The Gunslinger 45: Top 12 Movies I Like, You will Probably Hate

I haven't seen any of these.

Nice to see a movie with Reb Brown in it - he was the TV Captain America in the 70's!

Looks like the only ones I've seen so far are Troll 2 and Jersey Girl. I'm inclined to agree with SC that there's nothing special about liking Troll 2 these days, while for all its flaws Jersey Girl is far from the worst film Smith has done.

As for the rest, the only one I have any real interest in watching is Miami Connection.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

I occasionally get the Yor theme stuck in my head. It's catchy, and I kind of love it.

Nice to see it included in this list.

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I've not seen it, but I absolutely love that poster. The movie has a lot to live up to. It makes me think of those cheap, super-macho pulp novels from the 70s.

The only one I've seen so far is Troll 2, and I love that. I don't agree with SC, it's not overrated. It's nowhere near as overrated as The Room. It's every bit as awesomely bad as it's made out to be. Unlike The Room. Please don't have that movie on your list.

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I may go back to hating you. It was more fun.

4. Bad Boys II

What better entry for a list of films people will probably hate by including a flick by a director most film fans loathe. Many a film fan see Bay’s films as the embodiment of what is wrong with film today. Too much CGI, characters with no personality, mindless explosions, and catered to the lowest common denominator. And after sitting through 3 Transformers movies it is hard for me to argue against it. But not everything Michael Bay does is bad. The Rock is a badass 90’s action movie and Bay made a legitimately great movie with 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. But I can’t put those on this list. While The Rock while true to Bay’s style, people actually like that movie. And 13 Hours shows that he does have the talent to be a damn good filmmaker. Problem is he seems to prefer being a mega commercial success to get him the big paychecks. So I selected for this list a film that has Bay’s cinematic tropes but in a way I actually like. Enter Bad Boys II.

Now this film has Bay’s finger prints all over. It has car chases, lots and lots of explosions, gun fights, lots of sweeping shots and fast editing, his brand of inappropriate humor that led to Bumblebee peeing on a federal agent, and really hot chicks in skimpy outfits. Add in the Transformers and we would have a pretty crappy movie. But thankfully we don’t. Instead we have the reason why this movie (and the original) work. You have two very charismatic leads. Now Will Smith is a damn fine actor and charismatic as hell in front of the camera. And his chemistry with Martin Lawrence is outstanding! The issue with Bay is he needs to get leads who have acting presence and build the action pieces off those leads. As such the action is actually fun and thrilling because I actually give a damn about the people in the movie. I don’t give two sh*ts about LeQuiff and Megan Fox in the Transformers movie, so why the hell would the action scenes matter? I gave a damn about Smith and Lawrence, I thought they played off each other very well, they were funny as hell, and while the story and plot is BS, I can give the movie a pass for being a fun ride.

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Fear and Loathing in MoFo... The Gunslinger 45's Top 50 Favorite Films

In the 10 Ring: Gunslinger45's reviews

3. Rock of Ages

Is this a bad movie? Oh dear God yes. Is this a movie that people will hate? Safe to say they will. Do I like it? Damn skippy.

This is the movie adaptation of a popular Broadway show. And if you were a fan of that show and saw this movie, you probably had a reaction similar to how I felt about Man of Steel. The movie is an incredibly poor adaptation of the stage play. It butchers the plot, minimizes certain characters, obliterates the end message, and completely changes the character of Stacey Jax so Tom Cruise does not have to play a bad guy. The end result is the film becomes a corny, formulaic, predictable, and outright generic juke box musical. Also it has Russell Brand in the movie. Always a negative.

So why do I like this movie so much? Because this is my ultimate guilty pleasure. A film legitimately bad and hated for all the right reasons, but I can’t help but like it. I don’t like it in a so bad it’s good way though. That is the strange part. There is no unintentional hilarity to this movie or over the top stupidity. There is no really funny line reads or even anything really special about it. I think my enjoyment of this movie is in part due to the music already being a guilty pleasure. I have been a metalhead for almost two decades now and have listened to many a thrash, death, traditional, and speed metal album. As such growing up hair metal was seen as not hard core enough in the metal community. For wimps and the like. And while I will say that I flat out hate a lot of hair metal bands, I like quite a few of them. And while a few of the bands I flat out do not like have music in this movie, the bands themselves don’t sing the songs; leading to an instant improvement. I don’t have to listen to Poison sing “Nothin’ but a Good Time?” Bitchin. Top it off Cruise actually did a damn good job singing. I prefer his rendition of “Paradise City” over the nasally vocal abomination that is Axel Rose. And Mary J Blige does a damn good rendition of Journey!

