Thursday
Feral Girl and I were discussing the Worst Movies We've Ever Seen over lunch today. As a teenager in a small town in NC, all my friends and I ever DID was go to or rent movies, so I'm narrowing the field to movies I actually saw in a theater. Here are my all time worst top 3 - and yes, I saw ALL of these in an actual theatre, and without the aid of illegal substances:
1. Gymkata. Thank God for all those conveniently discarded pommel horses and uneven bars in shady alleyways! Otherwise our intrepid hero would have been unable to perform his signature fighting style: GYMKATA! I know, okay? It was 1985 and this movie was the inevitable result of all that excitement over the USA men's gymnastics team from 1984. Even though it's irrational, I totally blame Mary Lou Retton.
2. The Stuff. Killer antarctic Cool-Whip. Again, I KNOW. 1985 was not a good year for me. Or movies. Or Paul Sorvino, apparently.
3. Grizzly! This is what happens when you're seven years old and you BEG AND BEG AND BEG to be allowed to see a PG-rated movie, because everyone you knew had seen Jaws in the theater but you weren't allowed to go to PG movies before you turned seven, so you totally missed out on Jaws and VCRs hadn't been invented yet and you had to settle for the cheap, quickly made attempt to capitalize on the OMG KILLER BEAST! phenomenon. Description: A fifteen foot tall grizzly bear terrorizes a state park. Christopher George leaps into the carnage to stop it. Well, thank God for Christopher George!
I have more, but I think this is a nice representative sample.
How about you? Worst movie ever seen in a movie theater? And The English Patient doesn't count.
I find it hilarious that you specifically exempted The English Patient, which I saw on Video, and man, I'm never getting those 3 hours back...
Ok, in a theatre:
Titanic - good production values, but they managed to find the least sympathetic protagonists in the known universe.
I can't think of another one which was worse than that which I saw in a theater. (I've seen some four-finger-stinkers at home, though)
Blaming Mary Lou Retton seems perfectly justifiable to me, and it doesn't even matter what for.
These may have been critically acclaimed, but to my own aesthetic sensibilities, the worst were "Platoon" and "The Last King of Scotland." (Yes, I know these are supposed to be italicized; I just can't figure out how to do it in a comment box. I'm stupid that way.) I had to leave and go sit alone in the lobby for both.
Lemony Snicket's "Series of Unfortunate Events" was probably the worst, in the non-violent category. Good book, lousy movie. (Ironically, this got a mention in my blog today, also.)
And I couldn't agree more with thegameiam.
Drowning by Numbers, a very symbolic film. Just chock full of symbolism. Everywhere. I can still remember watching scenes with SWIPIAW, and turning to her to note that "gosh, that's obviously very symbolic, but of what?".
thegameiam -
Yeah, I figured I'd get The English Patient off the table, as of ALL the movies I've seen--good, bad, cheesy, stupid, artsy-fartsy, overly self-aware, or whatever--The English Patient is the ONLY ONE that almost drove me to commit random homicides in a public place.
My hate for every single character in that film is epic.
PfP -
Yeah, who knows what other atrocitous Mary Lou hath wrought? I'll bet there are a lot of them, though!
Philosopher-Mom -
Oh man, Platoon! My best friend in college and I devised an entire comedic improv based on that film, complete with sound effects, tortured over-acting, and a random cat.
Avoided the Snicket film for one reason - Jim Carrey.
AOG -
That's one of those movies you hear a lot about but that no one's ever really seen. Now I know why. :)
I win at The Awful!
Because I went to see Isaac Asimov's Nightfall in theatres! And being in my green youth, and unwise in the econ-fu (sunk costs) I stayed through until the entire end of the movie!
You could see their wristwatches! And the backround city lights of the town where it was filmed!
It was suck-tastic.
"How To Make An American Quilt". God, that was awful. Obviously, it wasn't my idea to see it, which made me predisposed to hate it, I guess. However, I've never shoved anthrax into any of my orifices, either, but I'm pretty sure my pre-disposition against that wouldn't change the experience much.
"Quick and the Dead" is another. I couldn't even enjoy it on a camp level.
Fortunately, I'm not allowed in public much, so have rarely seen really bad movies in the theater.
Now that I think about it, I did once see a movie with Theodore Bikel AND Peter Ustinov AND it was in black & white AND it was 'clever'. I've suppressed the name, though.
Heh. Now you know (sort of) two people who did see it. In the end, it worked out well for SWIPIAW because now when she drags me to some artsy film like "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" or "The Last King of Scotland", I can fake interest much better because it's never as bad as "Drowning by Numbers". I think of it now as a bonding experience, the kind you get from surviving a traumatic experience with someone. It also taught what "seared seared into my memory" means.