08 April 2006
the hills have eyes and other bad movies i enjoy
so on wednesday john had a really bad day at work so when he got home i decided to take him out to watch a really bad movie to cheer him up. you know how that works-- sometimes when you are feeling bad it makes you feel good to make fun of others. i wanted to go see sharon stone make a fool out of herself in basic instinct 2, but john and i eventually compromised on the wes craven zombie remake the hills have eyes. and it more than fulfilled my expectations. it was so freakin terrible that it ended up being crazy entertaining.
it's important to make a distinction between unwatchable bad movies and entertaining bad movies. the hills have eyes falls into the latter category. this is primarily because it has absolutely no plot whatsoever. the movie begins with some nuclear mutants tearing apart and eating some government workers. it continues with almost two hours of nuclear mutants tearing apart and eating passerbys. and it ends with an exciting chase in which. . . you guessed it, nuclear mutants tear apart more people. . . AND EAT THEM. you can't go wrong with that!
needless to say, watching a bunch of deformed nuclear desert mutants chowing down on a family of east coast tourists more than cheered up john and i. my favorite part was when the local gas station attendant, fearful of an imminent nuclear mutant onslaught blows his head off with a shot gun. (gawd that was so fuckin' cool.) it also got me to thinking about a lot of other really bad movies that i really enjoy. here are some great bad movies (other than showgirls) that are guaranteed to cheer you up.
1. urban legends. when i was in high school my girlfriend darshana and i used to take turns playing the noxema girl when we reenacted the scene where she jumps out of the bed and knocks out alicia witt (you know, when her hair gets all big and frizzy). this movie is my favorite unintentionally (maybe intentionally?) funny horror movie. the basic theme: that noxema bitch is frickin unkillable. i mean they throw her through a glass window and off a bridge and she just floats away unscathed. what an amazing chick:)
2. cube and cube zero (but not hypercube). all three of these movies essentially take place in one small cube shaped room. in cube, a group of people wake up in the room and they have to figure out how to get out of it as a group. it is a sci fi movie, and it seems that the government has imprisoned the people in the cube as some sort of military experiment. why are these movies so funny? the acting is so fuckin' terrible that you can't watch them without cracking up. (holloway's speech about pierogies is one of john and i's most frequently quoted). still, i can't include hypercube (the second in the trilogy) in this category, because it is actually pretty good.
3. a chorus line. this is without a doubt the worst movie musical ever made. i especially love big tough mysterious michael douglas as the brooding musical director overcome with drama. i don't think he honestly smiles once in the entire movie; he is so overwhelmed with ennui. still it would be impossible to leave this movie not humming the songs in your head. (i even bought the soundtrack!)
4. spongebob squarepants: the movie. how cute is this movie. basically, this film has no plot other than to see how many guest stars they can cram into a 90 minute episode of spongebob. i love when spongebob and patrick sing the goofy goober song and then they get drunk on iced cream. i also love how they got scarlet johanssen to be in this piece of crap. this is definitely one of the only legitimately cheerful movies john and i own.
5. mommy dearest. in a role that elizabeth berkeley and gina gershon could only ever wish to fill, faye dunaway is fuckin' genius as joan crawford. if you haven't seen this i just feel sorry for you, especially since it is on cable like every other day. everyone knows the line where faye dunaway beats her daughter with a wire hanger, but there are plenty of great scenes. (my favorite: when dunaway is at the pepsi board meeting and she tells her new husband "tear down that bitch of a wall!") this is the pinnacle of melodrama.
