by Odienator
Under Wagstaff's Watching Movies entry, kenjfuj stated that he enjoys repeat viewings of certain movies "simply because I was mad entertained by them the first time I saw them." This breaks the cardinal rule of film criticism: analysis trumps enjoyment.
As a critic, you can, without shame, admit to liking a movie because it's
a) non-linear
b) not from Hollywood
c) full of symbolism, or
d) a three-and-a-half hour flick about a sock puppet with a hole in it weeping in German about how it can still taste the foot that once inhabited it.
But god forbid you admit to liking a movie simply because it entertained you. And if you do commit that sin, you must hastily repent by calling it a "guilty pleasure." (I.e., this isn't really my taste! Honest to God, they made me like it at GUNPOINT!)
Every film critic--nay, everybody--has at least two skeletons: the one that's holding them up, and a cinematic one in their closet. It's that movie that might embarrass you if people found out you actually liked it. It is a shameful movie from your past.
I have a cemetery in my cinematic closet, and I chose to wake the dead by holding the first annual Shameful Movies of Odie's Past film festival, or SMOOP. These are movies I should be ashamed of myself for liking…but am not. After all, Shame is a stranger I have yet to know. I only called it "Shameful Movies of Odie's Past" because no respectable newspaper would run an ad for the "You Actually Liked That Shit?!" Film Festival.
The rules of my festival were:
1. Each presentation was a double feature.
2. Each film had to be on DVD, and limited to theatrical films only.
3. No Porn. This was a film festival, not a bachelor party. And Vincent Gallo might have shown up, which was the last thing I needed.
My "festival brochure" follows, but before it does I ask: what movies would you run at your own personal SMOOP, and why? Don't be shy. If I have to be ruined, I'm taking all of you with me.
SMOOP's Opening Night Feature: "Thank God Puberty Only Happens Once"
Shameful Movies: Rock and Roll High School and Porky's
Someone once wrote that you knew you were getting older when Joey Ramone started to look ugly; that person must have been born blind. Joey and his other Ramones join P.J. Soles (as Riff Randell, the greatest music fan to ever grace a screen) in the Roger Corman gem Rock and Roll High School (1979), director Allan Arkush’s antidote to Robert Zemeckis' too-cutesy I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978). The alliterative team of Randell and the repetitive rhythms of the Ramones brought Sheila the Punk Rocker to the ghetto theater of my youth. The film's climax grants one of two wishes common to every high school student, even if it's the fakest explosion since Felton Perry blew up in Magnum Force.
The literal climax of Porky's (1982) satisfies the other wish of most high schoolers—at least the guys. Before Ralphie, director Bob Clark gave us horny teenager Peewee (27-year old Dan Monahan), who "can't wait to get laid!" Though it lacks a comparable Why-I-believe-there-is-a-God moment (Phoebe Cates "releasing the twins" in Fast Times at Ridgemont High), Porky's earns its shameful place with raunch, slapstick and two unnecessary sequels. It is also, with its full frontal nude men hugging and snuggling each other, the most homoerotic teenage sex comedy ever made. Added note of shame: My cousins and I convinced my mother that Porky’s was rated R for profanity, so she was willing to buy our tickets for us when she dropped us off. As a result, I've spent the last 25 years preventing her from seeing this movie at home.
"Paul Bunyan: Exterminator"
Shameful Movies: Them! and Food of the Gods
Director Bert I. Gordon's initials were B.I.G., and so were the creatures in his movies. Food of the Gods (1976), which is supposedly based on H.G. Wells, features giant chickens, giant bees, giant rats, giant maggots…and a normal sized Ida Lupino. Actually, everything is normal sized; Mr. B.I.G.'s less than impressive camerawork supersizes the aforementioned animals through the magic of American International Pictures' cheapo F/X department. Joining Lupino, one of Hollywood's first female directors, is evangelist Marjoe Gortner, who apparently didn't heed the commandment "Thou Shalt Not Kill Big-Ass Chickens." Easily the worst movie in the festival, it's certainly not Citizen Kane. But then again, Welles' classic isn't going to satisfy your hankering for huge rats. There's only one huge rat in Kane.
In 70s horror movies, toxic waste was the catalyst for animal elephantiasis. The 50's, however, used the timely fear of "nuke-u-lur" testing to justify giant ants in Them! (1954). It's amazing that, 22 years earlier, the folks at Warners were able to create more convincing giant creatures than anything in Gods; they aren't very scary, but the noise they made became permanently etched in my brain as a kid. Them! plays its story completely straight, and is shockingly effective for it. Bonus pre-feature short: A re-enactment (by yours truly) of the infamous Muhammad Ali D-Con Roach Spray/Rat Poison commercial from the early 70's. "Roaches," said the Greatest. "I hate 'em! Knock 'em out with D-Con Four Gone!"
"Neo-Noirs of TV Stars"
Shameful Movies: The Late Show and The Hot Spot
Like her brother, Michael, Virginia Madsen brings cinematic death wherever she goes. See Altman's latest, A Prairie Home Companion, for her most recent example. If you want to be entertained, however, check out the one good movie in director Dennis Hopper's oeuvre, The Hot Spot (1990). In addition to Jennifer Connelly, who justifies my belief in God, you'll see Madsen bring the kind of death most men would be proud to endure. Hopper's film is full of steamy sex between Crockett from Miami Vice and the actress who saved HBO in the 80's, but the guiltiest pleasure occurs when Madsen's Dolly Harshaw murders her husband. During the act, Madsen, wearing a rickety Southern accent and a Victoria's Secret get-up, announces "I'm fuckin' ya ta death, George!" The rest of this neo-noir about a used car salesman in Hicksville is as overheated as that line.
Far quirkier, though equally strange, is Robert Benton's everything-but-the-kitchen-sink The Late Show (1977). Art Carney, aka Ed Norton, plays a seen-it-all gumshoe whose age is catching up with him. He has a hearing aid, he won't run after suspects for fear of a coronary, and he has little patience for his latest client, Lily Tomlin, whose seemingly easy assignment to find a missing cat turns into a surprisingly violent case of murder and deception. The Late Show is like sitting on your remote control; it flips through genres and tones with reckless abandon. Yet somehow it works, broken-down gumshoe and all. And Tomlin's refrigerator scene is a morbid classic.
