Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
101 movies to AVOID watching before you die
Snarkaliciousness for a dreary Thursday morning — from Crooked Timber, with more contributions from Daily Kos. Excerpt from the comments, just for a taste:
For me the top contender for most morally reprehensible film of the last twenty years has to be Saving Private Ryan, a film that actually got people killed. I left the cinema snarling at its simple minded bellicosity and horrified that it had been so generously reviewed. I am utterly convinced that the film and its attendant TV series really laid the ground culturally for the Bush wars and the general conviction that invading abroad was just a perfect way to emulate the “greatest generationâ€. It amazed me that it was more racist and less humane then propaganda films made during the second world war. A completely unironic paean to killing, mercilessness and the evil of the other. Amazing.
On the other hand Van Helsing needs to be taken seriously as a bad film as it was so wilfully stupid, incoherent, visually messy and loud that it hurt to be in the cinema. The Saint and Snake Eye’s also deserve to be wiped from the page of history. Saving Private Ryan though, that film could convince benevolent aliens not to contact us, even if they were bored.
MY vote for a movie to avoid before you die? The Brown Bunny — something like ninety minutes of excruciatingly angsty pseudo-meaningful but ultimately pointless scenes followed by a sex scene that would garner a 2.00 rating or less on YouPorn.
What’s your vote?
D.
This was a fun comment, too:
I’d vote for any movie with Keanu Reeves in it, except for the Bill and Ted movies. Keanu’s great when he plays himself.
I just wanted to tell you this. I read you using a feed on livejournal. Well, the link to your actual blog here is being diverted to ebay. It goes to something like anyresults.com first then to differing (I think differing) pages…
Example, it took me here:
http://hub.ebay.com/buy?keyword=%3F+ebay&ref=DC23FA9D-84B0-412D-9E4A-377A959AEB6E
Does anyone know whether this is a problem for me, and if so, is it fixable?
It sounds like it might be a problem at the LiveJournal end of things – but that’s the only mention of it I could find.
D’oh. It’d help if I had the correct URL now, wouldn’t it?
Any movie with Madonna in it is a movie, not just to be avoided, but avoided with great vigor. If someone gives you one, return it at high velocity. If someone attempts to drag you to a theatre misguided enough to be showing Madonna, break their arm.
Madonna movies are the New Anthrax.
I always liked Slayer better than Anthrax…
What?
ps: thanks.
Dean, ps: it pains me to no end that this video of Madonna and Gogol Bordello exists. (Have bleach ready for your eyes, long skewers ready for your ears.)
Here’s where I prove I don’t get along with other women; I hate Steel Magnolias and Terms of Endearment. I hate movies that try and force empathy/sympathy in such a painful, emotional, wrenching way. Folks dying in movies is one thing but when the person who dies isn’t really all that interesting? Wasted film. This is also why I’ve never bothered with Saving Private Ryan. I knew it wasn’t my cuppa tea.
You can safely assume I’ll not be seeing SATC in theaters anytime soon.
The worst movie I think I’ve ever seen was “In the Mouth of Madness” with Sam Neill. I left the theater hating everyone that had anything to do with that movie. Just awful.