Bad movie night is the best night

[Reuben]

It started with Mystery Science Theater 3000 - I had always wanted to get into that show - and it snowballed from there. Now every other Friday night is bad movie night. We watch the refuse from the bottom of the refuse pile, where the movies are much less movie than dripping compost.

And it's amazing. Two of my kids, aged 13 and 19, usually finish watching with me. My wife often doesn't make it through. And we laugh, and laugh, and laugh... as long as the movie isn't boring. That's the cardinal sin of film, one of the few things that can make a movie completely unwatchable.

Weirdly, we learn a lot about storytelling. We also learn who to blame when a movie goes wrong, and who to praise when everything comes together.

I think I'll start posting reviews here. Here's what we've watched so far, in no particular order. Warning: it's an embarrassing number of bad movies.

What are your favorite awful movies?

The Wizard. "I love to Power Glove. It's so bad." So is this movie-length Nintendo commercial.

Superman III. Christopher Reeve, what happened? Richard Pryor, why? Half-cent techno-thievery! Missiles! Evil robots! Delightfully strange.

Superman IV. Gene Hackman is the best. Budget issues. Tiny Milton Keynes + a fire hydrant = New York.

Mac and Me. McDonald's-Coke love child and E.T. ripoff. Drinking out of the dirt with a straw. Intermission dance number set at McDonald's. Cops blow up a grocery store by shooting it. A must-see unwitting commentary on mindless commercialism.

Star Trek V. Nichelle Nichols does a sexy fan dance. They meet God, I guess. William Shatner writes a love letter to himself and calls it a movie.

Inspector Gadget. Ferris Bueller meets Robocop. Pretty good until the surgery, then... dumb.

Super Mario Bros. Not bad for a kids' show. As an adult... dumb.

The Care Bears Movie. Not bad for a kids' show. As an adult... creepy as hell.

Krull. A space opera not set in space. A Chosen One, a girlfriend kidnapped for her human uterus, a changeling, a giant spider, and an unbeatable Chosen One fantasy weapon that does nothing. Almost everyone dies. Good times.

Leonard Part 6. Opens with Bill Cosby leaping from the roof of an exploding factory on an ostrich. All you need to know.

Hercules in New York. Hercules banished from Olympus = Arnold Schwarzenegger banished from Central Park. Thunder bolt = bent rebar. Watch Arnie beat up a man in a bear costume, just because.

House II: The Second Story. Bill Maher plays an ass. Nothing else makes sense. The doggerpillar is cute.

The Pagemaster. Macaulay Culkin learns the fun of reading from sad cartoons. Wastes a perfectly good Christopher Lloyd.

Cars 2. OMG why.

Cop and a Half. Cute little kid + crusty Burt Reynolds = "comedy" buddy cop show. Kid legit pees on Burt's shoes. Classic!

Baby Geniuses. Baby language is a real language, yo. One of many, many dumb ideas. But fun! Christopher Lloyd, why are you in so many bad movies?

The Master of Disguise. If you want to hate Dana Carvey, this is for you. A few brilliant moments in a sea of OMG why.

Popeye. Live-action movie thinks it's a cartoon. Loved it as a kid, bewildered by it as an adult. Actual song lyrics: "He needs me, he needs me, he needs me, he needs me, he needs me, he needs meeeeee."

Furry Vengeance. George of the Jungle is attacked by forest animals who are all smarter than him. Stupid, watchable. You will laugh or cry. Have you heard of Schrödinger's cat?

The Emoji Movie. Fellow kids, here is a movie for you. So movie, such bad, my dudes.

Birdemic: Shock and Terror. Nature retaliates by sending exploding birds against us. Many exciting parking scenes. Do not watch this without Rifftrax commentary (available on Amazon Prime!) or it will make you want to die. With Mike, Kevin and Bill, it's loads of something resembling fun.

The Last Airbender. Too cartoonish to be taken seriously, takes itself too seriously to be fun. M Night, what happened to you?

Fluke. Depressing show about a kid whose dad dies, comes back as a dog, watches one new friend after another die, and then remembers he used to be a jerk and deserves no happiness. Also, if a dead dog-dad calls his widow on the phone, what else could he do but pant into the receiver? Why should I care about this idiot?

Solarbabies. Post-apocalyptic lacrosse-roller-hockey players save the world from drought with a glowing orb. Recommended for its relentless weirdness.

