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Evillordexdeath posted...

I always found Ebert's take on Hellraiser very strange. Hellraiser 2 is probably one of his worst reviews because of the extremely condescending tone he takes toward people who liked the movie. I find it rather odd that he bemoans how the movie is "made for people with no attention span" when he gave a 3/4 to a certain other movie on the list that feels like it deserves that criticism quite a lot more

Roger admitted he found Evil Dead 2 a guilty pleasure. Likely that movie's comedic tone helped a lot. Note that on air he also admitted he got tired of the movie an hour in but still recommended it anyway. Gene didn't recommend it because he got tired even sooner but he still wasn't particularly harsh on it. Might have also been because Hellraiser has a lot more surreal and gruesome imagery?

jcgamer107 posted...

Holy hell Possession is not good guys, lol

Glad to drag Predator down, what an incredibly boring movie. An "action-horror" movie that doesn't have any action or scares, was just waiting for it to end almost as soon as it started. How they thought this was a suitable rival for 'Alien', aside from box offices numbers, I don't know.

Says just about everyone else here. Including me. I'm not saying it's one of my favorite movies or anything, but it least paved the way for the director's next two movies Die Hard and The Hunt for Red October which I think are even better. However, I'll also admit I'm a huge fan of suspense in movies which is why I'm a big fan of directors like Steven Spielberg and James Cameron. John McTiernan is like that but without as distinctive a style. I would like to know what you think of his other movies or other Predator films.

Tbh I also just find the Predator a really cool movie alien, but I will admit I have a massive soft spot for a lot of the genres the movie (and subsequent franchise) meld together. So you do you.

EDIT: In hindsight I think Predator is one of my favorite premises for a movie so that probably colors a lot of my view.

MarkS2222222222 posted...

No doubt, I'm not saying it's good by any means. But I mean, MCU is intentionally silly. It's just a lower bar.

Most of the MCU has basically become a collection of "fun moments" without regard to anything else, and that's essentially what you get with TROS.

The "lower bar" thing is something I noticed at the time, since many of the people who made videos bashing TLJ when it came out moved straight onto bashing Black Panther even though that movie was obviously nowhere near as contentious. Not to mention many of them then seeming to go around specifically targeting movies with female or minority leads for criticism which is a terrible look.

On that note, navigating some of this site's other boards made it seem like many of the people who frequent them are just averse to comic book movies in general given how they seemed to crap all over even acclaimed ones like Wonder Woman, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Thor: Ragnarok (not saying those movies are masterpieces mind, wouldn't even call any of them better than decent personally). I was especially floored to find someone who said they thought Wonder Woman was awful and they struggled to get through it, since I feel like even anti-progressives didn't tend to trash that movie. And on that note, I was very disheartened to see anti-progressive talking points regarding Brie Larson get regurgitated there even as someone who's hardly a big fan of her (only know her as Captain Marvel, I can tell she's talented but the MCU doesn't give her much opportunity to show it. Tbf I feel the same way about Scarlett Johansson except I've actually seen her in stuff where she gives good performances, though I think Captain Marvel alone demonstrates Larson is more talented because Johansson was even more stiff and wooden in a similar role as the lead in the live-action Ghost in the Shell).

ZeeksFire posted...

The problem with the 7-9 is that when compared to the series, they shrunk the idea of glorious space opera to a single planet and reused the overarching plot 4-6 again, but poorly. Not even considering the idea of just throwing around the idiot ball between the new republic, there was nothing of worth to consider plotwise that'd redeem what got destroyed, (including the demolition of the expanded universe)

Personally I had no problem with the "idiot ball" the New Republic had that caused the trilogy, and the only way I understand people having such a big problem with it is because Star Wars fans want to know how events unfold the way they do and how things work in the universe. On that level they probably find the sequel trilogy to be a neverending parade of frustration. Personally, compared to stuff like an alien somehow being onboard the ship to kickstart the events of Alien 3 despite the previous movie giving no indication how that could be the case, Terminator 3 revealing Skynet somehow rose anyway despite the previous movie without going into detail how, Blues Brothers 2000 revealing the orphanage the title characters worked so hard to save in the previous movie got torn down anyway, and Agent K being brought out of retirement for no apparent reason in MiB2, this is peanuts by Happy Ending Override standards. Even getting into Star Wars lore, the entire prequel trilogy is predicated on the government being stupid so it's not hard to believe that problem still didn't get fixed. Not to mention the New Republic technically lasted longer than the Empire. Not to mention the meta aspect that the prequel trilogy had already tainted the franchise's mainstream reputation so there was probably pressure on TFA to avoid those pitfalls. Heck, about the only creative aspect that remained consistent throughout the sequel trilogy was distancing the franchise from the prequel trilogy. The sequel trilogy is a big middle finger to George Lucas and that's both the best and worst thing about it.

