Category: awful movie titles

In the category awful movie titles: Blubberella (Uwe Boll/2011). And yes, the movie is exactly about what the title already implies: an overweight woman whose footsteps cause explosions and who uses dual swords against anyone who makes fun of her.


Also, completely unrelated, but worth mentioning nevertheless: how is it possible that both John Travolta and Forest Whitaker - who both aren't the worst of actors - star in a movie that ends up with a total score of 2.4 on IMDb and ends up in the bottom 100 list there as well? Check this out, because apparently it's possible! - leaves in shock - 

Movie fact of the day

The Shining was nominated for two Razzies in 1980. Including worst director.

I bet King submitted this movie himself, as it's told that he disliked what Kubrick had made out of his book. 

Movie fact of the day

The lowest grossing film of all time was Zyzzyx Road, which only made 30 dollars in a Texas theater.

IMDb adds: A crew member who took a friend got a refund, so the final domestic box-office gross was 20 dollars. 

Shockers

I don't know if it's because I started watching horror movies at such a young age, but whatever the reason is, I've always been looking for the most extreme movies. How far does a director dare to go? And how long does it take for the audience to reach their limit? And why does a director dares to go that far? What makes it that these movies are appealing (to some of us) yet disgusting, horrifying, awful to watch at the same time? Is it just that what makes us watch? Do we wish to take part in something so extreme that we wouldn't dream of ever doing it ourselves for real, which is why we make use of these movies, so that we can see something getting fulfilled? Maybe, at heart, we are all a 'disaster tourist'. 

Anyway, my search for these kind of movies, brought me to A Serbian Film yesterday. 

According to the internet, this 'beast' had to be one of the worst in its kind, so I was mentally preparing myself to watch this movie for some days. The fact that I hunt these kind of movies, doesn't mean I think it's easy to watch them. Normally, I wouldn't have any sort of expectations of a movie. I've learned myself a long time ago that it's best not to expect anything. But it's different with these kind of movies, especially if everyone I know who has seen it, told me I shouldn't watch it (even though they know I'm always looking for these kind of movies). So yeah, I was kind of expecting something that would make me cry, or at least something that would make my stomach turn upside down. 

Boy, was I disappointed. 

The story is about Milos, a retired porn actor who's still beloved in the porn world for what he's done. He's chosen for a family life, but finds himself in financial trouble at some point. When a former colleague tells him about a very special movie going to be filmed and that the director of the project wants him to star in it, he's got no other choice than to agree to whatever the project is about. Because that's the thing: the director won't tell him a single thing and when Milos finds himself doing stuff that goes beyond himself, it's too late to back out. Since I'm not aiming to write a blog post that has contents that aren't suitable for people over 16 or 18 years of age, I won't go into details here, so if you're curious to what this stuff is, you'll have to watch the movie for yourself. 

Aside from one scene, a scene I thought was so funny and corny at the same time, that I had to laugh so hard that I was afraid I'd wake my mum, I thought the movie was a drag. I almost fell asleep for several times, but managed to stay awake, because I kept waiting for the ultimate extreme to show up. It never came. I don't mean to say that this movie is fun to watch, because all in all, it's still awful what's happening here. I can totally understand that there will be lots of people out there who think this movie is disgusting, something they never wish to see again, or even something they wish they hadn't seen in the first place. Because, in essence, it is a disgusting movie. But I set aside my feelings of disgust, as those feelings came from my core moral values: you just don't do what is shown in this movie. And we all know that and if you keep clinging to those moral values, you shouldn't watch movies like this one, because that way, they'll always be wrong, no matter how beautifully shot such a movie can possibly be. After all, it's just a movie, what is shown, is not actually happening, it's not real, so you should be able to let go of what is real, and that are those moral values that make you reject such a movie. Do yourself a favour, if you're a person that is not able to let go of that, then just don't go watch this, or any related, movie, because you won't ever enjoy it. (Also if you just can't handle this degree of awfulness). 

So why then didn't this movie work for me? 

