IMDB Bottom 100: Numbers 100&99 - Breaking Wind and Underground Comedy

I like watching bad movies. I do like watching good movies too but there is a charm to watching bad movies too. And these are the worst, or at least they are according to the users of www.IMDB.com.

These are the official 100 bottom movies of all time (http://www.imdb.com/chart/bottom?ref_=chttp_ql4). And I have resolved to watch them all.

A list of this kind obviously is always subject to change but this is the list as it was on 31^st August 2015 when I first decided to embark on this endeavour.

Number 100: Breaking Wind: Part 1 (2012)

Number 100 on the list is ‘Breaking Wind: Part 1’, which as you might expect is a parody of the Twilight movies. So it’s a terrible comedy based on a terrible film and book franchise. Remember what I said about bad movies having a charm to them? That doesn’t apply to comedies, they’re always just bad.

There’s not a lot new that can be said about Twilight that hasn’t already been said: the nonsensical story, the bland characters and the fact Bella is a terrible role model for young girls. So what great comedic insights does Breaking Wind have for us? Well, three minutes in and we’ve already had a fart joke and a joke about adult incontinence. That’s the level we’re dealing with here.

As you may have guessed from the title, there are a lot of fart jokes. And I mean a lot. If they aren’t actually farting they are talking about it. Given the right context and set-up a fart can be as funny as anything else but farts for the sake of it is not.

Bella and Edward are just as dull as their Twilight counterparts, so at least they got that right. Jacob is fat and eats all the time. However, he is always talking about his abs and ‘six-pack’. This might actually be the only good idea in the film that Jacob’s delusion about his body is an allegory for his delusion he could actually end up with Bella. But I suspect the director (Craig Moss, who is also the writer) just thought it would be funny to make him fat.

Danny Trejo (of Machete fame) turns up to prove he will do anything for a pay cheque as the head of the werewolves telling a nonsense story about the birth of their race that references Transformers, The Smurfs and just about every other 80’s cartoon series they could cram in. Then there’s a bit about the tribe being wiped out by four Johnny Depp characters (Edward Scissorhands, Willy Wonka, the Mad Hatter and, of course, Captain Jack Sparrow. I didn’t get it). And then Danny Trejo farts. Obviously.

The story is the standard Twilight, new group of vampires moves into area, they want to kill Bella for…reasons, blah,blah, blah. But that’s all just a distraction from the director’s perfect vision of non-stop farting. I hate that I’ve had to mention farts so many times but Breaking Wind just gives you no choice.

The last bit of the film is real life footage of Twilight fans (who I have now learned are called ‘Twi-hards’) reacting to footage of a Twilight film trailer (doesn’t say which one). One girl in particular, who says she saw a Twilight film (again, doesn’t say which one) 5 times in the same day, gets a good kicking.

After the credits have ended there is an extra-scene that is actually a call-back to the start of the movie. A man lying on all fours in the rain, screaming ‘I’m sorry!’

Too little, too late.

Number 99 - The Underground Comedy Movie (1999)

On to the 99^th worst film of all time is The Underground Comedy Movie. This was a hard movie to track down and in the end I had to watch in Italian with English subtitles. But it was absolutely not worth the effort.

What you have here is a collection of not very funny short films. Bat-man (he uses a baseball bat), Dickman (a superman parody about a guy with a penis for a head, guess how he attacks his enemies) and an almost certainly racist Asian sex instruction video.

Some notable cameos though such as from Michael Clarke Duncan, who plays a gay virgin saving himself ‘for the right guy’ but being hit on by the same man in a series of skits that repeat throughout the movie and has no real pay-off. Michael Clarke Duncan was a fine actor (though probably limited in his roles by his size) but for every Green Mile there was a Daredevil, Scorpion King and a, well, Underground Comedy Movie to go with it.

Slash from Guns ‘n’ Roses turns up in one skit, not looking like he has any idea what’s going on. I don’t think he was acting.

The start of the film has a definition of ‘satire’ but what exactly is being satirised isn’t quite clear. At the end a message comes up on screen saying, ‘To all the self-righteous, prima-donna, cock-sucking hypocrites: You are our inspiration.’ This is a cynical attempt by the director Vince Offer, to deflect any criticism. If you don’t like the film because it’s an unfunny piece of crap, it’s not their fault,iIt’s you who has the problem.

The main problem the film has is that it’s just flat out boring, the biggest crime for a comedy movie. Breaking Wind was bad but at least it didn’t drag out it’s scenes. Every scene UCM just goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on. You are probably thinking I should have stopped that at least four ‘and on’s’ ago. Well, that’s what watching The Underground Comedy Movie is like.

Two down, 98 to go.

End Credit Scenes are Over. Damn you, Shawarma!

When I went to watch the latest Marvel Avengers film, at the end of the movie the lights went up in the theatre. But nobody moved.
The same thing had happened when I saw The Guardians of the Galaxy. And a few other times before that.
Why was no one leaving? Because they were waiting for the end credit scene of course!

The first end credit scene I remember seeing was in Masters of the Universe when Skeletor's head came up out of the red lake to say 'I'll be back!' (still waiting for that, unless you count the abominable 90's cartoon The New Adventures of He-Man. Which nobody does). I have found many others since that time.
Action films are rife for them. Comedy films are a good source too (and I'm not counting blooper reels in that). Animated kids movies are another good place to look.
To clarify, by end credits I am also including the 'mid-credits' scenes as well which are becoming increasingly in vogue.

These were unexpected treats though. There was no guarantee you'd have one waiting for you. When you found them, they were a reward for your patience in sitting through 10-15 minutes of credits and wondering what actually is a 'Best Boy' anyway?

This is where Marvel have gone wrong. Sure, the scenes are good for setting up their movie universe and I recognise the value they have in that sense. The problem is, everyone is expecting them now.
Nobody wants to be the guy who misses out so everyone sits through to the end. In days past if you found them, you were in a niche club of the few who had seen the extra 20 seconds at the end. Now everyone is seeing them there isn't a lot of point to them and so they might as well have just been put in the cut of the movie.

Marvel aren't the only ones doing this but they are the main offenders. The end credit scene once so rewarding has now become just another film device.