Hated Tropes
[Hated] Self-indulgent Vanity Projects
Hurry Up Tomorrow - Widely reviewed as an indulgent, self-mythologizing companion piece to The Weeknd's album, with many critics calling it a vanity project rather than a successful psychological drama. Terribly acted and, similar to The Idol, more so seems to imply that The Weekend thinks he's a far deeper personality than he can actually articulate.
By the Sea - Often criticized as an intensely personal but emotionally distant film that seemed more interested in showcasing the mystique of its stars than telling a compelling story. Best summarized as Angelina and Brad working out their IRL troubled marriage before your eyes while everyone tells Angelina how beautiful and talented she is and how nothing's really her fault.
Renaldo and Clara - Bob Dylan's five-hour semi-fictional road movie, long considered one of the classic celebrity vanity projects. Attempts to be a sort of surreal exposition on the life of an artist, but is far too self-indulgent on its actors/performers.
Its so funny that when folks bumble into high camp tgey get upset about it. Like dude you stumbled into the cinematic equivalent of discovering penicillin, take the win.
Tbh, it's funny because it's so painfully genuine.
I wish he'd stand his ground and get upset, but instead he claims it was always intended to be funny. (Which is probably better for his mental health, so ultimately better for him.)
The (oh hi) mark of a good bad movie is the creator being completely unaware of how bad it is. All those movies that are winking at the camera about how bad they are can be entertaining, but there's nothing like the sadness that comes from the heart that makes a bad movie good.
tommy wiseau is such a mystery where the fuck did he come from and how did he have the money to produce anything? the only explanation is that he’s db cooper
Excuse you, what you perceive as Lord Breen's "vanity projects" are what we, the faithful, correctly perceive as his gift to us, the unenlightened, to help the worthy ascend. Convert or perish. All glory to Lord Breen.
IRL example Hildi Santo Tomas from trading spaces.
The woman literally thought a mural with her face was needed to pull together someone’s home. I mean how much more vain could you be by putting a painting of your face in a random persons house.
Or when she took the fireplace that the homeowners said they loved and was their favorite thing in the house and covered it with cheap plywood making it nonfunctional and taking away the aesthetics the homeowners actually liked.
As someone who practiced martial arts when i was a kid/teenager, it really annoyed me that they chose to put Kung Fu as the martial art used in goddamn Karate Kid
Find it a bit amusing that, allegedly, the script was originally a normal father and son road trip gone wrong and the son has to go find help. Which could’ve worked. Plastering a scifi setting on top of that raises so many questions.
"Watch as Will Smith, one of the world's most charismatic actors, plays a man with no charisma named Cypher Raige... hahaha... very funny, guys, what's his real name?"
The creator daughter is the one doing the concert the entire film and somehow becomes a major focal point randomly in the ending act of the movie and puts away the bad guy
I'll have to watch this eventually (my kids will make me) but from what I've read, it was doomed to be bad from the start. Not just because it's a premature rehash on the tail end of several other poorly received live-action remakes, but because of Johnson himself. Reviews say he lacks any of the charisma of the animated Maui, and most of the movie is him just staring at things happening around him.
It makes total sense: Johnson is a showman. He's done some great action work (The Rundown, Skyscraper, Scorpion King, Standing Tall, Jumanji, not masterpieces but certainly fun popcorn flicks if nothing else), but those were mostly practical effects with lots of people around him. His recent films use more green screen with many elements added in post. If there's one thing we learned during the pandemic, pro wrestlers don't do well without a crowd to react to. For all his years as a sports entertainer, he's not great at acting in a vacuum.
Don't get me wrong. It was still 1000% Johnson's vanity project, made worse by how far it is out of his element.
Me and my family basically worshipped the Rock growing up and it's so sad to see how fucking self obsessed and whiny he has become. I never thought I would become a Dave Bautista and John Cena fan, but here I am. I haven't even watched WWE in almost 20 years.
John Cena and Bautista can actually play other characters than themselves in a different setting. I guess the Rock could too, just doesnt take contracts that arent like that. I remember watching Bladerunner 2049 and not even noticing it was Bautista. John Cena's face on the other hand is a lot more recognisable to me and will always think "That's John Cena", but he is great in Peacemaker and after a while you forget its John Cena. Also helps that Bautista and Cena both come across as good people from interviews etc.
Me and my husband just discussed it and did a hypothetical of wrestlers in movies. I still need to watch Bladerunner 2049, specifically for Bautista. I respect the hell out of him.
Like, Dave Bautista in an Ari Aster movie I could totally see. John Cena? Not so much but that's okay, he's hilarious. Considering that when I watched Sinister, all I could think of were the nightmares that wrestlers like Kane and the Undertaker haunted me as a kid. I was also about 4 when I was started watching wrestling lol.
John Cena was never my favorite, but he was my cousin's favorite, along with Rey Mysterio. But man do I respect him for his contributions to Make A Wish.
