Badmovies.org Forum

What I mean by 'classics' are films revered and considered  by critics and the public alike- but you just don't understand why- or just plain ol' don't like. (I won't mention STAR WARS or ROCKY HORROR because I have b***hed about them since I been on this board.)

. GONE WITH THE WIND- Overblown soap opera garbage.
. BIRTH OF A NATION- Beyond the obvious racist content, its too f**king long and just plain insipid.
. CITIZEN KANE- I really REALLY tried to sit through this. I couldn't.
. the MUMMY- Not the 1959 one with Christopher Lee. The Karloff one. It has great  cinematagraphy ( I can't spell that f**king word) in some scenes- but that's about it. It bored the hell out of me. Karloff is supposed to be a living dead mummy, but seems like he's half asleep through the whole thing.
.SUSPIRIA- Why? It's pretty. That's about it.

OK at the risk of being hit with a massive flaming xxxxstorm, I have to play devil's advocate for Birth of a nation.

Now first off this movie was pure BULLXXXX! on every level.  At no time in america did any state ever have a majority of black members in its senate, period.

Also, this movie deliberately and intentionally incited racial hatred. As a result dozens, possibly hundreds, of people were murdered. Maybe more since we'll never know how many people were murdered "down south, y'all". That one fact completely buries any contributions to cinema it made.

That being said, BoaN made massive contributions to cinema. In an era when most movies were like maybe 15 minutes long, BoaN was a massive 3h15m long, proving movies could be of length equal to huge stage plays.

BoaN had huge casts acting out massive battle scenes. A first. It had " scene jumps" and "time jumps" that were pretty new. It jumped from group to group, again rate in the days of the short film.

In a very real sense BoaN invented modern film making and took films from 15 minute distractions to feature length productions. It expanded the scale and scope of films. It was an early huge budget film, it took months, not days, to complete.

While it was a movie that even today drips with the blood of those whose murders it caused,  it still changed movie making forever.

There's a lot of things I like about GONE WITH THE WIND.  Making fun of it probably tops the list. 
BERTHA VANATION... oops, wrong movie... 'Couldn't care less about that stupid original. 
CITIZEN KANE is a great movie.  By the time we were old enough to look at the thing, it had been talked up too much. 
I do like that Hammer CHRISTOPHER LEE mummy much better than that BORING BORIS original. 
SUSPIRIA ... over-rated. 

Speaking of citizen Kane, I liked the fact it exposed the power a media mogul could hold and what an ammoral one could do with that power. I think it helped get media limitations passed on how much media one person could control. Christ I wish we still had that in america. Thanks republicans. It does deserve it's classic status.

I realize that it was based on Hearst- and he  WAS a scumbag.
It still bored the f**k out of me.

And I know (everyone on board knows) that you hate the Republican Party. I do too. But I ain't no more happier when Democrats promise this that and the other- and behind closed doors they are more concerned with fattening they're wallets.
I have no use for ANY politician. NONE.

But there ARE exceptions. I like Sen. McCain. That man got balls.
That's a man I could trust. He's true to himself.

I recently saw HOW THE WEST WAS WON.  it was so bad... acting, tone, pacing, script...feeble. but not in a good-bad way. some of the sets were quite nice maybe?

THE EXCORCIST... like a boring tv movie. not scary, not tense, not thought provoking. a slog to get through.

AVATAR...go away. just go away.

You can't spell it? No problem: I tried it in film school, I couldn't even operate the camera  :teddyr: :wink:

Sven- I know BOAN was important to the advancement of cinema. Still think it's boring and trite.

Zombie- You'll get no argument on me on about AVATAR.

Oh yeah some more....

. Any John Wayne movie. "Any good redskin is a dead redskin". f**k John Wayne.
Try and watch the GREEN BERETS some time. Or that Genghis Khan mess. Ugh.
(though I like the SONS OF KATIE ELDER just because of Dean Martin. I like Dean Martin.)

. Any Woody Allen movie. Whiny self centered b***hing is not my idea of funny.
(wait a minute...I do that all the time... :bluesad:)
Whatever. Still don't like his movies.

