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ed rhodes Inner circle Rhode Island 2885 Posts |
Are there any films out there that you know failed, failed big time, and yet, you enjoy them and feel they should have done better?
I'm not talking "guilty pleasures," a film like "Howard the Duck" failed and deserved to fail and yet, I find it a "guilty pleasure." I'm talking about a film that you think should have done better than it did. I've got a couple, here's one; "Dragnet" - 1987 Dan Akroyd - Tom Hanks. This is a parody of Jack Webb's "Joe Friday" character from the 50's and 60's, centered around Akroyd's spot-on impersonation of Jack Webb as Friday's "nephew," also known as Joe Friday. Given a new partner (Hanks) Friday has to investigate a bizarre series of crimes involving a group called PAGAN and his growing feelings for a kidnap victim. Any films favorites out there of yours that shouldn't have failed?
"...and if you're too afraid of goin' astray, you won't go anywhere." - Granny Weatherwax
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
Barbarella, Dune, Flash Gordon looking silly even though the stories are serious? Batman movies where the star is the city? Silent Running with the strange feeling about forests and small robots... many films with technical merit yet don't engage this audience.
Wasn't The Wizard of Oz something less than a box-office performer at the time?
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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balducci Loyal user Canada 227 Posts |
I saw this article yesterday, and it seems topical:
http://www.salon.com/2016/12/17/chefs-do......odnight/ "Many people have never seen The Long Kiss Goodnight, let alone heard of it ... It probably didn't help that The Long Kiss Goodnight came out in the same year that yielded the first Mission: Impossible, John Woo's Broken Arrow, etc." I'm not sure whether or not I ever watched TLKG, but I will try and do so later today.
Make America Great Again! - Trump in 2020 ... "We're a capitalistic society. I go into business, I don't make it, I go bankrupt. They're not going to bail me out. I've been on welfare and food stamps. Did anyone help me? No." - Craig T. Nelson, actor.
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Cliffg37 Inner circle Long Beach, CA 2491 Posts |
Wow... Somebody else remembers Silent Running? A great film about a man slowly losing it due to circumstances he never should have had to handle. Early Bruce Dern. He really made his mark on that one.
Funny, I can think of lots of bad movies I thought did better than they deserved. I think a lot of "cult classics" fit into this category. My thinking is that Rocky Horror failed in the box office because no one knew how to take it, talk about it or advertise it. Was it horror like the title said? Was it a comedy? Seems like one now, but I am not sure it was ever meant to be. Taken for a parody of a 1950's B horror movie it is great. Otherwise, not so much. Point is if people had realized what it was trying to be, I think it would have done better in the mainstream. Anyone seen the movie "Liquid Sky?" Now I am really digging deep into the land of misunderstood movies. Low budget, but a very good film at its' base.
Magic is like Science,
Both are fun if you do it right! |
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
S. U. N. Y. at Purchase ... that was the NYC scene at the time - with or without a rhythm box
Yeah, it gets strange when movie appreciation includes film student awareness.
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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motown Inner circle Atlanta by way of Detroit 6127 Posts |
Ed, if you're talking about films that were flops at the box office, Blade Runner was one I really liked that did poorly.
"If you ever write anything about me after I'm gone, I will come back and haunt you."
– Karl Germain |
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Salguod Nairb Room 101 0 Posts |
Sometimes it just comes down to poor marketing and the results is a cult classic. Donnie Darko springs to mind.
There are a few movies that could have been good if they didn't do that one thing. Such as From Dusk til Dawn. That was 2 good ideas combined into one bad movie. Another would be The Mist. The ending was too inconsistent with the nature of the characters IMO.
We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness...
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LobowolfXXX Inner circle La Famiglia 1196 Posts |
Odd that my two favorite science fiction movies would be mentioned in consecutive posts.
"Torture doesn't work" lol
Guess they forgot to tell Bill Buckley. "...as we reason and love, we are able to hope. And hope enables us to resist those things that would enslave us." |
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ed rhodes Inner circle Rhode Island 2885 Posts |
Quote:
On Dec 18, 2016, motown wrote: Kinda, but "Blade Runner" (and "The Wizard of Oz") were redeemed and are now considered "classics." I'm talking about films that failed, that are still considered "bad movies," that you have a soft spot for and feel should be better accepted. "The Last Action Hero" (1993) After being mugged in his own house, a young boy gets a sneak preview of the latest "Jack Slater" film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. A "magic ticket" brings him INTO the film where he has to convince "Jack" that he's a character in a movie. Later, the bad guy gets ahold of the ticket and uses it to enter (and bring OTHER villains) into the REAL world. Jack has to save Arnold, a man he blames for turning his life into a parody of a real cop's work. I want to bring up a weird point about this film that I doubt too many people would catch onto. A major plot point of the film is that the mob boss is going to plant a nerve gas bomb into the body of a recently deceased rival. All the mob bosses will be at the funeral (held on top of a tower) and the bomb will kill all of them as well as most of Los Angeles! Jack has to steal the body and get it away from the funeral while being chased by mobsters. Now, most of you aren't going to know this, but there was a series of "potboiler" detective novels in the 50's and early 60's starring a PI named Shell Scott. One of the stories had Shell discovering a plot to stuff several hundred pounds of TNT into the body of a mobster, the theory being that all the mobsters attending the funeral will be killed by the blast. Scott realized that the owner of the funeral home (and his family) as well as the police attending the funeral to keep tabs on the "suspected" mobsters will also die so he has to steal the body and get it into a nearby grave to protect everyone, while being chased by mobsters, each one of whom hates his guts!
