Mac and Me (1988) and Some Movies I Have Yet To Cover

When I plan for the schedule of the Sunday “Bad” Movies, I try to hit the quarter marks with some fairly big bad movies.  For week twenty-five, the first of what I call the quarterlies, I chose The Room.  When I was making the schedule for the fiftieth week, I thought that Baby Geniuses would be a good choice.  Week seventy-five saw Howard the Duck join the ranks of the Sunday “Bad” Movies, and week one hundred brought in the Birdemic movies.  To keep the streak of more notorious bad movies being featured in the quarter weeks, I scheduled Mac and Me for this week’s post.

Mac and Me is a 1988 movie that has a very familiar sounding story.  A group of aliens ends up on Earth.  One of the aliens becomes separated from the rest and finds its way into a California home.  The family living there (without a father, mind you) befriends the alien while the government tries to capture it.  Oh, and the alien learns that Coca-Cola is a great beverage, among much product placement.  If it sounds familiar but you can’t place it, let me tell you what you might be thinking of.  Six years earlier, in 1982, Steven Spielberg had directed a movie called E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial that was very, very similar.  Everything I described about the 1988 movie could also be the description of the 1982 movie.

There are a few things about Mac and Me that have caused people to hold it so highly among the best bad movies.  The first is that blatant rip-off of a story.  It’s just so darned obvious.  Secondly, there is a giant dance sequence set in a McDonalds where Ronald McDonald participates.  It’s the most aggressive McDonalds product placement I’ve seen since a commercial for McDonalds.  Third, Paul Rudd has a running joke that whenever he is on any of Conan O’Brien’s talk shows, he will set up a clip for his new movie and play a clip from Mac and Me instead.  It is always the same clip of the main character Eric (Jade Calegory) rolling down a hill and off a cliff.  That prank has been played for over a decade.  It was the introduction for many people to the movie and has kept it in people’s minds.

Although I have included some of the bigger bad movies in the Sunday “Bad” Movies, including the not yet mentioned Glitter, Miami Connection, Starcrash, Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor, Gymkata, Anaconda, Winter’s Tale, Riki-Oh, Bio-Dome, and The Toxic Avenger, there are still many bad movies that haven’t been featured.  There are many movies I haven’t watched for the blog yet that people regard as the worst or the best worst movies to ever be released.  I want to highlight a few of them right now.  Some I have seen before, but not for the blog.  Others I have never seen before.  So, why don’t I get down to it with a movie that has been labeled as the best worst movie by many people.

Troll 2

I first watched Troll 2 about five years ago.  I had heard about it being a bad movie I should watch from various sources.  Mostly it was through podcasts, I think.  Best Worst Movie, a documentary about it, had recently been released, and had caused people to talk about the movie.  I’m not sure why I haven’t featured it in the Sunday “Bad” Movies yet.  I don’t have it scheduled for the next 25 weeks, either.  It just hasn’t made it into the lineup.  I’ve seen it twice, and I’m open to seeing it again.  I simply haven’t gotten around to scheduling it.

Plan 9 From Outer Space

I actually haven’t had any Ed Wood movies featured in the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  I attempted to watch Plan 9 once.  I got about five minutes in then turned on something else.  It’s one of the few times I’ve started a movie and never finished it.  Like all of the movies that I’m going to mention, this one is regarded as one of the worst ever.  But it is also regarded as one of the worst Ed Wood movies, which is saying a lot since all of his movies are known to be bad.  I’ve been afraid to toss this into the lineup.  I want to.  I’m just afraid to watch the movie.

Manos: The Hands of Fate

This movie was featured in an episode of How I Met Your Mother during an argument over what movie is the worst movie ever made.  Other people have also made the claim that it is one of the worst movies ever.  I have no idea what it is, or what it is about.  All I know is that I will eventually need to cover it.  If it has the reputation of being the worst, it should be a Sunday “Bad” Movie, don’t you think?

Silent Night Deadly Night 2

This one is an odd one.  I don’t know how good or bad the first Silent Night Deadly Night movie is.  I would like to have them in a double feature, though.  So once I actually take the time to research the first one a little bit, I might toss them into the schedule.  Or just this one.  All I know is that I’ll be excited to experience Garbage Day.

Gigli

To be completely honest with you, I will probably schedule this one for around the time that Batman v. Superman gets released.  Either this or Daredevil, but I think Daredevil is a passable movie and not really all that bad. So Gigli it is.  Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, Al Pacino.  It’s supposed to be really, really bad.  I’ve never seen it.  I never scheduled it thus far.  And I know it is one of the missing components of the Sunday “Bad” Movies.

