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Weekend Discussion Thread: The Worst Movies of 2014RiffTrax conducted a poll, and these are the results:
So, let’s have at it. What is/are your pick(s)? Show your work! 64 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: The Worst Movies of 2014”Commenting at Satellite News
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To #46. Thanks for the info on Retro-Tv. I was hoping they would show some different episodes, not repeats.
Believe it or not my Retro station is an over the air ANALOG station that needs an outdoor antenna, and worse they only show the second hour on Sat. night and then the full 2 hrs. on Sun afternoon. That means with the new split schedule I will only get half the Sat. movie and all of the different movie on Sun.
Transformers 4 might not have been the worst (it’s close, that “honor” goes to this list’s winner) but it’s the film that made me the angriest. Right before opening, Michael Bay gave an interview where he essentially said that fan complaints don’t matter because they’ll see the movie anyway. I decided to prove him wrong by not seeing the movie despite being a Transformers fan since birth. I only saw it last month because a friend of mine has it. I didn’t miss much. It’s a good thing the IDW comics are so good because the movies are doing their best to kill one of my favorite franchises.
Re#50
As the son of a philosophy teacher I appreciate and commend your skepticism, as well as your sense of the need to ground one’s perspective in reality. As an environmentalist I also appreciate the fact that hysterically overstating our case only makes us look foolish or delusional and not to be believed.
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert is probably the best and most up to date account of species extinction that I know of. The little bit of rooting around I did while checking on the name of that book indicated that the rate of species extinction is somewhere between one every two hours and one every hour. I’ve come across other estimates that place it around one every 15 minutes, so I was trying to be kind of conservative with my previously posted estimate of one every hour. It is a difficult to measure precisely. I realize that what I am stating here sounds absurd. Too big to be true. So please do your own checking and let me and everyone else here know that I’m full of beans if that’s what you discover.
As for relaxing, absolutely. The fact that one’s species is having a global impact similar to the meteor that killed the dinosaurs can be upsetting, and in High School I was very much “the kid who couldn’t lighten up for ten minutes”. But if it weren’t for that meteor there would have been no mammals. And there never would have been dinosaurs if it wasn’t for the thousand year volcano the size of North America or whatever that wiped out what came before them. The world got along just fine before we came along, and will continue to do so after we are gone.
And we all still have the glorious opportunity to be alive and conscious in a world that is still beautiful and fun. Love it and savor the sharing of it with those you love. Although in the strictest sense I am an atheist, certainly an amonotheist, I believe that existence and the consciousness of it and participation in it are sacred things. I can’t back that up with anything clinical except to say that’s what being human means to me. Peace and love, now and always. Oh and sardonic puppet shows, you gotta have that.
And if someone could tell me how to “disable scripts” or whatever to restore right click functions I would be very grateful.
I forgot to mention that I liked the “Eve of Destruction” reference. Barry McGuire right? And I’ve been listening to The Doors lately (This is the end…), along with Emmylou Harris’ Christmas album.
I went to Minnesota School of Business for my undergrad in Accounting. I had to take a course called environmental science. The teacher was a real committed green-type (at a business school), even though he was a ginger. I really respected him. The one thing I’ve always taken from him was pretty much the same thing you assert. The planet will be here after we’re extinct. I kinda take solace in that.
I’m too lazy to do my own fact checking. I just threw out the general question because the methodology would be so easy to manipulate. How many species are there today compared to the past? In other words, I would think a comparison of the percentage of total species rather than the raw number of species would be a more meaningful comparison.
Also, a statistic would be more meaningful if it was net species gain/loss. If we lose one every hour but discover five a day, that changes the calculation slightly. There are too many unknowns for me to categorically back either side of the debate. In the meantime, I’ll take my solace in the knowledge the planet will take care of itself.
I can’t call myself an atheist, but I got to a point in my life where I felt it didn’t matter whether or not god exists. The existence of god wouldn’t change the way I live. I see a lot of wisdom in religious teachings. The closer you get to the source (and away from the dogma), Confucius, Buddha, and Jesus were really onto something. Just because people took a guy who ALWAYS spoke in parables too literally, well… that’s not on him what was done in his name. Anyway, drifting again.