Maybe because I've seen too much of this already. I believe the first movie of this kind I watched, was Salo, or the 120 days of Sodom. I don't really remember how old I was when I first watched this movie, but I think I was 15 or 16, certainly not any older. And maybe, if I watch it today again, or in the (near) future, I won't be as impressed with it anymore as I was back then, because I've seen so many other disturbing movies now.  Anyway, where I thought that Salo (I tried to read the book too, but I just couldn't get through it, because of the awful writing style. Marquis De Sade may be a legend as much as he wants, but he can still kiss my ass if he wants me to read anything of his) worked very well, I thought A Serbian Film didn't, and I think I know why. While, again, it's absolutely disgusting what A Serbian Film shows us, all it really does is appeal to our visuals. Everything you see, has been extremely exaggerated, all in order so that it may look awful. A Serbian Film taps well into the gore hype that's going on today, without ever so much thinking about what psychological effects will do to the audience. Of course, the many visuals do have its very own psychological effect, but the movie doesn't make much effort into creating deep characters that you can sympathize with. So, when the grande finale takes place, I couldn't do much more but think: damn, that's awful if that would be really happening. But it wasn't really happening, and because the movie didn't take much effort into creating the illusion that what you see is actual real, because of the massive visual exaggeration you get, you can't even imagine it would be real. Which is why the psychological effect is left behind and why all there is left, is visual gore porn, which in the end is just make-up. 

It's a different story with Salo, if I remember it correctly. Why I thought that movie was so awful, was because of the humiliation. While (gore) porn and torture play a great part in this movie as well, it's also about the humiliation of mankind and that's what hit me the hardest. A Serbian Film wasn't about the main character humiliating someone else, but about doing something so extreme, that the only choice the director felt he had, was to show it in visuals. The extremity of that movie didn't lie in what effect there was, but in how far he was able to go to show visual gore porn. To me, that doesn't work. Salo played a game that worked effectively in my psyche, which caused me to believe that what I was seeing, was actually happening somewhere in the world, of had been happening somewhere in the world. That movie was about how far someone would go to satisfy his own fantasy, despite of others, over the heads, hearts and souls of others. Humiliating others to meet your own satisfaction, subdue any innocent soul to your wishes.While A Serbian Film was in the end just about a fucked up director who had to use drugs in order to let his main character do whatever he wanted to, to show the world how visually far he dared to go. Sometimes you show more by not showing anything at all and that's not something the director of A Serbian Film understood. 

Some reviewers of A Serbian Film write about how well acted it has been. I disagree. There isn't much to act. The movie doesn't bother to investigate what effect goes out of all the awful events to the victims of those events. It also doesn't really bother to show us how the main character feels. Yes, we know he doesn't like it, because at the beginning of the movie or somewhere in the middle, he stated he wasn't into anything like this (when he had a clue of what was going on). But after that, we only get to see his grimaced face as he's doing what he's hired to do. And of course, in the end, when everything comes together and he decides to do the ultimate deed, we see his understanding and his disbelief, but by then, it's too late. The director just didn't put enough effort, or not any at all, to make his audience familiarize, identify and sympathize with Milos and his family to be anything but disgusted, just because whatever is happening, is disgusting in any scenario possible. It isn't disgusting or awful or sad or fucked up for Milos and/or his family, it just is because it is and that has got nothing to do with the main character. That's where A Serbian Film fails big time and that's why I almost fell asleep for several times. 

The start to my quest for movies.

Since as long as I can remember, I've been enjoying movies. There are probably two movies that have mattered the most to me, two movies I watched at a very young age and they probably have opened the door to my now movie-me. Wow, that almost sounds as if I'm starring in a movie myself! Anyway... those two movies are: Dracula and Terminator 2: Judgment day. While today I don't really like Francis Ford Coppola, (I think he's one of the slowest directors of this day and age, well, of the well known directors that is. And yes, I hated the The Godfather trilogy and I thought Apocalypse Now was a total bore. Big respect goes out to my mom, who watched the entire, mind numbing long, movie in Paris, dubbed in French, without subs. Really. Respect!) I'm still much of an Arnold Schwarzenegger girl (really, I can bet my life on it that I'll come to talk about that someday too :P). I watched Dracula when I was six, with my then best friend ever and her father and my mom was highly displeased with it. What kind of parent would let a six year old watch a horror movie filled with so much sexual tension, that the child watching is bound to get screwed up? (No pun intended. But hey, I might have discovered here why my mind is permanently in the gutter!) She was sure I'd get nightmares out of it, but I didn't. Or maybe I did, I'm not really sure, because I did dream about the movie for a few days in a row, but never about the scariest parts of the movie. I re-watched it when I was older and understood why I wasn't impressed as a six year old, because it's a Francis Ford Coppola movie and everything Coppola touches, turns into a total bore and a long one at that too.