The Cinterpiece: What Mildred Pierce Did
Shameful Movies: Mommie Dearest and Strait-Jacket 
In Mommie Dearest (1981), Faye Dunaway as Joan yells out "BRING ME THE AXE!!" In Strait-Jacket (1964), Joan brings the axe herself. After catching her husband, played by the Six Million Dollar Man himself, Lee Majors, in bed with another woman, Joan goes all Lizzie Borden on them. Twenty years later, somebody is chopping the heads off wax dummies masquerading as actors like George Kennedy. Is it the newly-freed asylum inmate Ms. Crawford, and if so, is this her response to Bette Davis and her axe murder movie, Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte? William Castle, the master of gimmick-filled cinema (immortalized by John Goodman in Joe Dante's 1993 must-see Matinee) handed out cardboard axes at showings of Strait-Jacket. Adding a touch best appreciated by lovers of Faye's Crawfordesque freak-out, Castle decapitates the Columbia Pictures lady as well. Crawford was married to the head of Pepsi, Columbia was once owned by Coke…hmmm. Maybe Joan is guilty of that beheading.
Satan Wears a Seatbelt
Shameful Movies: The Car and The Hitcher
You could run a cable channel on all the shameful movies of Universal's Past. Despite having the blockbuster Jaws in its orbit, Universal was committed to churning out schlock like the Airport sequels, the Sensurround classic Earthquake, and The Car, which stars the titular object, a big black car with black windshields and orange side windows, a truck horn, and a perpetual state of road rage. Said road rage may have something to do with the fact that the car's driver is Rosemary's Baby Daddy; it hits people with sadistic glee, from hippies to trumpet players to bike riders.
Sounds like a great amusement park attraction, right? The folks at Universal Studios theme park in Hollywood thought so. Gas prices may make you feel like your car has the devil in it too, so be careful what you say at the pump. This movie shows you precisely why calling Satan a "chickenshit son of a bitch" is a bad, bad, bad idea.
The Hitcher (1986) also has Satan in a car, in the guise of hitchhiker Rutger Hauer. Kicking common sense to the curb, C. Thomas Howell picks up Hauer, who proceeds to make his life unpleasant indeed. The Hitcher is so sadistic that it made Roger Ebert short-circuit, but it is too unbelievable to be taken as anything but a parable. Jennifer Jason Leigh shows up to do what she does best: be a victim. In my essay "Homosexuality and the Horror Film," I theorize that Hauer is the manifestation of the Howell character's fear of his own homosexuality. I said the same thing about Freddy Krueger in the execrable Nightmare on Elm Street 2. And Sensurround feels good on your balls.
A Little of the Old 80's Ultraviolence
Shameful Movies: Marked for Death and Commando
Commando (1985) is my favorite of the non-Terminator Ah-nold movies. Before she was as tasty as a Pepperidge Farm Milano, Alyssa Milano played Ah-nold's kidnapped daughter. Ah-nold kidnaps Tommy Chong's daughter, Rae Dawn Chong, then proceeds to kill half the state of Kah-lee-forn-ya to ensure Alyssa's future on Who's The Boss. Things to look out for: the scene where Ah-nold circumcises a guy with an ax (Joan would be proud) and the "Ut-oh! Better Get Maaco" Porsche gaffe where the Porsche Ah-nold previously flipped over is miraculously cured of all its damage.
This is the perfect companion piece to Steven Seagal's gory Marked for Death (1990) which gives us the king of the three-word titled movies (Out for Justice, Hard to Kill, Above the Law) before he got so fat that the film editor had to do his aikido moves for him. Marked is The Believers meets Hong Kong Phooey, a cartoonish horror film that's so over the top one can't help but enjoy cringing at the racial stereotypes and Live and Let Die-style voodoo mumbo-jumbo.
Closing Night: So You Think You Can Dance?
Shameful Movies: Flashdance and Hairspray
Joe Eszterhas and Adrian Lyne have each made ONE good movie. That movie is Flashdance (1983). (Yes, I know Lyne directed Fatal Attraction, but did you see the piece of shit ending to that movie?) I had no desire to see Flashdance as a teenager until one of my friends said it had "women running around with money stuck to their butts!" Flashdance's plot is the stuff of B-movie legend: Welder by day, Mawby's bar stripper by night, Jennifer Beals tries to make it as a legit dancer. She bangs a guy, asks de Lawd for forgiveness, does some freaky disrobing gymnastics with her titty coverings, and has her ass allegedly doubled by a man during the dance sequences. It all adds up to Oscar nominations for cinematography and editing, and a win for Best Song, "What A Feeling," which could have been the theme for Sensurround.
I love John Waters, which is why I saved the most shameful movie of my past for last. Hairspray is PG-rated, which by itself should be a sin for Waters fans. Yet, looking closer, it has everything you could expect from Baltimore's Bad Boy. There's puke, pimples, ridiculous hairstyles (one of which holds a bomb), inspired casting (Sonny Bono, Ruth Brown and Deborah Harry), crazy character names (Amber Van Tussle, Penny Pingleton, Tracy Turnblad), Divine, a love of the underdog, and terrible fashion (Ricki Lake makes the greatest entrance ever, dressed in an outfit covered with big, embroidered roaches).
It all centers around the Corny Collins dance show and its refusal to allow Black people on it save for one day a year. Lake and her buddies want to change that, and go about it using the power of every gimmicky 60's dance there is. Only John Waters could propose electroshock treatment as a cure for jungle fever, have Jerry Stiller married to Divine, and have a guy unzipping his zipper during a dance number on national TV. Sure, it became a big, Tony-winning musical, but not even that can match the candy-colored lunacy of seeing future talk show host Lake ironing her hair and dancing "The Roach." It's everything a shameful movie of one’s past can be.
Friday, June 16, 2006
Watching Movies: Shameful Movies of Odie's Past
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58 comments:
Oooh! I was just partaking in the might of FLASHDANCE this afternoon, and talking about John Waters last night. Signs of the ApOdielypse?
Fer sure ~mang~.
(I didn't know Dan Monahan was 27 when he made PORKY'S.)
This is the funniest thing I've read all week:
a three-and-a-half hour flick about a sock puppet with a hole in it weeping in German about how it can still taste the foot that once inhabited it.
Thanks, Odie.
Is now the time to offer up my guilty pleasure double feature: I LOVE TROUBLE and GREASE 2?
