"Nope, still not good."

Jackson's King Kong for many of the same reasons.

There are so many ideas and so much talent involved, as well as so many supporters of the film, that I keep thinking I must be wrong about it.

And sure enough, it starts off OK. But it goes on and on and never really musters up any excitement. As impressive as the Kong effects are, there are just as many that are not too great and the whole thing feels so artificial. On top of which, they push Kong's relationship with Ann too far.

By the time we're ice-skating with Kong or watching him fall 200 storeys, I just can't care any more.

And Black, God love him, is woefully miscast.

But I bought the sucker on DVD and every now and then I think, "Maybe this time..." And every time I'm burned.

A slightly different take would be Munich - I always think that there's some reason not to lke it, then I throw it on and realise its really rather excellent, so what was I thinking? Then the sex scene happens.

That one scene came so close to completely scuppering the back end of that film, it always leaves a sour taste.

Yep. I tried, EFLA. I tried so hard. It's not me, it's you.

The Princess Bride. No matter how many people tell me how classic it is, it falls flat for me every time.

I'm gonna make some enemies on this one, but Heat. I want to like it, there's nothing on paper that suggests I shouldn't, but every time I've seen it, I've come away feeling unsatisfied. I've never gone anywhere near "not good," but none of whatever earns it all the love finds me. But it's been a long time, so I'm gonna give it another shot. Put it in my rental queue right now.

Phil, you've started a "Prove you have no taste" thread.

Does Heat leave you cold?

Ba da dum.

Yeah, but how are we going to deal with this Heat and The Princess Bride stuff now? You did this.

Superman Returns.

It's not good. It's too long, it's virtually bereft of any real action, and even Kevin Spacey's pork and beans Luthor falls below flat.

Let me back up, I don't have any love for the Donner Supes movies, the first one was a decent diversion when I was five, but I find it a chore to sit through as an adult. Less said about the sequels, the better. Didn't have any real expectations for Singer's take on the material, in fact I really don't like his body of work anyway (I could start a no taste thread with Usual Suspects, I reckon).

It's just so wrong headed on every level. Kate Bosworth. I don't really need to type any more than that. Unless she was fourteen when Superguy fucked her in the Niagara Falls area, it just doesn't work.

And yet, whenever it pops up on cable, I give it a shot. There's a few shots that are wonderful, like the lovely image of Superman flying down into the Fortress of Solitude, but there's just not enough to justify rewatching this thing. Still, I do.

God dammit.

I was a little surprised it hadn't come up after 10 posts, Keith. Came to me very quickly.

You have fleeded. I hope you can live with yourself.

I can sink much, much lower.

Bobby, at least 'splain yourself. I love that movie. It's by no means an insulated above reproach classic, but I love it nonetheless.

Jason X, too. Channel 4 cycles a group of movies (Sleepy Hollow, Get Over It, Mean Girls, et al) over and over, so they pop up, at least, once a year, though it feels like more. And every time, I'm hypnotized by the poorness of Jason X; I watch what I can (15-20 mins max. Maybe, a little longer, if there's a decent demise coming up) then turn over feeling a little annoyed at myself.

I tried giving SLITHER another chance recently. I just don't like it. Sorry James Gunn fans.

Conversely I also gave LAND OF THE DEAD a second chance and found myself enjoying it a lot more than I initially did. I think the sheer suckitude of DIARY OF THE DEAD really casts it in a favorable light.

Spider-Man 3.

I'm given hope throughout some parts of it, but when all is said and done, it's three different movies all snarling at each other for screen time. In the end, with that literally 5 second scene of Harry suddenly grabbing MJ in full Goblin Garb and demanding she break up with Peter, it just becomes a bit of a mess.

Keith, in the spirit of this thread, I wanted/expected to love Land of the Dead. Woeful dialogue, performances, and general execution destroyed most of the goodwill I was willing to muster. In cases like this, atmosphere counts for a lot. See also heart or sheer quirkiness. Unfortunately, only a smattering of bungled and botched ideas are all it boasts. The pitch and better, actually good, version in my head brings me back. I'm far too accommodating with it; no film that so squanders Hopper and Leguizamo should be granted a consistent by-ball.

Slither's one for me that's grown over time. Same with Land of the Dead.

My "Nope, still not good." is going to be extremely obvious: Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Obviously when I watched it at the age of six it didn't go over well but I've watched it twice more recently and it just doesn't hold up. It's a beautiful film, I'd love to frame shots of it on the wall, but it's too cold, too long, and not the Star Trek I like.

I retract Princess Bride then, as I know the movie works, just not my cup of tea. I think I misunderstood the intent of the thread, and now I have to think of a movie that I didn't like, but keep watching. I'm sure one is out there.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. The movie is terrible, but I insist on re-watching it, thinking it's somehow going to be less disappointing this time.

