'Straightman' movies.

Hi, thanks for stopping by.

Anyway, I need a little help. Once every couple of weeks a few friends and I get together for 'Bad Movie Night' where we settle down and watch movies of dubious quality and crack wise over the top ala Mystery Science Theater 3000. One of the guys is a stand-up comic and the other's a semi-professional comedy writer, so it can get more than a little competitive.

The problem is we've been in a bit of a rut recently as we've pretty much run out of movies suitable for the purpose. Recently our selections have either been too dull (Star Trek: The Motion Picture) or too bad/absurd (mostly old 50's B-movies). So I'm falling on my sword and asking for outside input. Good candidate movies should feature the following, the more the better:

• Dialogue heavy: Stilted, poorly delivered/written or featuring absurd technobabble and jargon or heavy-handed exposition.
• As few protracted action scenes as possible: No pod-racing, please.
• A moral or overt agenda: Especially when it's naive or optimistic. Bonus points if it's 'Man's inhumanity to man' 12th grade ethics essay stuff.
• Be fairly recent: Last thirty years ideally. If it's dated badly that's even better.
• Feature at least one known actor: Either slumming it or in an obvious vanity performance.
• Idiosyncratic: Little tweaks and kinks. Either in direction, sound or performance. A film with personality.
• No Comedies: A bad comedy is just depressing.
• Nothing absolutely awful: We tried Uwe Boll, Ed Woods and Mariah Carey's Glitter. We ended up getting drunk instead.

It's a tough brief to fill, I know. But I can give you an idea of what I'm looking for by telling you which ones worked particularly well. Red Dawn and Costner's The Postman were fantastic fun, The Poseidon Adventure and Ghost Ship remakes also worked (guess there's a bit of a nautical obsession in our little group) and Tron remains a personal favourite.

So, to conclude. A straightman flick, something pompous yet poor that provides rich inspiration for poking fun. First prize is an solid gold DVD copy of Basic Instinct 2.

The first one that springs into my mind is 1994 movie The Dragon Gate. I'm not sure if it had any big names in it (if you don't count the guy from High Plains Drifter), and it is "absolutely awful", but I haven't laughed like that in a while.

Stephen King's Desperation + pot = fun times...

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Xanadu (1980)
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978)
Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983)
The Legend of Billie Jean (1985)
Wisdom (1986)
Tuff Turf (1985)
Turk 182! (1985)
Listen to Me (1989)
Perfect (1985)
Satisfaction (1988)
The First Power (1990)
Cloak & Dagger (1984)
Invasion U.S.A. (1985)
Road House (1989)
Malone (1987)
The Island (1980)
The Swarm (1978)

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I gotta ask, Holden, Have actually made it through Xanadu?

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We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...

Aaaah, yes: as a relative newbie you have not yet stumbled upon the open secret that I do, in fact, love the cinematic stinkeroo Xanadu in all it's seething craptaculance.

XANADU

Check out THIS thread...if you dare.

While it may be too bad, the 80s made for tv film Mazes and Monsters starring a young Tom Hanks meets several of your criteria. Particularly worth recommending for the comically dated after school special quality (it's a cautionary tale about the dangers of D&D style role playing games as a means of escape for kids from broken homes.)

I own six of the stinkers on my list. Other than Xanadu, anybody care to guess the other five?

Ah I see, You won't be getting any flack what so ever from me count on it. I'm still working on a Charles Band appreciation thread and trust me there are some serious pips in there.

I'll bet Turk 182 is there for sure and probably The Legend of Billie Jean, Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone, Cloak & Dagger (haven't seen this in years, love it!) and maybe Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. What does it say about me I wonder that I also own several of those that you listed.

One definite baddie is Slipstream from 1989 starring Mark Hamill.

One that I thought kind of fell on the boarder of good and bad was Freejack with Mick Jagger.

And one that stands out for me from recent years is Van Helsing. Outstanding in the field of awfulness.

I realized after I asked the question that I had tipped my hand by posting pictures of them all: Sgt. Pepper's, Turk 182!, The Island, The Swarm and Tuff Turf. And if The Legend of Billie Jean were on DVD, I suspect I would have found myself purchasing it some rainy day. Sad but true.


"We can't afford to be innocent
Stand up and face the enemy
It's a do or die situation
We will be invincible
And with the power of conviction
There is no sacrifice
It's a do or die situation
We will be invincible..."

Have you watched Norman Mailer's Tough Guys Don't Dance? I recommend that one, but be warned; you may get hooked.

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Ah, such a response. A girl could get used to the attention.

One small clarification, it should be played straight. Anything knowing or in so-bad-its-hilarious territory won't cut it, that was the problem with Plan 9 and it was no-where near as satisfying to rip into. It's like punting a kitten.

Mazes and Monsters looks ideal, and a copy is winging its way to me right now courtesy of the good people at Amazon.com.

Not too sure about Xanadu, Olivia Newton-John should be fun but musicals are generally bomb-proof.

