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So the Danish guy dies
help
Well, we've all seen those promising trailers that make the worst films seem like the next Oscar winner - how about writing a description that makes a classic sound absolutely dire? e.g. So there's this teenager and he hates his mother and his stepdad and there's loads of drugs and gore and they all die. Only better, hopefully. And without Mel Gibson.
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Die Hard
A policeman embarks on a bloodbath after getting trapped in a tower block. At no point does this seriously ring true to life.
2001: A Space Odyssey
A computer crashes while a big black cuboid floats around for no apparent reason. At this point, the entire concept of storytelling completely breaks down and the movie degenerates into a son et lumière show.
Casablanca
A bar owner bets that the most wanted man in the western world can get out of town. He then gives the guy a plane ticket and starts a "beautiful friendship" with a frenchman.
Shrek
Ugly troll wins beautiful princess, who turns out to be an ugly troll, and the two live happily ever after, thus saying something deep and meaningful about conventional standards of beauty, a message fatally undercut by the fact that the bad guy is also portrayed as physically defective.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Loosely based on the original television series, but with none of the excitement. At the start of the film all the characters have aged about twenty years. An hour into the film, so has the audience. At that point, the entire concept of storytelling completely breaks down and the movie degenerates into a son et lumière show lasting even longer than 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Psycho
A film about a young man and his mother. Except that his mother's dead. No wonder they couldn't afford colour with a premise like that.
The Wicker Man
Scottish policeman mislead into thinking a crime has been committed - it hadn't.
Barbarella
Jane Fonda searches for 80's popular beat combo whilst wearing entirely inadequate spacesuit.
The Lord of the Rings
9 hours in which they find a ring, then lose the ring. Lots of battles, but few of any intrinsic relevance to the ring thing. Some people fall in love, but very implausibly, and the main characters are all gay.
Parting Glances
Most people are gay in this too. Nobody falls in love, really. Nobody dies.
Macbeth
Ambitious nobleman gets the top job, but handles it badly, but the whole plot is revealed anyway early on by some witches, so only worth watching until Act IV Scene i. Lots of people die.
The Matrix
Basically, this is just the whole "he woke up and it was all a dream" ending, except the ending comes at the start.
Titanic
Boy meets girl on a ship which later sinks.
Passport to Pimlico
Early attempt at European Integration runs into bureaucratic problems
Titus Andronicus
Er, I think the "message" is, like, don't cook people and serve them to their relatives in pastry. Well, duh.
Perfect Blue
A moderately successful pop singer becomes a successful actress when someone on the internet starts killing people who don't like her.
For a Fistful of Dollars
Bangbangbangbangbangbangbangbangbangbangbangbang$$!!
The Merchant of Venice
A rich merchant who loses his fortune gets out of debt by hiring a smart lawyer to prove that black is white and seize all the assets of the moneylender he's in hock to.
Moby Dick
A whaler goes on a long hunt for a whale. After a long time, he finds it.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
King Arthur assembles his Knights of the Round Table, and together they embark on a quest to seek the Holy Grail. They fail, utterly, in almost every sense.
The Full Monty
A group of not-terribly-attractive men decide to take their clothes off in public. The final shot is a freeze-frame of their bare arses.
This is Spinal Tap
A group of stupid, obnoxious, non-terribly-attractive men travel the USA, shouting and generally making a racket. Nobody likes them. In the middle of the film, even *they* don't like them. When it finishes, everything is still exactly as it was at the start.
U2: Rattle & Hum
See "This is Spinal Tap." (nb. As an admitted U2 fan I must now go away and self-flagellate for my sins. Sorry.)
Ghostbusters
Some scientists set out to save the city from ghosts. They destroy the ghosts. And the city. And, for that matter, their own business, too.
Apocalypse Now
A soldier goes on a long hunt for another soldier. After a long time, he finds him.
The Godfather
Crime pays, but it has its downside, too.
Star Wars; The Empire Strikes Back; Return of the Jedi
(1) Some wars in the stars. (2) The empire strikes back. (3) The Jedi return.
Godfather III
Legit pays as well, but also has its downside.
Final Fantasy
Walkthrough of a videogame.
The Day After Tomorrow
Michael Fish gets it wrong again.
The great escape
A lot of people get out of a Nazi prison camp, but most of them get caught.
Entrapment
Two unlikely halves of a pair spend 120 minutes getting eachother exactly where they each want to be. One stunning lycra moment not to be missed
Dr Zhivago
Billed as a love story, but it's too cold for anyone to get their clothes off.
Zulu
Chirpy Redcoats shoot lots of black tribesmen.
Dr Strangelove
Lots of people, many of whom look like Peter Sellers, fail to prevent the end of the world.
Hawk the Slayer
Two wooden leads battle it out in a charmingly cliched, hammed-up swords and sorcery 'epic', filled with bit-part actors drawn from 1970s ITV series and special effects based on ping-pong balls and silly string. And the soundtrack makes it sound like disco was invented in the Middle Ages.
Clue
A whodunnit for which three different endings were filmed, proving that the filmmakers have as little an idea of who actually did it as the audience, and even less of an inclination to find out.
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