Even as someone whose favorite MCU movie (and third favorite comic book movie of all time) is No Way Home, it is definitely not beyond criticism. However, it's not like any of that movie's "Ass Pulls" cheapened events in prior movies the way Palpatine's resurrection did. Though I also admit I had more of a problem with the idea that Palpatine was somehow pulling the strings of The First Order the whole time than I did with the idea of him being resurrected in and of itself, due to the whole science fantasy aspect...and I also thought Palpatine would be resurrected DURING the movie.

Most sure, 95% I don't know about.

I find it interesting the MCU is winning considering when I calculated the movies' Cinemascores, if you assign 1 point for a B, 2 for a B+, 3 for an A-, 4 for an A, and 5 for an A+, the sequel trilogy wins on average. Here's the breakdown:

A+ - Spider-Man: No Way Home
A - Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3
A- - Black Widow
B+ - Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Thor: Love & Thunder
B - Eternals, Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania, The Marvels

Probably a case of hype powering Star Wars.

Never been interested in Hellraiser and the first thing that comes to mind about the movie is Roger Ebert giving it 0.5/4 stars. He gave the same rating to the sequel and inducted it into his Most Hated Films list...which also includes stuff like The Usual Suspects and Stargate alongside more "conventionally" bad movies like Battlefield Earth, Catwoman, and North. Whatever I guess?

It was jarring to see Hellraiser ahead of Gremlins given that movie is generally given far more recognition plus Siskel & Ebert recommended it even at the time, but again I definitely get it. I'm a big fan of Gremlins myself but I'm also just generally into those Spielberg kind of movies. Albeit my favorite movie of his is actually Schindler's List.

Was not expecting Con Air to win this easily...then again for some reason I was under the impression this board was generally into newer movies than older ones.

I also only realized when making this topic that both movies star Oscar winners.

Espeon posted...

Im genuinely worried for Predator at this point, because I look at the remaining 11 movies, and its the only one that doesnt feel like it has either a deep, mature tone (Shining, Possession, Henry, Hellraiser) or a very strong and distinctive directorial vision (Thing, Videodrome, Nightmare, Fly, Evil Dead, Beetlejuice).

Im gonna hope for the best and predict that Evil Dead II is similar enough to Re-Animator to end up just one point higher.

I'm tempted to defend Predator on that vibe...because it paved the way for the director's next two even better films, Die Hard and The Hunt for Red October.

Seginustemple posted...

The fun police can't let Henry keep getting away with this!

This also reminds me, how was Manhunter not chosen? It's heck of a lot more of a horror flick than Beetlejuice! Could have also been chosen over something like The Dead Zone or Predator.

Speaking of Tim Burton, I was thinking about what it would be like if Michael Keaton was in a horror movie...then remembered Beetlejuice still hasn't dropped has it? I'm honestly surprised it's so well-liked, but it could be since the first thing that comes to mind about the movie is Siskel & Ebert both panning it. I do genuinely like the movie but mostly on the level of a live-action cartoon than anything. For me it would be like a 7/10 while Poltergeist is an 8/10 and Gremlins is 8-9/10. And maybe I'm thinking of Gremlins positively because Siskel & Ebert both recommended it, but Gremlins and Poltergeist also seem to make best-of lists more often to me.

Also frankly Beetlejuice doesn't belong here. It's at best as much a horror movie as Ghostbusters. Okay, it does follow a lot of horror movie conventions, but they both still operate on the rule of subverting every scare into a farce. An American Werewolf in London is kind of that too but it tries to be scary a lot more than those two.

Blaziken posted...

Jesus absolute Christ you guys.

I'm a big fan of the movie (though I've only seen it once and don't feel particularly compelled to revisit it) but many of those complaints were levelled at the movie right from the get-go. There's a reason Leonard Maltin had a cameo in the sequel where he read his actual (negative) review of the movie, though it also helped Dante and Maltin were good friends.

Never seen The Dead Zone, might have been better if The Fog was there but I guess didn't want four John Carpenter movies here? I know Christopher Walken is primarily associated with memes but it is primarily serious roles (or at least roles in movies that aren't comedies) that come to mind, e.g. Batman Returns, Pulp Fiction, Catch Me if You Can, heck even Dune Part 2 recently. Then again I wasn't even aware of a lot of these movie guys growing up, e.g. not even having heard of Pulp Fiction until 2013.