No such luck. It makes me actively hate Angelina Jolie. Her insistence on flashing that one-eyed "come hither/ I'm a tough chick" look makes my cock bleed through the skin.

x 2

Godzilla '98 and Van Helsing both fall under this category for me. I want to love them, the potential is there, and both have small moments that work beautifully for me.

But those moments are buried and hidden in sulfur mines beneath mountains of shit.

Aside from Reeves and maybe Ryder, I don't see how Bram Stoker's Dracula fits your aforementioned

rule.

Godfather III. It came with the set so I give it a try every once in a while. I want it to work. I've even tried to will it to work. No go. No matter how much I concentrate, Bobby Duvall never materializes into the film. And I so want him to be in there somewhere. But even without him the film just doesn't work as intended and I'm let down every time.

Proof

It's always weird when seemingly-good writing and seemingly-good acting come together to make a boring movie. I like most of the stuff Auburn added to the script - yeah, it's just filling in the blanks of what happened offstage in the play, but the new scenes are well done - and I like every performance, especially Hope Davis. But somehow adding to the play resulted in a movie that's about nothing, where nothing happens, and you don't even know when or why it's over when it is.

Hensleigh's Punisher. It's insultingly terrible and borderline retarded in spots, but damn it, I liked Tom Jane in the role...it just gets worse each time I see it and I end up noticing more things to hate.

Phil opened with a Carpenter flick, and I'm going to choose a similar path. Ghosts of Mars. I love JC, but I think he shit the bed here.

Gonna pick on Quantum of Solace again. Was pretty stoked about a follow-up to Casino Royale. And I came out so very unmoved in every way. I have actually gone back to portions of this movie going, "What the hell went wrong!? What the hell went wrong!?"

It's rhetorical.

Last Action Hero

My expectations were sky high for this one. McTiernan had done Predator, Die Hard, and The Hunt for Red October. Schwarzenegger was coming off T2, how could it be so bad?

I still prop up for that, quality aside - I respect the fact that two guys who DIDN'T have to take the sort of risk that LAH was went out on a limb.

And crafted a not-great movie, but sometimes I think "interesting failures" are better than a bland success. Really, the kid sinks the film.

The more I've revisited Bram Stoker's Dracula the more I see it as one of those impossible to turn away from train wrecks of a film. It's a great example for this thread since I and obviously quite a few others keep going back every few years to try again.

Oh, fuck it, I'll play.

After it was brought up earlier tonight, HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY. The stuff that works so well, of which there's no small amount, can't override the dire, terrible stuff that pads out the story (most of the Vogon planet scenes) and the lame 'power of love' ending. The lifeless Deschanel kills it.

I don't think it is. Tongue planted nicely in the cheek, and over-the-top performances all around.

This movie deserves love for the Amadeus jokes alone.

Land & Diary OTD immediately came to mind for me as well. Land has become somewhat of a guilty pleasure at this point after 3 viewings. But I couldn't even make it through the second time with Diary. The only reason I even tried watching it again was because I fell asleep repeatedly the first time around. Sorry George.

Pale Rider is still as lame as ever.

This. Quantum of Fucking Boredom is more like it. The movie ended and my wife looked at me and said "Did we watch the wrong cut of the movie or something?" And she likes dumb shit like Stargate SG:1 on Sci-Fi for fucks sake.

The obvious one for me is Godfather III as well... It's a movie I want to be good and every time I watch it I hope that I'll discover something brilliant that I never saw before. Some great scene... Some great element... Anything.

Every time it's still the same plastic, neutered, pointless mess.

But someone already picked that.

So, here's another one for you. And let's make it a double feature...

Desperado and Once Upon A Time In Mexico.

I want those movies to be the great big budget sequels to El Mariachi. But they're not. They're lame, forced, unpleasant and unfunny movies. I get a kick out of Mariachi with its bargain basement (yet effective) action staging, its paper-thin, stupid "plot" and its awful, wooden acting with those horrendous line deliveries. It's all part of the low-rent charm of what I consider to be a little gem of inventive filmmaking.

So... Give Rodriguez a bigger budget and some stars and what does he do? He just makes these awful sequels. The same shit with shinier wrapping. And if that was the point then to Hell with it. I want to enjoy Desperado with its contrived and embarrassing Tarantino cameo. And I want to say that Johnny Depp's energy and enthusiasm makes Mexico worth watching.

Instead I see the absolute shallowness in what Rodriguez is trying to do with those movies. (Once Upon A Time In MEXICO???? Come on, man. Obvious much?) And I kind of resent him for it.

I'll go with Carpenter's Prince of Darkness. I love the first half of the film. It has such a beautiful set-up for something really cool to happen, but the last 40 minutes or so just don't deliver. I still watch the damn thing from time-to-time hoping that I'll start to dig that second half, but that's never happened.