Hallows- I may have to give KANE a second look. I was in my 30's when I first watched it. My attention span was short then.
I was too busy watching gore and exploitation movies back than.  :wink:
I usta not like the GODFATHER at all- I found it long and talky. But I love it after I saw it when I was in jail back in 2009.

You have seen too many grotesque movies... THE EXORCIST is a great film that could not get made today.   Hell, it ain't FRIDAY THE 13TH, there is a literate script at the heart of THE EXORCIST. 

I have to agree with that.
No gore or heads being chopped off. A very thoughtful movie, actually. There's a lot going on there.
Questioning your own belief system, self worth, -just so much.
 And it scared the s**t out of me.

No gore?  Reconsider the scenes with the puking... or how about what Regan does with the crucifix... and what she says!!  

Thats not limbs being chopped off with blood flying all over. Shocking? Yes. But gory? No.

well I tried on multiple occasions to 'get' it, but just doesn't do anything for me.

the nicest thing I can say about THE EXCORCIST, is that it's my 3rd favourite 'EXCORCIST' movie   :teddyr:

You liked the HERETIC better?  :question: I won't question your sanity but.... :tongueout:
(That's ok- to each his own!  :thumbup:)
Criminy- I hate STAR WARS and like MONSTER A GO GO, so what do I know?

I actually like EXORCIST III very much. But 2 was a mess.

quite an entertaining mess, I thought. only saw it once, don't really want to see it again...

The Wizard of Oz, all 3 Lord of the Rings movies, Diabolique,  Annie Hall, Manhattan, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, The Producers, Night of the Hunter, Back to School, High Anxiety, La Strada

We don't quite agree about what might or might not be gory.  It's sort of like TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, which many people seem to remember as gory.  It's not.  It is relentless, though.  I know you know. 

 
Like you need to be educated in film...  :tongueout:

I don't think your assessment of JOHN WAYNE is fair... that's certainly the image, particulaly 50 years ago... THE GREEN BERETS is a terrible movie, and SO out of touch with it's time.  I still like THE SHOOTIST, TRUE GRIT, THE SEARCHERS, STAGECOACH, THE QUIET MAN, THEY WERE EXPENDABLE...   

And we disagree about WOODY ALLEN, and for years.  You're not as bad on him as you used to be.  HANNAH AND HER SISTERS is probably my favorite movie, but it has a wonderful cast, script, and WOODY is only a fraction of it (and probably the funniest part).  CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS has a small part for WOODY, but it's MARTIN LANDAU that carries WOODY ALLEN's greatest film (just my opinion).  I like many, but not all, of WOODY movies. 

(https://i.imgur.com/zSzfaE4.gif) (https://lunapic.com)

The WIZARD OF OZ was something of an event in our house in the 60's and 70's. It was like a holiday. It played on TV every year for years. Dad would make popcorn!And he watched it! And usually the only thing he watched on TV was All In the Famliy, the news, f**king Hee Haw, and Soul Train.
I really never got to know my Dad well.  :bluesad: I wish I had.

Anyway!

As far as John Wayne goes--he can go f**k the horse he rode in on. From what I read, he was pretty much a macho a***ole phony in real life, and felt uncomfertble with actors who were actually in WW2,  (Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda) because he applied for exemption from service.

Okay, you don't like him.  He got a deferment through efforts of Republic Pictures, and though too old to be drafted, he COULD have volunteered to serve.  He didn't.  And still gets jabs for NOT serving.  Yet, apparently his lack of efforts to serve has yielded evidence that he did try to serve... In any case, I think I like JOHN WAYNE movies better than most with JIMMY STEWART or HENRY FONDA...  although MY DARLING CLEMENTINE, a HENRY FONDA film, is my favorite Western. 

I gotta say, I prefer HARVEY and VERTIGO over any Wayne horse opera.

 
Good point.  However, REAR WINDOW is a film I've often considered my favorite... and then there's VERTIGO.  I like a lot of JIMMY STEWART movies, but not HARVEY. 

The whole ROCKY franchise.  Never seen them, no particular desire to, I don't like boxing in general, and Stallone is way overrated anyway.
And I have never seen any of the GODFATHER movies.  I understand they are classics, I get that, but they just don't spark any interest in me.

