wrecks it after a riotous all-animal party
February 24, 2020 11:38 AM   Subscribe

 
Not one of the animals listed has any interest in whether I wouldst like to live deliciously and I am confused as to how that happened.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 11:54 AM on February 24, 2020 [15 favorites]


As Arthur Machen wrote:
"And what is sin?" said Cotgrave.

"I think I must reply to your question by another. What would your feelings be, seriously, if your cat or your dog began to talk to you, and to dispute with you in human accents? You would be overwhelmed with horror. I am sure of it. And if the roses in your garden sang a weird song, you would go mad. And suppose the stones in the road began to swell and grow before your eyes, and if the pebble that you noticed at night had shot out stony blossoms in the morning?

"Well, these examples may give you some notion of what sin really is."
These movies do not prove Mr. Machen wrong.
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:00 PM on February 24, 2020 [7 favorites]


I have seen none of these films and I have no regrets. On second thought I vaguely remember having seen A Boy and His Dog and I have regrets after all.
posted by sjswitzer at 12:00 PM on February 24, 2020 [5 favorites]


i have never even heard of that boy and his dog thing and now i look askance upon every other so-called conclusive list of terrible films i've ever seen for keeping me in ignorance.
posted by poffin boffin at 12:01 PM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]


the trailer voiceover is also amazing in its horribleness "this may be the most spectacular super duper scifi film ever made!! wow!" no dude it's just the 70s and you're disgusting
posted by poffin boffin at 12:03 PM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]


I think "A Boy and His Dog" was a Harlan Ellison short story.
posted by turkeybrain at 12:03 PM on February 24, 2020 [5 favorites]


It turns out it's man?
posted by Query at 12:06 PM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]


I also tried to forget the fox from Antichrist, with less success than the author, apparently.
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 12:07 PM on February 24, 2020 [5 favorites]


i have never even heard of that boy and his dog thing and now i look askance upon every other so-called conclusive list of terrible films i've ever seen for keeping me in ignorance.

It's a good dog. And she enslaved Don Johnson's balls. She must have been half expecting to end up barbecued.
posted by biffa at 12:14 PM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]


I feel like that fact that this isn't just a list of the ten first-billed cats in Cats is a mistake.
posted by jacquilynne at 12:36 PM on February 24, 2020 [4 favorites]


That review of a Boy and His Dog is pretty suspect - it is very clear they haven't actually watched the film - there's more to the film then described. However, the rest of the reviews are accurate. Especially the one for A Talking Cat!?!.
posted by Ashwagandha at 12:46 PM on February 24, 2020


Ah... the author also wrote an article entitled Who let the dogs out: how Paw Patrol lost its bite. They are obviously in a dark place and I hope that someday they can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
posted by Ashwagandha at 12:49 PM on February 24, 2020 [6 favorites]


I think "A Boy and His Dog" was a Harlan Ellison short story.
posted by turkeybrain


It is. And for better or worse, that explains a lot.
posted by Splunge at 12:50 PM on February 24, 2020


Not one of the animals listed has any interest in whether I wouldst like to live deliciously and I am confused as to how that happened.

Yes! Though Black Phillip is disturbing on a level that the author of this piece doesn't even approach.
posted by Ber at 12:54 PM on February 24, 2020 [3 favorites]


You will have noticed by now that the top 5 of this Ranked! are all cats. That’s because I saw Cats at the cinema and I now hate cats.

ha!
posted by tofu_crouton at 1:09 PM on February 24, 2020


A Boy and His Dog was originally a screenplay by Harlan Ellison if that makes it clearer (he apparently hated the movie tho)
posted by um at 1:32 PM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]


Ashwagandha: Ah... the author also wrote an article entitled Who let the dogs out: how Paw Patrol lost its bite.
Paw Patrol the television series now primarily exists as a research and development division of the toy line, endlessly dreaming up new ways to separate parents from their money.
He's not wrong. The Paw Patrol property is owned by a Canadian toy company. Here is a story about its creator, who now spends his time driving his Aston Martin around Monaco. The show sells about a billion dollars per year of toys.
posted by clawsoon at 1:41 PM on February 24, 2020


I loved got to trot, when I was....twelve
posted by eustatic at 1:51 PM on February 24, 2020


chaos.......reigns
posted by Bwentman at 1:59 PM on February 24, 2020


screenplay by Harlan Ellison if that makes it clearer (he apparently hated the movie tho)
Ok but, is it possible to even hypothesize a universe in which Ellision doesn't hate the movie made from a screenplay he wrote? Because I feel like that's inevitable.
posted by Horkus at 1:59 PM on February 24, 2020


He's not wrong.

