Nerve.com and the IFC have teamed up to put together their list of the 50 Worst Sex Scenes in Cinema history. First of all, it’s a little presumptuous of these writers to think they’ve witnessed the worst sex scenes of all time when I don’t recall any of them being my date for prom. The Worst list was compiled as a complement to their recent feature documenting the 50 Greatest Sex Scenes in Cinema history, which, again, comes off as presumptuous since I don’t recall any of these writers being with me right now as i tpyee tese wirds . . . .
(short musical interlude)
But back to the lists.
I’m sure the writers logged many long, hard hours of ‘research’ putting these lists together, so let’s mosey on over and see what they’ve managed to come up with.
First the Best-Ofs. It’s tough to argue with a lot of the choices: A History of Violence (really, either scene would have sufficed; they chose staircase over cheerleader outfit); Unfaithful (bathroom stall); Clooney and Lopez in Out of Sight; Keitel and Hunter in The Piano; the two acrobatic dolls from Team America. Likewise, much of the Worst-Of list is fairly obvious: some ridiculous coupling-on-soft-furs abomination from Alexander; the rave scene from Matrix Reloaded; the entire second half of Eyes Wide Shut (the least sexy sexy movie I’ve ever seen, though I didn’t mind watching Nicole Kidman take a leak); and I’ll just take their word on Gigli. As for Teeth, last year’s horror flick about a girl with vagina dentata, you’d be pretty safe to just go ahead and include the entire film.
But internet lists, like the laws of physics or metric conversion charts, are made to be endlessly argued over, and, sure enough, I’ve got a bone or two to pick with the choices here. First of all, on the Worst-Ofs list, where in the hell is In the Realm of the Senses? I saw that thing in college and I’m still getting over it. And another thing. Why aren’t Anakin and Padme nestled comfortably among the Worst-Ofs where they so obviously belong? Okay, so there never was a proper sex scene between them (thank god for small favors), but there were ‘love scenes,’ and they remain lo these long years later among the most excruciating ever committed to celluloid. The other shortcoming of the Worst-Of list is that it seems to be a combination of scenes that are embarrassing (which belong on the list) and scenes that are uncomfortable or disturbing (which do not). The strangest entry on the Worst-Of list surely must be Hale Berry/Billy Bob Thorton from Monster’s Ball. Worst? Really? It’s intense, and it sure is heart-breaking, but worst? I don’t think so.
. . . from Massawyrm’s hilarious review of Sex & the City over at Aint It Cool News. By all means, read the whole thing, but here’s my favorite excerpt:
Will the fans love it? Yeah, probably. This is an event film and yeah, I can totally get that. But it ain’t for anyone else. I pity any man who walks into this with his girl thinking he is in for just the usual hour and a half ass pounding only to discover that instead he’s entered a two and a half hour oubliette from which there is no escape. Ladies, you want to get your man to do something wholly unpleasant like spending a day with your mother or cleaning the rain gutters? Offer this as an alternative. He’ll do it. Trust me, he’ll do it.
Oubliette: from the French oubliettes, a form of dungeon which was accessible only from a hatch in a high ceiling.
No. Not by a long shot, at least according to Joe Queenan, who knows about such things. Which isn’t to say that the new Paris Hilton vanity project, which earned a whopping $28,000 during its domestic release, is not a truly awful movie. Here, Joe uses it as a jumping off point for a meditation on what separates your run-of-the-mill stinker from an out-and-out train-wreck.
Though it is a natural impulse to believe that the excruciating film one is watching today is on a par with the excruciating films of yesterday, this is a slight to those who have worked long and hard to make movies so moronic that the public will still be talking about them decades later. Anyone can make a bad movie; Kate Hudson and Adam Sandler make them by the fistful. Anyone can make a sickening movie; we are already up to Saw IV. Anyone can make an unwatchable movie; Jack Black and Martin Lawrence do it every week. And anyone can make a comedy that is not funny; Jack Black and Martin Lawrence do it every week. But to make a movie that destroys a studio, wrecks careers, bankrupts investors, and turns everyone connected with it into a laughing stock requires a level of moxie, self-involvement, lack of taste, obliviousness to reality and general contempt for mankind that the average director, producer and movie star can only dream of attaining.
I can’t rival Joe’s encyclopedic knowledge of terrible movies, but I’ve certainly seen my share. Here is a list of some of the worst I’ve seen over the last few years. It’s not comprehensive by any means, just those few cinematic gems that spring immediately to mind when I think of the words Truly Crappy Movie.
Hulk: Many people see thing here Kamper not see. Many people seem to enjoyHulk. Kamper not enjoy Hulk. Many people see complex story with Shakespearean undertones. Kamper not see that. Kamper see bad CGI and bad acting. That make Kamper mad! Kamper not pretty when mad!! Kamper crush you until you not like Hulk no more!!!
And now Kamper learn they are making sequel to Hulk? That make Kamper mad! Kamper not pretty when . . .
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones: Geez, even typing the title pisses me off. This movie, like anything else George Lucas has released in the last decade, does not seem to have been made for human beings, but rather for some droid race far removed from our hopes and cares and interests. You’ve heard of post-modern? This thing is post-human. It doesn’t even feel like a film under the commonly accepted definition of that term. It’s on film, certainly, and actors walk around sets delivering what appears to be dialogue, but there’s nothing here to engage with on even the most superficial level — Hayden Christensen least of all. As for its plot, things happen and then some other things happen and then still more things happen — it feels like the masturbatory visions of a 13-year-old with Aspergers and a $200 million budget. The closest experience I can think of to watching this movie was riding on this wretched thing.
Pirates of the Caribbean 3: Pirates on the Edge of Tomorrow: What an excruciating, draining, and ultimately depressing experience it was to endure this thunderously loud, incomprehensible mess of a movie. Saw it while on vacation in Provincetown, and all I could think of while watching it were all the funner things I could have been doing at that moment — like drowning in Cape Cod Bay. Gore Verbinski has made some good movies (The Ring, The Weatherman, the first Pirates), so let’s hope this was a contractual thing and not a harbinger of things to come.
Matrix 3 (whatever the hell it was called): Matrix 1 = excellent; Matrix 2 = tiresome; Matrix 3 = WTF?
Alexander: I can’t add anything to the opening paragraph of Eric Snider’s review of this one: “I’ll say this for Oliver Stone: When he makes a mess, he makes a HUGE MESS. He doesn’t just create trainwrecks. He knocks the train off the rails, sets it on fire, then kills every person onboard. (And takes three hours to do it.)”
The Wicker Man (2006 remake): Regular readers of HVNH already know of my veneration for the craptastic grandeur that is Neil LaBute’s remake of The Wicker Man.
Battlefield Earth: Every bit as godforsaken as you have heard or are capable of imagining.
What about you? What is the absolute worst movie you’ve seen lately?
There are many parodies, tributes, homages, burlesques, paeans, and panegyrics to There Will Be Blood out there on the Internets right now. This one is the funniest.
Here is an amazing side-by-side comparison with the real trailer.
Los Angeles - The National Film Critics Association (NFCA) today issued a press release to all of its members declaring an immediate ban on references to Akira Kurasowa’s 1950 film Rashomon. “It’s gotten completely out of control,” NFCA president Susan Jacobsen said in a phone interview from her office in Los Angeles. “Every goddamn piece of cinematic dreck that happens to look at the same events from several different points of view is suddenly Rashomon?! I don’t think so. Not if I’ve got anything to say about it.”
The association was prompted to take the unprecedented action by the February 22 release of the new Colombia Pictures film Vantage Point, which looks at an assassination attempt on the president from five different perspectives. “I’ve seen Vantage Point,” Ms. Jacobsen said, “and Vantage Point is no Rashomon.”
Ms. Jacobsen indicated that the NFCA had considered issuing such a ban in 1996 following the release of Courage Under Fire and then again in 2003 with the release of Basic. “I’ll tell you,” Ms. Jacobsen said, “Basic nearly did it. I mean, did you see that movie? But in the end we said to ourselves, ‘Okay, calm down, our members are all grown-ups, they are entirely capable of policing themselves.’ But now we can see that we were just being naive. These critics simply cannot be trusted.”
