WORST ROBIN WILLIAMS MOVIE

Jakob the Liar vs Jack vs Bicentenial Man showdown

I've just realised that the most recent Robin Williams film I've seen is the Fisher King, so wtf do I know?

if you watched those films then you deserved to (xp)

jesus

Hint: it's also the worst Haley Joel Osmont movie, worst Jude Law movie, worst Spielberg movie, worst Kubrick related movie (o wait no that's Eyes Wide Shut).

Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001) (voice) .... Dr. Know
Bicentennial Man (1999) .... Andrew
Jakob the Liar (1999) .... Jakob
Patch Adams (1998) .... Hunter 'Patch' Adams

Wow. Seriously, wow. What a run. I'm pretty sure this is unmatched in Hollywood.

What kind of loser couldn't smell his bad ones and sat through them?

(tho Death to Smoochy is a fave)

I challenge ledge to a duel.

His appearance in Friends should be on this list, I think that's what pushed me over the edge.

AI has some truly great moments like all Spielberg. Williams is only in it for 5 mins tho so not worth including.

I voted "Bicentennial Man", having read a synopsis of it, which made me feel a bit queasy. Then I realised I haven't actually seen it. Of the ones I've seen, "Dead Poet's Society" is still pretty horrible and one of the worst films I've seen ever. Twats.

I might vote Jack, altho it does have Diane Lane.

Good Morning, Vietnam and The Fisher King were bad enough for me. I skipped all the Fathers Day/What Dreams May Come-type shit.

I will probably be the only person to vote for August Rush, since it was very recent and not very widely seen. But I had to review it, and god, it was awful.

What Dreams May Come could be quite trippy on mute.

When I was a kid Hook was my little brother's favourite movie and we had to watch it over and over and over and over and over and over again.

I worked on a couple of these films and just from the scripts knew they would be the most unholy tripe. 'Patch Adams' was particularly gruesome, though, especially after meeting the real Patch Adams on set.

I know a rapper whose favorite movie is Hook, and his crew is called the Bangarang Gang. (xpost)

YSI?

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) (as Ray D. Tutto)

Good pun.

same as everyone else, i wouldn't go near most of these and so happily relinquish my right to vote.

I worked on a couple of these films and just from the scripts knew they would be the most unholy tripe. 'Patch Adams' was particularly gruesome, though, especially after meeting the real Patch Adams on set.

-- Michael White, Friday, 4 January 2008 16:06 (5 minutes ago) Link

hahahaha i knew a med student who met Patch Adams and said he was a total asshole

Wow, I saw at least 7 of these movies in the theater (and was only paid to see 2 of them). Toys was a real formative "wow wtf" moviegoing experience.

These five all merit big time consideration.

Patch Adams (1998)
Good Will Hunting (1997)
Jack (1996)
FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992) (voice)
Awakenings (1990)

He was in a lot of '80s movies I've never even heard of.

What the hey, I vote Awakenings.

some of these films arent' that bad, you people be overreacting.

Blubber is pretty stinky though,

I remember Good Morning Vietnam being a half decent film.

http://cinema-online.org/pictures/Stills/Upcoming/August%20Rush/02.jpg

the color his hair is dyed in that movie is this really bizarre shade of reddish brown that i think is supposed to look like the character's natural hair color but really doesn't

Seize the Day is a solid best dramatic performance.

Happy Feet

I gotta go with Patch Adams for its failure to be acceptable on any level. But I have to say that One Hour Photo is far more shit than some people let on, and fuck everybody involved in remaking Insomnia too.

so i'm guessing no one saw 'license to wed'? that got pretty horrendous reviews all around

i actually liked 'the night listener'

liked 'One Hour Photo' but i guess it's bit boring

I don't remember specifically why I thought it was some corny-ass bullshit, but I'm pretty sure it's some corny-ass bullshit.

it ends badly

One Hour Photo was at least enjoyable. Patch Adams is evil treacle infected sentimental enema bulb crap

I have big problems with thrillers that rely on central characters behaving completely stupidly in order to develop the plot. Except for Fargo obv.

"develop" the plot yuck yuck yuck

But yeah clearly One Hour Photo is several hundred percent better than Patch Adams.

xpost lol unintentional puns

If you hear the news much, humans have been known to behave completely stupidly.

I can't remember which author said that just because something was possible in real life didn't mean it was a good plot device, but they were on the money.

yeah wtf. can't see how One Hour Photo is 'corny' given the subject. i cut it a lot of slack because it looks so good tho.

xpost

Also seriously Morbs that's like defending some "I'm gonna leave you in an easily escapable situation and assume you're dead" shit.

