xkcd

by **GhostWolfe** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 8:59 am UTC

Idhan wrote:To be fair, if "tell the truth when you talk, but you have discretion to not speak at all" is your standard for honesty, then that allows some pretty deceptive stuff virtually tantamount to lying.

I'm not talking about avoiding questions, or deceiving people. I'm talking about the way characters volunteer information for no damn reason, and that we're suppose to find it funny that person A said "hi, how's your day been?" and person B said "not bad, and by the way you're fat and ugly".

/angell

by **SecondTalon** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 9:01 pm UTC

aka It's not a Truth Compulsion, is a Internal Monologue Made External. Especially as the speaker reacts to their truth-telling with horror and shock, as if they cannot believe they actually said that out loud.

Which in the early parts of the entertainment, is usually true.

Walking into a room, seeing Bob and immediately saying "Bob, your wife and I fucked like rabbits last weekend and it was awesome" is not a truth-telling compusion..thingy. If Bob casually mentions that he thinks his wife is cheating on him, responding or not responding... that's debatable if it falls under lying or not, as you know full well Bob's wife is cheating on him, because she's banging you. And of course, if Bob mentions the cheating then asks if you know anything, not answering that you and Bob's wife are involved in bedroom dancing would be a lie, so you would bring it up then.

But you wouldn't just blurt it out first thing upon seeing Bob. Not if you simply were incapable of lying. But without the ability to keep internal thoughts internal... well, then you probably would blurt it out.

by **Idhan** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 1:45 am UTC

Fair enough. I admit I haven't seen The Invention of Lying (nor does it sound like I'd want to), so I suppose I was probably giving it too much credit with regards to the issue of the potential dishonesty of omission.

by **GhostWolfe** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 4:24 am UTC

Have you seen Liar Liar? It's like that, except the compulsion applies to everyone forever.

Thanks ST, for explaining better than I can.

/angell

by **Dustin** » Sun Jan 23, 2011 1:40 am UTC

Pink Flamingos

Never mind the fucking, simulated rape, coprophagia and all that. It's just so annoying and unfunny, at least now. There's one scene with a post-op transsexual that's good for a laugh, but Jesus is it not worth the investment. The irony in the music choices, the irony of "they're 'filthy' but they act in a parody of self-important snooty people or moralists on television" is so damn labored it's tiresome. I don't care that the acting is "stylized," it's still just off-putting.

by **theGoldenCalf;** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 9:18 am UTC

Anaconda was pretty damn bad. It has glitzy Hollywood production so it seems less of a shit pile than it really is, but it's an actual factual B-movie, and a very bad one too. I was dragged to many crappy movies by friends in high school, and as far as I can remember that one took the cake and ate it.

by **SecondTalon** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 7:52 pm UTC

Dustin wrote:Pink Flamingos

Never mind the fucking, simulated rape, coprophagia and all that. It's just so annoying and unfunny, at least now. There's one scene with a post-op transsexual that's good for a laugh, but Jesus is it not worth the investment. The irony in the music choices, the irony of "they're 'filthy' but they act in a parody of self-important snooty people or moralists on television" is so damn labored it's tiresome. I don't care that the acting is "stylized," it's still just off-putting.

Arguably, everything you mention is the point. This is John Water's we're talking about. See Also: Trustworthiness of Beards.

by **Shivahn** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 1:02 am UTC

I am somewhat baffled at things on some of these lists. Saw and Titanic may not have been great for everyone, but if it's one of the worst films you've ever seen then you have not seen Killer Klowns from Outer Space.

Which I have. Because Netflix had it on streaming.

It has terrible special effects, a nonsensical plot, people surviving being dropped from several thousand feet after a spaceship they were in exploded because they were hiding in a freezer, and a stupid "the protagonists laugh" scene which is freeze-framed so the credits can run over it. There is a police officer who is filled with hatred at, like, everything, inexplicably. Like, his archetype is hate. There is nothing about him as a character other than him being a jerk. He's so far out there it breaks suspension of disbelief, in a movie about clowns invading earth to eat people.

But the worst part by far is that, about halfway through the movie, there is a something like forty-minute montage-like scene where the clowns go around killing everyone. No one you've ever seen before. No one important. Just forty minutes of clowns doing various clown things except they're deadly, to random people that live in the town.