Speaking of which, not terribly relevant to this topic, but I do not like Batman Returns (wouldn't say it's a bad movie though) or Walken's character in the movie. Now, it's not because Walken's character is a caricature of Trump - if anything that's the one aspect that does work because it was dead on about the kind of person Trump is (apologies for going political) - but because his character is there just to tie Catwoman and The Penguin together and if anything he's emblematic of the problems I have with the movie. The whole thing just feels too disjointed, like Burton or writer Daniel "Hudson Hawk" Waters just came up with ideas for scenes and they struggled to put them together in a coherent fashion. HOWEVER, it's certainly memorable.

Since it's tangentially relevant to this topic, anyone else here know of 1984's "The Devil's Gift"? It's a movie that can be watched free on YT. Basically a rip-off of Stephen King's short story "The Monkey", about a demonic cymbal-banging monkey toy that kills a living thing every time it claps its cymbals. Best known for having footage from it stitched into the director's only other film, 1996's "Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders" starring Ernest Borgnine. That movie was eventually featured on MST3K only three years after its release.

Needless to say, I was so caught off-guard by how, uh, "scary" it was for something clearly meant to be whimsical (it was meant to be a horror movie but then retooled into a family film due to meddlesome executives) when I saw the MST3K episode I checked out the original movie myself. What a thing.

It's kind of interesting Christine has fallen by the wayside in discussions on Carpenter's movies given it was probably his biggest hit that decade (and from there likely second biggest after Halloween). Also huh The Fog is not on this list. I appreciated its craft but wasn't a fan.

Honestly not only am I "fine" with the sequel trilogy on the basis that we probably wouldn't have gotten the (admittedly still hit-and-miss) Disney+ series without it, but there have been plenty of worse franchise revivals this past decade.

I'll admit this was inspired by a YouTuber I follow putting out a short video responding to a question which trilogy was worse between the SW sequel trilogy and the Jurassic World trilogy. I was personally shocked how many in the comments were saying Star Wars until I realized a number of them admitted to having higher hopes for it. Honestly it feels like anyone who had any expectations for the ST higher than "don't be like the prequels" was going to be disappointed, but conversely it also feels like most didn't walk in with any higher expectations to begin with. That was also about the only creative aspect of the trilogy that stayed consistent throughout. Heck, the only other thing that stayed consistent about the trilogy was all three movies generally being aimed at the same people.

I feel like even now the prequel trilogy is more widely-derided than the sequel trilogy, and it's mostly within concentrated spaces (who are more likely to be very devoted to the lore) that the ST gets especially bashed.

Doesn't help that if you take Cinemascores into account, the sequel trilogy had better audience reception than the prequel trilogy.

I like Poltergeist a lot but it probably works as least as well as a Spielberg thrill ride as it does a horror flick if not better so I guess I understand the criticisms. I remember Gene Siskel panning the movie because he couldn't bear to see kids in danger for so long.

About the movie itself, not so much. I wasn't a fan but it felt like just another Star Wars movie to me. Rogue One wasn't really any different.

Didn't like Rogue One, didn't bother with Solo.

Interestingly, Roger Ebert gave the movie only 2 stars out of 4 and called the movie "unfinished" because of seemingly not having much to the plot. Having seen the movie, I understand where he was coming from but I don't really agree. I think it had as much plot as it needed to have at least.

On a scale of 1-10 I give it a low 8 or a high 7. I liked it but wasn't particularly impressed. I do not remember finding the middle of the movie to be a drag like some do. I'm honestly amazed Beetlejuice ranks higher on this list, especially since An American Werewolf at least tries to be scary while Beetlejuice doesn't bother (still like it overall, at least on the level of a Tim Burton live-action cartoon), but eh.

Only George C. Scott movie I've seen is Doctor Strangelove, which I did like a lot.

What movies on this list have I seen? Hmm, The Shining, Poltergeist, The Fly, Predator, Beetlejuice, that it? Oh, An American Werewolf in London and The Thing.