I've seen six of these in the cinema too! Admittedly, only Deconstructing Harry post-'91*. I used to think he was a funny fella, back in the 1980s. And what was really missing from Xmas telly this year was another airing of Jumanji.

(* - oh, saw Insomnia on a plane too)

So, I'll think I'll have to vote on gut-reaction-to-movie-poster alone, because none of the films I paid money to see were bad (or most of the ones I've seen on the telly, like Garp or Hudson were ok). Jack, then.

i nearly voted Jumanji based on the poster rule. his stupid face.

There's a lot of shit films up there where it isn't completely fair to blame Williams for the shitness. I'm pretty sure Flubber or Robots would've been equally lousy without him.

the funniest part of One Hour Photo was the scene where he's watching the Simpsons and he's NOT LAUGHING SO IT MUST MEAN HE'S DEAD INSIDE OMG

lolz

the poll isn't called "movie most ruined by a robin williams performance"

Fwiw, despite his choice in scripts, Robin was a great guy to work with and quite funny in person.

Good Morning, Vietnam and Dead Poet's Society, easily. Those are meaningful films that were big hits and made people cry.

oh, I'm sorry, it's Poets.

JACK is the worst use of sentimentality to depress the fucking shit out of people I've ever seen. And is unintentionally depressing (& grueling) bcz it is such pap and just shit.

Ebert on Dead Poets Society:

"Dead Poets Society" is a collection of pious platitudes masquerading as a courageous stand in favor of something: doing your own thing, I think. It's about an inspirational, unconventional English teacher and his students at "the best prep school in America" and how he challenges them to question conventional views by such techniques as standing on their desks. It is, of course, inevitable that the brilliant teacher will eventually be fired from the school, and when his students stood on their desks to protest his dismissal, I was so moved, I wanted to throw up.

That said it's hard to hate on it wholly bcz it is an Inspirational Teacher Movie and they are all 98% the same. You know what you're getting into.

JUMANJI IS ONE OF THE TOP 15 FILMS OF ALL TIME

my history/law teacher from hs went to the school that inspired dead poets society

Did a classmate of his kill himself bcz he loved liberal arts but daddy wanted him to be a lawyer?

Who did he play in "To Wong Foo"? I don't remember him in that.

He was Wesley Snipes.

lol

I think Poets was the last time I was foolish enough to watch one of his movies, so there we are.

I do thing Fisher King is defensible, or at least I used to. I'm not sure that I have the guts to go back and check.

Only it turns out Fisher King was after Poets, so my brain is fucking with me again. FUCK YOU TOO MY BRAIN!

All I'll say about Poets is that if I'd had a teacher like Robin Williams in high school, I've have become a doctor.

The bit where the schoolkids stand up on their desks in "dead poets society" made me feel physically ill. Really, I felt a bit queasy. "Oh captain my captain" MY ASS. They should have turned the hoses on the little fuckers.

Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001) (voice) .... Dr. Know
Bicentennial Man (1999) .... Andrew
Jakob the Liar (1999) .... Jakob
Patch Adams (1998) .... Hunter 'Patch' Adams

Wow. Seriously, wow. What a run. I'm pretty sure this is unmatched in Hollywood.

no, nicholas cage beats this hands down

I voted for Bicentennial Man but all this poll makes me think of is when I first saw the Happy Feet trailer and thought all the voices were done by Robin Williams and therefore it was the earthly form of Hell.

I can't say I've seen all of them but Toys was fucking retarded. If he's done worse than that, I'd be surprised.

but it's got Ladies Love Cool James!

Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) .... Daniel Hillard / Mrs. Euphegenia Doubtfire

I'm glad the IMDb cleared this one up for me. I always wondered who played her.

I have to ask if those who are voting for the likes of Bicentennial Man, Jakob the Liar etc. have actually seen the films themselves, or are you basing your derision solely on critical legacy? Personally, I don't think I can fairly vote in this poll b/c I have purposefully avoided the post-Fisher King career of Robin Williams to the degree that I would reject Patch Adams if it were being shown on a long flight & I had forgotten to bring a book.

I haven't seen it, but it's got to be R.V. I mean, I saw the ads for that and thought that in terms of lowered self expectations, his doing a movie like that is pretty much the equivalent of Corey Haim selling hair clippings on Ebay.

I have to ask if those who are voting for the likes of Bicentennial Man, Jakob the Liar etc. have actually seen the films themselves, or are you basing your derision solely on critical legacy?

A reasonable question. I have seen fragments of several of the films after the "Fisher King," but the only two I have seen start to end are "Toys" (coercive video) and "Aladdin" (not half bad, for Disney.) Well, and "AI" but that doesn't really count as a Robin Williams film, and anyway, if it had stopped where it should it would have been fucking magnificent instead of rather decent. This would also have removed his role from it entirely. Plus, you can just tell from trailers and commercials how bad most of these flickers will be. I mean, shit, there's no "Anticipate _The Bucket List_ with me" thread is there? (Yes, I know he isn't in that. But he may as well be.)

