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rancidswan
Reviews
The Tree of Life (2011)
The Tree of "WHEN WILL IT END"?
The Tree of Life is the most cataclysmically painful attempt at a film I have ever had the gross displeasure to experience.
In the beginning of the film we see that there's been a death of one of the children, (I honestly don't know which one, nor could I muster the energy to care) This seems like the start of what could be a promising story as you presume the entire film is going to trace back to how this happened, or why - but it doesn't.
Instead we see what seemed like about 4 days worth of unfinished scenes from the Discovery Channel, interspersed with Brad Pitt being a poor father, and occasionally Sean Penn wandering aimless around what is presumably his own workplace, looking like a confused constipated moron.
In case a lot of the reviews on IMDb don't seem to make much sense to you, here's a description of a typical 60 seconds of the film.
A wobbly camera shows a small boy on a swing
close-up shot of the same boy crying under a tree
20 seconds of underwater footage of a sea cucumber
Brad pit mutters something about grass to a child
A smartly dressed Sean Penn is in a lift, looking lost.
10 seconds of footage of Saturn presumably taken from Cassini
A different boy has his hair ruffled whilst looking fairly unhappy
(During this entire sequence, a woman whispers something like "I like ham" in the background)
This process is then repeated for 2.5 hours.
At the end of the film, Sean Penn (still looking wildly constipated) wanders through a door frame on a beach and all the various 'characters' are there with him too, which is presumably meant to be a visual metaphor for heaven, but again I could be wrong - it might be a visual metaphor for loft insulation for all I know.
In the cinema I was tortured in, there was an audible sigh of relief when the film ended.
So in summary - no story, no plot, no start, beginning or end, possibly edited by a schizophrenic brain damaged weasel. It was as enjoyable and interesting as watching Jedward trying to explain Cubism to a desk clock.
Avoid.
Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)
I drowned in a pool of my own disbelief (spoilers within!)
Obviously, given that this has been voted 'The worst film of all time' by IMDb users I knew it wasn't going to be good, but after acquiring a copy of this movie I set out to find out how bad it really is.
After what seemed like a day of watching this film, I'm fairly certain that I'm never going to fully recover from the experience - it's left a physical stain on my minds eye which I doubt could be removed by a surgeon.
Let me make a few things clear at this point. Not only is this the overall worst film of all time, but it's without question the 'worst made' film I've ever experienced, the cutting of scenes must have been done by someone with a terrible mental illness, although saying that, at least some of the scenes are actually edited, unlike the classic moment where they drive past a sign to the 'valley lodge' and the camera stays on the sign for a full minute. (although it actually feels like an hour)
At this point you expect the film to cut to the innards of the valley lodge, but no, there's just more driving around with the camera shaking and half zoomed in on the horizon. This movie feels like it was made by a child, and the acting doesn't help, it's appalling, but even that is overshadowed by the horrific, nay painful use of music.
Then we meet Torgo, who looks p***ed, constantly wobbles like a weeble, twitches like a freak and has the knees of an elephant. There's simply nothing scary about him, so he gets his own theme, whenever he's on screen (or partly in screen due to the editing) there's some cheap keyboard music which I *think* is meant to be frightening. Like the scene when he carries their luggage into the house, shaking a wobbling as only he can do - why would this need scary music, it's not a scary scene, if you're scared by a freak carrying luggage then I truly pity you.
Anyway, in summary, don't think that it's so bad it'll be entertaining, because it isn't (if you want something like that, try 'Cool as Ice', or possibly 'Crash') It's horrific to the point of disbelief, whilst remaining incredibly dull throughout and the pace of the thing truly beggars belief. Dreadful, ghastly, wanton and messy at the same time.
Cool as Ice (1991)
An absolute classic, but for all the wrong reasons
I've read a few of the reviews about this film and most of them are pretty spot on. As a film it truly deserves to be rooted in the worst 100 list, terribly acting by the two *bad* cops, worse still by straight laced Michael Gross - and the less said about Vanilla's acting ability the better.
Worse than the acting is the absolutely hilarious Cameo by Naomi Campbell in the opening credits, who screams her way through a really really hideous song whilst dancing badly and constantly trying to brush her hair away from her face.
After this initial horrific all singing all dancing intro, some bint gives Vanilla her phone number just so that we're reminded how great Vanilla ice is, and then the film starts proper. At this point you're just recovering from the awfulness of the dark warehouse intro, and suddenly you're assaulted by the wildy vivid colours of... pretty much everything actually, it's a constant throughout the film that everything is just too vivid, its hard to explain, but once you've noticed it, its actually quite amusing.
This is pretty much how the film goes, just as you think you've seen the most awful scene in cinematic history, along comes another, worse one that manages to make the last one look average. A great example of this is the way that in the first couple of minutes, Vanilla 'bunny hops' his 250kg GSXR-1100 over a 5 foot high fence. An absolute classic moment in cinema which stays with you... kind of like syphillis.
But it's for all these reasons (and hundreds more) that you should watch this film. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT. I've never really been an advocate of the 'so bad it's good' school of thought, but I'll make an exception for this film. Not only have I seen it many times, but I bought it new from Amazon a little while ago so I can say I have an original copy. In years to come it will be completely priceless, such is the cult following of this shocking celluloid mistake.
I really would recommend that you see it, not because it's great, but just so you can appreciate how bad something can actually be, and how much of a complete freak of a movie this is.
I've never witnessed a scene in a movie which can compete with the pure hilarity of Vanilla dancing on his own, like a tw@t, outside the old people's house in his dayglo pants wearing his stupid jacket. I challenge anyone not to laugh outloud during this, and many other classic moments.
Deserves both 1 out of 10 as a film, and 10 out of 10 as a must see classic bomb.
Going Overboard (1989)
Please no, no, no, no, no, no
Warning, this review contains spoilers of the plot - Actually it doesn't contain any such information, as there is nothing which could possibly spoil this film more than the makers already have done.
This film looks like its been filmed on Video8, and doesn't contain any plot/story/humor - it may well be the very worst film I have ever seen [although I'm not sure watching 5 minutes, having a cry and then turning it off constitutes a 'watching']
Instead of watching the film, I'd like to make some suggestions of what you might like to do instead which would be more fun. A) Set fire to yourself B) Remove your fingernails with pliers C) Climb into the gears of some working plant machinery
That is all