Weird Movie Fads and Trends

[StarOpal]

Have you ever looked at a group of movies that come from a certain decade or genre and just thought "What's the deal with all these _______ movies? It's bizarre."

It's hard to explain so I'll just give my examples.

The acrobat movies of the '50s. Not to be confused with "Big Top" movies, these had acrobatics, high wires, trapezing, etc. But there was one thing that made them weird - they had nothing to do with circuses. The Flame and the Arrow is a Robin Hood type story with all of that, and juggling. Can't forget the juggling. And my personal favorite strango movie Thunder in the Sun is a Western. It has quite possibly the funniest trailer ever, "They fight by leaping, and bounding."

Then there are the singing Mountie movies of the '40s, but I won't get into that now.



So are there any types of movies that just make you scratch your head?

[eatmyshorts]

hmmmm... all those extremely generic early 80's teen sex movies. there are seriously too many to count...i mean come on, boobs and butts are only so funny....oh wait...they're not really funny at all. way to take the easy way out, stupid 80's directors.

[starwenn]

There were a lot of weird musicals released in the late 70s and early 80s in the wake of the massive successes of "Grease" and "The Muppet Movie." Some of them are among the weirdest movies made in an era not exactly known for normalcy - "Can't Stop the Music" (the Villiage People disco musical), "The Pirate Movie," "Grease 2," "Xanadu," the Neil Diamond version of "The Jazz Singer," the Steve Martin "Pennies From Heaven," and from Broadway "Annie," "A Chorus Line," "The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas" (seriously, that's the title), "The Pirates of Penzance," and "Little Shop Of Horrors." Almost all but "Penzance," "Best Little Whorehouse," and "Little Shop" were huge critical and box office flops. Some deserved the obscurity (see Lissa's review of "Xanadu"), while others found a second, far more willing audience on cable and became cult favorites. ("Pirate Movie" and "Grease 2" are favorite guilty pleasures of mine, as are most of the Broadway titles.)

Epics were big movies and big business in the 50s and 60s. Everyone did epics, from 1949's cheesy "Samson and Delilah" to 1966's sweeping "Dr. Zhvago." They were last-ditch efforts by the major studios to draw audiences back from their tiny TVs. The end of the studio system in the mid-60s did the epic in, too, for over a decade.

More recently, the "Scary Movie" series seem to have inspired more genre-parody movies with "Movie" in the title, from "Date Movie" to "Not Another Teen Movie" to "My Big Fat Independant Movie." While some of them have been wildly popular at the box office, the critical reception, at least as far as I can tell, has been universally dire.

[blinkfan]

Japanese remakes

[StarOpal]

starwenn said:

There were a lot of weird musicals released in the late 70s and early 80s in the wake of the massive successes of "Grease" and "The Muppet Movie." Some of them are among the weirdest movies made in an era not exactly known for normalcy - "Can't Stop the Music" (the Villiage People disco musical), "The Pirate Movie," "Grease 2," "Xanadu," the Neil Diamond version of "The Jazz Singer," the Steve Martin "Pennies From Heaven," and from Broadway "Annie," "A Chorus Line," "The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas" (seriously, that's the title), "The Pirates of Penzance," and "Little Shop Of Horrors." Almost all but "Penzance," "Best Little Whorehouse," and "Little Shop" were huge critical and box office flops. Some deserved the obscurity (see Lissa's review of "Xanadu"), while others found a second, far more willing audience on cable and became cult favorites. ("Pirate Movie" and "Grease 2" are favorite guilty pleasures of mine, as are most of the Broadway titles.)

Oh! Don't forget Copacabana starring Barry Manilow! That movie's like a car wreck - it's horrible, but you just have to watch. At least Xanadu didn't even pretend to make sense.

[DarthShady]

The recent trend of movies based off comic bo--I MEAN, GRAPHIC NOVELS. Not that I'm complaining, but how many are released each summer? And then if they're any good, there's at least 2 sequels....But like I said, I'm not complaining.