OK then. So many fish, such a small barrel (pauses, polishes revolver): I regrettably admit to having seen (due to what unfortunate circumstance, I can't recall) the latter portion of Father's Day a saccharine heap of emotional porn co-starring Billy Crystal which sadly culminates in a dad-on-son-on-other dad bonding session at a fucking Sugar Ray concert. So I'll vote for that, I guess.

no one's seen the pre-Good Morning Vietnam films? Moscow on the Hudson, The Best of Times, and The Survivors are pretty good, especially the first one.

I think it's pretty much agreed that the shitheap lies mostly post-Vietnam

my history/law teacher from hs went to the school that inspired dead poets society

-- J0rdan S., Saturday, January 5, 2008 12:52 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Link

hahaha, mine didn't obv., but i had to sit through this movie so many times because some history/law/english teacher thought it was profound i couldn't not vote for it. class "discussions" afterwards = kill me now.

it was either this or 'aladdin' for me because even though nothing could be worse than 'patch adams,' 'aladdin' was as inescapable when i was a kid as 'dead poet's society' was when i was in school and i hate them both so much more for it.

I think it's pretty much agreed that the shitheap lies mostly post-Vietnam

As a country too.

I wrote a paper in fifth grade on why Robin Williams was my favorite actor! (short answer: he was my mom's favorite actor and I hardly knew of any other actors)

I will admit to some curiosity about "Man of the Year."

Abbott, how old are (were) you & what films were the focus of your discourse?

JUMANJI IS ONE OF THE TOP 15 FILMS OF ALL TIME

-- J0rdan S., Saturday, January 5, 2008 12:51 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Link

I was ten at the time, ~1993, and had hardly any idea of his work until then. I know I included something like "'Toys' was not one of his better movies. Like my mom says, every actor has to have a flop." I praised his work as the Genie in Aladdin and said I had to watch Hook in the free summer movies a lot. I discussed how my mom wouldn't let me watch Fisher King even though it was one of her favorite movies. I said why I liked him best is he was funny and good at improvisation.

I would choose a different favorite actor today.

Abbott, your report is strikingly similar to Oilyrags' above.

robin williams' only good movie* is that episode of faerie tale theatre where he played the frog prince.

*: i haven't seen "popeye" which might very well be good, since popeye in general is awesome.

Abbott is one of my favorite posters, so I find this very flattering. Also, I hope that she is not too insulted.

I remember Popeye being pretty ok. But I like Altman, love Feiffer, and have a diamond-cutter hard-on for the Fleischer shorts.

Have you not seen the majority of his works because it would mean disobeying your Mom?

I have not seen the majority of his works because it would mean disobeying my first impressions of them as crapola.

Dude they play "Time of the Season" in Awakenings cosmic shit man.

I read the novelization of Hook with the ever-advertised "eight pages of full-color photos." I read it way too many times, at least four times.

Interesting fact about Newsies novelization: they turned it into a highly Pamela-esque epistolary novel with eight pages of full-color photos.

The thought of Fleischer shorts makes me want to watch "Bimbo's Initiation" RIGHT NOW.

Abbott is one of my favorite posters, so I find this very flattering - Oilyrags, I was just remarking at the similarity, content-wise, of your posts - not trying to be a sarcastic bastard or anything. Just for the record and all..

Kind fortuna!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFrBG4xyaF8

robin williams' only good movie* is that episode of faerie tale theatre where he played the frog prince.

As I have already made enough posts to the effect that "Robin Williams is "the shitstain on contemporary cinema," I will say: (1) His performances range from uninspired to brilliant pre-Mrs. Doubtfire, and (2) His anti-Robin Williams roles in the early 2000s (Death to Smoochy, One-Hour Photo, Insomnia) showed that the man has the gravitas to actually act, funny or not.

His coke-spaz schtick, though, which seems to be why studios have been willing to pay him millions of dollars for soon-to-be-flops, will ultimately be seen as one of the great Hollywood miscalculations of the ages.

i cant click all of them??

I haven't seen a lot of these, which I'm happy about. I've seen a LOT of crap, but this is proof that I've been smart enough to avoid some of it.

I'm voting for Mrs. Doubtfire just because the movie seems more and more fucked up every time I think about it.