It was awful. I laughed so many times through it, though, because it was so bad. But I'm the type of person who laughs at so-bad-it's-horrible stuff, so that doesn't tell you much.

by **Dustin** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 1:56 am UTC

SexyTalon wrote:Arguably, everything you mention is the point. This is John Water's we're talking about. See Also: Trustworthiness of Beards.

Nice try, but Mr. J shows his hand a few times to give away that the movie is actually supposed to be darkly comic, shocking and satirical, and not just an avant garde boring piece of anti-entertainment. There are too many straight up obvious gags in it like the bit where the the tabloid reporters stand around going over pointers or the furniture rejecting people. Or the bit that's actually funny. Also Divine acts a bit better than some of the Marbles do here and there. There's inflection in some of the lines and emoting, etc.

by **|Erasmus|** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 2:11 am UTC

Shivahn wrote:It has terrible special effects, a nonsensical plot, people surviving being dropped from several thousand feet after a spaceship they were in exploded because they were hiding in a freezer.

Pfft... everyone knows fridges are completely indestructible. Exhibit A: Indiana Jones surviving a nuclear explosion by hiding in a fridge.

by **MotorToad** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 2:52 pm UTC

Shivahn wrote:I am somewhat baffled at things on some of these lists. Saw and Titanic may not have been great for everyone, but if it's one of the worst films you've ever seen then you have not seen Killer Klowns from Outer Space.

I included Titanic, and stand behind it. Hell, it's an opinion.

But seriously, you wouldn't watch killer Klowns from Outer Space with any expectation of quality. I went to Titanic expecting it to be one of the best movies of the year, if not the recent past, because a lot of people had told me it was. It wasn't. It sucked. Because the gap between expectation and actuality was far greater for Titanic than killer Klowns from Outer Space, I think Titanic was one of the worst movie experiences I've ever had.

Sure I'd probably sit through it again before I'd sit through killer Klowns from Outer Space, but either would have to be at gunpoint. =]

by **Technical Ben** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 11:48 pm UTC

Shivahn wrote:
Spoiler:
I am somewhat baffled at things on some of these lists. Saw and Titanic may not have been great for everyone, but if it's one of the worst films you've ever seen then you have not seen Killer Klowns from Outer Space.

Which I have. Because Netflix had it on streaming.

It has terrible special effects, a nonsensical plot, people surviving being dropped from several thousand feet after a spaceship they were in exploded because they were hiding in a freezer,
Spoiler:
and a stupid "the protagonists laugh" scene which is freeze-framed so the credits can run over it. There is a police officer who is filled with hatred at, like, everything, inexplicably. Like, his archetype is hate. There is nothing about him as a character other than him being a jerk. He's so far out there it breaks suspension of disbelief, in a movie about clowns invading earth to eat people.

But the worst part by far is that, about halfway through the movie, there is a something like forty-minute montage-like scene where the clowns go around killing everyone. No one you've ever seen before. No one important. Just forty minutes of clowns doing various clown things except they're deadly, to random people that live in the town.

It was awful. I laughed so many times through it, though, because it was so bad. But I'm the type of person who laughs at so-bad-it's-horrible stuff, so that doesn't tell you much.

I forgave George for everything* in Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull except for that one scene with the nuke and a fridge. You would die from concussion! I've written off that film for good.

_{*Well, except for the aliens, dodgy ants, Shia LaBeouf, bad sound effects, a snake as a rope... I was not even watching this thing, and that's how much I picked up that was wrong.}

by **sje46** » Thu Jan 27, 2011 5:11 pm UTC

ParanoidAndroid wrote:As much as I like Ricky Gervais, The Invention of Lying was one of the most heavy-handed, unfunny movies I have ever seen.

I like it, but maybe it's because I'm an anti-theist, and it was filmed where I live (my dad and I live in those apartments the Jennifer Garnet character lives in (don't stalk me)).

I thought it was pretty good for a not-so-serious movie. Remember what Basil said in The Spy Who Shagged Me.

