The Chels part 3: awful movies

If a film shows in an art house theater & no one sees it, is it still pretentious? The following are films that I hated before I saw them or even, in some cases, before they were released.

We had a poster up on the women's bathroom door (so you'd see it right when you walked in) that was for Ladies in Lavender. It's a gaudy thing, and you can tell on closer inspection that they've airbrushed the fuck out of each of them. I mean that kid's shirt isn't even real. It went up for a good month before the film actually came out. Let me paint a picture for you.
"Oh is that... it's Dame Judi Dench! I love Dame Judi Dench! Dame Judi Judi Dench Dame Judi Dame Dame damn I love saying her name! I'd watch anything with Dame Judi Dench. If they filmed her popping a squat in Central Park I'd be there. If she smeared shit on paper I'd buy and frame it!"
Whack!
[septuagenarian rendered unconcious by the bathroom door swinging open]
"Are you okay? Wait... is that... it's Dame Judi Dench! I love Dame Judi Dench!"
[repeat]
Once the movie was out, hosers would buy tickets for "the Judi Dench movie." Because I'm an ass, I would claim not to know which one they were talking about. They'd have to back up and scan the titles on the board, or sometimes they'd bug me about which films were playing. It was worth it.

I eventually saw Junebug and thoroughly enjoyed it. The poster was up for a good while prior, and the art (before I recognized the significance of it) was overwhelmingly pretentious to me. More than that though, some of the worst blurbs I've seen.
1. "...distills antagonistic red-state, blue-state attitudes."
What kind of asinine thing is that to say? "I want to make an overgeneralization about the themes in this movie, but I want to make sure I sound like a complete asshole while I'm at it."
2. "effusive girl-child"
I don't even know what to say about this one. I'll admit I had to pop over to dictionary.com before I could accurately judge the terriblosity of this comment. See Stephen? I can make up words too! Well, I'm talking about "girl-child," which is I guess a take on "man-child" or "boy-child" or something? Should it be "woman-child"? How about just "immature"? I think you can figure it out, Stephen. I'm sure your NYT paycheck can get you a pretty hefty thesaurus.
3. "...exploration of the family house conveys a... sense of place."
Yeah it'll do that. If he wanted to be more of a dick, he should've said mise en scène for appreciative nods from snoots nationwide.
4. That second statement... isn't it a little premature to start calling someone an autor after his first feature film? He directed TV shows and shorts, for god's sake.
5. "Amy Adams is a revelation."
Without getting too much into semantics here, this is about the verbal equivalent of "low prices everyday." A fundamental misunderstanding of the function of a word. At any rate, revelation is already bandied about with other pop words like "anal" and "proverbial" and "literally." Is this a chaotic attempt at synecdoche? Are we meant to believe her acting prowess inspires profound realization in viewers? Bullshit.

For a film to reach "worst movie ever made" status, it has to have (in my opinion):
1. A decently large budget (so you know money was wasted). This rules out much of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crowd.
2. A marketing engine.
3. A chip on its shoulder.
4. A following.
Pretty vague qualifiers there, but I just wanted to put things like Manos: Hands of Fate and Plan 9 from Outer Space out of the running. Anything where you could say "it's so bad it's funny" is still enjoyable to watch (or at least make fun of later).
*WHY I HATE WHAT THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW?*
I couldn't embed the video for some reason. It's for the best.
1. The tagline: "How far into the rabbit hole of mysteriousness do you want to go?" Pseudo-philosophy... GO!
2. People calling themselves "bleepers." Well, just the word "bleep" in the title at all.
3. The main character is deaf... but her other senses are more in tune? I'm choking on the metaphor. It's just so hard to chew.
4. CG. Why are there anthropomorphic blobs dancing on the screen? I think they're determining important stuff like "I want to screw that guy" and "Where did my life go wrong?"
5. One of the interviewees is J. Z. Knight channeling Ramtha. No, really. She thinks someone else is speaking through her. And they interviewed her. For their film.
6. The interviews take place largely in front of green screen. Backgrounds include: blacklight poster swirlies, fireplaces, and a university campus. Like... "Oh, you caught me on the way to a seminar. Do you have any spare change?" or "Oh, you caught me totally getting my fucking mind blown in the middle of this freaky vortex."
7. The closing line. I don't have a direct quote of this, but I saw it quite a few times as I was winding up each showing. The trick is to turn the house lights up as soon as possible so sensible people get the fuck out. I've heard complainers say "Nobody watches the credits anymore!" Yeah if you want to listen to that reprise of the main theme and see who held the boom mic, you'll have to do it while I sweep up the Goobers rolling by your feet. Anyway, here's the line as I remember it:
"People say I sound crazy but... if you study science long enough... and hard enough... and you don't come out sounding crazy... well then you haven't learned anything at all!"
[What the Bleep logo shows up on screen & shatters into tiny CG bits. Yes, the title is censored within the movie as well. How cheeky.]
If you want to be skullfucked by stupidity & 90's screensaver graphics, go ahead & rent this guy. The "Down the Rabbit Hole" version is available too, where you can choose the course of action the film takes, thereby putting the mind blowing into your own sweaty little palms. There's also this. You're welcome.

I thought I was done talking about WtBDWK, but shit just keeps flooding back. The movie ran for a long time. A couple of gems:
-Assholes from "The church of Ramtha" or some shit tried to hand out fliers to people as they left the movie. These are people who get mocked by Unitarians.
-This one woman cried because I wouldn't sell her a ticket. See it was well after 10, the movie was half over, and the box office had been closed out. I could have taken the money & put it on the next day's box but... well... I already said I'm an ass. She started weeping at me, and through the sobs I could make out something like "meant a lot to me" and "told all my friends about it" and "changed my life." That's right. She'd already seen it. I let her in.