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

@ Just Bob: I do so wish you were here so I could punch you in the face.

(Moderators please note this is a JOKE, not a threat, and specifically a reference to the TV series "Spaced", Jeez I hate the fact I feel the need to explain this).

I'd echo "Phantom Menace". It's like a car crash of a movie. It's just so incredibly, unbelievably bad I can't stop watching it. It's EPICALLY poor on almost every level. It has two, and only two, redeeming features:
1. double ended lightsaber.
2. Ian McDiarmid.

Music: Abba. Hate it. Hate hate hate hate. Hate "Mamma Mia" the movie to the point I couldn't watch more than about 20 minutes of it because it was making me feel literally physically sick. Hate the tweeness, the nostalgia for a shitty time, and yet... and yet... can't help tapping my toes if I hear it randomly out of any other context.

Literature: don't know. My ex had a thing about reading books and announcing about 40% of the way through that they were utter rubbish but that she was going to finish reading them anyway. This baffled me. If a book is terrible, it should defenestrated soonest. I can't think of any that I'd read again that I thought were terrible first time round. Life's too short. I'm reliably informed that that there 50 shades thing is absolutely Bodawful, though, so I'd nominate that from a position of ignorance.

Art: if art is meant to evoke an emotional response, then the work of Gilbert and George works, because it makes me angry.

Theatre: I once saw a production of "The Rocky Horror Show" which lacked enthusiasm and wit. It's weird watching something that was written specifically to parody the "so bad it's good" style of film, and written very, very well to do so, and to know it's possibly to perform it very well indeed, but be aware that what you're watching is not reaching that standard. What you end up experiencing is a badly performed example of a normally well performed, well written homage to things written and performed so badly that they're good. The levels make your head spin.

There IS some brilliant "So Bad It's Good" fanfiction around. Somewhere out there, there's a fanfic called something like "Harry Potter, Vampire Slayer" and it is hilariously awful. It's basically Blade, but with Harry Potter substituted in, or rather someone with the name 'Harry Potter' who bears no resemblance in personality to J.K. Rowling's character. It's gruesome, wildly inappropriate... In the second chapter, he rapes one of the teachers. And he's the hero.
I can't seem to turn that one up right now, but here's one that had me literally crying with laughter at a barbecue around 2 years ago. It's a crossover fanfic between Garfield and the royal wedding: http://www.toplessrobot.com/2011/04/fan_fiction_friday_prince_william_kate_middleton_a.php

Gilbert and George???

I really must protest!

Their art isn't "so bad it's good", it's so bad you question why some galleries (yes, I'm looking at *you* Scottish Gallery of Modern Art) get public funding at all. Cliched, twee, homo-erotic pish that would devalue a bare wall.

"Iphigenia in Brooklyn" by P.D.Q. Bach* is hilariously bad, but it was intended to be bad. The accompaniment was written for double reeds, but what's different about the piece is that no oboes or bassoons were used. The result sounds like kazoos or Bronx cheers.


*A contemporary composer named Peter Schickele, who also wrote the music for "Oh, Calcutta."

Three nominations.

1) Anyone remember a UK TV programme called 'Bonekickers'?

Essentially it was a drama that was 50% 'Time Team' and 50% 'Spooks' or 'Hustle', and tried to portray, er, an archaeology department as an edgy, exciting, thrill-a-minute kind of place, running through ruins exploring daft historical conspiracy theories and usually exploding everything they touched.

It was quite, quite bad, but hypnotically so. I remember watching the "next time" trailer at the end of each show, thinking 'no, surely not.... surely, surely not... surely this can't get any more preposterous". But it always did.

2) 300

Best actor oscars all round, if you ask me. Saying pretty much any of that dialogue with a straight face was an extraordinary acting achievement. "THIS IS SPARTA!" But perhaps not a candidate for SBIG... while I think they played it straight, it surely, surely wasn't meant seriously.

3) Robin Hood.

