Dissolve's Forgotbusters: Movie Hits That Audiences Forgot

Some of the essays are great, particularly the one on the mysterious popularity of Alan Alda in the late seventies/early eighties, how massive The Secret of My Success was, and how batshit in the best way Hannibal was.

We're voting on the best obviously.

"Wild Hogs is as obsessed with the prospect of gay orgies and man-on-man rape as a PG-13 family film released by a subsidiary of Disney can be."

inclined to say Dragnet here tbh

Good essay on Rising Sun too.

10 is a movie for grownups. Mystery solved.

I think The Secret of My Success is the only other I've seen.

I always get 10 mixed up with Blame it on Rio (the latter is unwatchable)

10 is a movie for grownups. Mystery solved.

You're right! Explains the inclusion of Bringing Down the House.

I am kinda amazed Jack did so well, my memory was that that bombed.

Who could forget Tango & Cash?
http://filmsack.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/tango-and-cash-header.jpg
And why do I always get it mixed up with Turner & Hooch?

Dragnet, iirc, was the cover story of the first issue of Premiere.

Only ones I saw theatrically at the time were The Secret of My Success and Rising Sun. Saw most of the other 80s/90s ones, or at least bits of them, on cable or home video ('kept Jack, which looked like unwatchable shit to me even when it was new). The Toy and Days of Thunder are the only ones I've watched recent-ishly, and they both suck.

*'cept Jack

and how batshit in the best way Hannibal was.

Want to hear more

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voted for disclosure twice

Not since Atlas Shrugged has a novelist strayed so egregiously from plausible human behavior in dogged pursuit of making a muddled ideological point. For example, when Meredith calls Tom to her office on her first day as his new boss, Tom attempts to keep things strictly business while she lasciviously discusses his “nice hard tush.” Now, I could be wrong, but I very much doubt that the phrase “tush” has ever been used by anyone other than heavily bearded blues-rockers from Texas and Eastern European Jewish grandmothers describing their grandson’s posterior. It certainly has no place in foreplay. It would be tempting to say that the unexpected and glaring appearance of “tush” in the novel’s big semi-sex scene took me out of it, but that would imply that I read the novel with anything other than morbid fascination, a grim sense of obligation, and a mounting sense of rage.

Disclosure is so poorly conceived that a prominent plot point involves Tom lurking outside a room in time to overhear a crucial piece of information relating to his future (coincidences are the lazy writer’s best friend/crutch), and the climax involves Tom walking down a virtual corridor in search of important files. That’s right. The man behind Jurassic Park tried to generate suspense from his protagonist strapping on a silly virtual-reality helmet before embarking on a hunt for relevant data. Is it any wonder the novel’s incredibly successful advertising campaign focused on sex?

http://thedissolve.com/features/forgotbusters/

^^ to read the reviews.

He does need an editor though.

Accordingly, the screenplay for The Secret Of My Success repeatedly features characters marveling that someone as smart as Christy could also be so staggeringly gorgeous. But this idealization isn’t just verbal. The film also repeatedly cuts to Fox gazing adoringly at Slater in a state of profound erotic intoxication. The filmmakers labor under the delusion that the image of Slater taking a sip from a water fountain in slow-motion against the heavenly backdrop of “Oh Yeah” is a tableau as irresistibly carnal as Marilyn Monroe on a steam grate in Seven Year Itch.

As written, Slater’s character is a fairly terrible human being. She has sex with her married boss, whose idea of flirtation is to ask his mistress, in a crowded eatery, “Do you think this restaurant has an upstairs with beds in it?” She’s condescending and mean to Fox upon meeting him. When a financial crisis arises, she proposes laying off workers in the Midwest. And when Prescott asks her to, she spies on the hero. So the film needs an actress so charming and utterly irresistible, viewers will still root for her to end up with the hero. In other words, it needs a co-star as appealing as Michael J. Fox, and there aren’t many.

Slater’s performance not only doesn’t solve the fatal problems with Christy’s conception, it actively makes them worse. She has exactly two states: haughty and robotic. It doesn’t help that in her first full scene with Brantley, the screenplay burdens Slater with one-liners like—remarking on a brown suit—“I like your suit. It goes nicely with your nose.” That line is supposed to have the bracing bite of sexy banter, but it instead feels like Fox is being insulted by a mean, creepy lady android. Brantley’s lust for Christy is supposed to be one of the primary engines driving the plot, but there’s a yawning void where Slater’s charisma and romantic chemistry with Fox should be.

I haven't read any essays yet, but top 25 grossers of the year is a pretty low bar, no?

Tango & Cash is credited to Andrei Konchalovsky, a Russian filmmaker who co-scripted Andrei Rublev with Andrei Tarkovsky, filmed an adaptation of Uncle Vanya in his native land, and directed Eric Roberts to the first of no doubt many Academy Award nominations.

what did happen to Helen Slater

Could not vote Wild Hogs fast enough

Dragnet and it's not even close.

Billy Jack is a right-wing trash classic

What Women Want had Judy Greer, Marisa Tomei faking an orgasm and Mel Gibson in stockings - I assume that's why it was in the Top 10.

(and that's in spite of its politics actually being pretty left-wing!)

Looks like Alfred missed Shark Tale, Psycho II, Congo, Space Jam, Godzilla '98, and The Golden Child, all of which are covered on the site. Psycho II has its defenders, but I doubt that anyone was gonna rush to vote for any of the others.

I've never laughed as hard in a theater as I did when Hannibal pops the top on Ray Liotta. Such a terrible movie at the time, I wonder if it would improve with rescreening?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx_hlStCL7g

This fuckin' movie.

Looks like Alfred missed Shark Tale, Psycho II, Congo, Space Jam, Godzilla '98, and The Golden Child, all of which are covered on the site. Psycho II has its defenders, but I doubt that anyone was gonna rush to vote for any of the others.

Nope. Was gonna cover'em next poll.

"10" is a real movie, guys, it doesn't matter that you were three when it came out.

say what you will about that original av club crew but at least they've got ideas for features. beats 'watch this'. anyhow morbs is right, this is "10" pretty easily. four seasons is interesting in a 'wow movies like this were hits once' but you couldn't pay me to watch it. most of these lack any charm, there are lulz to be had w/ hannibal and disclosure i guess, maybe tango & cash. was amused/amazed to find out tango & cash was directed by the coscreenwriter of andrei rublev (or at least he got the credit, he was fired before it wrapped and they brought in the director of purple rain to finish it). the toy is one jaw droppingly toxic movie. will be RUSHING to vote for congo in the next poll.

tango and cash is kind of amazing (not the same as good) as a late '80s action artifact. i saw a double feature of that with 'cobra' a year ago and those two together was something else. nothing in T&C as the killer from 'cobra', who is like the killer from 'cruising' crossed with Scorpio from 'dirty harry'.

I think this is pretty easily 'dragnet' though I haven't seen '10'.

lol tango & cash director also directed homer & eddie. they should've gotten him to do oscar & lucinda.

A retarded man get help from a sociopathic woman when tries to reunite with his dying father, who years earlier disowned him.

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTg3MzUzMTgxNV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMzQwOTgxMQ@@._V1_SX214_AL_.jpg

then of course after jim belushi died whoopi made this sequel

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/33/Eddie_poster.jpg

I am kinda amazed Jack did so well, my memory was that that bombed.

Ditto. I remember it being in theaters for all of 10 days.

"receded culturally" is a moving target, but Eraser seems like the definitive forgotbuster.

So forgettable, in fact, that when it popped up on TV a few months back, I watched a half hour or so of it because I honestly couldn't remember if I'd seen it before or not. Seemed really boring, ugly and humourless; say what you will about the dreckiest 80s action flicks (Cobra, for instance), but they usually had a personality.

A good idea for a feature, but some of these maybe require less "explaining" - Eraser was basically the New Jersey momentum picture off of True Lies, and its mediocre "ordinary 90s blockbuster" look and feel is probably why nobody gave a shit about anything Arnold did after that. Haven't seen most of the flicks here but might vote Tango and Cash as the one that seems the most appealing, mainly for the presence of Russell, who usually cheers me up (though he can't save everything, see Tequila Sunrise).

I think Jingle All the Way and Batman and Robin were the bigger debits in Arnold's Q score, but Eraser as his New Jersey is basically right.

My main memory of Eraser is that I had to take summer school that year, and every morning in assembly I'd see this loser kid reading the novelization of Eraser.

THE NOVELIZATION OF ERASER.

true lies was the new jersey momentum picture off of t2!