No but the heart-wringing about this time being 'the high-water mark' is so silly, and they left out like a half-dozen toy products/kids shows that have debuted since then. BTW, the Cat in the Hat is way more disturbing than the Cats cats, and what about The Grinch? More disturbing than any dubbed real animal.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:04 PM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]


Not even a heavy dose of MST3K/RiffTrax snark could save "A Talking Cat?!"

I look forward (with trepidation) their handling of "Cats".

Congratulations to Sonic the Hedgehog on NOT making this list.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:04 PM on February 24, 2020


The key thing missing from the article's title is the word "unintentionally", otherwise all ten entries would be from 1950's Animal Farm cartoon.
posted by Eleven at 2:29 PM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]


Ah, Paw Patrol. My little girl is seriously into it. And so I know a lot more about Paw Patrol than I really want to.

I eagerly await the episode titled, "Pups Go Galt," in which Ryder and the Paw Patrol finally get fed up with the fact that not a soul in Adventure Bay can so much as make a fucking ham sandwich without it going disastrously wrong and forcing them to mount some grandiose rescue. In my headcanon, one day Ryder just says fuck it and tosses his emergency phone over his shoulder as it frantically beeps at him. He and the pups fly away in the Paw Patroller. As they're climbing out, they can see pillars of smoke rising from the shattered ruin of Adventure Bay as the melon judging contest goes off the rails (real episode!) and - without them around to fix everything - turns into a bloodbath.

I mean normally I'm the last person to support this sort of pathetic Randian fantasy. But god damn, people of Adventure Bay! You test a man. You test him.
posted by Naberius at 2:44 PM on February 24, 2020 [6 favorites]


Nothing there is remotely as disturbing as Hartley Hare
posted by pipeski at 2:45 PM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]


John Candy was the voice of the horse in 'Hot to Trot'?!?

Everything is right about that movie! WHY IS IT ON THAT LIST?!!
posted by mazola at 3:39 PM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]


> Yes! Though Black Phillip is disturbing on a level that the author of this piece doesn't even approach.

black phillip isn’t disturbing. he’s the only male character in that movie who has any sense about how to go about living. i felt such an intense sense of relief when he was like “your dumb family is dumb you should wear a pretty dress taste some honey travel the world btw i talk now” and she was like “wait yeah all those things sound better than living with my crapsack family sign me up mr devil goat!”
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 4:22 PM on February 24, 2020 [8 favorites]


The key thing missing from the article's title is the word "unintentionally", otherwise all ten entries would be from 1950's Animal Farm cartoon.

I think my favorite part is where all the animals sing “Beasts of England”, except they’re all making animal noises instead of singing.

How many people were involved in the making of that cartoon, and yet nobody stopped that from happening?
posted by panama joe at 10:31 PM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]


And for better or worse, that explains a lot.

On the whole, not so much for the better.
posted by y2karl at 9:50 PM on February 25, 2020


Speaking of talking animals in movies... how about the use of roaring sharks for the last 45 years?

Jaws (1975), at 2.55. Director Steven Spielberg got this ball rolling by reusing a sound effect from a previous movie --
He also revealed in 'The Making of Jaws' documentary on the 2012 DVD release that he directly referenced Duel by repurposing the sound of the truck in Duel being destroyed as the death roar of the shark.

Jaws 2 (1978), at 0.30.
Jaws 3-D (1983), at 0.47.
Jaws: The Revenge (1987), starting at 0.03. Co-star Michael Caine is quoted as saying: "I have never seen it (the film), but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific!"

If you've seen any of the killer shark films, from semi-serious to totally bonkers, you know that it's a better than zero chance that somewhere a shark is roaring.
posted by TrishaU at 11:29 PM on February 25, 2020 [1 favorite]


For some reason, Trots and Bonnie comes to mind.
posted by y2karl at 7:36 AM on March 4, 2020


« Older Extraordinary chessboard or Kickstarter scam   |   These scorpions, while not live, are definitely... Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments