Tucker and Dale vs Evil.
It has a silly/dumb sounding name, a premise with every likelihood of being schlocky garbage, and no budget or marketing to speak of. And some of the cast certainly act like they know they’re in a low budget flick just phoning it in. Yet Tyler Labine as Dale and Alan Tudyk as Tucker bring so much humor and endearing energy to it as a couple of misunderstood sweethearts, that it is one of my all-time favorite films.
Definitely a great film worth watching.
Alita: Battle Angel.
The film looks stupid because they gave the main character giant anime eyes.
In the context of the film it makes sense and I think the look is meant to mirror the anime it is from… but for the film it still makes the film look stupid. Now the film itself is far from perfect, there is at least one storyline that is utter dogshit. However! The film ultimately was solid.
Sadly it ends setting up future films that will never happen, but I think it’s still enjoyable overall.
Love the universe but the whole anime eyes thing was just way too silly. They should’ve pulled a Sonic and made her look more normal.
Oh I completely agree. The anime eyes did not add to the film. It also sucks because the actress who played Alita, Rose Salazar, did a great job, but it’s such an uncanny valley type look that I didn’t recognize her anywhere else.
It’s one thing when it’s Andy Serkis playing Gollum or something but she was just playing a robot girl, but she looks like a throwaway CGI character.
Also she was the only one with the eyes! That’s the most inexplicable thing. Maybe if other people had the eyes it’d be ok, maybe there a thing people do. But she’s the only one so it’s extra weird.
How comes they won’t be making more?
Because no one saw the first one.
Now some very influential people who were involved in the first one want to make a second one, so maybe just maybe it will happen one day… But I doubt it.
I saw it. There’s at least two of us.
It’s funny I saw it completely randomly.
I was chatting with a coworker and just off handedly mentioned how bad Alita looked and they jumped on to defend the film and series harder than I’d ever seen anyone defend anything before. It was a true, “I’ve waited all my life for this moment” for them.
My evening was free and it was one of those $5 Tuesday type movie nights so I figured what the hell.
So there was at least another that convinced me, got to pay it forward.
Three
There are dozens of us!
A Knight’s Tale. Not only is it a good movie but it was my introduction to Paul Bettany and Alan Tudyk and they were brilliant in it.
Alan Tudyk is a gem! There’s a scene that I love from a doc about the voice acting on Moana. Cuts to Tudyk doing chicken sounds (he played the chicken), when he slyly looks into the camera and says “I went to Julliard”.
If you haven’t, watch Resident Alien.
I must watch the new season of that. And Con Man is so good, too.
Just finished season 3 on Netflix. It was some bullshit. :P
Have to look up Con Man
the clip in all its glory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaGYXjMwS60
Genuinely a top 3 movie for me. Heath, Paul and Alan are all fantastic in it. I will never not watch it if an opportunity presents itself.
It didn’t click until I’d finished watching it that they’d tricked me into loving a sports underdog movie.
It’s true. The cocky rival who cheats, the training montages, the win despite all odds… It has every trope of the genre with a medieval set dressing.
Why dont they do this with more genres? Like I want a musician biopic movie ala Bohemian Rhapsody or Rocketman about a couple bards in England in the dark ages, and it is just Simon and Garfunkel doing Simon and Garfunkel songs on lyres and flutes completely anachronistically. Not satirically. Completely earnestly and yet fun.
That movie has perfect casting. Everyone in it is exactly right for their parts. There is a B movie feel that I can’t quite put my finger on but it is an outright excellent film, one of my personal favorites.
I think it’s that it doesn’t take itself too seriously, while still remaining carefully in the world/rules they set.
Well, that’ll piss some folks off I think. I actually appreciate things like the crowd at the opening joust rocking out to We Will Rock You. The banquet dance scene is better executed; they start out with the old time dance and then fade into modern club dancing, as if to say “Here’s what’s actually taking place” versus “Here’s how the characters feel about it in terms a modern audience can understand.”
I think I’m more talking about how a lot of the sets look like styrofoam? Especially castle interiors or other masonry? There’s just something very 80’s Gragthar The Destroyer about it.
Lets not forget Rufus Sewell, who is such an excellent villain
Liked him since Dark City which could be another candidate for this list.
“Trudging!”
“I will fong you. I will fong you until your entrails become extrails! I will—pain! Lots of pain!”
I just can’t get past the dance scene.
I love it. Starts off cringe but then once the Golden Years kicks in it’s magical.
