Badmovies.org Forum

Dear friends (and, yes, you too) your mission, should you choose to accept it, is simple.

In 2018 I plan to watch as many movies as I can fit in around my otherwise full life of domestic drudgery and unpaid intern exploitation, and I would like any of you who wish to to please recommend titles to me. Shout out about any genre, any era, as long as you think they are worth seeing. Bring up personal favorites, ones you hated, landmarks, legends, obscure, funny, scary, sad, epic, modern, foreign, animated, black and white, CGI-heavy, independent, historical, ones with full-on male nudity, it's all a go whatever you think, between now and December 31, 2017, make me a list or name just one, it's up to you.

I can't swear I'll watch them all but I will promise to look into each one you take the time to mention and I will find out about it, so if it appeals to you, name some films. (I am not well-versed in movies so it'd actually be of help to me.)

Background....in 1999, because of my movie-loving roommate, I saw more films in a year than ever in my life, and then in 2014 I consciously set out to watch a bunch more, almost one every other day (which was huge for me) and in that case I even wrote a hundred page...whatever (e-book? memoir?) about it that if you haven't yet read, boy, you're cheating yourself because it's  totally brilliant, National Book Award material, Pulitzer-worthy, and includes movies, drug addicts, stabbing, a bris, a jail sentence avoided, and amorous, roaming blackbears. It's all about a year in my life filled with motion pictures of all stripe, and every word of it is true. (Except that one. Or...yes, just that one.)

Now I want 2018 to share themes with those years and have movies at its core.

So lay on, what are some good movies? Spread your brain on a cracker and let fly!

City Lights (1931)
The Artist (2012)
Dr. Strangelove (1964)
Bucky Larson (2011)
Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)
Gravity (2013)
Santa With Muscles (1996)
Casino Royale (1967)
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Airplane! (1980)
Boyhood (2014)

The Babysitter (2017)--found this on Netflix and was pleasantly surprised.
Eraserhead
Josie & The p***ycats--criminally underrated film

Mad Max: Fury Road
Spirited Away
Psycho
Inception
The Wind Rises
Who Killed Captain Alex?

However, since this is badmovies, We have to give you a few bad movie recommendations:
Troll 2
Foodfight
Laserblast

harvey
desk set
the philadelphia story
eraserhead
monster club
thunder and the house of magic
willy wonka
princess bride
night of the living dead
the exorcist
terror from the year 5000
ed wood
we're no angels( the original with humphrey bogart)
eegah!!!


there's a start, more later.

First you have to finish SHOWGIRLS.  Then, the following grab bag:

ZARDOZ
GRAVE ENCOUNTERS
ABSENTIA
MIRRORS
TUCKER AND DALE VS. EVIL
ZOMBIE HAMLET
FDR: AMERICAN BADASS
BEING THERE
COWBOY KILLER
THE VOID
FROST/NIXON

Some interesting suggestions above, but, frankly, why waste anyone's time?  Some of those seem skip worthy. 
ER, I think you can handle my suggestions, I pull no punches, heed remarks:

WATERSHIP DOWN (1978 - animation)  One of the best interpretations of faith I know of, not for kids. 

GERMANIA ANNO ZERO (1948)  The most devastating narrative film I have seen.  I have to warn any potential viewer. 

LES QUATRE CENT COUP (1959 - THE 400 BLOWS)  This is how boys' minds work. 

LA DOLCE VITA  (1960)  Also devastating, translated it's "The Sweet Life" but it doesn't quite mean what one might first think.  The SWEET Life... Any recovering Catholics?  Here is the film. 

BARRY LYNDON (1975)  The greatest motionless film in English. 

The World's fastest indian

Timbo Hines' War Of The Worlds
Though, you may need to prepare yourself by watching The Wizard Of Mars and some select works of The Polonia Brothers first

Below
The Void
Howls Moving Castle
Spirited Away
Tucker & Dale Vs Evil
Trick R Treat
Spinal Tap
Blazing Saddles
Saving Mr Banks
Reanimator
From Beyond
Dagon

You been here a long time,ER.. You have to ASK !? Folks around here drop a list without any reason at all! I make lists in my head when I'm on the toilet!
Anyway-being this is BAD movies...!

