Favorite Bad Movies

AA also had this weird subplot involving the cousin of Janet Jones. He'd been seriously injured in a car crash that killed his parents, and spent most of his time holed up in his apartment with a bunch of synthesizers making music. JJ finally got him to compose some music for her floor routine to get him out of his room - he goes to the "big meet" and becomes the most passionate gymnastics fan you've ever seen. Rooting VERY HARD for gymnasts he'd never met before.

 

Janet Jones in the movie: Spectacular.
Janet Jones in person at the L.A. Forum press lounge: Not so great. (Supports my theory that makeup artists are the most talented people in Hollywood).

PS -- I was interested in the movie since I had written a feature on the UCLA men's gymnasts who were going to be in the Olympics. Met Mitch Gaylord, Tim Daggett and David St. Pierre. We chatted for quite a while.

 

Under Siege 2 is right up there, too. The incredibly underrated Eric Bogosian chews some scenery as the big bad, and all the ridiculousness (earthquakes in mid-air! Jumping 20 feet through a train that just got folded in half!) you can imagine.

Three others for me:
1) Volcano. It's just stupid fun as a volcano destroys Los Angeles. We see a subway worker go full "Arnold into the steel in Terminator 2" while his co-workers cringe. Plenty of "no way that is remotely possible moments" like rigging a skyscraper for demolition in 10 minutes while simultaneously digging a 100-yard trench through a paved street, or stopping a lava flow with highway cane rails and fire hoses. And that ending ... my God, that ending. One of the most annoying little kids ever to be put on film almost gets everyone killed and then delivers a cheesy monologue as the city burns around them.
Fun stuff.

2) Terminator 3. It gets a lot of flak, probably mostly for not living up to the two absolute classics that preceded it, but I like the concept of doomsday being unavoidable and we get it at the end. It was a bold choice to blow up the world and I applaud them for having the balls to do it.

3) Down Periscope. I don't know if this is a "bad" movie or a hidden gem. At the very least it's a B-movie that a lot of people seem to have gained some appreciation for. The casting is absolutely perfect for this type of movie — a bunch of TV/ensemble/character actor/supporting actor types who seem willing and able to pass the ball around instead of trying to carry the entire movie by themselves. They come off the bench, get their moment, and then someone else gets theirs.
Throw in some great one-liners and it's just a really good time. This movie is way better than it has any right to be.

 

"Airplane" has its moments but hasn't aged great in my opinion.

 

Volcano was stupid fun. They absolutely NAILED some of the stupidity of LA - the news doing a soft animal feature about the victims "who can't tell you where they hurt." Imagine if it was made today - nobody would put their phones down long enough to help dig that trench. Hated the girl in it as well, both she and the kid were expendable IMHO.

 

Under Siege is a legit good movie. Seagal was typically awful but everything else really worked well.

 

Was coming here to post this. Haven’t seen it in ages but remember watching this frequently back in the day.

 

Michael Pataki had a cottage industry playing Russian roles in the 1980s. He was also the Russian defector in WKRP in Cincinnati.

 

My freshman year of college we had this on tape and watched it endlessly. We had a Gymkata movie poster and at the end of the year my roommate had everyone on our floor of the dorm sign it. Good times.

Others...

Plan 9 From Outer Space. This often gets mentioned as the worst film of all time, which is funny, because I've seen everything Ed Wood did and this is the best by a wide, wide margin. Everything about it is fabulous.

Orgy of the Dead. This was written by Ed Wood, but he didn't direct it. Basically, Criswell is sitting in a graveyard and recently deceased women dance and strip for him, one by one. That's the movie. One naked dancer gets whipped and Criswell shouts "Torture her, torture her. It PLEASURES me!" This was from Ed Wood's later days when he was a broken down drunk writing porn.

The Room. Just a wonderfully earnest piece of shit. A tour de force from a guy with a lot of money but no talent or understanding of how filmmaking works.

The Crawling Hand. An astronaut is blown up in space, and then a severed arm starts creeping around and strangling people. It's a little short on logic.

Tentacles. It's an incredibly bad Italian knock-off of Jaws, but with a giant octopus terrifying San Diego. The best scene is when a marine biologist giving a pep talk to some killer whales, encouraging them to go kill the octopus. The cast is unbelievable: Henry Fonda, John Huston, and Shelly Winters.

 

I think it's still funny, but it's noticeably slower and feels more dated than Naked Gun. (Well, overlooking the O.J. of it all...)

 

Completely agree.

 

I’ll watch “The Money Pit” every time I come across it. Peak silly Hanks.