The Avengers (Not the New One), a Fallen Angel, V'Ger, and, of course, Beloved: 10 Bad Old Movies

I love movies, but certainly not all movies.  Some are mildly bad, some are really bad, some are so bad they’re actually good, and some, inexplicably, draw big stars and big names to them and yet stink up our movie theaters and DVD players for months, just as Oprah Winfrey’s pet project Beloved, based on a famed Toni Morrison novel, happened to do!  I have no doubt the novel might just be interesting and perhaps thought provoking, but it’s not The Help, and the movie was a mess!

     The list below contains films I saw when I started documenting which movies I loved and hated back in 1999, and features, among others, a few forgettable romances, disappointing horror films, The Avengers (not the new one, but the movie remake of the old TV series), and even the first Star Trek motion picture! 

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

It wasn’t worth the wait.  This thing has none of the qualities that made the original series such a cherished treasure.  The original series cast looks tired and old, in their new uniforms that look like pajamas, the atmosphere is passionless and dull, and about ¾ of the movie is a series of bloated, over-budget special effects and the casts’ reaction, staring out the main bridge view screen with awe and wonder and fascination.  Just how many times do we need to see Sulu widen his eyes with his mouth gaping open, or Spock raise his eyebrow, or bald guest star Persis Khambatta put her fingers to her chin as she contemplates the effects taking place on the main view screen.  Enough!

Real Genius

Got it for Christmas, and it was passably enjoyable, but definitely not a keeper.  I’ve seen star Val Kilmer do better in many other films.  In retrospect, this is just one of dozens of forgettable 80’s teen comedies.  Ferris Bueller it isn’t.  It’s not even Revenge of the Nerds.

John Carpenter’s Vampires

Some of my friends liked this one more than Blade, but oh, not me!  Vampires was missing the style of Blade, and without style and mood and lavish productions like the aforementioned films, like Interview with the Vampire, then the vampires just wind up looking silly.

            Take From Dusk Till Dawn as a case in point.  The movie is very good up to and including the very hot dance that Selma Hayek does with a snake, using her foot as a glass by putting it in Quentin Tarantino’s mouth and pouring liquor down her leg!  Then she goes through some quick, special effects CGI transformation and attacks him, and from that point on, the story changes gears rapidly, with the style and mood sustained through the first half chucked out of the window in favor of silly and stupid vampires without any personality or style.  The entire second half of this movie is moronic!  The vampires are absurd here, and not the fleshed out, living entities of Interview with the Vampire, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Near Dark, or even, yes, Blade!  The vampires in these better films are more than just mindless monsters; they’re characters.  The vampires in John Carpenter’s Vampires are not the seemingly real creatures of Interview with the Vampire, complete with wants, and fears, and emotions, but are more like the idiotic, cardboard zombie creatures of From Dusk Till Dawn.

Bed of Roses

This thing was vapid, seemed short, and lacked the characters and emotions of a really good film.  As romance films go, few get down and dirty with real characters, preferring wistful storybook romance over full-fledged, real people.  If you want characters with substance and more than one or two dimensions, look elsewhere.

City of Angels

Does this movie understand the cosmic themes of the afterlife, or was it just a chance for Hollywood to put two of its most bankable romantic leads into a movie about a woman who falls in love with a literal angel?  I can certainly understand why a movie like this might appeal to the studios and audiences, especially with Meg Ryan and Nicholas Cage attached as the two leads, yet ultimately, this movie has an angel giving up eternity in heaven with God for a short existence with Meg Ryan.  Even Satan wouldn’t be so foolish, and this movie simply felt wrong (though some women I’ve talked to believe it is the ultimate romance, a story where a woman finds out the man who loves her is actually an angel who is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to be with her!).  Then what do we make of that ending [SPOILER ALERT!] where he falls from heaven, and then she’s killed, leaving him alone and fallen?  Was it divine retribution for caring about a human more than his creator?  Divine retribution doesn’t make for warm-hearted romance, and I don’t understand how these women who defend it can possibly like that ending!

Snake Eyes

I loved Nicolas Cage’s action trio The Rock, Face/Off, and Con Air.  I didn’t care for his Oscar winning Leaving Las Vegas.  Now, with City of Angels and this Brian De Palma film, he rolls snake eyes.  While the first was an immoral as well as bland romance, Snake Eyes was a bland De Palma thriller, and [SPOILER ALERT!] even Gary Sinise as the surprise bad guy can’t do much with it.  Carrie remains De Palma’s best, though the ultra-violent Scarface and the underrated comedy Wise Guys are very close seconds, and almost everything else was slow, strange, and dreamy, from his early thrillers like Sisters and Obsession, to later ones that came along after Carrie, like The Fury, Dressed to Kill, Blow Out, Body Double, and Raising Cain.  No wonder he switched over into other genres with films like The Untouchables, Mission Impossible, and Casualties of War (and even these films were mostly technical, with De Palma more worried about editing and camera trickery than the actual story he was trying to tell).  With his thrillers, even his fans describe him as a second rate Alfred Hitchcock, and Snake Eyes doesn’t do anything to dispel that description.

Beloved

This Oprah Winfrey piece of trash stunk up Terry’s basement for a month!  What is Oprah Winfrey doing making complete garbage like this for?  It was disgusting, and their attempts at deep philosophy and social commentary just wind up looking not just stupid, but completely brain dead, like its main character, Beloved.

Pleasentville

This film is one up on Beloved simply because it was infinitely more colorful and dazzling, with a tremendous cast including Toby McGuire, Reese Witherspoon, William H. Macy, Joan Allen, and Jeff Daniels.  However, what we saw was an extremely pro-liberal, anti-conservative story with some very pretty window dressing.  The whole thing was designed to make people think morality is a bad thing, and that the oppression of freedom, any freedom, harkens back to the days society was segregated and blacks were treated like second class citizens.  I understand the themes of suffrage, and the need to struggle against the tyranny of people who shove their vision of moral perfection on everyone else, but by the same token, I know we can’t just allow people to live any damned old way they feel like, or society will rot like worms in an apple.  But no matter what I feel about this movie, I will have to admit, it did something Beloved tried to do, but failed:  no matter what side of the political fence I’m on, Pleasentville at least made me think.  I can at least look at the movie and be able to tell what the filmmakers were attempting, and be able to at least compliment them for being intelligent, and for making an original, creative, and intelligent movie.  I still don’t know what they were trying to do with Beloved!

Mary Reilly

I’ve wanted to see this movie ever since it came out.  I had been enjoying some modern versions of classic horror stories, and I was anticipating seeing this retelling of the “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” story from the point of view of the doctor’s maid, and starring Julia Roberts as Mary and John Malkovich as Jekyll & Hyde.  But boy was it dreary, and depressing, and boring!  Jekyll should have been more noble, and Hyde should have been more ruthless and psychotic, and Mary should have been more emotionally invested, especially with Dr. Jekyll, but like the audience, she seemed rather uninterested and passé about the whole affair.  A misstep at best.

The Avengers

Not the new superhero movie.  These reviews are all from 1999, so this is the big movie remake of the old TV series about two super-sleuths, starring Ralph Fiennes as John Steed and Uma Thurman as Emma Peel.  Based on the initial buzz surrounding the film, I was expecting it to be just horrendous, but curiosity got the better of me, and truthfully, it was a mess, but a pretty mess.  Some of the scenes were just bizarre, like those involving the life-sized Teddy Bears, and I much preferred the old series with Patrick McGee and Diana Rigg.  Hearing that classic theme music made me want to watch some of the old shows again.


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