The legendary Road House! Don't know why I didn't think of that one myself, another £5 for Amazon.com.

Invasion USA seems promising, but Chuck Norris? I've never seen his movies but he's something of an internet laughing-stock at this point anyway. I don't want the guys to think I'm taking my cues from ytmnd.com. But hell, it's only £3 so I'll get a copy.

Cloak & Dagger is a definite winner. Into the shopping cart with it.

Can't find The Dragon Gate, oh well thanks for playing anyway.

With a Norman Mailer pedigree, Tough Guys Don't Dance sounds like it might be a little too good for our purposes. Unless I'm missing something I'll put it on the back-burner.

Hoo boy, the motherlode. Van Helsing is perfect. Exactly the sort of overblown big-budget nonsense I need and only £2! Amazon.com, you just can't beat it.

Amazon only gives me the cover of Freejack but it's convincing enough to make me plum for it, especially seeing as it's only £3 and I qualify for free supersaver delivery. Service AND value? I just can't believe Amazon.com turns a profit!

Keep 'em coming. I'm sure there's more.

Thanks guys!

Shop at Amazon.com

htt://www.movieforums.com/community/showpost.php?p=387359&postcount=208

That is where I discussed Tough Guys Don't Dance earlier. It's the complete opposite of "highbrow".

No, you should take it off the stove completely and put it on the table. Yes, Norman Mailer was a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, of course, but this effort as a movie director is a legendary disaster. The only award Mailer earned as as cinema auteur was the Razzie for Worst Director (actually he tied for the dishonor that year with Elaine May for Ishtar, though the Bill Cosby hunk of ***** Leonard Part 6 beat them both out for Worst Film). Some, like Mark, find Tough Guys Don't Dance so off-the-wall horrible and bizarre that it comes out the other side and is oddly mesmerizing. But believe me, especially on first viewing, you will think it is easily one of the worst movies you have ever bothered to sit through. And my goodness, does it take itself seriously. Well, I'm sure Norman intended it as some kind of dark and ironic tragicomedy, but what he created on the screen...yowza.

Would any Michael Bay movies qualify?

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Johann von Goethe

Yeah, I got that.

With the exception of Xanadu and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which because they are supposedly happy Musicals and much of their cheesiness was by design and therefore may fall a bit outside the kind of straight ahead sincerity you are looking for, the others on my list all are right on target. The teenage dramas Tuff Turf, Wisdom, Listen to Me and most especially the ridiculous Legend of Billie Jean are all so overwrought in their sincerity, totally lacking any intentional sense of humor and were dated before the film had been developed; you can't help but make fun of them.

Turk 182! is pretty silly and VERY dated stuff, but supposed to be a crowd-pleasing, inspirational drama. It's a bad movie with an ABC After School Special sentimentality. It was difficult to limit myself to just one horrible John Travolta movie, but I picked Perfect about a Rolling Stone reporter going undercover to discover if the '80s health club full of gals and guys in legwarmers is the straight world's bath house. Egads. Satisfaction, with the in-fighting and romances of a wannabe all-girl rock band fronted by the decidedly non-hardcore Justine Bateman from "Family Ties" and a pre-fame Julia Roberts! The Swarm is the Disaster Genre at it's silliest, but still packing an all-star cast.


Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone, Invasion U.S.A., Road House, Malone, The Island and The First Power are really below average, humorless genre efforts that have dated embarrassingly...not that they ever really were looked on as good on their initial releases. Malone may be the worst of that awful, awful bunch. Like Travolta's smelly resume, picking just one Burt Reynolds travesty was tough, but the cheap and totally ridiculous Malone may be the bottom of a very scummy barrel. Road House I almost neglected to even list, since it's awfulness has already sprung a cult following of sorts. But the others are just as goshawful dreadful, if less joyously ripped and celebrated as so.

*Insert twang* "Cause he's a f*cker!"

I love quoting that, whenever possible. She cracks me up, and I really liked her in FX, as well. Yes, I own them both.

I was going to say that you have Xanadu (1980), Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978), Tuff Turf (1985), and Turk 182! (1985). Then I noticed that you named them. I would have had to guess on the other two, and The Island wouldn't have been one of them. Do you like it? I've never seen it.

I have . . .

The Legend of Billie Jean (1985)
Wisdom (1986)
Tuff Turf (1985)
The First Power (1990)
Invasion U.S.A. (1985)
Road House (1989)
The Swarm (1978)
Mazes and Monsters ~ Recorded off of Cable
Turk 182! ~ Recorded off of Cable

I've always avoided Van Helsing, and I've never heard of Tough Guys Don't Dance.

You slipped in there on me. As far as The Island, I was thinking of the wrong movie. As far as Malone, I was thinking of the wrong movie. Lordy, I own that one too. I really can't keep up with what I own, anymore. Then again, I can see why I data-dump at times. Nevermind what else I have of his.

The worst film I can think of, would be A Return to Salem's Lot. That is the worst film I ever viewed. Then it would be Graveyard Shift (1990).