Onion article: Good scenes in bad movies.

[DaveMunger]

Let's see if this link dies in a month, like when you link to the fake news stories:

http://www.theonionavclub.com/feature/index.php?issue=4113&f=&page=2

[BoyScoutKevin]

Wouldn't you know that I have seen more of the "bad" (4) movies, then the "good" (3) movies. Which may say alot about their definiton of "bad" and "good." Though, thank you for article and link, DM, as it does make for some interesting reading.

[AndyC]

I was just noticing the same thing. Seen pretty much the whole list of bad movies, but hardly any of the good ones.

[odinn7]

But...but...Did anyone actually look at the list of good movies? Showgirls was on it! Showgirls!

[Writer]

The Onion's not as funny as it used to be. I think it lost most of its credibility in my eyes when it came up with the headline "Republicans name Alzheimers 'Reagan's disease'" and the rest of it when it started trying to pass off whining political rants as satire. Even the National Lampoon, which has had rather hit-and-miss humor, has managed to be funnier (and less relentlessly political) than that.

As for the list, I've seen "Bonfire of the Vanities" and the beginning mentioned there isn't half as funny as some of the other parts of that movie.  My particular favorite scene is the one in which Sherman, at the end of his rope from all of the abuse he's taken, drives all of the guests at his wife's party (along with the wife herself) out of the house with a shotgun. It wasn't the most memorable of films and the humor is intentionally sleazy, but it's good fun as movies go.

[DaveMunger]

More often than not now, the headlines are the only part worth reading in the fake news parts. I'm more into larknews.com now, and bobfromaccounting.com (mainly because they used a couple fake news submissions I wrote, most notably under the nom-de-plume Jose Carlos Rodriquez de Jesus).

[Fearless Freep]

I love larknews.com because it hit so close to home

[Odwin]

They didn't have my top pick for "I think somebody accidently spliced in a scene from a much better movie" in there. I think the movie was called "Children of the Night", it was your standard vampire schlock. But suddenly, right in the middle of the film, there's this scene of two girls talking. They are obviously dear friends, and one has become a vampire. She's telling her friend about how much it sucks to be a vampire, and for this brief moment I actually cared. It went away in the next scene, of course, but for a moment there the characters became real people, and a movie that was mostly about popcorn and jeers had a very sad, touching bit of sympathy. I can't for the life of me come up with an explanation for how such a good scene wound up in such a bad movie, but I've never forgotten it.
Are there any other films that went from "crap" to "art" and right back to "crap" again? I'd love to see them.

[Yaddo 42]

I think I've seen about half of each list, I agree with some, but I'd say the "strut" scene from "Staying Alive" is just as corny as the rest of it. If anything Travolta's "s**t-eating grin" just makes it worse, It was a pathetic attempt to recapture an iconic moment from the first film. It's like the friend who wants to keep  rehashing some lost glory day from their past and keeps saying, "Hey, remember the time I did this....."

My favorite good scene in a bad movie is the opening of "The Way of the Gun". We see the main characters leaning against their car, just hanging out on a dull night listening to the Stones' "Rip this Joint" blaring from the stereo. We know nothing about them yet not even their names. Across the street are people waiting in line to get into a nightclub, a loud obnoxious girl begins to shout at them to turn the music down or her boyfriend is going to make them do it. They don't move, she carries on with more of the same. The boyfriend (a geeky type clearly out of his league if a fight starts) looks more and more flustered and embarassed. One of the main duo shouts across to the BF to "Shut that b***h up before I come over there and f**k-start her head!" The girl escalates her abuse and threats, telling the BF to beat them up. the duo begins to walk across the street, the BF looks worried to death of the certain ass-kicking to come. They brush past him, then one of them decks the loud mouth girl with one punch to the face and they keep on walking.

What made the scene icing on the cake is that "annoying girl" was played by Sarah Silverman. At the time I'd never heard of her. Didn't remember her from SNL, didn't know she did standup. Now that I've seen her acting and do standup, and don't find her the least bit funny (the cute Jewish girl who talks like a sailor routine of hers gets old quick) I can savor the only thing she's done that I thought was worth a damn. She played an annoying shrew who gets punched out very well.