AM

And James Garner, token Yanks so it would sell in good old USA.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: DonMeixner
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 09:41 AM

Bubbly, Have you read Paul Brickhills book about The Great Escape?

The worst movie I have ever seen? Too hard to say, I've seen some awful films but the question is too subjective. Movies that I will never watch twice, "Tess" is at the top of the list. So is "Gone With The Wind".

Don

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: SINSULL
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 09:53 AM

Rudolph Nureyev in "Exposed".
I went with a bunch of die hard ballet fans who ended up guffawing through most of it. Playing his girlfriend like a cello, mincing steps as he stalks her down the street. This is worth seeing just for the comic value.
Damn Capslock!
SINS

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: alanabit
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 09:59 AM

The acting in "Gone With The Wind" is so excruciatingly embarrassing that I have never been able to sit through more than ten minutes of it.
I am afraid that war films like the one about the sub, which captured the Enigma machine and "The Great Escape", required both American capital (to get them made in the first place) and American heroes (to get the audiences to reclaim that capital). American heroes are perfectly acceptable to audiences elsewhere, but American audiences usually only like American heroes. (Our guys make good villains or brave, but stupid sidekicks). I have read Paul Brickhill's "The Great Escape". Was not the film script written by James Clavell - another expat Brit? I can understand what annoyed bubblyrat there, but were there not some even bigger stinkers of war movies featuring Ronald Reagan, John Wayne and Errol Flynn, which are better candidates for the uncoveted title of "Worst War Movie Ever" - let along "Worst Movie Ever"?

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: GUEST,Patsy Warren
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 10:17 AM

I totally agree with you about Gone With the Wind. It is supposed to be an all time great mind blowing epic but it left me wondering why I wasted 2 hours (or it seemed like that) sitting through it just to hear Clark Gable say 'Frankly I don't give a damn.' Left me thinking huh? is that it?

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Duke
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 10:26 AM

I am a big Tim Burton fan. If you don't like his movies, I guess you have no imagination.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: catspaw49
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 11:01 AM

Songcatcher

Spaw

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Bainbo
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 11:07 AM

I'm a fan of the Alice books, but wasn't tempted by the film. That's despite the recommendation of a colleague who told me at work: "You must see it. You'll love it - it's just being in here. It's full of mad people who lie all the time."

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Bainbo
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 11:09 AM

That should read:
"You'll love it - it's just like being in here."

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: DonMeixner
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 11:19 AM

I have an incredible ability to suspend disbelief and enjoy and be entertained by a lot of less than sterling celuloid epics. I almost never let historical fact get in the way of a ripping yarn. Errol Flynn's Charge of the Light Brigade was lousy history but great adventure. Was Trevor Howard's film more accurate? The same with goes with Flynn's Custer's Last Stand but still it was a good story as far as fiction goes.

John Wayne made some stinkers but I'll accept a dozen McQ's for every Quiet Man or Cavalry Trilogy he did. I do not care what his politics were. They don't matter when The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance comes on the screen.

I don't like Jane Fonda. But I am not watching Jane Fonda when I am watching Klute or Julia.

Add "Soldiers Three" to my list of lemons.

D

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Becca72
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 11:51 AM

I really liked 'Alice', but then I've enjoyed every Tim Burton film I've seen. I appreciate his twisted outlook.

The worst movie I've seen recently has got to be 'Ghost Writer'

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: RWilhelm
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 12:14 PM

I just saw Adam Sandlers "Grown Ups" because it was filmed where I live. It has to be one of the worst movies ever.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: alanabit
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 01:57 PM

I do not understand the abbreviation "MQs" Don. Like you, I find John Wayne's films a whole lot more palatable than his politics. The same goes for Gary Cooper, who did not exactly cover himself with glory when it came to standing by his mates. John Wayne never made a film as cringingly embarrassing to watch as "Gone With The Wind". In that one I spent every second feeling sorry for the actors and thinking, "The poor sods have got to pretend that they take all this tosh seriously!"
Errol Flynn's "Robin Hood" is high camp and plain ridiculous, but it is also splendid entertainment.
Possibly one of those "true to life" gritty Northern dramas made in cheap black and white in the sixties is the worst film ever made. They often do not even have the saving grace of being funny by accident.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Bert
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 02:03 PM

I can understand Tim Burton fans liking this version of Alice. But his style of whimsy (Nightmare before Christmas) just doesn't translate to Alice. Lewis Carroll's whimsy is a lot lighter with clever wordplay and brilliant twisted logic.

