JumpCutz

Yeah another useless list thread, but what the hell.


The 50 most disastrous movies ever made compiled by Empire Online - here are the top 10, the rest are at the link:

1. "Batman and Robin

2. "Battlefield Earth" (2000)

3. "The Love Guru" (2008)

4. "Raise the Titanic" (1980)

5. "Epic Movie" (2007)

6. "Heaven's Gate" (1980)

7. "Sex Lives of the Potato Men" (2004)

8. "The Happening" (2008)

9. "Highlander 2: The Quickening" (1991)

10. "The Room" (2003)



It's pretty heavily skewed toward movies from the last ten years, which is one of the reasons I was so surprised to see Heaven's Gate listed.

http://www.empireonline.com/features...t-movies-ever/

CharlieK

Is Heaven's Gate that bad? I haven't seen it, but I thought it was one of those movies that was considered terrible at the time due to the production troubles yet grew in stature as the years went by.

manicsounds

Well, it does say "Most Disastrous", so I'd say yes to Heaven's Gate.

Jon2

Did anyone over the age of thirty have anything to do with this list?

Because there are any number of films before 1980 (and after, btw) that I'd put on this list before putting any of the titles on this list... on this list.

I can only conclude that whoever made this list simply doesn't watch many movies.

dx23

I had forgotten that Catwoman was directed by a guy under the name of Pitof.

BravesMG

I know I like Spider Man 3 more than most, but the 50th worst movie of all time it is not.

cactusoly

horrible list... about half deserve to be on there

Groucho

Any random movie covered by MST3K is worse than any of the movies on that list. True name of the list should be "50 movies it's trendy to hate".

Fist of Doom

No Ishtar = No sale.

GenPion

gryffinmaster

BJacks

Actually it should be called "Please give us 50 pageviews for our latest clickwhoring list of the week."

I wish I had done it first.

ardathbey

Brilliance like this is why you're a hero round these parts.

dhmac

So the word "Ever" means "Since 1980"???


(Yeah, I saw "Plan 9" on there, but it doesn't belong because it's genuinely too entertaining and funny!)

jfoobar

From that list, I have seen:

Matrix: Revolutions
Jaws The Revenge
about half of Scary Movie

I may have seen Raise the Titanic as a child but don't recall anything about it if I did. I must have lived a charmed life. How someone my age managed to avoid seeing any of the Highlander sequels is quite astonishing actually, especially since I was once quite fond of the original.

inri222

Heaven's Gate & Plan 9 do not belong on that list.
Heaven's Gate is unfairly maligned due to the fact that it bankrupted United Artist.
The film itself is a near masterpiece and dare I say a better film than The Deer Hunter.

As for Plan 9 http://www.moria.co.nz/index.php?opt...=2922&Itemid=0

...Maybe it is that ‘bad’ is a term that has become so loosely applied that our critical terminology isn’t versatile enough to allow our stupid, stupid minds to stretch to the various shadings of bad. New labels are needed. There should be a term to mean ‘the bad that comes from exaggerated expectations’ where a film falls disastrously short of all the hype or expectation that is lavished upon it – such examples might include Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999) or King Kong (1976). There’s also ‘bad ineptitude’, which would cover films that come with gaping technical gaffes such as Plan 9 from Outer Space. There might be ‘artistic ineptitude’ that would cover films of exaggerated pretensions like Zardoz (1974) or Born of Fire (1986). There would be ‘ill-conceived bad’, which would cover films that should never have been made in the first place – a great host of sequels and remakes could be placed here. Then there’s ‘morally repugnant bad’ – for films that leave an unpleasant aftertaste (many horror films are often categorized thus) or have an offensively reactionary jingoism, such as John Wayne’s The Green Berets (1968) or Falling Down (1993). Finally there is the ‘deliberately bad’ where one can place a whole body of films that sprang up in the 1980s, making a virtue of their cheesiness and attempting to create a faux bad movie atmosphere – almost the entire outputs of some directors such as Fred Olen Ray, David DeCoteau, Jim Wynorski consist of such deliberately bad films. And even when talking about the ineptly made there’s a world of difference between films like King Kong Lives (1986), Batman & Robin (1997) and The Haunting (1999), which were made with enough money and people present that someone in the creative process should have known better, and films like Plan 9 from Outer Space and Robot Monster (1953), which were made by people who seemed to be putting all they could in with zero resources and carrying on regardless, sometimes despite their cast, crew’s and own glaringly evident lack of talent.

UAIOE

Trying to navigate Empire's website for that list is 1,000x worse than "Batman & Robin".

gmanca

Yeah, Heaven's Gate does not belong on a list of "worst" films; "There are five uninterrupted minutes of fiddle playing - on roller skates - and Jeff Bridges throwing up, also on roller skates. But it's a Western - go figure." That was one of the best parts of the film, showing the calm before the storm.

creekdipper

Another vote for removing Heaven's Gate. I think both extremes ('near masterpiece' & "one of worst movies ever' are wrong) and that even avid admirers would admit that there are some glaring missteps in the film that throw off the pacing (some described in the posts above). I'd throw in the murky, dusty cinematography by one of the greatest cameramen in cinema history as another negative.

Having said that, there are some incredibly stunning, moving, and memorable sequences in that film (along with some fine, natural performances). I think that (despite having to watch it through a haze of dust) the film COULD have been a masterpiece & could greatly benefit from a sensitive re-editing (NOT the initial hatchet job done by the studio). I won't say that I love the film but find it eminently viewable. Still, I can imagine theater audiences squirming impatiently.

I did a 'fan-edit' back in the 80's using 2 VCR's and cut most of the opening (Harvard) and closing (yacht) sequences. I've reconsidered the Harvard scenes (although it still drags on too long...Cimino seems WAY too fascinated in the film with waltzes & fiddle playing), though, and other sequences that seemed unnecessary. Watching HG is sort of like taking a long trip...the first time you make the journey, it seems to take forever, but subsequent visits go by much faster.

I totally agree that bad word of mouth (often from people who've never seen the film) and the disastrous financial consequences for the studio have been far more responsible for the film's bad reputation that the actual quality of the film.

On the other hand, some films are just plain awful. Some of THEM even end up on CRITERION editions.

creekdipper

No love for "Mitchell"?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ovieposter.jpg

rw2516

This Island Earth, the movie in the MST3K movie is actually better than all the movies on that list.

islandclaws

I'm not going to click through that list, but I would mostly agree that Batman & Robin is arguably the worst film ever made considering all factors involved.

But no way is Jaws: The Reve... well, yea. I guess it is pretty damn bad. But it sure is fun!

Ash Ketchum

I disagree. MST3K covered a lot of good movies. Their coverage of THE LEECH WOMAN (1959) was brilliant, but it happens to be a damned good little b&w semi-horror film with an excellent lead performance by the always underrated Coleen Gray. Also, SWORD AND THE DRAGON is an epic Russian fantasy that's always enjoyable on its own terms. HERCULES UNCHAINED is very good, too. There are others. I always thought MST3K worked best when the movies were enjoyable on their own terms.

stingermck

Random choices, and I think i'm getting tired of lists.

Groucho

You're right on all points. I've found that a lot of MST3K episodes get tiresome if the movie is outright TERRIBLE to the point of boredom...even when the jokes are good.

As for Heaven's Gate, it's mediocre at worst. With a little editing it would be pretty good.