A man who is failing to financially support his family throws a lavish party (including farm animals) for his son, wrecking the house, despite his wife's (who is away at work) claims that the son is being punished and therefore should not be jumping on a table with the dad miming to House Of Pain. Mocked by the father for being no fun and asked "but we love each other right?" the wife realizes she no longer loves him and they get divorced. Because she's financially responsible for the children, the woman decides to get a nanny. As he's unemployed, the father is offended she won't let HIM take the children, so he fucks up her number on her want-ad form and spends the next few nights harrassing her on the phone, pretending to be applicants. Finally he creates an elderly British female persona (with the help of his brother, Harvey Fierstein) and gets the position. He spends the next few months enjoying life as a transvestite in a fat suit, grinding against household appliances to Aerosmith and gaining the confidence of his estranged family. The wife eventually finds a new boyfriend, one who is financially successful, charming and sensitive to her needs. When the father discovers the suitor holds the unemployed, negligent father in less than the highest esteem, the transvestite begins a secret assault on the man's well-being, even threatening his life by exploiting his allergies. The father's wig is knocked off when he attempts to give the heimlich maneuver to the man he poisoned, and the family is horrified to discover his true identity. When the court forces his visits with the children to be supervised, he angrily chastises his ex-wife (who he has evidently fallen out of love with) for being cruel, telling her that his perverse, sociopathic actions came from a place of love. Now gainfully employed by an alcoholic UHF station owner as a children's show host (in his tranvestite identity), the dad accomplishes his goal of being with children every afternoon.

The film made over $400 million internationally. A sequel, involving Robin Williams dressing again as Mrs. Doubtfire to keep a close eye on his daughter in college, was scrapped due to script problems.

HAHAHAHAHA

honestly mrs doubtfire is one of my favorite comedies ever.

i actually love the fucked-up-ness. in a lot of ways, it's a poster movie for differences, when it comes family/individuality.

it's also fucking hilarious.

'doubtfire' is justifed by the 'mrs fingerbottom' episodes of 'arrested development'.

I'm disappointed that we will not see a 2008 Robin Willians in drag, living as a sorority house mother, making sure his daughter isn't being naughty.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/ce/MrsDoubtfireMoviePoster.jpg/200px-MrsDoubtfireMoviePoster.jpg

It was smart of them to put the kids on Mrs. Doubtfire's side of the door, as it implies that the working mother is the intruder, not the secret transvestite.

honestly all i have to do is look at that face and i go to pieces laughing.

Sally Field does have a pretty big overbite in that shot.

I am kind of thinking that no one actually knows what movie RV is, based on the posts to the thread.

I liked Good Will Hunting and him in it, though he didn't sound all that Bostonese, and dug The Night Listener. I liked his character and acting in Dead Poets Society even though its an enjoyably bad movie--it was his least Williams-like role up to that point. My vote: Good Morning, Vietnam.

Bostonian (geez, I was born there)

HAHAHAHAHA
honestly mrs doubtfire is one of my favorite comedies ever.

My cousin, with whom I saw the movie at the time, said it was "better than Tootsie."

nothing beats Hook. Such a soul-destroying film.

if you have good weed this is great by the way:

Bicentennial Man (1999)

he was awesome in this:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51WFCN573RL._AA280_.jpg

i'll understand if jakob or patch beats out hook, just know that hook is the most wrong movie ever made.

watching doubtfire on acid = bad idea

bono is at it again

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2008/01/01/robinwilliams_wideweb__470x293,0.jpg

ahahaha

"a hit, a very palpable hit!"

I am kind of thinking that no one actually knows what movie RV is, based on the posts to the thread.

-- HI DERE, Sunday, January 6, 2008 2:04 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Link

oh, I saw RV. it's very garden variety bad, and isn't fantastically, outrageously bad like about 10 other movies in this poll.

PATCH ADAMS PATCH ADAMS PATCH ADAMS PATCH ADAMS

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

No-one saw "What Dreams May Come" then? *That* was a stinker. A bit like watching an animated screen saver for two hours, interrupted occasionally by appearances of Robin Williams' crying face.

Nice wide spread of films voted for, though, which is good to see. Robin Williams hatred respects no boundaries!

Being Human, Death to Smoochy, Artificial Intelligence: AI all dumbass votes.

Who the fuck voted for Munchausen!?

I recall him being irritating w/ the improv in that (also, the movie is a dull white elephant)

ban whoever voted for ms. doubtfire

i re-watched that movie new years day and still enjoyed it (hadn't seen it since i was a kid).

word. Death to Smoochy is just shy of greatness.

Munchausen is awesome - Williams is kinda annoying in it, but he's on screen for like 10 minutes tops

I agree that he's bearable in Mrs. Doubtfire. props to the 5 who voted for Dead Poets, what a terrible movie.

Big ups to the five unshakable souls who understand, even in the face of Patch Adams, exactly how bad Dead Poet's Society really is. (To be fair, though, it's not really Williams' fault that time.)

xpost HA! Oh, that's almost weird.

