Desert Island DVDs

[davywavy]

The idea of Radio 4's Desert Island Discs is a simple one; every week, a guest of the show (usually a celebrity or politician of some stripe) is put in the hypothetical situation of being trapped on a desert island with only their eight favourite records. they're asked which records they'd take and then chat about what each one means to them in between excerpts of the music.

Let us today imagine that the castaway is you, dear reader. With an awful glugging noise your ship is vanishing beneath the waves and you haul yourself up a lonely beach as the sole survivor. Lost and bereft with naught but the bare essentials for life. But wait - what's this? A crate containing a freeplay hand-cranked DVD player and a box of films is drifting ashore from the wreck. At least you shall be entertained during your exile.
But it's not all good news. Opening the box reveals eight of the worst films you've ever seen. Films which, when watched over and again in the coming solitary years, will drive you slowly insane.

Here's mine:

1) Ultraviolet. Milla Jovovitch's Sci-fi/vampire/rebel movie, and very possibly the worst film I've ever seen. When I saw it in the cinema there came a point when I realised I was actually punching myself in the face as an instinctive reaction to watching it.

2) Inseminoid. A Sci-fi action-horror, Inseminoid opens with a lady astronaut being raped by a zombie alien and her day doesn't improve much from there. One of the very few films I have been unable to watch all the way through.

3)Highlander 2: The Quickening. As a student, I used to keep a diary. One day in 1991, the only entry reads "Don't go and see Highlander 2 again." This from a period in my life when I thought Predator 2 and Robocop 2 were good films should tell you all you need to know.

4) Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Not one of the worst films ever by any means, but the crushing weight of disappointed expectation that falls upon me whenever I hear the words "Meesa Jar-jar Binks!" is enough to ensure I never watch it again.

5) Battlefield Earth. Something of a no-brainer, this one - and adding it to the list was fairly obvious too. John Travolta and L. Ron Hubbard team up to produce a film that's 'so bad it's bad!". I actually own a copy.

6) Butterfly and Sword. I've sat through a lot of chop-socky movies, and this has to be the worst of them all. So bad, I was disappointed that the director didn't walk on at the end and apologise for wasting my time.

7) Batman & Robin. Another film I foolishly spent money watching in the cinema, when someone spoke to me later the same day and asked me what I'd been doing I had already forgotten I'd seen it and had to be reminded. Utterly witless and instantly forgettable.

8) Eraserhead. Some will tell you this is s great film. They're lying. It is dire, unwatchable shite. I've tried to watch it several times and failed every time. I've fallen asleep during it twice.

Your turn.

Comments

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

1) Shoot 'Em Up It features a breast feeding prostitute. From that moment on I was too squicked out to actually watch the film, but remained trapped there, as my lift home had no intention of leaving.

2) Before The Devil Knows You're Dead. Utterly grim and depressing. There was not a single sympathetic character in it, bad stuff happened to all of them and I came out wondering why I'd spent two hours of my life in their company.

3) La Haine. If I wanted to spent my time in the company of a bunch of psycho thugs, I'd start dating some of my exes again. I understand it is very arty and gritty, but I just really loathed all the characters.

4) Catwoman. I never knew that Halle Berry could somehow, through force of sheer bad acting make herself look like a fat role playing chick in a corset with a badge saying 'appearance 5'.

5) The Avengers. The film that raped my childhood and spat upon the glorious memory of Diana Rigg and Patrick McNee.

6) Hoodwinked. I walked out of this film. I don't do that too often. Does that say how bad it was?

7) Batman and Robin. Oxbridge Academy? Alicia Silverstone playing an alleged British girl with no attempt at an accent? The endless parade of awful villains? SO bad. So very very very bad.

8) Serenity. It stole two hours of my life with bad dialogue, cliched plot, hackneyed villains, and all the bad bits (with none of the good bits) from Firefly, and then at the end of it people told me it was a fab film that I should be happy to have seen?!?!? I think the reaction of others around me is what catapulted this film from 'meh - a bit crappy' to 'we hatessss it, we hatesss if forever...'

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I had completely forgotten the Avengers film. Lucky, lucky me.

Until you reminded me, that is...

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I like people to share my pain...

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

1. King Arthur
The only film I've ever walked out of in a cinema, the opening claim to historical accuracy gave me a sinking feeling, nothing improved from there. It's only piece of saving grace is I didn't see all of it.

2. Highlander 2
Quite simply the worst sequel, if not the worst film, in existance. It's bad, the acting is terrible, the plot is laughable. After the sheer joy of the first film. One of the laughing faces from the film haunts me still. The only wonder is how I actually managed to sit all the way through it without clawing my eyes out.

3. Scream
The film I wished had walked out of at the cinema. Predictable, pointless and about as funny as being poked with a razorblade. Yes I know it's meant to be a parody of the genre but frankly I didn't really like the genre in the first place. It's not clever, it's just shit.

