Had an impressive cast of Jason Statham, Leelee Sobieski, Ray Liotta, and Ron Purlman too.

Tonight I watched, Che! (1969), a bad movie I'd been curious about for years. It's one of those films with a notorious reputation- slammed as one of the worst movies of the year, embarrassing box-office bomb, later included in Harry Medved's The Fifty Worst Films of All Time. It's not all-time worst bad, and it's not a camp classic like I thought it would be, but it is a boneheaded film full of major miscalculations- and thus worthy of a write-up.

I haven't looked into the production history, but I'm sure it was something like this: what with Che Guevara starting to become an icon after his death in 1967, 20th Century Fox started seeing dollar signs and wanted to strike while the iron was hot. Unfortunately, they fell flat on their faces, partly because they don't take a real position of Guevara at all. Instead of taking a decisive position, the film tries to split to difference. Che taught people how to read, but also brutally executed deserters; he was a man of the people but also wanted to threaten the United States with nuclear weapons. This is fundamentally a film lacking in guts or conviction, as Roger Ebert rightly pointed out.

It certainly helps to have some background knowledge of the Cuban Revolution while watching the film- otherwise you'll probably be hopelessly lost. There's only a passing mention of Batista, and one only gets a vague sense of what Fidel Castro and his guerillas are fighting about. There are gunfights, bombings, and a house being set on fire with a Molotov cocktail, but no sense of drama or excitement; who knew guerilla warfare was this boring? In addition all of the battle scenes in the film feel antiseptic and bloodless; none of it feels real, and there's no real sense of struggle, danger, or how this is affecting the characters. After a scene of a massacre the actors lying on the ground look like exactly that. It's sure handy this war film is so plastic and safe, isn't it?

Jack Palance plays Castro- casting which is absurd on its face and is even more so when you see it in action. Aside from seeing a middle-aged man playing a young revolutionary, we also have the great felicity of having a white Castro who speaks English without any tinge of a Latin accent. His performance isn't any better, unless you consider stilted line readings and goofy hand gestures fine examples of the acting craft. He's not credible at all: he constantly squints and narrows his eyes, looking downright ridiculous, and uses his cigar as a prop, nearly always having it in his mouth even when he's not smoking it.

Large swathes of the story are cut out. The Bay of Pigs invasion, one of the major events in Cuban history and U.S. foreign policy? Entirely skipped over. The Cuban Missile Crisis, that little event which was only the closet humanity has come to nuclear war? Mostly glossed over and only given brief treatment. It also plays fast and loose with history: the film portrays Che as coming up with the idea of stationing Soviet nukes in Cuba (that was Khrushchev's idea) and Catsro as wanting them gone (he wanted them to stay). And if you're not familiar with Che's revolutionary struggles in Bolivia, good luck trying to follow the latter portion of the film. Oh, he's certainly fighting about something (that something involving revolutionary struggle and anti-imperialism), but I'll be damned if I can make out any of the specifics.

In fact, the portrayal of Che as a whole is frustrating. Omar Sharif's performance as him isn't as embarrassing as Palance's Castro, but he's unconvincing as well, giving a stiff performance and awkward line readings. (His dialogue doesn't help either- like a purple speech comparing revolutionaries and peasants to bees and flowers.) By the time Che is killed the viewer doesn't have a clear sense of who Che was or what he was trying to accomplish- you know, the basic goal of a biopic. And given how murky and confused the film's writing is, as well as its confusions and contradictions in approach, good luck trying to decipher Che's motivations with any specificity.

This is a film which bungles just about every aspect and is filled with bizarre choices. Throughout the film a variety of talking heads we never get to really know set up certain aspects of Che's story while talking to the camera- a flourish which is completely pointless and adds nothing to the film. The opening scenes with Che's corpse are unintentionally funny: he doesn't actually look dead, the blood is obviously fake, and the soldiers are way too blasé about removing a dead body. The scene of the goatherd turning Che in is also ridiculous: he says he doesn't need freedom from anyone (imperialism, what is that?), and his big complaint is that the gunfire is scaring his goats. In short, Che! is a real disaster, and is often laughably bad; it's not a so-bad-it's-good film (in fact, much of is boring), but the level of miscalculation about it is quite loopy.

Edit: I originally forgot to mention the scene where a meeting on guerilla strategy is held with Castro while he's undergoing impromptu dental surgery by Che. No, I don't know what the filmmakers were thinking, either.

Can you guys recommend the ABSOLUTE FUNNIEST BEST bad movie from Seagal... could be moronic plotting, action, criminally bad love scenes or hopefully all of the above.

Not an official list, but here are the venues that have announced dates for the upcoming UK tour of The Room w/Greg Sestero in May.