Except, not really.

His best (least worst) performances are as family comedy dads when he doesn't do his schtick.

how can anyone think Smoochy is his nadir?! He gives PORN COOKIES to CHILDREN in it, right? A career of roles like that for him is the best of all possible worlds.

To be fair, though, it's not really Williams' fault that time.)

You forgive him for standing on desks and screaming?

He didn't write the godforsaken thing. I have a much harder time forgiving things like his monologue in The Fisher King about taking a shit. That's pure Williams.

how can anyone think Smoochy is his nadir?!

I'm with morbs on this all the way. Smoochy is great. The world was not ready for it. :)

cmon, Dead Poets Society had all those sweet (LEGAL) boys in it.

I'M GOING ON SAFARI, MOTHERFUCKER. SAFAAAARRRI!

erm, xpost

xxpost yes, and one of them KILLS HIMSELF! Ooh, edgy. Ebert talks about the "Idiot Plot," where the movie could not exist if all of the characters were not idiots. DPS has the Emo Plot.

also, Sheldon Mopes is one of, if not the best Ed Norton perf.

it was a period drama w/ repressed teens, SOMEBODY has to kill himself!

yes, thank you for making my point.

Man of the Year is on one of the HBOs right now and it is the perfect total sack of shit to watch on a sick day

One Hour Photo is great. Totally underrated.

cant believe so many people hate dead poets society

I've not even seen it and I hate it

spot the english major

xp

guess everyone else hates sucking the marrow out of life

I've never seen it because can it really be better than wonder boys???

cant believe so many people hate dead poets society

― max, Tuesday, February 16, 2010 2:01 PM (10 minutes ago

100 Most Irritating Things Students Do in Class.

is one of the 100 things "stand on their desks and recite poetry"?

I've never seen it because can it really be better than wonder boys???

― dyao, Tuesday, February 16, 2010 9:09 AM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

its not better than wonder boys, its just a hilariously earnest depiction of BOYS becoming MEN thanks to the power of POETRY back when we didnt have to let black people into schools

I bet they reinforce the western cultural hegemony too

ya but in a v inspiring way

http://rlv.zcache.com/william_f_buckley_tshirt-p235916929510268558t5e4_400.jpg

from the good people who contribute to urbandictionary.com -- funnier than anything robin williams has been involved w/ since 1979.

Robin Williams Special 42 up, 2 down
n.
A woman's vagina that is extremely hairy, and will not stop talking (i.e. constantly queefing).
Dude, did you get with her last night?
Yeah man, but she gave me the Robin Williams Special.
Huh?
Go watch the end of the HBO thing.. you'll get it.

Watched One Hour Photo for the first time since it came out. Not the greatest film of its kind, but I thought it was effectively creepy most of the way, and Williams was good. Two things made me laugh, though:

1) "I never knew you were so deep, Cy"--prompted by Williams' character's ability to read aloud from a Deepak Chopra book.

2) The way Cy's firing was handled, which basically amounted to "We know you're stealing, and we think you might be unbalanced, so as soon as you finish out the rest of this week, you're gone."

(Originally and unwittingly posted on some exotic board I've never heard of.)

I'd never even heard of The Night Listener till I bought it cheap last week. Not bad...Williams is about as subdued as I've ever seen him, some nice visuals, creepy at times.

sorry i didn't get a callback for this

http://www.movie-list.com/img/posters/big/zoom/angriestmaninbrooklyn.jpg

Who did he play in "To Wong Foo"? I don't remember him in that.

― Rock Hardy, Saturday, January 5, 2008 3:55 PM bookmarkflaglink

He was Wesley Snipes.

― HI DERE, Saturday, January 5, 2008 5:05 PM bookmarkflaglink

Hook still one of the worst movies i've ever seen. abysmal. made me want to puke.

Robin's greatest regret was not being able to make The Day The Clown Cried. he came close more than once. but he never got to do his dream project.

These two comments stuck out in a decade-ending poll published in Film Comment in 1999:

PETER RAINER film critic, New York magazine:

Robin Williams—because, in his capitulation to lucre and luscious sentimentalism he typifies the lost promise of the most highly gifted film artists of the Nineties.

JONATHAN ROMNEY film critic, The New Statesman:

Figure of the Decade: I regret to say, Robin Williams, the single most glaring example of Hollywood’s misuse of talent and abuse of charisma. His films are fascinating texts if you’re a student of Nineties Hollywood ideology at its most infantile—I’d write about them if only I could bear to watch them again.

And he hadn't hit bottom yet. When he died, the only things I wanted to revisit were his earlier stand-up routines like his HBO specials. There were instances where it was like watching Duck Amuck with the power dynamic flipped around.

