forum game: which theoretically fitting movie would make a poor episode?

[IJoinedJustForThis 35]

I thought of this because something triggered the memory of this masterpiece: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Party_at_Kitty_and_Stud's

 

It's a soft-core porn movie featuring a young Silvester Stallone. Even the wiki page mentions he did it because he was homeless at the time. Obviously, it's a movie, and worth mentioning because of Sly, but... let's be real, there's not much to actually discuss there.

 

Which other movies can you think of that fit the theme for the show, but would inevitably make a poor episode?

[Lando 2019]

I think that Adam Sandler movies in general would not make for good episodes. For one thing, I think they would have to spend a lot of time avoiding talking about people that they are friends with or are friends of friends that they might end up working with some day and for another I think that it's really hard to make fun of comedies that just don't work.

[Glen Toran 94]

I thought of this because something triggered the memory of this masterpiece: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Party_at_Kitty_and_Stud's

 

It's a soft-core porn movie featuring a young Silvester Stallone. Even the wiki page mentions he did it because he was homeless at the time. Obviously, it's a movie, and worth mentioning because of Sly, but... let's be real, there's not much to actually discuss there.

 

Which other movies can you think of that fit the theme for the show, but would inevitably make a poor episode?

 

I remember a young Sly as a mugger on a subway train in an old Woody Allen film, Bananas, I think it was.

[Reptarftw 27]

As I responded in United Passions, my thing is: there's good badfilm and there's bad badfilm.

 

Something like United Passions, to me, is a terrible choice for HDTGM. Not because it's good; it's objectively a terrible film. But because it's just...boring. It's not bad in any fun way. It's not a trainwreck. It's just uninspired propaganda. The only thing really bonkers about a movie like that is all the after-the-facts stuff that comes out: how few people saw it, how little $ it netted, etc.

 

Something like Running Scared, to me, is a great choice, because the insanity starts at the pitch and plot summary itself. It's badfilm, probably, but not necessarily a bad film. It's packed full of so many crazy moments, characters, lines, twists etc. that you could spend days unraveling its meandering plot threads.

 

I want to hear people talk about the latter. I have no interest in listening to people pick apart the latter.

 

So in the spirit of this thread ... a few films people consider universally terrible, but would be boring as hell as HDTGM episodes:

• That's My Boy
  
• Never Say Never
  
• Any more than one Epic Movie / Disaster Movie / Date Movie etc. and even one may be pushing it
  
• The Fog or other bad horror remakes
  

 

Uwe Boll is kinda an interesting case though. I'm torn between "if you've picked apart one Uwe Boll film, you've really picked apart them all" and "each film is so uniquely awful, they're worth talking about".

[BethElam 14]

As I responded in United Passions, my thing is: there's good badfilm and there's bad badfilm.

 

Something like United Passions, to me, is a terrible choice for HDTGM. Not because it's good; it's objectively a terrible film. But because it's just...boring. It's not bad in any fun way. It's not a trainwreck. It's just uninspired propaganda. The only thing really bonkers about a movie like that is all the after-the-facts stuff that comes out: how few people saw it, how little $ it netted, etc.

 

Something like Running Scared, to me, is a great choice, because the insanity starts at the pitch and plot summary itself. It's badfilm, probably, but not necessarily a bad film. It's packed full of so many crazy moments, characters, lines, twists etc. that you could spend days unraveling its meandering plot threads.

 

I want to hear people talk about the latter. I have no interest in listening to people pick apart the latter.

 

So in the spirit of this thread ... a few films people consider universally terrible, but would be boring as hell as HDTGM episodes:

• That's My Boy
  
• Never Say Never
  
• Any more than one Epic Movie / Disaster Movie / Date Movie etc. and even one may be pushing it
  
• The Fog or other bad horror remakes
  

Uwe Boll is kinda an interesting case though. I'm torn between "if you've picked apart one Uwe Boll film, you've really picked apart them all" and "each film is so uniquely awful, they're worth talking about".

 

 

I agree! MST3K movies are like that as well.

 

I think that great bad movies have all of these: Mismatched plot, poor editing, over acting..but a huge component for me is a situation or many situations that leaves the viewer uncomfortable through a created tension because they weren't expecting that tone from the movie.

 

I mean think about it:

 

Face Off Starts off with the murder of a child!

Crossroads deals with rape.

Twilight has a grown man pledging his love to an unborn child.

Monkey Shines had a monkey trying to sex up a man.

Toys had that icky subplot in which a woman was picked to be in a relationship to Robin Williams.

 

Gigli is the shining example of this. The abduction of a mentally handicapped person , Ben Affleck touching his mother's butt to give her some sort of injection, and Jennifer Lopez's "Gobble, Gobble" ...

 

Those movies inspire a disgust and outrage that becomes a delighted glee because we don't know much in this world, but we hold faith in our hearts knowing those situations are wrong and the people who made them are worst than us, which makes us in some small way good.

[Reptarftw 27]

Oooh, you know what movies are TERRIBLE but would be abjectly horrible HDTGM episodes (also, something I could never watch parallel to HDTGM episodes?)

 

YouTube Star movies. Like Fred. There are at least 2 Fred movies, right? Yeah; I'd rather grab a front row seat to a volcano eruption.

[BethElam 14]

Oooh, you know what movies are TERRIBLE but would be abjectly horrible HDTGM episodes (also, something I could never watch parallel to HDTGM episodes?)

