[Brian69]

Independence Day - This is unfair and baseless. I don't think Independence Day should win an Oscar, but it is at the very least enjoyable and action packed. It was easily one of Will Smith's best movies (screw you, Omega Man) and Jeff Goldblum is just freakin awesome. The special effects were sweet by 1997 standards. It's was also one of the forerunners of the "disaster genre." If nothing else, it is probably a high point of Roland Emmerich's career. How you can criticize Independence Day but not bile like 10,000 BC (replace aliens with CGI saber tooth tigers and sweet fighter jets with loin clothes) or The Day After Tomorrow (replace action heavy plot with snow) is beyond me.

Armageddon- This is Spiderman 3 bad. Yea, its dumb, but what did you expect from a movie whose premise is hill billies in space? Throw in William Fichtner and the full frontal assault on physics and reason and how can one help but be entertained? Put it another way, would you rather watch Deep Impact or Armageddon?

It's unfair and baseless if you can objectively tell me why Independence Day is a great movie. "Enjoyable" is subjective, and if action-packed is the criteria then you should be trumpeting the greatness of Catwoman.

You're not getting anywhere with your two examples because I didn't particularly like 10,000 BC either, though the effects were good, nor did I like The Day After Tomorrow (ditto on the effects). I just don't like empty headed movies that try to make it on SFX alone, with Independence Day playing like a parody of rah-rah heroism without giving us the knowing wink at the audience the way something like Mars Attacks did. Pullman's "presidential" speech was gagarific. One of Will Smith's best? It's just hard to see it among the all-star cast.

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

I guess I should use this opportunity to bash Godfather II. Two separate movies in one? Boring as hell...

Seconded...Godfather III was also much better than II, and it wasn't that great, either.

You guys are kidding right? Godfather II is one of the great American films of the 70's!

 

[Hydrogen]

From the outset, I try very hard to avoid what would appear to be a bad film, so I get to miss many of the groaners like 10,000 BC. It would appear that anything directed or produced by Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich has ended up being swill. I particularly hated Armageddon. The high point at the time I saw it was when some guy yelled out "Armageddon tired of this shitty movie."

Independence Day was bubble gum, and Day After Tomorrow was idiotic. Pear Harbor was overwrought.

Beyond those ball-busters, I've always despised a flick called Liquid Sky. I really hope none of you have ever had to sit through it.

Concerning M. Night Shyamalan, Signs and The Happening were either a misfire or just bad. This is troubling because this is clearly a film maker with considerable skill.

I enjoyed Cube - because it was unique.

All the Star Wars films have sort of bored me. There is no subtlety whatsoever. One usually gets flamed for saying something like this. I saw the first one in 1977 when it was released, and I pissed friends off at the time when I expressed the thought that it was nothing more than a B-movie (albeit hugely successful financially). Other than that, it was a snooze.

 

[Filip]

Solaris... I don't remember the last time I couldn't sit through an entire movie!

Cube was interesting.. I remember seeing it one late, late night on Serbian television; I can't complain, kept me hooked the entire movie.

 

[Long Island Mike]

The second (Toronto-made) version of The Taking of Pelham 123

Everyone: With the release date of the remade 2009 version of " The Taking of Pelham 123" just days away I thought I would mention the Toronto-made 1998 remake of the original 1974 movie.
The remake was a TV movie that was set in the TTC Subway-filmed at least in part in the closed lower Bay Street subway station that was standing in as the NYC Subway.
I seem to recall that NYC Transit was uncooperative and refused to allow this first remake to be made in the NYC Subway.
It was "sub-par" as this topic is titled - no pun intended. The 1974 original was a much better movie.
For more info concerning the 1998 remake look here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0140594/

LI MIKE

 

[Hipster Duck]

Yeah, I'm with hydrogen. Obviously I'm not going to call a movie like "Snow Dogs" or "Master of Disguise" out because I'd never see it and it made no pretensions for being anything good. Same with any Roland Emmerich or Michael Bay film. Did anyone think they'd be auteurs?