Did we ever do a '90s action movie ranking by chance? If we haven't it would be a nice excuse to see what you guys think of movies like Point Break, The Last Boy Scout, Passenger 57, Under Siege 1 & 2, Cliffhanger, The Fugitive, Demolition Man, Speed (and maybe its ill-fated sequel also), Blown Away, True Lies, The Specialist, Sudden Death, Broken Arrow, Executive Decision, Eraser, The Rock, Con Air, Face/Off, Air Force One, Hard Rain, The Replacement Killers, Rush Hour, and uh End of Days? Assuming we discount movies that are part of long-running franchises, so no RoboCop, Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, or Matrix movies.

Inviso posted...

I just think "scientist trying to make a groundbreaking invention" is much more of a straightforward and standard character than "asshole TV executive is trying to find the most violent and/or softcore porn programming possible to get ratings". The former makes for a much more rational and sensical storyline, whereas the latter has to jump through so many hoops to get from point A to B to C. It works in Scrooged because the plot is that this asshole is meant to become a better person over the course of the film. But here, Woods' character arc isn't him really changing so much as multiple people are using him as a conduit for their ideological battle.

More for the sake of discussion than trying to defend a movie I haven't even seen (but which I am curious about), but I get the feeling Videodrome isn't really a movie about character. That could admittedly be seen as a problem though.

I thought Fright Night has a Rotten Tomatoes score in the 90s? I know Gene Siskel didn't recommend it but still.

Espeon posted...

In Videodrome, first off, James Woods being a network exec trying to find new, more explicit shows to draw in viewersalready youre starting with a less rational premise. But then his transformation is weirdly supernatural, and while I can accept the concept of Videodrome creating a brain tumor, the body feels completely forced and unnecessary. Even if its a hallucination due to the brain tumor, the movie treats James Woods weird chest wound as a real thing that he uses to hide a gun. And then the movie turns into a weird plot about a shadowy cabal facing off against a light cabal and its just utter nonsense. Its too focused on visuals and theming to create the films framework of a solid plot first.

I'm curious if you specifically have a problem with an executive trying to draw in viewers with explicit content, since that doesn't sound at all irrational. At least by the standards of the time anyway. However I do know that one of the main gripes people have with that particular movie is the off-putting premise, which is also fairly standard with Cronenberg.

I've also only seen two of his movies, both of which I was impressed with, but they're The Fly and A History of Violence which are both adaptations.

Haven't seen any of the movies that dropped so far. What I know about The Lost Boys:

-Producer Richard Donner would have directed it if he wasn't busy with Lethal Weapon (in which a marquee of a movie theater can be seen which reads "Lost Boys" at one point), hence why Joel Schumacher directed it instead.

-The director is a big fan of Batman, hence why Batman comics are discussed in one scene. Ironically when he directed his own Batman movies they were widely mocked, but he was also a hired gun for the studio's campy vision and he swore before he passed away that the Nolan movies resembled more of what he wanted to do with the character. I wound up checking out his Batman movies and A Time to Kill after he passed away and while I didn't like any of them, I was largely impressed with his direction and felt the scripts were what sunk all three. Also I had no problems with his Batman movies being campy, personally. Did Schumacher ever return to the horror genre after Flatliners?

-Siskel & Ebert both gave the movie marginal thumbs down because they thought it was too ambitious and overstuffed. Having seen the CinemaSins and the Dead Meat kill count, I think I get where they're coming from.

More on-topic, I gather that relative to most decades the '80s were dominated by lower-budgeted franchise slashers regarding the horror genre? Then again you could similarly argue the late '90s were dominated by Scream copycats and the late '00s by "torture porn" and remakes (often produced by Michael Bay to boot) I guess.

I also wonder how Deep Rising would have done in the '90s horror ranking, although I suppose it wasn't important enough to include. Was The Relic included on that list? Don't remember tbh.

Ah yes, my favorite The Towering Inferno star.

Not the most on-topic but did we ever do a ranking that included Indiana Jones movies?

rockus posted...

Prince of Darkness this low? smh

Creepshow outlasting this is wild.

At least the longer Tetsuo lasts, the stronger I become

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM91uJVwkf0

In fairness Creepshow was much better received I thought.

Most of what I know about Friday the 13th is through the Netflix series "The Movies That Made Us", and James A. Janisse's kill counts for the movies where he admitted the fifth was his favorite of the first five even though he knows that's not a popular opinion.

Huh just realized no The Fog, guess there was a limit on how much Carpenter was going to be done.

Trump was in a completely different place in 2016 to be fair.

I don't really understand what Biden has done any differently from Hillary Clinton campaign-wise, yet somehow he's nowhere near as controversial. Don't get it.

