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Ricochet Movie Fight Club: Question 18
Last week Brian Watt came out of his corner raging for a Page One knockout. Philo’s Page Three uppercut sent him reeling and Brian ended up clinging to the ropes, eying the clock but still upright when the final bell sounded. His jaw may be a little sore today, but not too sore to ask: What is the worst movie (not a made-for-TV movie) ever made?
From Brian:
It should be a movie shown in a movie theater produced or distributed by a major studio (MGM, Universal, United Artists, 20th Century Fox, Columbia, RKO, Warner Brothers, Disney, etc.); a movie that others may have raved about which prompted you to see it; that was so bad, you may have walked out or griped about it and felt cheated for wasting your money on it; so bad that you may have even heckled it or made catcalls at the screen in the theater while watching it; and so bad that you may actually think less of others’ taste in movies – whether critics, celebrities, or friends — who actually hold this awful film in high regard.
Of course, the more comprehensive your answer on why the movie is so awful, the more persuasive your answer will be.
The Rules:
- Post your answer as a comment. Make it clear that this is your official answer, one per member.
- Defend your answer in the comments and fight it out with other Ricochet member answers for the rest of the week.
- Whoever gets the most likes on their official answer comment (and only that comment) by Friday night wins the fight.
- The winner gets the honor of posting the next question on Saturday.
- In the case of a tie, the member who posted the question will decide the winner.
Notes:
- Only movies will qualify (no TV shows) however films that air on television (BBC films, a stand-alone mini-series) will qualify.
- Your answer can be as off-the-wall or controversial as you’d like. It will be up to you to defend it and win people to your side.
- Fight it out.
Special thanks to Arahant for compiling a list of previous questions.
Movie Fight Club Questions by Week:
- What is the best film portrayal of a book character? Winner: Charlotte with 18 likes for Alan Rickman’s portrayal of Professor Severus Snape in the Harry Potter movies.
- What is the best motion picture comedy of the 21st century? Winner: split decision. In an exemplary display of genuine sportsmanship, Randy Webster conceded the fight to Marjorie Reynolds’ pick Team America: World Police.
- What film provides the most evocative use of location? Winner: Taras with 21 likes for Lawrence of Arabia. Wasn’t even close.
- What is the best film that utilizes or is inspired by a work of William Shakespeare? Winner: Dr. Bastiat with five likes for The Lion King, a film inspired by Hamlet.
- Which movie has the best surprise ending, or unexpected plot twist? Winner: Repmodad with 18 likes for The Sixth Sense.
- What pre-1970s black-and-white movie would be most enjoyed by a modern 18-to 25-year-old audience? Winner: E J Hill with 9 likes for a Casablanca. (He didn’t exactly designate it his official answer, and most of the likes may have been for the modern Casablanca trailer rather than for it as an answer to the question, but nobody seemed to dispute it on those grounds, so that’s how the cookie crumbles.)
- What movie did you go to based on the trailer, only to have felt cheated? (i.e., the trailer was 10x better than the movie?) Winner: Back to back wins by E J Hill with 9 likes for Something to Talk About.
- Name the worst movie portrayal of your profession (where applicable.) Winner: LC with 8 likes for Denise Richards’ Dr. Christmas Jones in The World is Not Enough.
- What is the worst movie that claims to be based or inspired by a true story? Winner: Tex929rr with 16 likes for the, “…terrible acting, and countless deviations from history,” in Pearl Harbor.
- What is your favorite little known movie? Winner: A last-minute rally for Tremors made the difference as Songwriter took the week 10 win!
- What is the best movie that you never want to watch again? Winner:
HitlerCharlotte with 15 likes for Schindler’s List. Sorry, Richard Oshea but Jesus won the real fight.
Week 11.5 Exhibition Match (as a make-up of sorts, since Songwriter didn’t get the week 11 question submitted in time) Name the best movie theme song ever? No winner declared but I’m pretty sure it was I.M. Fine with “Moon River.” - Name the best animated feature-length movie of all time. Winner: I.M. Fine with 10 likes for Pinocchio, and justice for I.M. Fine prevailed.
