As part of a once-in-a-lifetime, two-part breaking of my PooterGeek “No ‘Bloggers’ Memes” rule I answer Eric‘s challenge:
“I nominate Normblog and Pootergeek to list two films they like that most people don’t…”
but I do so in my own way:
Independence Day fails on almost every level as a work of serious cinema; but as a continuously compelling parody of disaster movies it towers like an Olympic high-jumper in a creche—yea, higher even toward the heavens than Airplane!. This is, remember, a film that begins with REM’s It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) playing in the background and contains egregiously crude examples of almost every major minority stereotype known to mainstream Hollywood: the eccentric Jewish scientist; the screamingly camp homosexual; the swaggering, wisecracking black action hero; the drunken trailer-trash alien abductee; the noble family dog, the stripper with a heart of gold; even the long-believed-dead, stiff-upper-lip, what-ho! English fighter pilot and stripey-shirt wearing member of la Résistance. (I think at some point in the global holocaust someone religious regains his long lost faith as well.) But it manages to cram in some of the most audacious scenes of large-scale destruction ever rendered, one of the best chase sequences of all time, and a few excellent and unarguably intentional jokes.
The film everyone else thinks is good but I think is rubbish is The Piano. It’s pretty to look at, but the script is Mills & Boon with pretensions. It’s soft porn for nice girls who think God will never let them have their own Aga if they dare to take the sexual initiative: “Ooh, only by reluctantly allowing the wild native man to ravish me throbbingly will I be able to continue my music lessons!” The whole movie is, people, a tragic waste of talent.
Once I have filled in some remaining blanks I will attempt Norm’s “Seven by Seven“.
You forgot the dog jumping to safety from the flames in the tunnel and the amazing palm trees of indestructability in LA.
I have a fondness for the dreadful Godzilla remake they did later – mainly because of the Elvis impersonation by Jean Reno (who leads a crack team of cheese-eating no-surrender monkeys through the streets of New York).
Bad but good
Mary Poppins (1964) – practically perfect in every way
On the Buses (1969) – “allo Blakey” “I’ll ave you Butler”
Good but bad
JFK (1991) – unadulterated conspiracy nonsense from beginning to end
Casablanca (1942) – was it really that good?
Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead. I think this is absolutely brilliant black comedy, but it has been widely and witheringly trashed.
David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ: wonderfully realised “virtual” world that draws you right in — and a killer ending.
Simone, director Andrew Niccol (writer of The Truman Show and also writer/director of Gattaca). This Pygmalion updated is smart, dark, very funny, brings off a dead-on Hollywood takedown and features a virtuoso performance by Al Pacino as the director who loses control of his creation.
Armageddon. Yes, Armageddon. I love every awful minute of it, I laugh at all the cliched action-hero “quips,” and sometimes, if I’ve had a drink or two, I still get a little teary when Harry blows himself to smithereens to save his little girl and planet Earth. What can I say; I am a product of late 20th century American “culture.” Only part of the movie I hate is Affleck – even back then, I knew he was a talentess doof.
Also: Jungle Book. Best Disney cartoon ever, including all the recent new fangled computer generated stuff.
I’m not sure whether Frankenhooker counts, since the only people who would have bothered to watch it in the first place would be people like me who were always going to love it (the exploding crack-addicted prostitutes scene is worth the price of admission/rental/purchase on its own). That said, were it ever to be screened on, say, BBC1 at 9pm, I think I’d be safe in wagering a hefty sum that most people would hate it.
I’m also extremely fond of Ken Russell’s Lair of the White Worm, even though it was pretty obvious even on its original release that he was deliberately taking the piss (and the DVD commentary confirms it). It’s certainly Hugh Grant’s finest hour, though – I wonder if it’s still on his CV?
With you on The Piano. Loads of significant throbbing. Never touch a girl’s keyboard.
Reservoir Dogs. Hated it. It was that film that made me realise that it’s possible for a film to stink so badly morally that it pollutes everything else – even if the film is well acted and well photographed.
(Spot the puritan. Of course, not every morally dubious film is so much so as to outweigh its aesthetic merits – Ken Loach’s Land & Freedom is in that category – less well made than RD but also much less offensive in moral terms.)
I liked Armageddon, too.
Reservoir Dogs might as well be a government information broadcast, so face-slappingly blatant are its moral messages. Call me a literalist (and anyone who doesn’t want the plot spoiled should stop reading now), but I think it’s safe to say that Quentin Tarantino might just be hinting somewhere along the line that crime doesn’t pay, that violence breeds violence, and that the myth of honour among thieves is an empty one. Did I miss something?
Yes, the central message that Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” is about a woman who experiences vaginal pain during a prolonged sex session and is reminded of how it felt to lose one’s virginity.
Your spam trap is obviously very discerning.
Ooh, you are awful. But I like you.
“Deep Blue Sea” — great schlock horror. Smart sharks lay siege to scientists who have gone too far and must pay with their lives in various bloody ways. Any film that has Samuel L Jackson snapped up in mid-speech by a shark has to have something going for it.
Also, Saffron Burrows in a bikini.
Sin City – loathed every second of it (and of course Tarantino had a hand in that one as well).
In the Bad but Good category who can beat Starship Troopers? one of the very few films that I still leave grinning like an idiot.
Also enjoyed Independence Day and Armageddon, but in the end they’re both just that little bit too cynical and deliberate to be really likeable.
Like Russell, even when Verhoeven screws up (and there are very, very, few films worse than Showgirls or Lair of the White Worm), you can still sit and gape in wonder at how anyone so talented can be so completely lacking in any critical sense.