Red Dwarf had it right:
Lister: Why does it have to be such a big deal? Why can’t it be like, like, human beings are a planetary disease? Like the Earth’s got German measles or facial herpes, right? And that’s why all of the other planets give us such a wide berth. It’s like, “Oh, don’t go near Earth! It’s got human beings on it, they’re contagious!”
Rimmer: So you’re saying, Lister, you’re an intergalactic, pus-filled cold sore! At last, Lister, we agree on something.
possible discussion topic.
In what ways have you seen MST3K be prophetic, or offer an example of history repeating itself? Consider the host segments, the movies, and the shorts.
I know there was a kerfuffle about a Hollywood rip-off of Clonus. But how about this rip-off of A Date With Your Family?
Here are some pointers taken from:
http://www.choosemyplate.gov/preschoolers/healthy-habits/making-mealtime-family-time.html
Make family meals enjoyable
• Focus on the meal and each other. Turn off the television. Take phone calls or texts later.
• Talk about fun and happy things. Try to make meals a stress-free time.
• Involve your child in conversation. Ask questions like:
o What made you feel really happy today?
o Tell me one thing you learned today.
o What made you laugh today?
• Have your child help you get ready to eat. Depending on age, your child may be able to:
o Help set the table
o Put pets, toys, or books in another room
o Turn off the TV
o Pour milk (with help)
o Put down place mats
o Hand out napkins and silverware
o Pick flowers for the table
o Clear the table
o Wipe the table
Eerie, eh? And remember, “Emotions are for ethnic people”
In terms of 2014, among the worst films this year are the ones that involve Michael Bay in the role of producer or director, be it yet another Transformers movie, an unwanted reboot of TMNT, a horror film based on the Ouija board, and the one “Bay-involved” film not on the list (and the worst of the group IMO), The Purge: Anarchy (seriously, while it may handle the general concept better than the original film, do we really need a sequel to a film that is not only one of the WORST films of 2013, but also is likely inspiring teenagers to have massive brawls in public areas)?
Me, I’m looking forward to the worst films of 2015.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…
CGI isn’t just pressing a magic butten and it is done. CGI is still hard work and the old CGI is bad meme was always false and just bizarre.
Happy New Years all. It’s nice to have a place on the internet to have the occasional serious discussion without it degenerating into incoherent insults and threats.
I don’t completely agree with this. Some people use Jurassic Park as an example of CGI being good, but they forget that it used a LOT of practical effects and only had CGI sparingly when a certain scene would have otherwise proven impossible. That, in my opinion, is how it really needs to be used: as one of a set of tools, not the only tool. Even over 20 years later, CGI still isn’t good enough to replace practical effects completely (probably never will be because of the “Uncanny Valley” effect) and Hollywood needs to not use it that way.
I was watching Terminator 2 the other day and (again) realized that the beginning 2 minutes from that film are more effective than just about anything since. The T-800 exoskeletons look real because they actually are real. The ones in the background are probably animated models, but they look real, too. So where the other Hunter Killers and everything else in that short scene. Given the movie was one of the early CG blockbusters, but it was great because it had to match up to the real things around it. Real Helicopters. Real semi-trucks. That’s what grounds effects. I watched one of those White House Die Hard-like films and the helicopters in the film were extremely unconvincing to me. The effects got more cartoony and flat as the movie went on.
In a lot of cases, movies don’t look realistic anymore. I expect the next Avengers movie to be unrealistic in terms of what characters can do and how they move. It may become ridiculous after while. I guess that’s why I liked Winter Soldier, they only did a couple unrealistic moves on us.
I went and saw Transformers: Age of Extinction just to test myself. If I can make it through this, I can make it through anything.
I learned my lesson after the first Transformers flick, so I can’t comment on the others except to accept on good faith that they’re also bottomlessly terrible. The worst movie I actually paid for a ticket to? Tusk, no contest. I didn’t realize I had any respect left to lose for Kevin Smith until I got roped into watching that steaming load.