RECENT VIEWINGS (Bad Movie Thread!)

[LordGraal]

Thor: Love and Thunder.

It takes until the final third for it to begin to become a film with focus, structure and opportunites for the cast to act.  Up until then it's like a pick and mix movie with witless, reactionary comedy moments, pantomime acting and scenes, a wasted performance from Christian Bale and visuals that should be in a far better film.  It's more product than a movie.  Mindless dirge overall - written and produced by people who don't care about films and just want to make money.

[LilCerberus]

Tonight's Stinker
It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time (1975)
https://youtu.be/Wz5qh1aDFM0?si=d6Bk6yEKzMc-hahT

Sweeney is a failed artist turned full time moocher... His Ex still comes around for sex & alimony, even though she's re-married to a rich construction company owner, even though he wants to demolish her mother's house...
Sweeney finds out she's also working a politician in hopes he'll declare her mother's home a public landmark...
Sweeney decides to crash the politician's commencement party just to spite his ex & her husband...
Afterwards, the politician & the ex go to a secluded cabin, where Sweeney traps them & hatches a phony kidnapping scheme...
It's one I've been meaning to get out of my system for a while, and it doesn't disappoint, being very fast paced, with more happening in five minutes than I have time to explain...

[Dr. Whom]

Awwww! Well I liked CREATION OF THE HUMANOIDS quite a bit... but then I like some avant garde theatre, too! (Heck, I've produced some.) It's a "challenging" film, we can probably both agree...

I can see why people might like it, but to me the stylisation was just strangeness for strangeness's sake, not really meshing with any of the themes of the movie. I found it got old really quickly.

It is a pity though that Don Doolittle (doctor Raven) didn't have more mad scientist roles in his career, as he absolutely looks the part.

[RCMerchant]

^ A HUMANOID factoid- Dudley Manlove, of PLAN 9 fame, appears as a robot!

(that's him to the left)

[M.10rda]

I agree with you about your fellow doctor Raven, Dr. Whom - he's a natural!

I suspect the acting is so static and proclamatory to obfuscate the nature of some character's identities... if everyone acts stiff and artificial, how can we safely distinguish humans from humanoids?

Of course the same issue is addressed in its own way in BLADE RUNNER, which obv owes a huge debt to COTH... lots of reviews accused Harrison Ford of giving a bad performance/sleepwalking through the movie.......   ...Skinjob or just depressed?

[zombie no.one]

LONGLEGS (2024)

oh my giddy giddy aunt, I think this could be the most boring, and also possibly the most pretentious film I've EVER seen. how the hell is it physically possible to make such an uneventful piece of junk, that clearly believes itself to be a stone cold masterpiece?


worst thing it wasn't even on my watch-list, but a friend has not stopped pestering me to watch it since it came out.

[M.10rda]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who was underwhelmed by LONGLEGS (though I definitely liked it more than you did!). I liked the acting and cinematography. I also like the enigmatic storytelling... until the final quarter or so when everything just became way too obvious. FTR I think LONGLEGS might as well be John Woo's HARD BOILED in comparison to Oz Perkins' debut feature I AM THE PRETTY THING THAT LIVES IN THE HOUSE (which I also liked, but if you found LONGLEGS to be boring, don't even bother w/ I AM THE PRETTY THING...!).

[zombie no.one]

haha... noted.

maybe I'm being a little harsh? but I was truly grateful when it ended

[lester1/2jr]

I liked Creation, Sadist, and Eegah

[Dr. Whom]

but I was truly grateful when it ended

I think I'll use that as a standard for a bad movie: movies when you are glad it is over.

[zombie no.one]

but I was truly grateful when it ended

I think I'll use that as a standard for a bad movie: movies when you are glad it is over.

fair enough - although it does require actually making it to the end... some films I can't even do that

[M.10rda]

AN AMERICAN HIPPIE IN ISRAEL (1972):
This very odd flick was apparently buried for decades before receiving a re-release a few years back. It's not a gripping enough social commentary to change anyone's mind about anything, not funny enough to recommend as a comedy, not violent or surreal enough to qualify as cult exploitation, not sexually graphic enough to work as porn, not nearly Bad enough to excel as an entertaining Bad Movie, but also not nearly well-made enough to take seriously as Cinema....... HOWEVER, it is a little bit of all those aforementioned things, so... graze lightly?

As I'm neither inspired enough by AMERICAN HIPPIE to describe it creatively nor confident enough about what it's supposed to mean to paint it in broad strokes, I'll just offer you a brief (literal) synopsis: There's this American Hippie, see  and he arrives in Israel, hitchhikes a ride from a hot redheaded actress w/ rich parents, rides around in her car, briefly runs into a couple of mimes dressed like hipster hitmen, goes back to the redhead's house, tells her about his traumatic stint in Vietnam, and then they get nekkid. When they're done rolling around on the floor, they go wandering downtown Tel Aviv or - wherever they are - and run into another hippie couple in a scene that is essentially the old "two dogs pass each other then stop and sniff each other's butts" only with four hippies. Those four hippies somehow multiply into like 30 or 50 hippies, all of whom go to a warehouse where the American Hippie tries to inspire them to form their own hippie civilization, but, unfortunately, the other hippies just want to get high and nekkid and pass out on the floor in a pile. You still following me?