- What is the worst acting performance in an otherwise good film? Winner: In one of the most brutal fights we’ve seen yet Repmodad fended off a furious 12th-round onslaught by Gary McVey to give Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves the win with 20 likes.
- What is the quintessential American movie? Winner: Miffed White Male pulled off the comeback with 20 likes for The Right Stuff. There was a two-way tie at 19 for second place as well.
- What’s the most entertaining movie set during WWII? Winner: Arahant clearly won with Casablanca’s walloping 30 likes despite the withering onslaught by Sisyphus on the final day.
- What is the best movie love story? Winner: Songwriter with 20 likes for The Princess Bride with 20 likes. Up managed to make a strong showing and Dr. Bastiat is still conducting recounts trying to “find” some uncounted votes.
- What’s the best’ buddy’ movie? Winner: Brian Watt wins with 12 likes for The Man Who Would be King.
Published in General
Quest for Fire is the Citizen Kane of caveman movies.
When it was made, it was considered scientifically inaccurate, but we’ve since learned that Neanderthals did, in fact, mate with modern humans.
Exodus: Gods and Kings had something for everyone to hate. They cast leading semitic characters with lily white actors, they cast the terrifying – be not afraid – Angel of God as a small boy, approved an awful, mawkish script and green lit this locust poop with an atheist producer/director because conceited atheists always do the best Bible movies.
Unhampered by a close reading of the Bible, they relieved their child God of the carving of the tablets, spending precious screen time portraying Moses knocking them out himself. While the Cecile B. DeMille’s Ten Commandments had many, many flaws, it at least did not set out to desecrate the scripture it was based on.
My personal viewing experience was enhanced by being shifted by the theater into a 3-D showing, which I only accepted because a family member was totally obsessed with seeing the film. 3-D tech being so torturous that my eyes just started aching thinking about it.
The movie was so bad, and so sacrilegious, the Razzies failed to nominate the film for fear of suffering eternal torment just for mentioning it.
It made $268 million, every dollar stolen.
Muleskinner, you may have some sympathy for me, then. I worked as the ticket seller at a movie theater when this and Grease both came out. I couldn’t hear the dialogue from my front-door area, but I heard ALLLLL the songs over and over and over.
I gave it a like, not for the movie, but for this.
I’ve already given my official answer, but I have to mention My Chauffeur. When my wife and I were first dating, she told me this was one of her favorite movies and made me sit through it. Fortunately we were far enough along in the relationship that I didn’t dump her for lack of taste.
My husband and I watched The Conversation recently and were underwhelmed despite its supposed elevation to “masterpiece” level. It left us both looking at each other at the end shrugging our shoulders. It was tough to see Cindy Williams in a serious role after having watched her in Laverne & Shirley .
The one with Deborah Foreman? Was there nudity? I remember seeing it in high school, probably on HBO, and liking it. Most likely because it probably had a topless scene, a key box to check for teenage boys.
Spaceballs
Official Answer
Exactly so! I count at least three “reverse-likes” for Zoolander so Vince, please be sure to take that into account for your final scoring. I don’t think I ever saw Zoolander 2, but I absolutely loved that the posters and trailers called it 200lander.
#BlueSteel
Or It’s Pat
Produced by Touchstone and distributed by Buena Vista. What were they thinking?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_Pat
official answer
https://youtu.be/rTtmddry2cg
Now, I’m insisting, Stella is the worst.
If you’re not cringing and hating life after that, I just don’t know what to say.
I may upend an apple cart here but I’m going to say The Exorcist. I know the film school people drone on about its importance to the genre and film history in general, but nothing about it can possibly redeem its many disgusting scenes. I’m thinking specifically about the crucifix scene, something that should never have been filmed, and should never be watched.