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Cottage Road Cinema Leeds Tuesday, May 7th:

Vue Cinema Hull, Hull. Wednesday 08 May 2024

Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle upon Tyne 10th May:

Cultplex, Manchester 12th May

Glasgow Film Theatre 30th May

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No dates in the South announced as yet, but I can't see London and Bristol missing out given the Badmovie scenes in those areas.

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When I first put this on that music was instantly good but the kid and the birthday party scene were instantly crap in a way that I didn't know if it should be funny or not. Other things I noticed was certain characters were never in the same room. It was such a damn romp the "I came here to party guy" fucking slays me!!! lol The movie was partially completed for financial reasons "spent too much on the special effects", so another person picked up where the last person left off and just added scenes to make the film work. One of my fav good/bad movies I had to buy a reproduction print of the original poster to this one.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090057/

Up to this point I'd seen all the Anaconda movies on release pretty much (except for the Lake Placid crossover one, cause fuck that), but I only kept watching the 1st.

Anaconda is one of my favourite movies, I don't care how bad it is. I find that movie infectiously entertaining and Ive watched it about 3 or 4 times a year since seeing it in 1997 (when I was 3). The others didn't really stick with me though. From memory, I found 2 OK, 3 funny and 4 a crime against humanity. The Chinese remake trailer and upcoming US reboot got me in the mood for Jon Voight, but I decided I'd revisit the 2nd again, as both upcoming versions seem to be borrowing from that as well.

I'm actually really glad I revisited this one. It's a fun adventure movie, with plenty of fun (mostly unconvincing) snake action, a game British villain and a stupid plot about finding a youth giving flower or some shit. I was a little surprised that it was actually theatrically released, because this screams made for TV (even if the effects are a little better for that). It's quick and fun.

I do think it's a step down in almost every way from the 1st. I'll make a case for it making better use of the jungle setting (the snakes just feel like the biggest of a list of problems for the crew). But it really isn't as fun. The cast is way less impressive and there's not much of a stand out performance here. The effects are almost all CG, which looks better than it did in the 1st, but it's not the most convincing and isn't as impressive as the genuinely great (if awkwardly shot) full sized animatronic snakes. And the script, which was shockingly air tight in the 1st (as Kim Newman said, it's a movie that fails only in its technicals, there's no pacing or tonal issues, inconsistencies or plot holes), is definitely weaker, thought not all bad (was a little surprised to see 2 of the writers were the writing duo of Robocop).

But honestly, if you like creature features, like I do, then this will be right up your alley. It was certainly better, or at least more fun, than I remember. Looking forward to that Chinese remake though, check out the trailer, looks like a blast.

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https://preview.redd.it/6dbhmukc3otc1.png?width=666&format=png&auto=webp&s=1be44622383d4f7dae0bd17d557a175293138544

For all those who don’t know, SAMURAI COP is a film made by Iranian filmmaker Amir Shervan, and stars B-movie legend Robert Z’Dar, who you may have seen in TANGO AND CASH with Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell. It also starts Matthew Karedas (credited as Matt Hannon in this movie) as the titular character, Janis Farley as his principal love interest, and Mark Frazer as his cop friend Frank. Together, they fight the Katana Gang, whom Z’Dar is second in command in, under boss Fujiyama. Quite honestly the plot is so thin and the characters actions are so inexplicable that it effectively destroys any interest in whatever plot there is to be interested in- which is very little.

Before

After

When I first saw SAMURAI COP, I thought it was bar none of the worst movies ever made. Never had I seen such a shockingly incompetent level of filmmaking on even the most basic of levels. It is a spectacularly- and I mean spectacularly total failure in every avenue of filmmaking- writing, directing, acting; editing; cinematography- you name it. This is a movie that would be made by aliens if they had heard of the human race on a whim. This is a movie where whole scenes have green, orange, blue or a mix of these colored tints throughout. Every interior scene in this movie has these horrific tints because sets are either over-lit or the wrong film stock is being used. There is barely any editing, either. On multiple occasions 1-second close ups are inserted at very innapropriate times, the pacing is all over the place in every scene.

Before

After

This movie is so epically bad and is made with such a childlike, enthusiastic quality that it descends into the realm of so-bad-it’s-good. This is one of the best bad movies ever made. SAMURAI COP is very clearly a rip-off of LETHAL WEAPON 2- the long haired, mysterious white cop partnered with the calm, logical, easy-going black cop who cause enormous amounts of mayhem. Their police captain who chews them out. The blonde damsel in distress. The desert chase scenes. It’s all there. This was clearly made by someone with little to no understanding of Western culture.