The IMPOSSIBLE KID (1982)
I caught this the other nite on PLUTO TV.
Impossiple is right! I found it impossible to bear!

http://youtu.be/af0Zg5KeYwk (http://youtu.be/af0Zg5KeYwk)

It's hard to know without knowing what you've already seen or having some guidance what you're looking for. That said, if you want totally random bunch of suggestions, you've come to the right place!

Here are some classics that should be in everybody's movie toolkit (i.e., if you haven't seen these you'll miss a lot of quotes and references):

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
CASABLANCA
VERTIGO
THE WIZARD OF OZ
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
PULP FICTION
A FEW GOOD MEN
SCHINDLER'S LIST
APOCALYPSE NOW
TAXI DRIVER

There are more of course, those are just suggestions off the top of my head. If you haven't already seen any of those you should.

Bad movies you should see if you haven't:

PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE
GLEN OR GLENDA?
THE ROOM
SHOWGIRLS

A collection of random (slightly) weird personally choices (not TOO challenging):

WALTZ WITH BASHIR - Animated movie about an Israeli soldier with memory loss, full of surprises
THE LOVE WITCH - Campy but creepy, witchy woman's lovers turn up dead, done in a 60s throwback style
AUDITION - Slow burn horror---wait for it. One of the great disturbing endings. You'll need a strong stomach
BLANCANIEVES - Modern silent movie, Snow White as a Spanish bullfighter
SITA SINGS THE BLUES - One-woman animation, gives you a humorous primer version of the Ramayana
FANTASIA - Sort of a classic, actually; definitely an experience
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1946) - Jean Cocteau's slightly-surreal vision is the best version of the fairy tale
PAN'S LABYRINTH - Another one that's nearly an all time classic; girl escapes horrors of the Spanish Civil War through fantasy
BLUE VELVET - Dark. Start your David Lynch journey here. It gets weirder after this.
METROPOLIS - A great vintage silent movie modern audiences still enjoy

What is the name of this torrid tome so that we may bask in its dark brilliance?

Some good ones you may not have come across:
THE BOOGENS (1981)
WHO COULD KILL A CHILD? (1976)
RACE WITH THE DEVIL (1975)
EVILSPEAK (1982)
HELL NIGHT (1981)
LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE (1974)
TWICH OF THE DEATH NERVE (1971)
BAD TASTE (1987)
DEATHDREAM (1972)
AT MIDNIGHT I'LL TAKE YOUR SOUL (1964)

I'm grateful to you one and all for your many thoughtful suggestions. I'm taking these recommendations down on a list and I'm going to look every one of them up for my year-long movie (don't say orgy, don't say orgy) marathon. Any more you can think of, keep 'em coming.

Thanks again!

PS Rev, it's funny, I don't think I had heard of The Room until recently, and suddenly I keep hearing about it. Odd how that happens sometimes.

Some more:

ORGY OF THE DEAD
BLOOD ORGY OF THE SHE-DEVILS
GEORGY GIRL

snicker...
To Harry:  Going for a theme here?  I don't care for any of those.   :drink:

DEATHDREAM was suggested by RetroRussell, an excellent suggestion if you want CREEPY 70s Horror, and that one holds up. 

ER, I would probably then urge you to look at:   
OSSESSIONE (1943)  Sexy movie, weirdly distracted, and... spooky. 

Some idiot put this South African movie on Youtube:

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/56/Shangani_patrol_album_cover.jpg/220px-Shangani_patrol_album_cover.jpg)

I can't provide a link to Youtube because of firewalls but it is a film to watch.