Spoiler:

by **SecondTalon** » Thu Jan 27, 2011 6:24 pm UTC

The problem I had with the bit in the Spy Who Shagged Me is.. there's no problem. There's no reason to go cross-eyed. Chronologically on the singular scale (Austin) - there's no backtracking, no regression, everything is forward moving. It's the surroundings that change, sure, but the Time-Traveling 1990s Austin in 1969 is a couple of months to several years older than frozen, unaging 1969 Popsicle Austin.

Seriously, what the hell is the problem? Why would you go crosseyed? There's nothing complicated about it! It's not like he had to jump back to father the child who'd grow up to invent Time Travel or anything like that.

by **LaserGuy** » Fri Jan 28, 2011 8:22 pm UTC

My worst film list normally includes:

Napoleon Dynamite: I just don't get this movie. I feel asleep the first time watching it. I tried watching it again at some point later with a bit of coffee in me, and I think it made it through about an hour before I turned it off. I didn't find it engaging in any way: wasn't funny, wasn't sympathetic, wasn't tragic, wasn't exciting. It was just... nothing.

Passion of the Christ: Graphic depiction of someone getting tortured for over two hours. No, it isn't spiritual. No, it doesn't say anything about Christ's message of love or salvation. No, it is DEFINITELY not appropriate to take your children to see it. I won't deny that the film is well-shot, and I seem to recall the music being suitably tragic. That doesn't excuse this film from being a crime against humanity. Christians more than anyone else (well, maybe Jews) should be appalled by this film.

Any film that casts Rob Schneider.

by **mikhail** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 5:17 pm UTC

Jorpho wrote:I was waiting for someone to mention the Venture Bros. Scooby Doo, yes.

Their appearance in Harvey Birdman was also hilarious.

by **Felstaff** » Mon Jul 11, 2011 4:10 pm UTC

In the "so bad it's tolerable" category, I watched Creepshow 2 last weekend. I really wanted a horror to make me pay in fear dollars, but I'm afraid it failed to deliver, because it was far too 80s. Ridic so. Also, the scriptwriters weren't up on 80s dope-smoking teen lingo, as there's this one scene (on the segment "The Raft") where two teenagers (trapped on a raft as an oily acidic ooze stalked them from the waters around them) began to get hysterical, as two of their friends had been caught and dissolved by this malevolent floating blob. The girl was screaming and losing all forms of rationality, and the guy, in true 80s Teen Hero Guy fashion, grabs her arms to assert control, and yells "I swear to god I'll SMOKE ya!" *shakes fist*

Now, violent chauvinism aside, I found myself laughing like a loon. "smoke ya?" Since when has 'smoke' ever meant 'punch'? Shirley it means "to shoot" someone? It's like someone running towards you menacingly wielding a wiffle back, screaming "I'm gunna pop a cap in yo ass!"

Anyways I've taken to shaking my fist at people, saying "I swear to god I'll smoke ya!", emphasising the word 'smoke' with an extra wiggle of the fist.

link Trigger warning for Male on Female violence.

by **headprogrammingczar** » Mon Jul 11, 2011 8:35 pm UTC

Last week, we watched The Naked Vampire because it had somehow wriggled its way onto the list of Netflix recommendations. It was... indescribable.

by **Lampang** » Tue Jul 12, 2011 2:04 am UTC

Not perhaps the worst ever but the worst I've watched recently was The Adjustment Bureau. After about half a second looking at the cover, I expected 90 minutes of harmless, mildly diverting thriller-drivel (exotic murder techniques, wildly improbable technology, etc.). I didn't expect unbearable nonsense about true love getting god to change his mind. Just dire, ideologically-driven bollocks about the power of positive thinking. Hear that you losers? It's all your fault.

by **GhostWolfe** » Tue Jul 12, 2011 2:47 am UTC

While not bad enough to take the crown of worst movie I've seen, I finally watched AI: Artificial Intelligence on the weekend. Gah.

/angell

by **CorruptUser** » Tue Jul 12, 2011 5:03 am UTC

GhostWolfe wrote:While not bad enough to take the crown of worst movie I've seen, I finally watched AI: Artificial Intelligence on the weekend. Gah.

/angell

It's better if you end it when David is begging the blue fairy for life. The entire point of the movie was that you shouldn't create life to be discarded, but no, there just had to be a happy ending. Kubrik would've left the ending undisturbed (disturbed?).