My picks:
THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER (1981) -- Lee Horsley wielding a triple-bladed sword, Richard Moll as the sorcerer and Kathleen Beller as the damsel in distress
INDEPENDENCE DAY (1996)
XANADU (1980) -- Magic!
ORCA (1977) -- If Richard Harris doesn't want to get eaten by the vengeful whale, why doesn't he move away from the coast?
WYATT EARP (1994) -- Which I persist in defending, despite having met almost nobody who could stand it
IMMORTAL BELOVED (1995) -- Boy, did I catch flak for recommending this one, but hell, it moved me.
TLRHB: Is now the time to offer up my guilty pleasure double feature: I LOVE TROUBLE and GREASE 2?
Grease 2. Full of such wonderful song lyrics as:
"RE-PRO-DUC-TION! REPRODUCTION! Put your pollen tube to work!"
and
"Let's do it for our country, our country wants us tooooo!"
As for the sock puppet, it was crucial that he have a hole in him, to show how life as a foot covering has worn him down. And it was equally important he weep in German, because German movies are NEVER happy.
Ross: I have been practicing telepathy. I'm sending my random thoughts to people. That's why you were watching Flashdance and talking about John Waters. It could have been worse. You could have been on my Food of the Gods frequency.
MZS: XANADU (1980) -- Magic!
"Hafta believe we are maaaa-gic.
Nothin' can stand in our way!"
You could have outshamed me if you paired Xanadu with Thank God It's Friday or even better, The Apple.
THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER (1981) -- Lee Horsley wielding a triple-bladed sword, Richard Moll as the sorcerer and Kathleen Beller as the damsel in distress
Any movie with Matt Houston AND Bull from Night Court certainly belongs here! Richard Moll at one point seemed to corner the market on appearing in those bad Empire Pictures movies. You should pair that with the Demi Moore 3-D horror crapfest, Parasite!
There's one scene in Immortal Beloved that REALLY blew me away visually, but other than that, I thought the movie was torture to sit through. You could run that with the Ken Russell movie, the one that has people's heads exploding to the 1812 Overture...
I have nothing to add to this other than that is picture of Jon Waters creeps me out. His eyes follow me wherever I move in the rom.
Sorry for the semi-illiteracy of that post. I'm currently heavily medicated.
ORCA (1977) -- If Richard Harris doesn't want to get eaten by the vengeful whale, why doesn't he move away from the coast?
Like that would have mattered! Orca would have rang his bell and eaten him when he answered the door, just like the LandShark on Saturday Night Live. And Harris would deserve it too, because he sang MacArthur Park.
Matt, I LOVE Wyatt Earp, and here's hoping Kasdan keeps releasing longer versions every few years. That movie is horribly underrated. As underrated as DANCES WITH WOLVES is horribly, well, just horribly.
Oh, and Odie, don't rank on the PARK. Or have you never felt love's hot fevered iron like a striped pair of pants?
TLRHB: Or have you never felt love's hot fevered iron like a striped pair of pants?
Penicillin is a good cure for love's hot fevered iron, you know.
Matt, I too liked Wyatt Earp.
Another shameful movie of my past is the disturbed ambulance movie Mother, Jugs and Speed, which stars Bill Cosby, Raquel Welch and Harvey Keitel. You can figure out who plays whom in the title, but suffice it to say the Cos doesn't play "Jugs."
You can also hear Dr. Huxtable say "shit" before beating the shit out of people.
MJ&S is full of jarring swings from very low slapstick comedy to tragic violence, and it barely works. Yet practically every medical show on TV nowadays owes some kind of debt to this mess, as does (and this is surely blasphemy) Scorsese's Bringing Out the Dead.
Aside of the year: "Sensurround feels good on your balls."
Talk about a company slogan that should have been.
A brave, excellent list, Odienator. Though at least with the people I've talked to over the years Them! is held to be the best of the giant-bug movies. Faint praise, perhaps--but everybody agrees the opening scene with the little girl is excellent.
I’ll keep to your double-feature rule (Matt: I’d line yours up Xanadu/Immortal Beloved; Orca/Sword and the Sorcerer; Wyatt Earp/Independence Day), but I’ll limit myself to a three-day festival:
HOLOCAUST 2000 and THE MANITOU
You know when you’re watching a stupid horror film with some friends and they’re all laughing and riffing on the bad dialogue and worse acting, and you’re chuckling along to fit in but really you wish they’d turn the video off and suggest going out for a beer because despite yourself this piece of crap movie is giving you the creeps? Well, I do, and here are two genuinely awful films that manage to make my stomach flop with fear.
The first is an incoherent OMEN rip-off with Kirk Douglas building a nuclear power plant in the Middle East, his plans hampered by activist opposition, assassins gunning for his wife, and the dawning awareness that he’s fated to father the Anti-Christ. The “signs” pointing to the Apocalypse are laughably telegraphed, but they get under my skin every time. And there’s an incredibly poor effects shot of a rubber-headed Beast of the Apocalypse rising from the ocean that I blush to admit gives me the shivers to this day.
THE MANITOU has a gloopy medicine man crawling out of a boil on Susan Strasberg’s neck only to sit cross-legged on the hospital floor and stare down Tony Curtis with his evil, glowing eyes. I know, I know, but for me? Brrrr. In contrast, the hand-wielded laser-blasts finale is just good, clean MST3K fun.
INTO THE NIGHT and GUNMEN
Call it the “Guns Don’t Kill People, People Kill People…With Guns” double-feature. Landis’s best film (yeah, I said it) is that rarities of rarities, a genuinely weird Hollywood product; at times it feels like AFTER HOURS after a West Coast transposition and some quick script doctoring. The high-gloss mid-‘80s esthetic coats every incongruous bit—the goofy laughs, the shocking (since so out-of-place) violence—with the same disturbing sheen. If Michael Mann ever tries his hand at screwball comedy, it’ll look a lot like this.
While GUNMEN simply dials all the amps up to ten and lets loose. Everything’s gleefully over-the-top here, from Lambert and Van Peeples’s macho bonding (at one point they each shoot one other in the leg, grimace a bit, then limp off as if they’d done no more than bang their shins on a low table) to the copious steals…uh, homages to every spaghetti western ever made. Even the amount of money waiting at the end of the rainbow is ridiculously outsized: $400 million dollars to split two ways. None of those pathetic 10-figure paydays for our boys.