Slightly demoralized, the four primary hippies get back in the redhead's convertible and drive across the country, standing up and stripping off their clothes while the car is moving to musical underscore et al. Eventually they arrive at the coast and spot a small, rocky island, which they decide will be their new hippie kingdom. They swim over to the island, get tans, have an orgy, and then immediately regret their choices the next day. Hippie-on-hippie bickering and extensive gratuitous topless catfights ensue. A sheep appears and all heck breaks lose. The hipster mime hitmen reappear in the final moments to claim the redhead's car.

I was on the AMERICAN HIPPIE wavelength for about 20 or so minutes before I started getting a little sus about it. An hour in and I started wondering if the film wasn't just inept but was actually trying to paint the title character as a bad dude. Another 10-15 minutes and I'd flipped, wondering instead if the (Jewish) writer/director was actually criticizing or condemning the Israeli characters. By the closing credits, following the realization that all the major characters are @$$#0le$, it occurred to me that AMERICAN HIPPIE IN ISRAEL might not be anti-American or anti-Israeli propaganda but, instead, simply virulent anti-Hippie hatemongering! It is difficult to think of too many movies of the same era (besides maybe BLOOD FREAK) that make hippies look like such a hazard to the public health and welfare!

2.5/5

It was produced by Georgie Jessel, a 20th century Borscht Belt standup who was probably collecting social security in the early 70s and thus not of an age to understand free love and the Age of Aquarius and so on. The hot redhead is played by Lily Avidan, who sadly never made another film.

[zombie no.one]

I've seen AAHII (hey, like, trippy acronym dude...), recommended by a friend in that kind of "you haaave to see this movie now!" way. but apparently I did not remember anything about it. thanks for the refresher course.

[M.10rda]

I suspect I won't remember much about AAHHI in a few months. Possibly Lily Avidan!

.357 MAGNUM (1977):
Bad Movie fans, do you know Nick Millard? Although his name is less famous than some other inept no-budget directors, I am beginning to think he might be a treasure trove of nominal "entertainment"! This hard-boiled spy thriller takes place all over the globe - England, Hong Kong, Japan, Angola, San Francisco, and Tucson, AZ! - but probably cost less than what you spend on groceries each week. An American who looks like David Soul is sent on missions by a British superior who looks like Michael Palin in a fake moustache and ends up playing cat-and-mouse with a sadistic international hitman who looks like Abe Lincoln without the top hat. (Maybe the Palin character stole his 'stache?) I'll throw this movie one bone - it's written about as well as any mid-to-late-90s straight-to-video action thriller, which is to say not brilliantly but also better than what we expect from hilarious Bad Movies. It also has a nihilistic mean streak, which is often entertaining. Fear not, though, .357M's badness is all in the execution!

All the locations (except San Fran and maybe Tucson) are provided via stock footage and the film is mostly shot in Nick Millard's house and backyard (on either very early prosumer video stock or cheap 16mm). Presumably in order to obscure the lack of a travel budget (though who knows, maybe just 'cause!) most of the shots are close-ups that provide little or no visual information about where characters are anyway. It's also edited in an erratic fashion that maintains a crisp pace during long dialogue scenes (of which there are many) but also renders some shots entirely inscrutable (srsly, there are many shots that last scarcely longer than the 4 frames which the human brain is capable of processing). Again, this might have been intentional but it sure looks like incompetence to me, and I whistled out loud when an Editor had the nerve to actually be named in the closing credits!

But maybe Nick Millard just had ADHD. The actors aren't exactly talentless but they do rattle off their lines in a rapid-fire and mostly atonal fashion that brings to mind lesser David Mamet movies or a civil servant with three minutes on the clock until their lunchbreak. Contributing to .357M's "uncanny valley" effect is the appearance of professional actor James Whitworth (who was in THE HILLS HAVE EYES and many other 70s flicks) in a large supporting role, so Millard clearly had enough money to hire a (sorta') real actor, which makes .357M almost look like a real movie, except, of course, it isn't!

I've only seen one other Millard movie, an 80s SOV military action/king fu flick which was a lot more like what we expect from a Bad (home) Movie than .357M. He also made some horror flicks, including the legendary CRAZY FAT ETHEL series, which I haven't seen though their lead actress does play a small role here! Millard also made a lot of cheap porn, and pads out this film's running time w/ a puzzling long loop of a woman rolling around in lingerie and fellating a vibrator. (Fortunately it isn't CF Ethel!) A true renaissance man, Millard pseudonymously plays the bad guy with the inexplicable Amish facial hair. What an intriguing figure that Millard was! 

2/5
I admit I kind of want to watch more Millard movies!

[Rev. Powell]

AN AMERICAN HIPPIE IN ISRAEL (1972):
This very odd flick was apparently buried for decades before receiving a re-release a few years back. It's not a gripping enough social commentary to change anyone's mind about anything, not funny enough to recommend as a comedy, not violent or surreal enough to qualify as cult exploitation, not sexually graphic enough to work as porn, not nearly Bad enough to excel as an entertaining Bad Movie, but also not nearly well-made enough to take seriously as Cinema....... HOWEVER, it is a little bit of all those aforementioned things, so... graze lightly?

Good description. It's both unceasingly odd and surprisingly dull despite that fact.