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    #26
    Favourite awful films

    San Bernardhinault wrote: And I have a very strong penchant for bad disaster movies. The Day After Tomorrow and 2012 are definitely terrible, terrible films, and yet I love them. And a recent contender is San Andreas from a couple of years ago with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as a fire rescue helicopter pilot in helicopters that he could hardly fit in.
    I grew up on a diet of 70s disaster fare and I still eat that shit with both hands. The genre also includes Michael Caine's career nadir The Swarm, and we're talking about a man who couldn't say no to a paying job.

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      #27
      Favourite awful films

      Another vote for National Treasure, which is the Da Vinci Code treated with the exact amount of respect it deserves - none whatsoever.

      Tango and Cash is brilliantly bad and incoherent and I love it to bits.

      Everyone slags off Escape From LA - yet those who do know nothing.

      Street Fighter - purely for Raul Julia just being so absolutely awesome in it.

      If I'm in the right mood, I can watch bits of Love, Actually. Other days, I want to burn it in a fire. There is so much wrong with that film, but it kind of works if you catch it at the right moment.

      Is Robin Hood: Men In Tights bad enough to be included in this?

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        #28
        Favourite awful films

        Oh, and I have a definite weakness for the complete mess that is Hudson Hawk.

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          #29
          Favourite awful films

          And on the subject of disaster flicks (and I'm just assuming that I'm not allowed Earthquake or Towering Inferno, because they're not awful films), I think I'd like to throw Into The Storm into the mix. It's pretty much indefensible as a movie, yet I found it thoroughly enjoyable when I saw it in the (otherwise empty) cinema.

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            #30
            Favourite awful films

            Everyone slags off Escape From LA - yet those who do know nothing.
            You may have some bias on that one.

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              #31
              Favourite awful films

              Earthquake is pretty awful

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                #32
                Favourite awful films

                San Bernardhinault wrote: And on the subject of disaster flicks (and I'm just assuming that I'm not allowed Earthquake or Towering Inferno, because they're not awful films)
                It may not be an awful film -I'm too biased by nostalgia to judge- but it contains plenty of wonderful kitsch, from Paul Newman playing a suave guardian angel all dressed in tan buckskin to Steve McQueen doing his Important Big Speech on the irresponsibility of skyscraper builders clad in a poncy self-designed fireman uniform (he didn't think the real SFFD uniforms kindly donated for the film were fetching enough).

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                  #33
                  Favourite awful films

                  I just thought you'd all like to know that The Science Museum are screening 'The Terminator' and 'Robocop' in an afterhours double-bill on the 31st of March.

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                    #34
                    Favourite awful films

                    I can't believe that no mention of the oeuvre of Friedberg & Seltzer has been made yet but I'll throw in Spy Hard.

                    Leslie Neilsen? A chance to hear a Weird Al Bond theme? Win-win in my book.

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                      #35
                      Favourite awful films

                      Gerontophile wrote: The Chronicles of Riddick.
                      I love this. It's trashy, and hammy, and has crappy effects, but I watch at least a bit of it every time it comes on. Which is a fuckton. (And that is just in the USA. Which is almost as often as the number of times it is on somewhere on ITV.)
                      And it has Dame Judi Dench, who was obviously blackmailed to go anywhere near this.
                      I seem to remember from the time that Judi said Vin Diesel was absolutely dead set on having her play the part and so simply kept having her dressing rooms filled with flowers and pleading with her to be in it, until she said yes.

                      I absolutely love Riddick, the character, have done ever since I saw Pitch Black and thought he was an awesome anti-hero. And obviously he looks as cool as fuck. The Chronicles of Riddick is a bit of a curate's egg because it takes the same character out of the pretty small, taut sci-fi horror movie that was Pitch Black and pastes him unexpectedly into this vast space opera universe. Which doesn't entirely work but nonetheless I enjoyed it at the time, and have done the bits of it I've seen on telly since, though I've never gone back and watched it all in one go. I've had the belated second sequel Riddick recorded off the TV for months and months now but still haven't got around to watching it, probably because I know it might have gone either way and don't quite dare to risk confirming it being a load of old cobblers.