Frogs (1972). Many frog close-ups to establish that hopping frogs are scary. Almost everyone dies, but the frogs kill only one dude. By hopping menacingly near him.

The Stupids. A villain named Mr. Sender plans to steal everyone's mail and garbage. Well, that's what our hero thinks. I wanted the actual villains to destroy the world just so this nutjob would fail. Also, aliens show up.

The Net. Sandra Bullock is a professional beta tester. The writers try to warn us of the dangers of technology but know nothing about it. Works exactly as well as it sounds like it would.

Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold. Budget Indiana Jones with more chest hair. Darth Vader plays an ax-swinging African-Klingon. Stop-motion action figures paddle tiny canoes. I swear, movie, I'm laughing with you.

Tentacles. Jaws bandwagoner with an eco message. Starts by killing a baby off-screen to show us the monster means business. Has good actors who want to be anywhere but on set. No, movie, the mannequin's legs bobbing upside-down didn't sell the shot.

Foodfight! Product placement! Lame plot! Bad CG! What else could you possibly need?

Santa With Muscles. Hulk Hogan loses his memory of being a jerk, thinks he's Santa Claus, and defends an orphanage from overcooked villains. Everyone is incompetent, which is funny! Right? Highly recommended anyway.

Slappy and the Stinkers. Free Willy, but the orca is a sea lion and someone spliced in grandma's interminable home videos of when the child actors came to visit. Also, everyone is dumb, which is funny! Right?

Batman and Robin (1997). This movie will not let up. You will be entertained, even if it takes all the colored lighting and ice puns in the world.

Hawk the Slayer. British sword-and-sorcery B-movie bomb. High point is when a witch dispatches a guard with magic silly string. Did you know Halloween decorations can turn your back yard into a credible haunted forest?

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Intentional B-movie starts as so-bad-it's-good and levels up to so-bad-it's-bad. The musical numbers are surreal.

The Star Wars Holiday Special. What do you get when you cross a vaudeville variety show with Star Wars and shoot for the small screen? Wookiee VR porn and a totally baked Carrie Fisher, somehow. And pain. Lots of pain.

Lady in the Water. M Night, what happened? You can tell us. Who hurt you?

Son of the Mask. If you've ever wanted to see one baby inexplicably soak his dad with three urine streams at the same time, this movie is for you.

The Legend of the Titanic. The "real" Titanic story, written by a four-year-old and animated with the seriousness of a terrorist plot. A giant octopus is meant to be cute but terrifies small children.

Pixels. Adam Sandler saves the world from video game aliens by being the world's biggest loser. Serena Williams and Martha Stewart reward his short, mulleted sidekick with a threesome in the Lincoln bedroom.

The Little Mermaid (2018). Live-action story written by a four-year-old and produced with the seriousness of a nuclear war. There's an Asian wolf-man, a fortune teller who can stop time, a baby-faced ringmaster villain, and a showdown that can only be described with "WTF?"

The Amazing Bulk. Speaking of WTF, there's this... this... thing. Terrible acting. CG sets the actors "walk through" by shuffling their feet in front of a green screen. CG superhero. Stock models. Stock footage. Satellite docking porn. Amazing indeed.

The Galaxy Invader. Hillbillies hunt an alien and get killed because they suck. I hate everyone in this movie. Rifftrax helped us get through it.

Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3D. Before Jacob started taking his shirt off to turn into a wolf, he starred in someone's LSD trip. Cognitive dissonance isn't just for fundamentalists, it's also for my kids, who grew up loving a bad, bad movie.

To Catch a Yeti. Meatloaf stars in an awful flick about a tiny, furry, googly-eyed thingamabob with giant feet who... loves to ski? So many punchable characters. Rifftrax saves the day again!

Yor, the Hunter From the Future. Every movie should have a glassy-eyed action hero like Yor. Every movie should pivot to a totally different story 2/3 of the way through. And they should all play a cheesy 80s metal ballad riff whenever the hero does something awesome. "YOR'S WORLD, HE'S THE MAN / YOR'S WORLD, HE'S THE MAN!" He is the man, indeed.

[RubinHighlander]

Wow! That's quite a list. I did watch this one last year because I never saw it when it came out:
Star Trek V.

Now I know I didn't miss anything, but the scene where they met God did make me LOL!