MALICE and THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE
Underrated actors in (for me) their defining moments. Say Alec Baldwin and most everybody stares intently, thrusts out their finger, and barks out “Third prize is you’re fired” in their huskiest rumble; a handful have fond memories of MIAMI BLUE’s ill-fated sociopath Freddy Frenger; but for me it’s his petulant, monstrously egotistical defense before the investigative board (“You think I have a God complex? Let me tell you something: I am God.”) that shows off Baldwin at his best. He brings just the right level of black-comic absurdity needed to keep this exuberantly twisted noir—one of the nastiest in the genre, which is saying something—on the rails. (As does Harold Becker, one of my favorite mainstream directors.)
While Reeves’s engaging, unforced credulity—crucial as well to THE MATRIX, LITTLE BUDDHA, and so many more—allows you entry to THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE despite one of the least suspenseful setups in film history. And he remains as charmingly ardorous with his female leads and as charmingly besotted by his male superiors as ever. Sure, the big moment in the film is Pacino’s last-reel rant on the many ways it sucks to be Satan; but even Big Al needs an audience, and Reeves proves a supremely attentive one.
Can't share the Wyatt Earp love developing in these comments, exactly, though I do think it's just as underrated as it is overlong.
Matt: "Talk about a company slogan that should have been."
I like Rutger Hauer (and The Hitcher, for that matter) just fine, but if they'd been using that slogan back in the '70s I'd now have a permanent subconscious association between my balls and George Segal riding a Rollercoaster. Which, just, no.
This is starting to get tricky. I keep thinking of movies, like Rollercoaster in sensurround and then saying, wait a minute, that's really good. Can it be that I'm guilt-free? So, in somewhat descending order: Westworld, Roadhouse, anything with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Dracula: Dead and Loving It, my counter to Them!, Tarantula, any of the Matt Helm movies, which are pretty awful, but have plenty of babes, boozing, and driving. A signature Dean Martin moment occurs in one of these, I can't remember which one. A hotel door opens, and out comes a cocktail, followed by Matt Helm, who emerges staggering after the drink that's held by his own hand! I'll round this out with Cannonball Run "I can't see shit, can you?" "No problem, bud, no problem," and a theater that is empty, except for me and Chief Wiggum watching Tron.
Shameful movies from my past: well, slasher flicks, for one. And I'm not talking about just the various Friday the 13th flicks (although I've never seen Part VIII onward). I'm also talking about other low-grade flicks like Happy Birthday to Me, The Burning, The Prowler, and other cinematic atrocities. What can I say, except that I was really, really young when I saw these flicks, and I guess I must have grooved on the exploitative gore at the time; it just seemed "cool" to me, exciting even. If I ever have the nerve to revisit these trashy flicks again, who knows? Maybe I'll find them "cool" once again (although, after seeing films like A History of Violence which at least attempts to pose tough moral questions about violence, I rather doubt it).
Violence pops up in another shameful movie of my past that I'll mention here: Renny Harlin's Cliffhanger. Harlin's Die Hard 2 was discussed briefly in the comments section for Wagstaff's "Watching Movies," but that film's death-by-icicle scene can't top the mindless celebration of sadism into which Cliffhanger degenerates after a pretty awesome first hour or so. Intellectually, I know that I should probably be appalled that anyone would find it "entertaining" to see Leon get heroically skewered on a stalactite by Sylvester Stallone, and to see Craig Fairbrass kick Michael Rooker around like a soccer ball in a protracted torture sequence. And yet, I have to admit: I was entertained. Still am sometimes, though I'm more disturbed about it these days. In its own crude and meanspirited way, it makes you despise the villains and cheer for their gory demises---thus, it works. Harlin, talented but soulless action director that he is, certainly delivers the blood we so desperately seek. And the scenery is just so darn beautiful to look at. Its violence is probably morally indefensible, but does it say something about either the movie or my taste when I admit that I still sometimes revisit Cliffhanger not just to gawk at the mountain scenery, and not just to revisit the film's lone brilliant sequence, its opening twelve-minute nailbiter---but also to watch Leon get skewered all over again and to see Craig Fairbrass pay dearly for subjecting Hal (and us) to his brand of football hooligan torture? Shameful indeed. (I'm not a violent person, believe me!)
Bruce: if they'd been using that slogan back in the '70s I'd now have a permanent subconscious association between my balls and George Segal riding a Rollercoaster.
It could be worse: you could have made the association between your balls and Chuck Heston trying to outrun an Earthquake. Every time I go to Universal in Florida, I get on that stupid Earthquake ride, too. Why am I trying to recapture my wasted youth?!
I can't share your love of Into the Night, as it was #1 on my ten worsts list that year and holds a place on my all time worsts list.
The Manitou--I remember seeing that the same day I saw FM. The only thing I remember about FM was the theme song by Steely Dan (I love Steely Dan, but that's a shameful conversation for another time). As for the Manitou, isn't that chick topless when she's shooting lasers out of her hands?
Wagstaff, how could I, a computer programmer and former avid gamer, forget Tron?! The game was better than the movie, though. :)
Kenjfuj: A History of Violence is to violence as Crash is to racism. Even though I liked History (and disliked Crash) I still say that its attempt to make you feel bad about violence in movies is pure, utter bullshit. It, like Crash, is designed to make you feel better about yourself by stacking the deck in an unrealistic manner. In fact, I think History CELEBRATES violence out one side of its mouth while it condemns you for liking it out the other. Well, as I said earlier "shame is a stranger I have yet to know." (Thank you, George Michael, for giving me that lyric to paraphrase...)
I refuse to repent for enjoying some of the violent slasher/horror movies of my adolescence. I love Night of the Creeps and the remake of The Blob. I even like the first Friday the 13th and can appreciate the blatant Twitch of the Death Nerve ripoff that is F13 Part 2. You will have to be ashamed for both of us!
odienator: hey, I totally understand what you're saying about History of Violence. "Attempts" was the key word I used in my comment regarding what the film at least tries to convince us it does. I have mostly the same reservations you do, especially with its faux-subversive ending. For all its graphic gore, though, I don't see it as a celebration of violence---certainly not in the same way that the Friday the 13th films are, which is why I threw out A History of Violence as a counterexample. It's not a total indictment of the kind of violence we usually see in usual Hollywood action thrillers---I suppose it has to satisfy certain requirements of its genre while trying to criticize it, which is probably the film's biggest problem, for me---but I don't see its violent scenes as glamorized or anything. (But then, David Cronenberg, with his surgical precision, isn't one to glamorize much.)
