Movies You've Seen Recently That Are Really Awful

This seems like a topic that's not been explored directly. What movies have you sat through recently, especially as a ticket-buying customer in a theater, that you thought were really awful?

The idea hit me after seeing Priscilla, the biopic about Priscilla Presley, that I thought was nearly unwatchable.

So what movie has done this for you?

My Mofo comments about Priscilla (posted elsewhere) follow.

I'll never get those two hours back - Priscilla, a biopic of Priscilla "Presley", The King's ex. We see the usual cast of characters that show up in Elvis movies, only it's centered around his child bride, Priscilla Beaulieu (married at age 14 to Elvis) and how she acquires that hair style I think of as "Helmet Hair". So Elvis hits it big, is surrounded by creepy sycophants and screaming teen girls, but as we know, his personal issues take him down. In the movie, he seems to be on the decline, but the movie never quite gets to that morbidly unhealthy, overweight, jump suit guy that finished his run in the mortal coil, even though the time period was when he was morbidly obese, dressed in bejeweled jump suits. Odd things seems to happen to the time sequence.

Lots of songs are bad covers. His big stage appearances are populated by casts-of-dozens. The starring cast are disappointing. "Elvis" (Jacob Elordi) mumbles so badly that I lost most of his dialog. Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla, the title role) is flat, like a second reading of the script. Everybody else in the cast seems like out of work TV ad actors. The whole movie is a bust. When it was over, my biggest concern was that I'd parked a couple blocks away and was hoping that the rain had stopped.

This is really disappointing because I have liked most of the A24 movies I have seen.

Minus two popcorns. That's a minus rating.

I went to see Five Nights at Freddy's recently - I should have my head examined going and doing that. As I left and pondered the money I'd just thrown down the toilet, I considered all of the other things I could have been doing, including watching really enjoyable movies for nothing. You give the mainstream, 'doing well at the box office' thing a whirl, and it bites you really bad. I usually look for something better, but my options were limited, and I thought it might be a bit of fun. It wasn't. When you go and do something like that, you keep on waiting for the fun to start. You're constantly thinking, "It'll pick up any minute. It'll get fun. Just let it get going." But after an hour or 70 minutes, you pretty much know nothing can redeem it from that point.

These movies are killing cinema as a thing - and I really don't want that.

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Here a screenie of what I posted about The Monitors:

Allied (2016)



Unmarked Spoilers



Everything is imperfectly perfect. Brad Pitt looks young-ish, but he doesn't quite look like Brad Pitt either. He looks like an ever so slightly melted wax figurine image of a young man. Shots are implausibly framed. A young family sits down in the grass for a picnic in front of a downed Nazi bomber with a Union Jack flag draped over the top of it. It doesn't look like a shot. It looks like a story board turned into a CGI render. Our protags meet in Casablanca during the war, because of course they do. They first make love in a wild sandstorm in the desert, because of course they do. The baby they make is born outdoors of a hospital in an area attacked during the Blitz, because of course it is. Only the most dramatic birth will do. The wife is suspected of being a German spy. Is she? Of course she is. And OMFG the saccharin ending in which the "ghost" of the woman appears via letter speaking to her baby about love and life and first steps. A real tear-jerker moment, if only we were emotionally connected with this silly melodrama.


NOTE: Pitt's character is an idiot. His wife is suspected of being a spy. He loves her. She had his kid. They're married. He's been ordered to pass along false information to her to see if she leaks it to the Germans. If she does, he's been told that he will have to kill her by his own hand or be killed as a traitor himself(!). In short, he's in a jam. Thing is, he met her as a (alleged) resistance agent who was quite capable (killing Germans with machine guns) and convincing (a great social manipulator). But he plays along with his orders and she leaks the information which puts him in the impossible position. He can't kill her, because he loves her. So, he knows that he can't kill her and he knows there's a chance she is a spy. Gee, if you talked to your wife and looped her in, what could have happened?

Quantumania was just so bad. And I’m not an anti-Marvel guy, I can get into a good Marvel movie but this was garbage.

In spite of having, against my better judgment, seen Priscilla, somehow, I've managed to avoid all of the above aside from that.