Then again one of the anti-anti-progressive YouTubers I follow noted that Brie's own fans grilled her over trying to get in on the NFT bandwagon while the people who typically hate on her didn't pay any mind. Way to get your priorities straight.

PeaceFrog posted...

That has nothing to do with the actions of the Israeli government, lms.

Yeah that was my frame of reference admittedly.

Yeah I'm amazed how people get fired up so much more at Brie Larson than at celebrities who have actually done or said way worse/dumber things.

Keep in mind that Roman Polanski elicited sympathy from much of Hollywood for decades partly because he was born into a Jewish family and grew up through the Holocaust. This whole deal where seemingly any criticism of Israel gets filed off as anti-Semitism made me think of that.

Meanwhile Mel Gibson still gets work because of course.

Yes! Also I have indeed seen Happy Gilmore.

Well I was also asking why they weren't nominated in their applicable category since it seemed like the Supporting Actor category was specifically going after older Hollywood legends (Sly Stallone winning and Franco Nero also being nominated, forget who else). But I can understand why you'd get that impression.

It's not even like Douglas or Murray are Razzie regulars, since he hadn't been nominated since 1993 (Worst Actor jointly for Basic Instinct & Shining Through, the latter being the Worst Picture winner) and Murray never had been. Not to mention the Razzies have a history of shaming actresses for appearing in bad movies while letting their male co-stars off the hook.

First thing that comes to mind about Biden is me being thankful for not hearing about every stupid little thing the POTUS does anymore...then realizing I probably hear less about Biden than even Obama. Might not be a bad thing tbh.

Is it just me or are all the Supporting Actor nominees perceived to be Hollywood legends slumming it? Was half-wondering why Michael Douglas and Bill Murray were slapped with Razzie nominations for Ant-Man while Michelle Pfeiffer and Kathryn Newton got off scot-free even though their performances were probably criticized just as much if not more.

This shows you just how much being an incumbent POTUS means to voters...which in turns means Trump might very well lose the election even harder.

I still think that's more likely than not, considering last election he wasn't the guy under criminal investigation for trying to subvert election results.

So to not bring up alt-right idiots again, I also realized only the day before yesterday that Chris Stuckmann's video on Madame Web (the one titled "I have to talk about this") decrying studio interference on blockbuster movies was likely influenced by last year's writers' strike. We can meme on Matt Sazama all day for his writing credits, but we already know that Marvel Studios was hiring inexperienced writers simply because they would be more likely to bow to executive mandates. Hard not to imagine something similar going on here. Don't remember if I brought this up but:

-One of the Oscar-nominated screenwriters for Top Gun: Maverick, Ehren Kruger, was previously best known for the likes of Scream 3 and Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

-Taika Waititi is an Oscar-winning screenwriter for Jojo Rabbit, despite how much people hated Thor: Love & Thunder.

-Rian Johnson is a two-time Oscar nominee for Knives Out and Glass Onion, despite the contentiousness of The Last Jedi.

-Chris Terrio is an Oscar winner for his Argo script, then went on to have writing credits on Batman v. Superman, Justice League, and Rise of Skywalker.

-Akiva Goldsman, credited screenwriter on the likes of Batman & Robin, Lost in Space, and The Dark Tower is an Oscar winner for his script for A Beautiful Mind.

-Robert Towne, Oscar winner for writing Chinatown, also wrote the script for Mission: Impossible II and was an uncredited script doctor on Armageddon.

-Christina Hodson's first two scripts were for the critically-panned Shut In and Unforgettable, but her next two were for the much better-received Bumblebee and Birds of Prey.

-David S. Goyer was smarting off the critical panning of Blade: Trinity when he had a co-writing credit on Batman Begins, then he parlayed that into similar credits on the rest of the trilogy...and his two most recent big-screen writing credits are Batman v. Superman and Terminator: Dark Fate.

Yeah probably doesn't help I already remember it being pointed out on TV Tropes.

After watching the movie I can't get it out of my head how similar the ending fanfare sounds to the music track that plays on finishing a mission in Star Fox 64. Have to imagine it was intentional in the latter's case.

WhiteLens posted...

Since LMS is reading this topic, I have to ask, do you watch original content on YouTube? Like channels that aren't mostly about commentating on nerd culture, current political news, or drama farming.

Biggest example of course, is MrBeast.

I watch mostly movie review and Let's Play channels. Although even the latter less and less, especially since The Runaway Guys disbanded (and while I don't think what Chuggaaconroy did deserves to tarnish him completely, he definitely needs to sort out his issues).