I'd have to place The Last Jedi on this list. I still can't get over the slow super drawn out unrealistic chase to the secret rebel base, frozen princess Leia, the astro-projected Luke and so many other dumb things they didn't need to do to insult my intelligence. Force Awakens wasn't terrible, except for the sun powered particle weapon that exceeds the speed of light (unless those planets it destroyed were all within the same solar system) was bad enough in the 2nd to last one. I don't expect exact science here but come on! May as well bring back Jar Jar.

[Reuben]

I'd have to place The Last Jedi on this list. I still can't get over the slow super drawn out unrealistic chase to the secret rebel base, frozen princess Leia, the astro-projected Luke and so many other dumb things they didn't need to do to insult my intelligence. Force Awakens wasn't terrible, except for the sun powered particle weapon that exceeds the speed of light (unless those planets it destroyed were all within the same solar system) was bad enough in the 2nd to last one. I don't expect exact science here but come on! May as well bring back Jar Jar.

The list of Jedi powers has grown yet again! If they ever want to scale the powers back, it'll take a great writer/director team. Unfortunately, "Jedi does something amazing that I've never seen before!!!" is a cheap and effective way to ramp up the excitement and inject some good old deus ex machina.

Maybe they'll figure out how to do it after they turn everyone off by having a Sith Lord force-choke a sun until it explodes. Maybe then they'll realize they've gone too far.

If you're looking for some brain bleach after The Last Jedi, try watching Star War The Third Gathers: Backstroke of the West HD (Dubbed). That little wonder came about this way:

• Chinese bootlegger sells Revenge of the Sith DVDs on the street with unintentionally not-great Chinese subtitles
• American blogger living in China buys one and translates the subtitles back to English, badly, on purpose
• Hilarity ensues and the hive mind gets the "do not want" meme (source scene starts at 2:07:37)
• Some crazy people create a dubbed version and put it on YouTube, and it's somehow still up

The movie begins with Hopeless Situation Warriors (Jedi Knights) Ratio Tile (Obi-Wan Kenobi) and Allah Gold (Anakin) racing to save Speaker D (Chancellor Palpatine) from the evil The (Count Dooku) and Space General. (Space General's best line: "I should really feeds you all dog!") Later, Allah Gold is disturbed by dreams of pain and loss; we see one in which The Plum Of (Padmé) screams, "Return the baby!" He eventually becomes an evil South Host (Sith Lord) who is very strong in the Wish Power (Force) and is named Reaching the West of Reaches.

This movie is really too stick.

It helps to occasionally consult a translation guide.

[Just This Guy]

DW and I like watching RiffTrax on Amazon Prime. Done by Mike Nelson of MST3K fame.

My Favorite MST3K episode: Mutiny in Space. DW's: The Touch of Satan, and Tourist Trap from Rifftrax.

If you can tolerate Chistand Movies, there are SOOO many that are bad movie gold.

Kirk Cameron Saves Christmas
God's Not Dead (1-3)

Horror movies tend to be very polarized. They are either good, or terrible.

Friday the 13th, Part 7, Jason Takes Manhatten.
Troll II

If you don't mind scarcasm and the occasional adult phrase, I highly recommend checking out The Cinema Snob on youtube. He's reviews are hilarious.

[RubinHighlander]

If you're looking for some brain bleach after The Last Jedi, try watching Star War The Third Gathers: Backstroke of the West HD (Dubbed).

YES! I watched the first few minutes and I'm already loving it!

I might not be very productive at work today.

[wtfluff]

I can't believe Strange Brew has not been mentioned yet in a bad movie thread.

[RubinHighlander]

I can't believe Strange Brew has not been mentioned yet in a bad movie thread.

Rollins! Noice!

[RubinHighlander]

Religulous with Bill Maher

I'd put this one on the best list

[Reuben]

I can't believe Strange Brew has not been mentioned yet in a bad movie thread.

What.

That's on my good movie list, hoser.

[wtfluff]

I can't believe Strange Brew has not been mentioned yet in a bad movie thread.

What.

That's on my good movie list, hoser.

Ok then. Should we put it on the good, bad movie list?

Take Off!

[Reuben]

I can't believe Strange Brew has not been mentioned yet in a bad movie thread.

What.

That's on my good movie list, hoser.

Ok then. Should we put it on the good, bad movie list?

Take Off!

