The Bad Art (Literature, Music, etc.) Appreciation Thread

[Eireann]

Titanic.

One of the worst movies I've ever seen in my life, and I've seen plenty. Overwrought, overdramatic script; piss-poor special effects (those mechanical figures on the ship); enough anachronisms and cliches to sink the real ship, if it hadn't gone down. A woman of 1912 who came from a good family wouldn't even KNOW the "finger" gesture, let alone use it. She wouldn't get involved in a spitting contest. She wouldn't pose naked for a portrait, unless she was a professional model. Things were both freer and more restricted than they are today.

Not to mention the way it turns into a sort of action/adventure flick once the ship starts to sink. Then there's the lack of chemistry between the two leads. The fact that Rose doesn't die of hypothermia, when she's barely afloat on a piece of wood in the North Atlantic in April, wearing a thin dress and a man's coat. She doesn't even experience frostbite.

What a mess. And it won several Oscars, much to my dismay.

[Sapphire Silk]

"What book?" you ask. None other than Starship Troopers written by the late, great grand master of science fiction, Robert Anson Heinlein.

I'll skip doing a scene by scene dissection of the movie here, as I'm sure none of you want to spend an hour or so reading my ranting. You're welcome.

This. Sooooo this. Starship Troopers was my first thought as soon as I read the intro post.

I love the book. One of my favorites (time for a re-read methinks).

I loathe the movie RAH is spinning in his grave. It's not an action book. They tried to make it an action movie with a bad WWII war news reel feel. It didn't work.

Rico is Phillipino for gods sake! He's short. Casper Van Dien is tall. Ditto for Sergeant Zim . . . another short character played by a tall guy.

Dizzy Flores is male in the novel, and dies in the first chapter . . . and is seen only in corpse form.

Don't get me started on the rest of the characters.

But what I really miss is the discussion of why we fight wars, and the process of growing up that Johnnie goes through in the novel, maturing from boy to man.

I'd be tempted to list the old classic "Plan 9 from Outer Space" but that film really is so bad it's good so I can't honestly say I even dislike it. :P
On the other hand, I recently picked up the zombie film "House of the Dead II" for £1 in a charity shop, and I think I was overcharged. Zombies have risen and swamped a university due to a mad professor experimenting on them, a team of cliches have been sent in by the secret government to take capture the original infectee and, as is inevitable, it all goes wrong. It'd be a wonderful film for a drinking game, except that at the rate of one drink per cliche you'd be unconscious before it was halfway through. I'd say a zombie actually wrote and directed it, except that they'd not have such terrible dialogue or wooden acting. :P

Ed Wood never pretended to make great movies. I actually like that movie, especially the scene of Bela Lugosi flapping his cape that is recycled at least three times in the movie (Lugosi died during filming).

Titanic.

One of the worst movies I've ever seen in my life, and I've seen plenty. Overwrought, overdramatic script; piss-poor special effects (those mechanical figures on the ship); enough anachronisms and cliches to sink the real ship, if it hadn't gone down. A woman of 1912 who came from a good family wouldn't even KNOW the "finger" gesture, let alone use it. She wouldn't get involved in a spitting contest. She wouldn't pose naked for a portrait, unless she was a professional model. Things were both freer and more restricted than they are today.

Not to mention the way it turns into a sort of action/adventure flick once the ship starts to sink. Then there's the lack of chemistry between the two leads. The fact that Rose doesn't die of hypothermia, when she's barely afloat on a piece of wood in the North Atlantic in April, wearing a thin dress and a man's coat. She doesn't even experience frostbite.

What a mess. And it won several Oscars, much to my dismay.

There were, I believe, a handful of people who survived being in the water, including a ship's officer whose description mirrors that of Jack's when he tells Rose what it will feel like early in the movie.

And if you think a Victorian/Edwardian woman would not know those things, I suggest you read some Victorian porn.

[Eireann]

And if you think a Victorian/Edwardian woman would not know those things, I suggest you read some Victorian porn.

I don't think that none of the women of her era knew it; as I mentioned, she came from a good family (she would have known it if she had turned her back on her good family and rebelled in every way, but this was a teenager who was so distraught that her mother wanted her to marry the wrong man, she was ready to commit suicide).

Rich vs. poor. True love vs. money. The dastardly fiance. Getting laid in the back of a car. Pretty dresses. Makeup that wasn't used in 1912. A disaster. Finding yourself. The heroic poor boyfriend. Sacrifice.

Oh, puke.

[Antisocial_Worker]

Rich vs. poor. True love vs. money. The dastardly fiance. Getting laid in the back of a car. Pretty dresses. Makeup that wasn't used in 1912. A disaster. Finding yourself. The heroic poor boyfriend. Sacrifice.

Cliches aplenty, but you had me at "anachronism." Do tell. And not just this but all the others.

Off-topic, but I was in high school when that movie came out and the loveliest girl in school (a free-spirited artist chick who carried around a Mona Lisa lunchbox before they were cool) happened to bear a striking resemblance to Kate Winslet. She scoured all the second-hand and antique stores in town until she found an authentic 1912 red and black beaded ballgown not dissimilar to the one worn in the movie -- and she wore it to the prom.