Badmovies.org Forum

Tonight as I perused YouTube I came across a trailer for Return of Sabata, one of a series of films (three, actually) starring Lee Van Cleef as the titular gunslinger.  Usually, I'd think it just another cool trailer for another Spaghetti Western.  But this one is a particular case....

Whatever you may think of Michael Medved, he and his brother Harry did write a favorite book of my youth, "The 50 Worst Films Of All Time (...and how they got that way)".  At the local bookstore, I would go in every weekend and read that thing over and over until I nearly got thrown out for treating it like a library and not buying like I shoulda. 

Anyways, a couple of years ago I got the same book out of the library and read it again./  Great nostalgia but I realized something: some of these films were pretty darned good.  No Battleship Potemkins of Gone With The Winds or the like but still not bad; at any rate, not the worst.

And before you get all huffy, I understand that any list like this is subjective as far as the authors, the year the book was published, what films are available at the time and so on.  It's just that, in my opinion, some movies age better than others.

There's something likable about films the likes of the aforementioned Sabata, Airport 1975, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster and the like (and it is because of the information in this book that I still long to get my sweaty hands on a copy of Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie).  After all, most of it may be a nostalgia thing as well, but still....

For those of you who aren't familiar with the list, heres' a quick and easy linkage:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifty_Worst_Films_of_All_Time

So, am I alone in this thinking?  Are these 50 films still the worst of their time (let alone all time), or have they mellowed in their old age?

The inclusion of IVAN THE TERRIBLE Pts I & II is absurd; the films are fantastic, though not for general tastes.  JAMAICA INN does not belong on the list.  BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA also does not belong on the list. 
Debatable inclusions are MYRA BRECKINRIDGE and VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, which may belong on a trashiest film list, but are hardly "the worst." 

Well, I'm going to have to say that Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster shouldn't be there, but that's just my taste. I think that some newer ones could be added. Like The Hottie and The Nottie.

So there's my idea, take out Godzilla, replace with The Hottie and The Nottie.

Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster is one of the absolute best Godzilla flicks, and it's a cool movie besides being a G-film.  I haven't seen ...Alfred Garcia but I'd imagine that it's out of place seeing how I love the two Peckinpah films I've seen so far.  I wouldn't put Horror of Party Beach there, either.  It's pretty crappy, but it's goofy enough to watch once in a while(plus it has that catchy Zombie Stomp tune).

the OMEN? (1976)?! Huh? Methinks the authors took offense to a child being in such a 'horror' film,and one about the anti-christ in particular,got it on the list,rather than the merits of the film itself. Obviously they never heard of TV Mikals or Doris Wishman!

I think lists like that definitely need to be updated every few years.  Looking at the IMDb bottom 100, I see that in the bottom 25, 22 are from the current decade.  Though I have to state for the record that Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster definitely belongs on any such list.  Wasn't that the one with the children's choir singing about the horrors of pollution? 

No children's choir in this one; just the singer in the beginning credits, the psychedelic bar/club song by the girl in the painted unitard and the groovy hootenany on Mt. Fuji.

Even considering the subjective nature of such a list, it could probably stand to have some new examples. I'd also like to know why The Omen made the list. If I had to pick a Gregory Peck movie for the list, I'd pick The Boys From Brazil.

I guess what we're seeing in a book like this is that many of these movies have garnered a respect of sorts after a few years (decades, whatever), some have received favor as cult items and some others just stayed crappy.

Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia, Ivan the Terrible, Part I and Part II, Jamaica Inn and The Omen certainly hold up better as time goes by than, say,  Spinout or The Ambushers.  But how many of us even remember a movie with a title like New Moon, Twilight on the Rio Grande or Swing Your Lady?  And Hurry Sundown or Airport 1975 certainly don't qualify as "films-that-stand-the-test-of-time".

But as far as films like Marci X, The Hottie and the Nottie, Blonde and Blonder or the film oeuvre of Carrot Top, there just aren't as many bad films that can be rightly called "fondly memorable".  Just "stupid", at best.