RECENT VIEWINGS (Bad Movie Thread!)

[Dr. Whom]

Fallen Angels (1995)

As a Wong Kar Wai fan, I had my doubts about putting it in this category, but my main criterium for putting in the bad vs good movies is the question: is it worth your time? And I don't think this is.

This is just weird people behaving erratically in nighttime Hong Kong. Of course, you have the various Wong Kar Way tropes, and the whole thing is very well made, but it is almost as if he decided to make a pastiche of his style and turned up all his trademark quirks to eleven. I'd be less harsh on it if it was the only thing Wong Kar Wai had made, but compared to the rest, this is just lazy.

[M.10rda]

I like FALLEN ANGELS more than CHUNGKING EXPRESS and significantly more than IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE or 2048 or HAPPY TOGETHER... which probably just demonstrates my poor taste and judgment. Outstanding performances, though!

[Dr. Whom]

I like FALLEN ANGELS more than CHUNGKING EXPRESS and significantly more than IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE or 2048 or HAPPY TOGETHER... which probably just demonstrates my poor taste and judgment. Outstanding performances, though!

Exactly the opposite. Perhaps also because I find the antics of Takeshi Kaneshiro's character annoying rather than endearing (I have the same problem with manic pixie girls)

[zombie no.one]

ANY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE (1978)

Possibly the first film I remember watching, age about 4.

'Creaky and lacking in effort' would be a kind assessment of this creaky and lacking-in-effort effort.

although it's lighthearted, Clint is just a straight up thug here. almost in the opening scene he wanders into a bar, steals a guy's peanuts, then beats him senseless for objecting. Go Clint!

apparently the phrase "any which way but loose" was uttered in SMOKEY & THE BANDIT prior to this, so no surprise it belongs in that film's oeuvre. good ol boys in shirts driving trucks and stuff

4.5/10

[M.10rda]

I like FALLEN ANGELS more than CHUNGKING EXPRESS and significantly more than IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE or 2048 or HAPPY TOGETHER... which probably just demonstrates my poor taste and judgment. Outstanding performances, though!

Exactly the opposite. Perhaps also because I find the antics of Takeshi Kaneshiro's character annoying rather than endearing (I have the same problem with manic pixie girls)

Yes, this math checks out. I love both Kaneshiro and the two MPGs in this film. 

[LilCerberus]

Tonight's Stinker
Beyond the Rising Moon(1987) AKA OuterWorld
https://youtu.be/ob5iF5lkrgw?si=rhoTjJdfG_ush1wd

An ancient alien space craft has been discovered, so a big greedy corporation sends a female clone to kill the astronauts that found it & steal their data... In a goofy fight scene, she kills one simply by smacking his hand...
But on her way back from the mission, she decides not to go back to her boss & makes a run for it, so he activates a device in her brain that will kill her in a few days.... Not convenient, because that's where she stored the data....
She comes across a down on his luck freighter pilot who's about to lose his ship, so she sees off the repo men, & offers the pilot enough to pay off his debts....

The first half of the plot is predictable, but not terrible.... All the dialog has been dubbed in, the music is corny.... There are a few scenes that look like some CGI was added sometime after 2005, but it does have plenty of cool scale models....
Watchable...

[LilCerberus]

Tonight's Stinker
The Dark Knight(2011)
https://youtu.be/R5qMyw5-Hp8?si=HDJj33lIh33dAeZZ

Shot on video, post WW3, medieval armies clash, while the mountains are full of giant half-bat, half-wolf creatures....
One of the warriors talks a few friends into stealing money from their warlord boss & run off to the mountains, knowing that the warlord will send his all girl ninjas after them.... His notion being that the ninja girls will kill the creatures, & vice versa: Two birds with one stone!
Of course, it backfires, & we start seeing characters disappear because the censors won't show any gore or violence....

Mostly a lot of walking around in the forest....

[M.10rda]

"WINNETOU 2" LAST OF THE RENEGADES (1964):
This sequel to APACHE GOLD boasts only one (1) laffably "bad" moment but it's a howler and it comes in the very first scene, where Apache Prince Winnetou rescues a lovely indigenous maiden from a marauding upright bear, and lemme tell you, every Bigfoot in every cheap bad Bigfoot movie you've ever seen looks more convincing than this freaking bear. It isn't actually a stuntman just standing up and shaking an outstretched bearskin rug, but if it had been, it would look merely slightly less credible.