If he had written another fantasy movie of his own it would have been much better than trying to force his own style on Alice.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 02:07 PM

The Worst Move Ever would be impossible, but I can think of shit films I've seen in recent years. Off the top of my head the worst film I've seen in the last ten years would probably be Independence Day. If the last five it was that joke HG Well's thing. I can't remember which was worse, they were both really, really bad.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 02:22 PM

Not really a guest. "Skivee" sans cookie,
el joe clone

Bubblyrat, your comment "It has to be the film where the Americans capture a U-boat and the "Enigma" coding -device inside it , if only because it's a load of RUBBISH, especially since it was the BRITISH who captured the U-Boat & enigma machine ( Actually !!!)." is not entirely correct
Enigma machines were recovered by both British and American forces from U-Boats. The British navy catured one first, but an American sub catured a Nazi sub sub along with its enigma machine and all important code pads; they were spirited away to the Royal Dockyard in Bermuda. Later the Nazi sub ended up on display at the Field Museum in Chicago.
Film makers often change significant facts to suit their tastes. I once saw a bit of a British docudrama showing that a British pilot was the first jet jockey to break the sound barrier...errr, nope.
It's just not a good idea to learn your history from movies; otherwise you might end up thinking that either the British or Americans had a bigger hand in stopping Hitler than the Soviet Union, or that Wellington 's stratagy had much to do with Napolian being defeated at Waterloo.
For a truly awful film that lotsa folk gushed over, look up August Rush A piece of pretentious crap from beginning to end. A clear demonstration of what happens when a film that preports to be about the power of music is made by folks who don't know anything about music.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Amergin
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 02:22 PM

Any movie with Nicholas Cage....he can make the most exciting mind blowing action movie ever made into something that forces you to look at your watch every thirty seconds, because it is so boring you can't help but think is it over yet? Additionally, he can take the most intelligent script and bring it down to kindergarten level, just so he could understand that he's the hero...

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: DonMeixner
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 02:32 PM

Hi Alanabit

McQ was a Wayne film where he is a Detective wandering about London and New York spraying away with a Mac 10 machine pistol and flirting with much younger women. Not his shiningest moment. Mid 70's i think.

Robin Hood was taken mostly from the art work of NC Wyeth and Howard Pyle. Gary Cooper was never better than when in High Noon. As I said, once they hit the screen politics disappears and I am immersed in the story for better or ill.

D

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: GUEST,Skivee
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 02:33 PM

The note to Bubblyrat above is from me. I guess my cookie got eaten.
PS The U-571 movie has a epilogue crawler shot that list all three of the Enigma captures, and correctly lists the British mission as the first

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: DonMeixner
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 02:37 PM

U 505 I believe Skivee, I built a model of her when I was 12.
And I liked U-571, it was entertaining.

Don

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Skivee
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 02:41 PM

I thionk you are right, Don.
The Royal Dockyard museum had an extensive exhibit of the cooperative effort between British and American intelligence agencies to gleen info about Enigma coding from U505.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 02:41 PM

"I once saw a bit of a British docudrama showing that a British pilot was the first jet jockey to break the sound barrier...errr, nope."

What was it? I find the fictional dramatising of history increasingly troubling. I don't care who does it. But Hollywood for sure should stop faking America's heroism & brilliance in WWII.

People believe their bullshit. I guess that's why they do it. Go USA.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Nicholas Waller
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 02:42 PM

I'd say films like Independence Day (a well-done bit of jolly romping hokum that didn't take itself too seriously) and Burton's Alice (disappointing overall but with some good bits) can't really be described as the Worst Movie Ever.

But something like Prince Valiant (the 1997 version) genuinely is a candidate... no doubt there are 100s of worse films I will never see, but this was incompetent and unfunny and woodenly-acted and with some useless effects... read reviewer James Hitchcock at the IMDb link, who is pleasingly 1) disgusted and 2) from Tunbridge Wells.

