Movies that were so godawful, even I couldn't get through it

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

If I'm not mistaken the German reads "Devilish Breasts"

you are correct, sir!

[Drunk Monk]

Amina (2021)



I really wanted to like this. It’s Nollywood - Nigerian cinema - which is getting some global attention for its rawness. 

This is the story of Amina, an alleged historic female warrior queen akin to India’s Jhansi but this falls way short. 

A lot is in heavily accented English, so thick I had to turn on the cc. The rhythm of their delivery was just off, so much so that I wonder if the actors actually spoke English. The costumes remind me of old Shaw brothers - kinda kitchy, colorful, cheaply made (the witch woman’s leaf dress in the trailer is a good example). There’s a few scenic moments but not many. Most is just adobe buildings painted gaudily.

There’s sword fights. Quite a few. They are bad. Unwatchably has. Lame choreo - one-shot-half-a-move with a jiggly fam to boot. Poorly cgi-ed Digi-Blood. One good decapitation but the rest was worse than high school play choreo. That’s what killed it for me. It wasn’t even bad enough to be funny.

I got about an hour plus in until I just could take any more sloppy sword fights. It’s an hour forty five and I only had about a half hour or so to go but I had to bail.

So disappointed. Not even any devilish breasts. Not D00M recommended at all.

[Greg]

I was tasked with finding a highly entertaining movie for our Saturday night viewing pleasure. I came across this new release on Netflix (Yes, I should post this on the Netflix thread but the the Godawful thread is here. Rules are rules) The move stars Kelsey Grammar, John Cleese and Elizabeth Hurley's boobs. There is also the guy from Love, Actually who heads to America to find hot chicks.

I made it through about ten minutes before switching it off. It's all kinds of bad sitcom. I guess Kelsey Grammar plays the estranged father who comes to visit his four daughters at the daughters big mansion in England. I never got that far of seeing Grammar. Or Cleese. It just got to the point that was life too short for me to waste time watching this drivel.

[Drunk Monk]

I got as far as seeing Cleese and Grammar, but then bailed. Elizabeth’s cleavage remains superb but not enough to save this. We were looking for something xmasy but this was a total fail. I had a faint memory that Greg panned it, but clearly not strong enough to fall into this Netflix trap. Feckin Cleese - he’s just been phoning it in for years now. And I never liked Grammar.

[Greg]

That's on you. I never got to Cleese. I switched off when Grammar got out of the car in front of the house.

[Drunk Monk]

Cleese was before that. 

But yeah, on us.

[cranefly]

[seen (briefly) on Kanopy]

Who Killed Cock Robin (2017) by Cheng Wei-hao

A Taiwanese neo-noir thriller that might have been decent or even superior (stylistically it looked promising).  But the subtitles are unreadable, each flashing on the screen for just 1/30th of a second.

How is that done?  How is the person who translates subtitles not involved in their presentation?  It isn't a problem of rapid talk and exchanges that make screen real estate a time-sensitive commodity.  No, someone will say something, and the subtitle flashes up there and is gone, and now the people on screen are pondering what was said.

But not me.  No, all I've got on my side is persistence of vision.  And only a half a photon made it into my eyeballs, which isn't much to work with.

Skip this, unless you're in the habit of watching foreign cinema without subtitles (I'm looking at you, DM).

[Greg]

Pause button every millisecond?

When I submitted my film I had to make sure my subtitles were of a certain duration, I think it was a second.

[cranefly]

I considered the pause-button approach, but quickly realized how labor-intensive (and time-consuming) it would be.

[Greg]

Okay. I"m an hour into the Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard. Chances are good I will not finish. I paused last night to talk to my sister and went to bed after the call. The Queen was patently relieved when I said was stopping for the night. She did laugh twice, but this movie is bad. You can see them counting the money from this big payday in their eyes as they sleep walk through scenes.

It's bad. But I need to see how it turns out. I think.

[cranefly]

The Whaler Boy (2022)[Russian] by Philipp Yuryev

The best movie I've ever seen about men slaughtering whales and watching webcam prostitutes.  I was so engaged and anxious to see how things turned out that I fast-forwarded through most all of it.  Not that I don't intend to go back and give it a more respectful viewing--after I've watched every other movie ever made.

Synopsis.  A boy who slaughters whales for a living falls in love with a webcam prostitute and decides to walk to "Detroit America" to meet her.  I don't think he succeeds, but maybe I just missed it.  I'll confirm this later.  Much much later.

[I'm watching a lot of junk lately.  I think I need an intervention.]

[cranefly]

The Whaler Boy (2022)[Russian] by Philipp Yuryev

I forgot to mention the subtitles.  They were very good.  In fact, they went beyond merely good.  How good were they?  They would carefully identify the language they were spoken in, such as Russian or Chechen or other languages.  For compactness, they did this by overlaying the English translation with the language tag.  This worked out wonderfully, as you might imagine.  I spent most of the movie with a chisel trying to chip off the overlay to see what was actually being said.

[Greg]

Putting this in my queue.

[cranefly]

Tigrero: A Film That Was Never Made (1994) [Brazil, Finland] by Mika Kaurismäki

I'm parking this here, though to be fair I technically watched it all, though with judicious napping.

What's judicious napping?  I don't know.  Now stop interrupting.  This is important.

Jim Jarmusch accompanies Samuel Fuller deep into the Brazilian jungle to revisit a location where Sam was supposed to make a movie.  This took place in 1954.  Selznick had instructed him to go into the jungle, have some interesting experience, then build a script around it.  So Sam went there and took some scouting and atmosphere footage.  The movie was slated to star John Wayne, Ava Gardner, Tyrone Powell--  You get the picture.  Well, no.  Because it was never made.

All in all, an interesting concept, and an interesting idea for a documentary to revisit it.

But that was a long time ago!  Let's do the math.  That was in 1954.  This documentary was made in 1994.  That's 40 years.  Did much change?  Well, duh-uh!  The indigenous tribe was still there, clinging (barely) to some of their customs.  Sam shows them reels of what he shot in 1954, hoping some people will recognize themselves.  But you know what the life expectancy is there?  Still, a couple people did recognize late relatives.  How did they die?  Oh, you know.  Chomped by a crocodile.  The usual.

Sam is old.  He's 82 and has trouble getting around.  I think he waited a couple decades too long to revisit this.  As for Jim Jarmusch, he stands out like a sore thumb, or a very pale thumb, so white, with white hair (is he an albino?).  He never remotely connects with the indigenes.  He just walks around, very erect, filming people with a handheld.

There are bits throughout of Sam and Jim discussing things, and it's so clearly staged.  For instance, you're supposed to believe that Sam dragged Jim to the Amazon without telling him why, and only once they're there, he gives the big reveal.

All in all, a good example of how not to make a documentary.

With one caveat.  I napped a bit.  And maybe the documentary was brilliant during those times.  So maybe I should revisit this.  I'll sleep on it.

[Drunk Monk]

Maybe we need a ‘movies to nap turn’ thread.

I bet that would populate quickly.