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                        #36
                        Favourite awful films

                        Are all of the entries in this category going to be horror or action films?

                        I can't imagine anything else qualifying. A serious drama that fails just feels false and tedious. An awful comedy is just unfunny and thereby worthless. Whereas, if it is funny, any technical or story flaws don't really matter and therefore it can't be called awful, i.e. anything with Leslie Nielsen.

                        I've seen various thrillers mentioned as great awful films, but that doesn't work for me. I'm not usually a big fan of "thrillers" that are considered good either.

                        I'm curious if anyone has any suggestions that might counter this observation.

                        I've often regarded that one where Bruce Willis leads a team of roughnecks to drill an asteroid as the best bad movie. I recall thinking that at the time. It's the perfect blend of cliche, absurd premise, high-stakes, and good actors phoning it in for a check.

                        National Treasure was fine. I thought it was clever and it has Sean Bean, who's always an entertaining badguy, Nicholas Cage who is insane, and Diane Kruger, who is smoking hot.

                        I'm the only one with anything nice to say about the Ryan Reynolds' Green Lantern film, which apparently is going to be forgotten-about in the new DC film universe. I just appreciated how it made no attempt to be "grounded" like most other superhero films lately. With Batman and Daredevil, I like that approach. But it doesn't work for Green Lantern. You either accept the wild Silver Age premise(s) or you don't. It would have been a lot better, however, if it had been set in the 60s.

                        I like the Transformers movies. At least the first three. Giant robots. They should just get rid of all the human characters. I started to watch the Mark Wahlberg one and just couldn't do it. Likewise, and for the same reasons, Pacific Rim and the newest Godzilla and King Kong films. Though neither of those is truly awful.

                        I liked the first two Underworld movies even though they're fairly ridiculous. Haven't seen any of the others. They work as extended Skinny Puppy videos, but it fancies itself as a fascinating and sprawling "mythology" that fans will want to get way into like Star Wars or Marvel, but it's just not remotely that interesting or original.

                        Tron and Tron: Legacy. Tron the original was better because it was so wildly original and ambitious at the time. Neither of them make sense, really, so they couldn't uphold a "mythology" let alone a third film, probably. But the aesthetic is so cool, especially as it's supported by Daft Punk. I suspect there's probably a consciousness-altering drug that would make seeing either of them spectacular, but I'm not sure what that would be.

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                          #37
                          Favourite awful films

                          See, my (and I think many others') problem with Michael Bay's Transformers movies is that they absolutely should be terribly, compulsively awful – the premise should simply be Giant Space Robots Smash Each Other Up And Everything Around Them, essentially. The film equivalent of a 10-year-old boy bashing his toy Transformers together. And yet Bay lumbered them with such dislikable human characters, cumbersome plots, irritating juvenile humour, godawful teal-and-orange colourschemes and indistinguishable gunmetal/silver spiky robot designs, they came out almost unwatchable.

                          Now, the original 1986 Transformers movie, that's properly awful. Yet it has the great animation style of the cartoon series, and the voices of Eric Idle, Leonard Nimoy and Orson Freakin' Welles, and it is glorious.

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                            #38
                            Favourite awful films

                            VA: Riddick goes back to Pitch Black levels of cast, and it's set-piece stuff is quite reminiscent of that movie.

                            It's not as good, but it's worth a watch.

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                              #39
                              Favourite awful films

                              Exactly, although at least in the first two or three, the giant robot action was enough to get me through the other shit. But eventually my patience did wear out.

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                                #40
                                Favourite awful films

                                The first of the recent GI Joe films was enjoyably awful, but the second one just didn't click and was merely bad.