The ban will be in effect until further notice and covers all print, broadcast, and on-line reviews of films, novels, long form music videos, song cycles, narrative poetry (whether in rhyme or free verse), and even personal anecdotes. “We struggled with the anecdotes,” Ms. Jacobsen said, “but in the end we felt that drastic measures were called for.”
Ms. Jacobsen indicated that the association had not taken an action this significant since 2001, when it put a ten-year hold on the term “Hitchcockian.”
If you are a connoisseur of Bad Cinema then you no doubt are already intimately familiar with Neil LaBute’s lamentable 2006 remake of The Wicker Man, starring Nicholas Cage as a detective who gets more than he bargained for when he searches for a lost little girl on a mysterious island. Being a big fan of the original, the Kamper saw the remake during the first week of its theatrical run, and sometime around the time Nick Cage showed up in the bear outfit, I realized I was witnessing much more than just another bad movie. Sure enough, in just a few short years, The Wicker Man has emerged as perhaps the preeminent camp classic of our age — the Citizen Kane of cruddy movies, The Rules of the Game of cinematic schlock. Yes, yes, I know that there have been many bad movies released since then, but it’s a good bet that long after current Razzie favorite I Know Who Killed Me is just another remaindered DVD hogging precious shelf space at the local Blockbuster, The Wicker Man will still be prompting incredulous viewers to ask, “What was that all about?!”
And, like all provocative and transgressive art, The Wicker Man invites, nay, demands a response from the viewer. Below are just a few of those responses, courtesy of YouTube.
For those of you who haven’t seen the movie (or, more likely, have purged it from your memory), lets begin with the 3 Minute Wicker Man, from ninjacarwash.
And now, because too much is never enough, lets move on to the Best Scenes from The Wicker Man, from enoonsti.
How about Wicker Man recut as a comedy? This one is from JasonSly.
Finally, Mike Nelson and the boys from Rifftrax have their way with The Wicker Man.
So, in conclusion, two points to keep in mind:
1. Don’t let the remake prevent you from seeing the original.
2. Killing me won’t bring back your goddamn honey! Not the bees! Not the bees!! Arghhhhh!!! The beeeeees!!!
NOTE: This post contains SPOILERS, so if you haven’t seen Cloverfield and you plan to do so, you should probably skip it, though your life will be the poorer for it.
After months of fervid speculation in some of the shadier corners of the Intertubes, the Cloverfield monster was finally revealed in all of its 20-story-tall, dragged-its-ass-from-the-sea glory when the movie opened nationwide last Friday. Now it’s not like the Kamper to pileon, but there are a few questions I’m just dying to ask of screenwriter Drew Goddard and producer J.J. Abrams. Here goes.
These are the characters? Really? Come on, really? You’ve got all of Manhattan to choose from, and these are the six you went with — Rob, Jason, Hud, Lily, Marlena, and Beth, a bunch of 20-something yuppies? And are you sure you want to have the plot revolve around Rob’s attempt to rescue his skinny, beautiful, staggeringly wealthy girlfriend from her apartment overlooking Central Park? Because I think we’re supposed to feel something approximating sadness as your characters are crushed, chewed, rent, flayed, infected, and exploded. I’m pretty sure that relief bordering on sadistic glee wasn’t what you were going for.
To call these characters narcissistic is an insult to Narcissus. To call them vapid is an insult to Vapidus. How monumental is their self regard? Allow me to elaborate.
Against absurd odds (and by literally walking directly beneath said Cloverfield monster), our intrepid, upwardly-mobile, impeccably outfitted urban adventurers actually make it to the girlfriend’s apartment building, which has collapsed against the building beside it, like a domino that just didn’t quite make it all the way over. So they climb to the top of the intact building, then jump onto the roof of the collapsed building, then climb down into the collapsed building, then find Beth’s apartment, then find Beth, then pull a piece of rebar out of Beth’s chest (who does not immediately bleed to death), then kill a Cloverfield Junior in the hallway, and then go back out the way they came in. None of which is the strange part. No, the strange part is that it never enters any of their heads to search around a little bit in the collapsed 40 story building to, oh, I don’t know, determine if there are any more survivors in the vicinity who might need rescuing or perhaps would appreciate having a piece of rebar pulled from their chests. Nope, these youngsters went into the building for Beth, they found her, and they left. Heckuva job, guys.