Ha! It's unimaginably titled A Year In Film  though I was thinking of re-naming it Captain Longleaf's Barrel of Zoom. More spizz, y'know? If you want to read it let me know. That goes for everybody.

some more -- and a word of warning --- Bucky Larson was really, really rough

The Blob (1958)
Sharknado (2013)
No Holds Barred (1989)
12 Angry Men (1957)
M (1931)
Sherlock Jr. (1924)
The General (1926)
Mary and Max (2009)
Best in Show (2000)
Citizen Kane (1941)
Cut Bank (2014)
Eyes Without a Face (1960)
Following (1998)
Hoop Dreams (1994)
Lavalantula (2015)
Machete (2010)
The Most Dangerous Game (1932)
Robot Monster (1953)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
Teenagers From Outer Space (1959)

ER, I have a feeling our tastes in movies diverge. Instead of just listing favorites I'll try to list movies which seem historically significant:

H.G. Well's Things to Come - Not the late 70's Star Wars rip off, the 30's version which actually had Well's assistance. This was the most expensive movie ever made till Gone With the Wind came out

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Disney's 1st big-budget live-action feature.

Song of the South - If you can find a copy. Good live action/animation FX mix. Represents the Old South theme as well as Gone with the Wind, but much shorter/less racist.

Beneath the 12 Mile Reef -  2nd film shot in CinemaScope. Don't let the title fool you; while there is some under-water action it's mostly a melodrama. Based loosely on Romeo and Juliet. From what I've read the studio let copyright lapse, so you can probably get it cheaply.

Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein - Good for Halloween, and probably a good representation of Abbot and Costello's craft.

Sons of the Desert - One of Laurel and Hardy's best features, a good representation of their craft.

Steamboat Bill - The General gets all the accolades, but I thought this one was funnier. A good representation of Buster Keaton's craft.

The Beast With 1,000,000 Eyes - Bad, but it's where AIP started.

Pokemon the First Movie - Probably more of a personal choice... Yeah, let's leave it at that. Still the most financially successful anime film to get a wide release in the U.S.

The Thief and The Cobbler - Probably the best traditional animation produced since the 40's.

The 7th Void of Sinbad - Ray Harryhausen's 1st adventure movie. (Actually I haven't seen this all the way through. I really want to tho.)

King Kong - Put together most of the visual and sound FX techniques filmmakers would use till the 80's. Except for:

The Thief of Baghdad - 40's version, stars Sabu. Blue Screens were invented for this movie. (Earlier traveling matt processes required actors to be bathed in a yellow light. This was a color film, so that wouldn't work.)

The Jungle Book - 40's Version. Also starring Sabu. Not all that significant, but I like it. Adapts Tiger! Tiger!, The King's Ankus, and Letting in the Jungle. Unlike Disney's adaptions Kaa the rock Python is a good guy. Might represent the Jungle Adventure genre well.

2001: A Space Odyssey - Front projection was invented for this movie.

Star Wars/Close Encounters of the Third Kind - Motion control cameras finally became practical. (Douglas Tumbrull tried something similar for The Starlost, an earlier TV show, but wasn't able to get it working till Close Encounters.)

CG's hard to pin down. I'd recommend watching TRON, The Last Starfighter, Terminator 2, and Jurassic Park to trace its development. Almost forgot DragonHeart; while JP used a mix of robots, costumes, puppets, and CG, DH's creature was done completely with computers, if memory serves. That's significant.

Les Affames (2017) -- French film with English subtitles. The old trope of a "zombie" virus turned into an emotionally devastating and fairly silent film. Even the dialogue is softly spoken, because in this world, the "hungry" can hear and track the slightest sounds. Unnerving film that puts you ground level with a group of survivors who are hoping for safety and salvation but knowing that such things are well-nigh impossible. This honestly should become a classic. Watch the original before some dumbass American company decides to remake it with copious CGI and Michael Bay-level action sequences.

Slaughterhouse Five (1972) -- A quirky, yet excellent, film version of Kurt Vonnegut's most accessible works. Retains most of the novel's intelligence. You do not need to read the book to understand the film. A simple Everyman becomes unstuck in his own timeline and finds himself landing in various significant points of his life. You learn who he is, what events shaped him, and how he ultimately found his bliss. Sad, funny, and profound. Definitely worth a look.

Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971) -- An oddity with a script by Gene Roddenberry and directed by Roger Vadim. A typical California high school suddenly has a rash of the prettiest schoolgirls ending up dead. Not a slasher. It is actually an attack on the permissiveness blossoming in high schools at the time as well as a social comedy on the ineptitude of the supposedly progressive West Coast ideals. See Rock Hudson play a character who is funny, sexy, and out of control. Watch a fairly young Angie Dickinson as a teacher who keeps stumbling over the same awkward high school boy who finds the first murder victim.

More as I think of them. If you want a list of alternate titles ("Best of the Worst" or "Movies I Should Never Recommend to Reasonable People"), let me know. Otherwise, I will try to only list movies that I dearly love, yet are still a touch weird.

Not so odd. With THE DISASTER ARTIST coming out, THE ROOM is back in the limelight. But the same thing happened to me about 3 years ago with THE ROOM. Had no clue about it. Once I heard about it, the damn thing seemed to be haunting me.

Then I watched it.

Now it just scares me in a good way.

There's a method to his madness... :wink:

Rumblefish
Repo Man

Dudes

What type of movie genre do you prefer?

Do you know any good historical films?

A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
Aforementioned SCHINDLER'S LIST
HOTEL RWANDA
12 YEARS A SLAVE

Start the Revolution Without Me -- Historically accurate? Probably not, but you can't go too wrong with Gene Wilder and Donald Sutherland playing dual roles. Oh, and Orson Welles, who was big enough to play dual roles without special effects. And it's a comedy.

TORA!TORA!TORA! (1970) is great! Seems pretty accurate too.

http://youtu.be/-n1pKsGqrqQ (http://youtu.be/-n1pKsGqrqQ)

I don't think INGLORIOUS BASTARDS (2009) is very accurate.... :wink:

http://youtu.be/KnrRy6kSFF0 (http://youtu.be/KnrRy6kSFF0)

City of Lost Children

Spartacus (1960)
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
Glory (1990)
Fury (2014)

historical film -

Paths of Glory (1957)


weird -

The Game (1997)
Being John Malkovich (1999)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

foreign -

Infernal Affairs (2002)

scary -

The Ring (2002)

independent -

Death Sentence (2007)
Dead Silence (2007)
Get Low (2009)

I'm gonna stop now, and I anxiously awaiting to see your thoughts on the whole lot of the movies suggested

Some previously mentioned that I also thought of:

Beauty and the Beast (1946)  - This was one of the first ones I thought of when you posted this. 
Spirited Away - Your kids might not kill you for making them watch this either.  My daughter loves it.


Others I didn't see mentioned that I think you may not have seen (or have) and would like:

The Company of Wolves (1984) - The other first movie I thought of when you posted this
Evil Eye aka The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963)
Häxan (1922)
Svengali (1931)

Attack (1956)
The Shooting (1966)
Chinatown (1974)
Tommy (1975)
Separate Tables (1958)
They Made Me a Criminal (1939)
Quicksand (1950)
Detour (1945)
Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962)
Phantom of the Paradise (1974)
Beast of Yucca Flats (1961)
The Time of Your Life (1948)
The General (1926)
The Night Stalker (1972)
The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)
The Kennel Murder Case (1933)
Island of Lost Souls (1932)
Devil Girl from Mars (1954)
The Lady Vanishes (1938)
Asylum (1972)
Nosferatu (1922)
Panic in the Streets (1950)
The Naked Prey (1965)
Hugo Pool (1997)
Duel (1971)
The Ghost Ship (1943)
Alphaville (1965)
The Third Man (1949)
Trapped in Space (1995)
Queen of Blood (1966)
The Innocents (1961)
The Flesh Eaters (1964)
Kronos (1957)
Taste of Fear (1961)
Suddenly (1954)
Mimic (1997)
The Trial (1962)
Coffy (1973)
Nightmare Alley (1947)
Pool of London (1951)
Patlabor: The Movie (1989)
Patlabor 2 (1993)
Pi (1998)