It's a little fuzzy because Last Action Hero totally is what first took the bloom off the rose, but after True Lies - noxious, awful super-blockbuster that it is - it maybe seemed like LAH was just going to be the one misstep that you could forget about later. But from Eraser on he just didn't have anything that connected with audiences or became iconic or anything, they were just star vehicles with nothing else going on. Same kinda thing was happening to Harrison Ford post-Fugitive (Air Force One struck a chord but that was way more to do with Gary Oldman IMO), and Bruce Willis too (god that dude has a lot of movies I can't recall at all, for being a huge star whose good shit I love to death). Costner kind of a different deal but definitely it was over around the same time. The late 90s blockbuster landscape is this graveyard of late 80s/early 90s stars, but the real story is everything looking like Congo: post-JP, pre-Phantom Menace, movies still largely made out of stuff and thus relatively limited in locations and scope compared to what would follow, but lacking the obsession or the craft of a Spielburg or a Cameron and just ending up feeling more like people in dress-up in front of the Action Playset from Kenner. Batman and Robin is like this, Sphere is like this, Twister is like this.

xpost i'd accept that, mainly because i think it's a sickening and gross film and would prefer to think america didn't really give a shit about it in the end.

true lies was HUGE with everyone I knew but in retrospect it's just terrible. great action scenes but so stupid and horrible w everything else.

Yeah it's one of those things where the premise sounds like a good idea for an awesome movie at first glance, but then when you start thinking about it, there's almost no way to write it where the protagonist isn't just a horrible asshole. And then the actual film True Lies manages to find all these additional, unnecessary ways to make him an asshole and to just be kind of a horrid thing generally. Honestly I haven't seen it since it was new and I really shudder to think what else there might be there beyond Arnold's long, drawn-out assault on Jamie Lee Curtis, and the Muslim terrorist stuff with Art Malik and Grant Heslov (also of Congo!.. and Dante's Peak). Also apparently Charlton Heston is in it, which I've forgotten completely and doesn't bode well either.

remember thinking it was mean-spirited, misogyinst bullshit at the time. awful fucking movie, amazed it was a hit then, that it still has fans now.

christ the acting in that Hannibal clip! no wonder Foster gave it the swerve.

Ebert raved about The Golden Child iirc.

for awhile there i was watching criminal minds like i was a 75 yr old retiree.

i checked out after Paget Brewster left though

idk how many hours of in the heat of the night i've actually inadvertantly watched in laundromats etc but i'm not sure i've ever gotten past 'hey - it's archie bunker! and there's rog's wife from what's happening now! and there's archie bunker again!'

haha my sister watches criminal minds alot, though never first run iirc. was tempted to watch it when i found out paget brewster was on it but i think she had left by then. definitely have a thing for paget.

My wife binge-watches NCIS and just hearing the characters' stupid dialogue from across the room makes me want to poke my eardrums out.

Paget Brewster is my favorite celebrity sighting story, in the middle of my criminal minds obsession i went to the grocery store to buy some baby wipes and she was in line ahead of me with a dozen bottles of red wine. She turned and looked at me and said i should cut in line ahead of her and said the wine wasn't all for herself, haha. so i cut ahead of her, thanked her as i left, and she told me to have a nice night.

there's a season of numb3rs where every episode has a former cast member of either deadwood or the wire pop up until they ran out of ppl i guess and then it was someone who was in clueless popped up in every episode.

my mom had/has a thing for criminal minds, so whenever i'd be home visiting i'd invariably get dragooned into watching some. it's kinda like svu with the brakes off in terms of grossness and the melodrama cranked up to 11. in one episode jason alexander plays a maniac with long white hair who dresses like siegfried and/or roy.