Not even Popeye?

Popeye might be an okay film, but I don't think that would've tapped into the full extent of his talents.

I should rephrase that - I don't think it displayed the full extent of his talents (and what's sorely missed).

Never saw it, but was always mildly intrigued by the concept of One Hour Photo and seeing how well he can play a creep

man Dead Poet's Society doesn't deserve to be ranked that high on a worst list that includes Toys, Bicentennial Man, and Hook

he kinda peaked with Mork.

my brother had the Toys video game, and it's like this part of 90s history I think the entire world forgot.

Bicentennial Man is fucked up in the same way that Artificial Intelligence is fucked up. and they are both endless.

I always found interviews with him to be kind of exhausting, he was always 'on' and making weird voices and shazzbot shit, he seemed like a decent guy but exhausting as well

yeah he had issues.

I really like AI now; I'd only seen it once (when it was released) and was disappointed with it, but I gave it a rewatch last year and found a lot more to appreciate.

AI is amazing from beginning to end

Last time I watched I realized I had previously misunderstood something: that in fact David’s mother did love him and her actions were the only chance of saving him imo

Haven’t scrolled up but I thought PATCH ADAMS was considered canonical bad

it is the worst movie of all time, yes, and the worst on this list

didn't someone upthread say Patch was an asshole in real life

why is it so terrible, asks an ILXor who has never seen the film... Hallmark schmaltz?

unbearably so

i remember reading a review of it when it came out which basically said that medical professionals that saw the movie probably considered it a strawman with dialogue

he could be the king of cringe. when i was a kid that wacky stuff was fun cuz i was a kid. i remember when that first album came out and how insane it sounded. crazier than steve martin. and of course i watched mork. as an adult you see those talk show appearances where he goes from the preacher guy to the black guy to the gay guy to the baby voice.....uhhhhh....so sweaty. so cocaine-y.

his hero jonathan winters on the other hand, as fresh today as morning dew. so funny.

weird that i pick up the new new yorker tonight to look at and its their summer greatest hits issue with an 80s piece on him watching kevin kline in hamlet and dropping in and doing wacky sets at comedy clubs. that early run of movies seemed like he was on the right track. i remember seeing moscow on the hudson at the movies and it felt very current/now. garp was everyone's fave book. he was zeitgeist-y. but then all the $$$ pours in. see: eddie murphy.

Totally forgot about DEAD POET’S SOCIETY.

Thought he was actually good in Garp.

But generally feel like his more serious stuff asymptotically approaches THE DAY THE CLOWN CRIED bad.

Garp was good, I kinda remember The Fisher King being somewhat okay?

what about the one where he wanders around heaven looking for his wife

I just read that New Yorker piece Scott refers to like an hour ago, it makes his decline into this garbage even sadder

and apologies to Patch Adams and Hook,but What Dreams May Come is in fact the worst movie ever made

Fisher King is really good, but you also get him full-frontal...

The Fisher King is just too long and strenuous. you could say that about a lot of his movies. He turned into cocaine Danny Kaye. Just that maudlin LOOK AT ME sad class clown thing. Billy Crystal is a more chill version of the same desperation to be beloved for their genius. There is a lot of anger there. Billy Crystal should have done creepy/evil more. that smile alone...

I hate this shit so much, I think Hook gave me clinical depression

jesus, this trailer. the movie that harold ramis doesn't want you to see! actually, i would totally watch a dvd commentary with harold ramis and all the sctv people. hope they got paid well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keguyT8YJzM

when my kids were young they were traumatized when they saw a live performance by the left-wing/hippie/kids/Vermont Bread & Puppet Theatre. they thought it was the worst thing they had ever had to witness in their lives. their reaction reminded me of when i saw Hook in a movie theatre.

hahaha amazing, I do think Hook is worse

Club Paradise looks kinda fun, a Caribbean Meatballs

Forgot about MOSCOW ON THE HUDSON. That could have been annoying but turned out okay. The Bloomingdale’s security guard kind of steals the show in that

Never saw HOOK, didn’t know he was in that

don't watch it...

it ruined spielberg for me for awhile...its by far the worst movie he ever made.

I feel just as bad for my parents having to sit through it as well, I’m sure with fully formed frontal cortexes it’s awful on a totally different level. God, what the fuck.

i still have a soft spot for Hook tbh

FP (j/k)

in a creepy Facebook synchronicity move, a friend of mine just posted a long and sad and lovely post about Hook and how it reminds her of her birth mother, who she never met.

lol at grown adults complaining about a movie aimed at children being bad. hook ruled for me when i saw it at EIGHT.

I used to love the Fisher King and tried a rewatch recently and it did NOT hold up.