Shouldn't have shown Short Circuit tonight for good movie night. There's always two weeks from now, though. I can't wait.

[jfro18]

This is a great thread - it also walks that line between "bad movie that's actually enjoyable" and "movie that is so bad it's great to make fun of."

I swear whenever we want to watch something that we can just laugh at how horrible it is, a Lifetime movie night does the trick... but those are not good movies - they are just mad movies that are so cliche that you can't help but laugh.

[crazyhamster]

Oh, you're not digging deep enough. Some of my favourite worsts include ones like the ORIGINAL Fantastic Four movie from the 1990's (a tough find, but I think I watched it on YouTube). This was the one that never officially got released and was only made to maintain the production company's rights. What a disaster of moviemaking. There was one on Netflix ages ago called "Thankskilling" (don't let the kids watch! It's pretty profane) that feature a cursed foul (fowl?) mouthed Turkey zombie that kept coming back every so many years to kill people. The original Superman (from 1978) has not aged well. At all. But my "favourite" awful movie is the Chevy Chase/John Candy nightmare called, "Nothing but Trouble". I remember watching that the first time (on TV thankfully) absolutely slack-jawed at how terrible it was - and yet had all these big name actors/comedians in it. Anything to put food on the table, I guess.

I actually rewatched the Star Wars Christmas Special (Happy Life Day!) again a couple of Christmases ago after many, many years. It's really kind of perversely fascinating in its bizarre awfulness. Like having a weird dream after you've eaten way too much Thai food, or something. It's like there has to be some obscure meaning to it, but for the life of you, you just can't figure it out.

[2bizE]

That looks like the normal list of shows available on Netflix....meaning Netflix often has a lot of the old, bad shows...

[StarbucksMom]

I love this thread! Inspired by your bad movie night ideas, I searched on RiffTrax last night on Amazon Prime. One of my 12 yo twins is pretty sick w/ strep and needed cheering up. So I found “Birdemic” and checked a parent guide to make sure it wasn’t super inappropriate. (we only fwded through a couple make out in bed in bikini scenes.) Anyway.....Oh. My. Gosh. This is a MUST SEE. You will not even believe it was made in 2008. It seriously makes the “Sharknado” movies look like academy award winners.

[crazyhamster]

I love this thread! Inspired by your bad movie night ideas, I searched on RiffTrax last night on Amazon Prime. One of my 12 yo twins is pretty sick w/ strep and needed cheering up. So I found “Birdemic” and checked a parent guide to make sure it wasn’t super inappropriate. (we only fwded through a couple make out in bed in bikini scenes.) Anyway.....Oh. My. Gosh. This is a MUST SEE. You will not even believe it was made in 2008. It seriously makes the “Sharknado” movies look like academy award winners.

I couldn't find the full movie anywhere. But I did find this short documentary about it, which was.. kind of interesting, actually!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZoFNVhEfpE

[StarbucksMom]

CrazyHamster do you have amazon prime? They have both the movie and the Rifftrax version. I highly recommend watching with the commentary. Hopefully this link will work: Just fwd thru beginning when they are talking to audience and short preview movie about a guy checking into a hotel. Birdemic will change your life.
https://www.amazon.com/RiffTrax-Live-Bi ... B018HIWCSY

[Corsair]

I can't believe Strange Brew has not been mentioned yet in a bad movie thread.

I watched Strange Brew as part of my cultural education before I went on my mission to Canada.

[moksha]

Two more for your Friday night bad movies activity:

Mazes and Monsters - unfortunately, Tom Hanks starred in this movie.
Gone in 60 Seconds - the 1974 version.

[crazyhamster]

CrazyHamster do you have amazon prime? They have both the movie and the Rifftrax version. I highly recommend watching with the commentary. Hopefully this link will work: Just fwd thru beginning when they are talking to audience and short preview movie about a guy checking into a hotel. Birdemic will change your life.
https://www.amazon.com/RiffTrax-Live-Bi ... B018HIWCSY

No, I don't subscribe - in fact, I'm not sure it's even available in Canada(?) The link does seem to take me to the sign up, though.

ETA: We do have Prime in Canada, and it has a 30 day free thing, but I already sign up for Netflix and Crave (a Canadian service) and I don't want another! Not to say we'd necessarily even get the same movies or shows - our Netflix selection is quite different from the US and is based on how they can negotiate licenses.