I have no use for ROCKY either. Or RAMBO. I did kinda like FIRST BLOOD, where Rambo was a psycho 'Nam vet.
It took me a looong time to enjoy the GODFATHER movies (1 and 2- 3 sucks wind).

.the LORD OF THE RING series makes me long for the old BAD TASTE/ BRAINDEAD Peter Jackson.
.I found ANIMAL HOUSE to be unfunny and stupid.
Same goes for CADDYSHACK, MEATBALLS, or that 'Bill Murray joins the Army' movie. In fact I can't think of any Bill Murray movie I like. Come to think of it, the only movies I liked that had ex-SNL players in them is VACATION and CHRISTMAS VACATION.

check out 36th chamber of Shaolin aka The Master Killer instead. It's kind of the Chinese Rocky


http://youtu.be/P5_d0d-9ajU (http://youtu.be/P5_d0d-9ajU)

I like the part where JOHN BELUSHI smashes the folk singer's guitar in ANIMAL HOUSE. 
I like the part where RODNEY DANGERFIELD farts loudly in CADDYSHACK and exclaims "Who stepped on a duck?" . 

I like one BILL MURRAY movie: GROUNDHOG DAY. 

I believe that is Stripes

THE EXORCIST scared the entire nation (I'm talking U.S.A., I assume it was the same elsewhere). I remember when it was in theaters . . . everyone was talking about it . . . church attendance increased . . . TV talk shows had various experts in history and religion as guests . . . it was everywhere. No horror movie since (with the exception of JAWS, which probably scared nearly as many people) has come close to that kind of impact. Not. Even. Close.

It was banned for almost twenty years in South Africa: the sequels too.  :thumbdown:

DANCES WITH WOLVES.
That f**king movie.
I like westerns. I LOVE Westerns. I can't stand that movie.

They've remade it quite a few times I hear. I believe 'The Last Samurai' and 'Avatar' are just two of them.

Don't even get me started with AVATAR.  :hatred:

I used to work with a guy who looked just like one of the aliens from Avatar. One Hallowe'en he just painted himself blue for his costume.

I can't stand Wizard of Oz but that may stem from the trauma of my star turn as the Cowardly Lion in a 5th grade stage production of it. Clomping around on stage in front of the entire school wearing a scratchy fake lion's mane (and a tail pinned to the back of my pants) was bad enough, but the girl who played Dorothy was a total b***h whose voice hadn't changed yet. Listening to that chick croak her way through "Over the Rainbow" for weeks on end during rehearsals was pure torture. To this day if I hear that song, I cringe like I've been shot.

Well, That's just f**king creepy.  :bluesad:
That makes total sense.   :bluesad:

You hit the nail on the head right there. I remember as a kid all the devil s**t on TV and at the news stand.
That's where I got my comics and monster magazines and cheap paperbacks.. Satan s**t in books and magazines was everywhere!
And Karen Carpenter was on the radio- along with Led Zeppilin!
I seen the EXORCIST at the Strand in 1974. Scared the s**t out of me.

I've been meaning to re-visit the Exorcist for a long time now but haven't gotten around to it yet.

When I was a kid in the 70s that had the ultimate rep around the school yard - legend had it that Exorcist was THE most pants-poopingly, mentally-scarring, most terrifying movie ever made, and if you watched even a little bit of it you'd have nightmares for the rest of your life. So naturally I avoided it like the plague, cuz I was a wuss when I was a kid. (haha)

Years later (late '80s), I finally saw The Exorcist when I was in college - but by that point I was a well seasoned horror fan who'd seen tons and tons of scary movies, and after all those years of building it up in my mind, The Exorcist didn't pack the wallop I had been expecting. I remember thinking "That's it? What's the big deal?"

It's been at least 30 years since I last saw it and I wonder what I would think of it by now.