(Maybe I should have thrown out Munich instead of History...)
But hey, more power to you for refusing to feel shame for enjoying your "shameful movies"! Maybe if I got off my high horse, I'd just simply admit to everyone, yeah, I'm a guy, and as a guy I sometimes enjoy watching indefensible sadistic violence in my movies.
Why should anyone feel the slightest shame over the genuinely good, respectably reviewed THE LATE SHOW or HAIRSPRAY? We're not talking LIFEFORCE or HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH here, to name just two shameful flicks I'm not ashamed to love.
Sure, you guys have plenty to be ashamed about, but I'm still trying to dig down and find that film that truly makes me blush. Maybe something De Laurentiis like FLASH GORDON, no, I love that. Or all those Golan-Globus productions from the 80's. When you saw their logo at the beginning of a movie, you knew it was the mark of excellence. I have a friend who is still steamed that I made him watch Sgt. Bilko with Steve Martin. Now every time I choose a movie, the last thing I hear is "It'd better not be Bilko." I still kinda like it, but when my friend looks at me ..I ..I feel so ashamed!
I find it hard to apologize for schlock -it's those middlebrow pictures that we liked that seem more embarrassing. So all in all, I think I'm in pretty good shape here, but some of you guys, however...
GREASE 2?, IMMORTAL BELOVED??, DEVIL'S ADVOCATE??? -X-X-XAN..X-X-XANA(I can't even say it.) I'm getting a bad feeling about this. We are all penned up in this thread like sitting ducks making guilty confessions. Any moment now, I expect to hear a voice screamming across a walkie-talkie "Pull your men out of there! It's a trap!"
RC: We're not talking LIFEFORCE or HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH here
Oh no! I've got that stupid Silver Shamrock song stuck in my head! Make it stop!!!
Wagstaff: Or all those Golan-Globus productions from the 80's. When you saw their logo at the beginning of a movie, you knew it was the mark of excellence.
(Cut to: Odie's jaw falling on the floor, Tex Avery style.)
WHAT?!! Are you talking about the Cannon Group, which is one letter off from The CANNOT Group? Unless you're only counting Runaway Train, methinks you meant to say the mark of "excrement," not "excellence!"
Did you know that the makers of XANAX called it XANAX because "we wanted users to feel like they just got finished watching XANADU?" Olivia Newton-John even did a commercial where she was singing "XANAX DU! XANAX DU-OOO-OOO..." No wonder Xanax made me sick!
OK, I kinda made that up. And yes, Wagstaff, this thread will be used for blackmail purposes by Harvey Weinstein.
Odie, saying RUNAWAY TRAIN cues my Voight imitation, with finger extended "..and I'm gonna polish that little spot." Uh, did I say excellence? Um..er..of course, excrement, that's what I meant. Jeez, you guys will like anything. I've lost all respect for you as critics.
Odie: Great article and such an inspiring subject! Adrian Lyne made at least one other good film, as far as I'm concerned... Jacob's Ladder. Feel free to disagree, but I'm really fond of that one.
Bruce Reid: You're not alone in your appreciation for Into the Night! As a matter of fact, I had Ed Okin pop up in my latest article, which features quite a list of neglected movie characters like him. You wouldn't happen to be the same Bruce Reid who used to visit BrianDePalma.discussion, by any chance? If so: missed you, man. You were one of my favorite posters there. Please drop a note at the 24LiesASecond forum some time, will you?
Another perhaps indefensible film I admire, shamefully (and shamelessly) is Richard Fleischer's beautifully crafted, utterly warped MANDINGO (1975), a real jaw-dropper from the pre-ROOTS era. I wish I had seen last week's screening and "CinemaChat" about it at the BAM Rose Cinemas here in Brooklyn. The sequel, DRUM, has its adherents--but it doesn't have the vividly, almost crazily, lascivious Susan George, or James Mason using child slaves as foot stools (!). He later apologized, to the National Enquirer of all places, for appearing in such a film, using the "I needed the money" excuse.
I have always secretly enjoyed any of the "JAWS" sequels. Beautiful ocean views, balmy breezes, an interesting array of A to B(and even lesser) actors, plus a cold, calculating and single-minded nemesis with rows of never-ending razor sharp teeth and an ill fitting rubber shark-skin suit. Pure slack-jawwed fun.
As for MZS's "Xanadu"; Daaaadgum, man! First, you NEVER talk about Fight Club, and second, you NEVER admit to "Xanadu!" Geesh! I'm a girl and even I know that!
Duffy: XANADU played at the Inwood Theater in Dallas back when it was still a single screen movie house with a balcony. I was madly in love with Olivia Newton-John and had just discovered the pleasures of Gene Kelly, courtesy of my mom, a musicals buff. So seeing them dance together -- the only sequence in the movie that evoked anything like the old musical magic -- was kind of a cross-generational, transformational psychic event. I felt a deep connection to my mother, and my grandparents, who introduced my mother to that art form. I am glad I saw it, roller disco absurdity aside. (It's such a sweet movie, though -- sweet and trashy, an unusual combination.)
PS -- FIGHT CLUB is a great movie, one that would go nicely on a double bill with Mary Harron's amazing AMERICAN PSYCHO. Essentially a comedy, a fact lost on its mostly humor-impaired detractors. And if anybody says different, I'll fight 'em.
Peet, I can understand some people's love of Jacob's Ladder. I think it would have been better served by someone more serious about their imagery, like David Lynch. Lyne is like Tony Scott in that he can't seem to avoid succumbing to his weakness for the flashy, the noisy and the shiny.
RC: Another perhaps indefensible film I admire, shamefully (and shamelessly) is Richard Fleischer's beautifully crafted, utterly warped MANDINGO (1975)
I saw MANDINGO at the Stanley Theater in Jersey City. It's the only movie I saw there. Soonafter, they closed it down, and now it's a huge Kingdom Hall.
I remember Mr. Bentley, before he was perpetually aggravating George Jefferson, examining slaves for piles and checking their equipment. I also remember that James Mason gave it his all, and that Susan George was her usual annoying, whiny "somebody please shoot her" self.
Duffy: You have information about a certain poster here...perhaps we can make a deal. Find out a truly shameful movie of his. I'll make it worth your while. :)
Matt, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's ghost is rewriting Kubla Khan for you:
"In Xanadu, Matt Zoller Seitz
A shameful movie did decree..."