Top it off the movie has this weird ability to make me smile. I have no idea how but the flick just puts me in a good mood. I have watched it after a crappy day, and it made me happy again. How does it do this? I have no idea. But I know it works. If you hate this movie I get it. I really do. This movie is truly awful. But it is an awful that I seem to enjoy.

Ugh, not Bad Boys II. I don't necessarily think it's the absolute worst Bay movie but it just hurts more than any Transformers movie because I actually sort of liked the original Bad Boys so I was disappointed that this one played up all the original's worst qualities and became an interminable, aggravating mess. This is especially true of the humour, which I mainly remember for being so bad (such as Smith talking to Lawrence on-camera in a way that makes them sound like gay lovers or the bit where they tell a guy he looks like Ludacris while an actual Ludacris song plays in the background). Also, the ending rips off Police Story, so f*ck it.

Haven't seen Rock of Ages, though.

Finally seen something else. Haven't watched it since i was about 14, i used to at least really like Bad Boys 2 though so i can understand that one.

I don't think I've seen Bad Boys II. I know I saw the first one but don't remember much about it. I tried watching Rock of Ages but had to shut if off after only a few minutes to preserve my sanity.

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I liked Bad Boys II, but I actually love the first one.

Haven't seen Rock of Ages; I think I might like it.

Yup, I hated Bad Boys II.Not seen Rock of Ages, and don't want to.

2. Pink Flamingos

This movie is most certainly a cult classic. Now I know I wanted to try and minimize cult movies on this list, but this flick deserves to be here. This film is one of the big midnight movies made popular in the 70’s. The phenomenon started with El Topo, continued with Night of the Living Dead and The Harder They Come, reached its zenith with The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and reached new levels of weird with Eraserhead. Now midnight movies were repulsive to mainstream audiences and gained popularity with the midnight audience. And this movie easily earns a high spot on this list.

The movie was made by the king of bad taste John Waters. And in his early movies like Multiple Maniacs and Pink Flamingos, he was out to try and disgust and offend you. This film has profanity, violence, rape, incest, cannibalism, sadism, vomit, murder, an un-simulated blow job, exhibitionism, voyeurism, the bending of the genders, a chicken gets killed on camera, singing buttholes, a fat lady eating eggs in a crib, there is a baby selling black market geared towards lesbians, and the movie ends with a ***** eating grin. This film was designed to push all the boundaries of what was even allowed on film. Top it off the film was made on the cheap, John Waters was high when he wrote the script, and any sense of subtlety was kicked straight in the balls.



And I love this movie! Why? Because the film has all those things I listed above. John Waters is without a doubt the king of poor taste but the man is certainly not mean spirited. The movie is a campy, fun, strange and silly. And I enjoyed the ride with this strange band of characters. I liked Edie the Egg Lady, I liked Divine and Babs Johnson, Crackers is pretty funny, I really like the strange side characters like the Egg Man and the Marbles. And the film also spots a really good sound track of B-side songs from the 50’s and 60’s. All of which put together create a fantastic piece of midnight movie cinema. The film is just meant to be experienced. Just remember to keep a barf bag.

I hate Pink Flamingos. What a pile of dog *****.

I knew that was going to be your reaction.

1. Tusk

Here it is ladies and gentleman! The flick I love that most people will hate, loathe, and despise; or at the very least just not be able to connect with.

But first let me set up the back story for this flick. The release of Zack and Miri make a Porno (another film I really like) ultimately led to the huge shift in filmmaking for Kevin Smith. Now Zack and Miri was a success, but with the inclusion of Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks, the expectations of the movie were much higher than normal. Now the film was actually at the time the highest grossing Kevin Smith movie at about 31 million dollars. But that is barely above what Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Dogma made; and Smith and company were hoping to finally break out mainstream and make Judd Apatow money. Smith also became a stoner after smoking weed with Seth Rogen after the film wrapped. Now post Zack and Miri, Smith decided he wanted to try and make different films. Smith concluded he did not want to continue to try and be the director he was in the early 90’s and opted to branch out and make movies outside of his comfort zone. This lead to the flicks Cop Out (which was *****) and Red State (which I thought was good but not great). After the touring he did with Red State, Smith decided to step away from filmmaking for a bit and focus on his podcasting. As it happens when Smith records a podcast, Smith is also baked.

