I HAVE been watching movies for as long as I can remember. Staying up late in the nights, glued to the screen, the movie watching experience is something that I have managed to stick with, even after marriage. But after having watched so many movies, there’s one conclusion I have reached; not every one of them is good. In fact, there are bad movies and then there are horrible movies. And all of them are the products of the town that produces some of the best cinematic experiences in the world. But how bad is really bad?
Well, to answer that question, there are a number of web sites that dot the cyber landscape. And to begin with, we start with the granddaddy of all the bad-movie sites, the Home of the Golden Rasberry Award Foundation http://www.razzies.com/.
Every year, just days before the nominations and the actual presentations of the Oscar Awards, there are the Razzies. These ‘awards’, if you want to call them that, salutes the worst that Hollywood has to offer each year. Past winners, membership information, ballots are available at the site. This year, the Razzies have nominated Catwoman and Halle Berry for its bad, absolutely bad performance. Others in the hunt for the Razzies are President Bush, for his ‘acting’ in Fahrenheit 9/11. I bet the studios aren’t jostling for the top honours here, as they do for the Oscars!
A number of other sites too have paid tribute to the worst that Hollywood has to offer. There’s the 100 Worst Films of the 20th Century http://www.thestinkers.com/100stinkers.html. From big budget bombs to straight-to-video shockers this is the list of the 100 ‘Tinseltown turkeys’, as the site likes to call it. It is actually a parody of the American Film Institute’s famed 100 Years, 100 Movies list that honoured the 100 greatest films ever made. The site definitely leaves few reputations intact. It is one huge page with links, and has names like the Wild Wild West, Anaconda and Armageddon. Another link that is equally ruthless is BadMovies.org http://www.badmovies.org/. As the site’s administrator rightly claims, here is a safe place to indulge in your more unsavoury cinematic tastes. You watch them after family members go to bed!
Not only does the guy here explain things , there are also clips from these Hollywood non-leaguers. The list includes relatively unheard of names like Godzilla Vs. Megaguirus and Journey to the Seventh Planet. Fantastic! But creating sites and looking after lists of bad movies isn’t only a thing for amateurs. A well known site like the IMDb too has a presence in this league.
The IMDb Bottom 100 http://www.imdb.com/chart/bottom is an amusing list of cinematic flops. This is place where ill-advised sequels like Police Academy 6 vie with inherently doomed concepts such as Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. What were these guys thinking when they made these movies?
This is what the administrator of Oh, the Humanity! http://www.ohthehumanity.com/ thinks out loud. An entertaining trawl through some of the worst films ever made — Avenging Disco Godfather, Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama... the list goes on. Fans can submit reviews and discuss their favourite turkeys on the message board.
Other than the Razzies, there are other bad movie awards as well; people who are equally if not more, disgusted with the inferior quality of movie making that is being churned out all over. The Stinkers — The Ultimate Bad Movie Awards http://www.thestinkers.com/ is one such site. Scraping the bottom of the cinematic barrel, The Hastings Bad Cinema Society have been putting up with the most horrible from Hollywood since 1978. As well as Worst Film, categories in their annual awards, there are the Most Unfunny Comedy and Worst Fake Accent. The latest movies to don the site here include Alexander and what could easily be titled as Halle Berry’s worst performance (though my husband disagrees) Catwoman. The Rotten Tomatoes ratings here add a little fun to the whole proceedings.
Now, enough of making fun of the bad, pathetic attempt by moviemakers to skim us of our hard earned money. Let’s now take a look at another movie category; the gaffes.
Mistakes and factual errors have been part of the movie making business ever since the entertainment form has been there. And site to take care of the mess is Movie Mistakes http://www.moviemistakes.com/. Continuity gaffes, plot holes and historical inaccuracies are all recorded on this entertaining site, which puts more than 1,000 films under eagle-eyed scrutiny. Nit-pickers can even submit their own sightings to the catalogue of errors.
Wow. In this short piece I have been able to summarize the trauma that I have at times, had to go through while watching bad movies. Speaking of which, it’s time for the 9.30 flick. So, I’ll be off to my addiction, while you contemplate on which bad movie you’re going to see next.
I HAVE been watching movies for as long as I can remember. Staying up late in the nights, glued to the screen, the movie watching experience is something that I have managed to stick with, even after marriage. But after having watched so many movies, there’s one conclusion I have reached; not every one of them is good. In fact, there are bad movies and then there are horrible movies. And all of them are the products of the town that produces some of the best cinematic experiences in the world. But how bad is really bad?