Garp was good from what I remember, but I don't remember it very well. I love the novel.

I have seen Hook many times in bits and pieces as it was one of the movies we had when I worked at an electronics department of a K-Mart. I realize it is not good, but I kind of like it.

Others were Mrs. Doubtfire (now, this is truly dire), The Fugitive, Ace Venture: Pet Detective, and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Oh, yeah: Terminator 2.

lol at grown adults complaining about a movie aimed at children being bad. hook ruled for me when i saw it at EIGHT.

pretty certain that was the first movie i watched where a "real life" kid dies! and he had the redemption arc!

i have no memory of Robin Williams being in "To Wong Foo..."!

Hook really feels like Spielberg was trying to do a Terry Gilliam kid's movie.

i've never seen "Goonies" but i'd imagine if i watched it and "Hook" as a double feature i'd find them both stupidly camp.

Goonies much better imho

Hook felt like something cruel to give to kids.

its so unfunny.

Goonies is a gift to children. its made for them and its also a good movie.

Goonies is mostly fine, I didn’t see it until I was in college. It’s a lot darker than Hook visually iirc

xxp i had the same thought when i recently sat through watching the children's film "Paw Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie" with my kids.

the whole mawkish DAD thing in Hook....bleh...and Julia Roberts...good god...

sorry. for some reason that movie just makes me mad. and i haven't seen it in forever! hey, its the power of cinema.

I sort of think there shouldn’t be kids movies and that maybe kids shouldn’t be allowed to see movies at all, like alcohol and cigarettes or something

except for Frozen. that was awesome. :)

Hook is one of those I saw when I was a teenager and thought I was pretty fun, and then I saw it as an adult and it really, really does not hold up whatsoever. Spielberg just indulges in his worst tendencies. I think Williams was not too bad considering those circumstances. Honestly my least favorite thing about it is probably Dustin Hoffman, he was definitely going for that Jack Nicholson in Batman/Al Pacino in Dick Tracy thing, but I thought he was just terrible and campy in the wrong ways, and a bad fit.

i loved hook as a kid and can’t see it through different eyes now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

maybe kids shouldn’t be allowed to see movies at all

They tried this in Québec in the 1940s or so. Someone's cigarette lit a fire in the cinema and burned a bunch of kids to death, so the government banned in movie theatres...not smoking, but children.

As for Robin Williams, I've only seen Munchausen and A.I. from this list, only one of which I remember him marring. I didn't like him even as Mork, when I was a kid, I was always wondering why he behaved that way.

Bob Hoskins was great as Smee.

i'm also just now discovering Phil Collins was in it?!

I'm sure I remember an SCTV sketch where someone plays Robin Williams improvising in the middle of a commercial for Tang Breakfast Crystals, but a search keeps bringing up Lin Ye Tang instead.

his hero jonathan winters on the other hand, as fresh today as morning dew. so funny.

ha that’s the second winters ref i’ve seen today— and i have’t thought of him i many years. over on the X thread today is doe and exene doing “what’s in my bag” and exene pulls out a winters lp and i just went 0_0 yay SOLID move exene! tho i dint know that lp.

I also remember that, Martin Short doing a Robin Williams bit on SCTV (plus RW himself guested on the show one time)

xp

fisher king kind of remains a messy miracle imo

but williams was always vastly overrated across all efforts, hyper mode or schmaltz mode

jesus, this trailer. the movie that harold ramis doesn't want you to see! actually, i would totally watch a dvd commentary with harold ramis and all the sctv people. hope they got paid well.

Bill Murray was supposed to be in that role - not sure if it would've helped much though. The one joke I remember and like from that movie is when Eugene Levy finds out that Williams fulfilled a favor for them big-time and you see how practical realities slowly damper his initial euphoria.

Also thought The Fisher King is pretty good. It's not a great film, I have plenty of reservations about it, but I thought Gilliam, Williams, Bridges and Ruehl all did excellent work and make it worthwhile. IIRC the Criterion edition has some nice remembrances about Williams from Gilliam - Williams really gave his all for that movie.

FWIW, David Simon wrote a very beautiful tribute to Williams when he died. I've seen the episode in question and Williams is good in it.

*was pretty good

My wife recently had covid and was quarantining in the bedroom. When I brought her food or whatever I would open the door, wearing a mask, and from the doorway sing/shout "heh-LOOOOOW" in my worst Mrs. Doubtfire impersonation to let her know that she needed to put her mask on. It got old fast but I kept it up for ten days.

Garp is a good film, not sure if Robin takes over the character a bit too much or if that's what makes it work, but that's my canonical example of A Good Robin Williams Film.