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                                  #41
                                  Favourite awful films

                                  I've seen various thrillers mentioned as great awful films, but that doesn't work for me. I'm not usually a big fan of "thrillers" that are considered good either.
                                  I disagree. Fateful Findings thinks it's a political thriller. Vampire's Kiss, well, I don't know what it thinks it is, but it's certainly not an action movie or a horror film. If you look at the list of Flop House/HDTGM/We Hate Movies episodes, there are plenty of films in other genres there. Mainly kids/animated movies, thrillers and romantic comedies.

                                  I do think it's much harder for a bad comedy to be so bad it's good, but it's not impossible.

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                                    #42
                                    Favourite awful films

                                    Ginger Yellow wrote:
                                    Everyone slags off Escape From LA - yet those who do know nothing.
                                    You may have some bias on that one.
                                    What on earth makes you think that?!

                                    OK, so the CGI is horrifically bad and it rushes from set-piece to set-piece as fast as it can, but it much smarter (it's isn't a sequel, it is the first one but through a mirror) and prescient than it is given credit for. After all, the premise of a popular rabble-rousing TV star becoming President, moving the White House away from Washington and installing a totalitarian regime that wants to control the world and imprisons people purely for being Muslim doesn't seem that far fetched right now.

                                    Carpenter was definitely waning by this point, but it remains an impressive trick to realise a nihilistic, bitter and cynical movie at precisely the wrong time twice in a career. (First up famously The Thing just after ET, and then EfLA just after the rah-rah that was Independence Day.)

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                                      #43
                                      Favourite awful films

                                      'Pacific Rim'. Possibly the most cliche-box-ticking Sci Fi ever ...and with loads of racist cliches too. But it's a Kaiju movie, so it's supposed to be tacky crap, with no scientific plausibility. Giant robots punching monsters in their faces - it's awesome!

                                      And there's to be a sequel! :-)

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                                        #44
                                        Favourite awful films

                                        By the way - while we're all here, I'll take another opportunity for a diversion.

                                        A friend mentioned this on Facebook today - a random 'good film suggestion generator' :

                                        https://agoodmovietowatch.com/

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                                          #45
                                          Favourite awful films

                                          Gerontophile wrote: VA: Riddick goes back to Pitch Black levels of cast, and it's set-piece stuff is quite reminiscent of that movie.
                                          It's not as good, but it's worth a watch.
                                          Great, thanks for the encouragement Gero – I should really get around to watching it one of these months!

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                                            #46
                                            Favourite awful films

                                            Hot Pepsi wrote: Are all of the entries in this category going to be horror or action films?

                                            I can't imagine anything else qualifying. A serious drama that fails just feels false and tedious.
                                            I invite you to watch The Room.

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                                              #47
                                              Favourite awful films

                                              I'm going to nominate Miss Congeniality here. That's a pretty bad movie, but, you know, it has something about it.

                                              Another nod for the first Michael Bay Transformers movie. I ended up watching that three times in the cinema with different people. (Two of those occasions were free screenings)

                                              The Phantom Menace is the best of the Star Wars prequels and while it is fashionable to heap burning coals on it now I enjoyed it when it came out. Of the prequels it's the one I'd prefer to watch and I'd probably pick it as my 5th favourite Star Wars movie.

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                                                #48
                                                Favourite awful films

                                                I'd forgotten Tron Legacy. I really like that film too. The Daft Punk soundtrack, the visuals, Michael Sheen as David Bowie, I didn't even mind the weird Young Jeff Bridges CGI.

                                                Although I'll admit to doubts over Garrett Hedlund's performance, which may as well have just been subtitled "Buh?" throughout.

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                                                  #49
                                                  Favourite awful films

                                                  Tron Legacy isn't an awful film though.

                                                  It is, however, a very cold film. Looks amazing, great soundtrack, some good ideas and action but ultimately... it is soulless. Just empty calories, leaving you full but not with anything of substance.

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                                                    #50
                                                    Favourite awful films

                                                    The Phantom Menace is the best of the Star Wars prequels
                                                    Erm, what? Really?
                                                    I thought they went from unconscionable to simply terrible as they went along.
                                                    I can actually watch the third one, but the first?

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