I'm gonna keep my mouth shut about Fight Club (it's rule #1, people!), except to say that I am not even CLOSE to the audience type for this movie. If I want to relive getting the shit beaten out of me, I'll call my mother.
Lyne is like Tony Scott in that he can't seem to avoid succumbing to his weakness for the flashy, the noisy and the shiny.
There's very little flashy, noisy and shiny about Jacob's Ladder, though. It plays like a requiem immersed in nightmare. But hey, different strokes for different folks! :)
Fight Club is most certainly a comedy, albeit mighty black, until it runs off the rails in the final reel. Still, no reason to feel even a twinge of guilt for laughing throughout the film up until that point.
Peet: There's a sadness and vulnerability to JACOB'S LADDER that gives it a heft not found in Lyne's other movies (except maybe the first half of FATAL ATTRACTION, which I thought was quite honest and funny -- particularly the hot/awkward sex scenes).
Dan: The final third of FIGHT CLUB repeats itself and is needlessly protracted (particularly the fight in the parking garage), but that ending, with the Pixies song wailing in the background, really worked for me. Fincher has a lot of problems as a director, but I think he delivers socko endings.
Might I suggest you run Fight Club with another shameful movie of Odie's Past, Paul Newman's 1977 hockey cussfest Slap Shot? I'll come by for that half of the double feature!
Killer Workout, a.k.a. Aerobocide, which involves, you guessed it, aerobics, bodybuilding, and lots of suspicious deaths. Actually, I'm not even sure if "like" is the correct word for what I feel about this movie, it's more like a perpetual state of gleeful amazement at how bad it is.
A second page from the same book, China O'Brien, which features both a martial-artist police officer out to avenge the death of her father (a police officer before her) and two deaths by car explosion within five minutes of each other. With, you know, the second victim well aware of the first.
Bruce, good Baldwin picks, but now I'm always associating him with Tenenbaums. An inspired choice for voiceover on that one.
Odienator, I have in my possession two old VHS tapes that might interest you. They are well-worn, obviously well loved and are kept neatly tucked away behind the porn. Mind you, these are not my property, but belong to that certain poster previously mentioned. Tape 1: The Last Starfighter, Enemy Mine, and Ice Pirates. Tape 2: Under the Rainbow, The Big Bus, and Scavenger Hunt. Oh, the shame of it all! Now, about that deal....
_Ladyhawke_ and _WarGames_. Movies about the dangers of absolute authority, and how you're never too young or too old to bring such authority crashing down. Or you could label them the underappreciated movies of Matthew Broderick. Whichever you prefer. The WOPR's recent appearance in an AT&T warmed the cockles of heart.
_Old School_ and _Road Trip_. Actually funny modern college movies. The former the best of the movies produced by the Wilson brothers, Vince Vaughn, Todd Phillips comedy crew -- a movie that starts somewhere in the second act and ends before the end of the third. The latter is simply one of the most sex positive comedies in years. (Scroll down on both Savage Love columns.)
_Cutter's Way_ and _My Summer of Love_. I realize that these may seem more highbrow than the other movies listed, and its probably not considered shameful to like them, _but_...I think I only like them because they are beautifully shot movies. Isn't it a little shameful when all you can say is "Sure, they're not particularly compelling movies, but they're so _pretty_"?
Anon
Duffy: Tape 1: The Last Starfighter, Enemy Mine, and Ice Pirates. Tape 2: Under the Rainbow, The Big Bus, and Scavenger Hunt. Oh, the shame of it all! Now, about that deal....
Wow! That's the jackpot! Ice Pirates?!! The Big Bus?! Isn't that the movie with the radioactive bus filled with has been celebrities?!
You have exceeded expectations! Your bribe money (in cash) will be delivered by the GromperGronk.
tuwa: A second page from the same book, China O'Brien,
China O'Brien--isn't that the one with the woman who was in the topless karate movie? That one was called Firecracker, I think, and if I remembered anything else besides the ta-ta filled ass whippings, it might qualify for a shameful movie of my past.
Anon: I love Ladyhawke and WarGames. The programmer in me can't help but love WarGames! I certainly don't consider that shameful!
And Aerobicide...I can see Richard Simmons in it, killing people with Deal-a-Meal cards or his T.M.I. short shorts.
odienator--I missed Firecracker, I'm afraid, though I've seen plenty of other horrible films I enjoyed at the time enough to shame me now.
And no: in Aerobocide the killing implement in at least one of the scenes was a giant baby pin. The Deal-a-Meal cards would have been more clever, but the shorts as murder weapon are almost too horrifying to contemplate. It probably would have produced a real-world Ringu.
I'd have to go with Hannibal.
Those Lector movies certainly jumped the rails with it, and I loathe Red Dragon, partially because it pretends Manhunter doesn't exist, and partially since its just plain boring.
I can't think of any good reasons to like Hannibal. It was one of the first films that I followed the development online, and when it was released in theatres, a group of friends headed out, saw it, and the response was pretty much "well that sucked." I was the only one who followed that up with "but I loved it."
Mainly it is the middle section with Giancarlo Giannini doing an inept cat and mouse with Hopkins under production values Dario Argento could only dream of. I do love that, and frankly wouldn't mind seeing Clarice cut out of the film altogether, cutting the Il Mostro stuff back in, and releasing an 85 minute film. With all the extras on the DVD, I could probably do that too.
But then I'd miss the brain eating scene. I think Scott handles that the only way it could be. He takes it seriously, but the absurdity speaks for itself.
Theres got to be a good double header for Hannibal, I just can't think of it. Cheers.
James: Personally,I'd like to show HANNIBAL right after THE SANDLOT, just to see if anybody comes.
I would even argue that Porky's and The Hitcher are actually pretty good films, at least my critical capacity as a pre-teen judged them accordingly. A good art class will ask you to explore and reveal something you love but are at the same time embarrased by, so, there you go. Good list.
Ugh, I hate to be the guy to do this, but Divine doesn't play duel roles in Multiple Maniacs, she does it in Female Trouble. Great list though. I think John Waters' movies are only truly shameful to those who hate John Waters.
Wagstaff: "I still kinda like [Sgt. Bilko], but when my friend looks at me ..I ..I feel so ashamed!"