4. Existenz
It had promise, it really did, bio mechanical weapons, Jude Law, sci fi and everything. Then, then after about 30 minutes I realised that nothing was really going to happen that I couldn't see coming ten minutes away, the action was pointless and the ending just effectively opened the lime pit and threw the cast in. Utter crap.

5. American Pie
Why the hell did I buy this? WHY?

6. DAWG
Denis Leary and Elizabeth Hurley, I had hopes. 10 minutes later I put it back in the box never, ever, ever to open it again. That'll be why it was two quid.

7. What lies beneath
It had Harrison Ford, I was weak. The story was weaker. My god it was predictable. My god the only twist was that Ford had never played a bad guy before. I only have it because it was free. Free I tell you. FREE!

8. Signs
Aquaphobic aliens who can travel light years across the galaxy but lack the ability to open a door. They can create a f*cking spaceship but they can't wear a bio suit? They get squirted with water but they can still move through a DEW FILLED FIELD? Who wrote this? WHO? I want to slap them. Hours of my life, wasted, wasted I tell you.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I didn't hate Serenity as much as you - it just reminded me of a bad RPG made into a film, like Dungeons and Dragons - the Movie (which almost made my list).

I have to do an RPG/deconstructing Firefly post at some point.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

5. American Pie
Why the hell did I buy this? WHY?

The same reason I bought Battlefield Earth?

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Oh, you see, I quite liked Dungeons and Dragons. I thought Eragon was a far worse film (and nearly made my list). Dungeons and Dragons was unpretentiously daft twaddle, with Jeremy Irons as a panto villain. What's not to love?

Serenity, on the other hand, had just enough delusions of adequacy to be really irritating. And, to be fair, I was really fed up with everyone on my flist having the same 4 LJ icons and wanted to dislike it for that alone. :p

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

This is the thing; some films are 'so bad they're good' - and these never make my list. It's the ones that think and act like they have some redeeming features which they so manifestly lack that I hate so much.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Obviously self-flagellation doesn't always require rope.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

D&D almost made my list, but all the others are ones I never want to see again.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I'm a sucker for punishment. I have ideas like "Surely the Pahntom Menace wasn't that bad", and it's downhill from there, really.

[fonnparr.livejournal.com]

Men in White - an absulutely awful childrens movie.
I thought I was renting a sequel to Men in Black.

Having said that, the real sequel wasn't much better.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

No, the real sequel was awful.

Any chance of a lift on Saturday?

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Everyone has moments of insanity...

[elbly.livejournal.com]

I actually have a high tollerance for bad movies but I'll do my best:

1. Return to the Blue Lagoon.
Oh dear god! Never again!

2. Battlefield Earth
You've covered this I know but I have to say: You own a copy? What haven't you used it as a coaster already? Jeez! You deserve mocking in the most pitiless way possible!

3. Conan the Barbarian
I do not buy into this "It's so bad it's good" crap - that film was shit!

4. The Devil rides out
I had no idea it was possible for Christopher Lee to be a dreadful actor... now I know.

5. Carebears the Movie (and any sequal there in)
Having an aunt with Downes Syndrome I have been subjected to these films more times than I care to remember. What I DO remember is going to see it when I was about 5 and thinking it was shit then... I even remember a parent getting up after about 10 minutes of the film and asking if anyone else thought the film was crap.

Okay, I think I've stopped... if I think of another 3 throughout the day I reserve the right to list them later.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I actually really like Conan - the soundtrack is genuinely excellent and the film itself isn't half bad. 'fraid I've got to disagree with you here!

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I have blanked the hideous possibility from my mind.

I don't know if I could live in a world where people willfully chose to make more than one Eragon movie.

[elbly.livejournal.com]

8. Signs
Aquaphobic aliens who can travel light years across the galaxy but lack the ability to open a door.

The thing that pisses me off about that film is this:
You're aquaphobic? Then why come and try to take over a planet that's eighty fucking percent water? It's even in the air for crying out loud! Humidity? HELLO!!!!

And my boyfriend at the time LIKED the movie, he actually thought the plot twist was clever and well thought out! You see why I had to dump him?

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Did you see Scary Movie 3? The sendup they did of Signs in that actually made me laugh out loud several times.

[elbly.livejournal.com]

Maybe my tollerance of bad films is so high because I can spot film-shit just 20 meters from the poster. Eragon screamed "Don't watch me! Don't watch me! You'll hate yourself!"

[elbly.livejournal.com]

No - worth watching then huh?

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

If you like films whose primary source of humour comes from people getting kicked in the knackers, you'll enjoy it.
And it rips Signs to shreds too.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Entirely justified; you should probably have beaten him with a French stick as well.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Money, time, so much wasted. I could have been doing something so much more useful, like banging my head against the wall.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Yes! That was actually the only good thing about signs, the parody of it :)