I stole this idea from a few places, one of which is a podcast I listen to. Since I'm stealing their idea, you should give them listen. They are "Outside The Cinema" and they are really great movie guys who are funny and wise and stuff. Check it out, yo!
With that out of the way, here is the plot/premise.
Each week (on Monday) TWO people will square off by naming the worst movie they can recall watching and WHY they find it bad. They don't have to write super long reviews or anything. Just some short that tells us why. Then I throw up a poll and YOU vote on who you think is either:
A-Right
B-or if you haven't seen one, or either, of the movies, who YOU think made the best argument. Either way, you DO NOT HAVE AN EXCUSE TO VOTE THIS MONDAY MONDAY MONDAY!! The voting lasts till Friday, when a winner is announced. Then THAT winner gets to go again and square off with a new person. SO I'LL CONTINUALLY NEED VOLUNTEERS FOR THIS! If you want to square off in the future, send me an email.
So that's it. Here's the matchup for tonight!
IN THIS CORNER!!! We have LAMB Master himself Dylan AKA FLETCH!!! He not only runs the LAMB, he's in charge of the LAMBcast, and runs his own blog Blog Cabins. Check all that shit out, but after you read what he has to say about this pick:
THE HAPPENING
"I feel like I'm at a disadvantage here. This is, after all, a site dedicated to B movies, a genre (designation? status?) I'm neither all that knowledgable in nor all that much of a fan of (though I do loves me some Basket Case and The Room and crappy Sci-Fi - er, sorry, SyFy channel movies...maybe I'm a bigger B movie fan than I'm willing to admit). Anyway, I'm sure there are some turrible, turrible movies like Mega Whale vs. Giant Shrimp or whatever that I just haven't seen or possibly even heard of. And choosing The Room is just way too easy - it's the Citizen Kane of bad movies, after all, and it's been covered enough by people like me and Jason already. It would feel like cheating for me to select that one. So I'm going with a more mainstream film.
Of course, my selection also happens to be a layup, but at least it's a layup that everyone can agree on. It's none other than Shamalama-man's "The Happening", a movie that tried to answer the question "What if someone attempted to make a low-budget apocalypse movie?" How else to explain the somewhat ingenious plan that required ZERO special effects to show all of the "destruction?" The deadly killer, the one that knocks off millions of people and causes global panic...it's in the air, man! It's, like, invisible. Perhaps for Night's next flick, all of the characters will be invisible, too, and maybe the sets as well - imagine the savings!
Of course, the cheesy "killer" and lack of anything visually interesting onscreen isn't the only thing that makes Happening an awful film. Nay, it has terrible acting up the yin-yang (Marky Mark talks to fake plants!), a serious case of taking itself too seriously, batshit crazy old women, horrible child actors, a complete and total lack of suspense - you name it. The only thing missing? A self-indulgent cameo by M. Night himself. Oh well, I guess we'll have to wait for It's Happening Again (in Paris)."
OOH, I have heard that was awful. But let's see what his opponent has to say.
AND IN THIS CORNER: Rachel from Rachel's Reel Reviews! Recently gave birth, she's been away from blogging but now she's back in full force! A fellow MST3K fan, she writes neat short reviews that somehow manages to not spoil the ending. I could learn a thing or two from her. And her pick is:
ERASERHEAD:
I’ve come to accept that David Lynch is a bit off. I haven’t watched too many of his films, but what I have seen, I didn't understand, walked away confused, and chalked it up to Lynch's serious need for intense psychotherapy. So it’s not that I hate Eraserhead because it makes little to no sense (though that is a reason to simply dislike it): I hate it because it’s not the least bit scary, and yet many film enthusiasts believe it’s one of the most terrifying films ever made. And yet I find it nothing more than a jumble of pretentious, surrealist garbage. Whatever Mr. Lynch’s initial intent with Eraserhead was, the critics have since bestowed upon it such a devoted cult following that one can’t help but be curious enough to check it out, only to be trapped in 90 minutes of bizarre boredom, waiting desperately to be scared.
Wow. I only seen Eraserhead once and I was just confused. Anyway, this is gonna be good.
So now what you fine people need to do is read CAREFULLY the above arguments from each person and based on that, and your personal feelings, vote for which one is THE WORST! For those of you reading this on Facebook, click on VIEW ORIGINAL POST and answer in the poll. Choices said in the comments WILL NOT COUNT. Poll closes Friday morning, so get to votin'!
(I suppose both Fletch and Rachel can vote for themselves. Who's to know anyway, huh?)
Again, I want everyone reading this to be involved at least once, so if you wanna take on next week's winner, email me saying so!
Thanks and good luck!
-Jason
6 comments:
While I agree with everything Rachel said, this is no contest. Eraserhead is a pretentious, artsy mess, but it can't compete with the shittasticness of The Happening.
Look at Fletch, with the trash talk! Woo, this is gettin' good!
-Jason
Wow, I wish I could argue, but I can't because I was smart enough NOT to see The Happening:)
Touche, Rachel. Though I didn't see it in the theater or via rental, so I didn't pay nothing. However, I HAD to see just how bad it was after all the chatter, and yea, it sure lived up to it.
Fair enough. I actually *was* going to see it in the theater, but when everyone said "stay away" I actually listened for once. Admittedly, it's resting comfortably in my Netflix queue. Haven't had the suicidal tendancy to move it to the front of the line yet.
This is ridiculous. Eraserhead was not, is not, and never will be a bad movie.
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