bad movies

6 posts

Just Blow It All Up

Film Film Reviews Urban Planning and Film

2012 (Roland Emmerich, 2009)

In his book Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster, Mike Davis notes the particular enthusiasm in popular culture for destroying Los Angeles, and categorises the different ways in which the city bites the dust. Nuclear weapons lead the way with 49 surveyed works. Earthquakes: 28 works. Invasion: 10. Monsters: 10. Pollution: 7. Gangs or terrorism: 6. Floods: 6. Plagues: 6… and so on. What nobody, so far, had seen fit to do was just tip Los Angeles over and throw it in the ocean.

Enter Roland Emmerich.

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The Feel Bad Movie of the Year

Film Film Reviews

Tideland (Terry Gilliam, 2005)

When I saw Terry Gilliam’s Tideland at the Melbourne Film Festival last year, my immediate reaction was that the film was unreleasable. Its appearance in Australian cinemas has obviously proven me wrong. Yet its exposure to a wider population allows the opportunity to see how many, like me, find the film virtually unwatchable. Gilliam is an enormously talented filmmaker, and Tideland isn’t bad in any of the usual ways. It’s not reprehensible, or stupid, or poorly made. But it’s a deeply unpleasant experience that just doesn’t work at all.

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The Curate’s Crapburger

Film Film Reviews

The Day After Tomorrow (Roland Emmerich, 2004)

One of the principles I try to hold to when reviewing films is to avoid simply savaging a film. The smugness of smart-arsed critics who can do nothing but pick apart a movie always irritates me. Which isn’t to say that bad movies shouldn’t be criticised. It’s just that the best reviews of bad films are those that also stop to note the good points amongst the bad. Likewise, most classic films have their share of flaws, and defining why these films succeed despite their problems is often difficult. Critics need to appreciate the elusiveness of the strange alchemy that makes a good film. As they say, nobody sets out to make a bad movie.

Nobody, that is, except Roland Emmerich.

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Hell’s Bells

Film Film Reviews

Heaven’s Gate (Michael Cimino), 1980

This wasn’t “an unqualified disaster” or “a phenomenon.” This was just – a flop. – Steven Bach

Possibly the finest book written about the making of a film is Steven Bach’s Final Cut: Dreams and Disaster in the Making of Heaven’s Gate, which chronicles the disastrous production of Michael Cimino’s epic western. It’s written from a rarely revealed insider perspective (Bach was a key executive at United Artist’s during the film’s preparation), but that isn’t its only appeal. It captures an important moment in film history: the last semblance of old-style moguls had been swept away (Arthur Krim departed UA in 1978 after 27 years) and the era of decentralised corporate ownership had begun.

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The Worst Day of My Life…

Film Film Reviews

The Phantom Menace (George Lucas), 1999

I guess you have to start any review of the new Star Wars movie with a little prologue explaining how excited you were to see it, how you had opening night tickets, how you queued for hours, how much Star Wars has meant to you, and so on… Well, yeah, I had opening night tickets, and yeah, I was excited, and yeah, I grew up with Star Wars and am amongst those who think that George Lucas wrought a great and marvellous thing back in 1977. I also, for the record, think The Empire Strikes Back is an even better film: one of the truly great works of fantasy cinema. But I don’t want to give the impression I went into the cinema sucked in by the hype and expecting a masterpiece. I don’t want my negative comments about the film written off as the sour grapes of someone who had waited sixteen years and could never have been pleased by Episode 1.

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