"...and if you're too afraid of goin' astray, you won't go anywhere." - Granny Weatherwax
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motown Inner circle Atlanta by way of Detroit 6127 Posts |
OK, but failed or bad in what way. In terms of box office or critical acclaim?
"If you ever write anything about me after I'm gone, I will come back and haunt you."
– Karl Germain |
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balducci Loyal user Canada 227 Posts |
Quote:
On Dec 18, 2016, balducci wrote: So I did watch this yesterday. It really was quite an enjoyable movie. Action, explosions, Christmas festivities, laughs. Lots of quotable lines / bits. Many politically incorrect today, probably. I think it should have done better at the box office than it did.
Make America Great Again! - Trump in 2020 ... "We're a capitalistic society. I go into business, I don't make it, I go bankrupt. They're not going to bail me out. I've been on welfare and food stamps. Did anyone help me? No." - Craig T. Nelson, actor.
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balducci Loyal user Canada 227 Posts |
Quote:
On Dec 18, 2016, Cliffg37 wrote: Nothing wrong with that movie, I liked it a lot. But there was a decade or two when you couldn't flip through Canadian television channels without finding it being played on at least one of them. Or so it seemed anyway. It had a lot of airplay up here for some reason. Don't know why. Maybe it was cheap to rerun? So I think the average Canadian has seen the movie more than once. Looks like the Toronto International Film Festival even did a retrospective of it recently (this was in October 2016): http://www.tiff.net/events/douglas-trumb......-running
Make America Great Again! - Trump in 2020 ... "We're a capitalistic society. I go into business, I don't make it, I go bankrupt. They're not going to bail me out. I've been on welfare and food stamps. Did anyone help me? No." - Craig T. Nelson, actor.
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ed rhodes Inner circle Rhode Island 2885 Posts |
Quote:
On Dec 19, 2016, motown wrote: Both, generally.
"...and if you're too afraid of goin' astray, you won't go anywhere." - Granny Weatherwax
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Salguod Nairb Room 101 0 Posts |
Conan the Destroyer. With the success of the first movie they decided to make it more family friendly and knocked it down to PG-13.
Too add to the misery they then produced Red Sonja; which luckily they couldn't use the Conan name but still tried to make it family friendly. That killed the Conan series back in the 80's.
We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness...
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landmark Inner circle within a triangle 5194 Posts |
Ishtar.
Unfairly maligned in my opinion. It's got a hilarious performance by Charles Grodin, and it's great to see Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty play against their respective types--Beatty is the nerd, and Hoffman the one with a way with women. Yes the plot is kind of all over the place, but that's often the case in some of the great screwball comedies. Magicians and show folk will enjoy it especially, I think, as it follows the fortunes of two wannabe singer/songwriters (think Simon and Garfunkel cover band) whose ambition is a lot greater than their talent. Worth catching on Netflix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishtar_(film)
Click here to get Gerald Deutsch's Perverse Magic: The First Sixteen Years
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ed rhodes Inner circle Rhode Island 2885 Posts |
Quote:
On Dec 23, 2016, Salguod Nairb wrote: Yeah, but those films deserved to fail. I'm looking for films that failed that you personally feel shouldn't have. I got a couple more, but not on this iPhone keyboard.
"...and if you're too afraid of goin' astray, you won't go anywhere." - Granny Weatherwax
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Salguod Nairb Room 101 0 Posts |
You're making this rather hard...
The only movies that I can think that might fit that description would be movies that worked for me (talked to me) and failed to reach a broader audience. One of my favorite movies is Still Crazy. This movie did rather poor in the U.S. market but it really resonated with me so I loved it; and still do. That is as close as I can get without going to the cult classic category. Most movies that flopped deserved to flop because of the horrible script/story-line/actors. One last attempt to gather what you are talking about. Are you talking about hidden gems Ed?
We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness...
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Delimbeau Special user May the magic be with you 596 Posts |
Many great European movies don't make it to/in the U.S. And the remakes usually fail
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Second Sight Regular user Ireland 156 Posts |
I thought that Popeye was really pretty good.
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LobowolfXXX Inner circle La Famiglia 1196 Posts |
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. All-time classic horror movie.
"Torture doesn't work" lol
Guess they forgot to tell Bill Buckley. "...as we reason and love, we are able to hope. And hope enables us to resist those things that would enslave us." |
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