Really bad films!

[johncorrigan]

Mrs JC and I decided to go see 'Living Apart Together' last night in the Dundee Film Theatre - described in the brochure as a 'charming 1980s comedy ....undergone a loving restoration...bittersweet take on relationships... a captivating insight into how our actions affect the people we love' - total hogwash. First I declare an alterior motive. In '83 we both got a couple of days extra work on this film and neither of us recalled seeing it, so we wanted to see if there was a glimpse of us in a backshot in a pub...Madame JC did indeed have the camera linger on her 1983 self in an old pub near Govan and very shifty she looked and pretty lovely too...I was nowhere to be seen. But we did have a few points at old long lost pals and not-pals and locations well known to us. However, and I should say here that B A Robertson was the star, it was in that classic mould of 'there's a couple of hours of our lives we're not getting back!' It reminded us of what a horrible smarm Robertson was - the acting was non-existent - Pete Capaldi was in there looking like a total dweeb, Jimmy Logan wandering about wondering what was going on...it was unpleasantly sexist and story free. Worst of all we had to endure 'original music from the satirical post punk Robertson'... We laughed all the way back over the hill from Dundee - PANTS! PANTS! PANTS!

[Nick Armstrong]

The whole thing felt like a pastiche, a Bond pantomime, if you will. A tick box of past Bonds (Komodo dragons for sharks, etc.), the same old "exotic" locations, etc., etc. The formula feels so tired, so banal in 2013...

I think the Bond film "franchise" has always had a knowing, ironic tone. Think of all the wince-inducing puns from earlier films ("he always did have an inflated opinion of himself" after Kananga has just expired explosively having been made to swallow a compressed air pellet... "I think he's attempting re-entry, sir" &c. &c.)... That tone, and the recurrence of 'Bond' clichés (for want of a better word), are part of the fun, yes it detracts from a sense of 'realism' but that's the deal, take it or leave it...

Aston Martin

I confess to a big frisson at its appearance... and I loved that Bond only really got mad near the end when the villains shot up his motor...

[Mandryka]

Worst films I've seen:

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Four Weddings And A Funeral (didn't laugh once)
Blind Date (Bruce Willis/Kim Basinger flick)
The English Patient (po-faced, pompous poppycock)
Schindler's List (ditto)
My Beautiful Launderette (leftist po-faced, pompous poppycock)
Les Miserables (2012 musical - empty spectacle)
The Full Monty (puerile)
Brassed Off (ditto, with puerile politics to boot)
Breaking The Waves (an 'art film' made by talentless people)
Crocodile Dundee (laugh-free zone)

[Resurrection Man]

....
...and just to set the cat among the pigeons - "2001 - A Space Odyssey" (though the book is excellent)

You're off my Christmas card list !

[Bryn]

Popeye
Notting Hill
What Women Want
Pretty Woman
Ocean 12
Mission Impossible
Fifth Element

...and just to set the cat among the pigeons - "2001 - A Space Odyssey" (though the book is excellent)

Quite agree. A vastly overrated misrepresentation of the book. From the very opening it shows itself as trashy. The choice of music Kubrick appropriated without permission was by far the best thing about it. Still, at least MGM paid for the music's use.

[amateur51]

I think the Bond film "franchise" has always had a knowing, ironic tone. Even Sean Connery would give a little private smile de temps en temps

I confess to a big frisson at its appearance... and I loved that Bond only really got mad near the end when the villains shot up his motor...

And it was only on the appearance of the Aston that we got the original Bond theme - a laugh-out-loud moment for me

[Mahler's3rd]

Anything By Tarantino

[AmpH]

Anything By Tarantino

I completely agree

[Suffolkcoastal]

Solaris, I've never been so bored in my life. The most recent Star Trek movie, I'm sick to the back teeth of the altered timelines in the plots, its been done to death, and you cannot destroy Vulcan! Anything involving the wooden one-dimensional Hugh Grant, and all those endless American 'Romantic Comedies' full of cliches and no comedy.

[Bryn]

Solaris, I've never been so bored in my life

Which one, or do you mean both?

[AmpH]

Utterly overrated and / or complete tosh , in no particular order ...

Casablanca
A Room with a View
Ben Hur
Spartacus
El Cid
Brief Encounter
My Tutor
Risky Business
Moulin Rouge

[Richard Tarleton]

One could probably single out any number of Hollywood book adaptations, but for one that has been mentioned on TV (uncritically, in my hearing) in recent weeks, how about the Olivier version of Pride and Prejudice - a stinker.

And for a real rag-bag of a film - Gone with the Wind. Given the story behind the filming, not surprising....

I feel ambivalent about David Lean's films - beautiful to look at but far too long (like some on AmpH's list!). Ryan's Daughter obviously awful but....Lawrence, Zhivago, Passage to India.....

[Suffolkcoastal]

The 2002 one Bryn, with George Clooney.

[Suffolkcoastal]

Oh yes, Passage to India, the book which caused me to drop A level English. I watched the film when it came out to see if it helped, but just confirmed my impression that it is a book/film in which absolutely nothing happens.

[gurnemanz]

The Barftas