Thomas Gibson on CM is probably the most dour dude on network TV. i also saw HIM at a grocery story, hovering in a produce section, looking at some squash like it was a corpse.

o god yes i've seen that jason alexander criminal minds

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--4dzecnA4--/c_fill,fl_progressive,g_north,h_358,q_80,w_636/18m7v1ffijkgkjpg.jpg

here's yr new col sanders

i'd suggest someone do a poll of jason alexander performances post-seinfeld but we all know the winner

https://youtu.be/-qcZ9M-QoOc

what about before Seinfeld – as Richard Gere's shitback rapist pal in Pretty Woman?

lol all this criminal minds talk reminds that joe walsh will have pics of him hanging out w/ beatles and stones and it's not big whoop here i am on vacation w/ paul again but then he'll run into thomas gibson and joe mantegna somewhere and be all 'OMG I GOT MY PICTURE TAKEN W/ THE GUYS FROM CRIMINAL MINDS' and then when they ask him to do a guest appearance he'll be all 'CAN YOU BELIEVE IT - I'M GONNA BE ON CRIMINAL MINDS! ME, A BOY FROM CLEVELAND. DREAMS DO COME TRUE.'

in 1981 jason alexander was in the original production of merrily we roll along, four years later he was in this -
https://youtu.be/Eh1kmVwS4Hw

Preppy dude in green polo looks like he want to bone him

am I crazy or was "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" in the same block of programming as "Walker, Texas Ranger" for a while?

my family watched the latter because it was so bad and hilarious. pretty sure we knew the words to the theme song, which is really bad, and sung by Chuck Norris. it pleases me that Conan O'Brien had a gag where he had a lever he could pull to play "random" scenes from the show for a while, because it showed that we weren't the only ones watching it for the badness

chuck norris had a good bit of creative input in to that show iirc and it showed. i've only seen one episode, jonathan banks was in it but it was still pretty bad.

trying to tackle serious subjects and crime with chuck norris as the main character and star with creative input

lol i was trying to remember if chuck norris did the theme for walker, texas ranger or if maybe it was don johnson did the theme for nash bridges and now i'm like shit it was probably both wasn't it

anyway i tell myself that the cbs shows i watch are the broad appeal four quadrant hits and that the old ppl cbs shows now are things even ppl who watch ncis are barely aware of like blue bloods which from what i've seen is three generations of cops sitting around a dinner table talking about how firefighters are pussies and sometimes black lives don't matter

I appreciate how this revival has turned into an analysis of the queasy morass that passed for mainstream entertainment as such, TV or movie, in the early 90s. Bad memories, mostly.

Can't get Alfred's trilobite comment out of my head when it comes to studying 70s box office results/returns. Bach's Final Cut really is a key read, because it's not really about Heaven's Gate so much as so many other things, and captured pretty much at the time rather than in mythmaking retrospect.

Final Cut is one of the best, most entertaining Hollywood reads ever.

I watch a lot of Criminal Minds because my digital antenna (I don't have cable) pulls in the Ion network, which runs one cop/procedural show all day long each day of the week; I don't remember the schedule, but there's an all-Criminal Minds day, an all-Law & Order: SVU day, an all-Blue Bloods day, etc. The most disturbing aspect of Criminal Minds, for me, isn't even the torture-porn aspect (which gets way over the top at times) - it's how much Thomas Gibson looks like Lux Interior from the Cramps. Once you see it, you can't un-see it.

the only ppl i know who know anything about aloha, bobby and rose are like ppl who have two lane blacktop memorized.

That's...basically true. I have a bootleg DVD (a direct rip of Anchor Bay's blink and you'll miss it DVD release). It's like somebody made a film of a mid-'70s Springsteen song, with an absolutely insane Classic Rock soundtrack--loads of Elton John, ELP etc., which is probably why it hasn't been more available on disc. apparently that got all those songs for peanuts back in the day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKo-gpcxbo4

did I spy Harry Dean Stanton for a second there?

I don't think so...this was like the one deep 70s LA atmosphere movie he wasn't in.

yeah I don't see him in the credits. maybe it was Eddie Olmos as "Chicano #1"

Apparently Paul LaMat makes his living these days by touring car shows with replicas of the Milner Coupe from American Graffiti and AB&R Camaro.

The cruising scenes (excerpted in the trailer) are a wonder--in addition to the Elton, Stones, and Ringo billboards there's a glimpse of one for Time Fades Away!

Apparently it's been reissued by Shout! Factory and you can get it on Amazon for under $10. Might toss it in the cart the next time I'm ordering a bunch of other stuff.

what do y'all got against nathan rabin? i think he's great.

