Maxim’s picks, or more accurately, pans:
20. The Beastmaster: Half Conan and half Dr. Dolittle, loincloth-wearing Marc Singer is Dar, a man who talks to the animals…and kills people.
19. Hard Target: Jean-Claude Van Damme’s lone film with Wilford Brimley is good family fun, provided your idea of family fun is watching homeless Vietnam vets being hunted for sport.
18. Hot Dog…The Movie!: It has skiing, a jagoff German and topless scenes. Instant classic.
17. Over the Top: A Stallone steamer about a man who regains his son’s love by arm wrestling.
16. Tango & Cash: Ali and Frazier. Magic and Bird. Sly and Kurt. It’s a dream pairing of B-movie icons in the tale of rival cops who bond by putting grenades in people’s pants.
15. They Live: “Rowdy” Roddy Piper has sunglasses that enable him to see that many people are, in fact, aliens. It’s a real crowd pleaser. He and my favorite character actor Kieth David are involved in the longest fight in movie history. Director John Carpenter can add Escape From New York and Escape From L.A. to this list.
14. Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins- They were looking for a blockbuster action franchise. That didn’t happen although Joel Grey is a revelation as Chun.
13. Boondock Saints: Writer-director Troy Duffy was supposed to be the next Tarantino. His one film pre-flame-out features Willem Dafoe swishing it up as a gay FBI agent.
12. Starship Troopers: Satire of fascism or just miserably acted flick about kids who wanna squash some bugs? At least it stars Doogie Howser! This one is so watchable like Verhoven's other masterpiece - RoboCop
11. The Toxic Avenger: Troma Films’ masterpiece reveals what happens when a nerdy janitor falls in toxic waste: superpower strength to rip off a person’s arm and beat him with it.
10. Best of the Best: James Earl Jones, Eric Roberts and the US karate team beat Koreans into kimchi. This is the only Karate movie you will cry at the end.
9. Missing in Action: While Vietnam wasn’t much fun at the time, it’s made for a lot of awesome movies. This one may not have the cinematic merit of Full Metal Jacket, but it has something better: Chuck Norris.
8. Commando: After a former Latin American dictator snatches his daughter, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ex-GI John Matrix must rescue her using only violence and one-liners: “I let him go,” “He’s dead tired.”
7. The Island of Dr. Moreau: Your chance to see Brando with an ice bucket on his head.
6. Billy Madison: The inspiring tale of a lad who just wants to “touch the hiney.”
5. Dead Alive: In this pre-Lord of the Rings gorefest by Peter Jackson, zombies battle with Father McGruder, the kung fu priest.
4. Dolemite: The coolest/worst made blaxploitation flick. A pimp tries to duck the boom mike drifting into shoots.
3. Showgirls: Nomi’s a small-town gal with big dreams to become a topless dancer in Vegas. She must first endure sleazy casino execs, rock stars and much gratuitous nudity.
2. Porky’s: The subplot about anti-Semitism wasn’t the best, but respect must be paid for bringing glory holes to the mainstream and teaching us why Kim Cattrall is called Lassie.
1. Big Trouble in Little China: Kurt Russell needs to save a green-eyed girl from a Chinese man who wants to marry her so that he can take over the universe. Or something like that. Honestly, no one knows what’s actually going on in this guns and kung fu mishmash, but if you spot it while flipping channels you will watch it until the end.
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14 comments:
I feel like a list like this needs to be broken up even further into something like "So Bad Its Entertaining", "Cult Films" and "Guilty Pleasures" or something like that because there are so many films I can think of that aren't on this list that are fun because they're badly made like Troll 2, The Room, Plan 9 from Outer Space, by contrast I think that films (especially the works of King of the Auteurs John Carpenter) are more "Cult Films" were thats a good idea at core but are hampered by the direction or the actors. I'd put "They Live" and "Beastmaster" in that category along with something like "Highlander" and "Dead Heat".
I'd classify "Toxic Avenger" as a "Guilty Pleasure" because its bad and yet when I saw it for the first time last month, I couldn't look away. It was bad, but there was a method to its madness, were it was completely ridiculous step up without much of an actual story and it just didn't care. I'd put Adam West's Batman movie in that same camp too.
I guess I'm not too surprised by Big Trouble in Little China taking the top spot, since it seems like I'm seeing more and more references to it in other media. What gets me is for as much of an underground movement as its been getting I'm having a hard time remembering it, and I saw it about a year ago. Most standout thing in my mind was how I joked "I was hungrier for a better action movie a half hour after I saw it!"
I'm proud to say I haven't seen a single one of these.
They Live is a pretty good movie, to the extent that you take into account that it's a thinly-veiled political satire.
Starship Troopers (also a political satire) is just a great movie, with no further explanation or qualification needed.
Everything else on the list is crap.
I realize I place myself in the minority with regard to Escape From New York. I can't help it. I think it's way overrated.
John Carpenter works best on a small canvas: Halloween and Assault on Precinct 13 are probably his best work. (I don't like The Thing either.)
So wrong... so... so wrong. i think they are more cult too. what do you expect from a bunch of 20somethings...
No "Buckaroo Banzai Across The Eighth Dimension"?
"Big Trouble " is one of my all-time favorites. The subtext of "They Live" may be more relevant today than it was when it was made.
I've seen about half these films. This list just seems very random to me.
One of the things I love most about "Big Trouble" is how it turns the hero-sidekick relationship on it's head. Big brawny Kurt Russell is obviously set up to be the hero, yet never seems able to land his fist on a bad guy throughout the whole film. Meanwhile, diminutive Dennis Dun runs circles around him, kicking ass and taking names. It's hilarious.
I am with most of you. I enjoy some of these films very much and some are pretty obscure, especially to today's audience. This seems a more personal list but aren't all such lists personal. Some people love the Wizard of Oz. I can't stand it.
Seen most of them, Big Trouble and They Live are a couple of guilty pleasures. They're are plenty of movies worse than those two. And I'm very fond of Buckaroo Bonzai. Yeah it's ridiculous but a lot of fun.
Kal, The Wizard of Oz is David Lynch's favorite movie.
This list is whack! I love most of these. They obviously have never seen Glen or Glenda...
I believe that I have seen most of these movies...
I thought that "Starship Troopers" was a rather good film... I loved the "Bug" effects... And I did enjoy the Kurt Russel films as well...
Dead Alive did not even take itself seriously... but it was a "fun" (though very gory) movie with some enjoyable effect make up...
Hey, "Glen or Glenda?" is a CLASSIC!
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