I'll save my disdain for movies that I was roped into going to because I thought there'd be some merit.

Then there are movies that are so bad they're good. Steve Martin's The Jerk is one of them, as is most of the stuff Richard Pryor made. Planet of the Apes III, where the apes get mysteriously transported back to Los Angeles, ca. 1974, and go shopping on Rodeo Drive is another. Come to think of it, the 1970s were full of movies like these.

 

[Aaron]

I can't believe Godfather II is mentioned in this thread.

 

[Observer Walt]

I can't believe Godfather II is mentioned in this thread.

Agree; it's on several lists of the 50 or 100 best movies ever. With so much true dreck out there, I'm not sure why it's necessary to pick on this one.

 

[Roy G Biv]

I thought Best Picture winner, Crash, was awful.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

I've always thought Moonraker was so bad it's good. It's kind of like Soylent Green - half consciously campy, half campy by accident, as if two direction/production factions were fighting it out in the editing room.

I can't believe Godfather II is mentioned in this thread.

Agree; it's on several lists of the 50 or 100 best movies ever. With so much true dreck out there, I'm not sure why it's necessary to pick on this one.

Because it sucks. As people have said, it's probably best to pick on films that have pretensions of artistic awesomeness, not films that are designed to be consumed as mindless entertainment.

 

[Brian69]

I've always thought Moonraker was so bad it's good. It's kind of like Soylent Green - half consciously campy, half campy by accident, as if two direction/production factions were fighting it out in the editing room.

So true--I remember watching the later Bond films in the theaters as a kid (especially the Roger Moore ones) and thinking how great and exciting they were. Recently I saw Moonraker and The Spy Who Loved Me once again and I'd forgotten how campy they were with their massive climactic fights and over the top action sequences. I think the Moore films were always more intentionally campy than not--Live and Let Die was a hoot. I still like them though they really show their age.

 

[bleeepbluuup]

Wing Commander
Hollow Man


But if anyone asks, I did not see them, I did not spend money on them, and I did not lose hours of my life to them. Not. at. all.

 

[doady]

I watched the Living Daylights the yesterday (not for the first time) and I realized it was an excellent Bond movie, the best since On Her Majesty's Secret Secret Service. Most of the ones with Roger Moore which are awful. In terms of campiness though nothing compares to Die Another Day. All of the recent Bond movies have been quite bad actually.

You guys are kidding right? Godfather II is one of the great American films of the 70's!

Even the director himself has admitted that Godfather parts II and III were just cash-ins and that they shouldn't have been made.

Another of the few movies that I couldn't sit through was 2001: A Space Odyssey. I tried to watch it for the first time recently because it is such a famous movie and like science fiction, but I found that I could watch men dancing around in cheap monkey suits without dialogue for only 10-15 minutes before I had to switch to a different, less amateurish movie.

 

[syn]

I thought Austin Powers 2 was pretty brutal.

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

Even the director himself has admitted that Godfather parts II and III were just cash-ins and that they shouldn't have been made.

Indeed Coppola is quoted as stating that, but he did make them right? The pressure was on and he wanted to appease the studio in order to move onto other projects. Coppola came from a group of struggling "renegade film makers" out of the 60's, he didn't have a lot of cred at the time - even after the success of Godfather 1. He can look back today and make statements like that but he did what he had to do to advance his career at the time, and in the process made yet another piece of master film making (Godfather II).

Godfather II is a brilliant film which, by the way earned it a dozen Oscar nominations and it took away half a dozen of them including "Best Picture". Anyone is free to dislike it -that's cool, no film pleases everyone but randomly saying an American classic "sucks" is a little unfair. If one examines the film it can't be denied that it has everything great going for it. Note the great writing, engaging story, brilliant performances, stunning cinematography, terrific score... on & on.