SAMURAI COP is a film so fundamentally broken and of such low quality that I wondered: is it possible to improve it using just the original film as source material? When I did this, I discovered that the answer is largely no. Doing a fan-edit of this movie is like trying to keep a terminally ill patient alive. There were some things that I felt I improved, but not nearly enough to make this film even slightly passable.

Before

After

What changes did I make? 37 minutes of the film was cut, largely to properly pace and streamline the film, and to remove scenes that had no relevancy to the already near-non existent plot- including:

:The first two scenes

:All but one of the sex scenes (the one I kept was largely due to character development, and that had to be heavily edited)

:The office hangout scene

:The film studio scene (feat. "creepy Walt Disney")

:All references to Joe being from San Diego

Other edits:

:Nearly every scene in this version has been edited

:Some scenes and shots have been moved around

:All of the flubbed dialogue

:Some specific pieces of non-sensical dialogue

The variously colored tints in this movie have been dealt with, with basic color correction, with varying success. There are some scenes in this movie that have such an intense orange tint and are so oversaturated that for someone who knows little to nothing about color correction they seem beyond repair to me.

Some cinematographic elements have either been enhanced or reduced throughout, mostly contrast, highlights and shadows. The film suffered from cinematography that looked flat and sometimes massively overexposed- in some cases at least 8 F-stops over proper exposure- mostly because the scenes were not lit properly, or use of the wrong film stock.

Before

After

The aspect ratio has been cropped from 1.85:1 to 2.35:1. I did this because this film has a lot of shots where there is a large amount of unused space between the top of the actors’ heads and the upper part of the frame. The film actually looks like it was supposed to be filmed with anamorphic lenses, but they couldn't afford them, so they shot it with normal lenses intended for 2.35:1, but somewhere down the line Shervan either forgot or stopped caring. I feel the film actually looks better this way.

Before

After

There are some segments that are so poorly edited by the original filmmakers that it became nearly impossible to make something even slightly coherent or flow properly. The buildup to the first chase scene is a good example: that scene was such a gargantuan mess that trying to piece something out of that seemed like trying to beat a dead horse to life.

Some plot holes have been filled, like what happens to Peggy. In the original film, she is tortured, and we never see her again.

Before

After

So I hope you enjoy this fan edit of the legendary SAMURAI COP!

This movie comes in HOT and lets you know right out of the gate that it’s unhinged. It’s one of those things that could either be crazy nonsense or absolutely higher-level genius than any of us can comprehend. Apparently it’s based on a pretty well-liked (if not somewhat obscure) novel, which I have to imagine reads more coherently than this plays out. I guess the target audience for this is disgruntled accountants?

It's no secret that there've been a lot of questionable crossovers in history when it comes to musicians/singers trying to parlay their success to film or television, but nowhere do I feel that's more apparent than with the plethora of films made by rappers or country singers who try their hand at "acting". While on occasion there are some good examples (Willie Nelson has a few decent films to his name) most of the time their crossovers are less than successful. With that in mind, do you think rappers or country singers make worse films?

Alright, I’ll admit it’s been a while since I watched since I can’t seem to locate it anywhere at reasonable price (if you can help with that, I’l be eternally thankful), but this is a bad movie that holds a special place in my heart.

From the ridiculous characters, like the racist Scab with sharpie tattoos or the ditzy Bebe, the ridiculous lines (Have you ever licked a toad?), the ridiculous side plot about the authenticity of one character’s breast, and it’s inconsistent production quality, it’s truly a fun movie to sit back and riff on with your friends. The first hour is a tad of a slog, but it goes from zero to ludicrous speed in the final act. Trust me, that ending is absolutely fucking worth it. Oh, and it features a real life bear as killer.

Please share yours!

Director Christopher Forbes has a ton of movies like this on Tubi and they’re all borderline unwatchable schlock. Not for the feint of heart!

A plot that very loosely involves ESP and a murder mystery. Scenes are made out of copy paper. There's an MRI made with construction paper. The plot is an incoherent ramble. It cost just over $5000 to film despite having a much larger budget. The three theaters that showed it stopped after the first night and burned the prints rather than spend the money to return them to the studio.

Around 2010 when the local blockbuster went out of business my friend got a pile of straight to DVD movies for cheap

One sticks in my mind and I need to know the name

I say it was a Tarantino rip off because the story was non linear, it was told mostly in reverse if I remember correct. It was sort of a sin city rip off because it used lots of lens filters to make the shots look sort of strange

The main characters were all women, and done up to seem “bad ass” but also exploitive at the same time (lots of cleavage and bare midriffs)

The main plot line was shot mostly in the desert and featured some flash backs, and was about a heist or something that went wrong and the fallout of the double crossing and plot twists

anyone know what it was?