Then, after they survive the helicopter crash (what? You got a problem with them just walking away from a helicopter crash?), Hud drags Rob and Beth from the wreckage (continuing to film the entire time, by the way), but once they’re free not one of them goes back for or indeed ever mentions the pilot or the other soldier who were in the helicopter with them. The three of them just go on their merry way. All I’ve got to say is that they’d better not have one of those yellow ribbons on their car, because that’s not what the Kamper would call supporting the troops.
And just when you think their self-regard could not possibly deepen, in the film’s final moments the characters display a level of egocentricity that is astounding in its purity. Crouched under a bridge, waiting for their ultimate fate, Rob grabs the camera and speaks directly into it, giving his final testimony, his great Oh, the Humanity moment. And what he says is, “My name is Robert Hawkins. Seven hours ago, some ‘thing’ attacked the city. Whatever it was, it killed my brother, Jason Hawkins, it killed my best friend, Hudson Platt, and it killed my other friend, Marlena. Plus many others.” Plus many others?! Plus many others?! Cloverfield just flattened half of Manhattan! It was 9/11 times 100, and that’s what you’ve got to say? Dude, that is so uncool.
Look, what Cloverfield did was wrong, there’s no doubt about that, but all I’m saying is that I understand.
Photo: Several hours ago, this horrible thing came out of the sea and killed many, many innocent people — plus six who clearly deserved it.
From Ben Joseph over at McSweeney’s comes excerpts from his rejected script Alien vs. Predator Save Christmas (AVPSC).
Here’s an excerpt from the excerpt.
EXT. NIGHT THE CANDY CANE FOREST
(A red glow shines in the near distance. SANTA approaches it.)
SANTA: Rudolph? Is that you?
(PREDATOR decloaks, revealing the glow to be his targeting laser!)
SANTA: Gulp.
(PREDATOR fires, hitting an ALIEN right behind SANTA!)
SANTA: Maybe I can put you on the “Nice” list after all.
PREDATOR: Thanks, Santa. Also, I talk now.
(SANTA and PREDATOR shake hands.)
PREDATOR: Let’s give these aliens what for.
(RUFUS [street-smart elf with "urban" flair] pops out from behind a candy cane.)
RUFUS: Damn, son! This shit just got real!
Based on the 13% rating the real Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem got at Rotten Tomatoes, maybe they should have gone with this script. But then let’s face it, the Alien series has been going downhill ever since they passed on William Gibson’s script for Alien III. AVPSC reminds me of another movie — this one terrifyingly real.
The Kamper ventured out into a veritable Winter wonderland Wednesday night to attend a showing of Control, the new biopic of Ian Curtis. For those junior kampers out there who may not be up to speed on their post-punk iconography, Ian was the troubled lead singer of the British band Joy Division. He hung himself in 1980 at 23 years old, having released just one full studio album, Unknown Pleasures, with Joy Division (their second studio album, Closer, was released posthumously). The three remaining members of Joy Division went on to form New Order.
Before we get to the fictional Joy Division, here’s the real thing, from September 1979. That Dylan-looking dude at the beginning of the clip is performance poet John Cooper Clarke, who appears as himself in the film. His website is here, his Wiki page here. Trivia note: those oh-so-bored looking Mods directly in front of the stage (visible at 1:15) presumably were there to see The Jam, who played on the same show.
Good clip, that. The movie, unfortunately, is another story. That’s right, Control did not thrill the Kamper, or his kronies: I saw it with three other people, two of whom are Joy Division fans and two of whom are (or were) unfamiliar with the band. Not one of us enjoyed the movie. The director, Anton Corbijn, is primarily known as a photographer, and it shows. The movie is shot in beautiful black and white but it’s inert, lifeless. A big part of the problem is the source material — Control is based “Touching from a Distance,” a book by Deborah Curtis, Ian’s widow, and she’s listed as a co-producer on the film — so the story focuses primarily on Ian’s teenage marriage to Deborah and its inevitable disintegration as his fame grows. Will Ian remain faithful to his long-suffering wife, who has believed in him from the very beginning, or will he go with the fetching young groupie? Which will it be, Deborah or Annick? Will he choose the safe, conventional life or will he instead kick out the jams?