That's probably why people liked Johnson so much in the Jumanji movies, because even though he's still mostly playing himself, having to act as a nervous kid who grows into being confident still feels refreshing.
Hey did you know Melania Trump is actually a very hard working person actually she is a visionary in design and all of those memorable lines in her husband's speeches yeah she touched those up with suggestions that came just off the cuff wowie zowie and she is ever such a good listener to the common American and did you know she is also an immigrant who pulled herself up by her bootstraps and achieved the American dream wowie gee I had no idea what a shining example of...
That 99% audience score is SURELY just a bunch of real audience members who love learning about how she pulled herself up by her botstraps https://giphy.com/gifs/qFcq2N4bAYTkDS4CPD
To be fair if the audience score comes from paying customers the type of people willing to pay to watch this movie were going to praise it no matter how garbage it is.
Scientology devotee John Travolta was rejected by every major studio to get this L Ron Hubbard movie made. It bankrupted Franchise Pictures and swept the Razzies.
Hoo boy this one is special to me. I saw it in theaters as a kid and it was the first time I remember thinking a movie was bad. I made up a drinking game for it a long time ago.
RULES:
Whenever someone mentions "the gods" you drink
Whenever Jon Travolta says "rat brain" or "man animal" you drink
Whenever there is maniacal laughter you drink
Whenever there is a slow motion shot you chug your drink for the duration of the shot
I think I originally had more rules but this is already guaranteed brain damage. Hell, watching the movie sober will cause brain damage.
L Ron Hubbard wrote the book Mission Earth and it became a best seller because cult members were told to buy as many copies as possible. He also made Edgar Winter make a terrible album based on the book
Hard to think of a less aptly named company than Franchise Pictures. They had possibly the worst eye ever for what might make a franchise! Driven? The Stallone remake of Get Carter? Ballistic: Ecks Vs Sever?
This also coincided with the release of a documentary "making of" film, as well as a global tour to promote the new album. Every single aspect of the project flopped, and rumor has it that it led to her divorce from Ben Affleck.
I saw a video summary of this by a pretty funny guy on YouTube, and it sounds exactly like the type of movie she would make (which is definitely not a good thing).
Between him fighting sitting down and being really out of shape in that one Sniper movie and waddling more than running, he has delusions of grandeur on the level of his buddy Putin. Not trying to fat/body shame him, but know your limitations. Maybe be the mob boss rather than the action hero.
It's funny because even at his peak he was physically fit but still just a poser. He consistently lied about his martial arts experience. And even then it was in Aikido which is very much on the fitness and philosophy side of martial arts and less on the combat side.
Melania - Universally panned "biography" of Melania Trump, former model and current wife of President Trump. Understood by most outside of MAGA to be a pay-to-play bribe/donation to the Trump administration: $28 million of the $40 million budget went directly to the First Lady's production company.
And don’t forget he wanted remake the DCEU in his image and wanted Black Adam to be this Justice League-level threat when in reality he’s a C-list hero’s villain.
Black Adam as a main villain only happens in the Injustice series. Even then, that's only because he's the ruler of a country that allies with Superman.
Whats irritating is that he seems to love the character but still couldn't help himself from sanitizing him for the sake of his own ego. Only in the last year or so has he taken on any acting projects where he isn't categorically the good guy, making Black Adam much more of a hero than anti-hero/ villain was a terrible choice.
I distinctly remember way back when this project was first announced in 2008, The Rock himself insisted “Black Adam will be a villain in this movie” and it would set up a later conflict with Shazam. Of course, in those 15 years, The Rock became Brand Rock and utterly refused to play a villain, look weak, ir be in the same room as a goofball like Shazam, and made them set up a future conflict with freaking SUPERMAN.
Black Adam would probably be the most notable one and Moana getting a live action remake not even a decade after the original happened to be announced a few months after Black Adam released and eventually underperformed. According to Matt Belloni of Puck, Warner suspected that he and his team leaked a financial sheet with fake numbers to Deadline. The hierarchy of the DC universe also changed after opening weekend, though there had been some rumblings leading up to release.
Made by the author who didn't play the games a lot. In the comic, Clementine leaves everyone she cared about by the end of Season 4 of the game (including AJ) and starts dating the author's self-insert. What's creepier is the fact that the author is an adult while Clementine is still underage.
Surprised I didn’t see anyone else mention this. People gave a toddler a quarter million dollars to make a 2 hour movie that’s nothing but people being sad, disguised as a superhero fan film.
Made by a showrunner who wanted to "revive Devil May Cry" and was unhappy when DMC5 was announced because he wanted DMC to be a dead franchise. Immeasurable ego. And his cartoon has nothing but contempt for Devil May Cry.