Also, if you forget that half the machines look like bad cartoons.

by **AvatarIII** » Tue Jul 12, 2011 8:11 am UTC

I saw AI at the cinema when i was 15 and i thought it was amazing, i even welled up a bit at the end, it's never been as good on rewatches but i still consider it a really good movie, (~7-8/10)

by **Nat** » Tue Jul 12, 2011 10:02 pm UTC

I was going to say snakes on a plane. Then I remembered epic movie.

by **GhostWolfe** » Wed Jul 13, 2011 8:12 am UTC

AvatarIII wrote:I saw AI at the cinema when i was 15 and i thought it was amazing, i even welled up a bit at the end, it's never been as good on rewatches but i still consider it a really good movie, (~7-8/10)

I cried a few times, but every time I got invested something so spectacularly stupid would happen that I -- who enjoyed all the Transformers movies* -- got distracted by the sheer WTFness.

/angell

* So clearly I'm not that difficult to entertain

by **AvatarIII** » Wed Jul 13, 2011 8:46 am UTC

GhostWolfe wrote:
AvatarIII wrote:I saw AI at the cinema when i was 15 and i thought it was amazing, i even welled up a bit at the end, it's never been as good on rewatches but i still consider it a really good movie, (~7-8/10)
I cried a few times, but every time I got invested something so spectacularly stupid would happen that I -- who enjoyed all the Transformers movies* -- got distracted by the sheer WTFness.

/angell

* So clearly I'm not that difficult to entertain

perhaps the problem was that it didn't quite know what it wanted to be? a Speilberg adventure on the run movie, or a Kubrick character movie?

by **Low Caliber** » Thu Jul 14, 2011 7:01 pm UTC

Birdemic (terrible romantic comedy for first half, atrocious horror for next?)

Red Riding Hood (no I am not a pedophile, forced into watching it)

Mega Piranha (the ending literally doesn't make sense)

Megashark vs. Giant Octopus

Megashark vs. Crocosaurus

Dragon Wars (dinosaurs with rocket launchers, how could that go wrong?)

Battefield Earth (yay for L. Ron Hubbard?)

Lesbian Vampires Killers

I know there are more, but I think my brain has hidden them deep inside itself to spare my knowing what terribles things were contained within.

by **AvatarIII** » Fri Jul 15, 2011 9:10 am UTC

lesbian vampire killers is bad, but it revels in it's own badness making it alright, imho

talking of all those awful "giant monster" movies, reminded me of Lake Placid 2, that was really really bad.

by **Jorpho** » Fri Jul 15, 2011 1:15 pm UTC

What, no Shark Attack 3? Featuring John Barrowman and The Worst Line in Scriptwriting History?
~~http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIt0VY7Yg2w~~ oops
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1XOfHax6Q8

by **jeffk** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 4:09 am UTC

Low Caliber wrote:Battefield Earth (yay for L. Ron Hubbard?)

Haven't seen it, so I'm taking Roger's word for it:

Roger Ebert wrote:"Battlefield Earth" was written in 1980 by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. The film contains no evidence of Scientology or any other system of thought.... The director, Roger Christian, has learned from better films that directors sometimes tilt their cameras, but he has not learned why.

by **Low Caliber** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 7:19 pm UTC

Jorpho wrote:What, no Shark Attack 3? Featuring John Barrowman and The Worst Line in Scriptwriting History?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIt0VY7Yg2w

Appears to be a link to the wrong video, found it anyways though, and I am down. Will watch it when I am back at university in september. (as well as many other things suggested in this thread)

also forgot some things:

Skyline
Dracula 2000
Blacula (not all that terrible looking back on it)
Grizzly Man (the interviewer in this seemed kinda out of his league)
Battle Royale
Battle Royale II: Requiem (I could forgive the first one, I nearly didn't make it though this one)

by **Jorpho** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 2:16 am UTC

Oh dear, how embarrassing. Fixed.

I thought Battle Royale had a lot of legitimate fans.

by **SecondTalon** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 2:10 pm UTC

Jorpho wrote:Oh dear, how embarrassing. Fixed.

I thought Battle Royale had a lot of legitimate fans.

