I LOVE the film as a whole so much that I quickly learnt to ignore the fact of the two main leads' being miscasts and that the final script contains a few but GLARING inconsistencies and failures concerning basic characterization and certain characters' development. And the film actually made quite a lot of money in the box office, but its problem in this particular regard was that it was very expensive to produce. :-(
I enjoyed Hudson Hawk, more than it got credit for. Not seen it in a while though. Whenever I think of it, I think of Richard E. Grant's line - "I'll torture you so slowly, you'll think it's a career." And the look on his face as he delivers it. I even managed to use it a few times in real life too! Priceless.
Hey Mark, one of my favorite Mega Budget Flops is Lifeforce, Tobe Hooper's space opus--nude vampire babe, awesome effects, script that's all over the place, plot holes as big as the budget. I love it!
Mark was wrong about the Cannes Cut of Southland Tales.. it's now out on Arrow Video, and the film itself has had a massive reappraisal in recent years.
Dune - I always liked this film. I thought it was a good attempt at what was probably an unfilmable (but totally excellent) book. I don't understand why people dislike it so much - I watched it with someone who wouldn't read science fiction and even they understood and liked it.
The elements people dislike about it are pretty much taken from the book, so I've never understood the hate either. It's probably as good as one can expect when trying to pare down a dense, 500 page book into film form.
@@kenon6968 Chiming in quite late, but as someone who really hates the 1984 film, it captures some of the superficial plot elements but it fundamentally misunderstands essentially every theme and idea underpinning the original. It's like a bad caricature. I appreciate the set design and costumes, but otherwise Lynch is right to disown it.
Last action hero... great movie once you understand that it is trying to be nothing more than what it is. A fun action / fantasy comedy. Always loved it...didn't deserve to do so badly at the box office.
So many hilarious things in that film. I just loved that McTiernan could make fun of himself in that way. I remember a specific scene where he jumps off his house, falls about 100 feet and tucks and rolls unscathed. I laughed my ass off. The Macbeth sequence was pretty funny as well.
I don't know how much money it cost or made but Valley of the Dolls is one of my guilty pleasures. It's a great girls night out with champagne, pot, nail polish and ice cream movies.
Haha I had Wild wild west on vhs as a kid and have seen so many times, not recently but absolutely loved it. I think my appreciation for it was probably because I was/am a big fan of Fresh Prince and Will Smith. One of my favorite tv shows growing up even tho I watched long after it had ended. Also I will never not have a crush on Selma Hayek due to wild wild west.
And personally I think Arnie was the best at one-liners. He was given the shittiest lines and he could always pull them off. I laugh all the time. He's one of those actors where all his terrible movies are great, for me that is.
Two that came to my mind were Pirates and Nixon. I never thought Pirates was a bad movie, it certainly has a high production value. And I think Nixon is like a modern day Citizen Kane. It is my favorite Anthony Hopkins performance and I think it a tour de force from Oliver Stone. One of his best certainly and has a very understated and powerful score by J.Williams.
even if Southland Tales dragged a lot, and was clearly very pretentious, I loved how unique it felt as an apocalyptic dark comedy. It was almost an inside joke on Donnie Darko.
Maybe a bit meta, but I got real pleasure out of the fact that Taylor's Cleopatra was a flop. I didn't enjoy the movie, but I loved that her ego was given a spanking. As to big budget flops I really enjoyed I would have to say Rex Harrison's Dr. Dolittle. I was literally shocked to discover it had been a flop, I loved it.
Dune was a total mess but I loved the Guild Navigators and, of course, tthe Sandworms. I have read virtually the entire Frank Herbert series (just need to read Chapter House Dune) and think it should never really be made into another movie. Movies can only oversimplify and cannot do what novels can. I loved the concept of the Golden Path as mentioned in the last trilogy and the descendent of Leto now becoming part human and part Sandworm but was an exciting concept that I thought was too abruptly terminated. The Jodorowsky Dune would have been an unwatchable pretentious mess. After El Topo, Fando and Lis, The Holy Mountain, Sante Sangre, and Dance of Reality this is a director who values shock value over any sort of substance and pummels the viewer with arcane religious imagery. I wold have loved to see Dali as Baron Harrkonen though or Giger's designs brought to life or Pink Floyd doing the music. It would be some obscure cult movie that only a few stoners would sit and watch. I hear there may be another adaptation but I hope it has since been abandoned.
I love Caligula .....wonderful set designs...costumes....brilliant central performance by Malcolm McDowell...a wonderful Peter O'Toole performance as Tiberius....some brilliant shots contrasted by some terrible editing and some bad direction by Tinto Brass...................and the explicit scenes that Bob Guccione shoehorned into the film totally ruins the pacing........but I absolutely love it.
Let me go in the opposite direction and highlight awful films everybody seemed to love. Top of my list is "Titanic" for which the effects were superb but completely wasted on a script where a sign of liberty is a spitting contest. The effects of "Independence Day" were even more spectacular, but the film went completely overboard on the notion that only the USA can save the rest of the world and teach everybody else how to do it (but they'll still have to depend on the USA again next time round). What other suggestions can colleagues come up with?
The biggest flop is Heaven's Gate but not many people find anything enjoyable about that film. It bankrupted United Artists and ended the budding career of the brilliant director Michael Cimino (The Deerhunter).
I'm so heartbroken about Southland Tales because I love Donnie Darko so much. Donnie Darko was David Lynch but with all the crazy sadist-sexual disgusting stuff replaced with "all of it is true".
I`m a massive arnie fan but i wouldnt rate last action hero as one of his best. Its ok. Sometimes i think kermode is more engaging than a lot of actual film makers. but boy was he name droppin in this video!