There's a side of me that really wished Carpenter would get a second shot with this one, especially if he was given a much bigger budget to work with. But....that's not going to happen.

Eyes Wide Shut

I've always appreciated it's ominously somber tone and general premise, but I still don't like it very much overall. And yet the cinematography, performances (Kidman's stoned scene aside) and incredibly spartan soundtrack work really well. Unfortunately the sum of these parts still don't add up to a satisfying film for me. There's a part of me that still thinks I should love this film since it was his last, but something intangible always gets in my way.

I might be mistaken, but Kubrick had already passed away before editing, right? If so, that would be ample explanation.

He delivered his final cut four days before dying.

Aha.

So... I can feel confident in assuming he felt rushed to get it done?

...crosses fingers...

CONGO.

Somewhere in there is a half decent b-movie. Trouble is, they thought they had a literary masterpiece on their hands. I even bought the thing for 5 bucks at Wal-Mart just to have around to give it yet another try some rainy afternoon.

The thing is riddled with melodramatic kitchen sinkery and comical lines, not to mention the red flag presence of Bruce Campbell, yet they insisted on leaning on the **cough** profound Crichtonisms that would never translate well to the big screen. Even with a million Amys on a million typewriters for a million years.

Sure, John Patrick Shanley was the shit in the mid 90's. Too bad no one bothered to see if he was the right guy for this kind of story. Any potential assets the films starts with are squandered by some pretty myopic direction from Frank Marshall. How do you go wrong with a film that sports Peter Jason, James Karen and Stuart Pankin? Not playing the hand you've been dealt, that's how.

It's a great B conceit. A group of culturally diverse people and a monkey with a smoker's electorlarynx rub each other the wrong way across hostile nations, over hostile rivers, around hostile volcanoes, through hostile jungles, chopping hostile vines while wearing hostile shoes only to come face to face with hostile baboons. All in the effort to find a lost city.

Alas, they take the material too seriously and it hamstrings everything. I keep hoping that somehow, I'll find the one hidden moment that tells me the filmmakers knew how preposterous it all was and were just playing it all really close to the vest. Sometimes, I wonder if it's my fault. Maybe I just think they thought it was more serious and turns out they just have a seriously subtle sense of humor. That's a hard one to buy, though.

Truth be told I've never really though of Marshall as any kind of substantial director anyway. Can't wait to see what Marshall does with his film about America's favorite spokestesticle, Lance Armstrong. If he uses an rpg to blow the cyclist out of a plane into a river full of hippos, I'll buy the dvd for $5 as well. Promise.

Ghostbusters 2. Watched it in theaters, hated it. Got the itch, and rented it. Hated it. I bought it on DVD, watched it once, and resold it. The more I think about it, when I have some distance, the more I want to revisit it, but yeah... NOT good.

Little(very little) moments of greatness can't save it from being an awful rehash. It's like some sort of black hole.

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Do I really need to explain?

Superman Returns: just not enough action beats. It's an action film right?

Van Helsing: perfect example of how to ruin about 4 franchises all at once. corny and too over the top for a film that should have been kick ass.

Spider Man 3: Venom, Harry losing his memory, enough said. Somewhere I have this on DVD that has yet to be watched.

Congo: ?? no one likes this movie, the book sucked, there for the movie sucks. at least it got Ernie Hudson a paycheck.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: I loved it as a child but since I've gotten older I can't stand it anymore. Too much like the cartoon.

Star Wars Episode 1: I want this to be good damn it, but every time I watch it it notice more and more on how much this movie was a drag.

No need to explain. This movie just makes me sad.

'1492: Conquest of Paradise' -

This was Ridley's follow-up to 'Thelma and Louise'. He came close to winning Best Director for that film, so he tried REALLY REALLY HARD with his next film to seal the deal. The result is a picture that is absolutely gorgeous to watch but is tiresome to sit through.

What works:
- The production design is flawless and gorgeously shot.
- Michael Wincott steals the movie in a small supporting role.
- Armand Assante is great whenever he's onscreen; he proves that HE should have been cast in the lead role...

Whad DOESN'T work:
- Gerard Depardieu. Yes, he's a great actor, but he's totally wrong for this role. His thick French accent goes totally against every other voice in the movie, disrupting the flow.
- Boring. Do we really need to see Columbus plodding through the surf for 45 seconds?
- The score by Vangelis. It's disruptive and doesn't fit the 'time' of the movie at all.
- Historically inaccurate. The liberties that this film takes with history are jaw-dropping.

As a fan of Ridley Scott, I've given this film many tries. The good elements of the film are VERY good, but they can't fix the elements that ultimately sink it.