It's a whole different story with T2. I LOVE this movie. I loved it when I first watched it when I was seven, and I love it now. While it's from 1991, it clearly is a leftover from the 80's action movies. I LOVE the 80's when it comes down to movies. Most of the time they're awful, horrible, poor, and awful, but I like them. It's absolutely a unique era when it comes down to movies and that's why I do not believe in remaking those movies or in kicking them back to live by creating sequel number whatever that no one's asking for. In my humble opinion, T2 is one of the best action movies ever made. With, whatever you may want to say about the guy, a perfect role by Arnie. I may not be a big fan of James Cameron (well, at least he isn't Steven Spielberg. It really doesn't make any sense, but I dislike Spielberg so much, that I dislike his movies just because he directed them. It doesn't matter if they're actually good (like Schindler's List for instance) I still dislike them, just because Spielberg directed them. I know, not something that looks good on an almost professional movie watcher! But at least I'm being honest about it ;)), but with Terminator he created a movie legend. I really think that if you're such a movie nerd as I am, this is a movie that should be on your 'I watched these movies and they were awesome' list. T2 is one of those movies that I watch at least once a year and it never gets boring. I know what happens, but it doesn't matter. Robert Patrick in his role as the T-1000 is still the fastest man on earth in my eyes. And the scene in which Arnie pulls a gun out of his bouquet of roses and starts shooting, is still as epic as ever. Of course, in the end T2 is nothing more than a 137 minute long chase through the city, but that doesn't matter, because the chase is awesome and filled with adrenaline. What makes the movie so great to me, is that Cameron succeeded in building a credible and realistic (as far as that word fits) relationship between a human and a machine. Cameron didn't forget that a machine can learn and that means that it can learn to be human. At least, to some extent. It can learn to understand certain things that come normal to humanity, but are foreign to a machine that's, in essence, only build to serve. But just in that idea, that idea of to serve, Cameron found room for learning. Because, in the end, if a machine doesn't understand what someone is asking of him, how can he do as he's been told? If I give my computer to run the command aiyajadiuhdhd and it doesn't understand it, nothing's gonna happen. I cried my eyes out the first time I watched the movie, when the Terminator had to terminate itself.

Maybe there's one other movie I should mention before posting this post. I didn't watch it at the same age I watched the aforementioned movies, but it still plays a big part in my love for movies. It's also a movie I at least watch once every year again. The Exorcist is in my eyes still one of the very best horror movies out there. While of course it's a much older movie and people have discovered other ways to give terror and horror a face, but The Exorcist has, in my eyes, never ever lost its value. Coming from a whole other era, 1973, it still has shock value, because what is happening in that movie, still happens in a lot of other movies in this era. Only The Exorcist still does a better job at it. Another reason why this movie is so good, is that it's successful in mixing drama and horror together, creating perfect balance. It's not just about the horror, about the girl being possessed and terrorized by a - or more - demon(s), but also about what it does to the family structure, to the friendships of her mother and most importantly: to the mother herself. The despair that she feels has been given a prominent place in the movie and has been build up so realistically, that - aside from asking whether or not something like this could be really true - you can believe that this is real. Also, the make-up is AWESOME. I've never seen Hollywood doing a better job at it in later movies than they did in The Exorcist. Add the magnificent special effects, which, in my eyes, still are better than most CGI we get nowadays, and you've got yourself a perfect horror movie, that dares to ask (good) questions about faith, without being judgmental. It's an intelligent horror movie, with intelligent dialogues rather than just screaming, mindless girls. The Exorcist actually is also about the story, as to where most horror movies we get nowadays, aren't at all anymore. It's just to watch the pretty girl running with dancing boobs and screaming, right before she gets beheaded by a serial killer that, even if he walks as slow as he possibly can, still manages to get somewhere faster than her. 

Movie fact of the day

During the filming of "Batman Begins", Christian Bale lost his voice three times due to altering his voice while playing Batman.

I've never even understood why he'd do that. He's Batman. He wears a suit. A nipple suit (something I don't understand either) for that matter. Who's to recognize him? It'd be easier if they'd just censor his eyes or something :P;) Well, it annoyed the crap out of me, and apparently his voice wasn't all too happy with it either!

Movie fact of the day

Bruce the shark in Finding Nemo was named after the nickname of the mechanical shark in Jaws.

I like this one. I think it's a funny one. Maybe we'll get a movie with a shark named Bruce, that's named after the shark in Finding Nemo that was named after the nickname of the mechanical shark in Jaws and so on :P.


Also, to add to this movie fact, another related movie fact: the shark in Jaws was named after Spielberg's lawyer.