But Taye Diggs is so pretty. Day-um.
He’d be more attractive if he didn’t speak. Especially those lines. Ack.
Maybe that’s better suited for another category?
He is. That’s where I first saw him. Not that I’ve seen much of him since other than Chicago.
I’d assume a lot of people like it for the wrong reasons. Bickle is an honorably discharges Vietnam veteran, with no distinction or even attention, who has to witness all of the ugliness that comes out at night in a slimy New York. His reality is a world of corruption, he opts for fantasy instead – fantasies of his heroism and an inevitably bittersweet happy ending.
I agree with you that nihilism is Scorsese’s great weakness, but I’ll take Taxi Driver over the incredibly stylish King of Comedy, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas.
Perhaps, but when I think of worst ever the dumb, forgettable, cringeworthy comedies aren’t what come to my mind. Some people love them for their rediculousness (I admit to still shamefully liking The Waterboy). Others are a good hate watch, as in something everyone can enjoy ironically because it’s universally recognized as bad.
The Exorcist is a different kind of bad. I would have walked out of the theatre had I first seen it there, I still get repulsed just thinking of parts of it, and I don’t recomend that anybody should ever watch it. So for me, yeah, worst ever.
It’s interesting how different people have different tastes. We liked Ghostbusters 2 and The Lost World . . .
Both solid sequels. Especially The Lost World.
I just saw Goodfellas for the first time a few weeks ago (I’m not a mob person, but I do love The Godfather trilogy and The Sopranos), and the thing that kind of sent all of us out of the otherwise excellent movie was Ray Liotta’s weird eye makeup when he is supposed to have become a drug addict, it was very evil William Shatner in The Enemy Within (which, funnily enough, was the one TOS episode I had chosen for us to watch before starting the movies). I think I also made a Henny Youngman joke that nobody got, but such is life. Anyway, the mention of Goodfellas made me think of this brilliant parody:
I loved Zoolander. Loved it!
Got to go with The English Patient. Elaine Benes agrees: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5qalNX5G94. “Quit telling your stupid story about the stupid desert and die already.”
Sine I don’t think the Irishman qualifies, so the only movie I ever walked out on was A Chorus Line.
Final answer . A Chorus Line.
Unless the Irishman qualifies….
Oh, yeah! Good pick! Watching The English Patient was like reading a Hemingway novel: you hate all the characters so much, you’re just waiting for them to die already!
And after all of the comments thus far, no one has mentioned Barbarella.
Despite my long-term disgust with Jane Fonda and her traitorous actions with the North Vietnamese, this awful film would still rank, as it were, as my top worst film. It seems to me that French director, Roger Vadim intended this piece of soft-porn schlock to be funny and a satire of 1950s sci-fi films and particularly the Flash Gordon serials but also a way to show off his then-wife’s, Fonda’s nipples. Since the French have difficulty understanding comedy or executing satire, I remind you that this is the country that awarded Jerry Lewis The Legion of Honor for his film work not his humanitarian work, Barbarella stands as a testament to just how horrible and unfunny a supposed comedy film can be.
Sometimes you see a film that some producer or group of wealthy investors have decided to fund, and you think to yourself, “Hey, give me that money and I’ll spend it on a much better story to film.” Of course, there are thousands of films like this but Barbarella easily floats to the top of the bowl every time.
I love the part where Goldblum and Moore kidnap the baby T-Rex, and she asks how they’re going to find the adult. That’s when Goldblum says, “Just follow the screams.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIUEEEM34rU
I never saw King of Comedy, I also didn’t like (and struggled to finish) Raging Bull, but I loved Goodfellas.
Goodfellas could probably be a thread all its own. It had good writing, good acting, good directing, good casting, character, depth, and subject matter that has charm, appeal, and relatability despite all of the obvious evils and dangers. Both the story arc and character arc(s) were familiar and compelling. Although DeNiro had a leading role, he wasn’t the lead which is good for the rest of us.