Yeah.. just remember you're in the Worst Film You've Seen thread. Worst. Top of the Crap Heap. No Movie Is More Horrible, In My Experience.... and people are listing off shit like Watchmen and the Bourne Series.

Don't get me wrong, there's gobs of reasons to not like those films. GOBS. But Worst?

So yeah, Jorpho.. just remember that based on that, I'd say half the people in this thread have seen twelve movies in their life. With that in mind, it's rather easy to see how Battle Royale could be someone's worst.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to watch Frostbiter again, just for the Chili Monster song. Because there's no other fucking redeeming scene in that movie.

by **evilspoons** » Thu Jul 21, 2011 3:10 pm UTC

Here's another vote for Battlefield Earth as the worst movie ever. Apparently the book (while not exactly "good") is a lot less terrible, though.

Additionally, Starship Troopers is tied for the worst movie ever. People keep telling me it's supposed to be campy or that it's satire, but in my eyes it's just @#$%ing retarded. If TVTropes.com were to get wiped and everyone had to start redoing it, Starship Troopers could be used to rewrite half the damned articles.

by **Adam H** » Thu Jul 21, 2011 9:39 pm UTC

As far as great books turned into worst movies of all time goes, Dune is right up there with Battlefield Earth.

And Battlefield Earth is an absolutely amazing book. Maybe the book is worse after seeing the movie because you have all these horrendous scenes already pictured in your head.

by **AvatarIII** » Fri Jul 22, 2011 10:24 am UTC

Adam H wrote:As far as great books turned into worst movies of all time goes, Dune is right up there with Battlefield Earth.

And Battlefield Earth is an absolutely amazing book. Maybe the book is worse after seeing the movie because you have all these horrendous scenes already pictured in your head.

Dune get's a lot of undeserved flack as far as i'm concerned, it might not be a very good adaptation of the source material, but neither was Bladerunner and that's great, but Dune is still visually spectacular, interesting, exciting and everything that makes a movie good. in my opinion.
The Sci-Fi channel did a good adaptation of Dune as a miniseries, but even though it's a good adaptation, it's let down by low production values, and i don't think it's that good. a good film maker knows that a perfect adaptaion is not always the best thing, comprimises nearly always have to be made, and i feel Lynch did as good as he could, and made the right kind of comprimises.

by **D.B.** » Fri Jul 22, 2011 4:54 pm UTC

AvatarIII wrote:lesbian vampire killers is bad, but it revels in it's own badness making it alright, imho

I'm going to have to vote for lesbian vampire killers too. Bad films are fine in my opinion. I watched "Mega Python vs Gatoriod" a couple of weeks back. Now there's a film that revels in its own badness. Lesbian vampire killers though felt a bit insipid and dull. Not good enough to be good, not 'lul whut?' enough to be enjoyably bad.

by **The Scyphozoa** » Wed Jul 27, 2011 8:01 pm UTC

Robocop.

What is the POINT? Of goddamn ANYTHING?

by **JudeMorrigan** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 5:19 pm UTC

Adam H wrote:And Battlefield Earth is an absolutely amazing book. Maybe the book is worse after seeing the movie because you have all these horrendous scenes already pictured in your head.

That ... is very much a matter of opinion. I've actually read it a couple of times (long before the movie came out), but I would compare it's allure to that of a multi-car pileup on the other side of the road.

by **philsov** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 6:19 pm UTC

Gummo.

Watched it because, hey, Kids was pretty good. It was a very bad decision. The premise is that a tornado struck rural hicksville USA, and the various scenes are snapshots of many people on their day-to-day sorts of lives. Thematically its akin to the Martian Chronicles. But in execution, the only reason I watched the thing to the end was some sort of morbid curiousity that something would happen -- there'd be some sort of improvement or grandoise heavy-handed "we've learned something today" or ANYTHING. But, no. Just more of the previous sorts of depressing images and actions, and then fade to black.

by **Nat** » Fri Jul 29, 2011 12:27 am UTC

Harry potter movies. Less because they were that bad (they were pretty bad, but I've seen worse), more because the books could really have been turned into really good movies. There were a lot of scenes in the books where I thought "wow, it would be really awesome to see this in a movie". And than when I saw it in the movie, they somehow made it boring and pointless. HBP was one of the few movies I actually stopped watching halfway through because it was so bad.

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