The Worst Movie, Tagged In
posted by Deven Desai
Hmm, so I being tagged in to go over the worst movie may be a dubious honor, but I can’t help it so here goes. If one had to pay for the film, Black Dahlia leaps to mind. The comments’ focus on expectations is the key. How do you take Sean Connery, Uma Thurman, and Ralph Finnes and create a situation where driving an ice pick through your eyes seems like a good idea? Have them in the Avengers (1998). One of the all time worst has to be Gymkata. Yes gymnatics meets martial arts as Kurt Thomas, winner of gold medals at the World Gymnastics, works his way to a “stan” country (Parmistan) which will be perfect for a Star Wars site. Luckily this generic Middle Eastern/sub-Continental country tends to have pommel horses in its bars so Thomas Flares fly and bad guys die. Wow. I saw this one as part of a bad movie weekend, an event I recommend. It was sort of a Mystery Science Theater precursor where we rented bad movies and then commented/laughed at the movies.
As for the Star Wars problems, I agree with Dan; Matrix Revolutions is far worse. Lucas at least sticks to some semblance of a story and even has some nice set-ups as far as the political storyline goes (yes, somewhat obvious ones but at least he foreshadows which one writer I know jokes is an assurance of quality). The dialogue pain and the fact that in the first films he created culture and in the later ones just emulated it (think low-grade ESPN-style commentators at the pod race) are depressing given the potential. But consider the absolute nonsense of the Matrix series. The cherry-picked gibberish of mythology and subcultures reeked of “Wow that little thing is cool! Insert it!” So enough for now.
December 4, 2007 at 10:40 pm
Posted in: Culture
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Responses (2)
Belle Lettre - December 5, 2007 at 1:18 am
I agree with your picks. The Avengers was about as good as Wild Wild West with Kenneth Branagh, Will Smith, and Salma Hayek.
But you forgot to tag others, Deven. I for one am dying to know what Frank Pasquale, Mike Madison, Michael Froomkin and Eric Muller think are the worst movies ever.
Mike O'Shea - December 5, 2007 at 3:26 pm
I want to see Gymkata now. I’m a sucker for a certain type of stupid.
I never saw the later Matrix flicks, and I gave up on the Star Wars prequels after the enamel-scouring horror that was The Phantom Menace. That was “bad stupid”; one actually brought expectations into it, which were brutally betrayed.
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