Battlefield Earth

This movie is birthed from a book by the man behind Scientology.  It is the movie that took away the good will that John Travolta had built since Pulp Fiction and almost killed the careers of the people involved.  The director hasn’t made anything that people actually know since.  And it has stood the test of time as a classic bad movie.  I saw it once, though I don’t remember much about it.  I remember a lot of Dutch angles.  And I remember Barry Pepper.  That’s about it, though.  Rewatching it would be interesting.

The Hottie and the Nottie

I’ve seen Paris Hilton in a bunch of stuff.  The only two things in which I thought she was even okay were Supernatural and Repo! The Genetic Opera.  So, it should come as no surprise that I am not really interested in seeing a movie she stars in.  I will have to at some point, but so far I haven’t been able to bring myself to scheduling any of her movies.  There are a couple of reasons that I’m singling this one out.  The name itself is grating.  I like rhymes, I really do.  These two words in the rhyme are terrible though.  Then there’s the fact that it is so bad to be current number 6 worst movie on IMDb.  I’m just super afraid of this one.

Disaster Movie

I can only handle so many bad spoofs at a time.  Most recent spoofs are garbage, as Disaster Movie is.  It is more about referencing recent pop culture than actually making jokes.  This does not make something funny to me.  The way that spoofs have recently gone only gets more grating when you try and figure out why they are shoving the jokes in there.  Disaster Movie was the last of the terrible ones that people actually watched.  I’ve seen installments after it (the even worse The Starving Games), but Disaster Movie is the one that I think most needs to be included out of the sheer stupidity of the story.

From Justin to Kelly

This movie is a result of the first season of American Idol.  The winner and runner up starring in a musical.  Seems perfect, right?  I don’t think anybody liked it.  I haven’t seen it and would love to, but I need the right time for it.  That’s all I’m waiting on.

Showgirls

The simple and short reason why I haven’t yet seen this movie for the Sunday “Bad” Movies and why it has yet to be scheduled is because I keep forgetting about it when I am compiling the schedules.  I like to think of the good Paul Verhoeven.  I love Starship Troopers.  I like RoboCop and Total Recall.  Why would I want to think of his lesser work?

That’s ten movies that I have yet to include in the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  Each of those are movies that I feel I will cover at some point in the future.  I have a lot of movies to watch for the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  I’ve seen a lot of movies, and I’ve gotten to some of the big, popular bad movies.  This week I knocked Mac and Me off the list of movies I still needed to include.

In the next 25 weeks of the Sunday “Bad” Movies, I will check a few more of the popular bad movies off of my list, among the lesser known or celebrated bad movies that I watch.  I’ve got Batman and Robin coming up, as well as Foodfight! and Up the Academy.  After that, who knows?  I could (but probably won’t) stack the following quarter with a lot of popular bad films.  I only know one film that will be after the 150 week mark, and that’s because I wanted to remember to schedule that one for that time.

So that’s it for this post.  Ten movies that I should schedule sometime in the future if I truly want to represent bad movies with this blog.  As well as a little bit of Mac and Me talk.  And with that, I run back to the shadows to watch the next Sunday “Bad” Movie.

Before I hide in the shadows, I have a few notes to share with you guys:

• I mentioned a lot of movies I’ve covered in this post.  The Room, Baby Geniuses, Howard the Duck, Birdemic, Glitter, Miami Connection, Starcrash, Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor, Gymkata, Anaconda, Winter’s Tale, Riki-Oh, Bio-Dome, and The Toxic Avenger.
• Only one actor in Mac and Me was featured in a previous Sunday “Bad” Movie.  Jack Ong was in Leprechaun in the Hood.
• Have you seen Mac and Me or any of the other movies I wrote about in this week’s post? What are your thoughts on them?  Use the comments section below.
• If you have a movie you would like to suggest for a future Sunday “Bad” Movie week, you can put that in the comments too.  Or you can email me at sundaybadmovies@gmail.com or find me on Twitter.
• There is a second post this week.  It's a week 125 recap, covering mostly the week 100-125 stuff because I like to do recaps every 25 posts.
• Next week’s movie will be Top Dog, starring Chuck Norris and a dog.  For some reason, I remember this being a favourite of mine as a child but I remember almost nothing about it.  Maybe I just liked dog movies.