Indie flicks in the 90s were pretty popular. Now it's all about the faux-indies.

Awesome Disney cartoons in the late 80s to the mid 90s.

Uh....I'll think of more.

[StarOpal]

Trucker movies in the '70s. Smokey and the Bandit, the Any Which Way... movies, Duel. This craze spread into TV with BJ and the Bear.

....While we're at it the specific mix of truckers and apes too!

[TheOogieBoogieMan]

Animals playing sports. Ed, the Air Bud movies, Most Valuable Primate. Blech!

[StarOpal]

Lolita Fatale (that's what I call them) movies in the early to mid '90s. Drew Barrymore in Poison Ivy, Alicia Silverstone in The Crush, and Liv Tyler in Silent Fall come to mind. And strongly resembling character types in movies like To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday.

[Lordmoon]

blinkfan said:

Japanese remakes

I hear Old Boy was picked up for a remake.

I don't understand why they need to remake movies that are not even a decade old.

[Storm_Rider]

The martial arts movie trend that started in the '80s and continued well into the '90s. First of all, ninja movies in the '80s, most martial arts movies HAD to HAVE a big stock of ninjas to get creamed by the hero. And in the same vein, Cynthia Rothrock movies, Don "The Dragon" Wilson movies I'll even throw in Van Damme since he had his couple of years of beeing the shiz.

[Ellielator]

oogieboogieman said:

Animals playing sports. Ed, the Air Bud movies, Most Valuable Primate. Blech!

Oh dear God... I hate Air Bud enough to start several boycott riots at Walt Disney. Make it Stop!!!

lordmoon said:

blinkfan said:

I don't understand why they need to remake movies that are not even a decade old.

You don't? American audiences + subtitles... You do the math.

starwenn said:

There were a lot of weird musicals released in the late 70s and early 80s in the wake of the massive successes of "Grease" and "The Muppet Movie." Some of them are among the weirdest movies made in an era not exactly known for normalcy - "Can't Stop the Music" (the Villiage People disco musical), "The Pirate Movie," "Grease 2," "Xanadu," the Neil Diamond version of "The Jazz Singer," the Steve Martin "Pennies From Heaven," and from Broadway "Annie," "A Chorus Line," "The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas" (seriously, that's the title), "The Pirates of Penzance," and "Little Shop Of Horrors." Almost all but "Penzance," "Best Little Whorehouse," and "Little Shop" were huge critical and box office flops.

Frank Oz's Little Shop was a bomb? I heard Labyrinth was a bomb as well. Damn... what didn't bomb at the box office in 1986?

I've been meaning to see the Village People musical. It may not be good, but gay musicals have to get their start somewhere. Was Annie really bad?

[starwenn]

Actually, "Little Shop Of Horrors" was one of the few early-mid 80s musicals to do well, both critically and at the box office. "Annie" has long been one of my favorite movies, but critics have always been harsh on it, probably because it jettisoned a lot of the original Broadway script. Supposedly, it did well enough (just behind "Best Little Whorehouse" at the box office in 1983), but it was considered a flop at the time because of the huge production costs.

And here's another 80s trend that lasted into the early 90s and still occasionally pops up today - movies about families and/or teens on vacation. We have the "Vacation" movies, obviously, but also "Summer School," "Summer Rental," "One Crazy Summer," "Captain Ron," and the "Meatballs" series.

[Ellielator]

The thing that was weird about the vacation trend is... Who cares about all these families? NL's Vacation was basically the ultimate nightmare vacation. The rest of those movies are just about characters. Characters that are pretty boring. Especially Summer Rental... I couldn't believe that movie when I saw it. I was bored so stiff, I wanted to know why they made that movie. It was the most boring film I'd ever seen that had nothing to do with war or the military. Snoo-oo-oo-ze!

[katiem]

What I always thought of as weird were those synchronized swimming movies from the 50's, most of which starred Esther Williams.

www.imdb.com/name/nm0930565/

Who would want to watch that?