Here’s your answer: Who cares? I mean, really, who gives a crap? The romantic travails of people in their early twenties are inherently tiresome, and the choice is obvious from the get-go to everyone except Ian and Deborah. It doesn’t help matters that Ian endlessly drags it all out, first cheating with Annick, then pledging his fealty to Deborah and breaking up with Annick, then splitting with Deborah to be with Annick. Hamlet is more decisive than this guy.
But we could look past the domestic angle — we could forgive every agonized late night phone call, every teary confrontation, every hastily scrawled apology note — if only the movie had something, anything, to say about how any of this informed the creative process. How did his personal torment inform Ian’s song writing? What were the sessions like for these seminal recordings? What kind of give and take occurred between the bandmembers? What were the various cliques and factions? How were the songs written? How were they arranged? How did they evolve? For that matter, what’s the deal with the band’s adoption of all its overtly fascistic imagery? You will find the answers to none of these questions in this movie. The actors portraying the various bandmembers enter the studio and play the songs exactly as they appear on the albums. Control has no insight to offer into what made Joy Division unique from the hundreds of other bands gigging around the Greater Manchester metropolitan region circa 1979. I do know from the movie that Ian lay on his bed smoking pensively while listening to David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane and then got up and danced around in front of the mirror, but that’s about it.
Here’s an example of what passes for the creative process in this movie: Ian is sitting on his couch. Ian is trying to write. Ian faces the white page, pen poised. Ian touches pen to paper. He’s writing something! What is it? We glance over his shoulder, voyeurs at the moment of profound artistic creation. Ahh, he has written, “She Lost Control” in block letters. Wow. That’s almost the name of a Joy Division song. But wait, his pen is moving again. Ian has gone back and added an ’s, amending the line to “She’s Lost Control.” Oh my God! That changes everything, because that is the name of a Joy Division song! End of scene.
Particularly galling is the movie’s portrayal of the other members of Joy Division (Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris), who come off as utter ciphers. Based on the evidence in this movie, a viewer would be amazed to learn that the remaining members went on to play in a wedding band, let alone going on to form New Order, one of the most influential bands of their era.
Speaking of New Order, here’s clip of them from BBC Studios in 1984, doing one of the Kamper’s all-time faves. (As a side note: I feel Bernard deserves major props for having the courage to appear in public in these shorts. Give him a break, though, it was the eighties. More puzzling still is why Gillian is wearing a nightgown.)
Another of the film’s curious blindspots is how it treats Martin Hannett, who produced all of Joy Division’s music. I won’t go into his whole CV here (check out his Wiki page here), but suffice it to say that he was largely responsible for Joy Division’s sparse, haunting sound. He’s scarcely present in Control, which is akin to making a film on sixties girl groups and leaving out Phil Specter.
To be fair, it’s not accurate to say that I gained no insight whatsoever from Control. I did learn that Ian was a highly conscientious worker at his day job at the unemployment office. This guy was good at his job! In fact, given how things turned out, he probably should have stuck with the day job and given up on all this rock and roll nonsense.
Ian Kevin Curtis — Unemployment Officer Extraordinaire!
The strangest aspect of Control is how unnecessary it feels. There’s already a terrific film about Joy Division and the Manchester scene during that era, Michael Winterbottom’s 24 Hour Party People (2002). It focuses on Tony Wilson (founder of Factory Records, Joy Division’s label), played hilariously by Steve Coogan. Check out a clip below. There’s more insight into the band in this four minute clip from 24 Hour Party People than in all of Control’s two plus hours. The clip beautifully captures the fertile but essentially hostile relationship that existed between Martin Hannett and the members of Joy Division. And here’s some trivia for you: Sam Riley, who plays Ian Curtis in Control, played Mark E. Smith, lead singer of The Fall (another great Manchester band) in 24 Hour People, but his scene was cut and only appears in deleted scenes on the DVD.