Hell, coming as it did after a string of awful family comedies it seemed a return to form for Steve Martin, and I enjoyed it myself. Plus, I like that the plot unapologetically hinges on Bilko and his men defrauding the government and milking the American taxpayer for a worthless...um, tank? It's been awhile.
odienator: "As for the Manitou, isn't that chick topless when she's shooting lasers out of her hands?"
Yes, which is perfectly logical. Anyone caught in a mystical laser-tag match with a midget shaman would quickly realize you want as little upper-body constriction as possible.
Robert Cashill: "We're not talking LIFEFORCE or HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH here, to name just two shameful flicks I'm not ashamed to love."
Fine films both, and I give extra credit to HALLOWEEN III for attempting to break the curse of sequelitis. I wish the original concept of a new story each year or so under the HALLOWEEN banner had worked out.
Then again, apropos the topic, I rather like HALLOWEEN H20.
Peet (nifty article by the way): "You wouldn't happen to be the same Bruce Reid who used to visit BrianDePalma.discussion, by any chance?"
Yep. A terrific forum for those who don't know.
"Please drop a note at the 24LiesASecond forum some time, will you?"
Will do.
Matt: "There's a sadness and vulnerability to JACOB'S LADDER that gives it a heft not found in Lyne's other movies...."
True. Though he does (as Odienator put it) "the flashy, the noisy and the shiny" best in the frankly ludicrous INDECENT PROPOSAL, which could have been a great film (well, ok, great fun at least) if he'd gotten Redford to be sleazier.
Tuwa: "I'm always associating [Baldwin] with Tenenbaums. An inspired choice for voiceover on that one."
He was. A more recent moment of Baldwin brilliance: his marvelously defeated, exasperated "Fuck!" in The Aviator.
And AEROBOCIDE (or KILLER WORKOUT; this might be the one case where a film goes by two titles and they're both good) sounds a must-see, at least to this GYMKATA fan.
Matt: "Personally,I'd like to show HANNIBAL right after THE SANDLOT, just to see if anybody comes."
I've been saying for years the one great flaw in recent kids' films is a distinct lack of exposed brains.
Wagstaff: "I still kinda like [Sgt. Bilko], but when my friend looks at me ..I ..I feel so ashamed!"
Hell, coming as it did after a string of awful family comedies it seemed a return to form for Steve Martin, and I enjoyed it myself. Plus, I like that the plot unapologetically hinges on Bilko and his men defrauding the government and milking the American taxpayer for a worthless...um, tank? It's been awhile.
odienator: "As for the Manitou, isn't that chick topless when she's shooting lasers out of her hands?"
Yes, which is perfectly logical. Anyone caught in a mystical laser-tag match with a midget shaman would quickly realize you want as little upper-body constriction as possible.
Robert Cashill: "We're not talking LIFEFORCE or HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH here, to name just two shameful flicks I'm not ashamed to love."
Fine films both, and I give extra credit to HALLOWEEN III for attempting to break the curse of sequelitis. I wish the original concept of a new story each year or so under the HALLOWEEN banner had worked out.
Then again, apropos the topic, I rather like HALLOWEEN H20.
Peet (nifty article by the way): "You wouldn't happen to be the same Bruce Reid who used to visit BrianDePalma.discussion, by any chance?"
Yep. A terrific forum for those who don't know.
"Please drop a note at the 24LiesASecond forum some time, will you?"
Will do.
Matt: "There's a sadness and vulnerability to JACOB'S LADDER that gives it a heft not found in Lyne's other movies...."
True. Though he does (as Odienator put it) "the flashy, the noisy and the shiny" best in the frankly ludicrous INDECENT PROPOSAL, which could have been a great film (well, ok, great fun at least) if he'd gotten Redford to be sleazier.
Tuwa: "I'm always associating [Baldwin] with Tenenbaums. An inspired choice for voiceover on that one."
He was. A more recent moment of Baldwin brilliance: his marvelously defeated, exasperated "Fuck!" in The Aviator.
And AEROBOCIDE (or KILLER WORKOUT; this might be the one case where a film goes by two titles and they're both good) sounds a must-see, at least to this GYMKATA fan.
Matt: "Personally,I'd like to show HANNIBAL right after THE SANDLOT, just to see if anybody comes."
I've been saying for years the one great flaw in recent kids' films is a distinct lack of exposed brains.
I don't know, Lyne has Lolita, and though it's a remake and because of that I can't give myself over to it completely, it's a film that, because social morays relaxed enough to cast an actual teenager, had something to add to the adaptation, without necessarily taking away from what Kubrick had done.
And Jacob's Ladder is good too man, though that may owe more to (Bruce Rubin's) script and it's singular structure. It allowed for the entire film to porously weave in and out of the surreal/demonic without anyone having to constantly wake up out of bed. (That is, if you believe as I do, that the film happened while Tim Robbin's character is still at war, on the stretcher, dying).
I like Joe Vs. The Volcano and am a little shy about liking it. Nice and quirky, I guess.
Okay. More on Porky's and The Hitcher. I think I probably saw both of them on TV as a BetaMax rental (that we got to keep cause no one rented Beta anymore) when I was maybe 14. The poignant Porky's dialogue/character moment for me was when the biker guy comes back to school after the fight and the other guy who fought him said something like there's no way I could have done all that and his friend was like you didn't, his dad beat his ass when he found out he lost a fight to a Jew.
I think people who think of Porky's, in addition to male nude penis line ups and tits, think of this scene as well. And it gets you, or it got me.
What got me in The Hitcher is when C. Thomas Howel is being detained by the cops and they're laying into him and then one gets up and as an aside tells the other cop something like look there's no way this kid killed anybody, and the other cop agreed. I loved that they just knew, I feel like it gave those two parts some knowing subtext and maturity, that you don't always find in slasher films. Rutger Hauer also had a a great time fucking around in that role, and even if it was one note, it was a great note.
Greetings from airport hell, everybody.
I have been trapped in a plane (minus snakes, which would have been great!) for almost 2 hours, and now I am back on the concourse waiting for another plane that's been delayed 2 hours! I bet my luggage goes to Timbuktu.
Anyway, a few comments:
Matt, I would come for The Sandlot portion of your double feature, but you'd have to do a Clockwork Orange on me to get me to sit there and watch Hannibal.
Bryan, I love Joe vs. the Volcano, so you have a partner in shame. As for Porky's, I remember that scene too, and I always ask: Why is that in here? I mean, did they show tits and dick in Gentleman's Agreement? It just seemed out of place (but it's not a bad scene).