 

YouTube Star movies. Like Fred. There are at least 2 Fred movies, right? Yeah; I'd rather grab a front row seat to a volcano eruption.

 

 

I have seen Fred and it is indeed terrible. There is so much wrong with it and it is a trail to watch,

[BertramCooper 122]

I kind of go back-and-forth on whether HDTGM should do a few of the really bad Christian films that have come out the past few years.

 

On one hand, I understand why they haven't, both because they're low-hanging fruit and because uber-religious people can get so obnoxious and blow things like a silly podcast episode completely out of proportion.

 

But at the same time, you have shit like God's Not Dead, which is so fucking crazy that it would probably make for an absolutely awesome episode.

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

I kind of go back-and-forth on whether HDTGM should do a few of the really bad Christian films that have come out the past few years.

 

On one hand, I understand why they haven't, both because they're low-hanging fruit and because uber-religious people can get so obnoxious and blow things like a silly podcast episode completely out of proportion.

 

But at the same time, you have shit like God's Not Dead, which is so fucking crazy that it would probably make for an absolutely awesome episode.

I've found with many of those films that they're all premise, like they sound like they'd be completely ridiculous, but then they end up being just super boring once the story sets in.

[taylor anne photo 11311]

I kind of go back-and-forth on whether HDTGM should do a few of the really bad Christian films that have come out the past few years.

 

On one hand, I understand why they haven't, both because they're low-hanging fruit and because uber-religious people can get so obnoxious and blow things like a silly podcast episode completely out of proportion.

 

But at the same time, you have shit like God's Not Dead, which is so fucking crazy that it would probably make for an absolutely awesome episode.

I think this is also probably because it borders the territory of making fun of people's actual beliefs rather than the movie itself.

[joel_rosenbaum 1269]

Most anything "camp" -- usually too self-aware to be funny, and also too difficult to make fun of properly. Obviously, there have been a few episodes covering these kinds of movies, but a classic example is the Eric Idle "Alan Smithee" movie that coincidentally became an actual Alan Smithee movie.

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

Most anything "camp" -- usually too self-aware to be funny, and also too difficult to make fun of properly. Obviously, there have been a few episodes covering these kinds of movies, but a classic example is the Eric Idle "Alan Smithee" movie that coincidentally became an actual Alan Smithee movie.

This makes me think of the bad movie that's trying to be a bad movie. I think we've talked about it elsewhere, like how "The Room" works, because Tommy Wiseau wasn't trying to make the film that he ended up making. Same with the guy behind "Birdemic". But if those same filmmakers go out and try to replicate the "success" that they had, it just ends up being bad bad and not entertaining bad, because the whole reason the earlier films were so "good" was because they knew absolutely jack shit about what they were doing. They tried to be dramatic and created unintentional comedy, so I can only imagine how lousy it would be if they tried to be funny on purpose.

[HipGuide 196]

Most anything "camp" -- usually too self-aware to be funny, and also too difficult to make fun of properly. Obviously, there have been a few episodes covering these kinds of movies, but a classic example is the Eric Idle "Alan Smithee" movie that coincidentally became an actual Alan Smithee movie.

 

 

Spice World Corollary

[HipGuide 196]

Space Jam doesn't fit, but people have brought it up.

[Mr. Monster 20]

The English Patient?

[RyanSz 3140]

This makes me think of the bad movie that's trying to be a bad movie. I think we've talked about it elsewhere, like how "The Room" works, because Tommy Wiseau wasn't trying to make the film that he ended up making. Same with the guy behind "Birdemic". But if those same filmmakers go out and try to replicate the "success" that they had, it just ends up being bad bad and not entertaining bad, because the whole reason the earlier films were so "good" was because they knew absolutely jack shit about what they were doing. They tried to be dramatic and created unintentional comedy, so I can only imagine how lousy it would be if they tried to be funny on purpose.

Thankfully Tommy Wiseau has yet to go out and try to replicate The Room, he's milking that thing for all it's worth.

 

As for the Fred movies, those are fucked up in general if you actually listen to what that character's backstory is as a six year old kid whose mom is a booze and drug addicted prostitute who has abused him in a variety of ways like locking him in a dog cage for days on end and his dad abandoned her when she was pregnant and is now on death row (remember this show is aimed at kids). I would love to hear the show freak out about THAT information.

 

For me the movies that seem like the ones that would make for bad episodes or not-as-great-as-they-could-have-been episodes are The Happening and Showgirls, mainly because those two are the lowest hanging fruits for podcasts like these and have been picked apart ad nauseam. They could possibly work, but I think it's an instance of it probably not living up to our hightened expectations considering how long a lot of us have been calling for those movies to be done. I think Dreamcatcher would work well because it hasn't been hit on as much by movie podcasts so it's ripe for attack.

[Anonymous Coward 57]

There's loads of movies that wouldn't exactly jive with the show, but I honestly think that Jason, June and Paul are such pros that they'd squeeze comedy out of the 'worst' bad movies. Maybe if they were forced to review something for a promotional tie-in, that might sap some magic out. Then again, they've had directors, actors and writers from the films on as guests and they are still fun and silly.

 

Hell, I love it when one of the hosts or guests ends up unironically loving the movie.

 

The only episode that I think is different (not bad, just different) is the Wild Wild West one with Kevin Smith, mostly because the flow of that episode focused on the Kevin Smith's (weird and wonderful) story.