The live action Chip N’ Dale Rescue Rangers remake on Disney+ is SOOOOOO much better than it has any right to be.
It should be terrible, unwatchable, irredeemable garbage.
It is probably one of the best “kids” movies I’ve seen in the last decade.
Saw that one in theaters. Girlfriend is a Zillenial who has never seen the show. Still loved it. It’s great even on its own. Don’t want to spoil anything so the only other thing I’ll say is just see it. Going in blind is best.
We were having a movie night in our neighborhood a few years back where we got a bedsheet and a cheap projector. We hooked it up to a laptop to project a movie on someone’s garage for the neighborhood kids.
We ended up projecting The Lego Movie and most of the kids lost interest about half an hour in - and were falling asleep and ready to go home.
I’ll be damned if it wasn’t one of the best animated movies I’ve ever seen. I sent my wife home with our youngest just so I could stay and finish the movie.
Lego movie is brilliant. It’s not a kid’s movie. It’s so good.
Honestly, princess bride. I’m usually not all that into rom com type movies, but princess bride is a masterpiece
Hey, that’s the metaplot of the movie!
The recent Dungeons and Dragons.
‘Upgrade’ is an excellent sifi B movie.
Upgrade was not a “B” movie by any stretch. Low budget doesn’t mean B. Upgrade was more well done than much of the “A” stuff that’s put out.
But obviously this is opinion and depends how you define B movies.
Barbie (2023)
I thought it would be a parody of Barbie but its actually a parody of Mattel and shows how men can be confused in this world. It’s a real movie for all the bros out there. Its the kind of movie I’ll watch again later because its good.
Just saw this a few months ago. And gotta agree. It’s a solid flick. Nothing crazy ambitious, but told a story that seems pretty haunting in the past few months.
Haunting?
I am trying not to sound disrespectful. But Allow my to gesture vaguely to current events.
Clue - A movie based on a board game sounds terrible, but it’s really funny.
For more of a movie that visually looks bad.
Primer - Very low budget time travel movie that gets better every time you watch it.
After the second watch, you should read the hours and hours of content covering the time loops and paradoxes, and then watch it three or four more times to begin to grasp what you read.
Moon. Fantastic mostly 1 man show.
Swiss Army Man - Daniel Redcliffe with farting as a superpower. Sounds ridiculous but really fun to watch.
Probably not the answer you’re looking for, but Puss In Boots 2. The second Shrek spinoff about the cat? Who honestly expected that to be such a banger
Lol now that you mention it, I didn’t see the first Puss in Boots, but took my kids to see the 2nd in the theater. I distinctly remember thinking “God damn, this movie is fucking good for a sequel to a spinoff to a movie that had two mediocre sequels.”
The Lost City with Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, and Daniel Radcliffe. It seems like a tropey romance-action flick, but is more a parody of genre clichés. The writing, acting, and humour are pretty good.
Real steel. Its about boxing robots
I watched it yesterday for the 2nd time (first time with my son). We laugh, we cried, we danced, we were shouting out loud and watched final battle standing on our feet. I unironically think it’s an excellent sport movie.
Tank Girl. It may just be a guilty pleasure but I’ll defend it.
I guess Starship Troopers is THE movie for this, although I’m always suprised to find out people used to like it unironically.
Due date, with Robert Downey Jr and Galifianakis is a surprisingly earnest soft remake of Planes, Trains and Automobiles and nobody remembers it exists.
Speaking of unexpectedly fun raunchy comedies, Booksmart.
I want to say The Long Kiss Goodnight, but man, the action in that is janky in exactly the ways modern action movies get right, so it can be a rough watch if you’re not ready. It also reads worse now that there’s a million John Wicks. Still, ahead of its time and actually well written.
Does Slither count? I feel like it’s on that Tremors territory where everybody knows it’s cool and ironically that thing, so it may not count. Somebody said Cabin in the Woods below, so… maybe it does count.
Oh, Ready or Not. It’s actually really funny and kind of a looser take on Knives Out as a horror movie. Good stuff.
The original TMNT movie should have sucked. How they snuck that tone into a whole movie before they made them tone it down for censorship and toyetic tie-ins is anybody’s guess.
Brick doesn’t count. Does Brick count? I think it doesn’t look like it’d suck, it’s just people don’t know about it. I mean, if I tell you “film noir by way of high school drama” you may get the wrong impression, so… maybe?
And I mentioned it below, but 2001 Metropolis is awesome despite a lot of people not being able to get past the designs or even being aware of what it is.