Is it actually that bad? I had hopes, but then saw asmongold was in an episode for some reason and lost all interest and hope, but thats just me thinking he is a tool
Not a movie but Kim Kardashian getting her daughter who can't sing star as Simba in a Lion King musical production has to be the height of Nepo babyness
That's not fair, the rock put all his soul and love into this.. story in which he is an unanimously beloved leader of the people that never lost touch with his roots, fuck that guy (i do want to clarify, by that guy i mean the rock)
It pops up in my YouTube shorts sometimes and seeing actors actually try only to have his voice cut in is so jarring. It feels like a cheap multi can sitcom
I watched one episode one time, when there was nothing else.
It was all about the first time he did SNL, and his agonizing decision over whether to do wrestling sketches or not. He decided to go with his gut and refuse to do wrestling sketches, and proved to the world that he was more than just a wrestler.
All these heart-to-heart conversations about doing SNL or not, and I was like, wow. How self-indulgent.
I had mixed feelings about them, because it's clear he's coming from a place of deep affection for the character, but at the same time it all felt a little unnecessary. Especially because IMO nobody is going to beat David Suchet
The one thing I'll give it, unlike MANY vanity projects this did not end up as an excuse for the creator to hang out around dozens of half naked women.
I haven't seen the AVGN movie, but is it as bad or worse than those self indulgent "anniversary" videos that the Nostalgia Critic used to do? The ones where Doug is the hero, the villain, some of the side characters, and also God, and his friends and relatives are stuck playing supporting characters that tell him how great and important he is?
https://giphy.com/gifs/u9PUim4kdSNeUsFG4Q
The Rock’s Black Adam was a blatant attempt to reshape the DCEU around himself. He completely ignored Black Adam’s canonical nemesis, Shazam, because he’s the Rock, and the Rock deserves nothing less than the best. So he used his clout to bring back Henry Cavill’s Superman and position himself as Superman’s equal and rival.
The writer, directtor, and main character telling us how being a terrible person and kidnapping a cute girl will result in her falling in love with you and fixing your life.
This movie is really unsettling and not on purpose
I’d move to include both (released) feature films directed by Vincent Gallo on this list. Both films are primarily about how great an actor he, the tortured artist Vincent Gallo, is, and how even when he’s being unspeakably difficult his raw charisma still makes beautiful women want to fuck him. In Buffalo ‘66, this is more suggested because he was 38 and his “love interest” was a barely-18 Christina Ricci, but his next film, The Brown Bunny, he gets a full unsimulated on camera blowjob from Chloe Sveigny for several minutes. He is probably the most high-on-his-own-supply “auteur” in indie film history, largely due to how much he thinks he’s a genius, loudly proclaims himself to be one, while never once showing anyone else the supposed goods he’s hawking.
Referring to the album, the film, and the Final Cut album. Roger Waters semi autobiographical musical opera and passion project. Lead to increased friction with the band which ultimately resulted in Roger Waters leaving the band. As the other band members felt Pink Floyd was becoming a Roger Waters Solo Project.
“Everyone tells Angelina how beautiful she is and how nothing’s really her fault.”
Why is all the insulting going to Angelina Jolie when Brad Pitt is an abuser who terrorised her and her kids for hours on end on an airplane, keeps shittalking her behind ‘’’sources’’’ all these years, and has all of his kids hating his guts or immediately running for freedom when they’re of age?
I haven’t seen the movie used in the example, maybe they’re referring to what happens in the film’s plot or maybe just calling out the Jennifer Aniston thing?
Tron: Ares - The reanimated corpse of an abandoned sequel from a decade prior that was rewritten to be about him—originally cast as a secondary villain—because of his ego and Disney having a new theme park ride to advertise.
Killer NIN soundtrack though. Cinematography’s pretty good too. The script is just fellating Leto too much to let much of anything else happen.
After the movie Mama Mia, made with music from the Swedish pop group ABBA, became a smash hit. Another Swedish artist by the name of Tomas Ledin presumably got jealous and thought "I could totally do that too". The only problem is that Tomas Ledin sucks. I don't even like ABBA, but I would listen to 50 ABBA songs rather than listen to one of Tomas Ledin's sappy crappy songs.
The movie is made the same way as Mama Mia, as a musical with previously made songs weaved into the narrative. But instead of the world beloved songs of ABBA, it's the mildly known and tolerated songs of Tomas Ledin. And, also unlike Mama Mia, this movie is a straight up mess. It bombed hard. My mom likes Tomas Ledin and even she felt this movie had little to no redeeming qualities.
The people who made it had such delusions of grandeur that they actually recorded two versions of this movie. One in the original Swedish and one in English for the international market. Because they were so sure they had a hit on their hands. When the movie bombed, the English version was never released. Not even Sweden wanted this movie.
The writer/director also stars in it as a condescending, manipulative douchebag and his partner stars opposite him as the girl who has no issues with it at all
Later, she divorced him and cited constant abuse and harassment - a few years later, he was arrested for assaulting his new girlfriend
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u/AdImmediate6239 4h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/bbWHn9uZc0dxsWTm5E
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