If only LAST OF THE RENEGADES was wall-to-wall rubbish bearsuits, it would be a lot more fun! It has a much more complex plot than APACHE GOLD (involving at least 5 or 6 different factions and a plot that initially suggests Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian) but everything unfolds in a routine, methodical fashion, unlike the loopy previous film which perambulated wildly. LOTR(!) does have a more starry supporting cast: Karin Dor inappropriately though fetchingly cast as the Indian maiden, Terrence Hill as an idealistic cavalryman who inadvertently becomes Winnetou's romantic rival, and Klaus Kinski  as one of the main baddies (what else?). Unlike many of his 60s westerns where he'd pop in just long enough to pull a paycheck and aggravate his director and co-stars, Kinski is actually present for the entirety of LOTR, which is fun (for the viewer, if not his collaborators).

There's also one big setpiece in the middle of the film where stuff explodes and numerous extras run around on fire. I realize I should commend LOTR for having elements of greatness, but everything around these bright spots is just the usual folks sittin' on horses against lovely widescreen vistas. It's a little better than most Eurowesterns but not nearly as good as the Leone-level classics. Also the filmmakers clearly realized Lex Barker was incapable of earning the nickname "Shatterhand" and so he hits guys with sticks and rifles the whole movie and only throws one (competent if unspectacular) punch.

2.5/5
It turns out that the WINNETOU "trilogy" on Prime wasn't a trilogy at all and there are at least 8 or 9 films in the series, w/ Pierre Brice (competent, unspectacular) always playing Winnetou. Stewart Granger sometimes steps in to play Shatterhand and then another guy eventually takes over for Granger. Karin Dor keeps returning in different roles  but sadly it looks like no more Kinski. I'll watch the last one on Prime but then I'm tappin' out.

[Dr. Whom]

"WINNETOU 2" LAST OF THE RENEGADES (1964):


2.5/5
It turns out that the WINNETOU "trilogy" on Prime wasn't a trilogy at all and there are at least 8 or 9 films in the series, w/ Pierre Brice (competent, unspectacular) always playing Winnetou. Stewart Granger sometimes steps in to play Shatterhand and then another guy eventually takes over for Granger. Karin Dor keeps returning in different roles  but sadly it looks like no more Kinski. I'll watch the last one on Prime but then I'm tappin' out.

Well, there are three books in the series by Karl May IIRC, but presumably the movies were profitable enough that they didn't want to stop when the books ran out.

[M.10rda]

  Any idea if the books are so dense/complex that they could require 9(ish) movies to adapt all the stories? Or, were the filmmakers just freewheeling after the first 3?

[Dr. Whom]

Well, he was one of those 19th century authors of popular adventure stories in the vein of Alexandre Dumas, who kept on churning out volume after volume, so there is certainly plenty to adapt. I haven't read any of his westerns since I was a kid. I remember them as rather plodding.

[LilCerberus]

Tonight's Stinker
Hercules Against the Barbarians(1964)
https://youtu.be/i3amHRGmo-0?si=xJsjWE8CC2HbFfPe

The Mongols have just failed to take Cracow Poland, & we learn Hercules had a hand in it....
Now, Hercules is going home to his girlfriend, & Kublai Khan is going home to his angry father.,.,.
Kublai Khan makes a bid to save his life, & figures out where a Polish princess is hiding, who happens to be Hercules' girlfriend.... She's kidnapped, & well, y'know....

Very dark print, & gave me a headache....
Tends to plod for five minutes at a time, then an action scene outa nowhere for no reason.....

[LilCerberus]

Tonight's Stinker
Nothing Sacred (1937)
https://youtu.be/8gcYAptnSWM?si=dKjlXwDUkB9Wtbfh

At a charity ball, a newspaper editor & his star reporter are humiliated when it's revealed the guest of honor, the sultan of a country that doesn't exist, is a fraud...
The reporter is banished to the basement, but comes up with a plan to save his career (and his boss's reputation) by taking a sidebar about a young woman with radium poisoning into a front page story.... He travels to a small town to find her, where the locals are rude to him... He finds the woman, not knowing she just found out she's been misdiagnosed.... He offers her a trip to New York, and also brings the doctor that misdiagnosed her, who has a personal vendetta against the news paper.....

Politically incorrect comedy.... Fast paced, with lots of amusing quotes...

[pacman000]

If I remember right, Nothing Sacred is fairly well regarded. Don't remember anything politically incorrect after the first couple of scenes, but it's been awhile.

[LilCerberus]

^Eh, there's a couple scenes that might anger millennials.....^