Bruce, you have done something amazing. Your Manitou analysis singlehandedly justified why more movies need to show breasts--and more laser throwing short people. Somebody get this guy the Nobel Prize!
And a big oops for my Waters mistake. Multiple Maniacs is the one with Divine and the lobser, n'est-ce pas?
Still here at the airport. I'm waiting for them to say "The red zone is for..." I will pass out from laughter.
Wagstaff: I love the 1980 FLASH GORDON, too. And you know what? It's intentional camp, very good at what it does. Continuing my double feature fetish, I'd pair it up with BARBARELLA, or maybe GUNMEN.
Matt, I haven't seen GUNMEN, but BARBARELLA would indeed make a good double feature with FLASH GORDON. They have a similar look and feel.
And Odie, I have no idea who that blackmailed poster is, but I will boldy defend THE BIG BUS. Find me a better movie about a nuclear-powered bus that's also filled with has-been celebrities. C'mon, I dare ya.
Wagstaff: BARBARELLA would indeed make a good double feature with FLASH GORDON. They have a similar look and feel.
(singing)
"FLASH...AHHHH-AHHHHHHHH!"
I'd pair BARBARELLA with Barb Wire (I didn't like either of them) because both have strip numbers at the beginning. We can edit both of the strip numbers with footage from ol' Laser & Tits herself from the Manitou.
I'm down with JOE VS. THE VOLCANO; I think its main crime is being sweet and laid back on a big budget, an error in judgment that befell another Hollywood belly flop I rather enjoyed, HUDSON HAWK.
(...he said, waiting for lightning to strike him dead. Nope. No lightning. Not yet anyway.)
Both movies are completely idiosyncratic grab-bags of scenes and moments, tending towards winsome or weird, rarely scoring belly laughs, and displaying not the slightest interest in traditional notions of excitement. But so what? They have a temperament, a personality, that more businesslike blockbusters lack. I get the same enjoyment from them that I got watching W.C. Fields, the Hope-Crosby road movies, and late period Marx Brothers (stuff like GO WEST and THE BIG STORE, when the air started to leak out of the balloon, but they were still funny and you were always glad to see them -- to paraphrase some famous critic, I think it was James Agee, the worst thing the Marxes could do would be more worth seeing than almost anything else I could imagine).
Wagstaff: GUNMEN is worth seeing. It's a loving sendup of spaghetti westerns, TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE and jungle adventure pictures, starring Mario Van Peebles and Christopher Lambert. Great sound design joke halfway through: that jungle bird you always hear, the one that goes, "Eee eee eee eee aa aa aa aa aa" gets called out by Van Peebles for being unrecognizable. "What the fuck is that?" he demands of Lambert. "Is it dangerous?"
MZS: an error in judgment that befell another Hollywood belly flop I rather enjoyed, HUDSON HAWK.
(...he said, waiting for lightning to strike him dead. Nope. No lightning. Not yet anyway.)
(Odie appears in the sky over Brooklyn, like Mae Questel in New York Stories. Raising his pimpstick, he hits a thundercloud, knocking the Care Bears on their asses in the process)
Matt: (outside, singing) Wouldja like to swing on a star...
BLAM!!!!
You are certainly outdoing me in this category! But I'll trump you by watching The First Nudie Musical!
Re: HUDSON HAWK, I always liked this:
MacDowell: "So how long were you in prison?"
Willis: "Well, let's just say I never saw E.T."
Someone should do an entire post on these over-budget, gargantuan megacomedies, the prime example being IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD. And stuff like ISHTAR, THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, THOSE DARING YOUNG MEN, ect. A very strong case can be made that these things never, ever work. And of course, they take Jeffrey's 90 minute comedy rule and just blow it all to hell. They never really work, and yet everybody still has their favorites. Mine would be Blake Edward's THE GREAT RACE. I love that one. A great Henry Mancini score, Peter Falk "Push the button, Max" Natalie Wood looking her best, and the great Tony Curtis as The Great Leslie. Curtis is underrated as a comic actor. He's underrated period, actually. A few years ago one of the cable channels ran a contest called "Win a weekend with Tony Curtis." Damn, I wish I had won that!
MEGAFORCE. Not only does it feature Barry Bostwick in leather, but you have a Xanadu-tie-in with Michael Beck.
"It's all on the wheel."
I personally would like see someone release the Hal Needham Action Pack, with Megaforce, Smokey and the Bandit, and Cannonball Run.
Tuck: I'd run that triple feature, and hand out drool cups in the lobby.
Wagstaff: And of course, they take Jeffrey's 90 minute comedy rule and just blow it all to hell. They never really work, and yet everybody still has their favorites. Mine would be Blake Edward's THE GREAT RACE.
Looney Tunes fans take note: Genius LT sound man Treg Brown won an Oscar for this movie.
Don't know how I missed this post the first time, and who knows if anyone will even read this comment, but this is one of my favorite topics in all of film geekery. I simply MUST go on the record with my guilty pleasures, shared by my equally guilty younger brother. We spent a dissolute childhood watching these movies over and over again.
1. Making the Grade - a Judd Nelson vehicle also starring Andrew Dice Clay! He plays a street tough named Eddie hired by preppie Palmer Woodrow to finish Palmer's senior year at Hoover Academy so that Palmer can get his trust fund. Eddie owes his bookie, the eponymous Diceman, and hilarity ensues. Actually, hilarity kind of does ensue - the guy who plays Palmer is actually really funny. I have actually used this film in my college-level screenwriting class to demonstrate classic structure, because it hits every note very clearly, plus it's a hoot to watch. Best line: "Preppie come now, preppie come never, preppie forever."
2. Krull. Star Wars meets Excalibur, and Liam Neeson's first film role. The actress playing the princess was British, and the execs thought that her accent would turn people off, so they hired Lindsay Crouse to dub her voice. In the DVD commentary, you find out that the actress has a very lovely speaking voice, much nicer than Crouse's mature-sounding one.
3. Fortress, starring Rachel Ward, based on a true story, recently released on DVD. Just saw it again for the first time in ages and it's actually pretty good. So not really shameful, but it's the third in my childhood triumvirate so I have to include it.
"Boys from Brazil" and "The Betsey"
At the end of his career Laurence Olivier made quite a few movies just for the cash. With these two he proved he could chew scenery better than anyone else in the history of film.
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