You gotta remember- at the time horror movies were about Frankenstein and Dracula and things from Outer Space.
Films like the EXORCIST, LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, and the TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE were all sharing marquees.
This was not my Daddy's horror movie! This wasn't late night uhf channel Creature Features. This s**t freaked me out.
I thought it was all great.  :cheers:

 

I hate LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT... but it is a very important film. 

he may have had marfan syndrome.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marfan_syndrome

similar type of story here... I wasn't born when it came out, but it was banned here in the uk so developed a similar kind of schoolyard reputation of being THE scariest film ever. It finally got unbanned here in 1998 (iirc) and cinemas started showing it. I went to a screening and not only were people openly laughing at it (right from the start), but I also fell asleep from boredom. The only other time I've ever fallen asleep in a cinema was for GIRL WITH THE PEARL EARRING!

I've tried 3 or 4 more times since then to properly watch it but it never works for me. Interestingly Mark Kermode thinks it's the best film ever, and he's probably my favourite film critic.

I think when THE EXORCIST came out, the critics and movie going public were shocked, not so much by the film's scariness as by its vulgarity, obscenity, and depravity.  Plus, it had serious actors like ELLEN BURSTYN and MAX VON SYDOW and LEE J. COBB.  Forget Horror if need be, but the film is a big F U to religion... aside from any horror or sh!t movies out there, there is NOTHING like THE EXORCIST.  It's a rare cinematic animal.  It's unique. 

fair enough AHD, I respect the opinion of anyone who happens to think it's deserving of classic status.

I'm half tempted to think it's a case of 'maybe you just had to be there'.. but of course that kind of thing shouldn't apply to truly classic movies. ...it is what it is, I guess.

No, I don't think so. 
When I first saw THE EXORCIST 40 years ago, it was on cable TV and I found it more shocking than frightening.  I suspect that though it was cable, the film was trimmed of its most unsavory bits (like the crucifix scene, and what she says...)  Nonetheless, if you were raised with Christianity, it is hard not to be affected by much of that film. 
Eventually, I saw a lot of much more violent, sexual, cruel and revolting movies, and THE EXORCIST is hardly the worst shocker I've seen.  BUT, I have only in more recent years come to appreciate what a very well made film it is, with a truly insightful script.   Given the right context, you may find a place for it. 

I grew up with THE WIZARD OF OZ, grew to loathe it, and rediscovered it by liking the part I did not like as a kid: the songs.  I had to find a way to appreciate it as a grownup.  Sometimes rediscovery is the key, as in a whole new appreciation. 

It wasn't until just recently I started to appreciate the GODFATHER. It just always put me to sleep. But I have gained attention span in the last decade or so to have the paitence to discover what a great film it really is.

 I still don't get what all the hula-baloo was about was any INDIANA JONES movie.
 I liked when the nazi's face melted in one of them. And I have seen most of them once.

Wizard of Oz is, in my opinion, more of a technical achievement film.  It's one of the first color films and it shows with how bright the set is. Blade Runner is another film that falls in technical achievement instead of a good story. I really don't care for either, but I can appreciate the technical aspect of each. As for a classic that I never got, well that's Citizen Kane. I never got why people just go on and on with it. I found it to be a story about a guy told from other people's knowledge.

Some people think "Men in Black" was good. I found d it horrifying and terrible. Mind control? Acceptable? Hell no! I wanted to ram that neutralizer up will smith's ass. To me the main characters were evil. Thier organization was evil. It might do humanity good to know there were aliens in the universe, get humans to step up their game.

I must say I liked HTWW, if only for the shootout between the law and the outlaws aboard the train.

And here are six more reasons someone who has not seen the film may want to see it.

HARRY DEAN STANTON. As one of the outlaws aboard the train.

Little known as actors, but well known for playing the villain. JACK LAMBERT and RUDY ACOSTA. Again as outlaws aboard the train.

Blink and you'll miss him, but still instantly recognizable. LEE VAN CLEEF as one of the river pirates.

And you'll know him by his voice. KEN CURTIS in the Civil War scene.

RAYMOND MASSEY. Probably the only Canadian actor to play two American heroes. Depending upon how you define heroes. Not once, but twice. Here as Abe Lincoln and then again in Abe Lincoln in Illinois and John Brown in Santa Fe Trail and Seven Angry Men.

And the late western writer LOUIS L'AMOUR wrote the novelization of the screenplay, and as in most novelizations filling in some of the plot holes. Here what happened to some of the characters seen once in the film and then not seen again.