10.25.2005

Road House Gets Dicked Again

The UK's Total Film magazine has compiled a list of the Top 100 Movies of All Time. You can view the whole list of the top 100 on their discussion board.

Here's the top 10:

1. GoodFellas
2. Vertigo
3. Jaws
4. Fight Club
5. The Godfather Part II
6. Citizen Kane
7. Tokyo Story
8. The Empire Strikes Back
9. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy
10. His Girl Friday

Goodfellas? Really? It's good and all, but better than the Godfather? Better than Citizen Kane? And Fight Club at number four seems, oh, maybe about 50 to 80 places higher than it should be.

Anyway, lists are always good for those of us with short attention spans, and lists of movies are even better.

The top hundred has some good stuff that you might not ordinarily see on a list like this, like Spinal Tap, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Hoop Dreams, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Some stuff that seems like it's missing to me: Dazed and Confused, the Last Waltz, Raising Arizona, Say Anything, Beautiful Girls (am I the only one who really loves that movie? maybe), and of course, Road House, Point Break, and Red Dawn.

In that spirit, here is my top 10 list of the All Time Best Bad Movies.

I'm defining a good bad movie as something you can watch over and over again, preferably on a Sunday afternoon, hungover, while you should be doing other, more productive things. You'll notice some similarities, like a completely unbelievable protagonist (famous professional bouncer, stripper with heart of gold, zen bank robber surfer, professional arm wrestler with a heart of gold), pop stars (Mariah Carey, Run-DMC, Vanilla Ice), a plucky hero/heroine who triumphs over evil in its many forms (recording industry, Ben Gazarra, communists, Keanu Reeves). Hearts of Gold help. As does the presence of Swayze, patron saint of good bad movies. And the Ashley Judd thing might just be me -- what can I say, I can watch her chase down that rascal of a husband, changing outfits after every gunfight or live burial or false imprisonment, all day long. But that's just how I roll.

Top 10 Best Bad Movies of All Time:

10. Tougher Than Leather
9. Showgirls
8. Red Dawn
7. Over the Top
6. Cool as Ice
5. Double Jeopardy
4. Glitter
3. Hot Dog the Movie
2. Point Break
1. Road House

What do you think?

6 comments:

Joe said...

I'm happy Fight Club did as well as it did. There's a shitload of stuff going on in that movie that people missed the first time, not only on a political level—I think it’s one of the most overtly political Hollywood flicks of all time—but also relating to the nature of film, acknowledging it’s a reality and a falsity at the same time.

Don’t get me wrong, a lot of movies acknowledge the suckassness of being a modern worker bee, but almost none show the extreme mental and emotional problems resulting from the individual’s awareness of his total uselessness in contemporary American society.

I think a lot of people disliked the film the first time because of the violence. Critics seemed to think it was about guys punching other guys. But Fight Club’s not about throwing the punch: It’s about taking the hit, it’s about how in the absence of real feelings, even pain starts to feel pretty good.

Or maybe I'm just saying this shit because I've worked a total of 30 hours in the past three days, including the weekend.

I'll stop now.

Mike Ingram said...

Joe, you need to hit someone, don't you?

I like Goodfellas a lot, but even I'm not sure it's the best movie of all time (in fact I'm pretty sure that it's not).

And Dave, I also like Beautiful Girls.

Jonathan S. said...

Over the Top as a bad movie? Are you crazy? Arm wrestling, man. ARM WRESTLING! How about "Mission to Mars"? Dreadful. How about "Breakin' 2: The Electric Bugaloo"?

Joe said...

I should probably clarify my comments by saying it's insane that Fight Club beat out Citizen Kane. Yeah, it's good and all, but shit, man. If it weren't for Orson we'd still be trying to figure out how to effectively establish POV in a movie.

And the deep, sexy voice tearing Magnum a new one every ten episodes probably would’ve been Don Knotts.

TMC said...

Unfortunately, Joe, it wasn't just the critics who missed the point; about half the teenage boys in America also thought it was about punching people in the face too. That's why several of my idiot friends ended up starting their own fight clubs and broke their noses and blackened their eyes.

Unknown said...

The only movie I’ve watched from your bad movies list is “Double Jeopardy”. It was a long time ago but I remember I thought it was pretty good. And I didn’t notice that she kept changing her outfits.