Film My Year of Flops - Which films have you seen and do you agree?

AmorRoark · Sep 6, 2011

A.V. Club writers review some classic flops and decide whether these are actually truly horrible or actually not so bad with ratings being Fiasco, Failure or Secret Success. The articles are, as are many A.V. Club articles tend to be, often tl;dr so here's your cheat sheet.

NSFW:

There are more but fuck that took me a lot longer to put together than I expected. I'll add more later. I'm interested in whether you agree... especially with the secret successes.

http://www.avclub.com/features/my-year-of-flops/

Interested in other research studies? Find more drug studies.

AmorRoark · Sep 6, 2011

Case File #33 Toys
Fiasco
Absolutely agreed. I hated this movie SO SO SO much. It actually disturbed me. If I remember right they spent a SHIT ton of money on it too. Nice waste. Definitely deserves the worst rating.

My Year of Flops Case File #39: Striptease
Failure
I guess this movie wasn't COMPLETELY unwatchable so I'd go with failure too.

Case File #40: Joe Versus The Volcano
Secret success
Agreed again. Secretly love this movie.

My Year Of Flops Case File #48: Over The Top
Failure
No way. This movie fuckin' rules in the same way Commando rules... it lacked as much action, sure, but there made up for it with an extreme amount of gratuitous muscle shots.

My Year Of Flops Case File #51: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Fiasco
Like millions others I'm a Beatles fan and I have to admit this is absolutely unwatchable to me... not that any of the others fare much better.

Case File #61: Freddy Got Fingered
Secret success
I guess I'm with the majority who didn't 'get' Freddy Got Fingered. I know there's a cult following out there so I sort of expected this. I'd go with failure.

Case File #65: The Fountain
Secret success
Definitely agree. I didn't even know this was considered a flop?

My Year OF Flops Case File #66: Battlefield Earth
Fiasco
A hilariously bad fiasco. But yeah, I couldn't watch more than 20 minutes of it.

Case File #74: Batman & Robin
Failure
I'd go with fiasco based on my previously mentioned 'unwatchable' criteria.

Case File #93: Pay It Forward
Failure
I don't know. It's good mindless film making. Though Spacey's rare TERRIBLE acting does get it close to 'failure'. I'd go with success with a touch of fail.

Case File #97: Exit To Eden
Failure
This movie disturbed me probably because I watched it when I was like 8 so I'd go with fiasco without a solid grounding on it.

Case File #100: Hulk
Secret success
I didn't think this was as bad as most people made it out to be too so I guess I could say almost secret success.

MrGrunge · Sep 6, 2011

Sad Sack Case File #188: The Wrong Guy
Secret Success

I'm glad this one got mentioned as its a personal favorite of mine. Dave Foley really deserved to go places, too bad this film just barely made it straight-to-DVD.

Busty St Clare · Sep 6, 2011

Hudson Hawk- Definitely a secret success. Although most of the time Bruce willis needs a good punch in the face I love this movie

Tank Girl- Are you fucking kidding me?? This film is brilliant.

Paint Your Wagon- One of my guilty pleasures

alasdairm · Sep 7, 2011

was #21 (the wicker man) the original or remake?

alasdair

MrGrunge · Sep 7, 2011

^ It's the remake. Which is baffling since its probably the worst Nicolas Cage movie ever (and that is definitely saying something).

alasdairm · Sep 7, 2011

in which case i disagree - it was awful.

alasdair

jpgrdnr · Sep 7, 2011

Case File #32: Exorcist II: The Heretic
Fiasco

Its very close to being the worst movie ever made.

Strange Days is actually pretty good. Juilette Lewis, Ralph Fiennes, Tom Sizemore, Angela Bassett with bit parts by Vincent D'Onofrio and Michael Wincott. The premise is wonky but whatevs.

The Island of Dr. Moreau I think I remember this as being hyped as a Brando comeback. I wasnt hyped because I didnt really know who he was beyond Apoc. Now - It sucked. I kinda want to watch it again to see how bad it really was.

axl blaze · Sep 7, 2011

I agree with Busty on Tank Girl! that film was as visually appealing as Tank Girl's attitude herself!

I thought Dream Catcher was a freakin' ZANY movie - I mean reality bending aliens that violently emerge through your rectum, and with Jason Lee and Morgan Freeman! come on!admittedly, I was a huge fan of the novel by Stephen King, but I am just flabbergasted that Hollywood would even dream of turning it into a movie - that studio must have been desparate

Four Rooms - another movie that I also kinda liked. it was set-up into four stories, and although the majority of them were so quirky that they missed their mark, I thought that the initial story was interesting (plus you get to see just how bad of an actress Madonna really was - I do believe she won the Razzies outright for that one). but then the Robert Rodriguez featuring Antonio Banderas babysitting skit was worth the price of admission alone. and Tarantino's final skit wasn't so bad. plus, Tim Roth stars and provides one of his best acting performances of his good career. I mean, you really get to see Mr Roth worok his acting chops in this flick

I think that all three of these movies were labeled "secret successes," so maybe that is telling you something? also, I am not too familiar with this poll, although the AV Club is a refutable source of course. the ranked 'em as failure, fiasco, or secret success, eh? I was wondering if anybody could shine some light over here as to what "fiasco" entails in a movie that they ranked as one of the worse of all-time? not as bad as failure, yet not as "good" as a secret success??

AmorRoark · Sep 7, 2011

It's all up to your own interpretation, man.

Belisarius · Sep 7, 2011

Will only comment on a few for time:

#22: Agreed. This film did a great deal to deflate my opinion of Thurman, which is a real feat.
#24: Disagree. While not a great comedy by any means, I still think it's underrated.
#39: Any movie with a cult following like this one must have some redeeming qualities. Buried very, very deeply.
#42: Mad Max without the brains and daring. Agreed.
#44: Disagree--this is a guilty pleasure. Fucking sue me.
#76: You gotta be shitting me; this was, IMO, the single most underrated SF film of the '90s.
#94: Cut the film some slack; there is no way this could've been workable.
#96: You're fired.

LogicSoDeveloped · Sep 10, 2011

Can't stand Cage myself. He always has the same expression on his face and looks totally freaked out no matter what his role is.

Film My Year of Flops - Which films have you seen and do you agree?

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