6. troop beverly hills. john and i watch this movie entirely too much for two 23-year old men. shelly long is the new troop leader for a girl scouts-esque group of beverly hills preteens. of course, they are all terrible at outdoorsy stuff so she invents new patches for things like diamond appraisal and shopping. this is one of my favorite feel good movies but is admittedly terrible, even when judged solely on the basis of its fashion directing:) ¶ 4/08/2006 11:28:00 PM
so on wednesday john had a really bad day at work so when he got home i decided to take him out to watch a really bad movie to cheer him up. you know how that works-- sometimes when you are feeling bad it makes you feel good to make fun of others. i wanted to go see sharon stone make a fool out of herself in basic instinct 2, but john and i eventually compromised on the wes craven zombie remake the hills have eyes. and it more than fulfilled my expectations. it was so freakin terrible that it ended up being crazy entertaining.
it's important to make a distinction between unwatchable bad movies and entertaining bad movies. the hills have eyes falls into the latter category. this is primarily because it has absolutely no plot whatsoever. the movie begins with some nuclear mutants tearing apart and eating some government workers. it continues with almost two hours of nuclear mutants tearing apart and eating passerbys. and it ends with an exciting chase in which. . . you guessed it, nuclear mutants tear apart more people. . . AND EAT THEM. you can't go wrong with that!
needless to say, watching a bunch of deformed nuclear desert mutants chowing down on a family of east coast tourists more than cheered up john and i. my favorite part was when the local gas station attendant, fearful of an imminent nuclear mutant onslaught blows his head off with a shot gun. (gawd that was so fuckin' cool.) it also got me to thinking about a lot of other really bad movies that i really enjoy. here are some great bad movies (other than showgirls) that are guaranteed to cheer you up.
1. urban legends. when i was in high school my girlfriend darshana and i used to take turns playing the noxema girl when we reenacted the scene where she jumps out of the bed and knocks out alicia witt (you know, when her hair gets all big and frizzy). this movie is my favorite unintentionally (maybe intentionally?) funny horror movie. the basic theme: that noxema bitch is frickin unkillable. i mean they throw her through a glass window and off a bridge and she just floats away unscathed. what an amazing chick:)
2. cube and cube zero (but not hypercube). all three of these movies essentially take place in one small cube shaped room. in cube, a group of people wake up in the room and they have to figure out how to get out of it as a group. it is a sci fi movie, and it seems that the government has imprisoned the people in the cube as some sort of military experiment. why are these movies so funny? the acting is so fuckin' terrible that you can't watch them without cracking up. (holloway's speech about pierogies is one of john and i's most frequently quoted). still, i can't include hypercube (the second in the trilogy) in this category, because it is actually pretty good.
3. a chorus line. this is without a doubt the worst movie musical ever made. i especially love big tough mysterious michael douglas as the brooding musical director overcome with drama. i don't think he honestly smiles once in the entire movie; he is so overwhelmed with ennui. still it would be impossible to leave this movie not humming the songs in your head. (i even bought the soundtrack!)
4. spongebob squarepants: the movie. how cute is this movie. basically, this film has no plot other than to see how many guest stars they can cram into a 90 minute episode of spongebob. i love when spongebob and patrick sing the goofy goober song and then they get drunk on iced cream. i also love how they got scarlet johanssen to be in this piece of crap. this is definitely one of the only legitimately cheerful movies john and i own.
5. mommy dearest. in a role that elizabeth berkeley and gina gershon could only ever wish to fill, faye dunaway is fuckin' genius as joan crawford. if you haven't seen this i just feel sorry for you, especially since it is on cable like every other day. everyone knows the line where faye dunaway beats her daughter with a wire hanger, but there are plenty of great scenes. (my favorite: when dunaway is at the pepsi board meeting and she tells her new husband "tear down that bitch of a wall!") this is the pinnacle of melodrama.
6. troop beverly hills. john and i watch this movie entirely too much for two 23-year old men. shelly long is the new troop leader for a girl scouts-esque group of beverly hills preteens. of course, they are all terrible at outdoorsy stuff so she invents new patches for things like diamond appraisal and shopping. this is one of my favorite feel good movies but is admittedly terrible, even when judged solely on the basis of its fashion directing:) ¶ 4/08/2006 11:28:00 PM