A thread like this just might be useful. It's Friday night or video night, or whatever. Aside from the list of what you DO want to see, please pass the list of what you DON'T want to see. Those two are highly complimentary. I have not even seen it, but I'd add the Taylor Swift movie to this list. I just don't need that.

A Magic Christmas (2014) The acting in it isn't very good. The performances are wooden and fall flat. The dog is by far the best actor in this. I think there was one scene that was slightly humorous and a somewhat cute interaction between a couple characters, but overall this wasn't very enjoyable or interesting. 4/10

Kiwi Christmas (2017) This isn't as funny as it should be and it isn't all that Christmasy, even though one of the characters is supposedly Santa. I didn't really care for this Santa. I liked the elves, but they didn't have much screentime. 5/10

It’s Christmas (2007) This is poorly made. The camerawork, lighting, and sound are below average. Most of the performances range from stilted and flat to being too over the top. There were a couple funny moments, but overall this isn't interesting or entertaining. I did like Santa though. 4/10

Priscilla was pretty damn bad.

Rear Window (1954)

Good grief what a stinker (with the exception of Miss Lonely Hearts).

Serious? That was one of the films they showed us in art school.

Martial art school?

Yikes. That's an old favorite that I revisit now and again. I love Stewart's staccato talky-ness, the cheerful background music and that old school bright lighting that's all over the movie. Grace Kelly is resplendent, as she swishes around in her expensive dresses. I'd hate to have Raymond Burr angry at me, especially when I'm laid up with a broken leg.

Hitchcock had a knack for making murder seem cheerful.

It's funny because I was a huge Marvel fan, then I thought the movies become awful and unwatchable, and then I watched Quantumania and thought, "Ok, given that they're barely even trying at this point (even the CGI is terrible and compares unfavorably to Jurassic Park '94) and this is really more of a Saturday matinee for kids kinda thing... Eh, I've seen worse.
So somehow my whole mindset has reset on this. From thinking that Doctor Strange was actually substandard and showed that they were slipping to the awful run of like Antman and the Wasp, Black Widow, Shang-Chi, Eternals, Thor: Love and Thunder, and DS: Multiverse of Madness to finally seeing Quantumania (on a plane) and thinking, "Eh, I mean, it's like Spy Kids or something, it's fine."

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The 2000 Grinch movie. The Whos are so unpleasant to look at that I was relieved whenever the Grinch was on screen. I feel like it should be the other way around. That and the weird fish-eye lens cinematography make the whole thing into an endurance test. There's also all the animal cruelty to the Grinch's poor dog in front of and behind the camera: there's a moment where you can tell the real dog is genuinely scared. Jim Carrey is very good as the Grinch, but it's not enough to salvage it.

Besides Carrey, the best thing to come out of it is comedian Matt Rogers' ode to Martha May Whovier NSFW:

the only movies i've seen in recent memory that i'd go as far as to say were truly awful were Axegrinder 2 & 3.

On account of the fact that I've just been rewatching movies from my personal collection, I haven't seen many bad movies lately. However some movies I've seen lately weren't as good as I remember.
-Top Gun (actually this one was sort of bad)
-Octopussy (for a Roger Moore movie this one felt...void of charm, and it just wasn't all that entertaining)
-Invasion of the Body Snatchers (even more depressing than the first time I saw it)
-Ben Hur (just didn't work for me)
-Nosferatu (not as good upon rewatch)

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Very disappointed with Juror No 2

I can take it....in moderation.
The romance part isn't convincing at all and the novelty of watching a character watching other characters doesn't justify the film's generous running time.
As for the suspense, why should I care about an unknown character killing another unknown character?
I guess that's why they kept referring to the maybe-murder in the most gruesome details because there was nothing to get excited about.
As for the last part: trying to kill the man "who knew too much" in front of an audience? It's beyond stupid.

It's so bad on so many levels, it's got zero atmosphere and the fact that James Stewart's character is the biggest creep in this story is almost completely glossed over (because, well, the murderer is worse).

Rear Window is trash.

Methinks Le Boy Wondeur lost a bet at a Christmas party, his punishment to do something to make him the least likeable and/or relatable person on a forum they frequent and in the most extravagant way imaginable. You know, really go down in flames. Buddy, you succeeded swimmingly.