Directors "Worst Movie Ever" Thread (1 Viewer)

[george kaplan]

Lew,

First, just to be clear, my response wasn't specifically targeted at you - a number of people have been questioning the inclusion of well-made films as candidates for worst.

I think the two examples you bring up, Birth of a Nation and Triumph of the Will are a different, yet similar situation. Neither of these (for me), is a badly made movie, nor do they fail to be compelling cinema of a sort. I've said before if Triumph of the Will were about Martin Luther King's I have a Dream speech, it would be (IMO), one of the greatest documentaries ever made.

I can separate out those factors, but again, there's another issue - racism and a political stance in these films I find repugnant. Though different in a major way from why I dislike Cries & Whispers, I do think this is another legitimate reason to view BoaN and TotW as 'bad' movies. Again, that doesn't prevent me from admiring certain aspects of those films, but my holistic judgments of them are certainly negative ones. Of course, I throw some other films into that same batch that others don't (e.g., Do the Right Thing).

I think there are lots of legitimate reasons to view a film as great or bad. Certainly my criteria for doing so are different than most on this forum. Frankly, I have a very hard time understanding how a film like The Mirror or Man with a Movie Camera, with basically no narrative structure at all (or rather none that I can fathom or appreciate), can be viewed as great movies. Nor can I understand how certain very funny, well-written, and well-acted comedies with no 'deeper meaning' can be viewed as amongst the worst films ever made. But my inability to understand those viewpoints only means that I disagree with the opinions, but they're still perfectly valid and appropriate opinions for someone to have.

 

[Tim Stumpf]

Ernest, I stand corrected on black hole being Disney's first non animated movie. I read that somewhere. It's was still one of the worst I've seen. I'm not sure how you're able to judge the criteria I used for "badness" for the rest of the films I mentioned? Name your own bad movies and trust me when I say that I thought mine were bad in almost every way I can think of!!

 

[ZacharyTait]

My thoughts exactly. I was hoping after Armageddon that he would rebound, instead he's gotten worse and worse. Plus, he produced Texas Chainsaw Massacre which was bad also.

 

[Lew Crippen]

I knew that it was not.

 

[Angelo.M]

Wholeheartedly agree. One of the worst things I've seen in the last few years, What Time is it There?, meets this criterion in my book. If I want 2 hours of pure existentialism, I'll read Camus or Sartre.

 

[Zen Butler]

I agree. I admit I took advantage of the thread to administer a bit of balance. Adding LOTR as "the worst" was irresponsible of me.

Some of you though are not as sly(clever) as you think with your disguised posts.

 

[Frank Ha]

One of the worst films I've ever seen was Cool World. Yuk!! I almost walked out of the Theatre. The story didn't work for me at all. What was suppose to be funny was just stupid. It was one of the worst movie experiences I have ever had. Now that I think about it, I should have asked for my money back .

Frank

 

[Scott Weinberg]

Good call there, Frank. I just recently reviewed it, and you're right: it's horrible. You'd think the novelty of seeing Brad Pitt, Gabriel Byrne and Kim Basinger in something like this would be worth the rental. Wrong-o.

 

[MatthewS]

I can't believe that Battlefield Earth has only been mentioned once.

I have to say, though, that Tears from the Sun has to be the worst movie I've seen recently. Well, correction, I didn't watch the entire thing. I switched it off after 15 minutes. My opinion probably has something to do with where I live.

I must say though, the dvd I watched most recently was The Last Samurai (newish release here in South Africa) - brilliant movie. Loved it.