The BBC Jonas Armstrong series from a few years back. I think that both Merlin and Robin Hood were attempts by the BBC to find more "family shows" in the style of Doctor Who - not kids' shows, but without adult themes or complexity that would push it out of their reach. It started fairly weakly and got more and more preposterous, and frankly I was hooked. How silly could this get, how far could they push? Not even Richard Armitage and Keith Allen could save this, although the lovely Lucy Griffiths excelled in the "something for the dads" role. Favourite moment? LG's Marion is masquerading as a superhero of her own called 'The Night-Watchman' (or something) and is wearing tight, figure-hugging leather armour. She could only be more obviously female in a swimsuit.... but this doesn't stop Guy of Gisbourne bellowing "Get him!" at the top of his voice....

You make me want to try Robin Hood out again with that description. Sadly, at the time I stopped watching it because it was shite

Bonekickers does kind of ring a bell - sort of... mmm

We (or more specifically the she of my household) take a current perverse pleasure out of watching Waterloo Road - that is quite high on the Richter scale of cobblers. I'm never quite sure if it's being played straight or not.

I thought "300" was truly awful. I assumed that it was being played straight. Based on a graphic novel aimed at some demographic far removed from my own.

In the style of 300 (what, that wasn't a documentary?), I could nominate the current tv drama Spartacus.

Dialogue deliberately stilted as if translated from Latin, wooden actors, overdone CGI, but ... curiously watchable.

I think 300 is actually pretty good. The style/cinematography wa interesting and fairly groundbreaking, the music is good and it had Lena Headey giving us all a foretaste of Cersei Lannister.

That it had a swarm of impossibly well-muscled men with very little clothing on had nothing to do with my enjoyment of the film. No, not at all.

@orcus - that's a defensible view, certainly. Perhaps it was just Bad, but I was always entertained to see what new absurdity they'd try this time. And I did lose interest by the end....

@HI - there is more to be said for 300 than just a bad film - it's a tale told very deliberately in a certain style, and whatever else it is, it's certainly not lazy. Deliberately mythic rather than epic, especially with the narration device... we're watching a story that we're being told, not something happening 'live'.

@paulh - I know what you mean. I kept wondering whether there was a joke that everyone except me was in on. In some ways it reminds me of 'Starship Troopers', which is also played very straight and very intensely, yet I think subtly and subversively funny without the usual knowing irony/wink to the viewer.

Earth Girls Are Easy. I think this was when I first fell in lurv with Jeff Goldblum.

I agree SWL.

Gilbert and George so bad it's bad. And I would add a number of other modern artists to that roster.

I have just had the opportunity to see Flaming June for real. On the wall behind it? Gilbert and George. To get to it you had to walk past a Damien Hirst.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flaming_June,_by_Fredrick_Lord_Leighton_%281830-1896%29.jpg

Flaming June, so good it is fantastic. A rose between two thorns for sure.

PP.

And yes. I know that good and bad are in the eye of the beholder....

PP.

Mamma Mia did cross my mind earlier today for this thread. I like the songs but Julie Walters and Pierce Brosnan are a bit like mum and dad having a go on Singstar.

If we're nominating websites I would go for Cheese or Font, the website that invites you to work out whether the name on the screen is a cheese, or a font. Easy when it's Cheddar or Trebuchet, much more challenging when it's Allemoria. (I just made that one up). An excellent way of wasting hours of your life as you try to improve your score and work out tactics (yes, tactics. For guessing whether something is a cheese or a font).

And originally recommended to me here, obvs.

Mol

"I could nominate the current tv drama Spartacus, but ... curiously watchable."

Naked Lucy Lawless being a complete coincidence I assume?

I nominate pretty much every Mel Brooks film.

The Los Dandies - Dracula "Cha Cha Cha" record

I confess that at my senior school, they actually taught ballroom dancing for the first two years I was there. The teacher insisted on playing this record at least once per session, and it tortured my ear drums........if you search for it, do listen and then I dare you not to fall about laughing - or throwing up...........

Hawk The Slayer? No, no, no. I not having that. There is nothing wrong with Hawk The Slayer. Next thing you'll do is lambast Krull or Willow, and that's just beyond the pale.

On a semi-related note, will anyone admit to watching The Sword And The Sorcerer?


Geggs

It might be heresy here but I'm thinking that The Princess Bride rather belongs in the so bad it's good category

Yes, that is heresy. And you can leave Stardust alone as well!


Geggs