― Mr. Snrub, Thursday, 10 July 2014 03:38 (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I thought it would never happen but I've finally got into this podcast thing, I listen to them at work when I've burned through my audible credit, and I'm desperately trying to root out the good ones. I actually googled "serious film podcast" in the vain hope of finding something other than the usual honking nerds trying to be funny (the lamentable "recap" thing discussed above especially) and the first link pointed me to the podcast of this website, which I only ever read once. It's really not good but this Rabin character is the fucking worst and his voice is such a bad time, I don't know how they let him go near a microphone

rabin's a bad, disorganized writer

re: non-awful movie podcasts - - - the defunct Bonnie and Maude was good, as is Loose Canon (which I discovered from their links). also in that category, people rave about You Must Remember This, which looks informed and informative, but I've always been too intimidated to listen.

oh - and this is in the "plugging my friends' stuff" category, but the movies-with-animals-themed Pet Cinematary has been a real hoot, recommended.

I am listening to you must remember this and absolutely love it, it's beguiling: easy chatty style but well researched and insightful. Some of the production choices are a bit baffling (corny sound effects and actors) but at least it is produced, as opposed to a couple of jerks in a room squawking about their initial impressions of Jurassic world

I will check out the others, thanks!

rabin's a bad, disorganized writer

― who is extremely unqualified to review this pop album (BradNelson)

he writes shaggy dog stories. i like shaggy dog stories.

I've heard Script Notes & Filmspotting are good

for art-cinema stuff, i like the film comment podcast, and the cinephiliacs. For the latter, i'd recommend skipping his opening movie review to get right to the interview sections.

I read (poss in the same link that repped the awful dissolve) that the projection booth is good, I listened to some of the wake in fright one and it seemed promising but the other couple I tried I wasn't that into and they are longer than films! They have a batman returns show that is over four hours long

I like the film comment one too

the auteur museum was good too, but it stopped after 3 episodes

another defunct one i've heard good things about but not listened to myself is "they shot pictures"

oh, and one more, the film society of lincoln center one has some good interviews

Listened to casino's mates' podcast during my watering shift today, it's a fine example of the type of show that you can zone out and miss a few minutes of without feeling the need to rewind (I mean that in a good way). My BiL and I listen to how did this get made but I can only take so much of the shouty funny guy. Dr C are they always drunk when they do it? I swear I can hear noticeable slurring at times!

Thanks for the tips, y'all!

Hahah dunno about the drunkenness. Seems plausible. It's definitely in the "old film friends getting together" genre but thankfully not (imho) of the painful-nerds-trying-too-hard genre. The Super Buddies one gave me that vibe a bit, especially how they keep calling it "Space Buddies." I think my favorites so far have been the really weird-sounding movies (Roar, Max Mon Amour, and the Boon the Baboon films).

I've complained about How Did This Get Made on other threads (the MST3k one I think) - the whole thing is people trying to be the biggest shouty funny person! Combine that with my initial sense of betrayal upon realizing that they were not in fact going to reveal how anything got made, and it's a recipe for irritation. As far as that KIND of podcast goes, I can take Read It And Weep in doses while doing the dishes (though it would be better if shorter, with less recap and less shtick).

doc, a couple of my own recommendations if it's not too late

The Flophouse - like HDTGM without the shouting. and it's more, idk, friendly. hosts are elliott kalan, former daily show writer now mst3k reboot head writer & dan mccoy current daily show writer, and their friend stu who runs a bar in brooklyn.
it's very fun & silly & a nice time imo

Secret History Of Hollywood - like You Must Remember this but longer & more detailed. Beautifully produced & really, really great.
Old movies mainly - Hitchock, Universal Horror, Warner Brothers

This is turning into a very useful thread! Thanks VG. Yeah, I've enjoyed some Flophouse episodes. I have to be in the right move to groove along with them but a few bits have stuck with me. Secret History of Hollywood sounds great! Bookmarking.

xXx: The Return of Xander Cage is an upcoming 2017 action film directed by D. J. Caruso and starring Vin Diesel, Deepika Padukone, Donnie Yen, Tony Jaa, Nina Dobrev, Rory McCann and Samuel L. Jackson. It is a sequel to the 2002 film xXx and 2005 film xXx: State of the Union, though more in line with the former one. The film will be released by Paramount Pictures on January 20, 2017.

the new Hollywood podcast on headgum is more of a straight interview 'cast but usually directly related to movies and he gets good guests somehow

the host does def know his stuff, and in a nicely not authoritative or nerdy kind of way, tho hes a bit too self-deprecating sometimes