Think the issue with his films is something you find with a lot of comedians turned actors where their very nervy, unstable comic energy is allowed to trump almost every aspect of the film. Maybe someone like Rik Mayall as a Brit equivalent.

At least in Mrs Doubtfire there is some attempt at trying to play a father losing his kids. Essentially a lot of comics can't act, but also an issue of direction and conception. A lot of it is dead on arrival.

yeah Garp is decent, the rest of them are unbearable shite. I have not seen Popeye since I was a kid and can't remember much of it. The schmaltzy ones like Dead Poets and Good Will Hunting, where he is attempting straight character acting are as cringeworthy and detestable as mainstream Hollywood movies can get for me.

It got old fast but I kept it up for ten days.

The perfect Robin Williams homage

Nanoo Nanoo

He's perfectly cast in The Birdcage, way more watchable than Nathan Lane.

Moscow on the Hudson is a good movie, but then I like Paul Mazursku.

He was SO good as Armand but I also love Nathan Lane in it. La cage is my all time fave musical and the movie is just so good.

I think I always assumed Jack was the worst RW movie. Not that I have seen Jack but it looked awful.

otm

It never became a catchphrase for Williams, but "you go on ahead. I'll be fine" is a punchline from his standup that's always stayed with me. It's basically him pondering how so many STD's originated in animals, and you can probably extrapolate the rest.

I watched Hook dozens of times on VHS and even had Hook toys, so as an adult I'm stuck with that affection for it. I think that displaces my actual adult assessment of it elsewhere, as one of the worst things a film can do for me is remind me of Hook - e.g Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome is completely ruined when it turns into Hook.

Hook is just so aggressively 1991

Goonies is a gift to children. its made for them and its also a good movie.

― scott seward, Thursday, August 15, 2024 10:16 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Goonies is mostly fine, I didn’t see it until I was in college. It’s a lot darker than Hook visually iirc

― brimstead, Thursday, August 15, 2024 10:18 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

i saw goonies for the first time a few years ago, and found it very loud and annoying. it was the wrong time to see it admittedly

The day my mom unexpectedly pulled me out of school early, bought me a Care Bare, and then took me to see Goonies was genuinely one of the best days of my life. No Goonies bashing!

I've been amazed at the number of complaints about Goonies' loudness. To me it perfectly captures how a buncha kids that age would yell at each other. I love its goofing-off-on-a-Saturday-morning vibe, the shots of Portland in the rain, Robert Davi singing opera, and Mama Fratelli saying YOU LIKE TONGUE?

I assume most people havent seen Man Of The Year as thats RW at his most unbearable imo

and I like Club Paradise whenever Peter O'Toole is mincing and Rick Moranis and Eugene Levy are dorking.

oh god I forgot about Club Paradise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MmxI83ZxTc

Is CLUB PARADISE anything like EXIT TO EDEN?

Exit to Eden is depressing.

Is the book what dreams may come good? I read a great collection of Matheson stories this year, what a nut

_Exit to Eden_ is depressing.

I love "evil" Robin Williams-- Insomnia, One Hour Photo. My favourite of his panned movies is Toys, it's goofy and fun and Joan Cusack is fantastic

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=255770182501313

Yeah, Insomnia is one of my favorites of his.

it's crazy to think Robin Williams was the star of a Chris Nolan movie. It's a decent enough adaptation of the original.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOWR57K2ga0

he made so many movies in the '90s

I might have said something upthread on these points but:

* rereading the poll list made me go "Oh yeah, Being Human, I remember ads for that, wasn't that some other 'the wonderful mystery of life across time for a white guy' 90s drivel," and it clearly is but I was astounded just now when I realized the writer/director was Bill Forsyth! My god man, why did you do that?

* when it comes to creepy RW, not that I've seen it in over three decades, but he's probably the best thing in Branagh's Dead Again, just a couple of scenes but they're enough, especially the last one

he's suitably sinister in his tiny role as the mad bomber in The Secret Agent movie from 1996. Bob Hoskins. Gerard Depardoodoo. Patricia Arquette. Christian Bale. music by Philip Glass.

sometimes there are superstar people and i think they might have been better off just playing quirky character actor parts. it can also be cool when someone famous ages out of leading man/woman roles and just starts playing interesting smaller parts in a bunch of oddball movies.

when it comes to creepy RW, not that I've seen it in over three decades, but he's probably the best thing in Branagh's Dead Again, just a couple of scenes but they're enough, especially the last one

This.

I don't think anyone else saw it, but World's Greatest Dad is far better (and one of RW's best) than most of these movies we're talking about

agreed - it’s pretty good

World's Greatest Dad is so good

It’s another one in which he shows peen iirc. But it’s a Bob Goldthwait film, that‘s probably why it’s good.