Now the premise of Tusk was born on a podcast. On episode 259 of SMODcast, he and his longtime friend and uber-producer Scott Mosier were reading a want ad from a site called Gumtree. The ad was for a housing arrangement in Brighton in jolly old England. The ad said that the housing arrangement would include free rent and meals with access to the entire house (save for the owner’s work shop). There was only one catch. The person who placed the ad said he spent 3 years alone on St Lawrence Island with his only companion being a walrus named Gregory When he left St Lawrence, he was very sad. The guy renting the room misses the walrus so he requires the lodger to spend two hours a day dressed like one in a “realistic walrus costume.” No talking in human speech and the lodger would have to catch and eat the fish and sea food thrown at them. Now the ad turned out to be a prank, but the wheels of creativity began to turn on the podcast that day. Smith high as a kite was inspired by the ad, and with great weed comes great creativity! By the end of the podcast Kevin and Scott had come up with the premise of the film as a horror movie. A “cuddlier version of the Human Centipede” if you will. As such Smith knocked out a script and was able to secure funding for this movie. As such began the beginning of Kevin Smith’s True North Trilogy.



Now naturally the premise is going to be enough to make most film goers ask “what in the bloody hell is this?” I mean a crazy guy turns a dude into a walrus? Not exactly gonna bring in Michael Bay money and gonna be hard as hell to sell. But Smith has never been a mainstream director; the man makes movies for his core audience. The real issue is that starting with Tusk he is now making movies he wants to see and hopes that people will stay along for the ride. Now this is pretty much the opposite of how movies are made these days. Top it off, passion projects are harder to make and sell, let alone weed induced passion projects that involve turning people into walruses. Now a passion project is a good thing; but when Scorsese makes a passion project we get The Last Temptation of Christ and Silence. Not financial hits, but certainly hits with critics. With Smith we get Tusk and Yoga Hosers. Which leads to minimal financial losses in the theater due to the low budgets and money is made on DVD, but OH BOY does he get pounded in the ass by the critics. And I am in the group that LOVES the direction Smith is going.

Kevin Smith has found a new passion for filmmaking by making his new weird low budget horror and horror/ comedy movies. And it is also going to be VERY polarizing to the man’s fan base who like his other works. All one has to do is go online and find there are tons of people who thought he hadn’t made a good movie since Chasing Amy or Clerks. And that was before Tusk. NOW those people really think he sucks. And there were those who still liked his movies like Zack and Miri, but wish he would go back to making those kind of flicks. And then you have guys like me who really like the new direction. It is like David Lynch and David Cronenberg f**ked and Tusk was the unholy butt baby abomination result, mixed in with Smith’s dialogue. It is a f**ked up and weird horror movie with some dark humor that fits the similar mold of a weird midnight movie. And I adore it! Top it off the performances are really good. Genesis Rodriguez was out of sight as Alley, Justin Long was great as the main protagonist Wallace, and Johnny Depp was a delight as the over the top French Canadian Inspector Guy LaPointe. But hands down what made the movie was the acting of Michael Parks; a man who could be as terrifying as he was funny. Parks could be outright disturbing as well as genuinely tragic and humorous. And he really steals the movie from everyone else. If anything see the film for Michael Parks.

But if you hate the movie, you know what? I get it. This is not going to be a crowd pleasing flick. This is so not for the mainstream audience. It is not going to appeal to everyone. In fact most people are not going to like it. But those who do will love it! I could have just as easily put Yoga Hosers on this list too. Don't get me wrong I love Yoga Hosers, it was one of my favorite films of 2016. But Tusk is easily my favorite of the two. Now Kevin has secured funding and will start shooting this year his third film in the True North Trilogy, Moose Jaws. Which is basically Jaws… but with a moose. It will also be the return of Jay and Silent Bob to the big screen. And I can’t wait to see that film too.

Thanks for sticking around to check the list out. I hope you enjoyed it! I certainly had fun making it.

I haven't seen Tusk, but am kind of curious about it. I hated Zack and Miri though.

I've been trying to decide whether or not I want to watch Tusk for awhile now.
This sounds relevant to my interests.

I was just curious, Gunslinger, did you see the show onstage?