And it is not as though it is full of unknown actors - people like Edward Fox and Thomas Kretschmann and Joanna Lumley are in it, and Katherine Heigl also; here she was 18 and very wooden, though I gather she got better.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: alanabit
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 02:44 PM

I think that is fair enough Don. Thanks for putting me right on "MQ".

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Bert
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 02:48 PM

I think the movie was "The Sound Barrier".

Chuck Yeager was the first to break the sound barrier and survive.
Geoffrey de Havilland, Jr. died while breaking the sound barrier which is the story behind the film.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: radriano
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 03:51 PM

What has this got to do with music?

Please move this to the non-music section.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Skivee
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 03:56 PM

Bert, that was the movie.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 04:02 PM

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: radriano - PM
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 03:51 PM
What has this got to do with music?
Please move this to the non-music section.


Don't panic! Moderators will be here by sunrise!

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: SINSULL
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 04:43 PM

Are they all watching Twilight?

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: PHJim
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 04:51 PM

How about VIXEN.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 05:20 PM

If you were a young girl of 12, watching GWTW for the first time, on a big screen in downtown Denver, with your big brother lending his shoulder for all of the tears, and you had an ounce of idealism/romanticism in you, it was the most stupendous movie of all time. Of course, I've grown up, but I still love it. And, just to get Rhett's last line correct, it is "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."

I agree with Spaw re' Songcatcher. I'd also add True Grit, the worst western ever, imo. I can't stand any of the John Wayne movies anymore; he seems like a caricature.

As to The Great Escape...join netflix and catch a video of Eddie Izzard commenting on the Americans being in it, etc. Hilarious and spot on! I can't remember which one, but I think it was the one he did in NYC and I think it was called Circle.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 07:21 PM

As a Scot, I'd have to say that, apart from most Hollywood remakes of European films, the worst film I've ever seen was "Braveheart".

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Ref
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 07:41 PM

Can we keep the thread here if I join Spaw in nominating "Songcatcher?"

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Ref
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 07:41 PM

Too late!

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: DonMeixner
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 07:51 PM

Crow sister,

Am I to take then that the United States efforts in WWII were cowardly and stupid?

Don

Songcatcher: Not much of a movie wrapped around some fabulous music.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Lighter
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 08:25 PM

You guys haven't seen enough movies.

The title of "Worst Movie Ever" is a dead, dead heat among scores, maybe hundreds, of films.

Try, for example, "The Wild World of Bat Woman" (1966). Or "Fire Maidens from Outer Space" (1956). If war films are your cup of woe, go for "The Starfighters" (1964) starring future Republican Congressman Robert Dornan.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Wesley S
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 08:49 PM

None of you has even seen "Bugs" or "The Night of the Lepus" I take it.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: DonMeixner
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 09:47 PM

Firemaidens from Outerspace Staring Zsa Zsa gabor and Eric Fleming I think. The Killer Shrews with Ken Curtis (Festus Hagen) The Massacre at Marble City (the musical theme after the massacre was The Party's Over)The Beginning of The End with Peter Graves, all bad but good bad Saturday afternoon instead of mowing the lawn bad.

Don

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Ebbie
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 09:55 PM

"Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: GUEST,Patsy Warren - PM
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 10:17 AM

I totally agree with you about Gone With the Wind. It is supposed to be an all time great mind blowing epic but it left me wondering why I wasted 2 hours (or it seemed like that) sitting through it just to hear Clark Gable say 'Frankly I don't give a damn.' Left me thinking huh? is that it?"

I don't know you, Guest/Patsy Warren, but it strikes me that you have never seen Gone with the Wind.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: GUEST,andrew
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 11:23 PM

Just about all movies made in the last few years!
Latest Startrek,Get Smart,James Bond etc.
You have to have the sound turned right up to hear the words,that's if they're worth hearing!
The camera jumps all over the place so you can't really see what's happening.
Much too much action, and not enough story. People shouting at each other. Smart arse characters.
It's all meaningless to me.
There are some good TV shows.