h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm very good at getting cynical on the subject of films, and I do believe that genuinely bad films are bad enough to be good (Plan 9, 1 Million Years BC, Hudson Hawk, Showgirls, Armageddon, and so on)

I have walked out of quite a few films over the last 10 years or so due to sheer disgust, namely Batman & Robin, Sliding Doors, Notting Hill, Gone in 60 Seconds, The Talented Mr Ripley.

All the above have their fans, so to me, the _real_ mark of a bad film is being over-rated. And my nominee for the most over-rated film of all time is Shrek. Lauded to high heaven by the critics and public alike as being better than Toy Story (I think not), it's a barely concelaed stretch of fart gags, with Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy (not my two favourite comedians, in any case) managing to be annoying without even showing their faces. The plot is asinine, there are dull stretches where not much happens, which is impressive for a film that lasts barely 90 minutes, and the jokes are old and cliched. I grinned once through the entire film ('The Muffin Man' gag), and didn't laugh at all. Even Johnny English got more laughs out of me than that.

Bad film, bad film, bad film.

B

I have to agree with the Shrek comment - but I also think another highly over-rated film has to be Titanic.

However, my nominee for the worst film ever has to be Halloween H20 - part of the Jason films - and so very very bad.

Ooh yeah, I'd forgotten about Titanic.

I didn't walk out of that one, I just fell asleep in my nachos instead.

B

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B

Surely The Blair Witch project should get a mention on both counts, a the hype, it was supposed to be innotive with startling new ways of using the camera !!! and b, it was utter cr*p, how did this worthless attempt at a home movie ever get funding to be released?.

aka

Showgirls was the inspiration for this talking point actually. It was on Channel Four on Monday. I always forget and think "Oh it isn't that bad really" and then I watch it again and think "God it really is that bad".

I have a soft spot for Shrek mainly because it was my first date with IanG. We were meant to be seeing Planet of the Apes but couldn't for some reason. I agree that it is not in the same league as any of the Pixar movies.

Disclosure rates pretty low on my list too.

The Blair Witch Project made me feel sick. Not because I was horrified, but because we were at a midnight showing, I'd been drinking, and the hand-held camera shxte gave me motion sickness.

Titanic made me realise just how bloody uncomfortable cinema seats are after a while.

One of the worst films I've ever seen- Highlander: The Quickening. I cringed. I tried to apologise for it, I gave up, we went down the pub.

Anything with Demi Moore isn't going to be top-class entertainment, really, is it?

I thought this might be inspired by Showgirls. The Times, no less, described it as a 'kitsch send-up of revenge films'. Given that Ezterhas and Verhoeven have a background of films with subtle underlying message, I suppose they might have a point.

B

So how do you explain Elizabeth Berkely?

I havent seen film's in a while especially at the big screen, prices put me off!! by the time you buy popcorn, juice and some choccy, you have very little change of £20. Grrr. I think most films are good, Im easily entertained and cant think of a bad 1 just now. I will probably though as I logg off.

I think she was cast solely on the 'nice girl who doesn't mind taking all her clothes off' basis.

It came as a hell of a shock to those of us who watched 'Saved By The Bell' as kids, I can tell you.

B

To the men perhaps, but for myself I just saw it as a desperate attempt to get taken seriously as an actress.

Failed quite spectacularly!

Well, when you look at it that way, it's no worse than hundreds of other failed small screen-big screen transitions.

B

No, but somehow it was far more satisfying.

Showgirls does stink, but it's not the worst film ever made. Neither is it actually bad enough to be good in the same manner as Plan 9 or Armageddon.

I'm still inclined to think that the films that I enjoyed least at the cinema where the tedious and without merit Lethal Weapon 2 (Joss Ackland, what where you thinking. I didn't walk out, but I did, genuinely, fall asleep), the totally assinine Terminator 2 (until me and my then girlfriend *really* annoyed the audience by laughing hysterically at Arnie's death scene) and the oh-god-will-it-never-end boredom of JFK.

It's a terrible thing, female jealousy, isn't it?

B

Shrek=good - Mike Myers = good

Halloween H20 = wet - Micheal Myers = laughable, surly a common or garden phycopath can't be killed that many times and still survive. If I was in a film that bad, I'd have given up the first time they killed me.

Blair Witch Project = so dull, i doubt I'll finish this sentan

The most seriously grim film I've ever seen (and walked out of) has to be Man Bites Dog. Half of the people I know seem to think of it as 'wonderfully artistic black humour' but to me it was really sick - the most artistic moment of the first 20 minutes of a film was probably a one-second shot of a plate of mussels. Avoid!

I would agree about 'Man Bites Dog' - not nearly as skilful as the makers would like us to think, it just ends up being sordid and degrading (even to me, and I *love* horror movies).

The only film's I think I ever walked out of are They, and Summer of Sam (now theres a truly awful film)