Hotel

The sniggering from the video store staff should have alerted my attention to the poor choice I had made in deciding to rent "Hotel." Is it really the worst film I've ever seen? Without doubt... and I say this having watched "Bogus Witch Project" (now relegated to the number 2 spot in the all time worst films). Sometimes films are so bad, they're good. This however is so bad it's dug deep, used some industrial mining equipment and broken through to a whole new kind of Hell that no-one knew existed. Truly awful. Everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves. Let us never speak of it again.

I've stayed in many hotels. The movie Hotel reminds me of the worst hotels. Someone suggested film students should see this film. And yes, they should. So they know what it takes to make a boring film. I think the majority of movie watchers like a film they can follow, even if it is a bit confusing. But Hotel goes way beyond confusing. There was some interesting film work but most of the story was void of meaning on first watch. And there was such a void of story that I would not watch it again. Too boring in so many ways to make me want to watch it again to figure out the meanings. On the DVD container it says Roger Ebert called it "Bold, funny, delightful!". I think he meant boldly boring, funny for one scene, and delightful to eject from the DVD player. But then again, I think we all know Ebert is a little unreliable with his thumb up.

Just finished *trying* to make sense of the DVD, and then watching the making of documentary in the special features, and at the moment what stands out most in my mind is that they show a cast meeting where Burt Reynolds fairly pointedly says to Mike Figgis "Well I got here yesterday and I've spent quite a bit of time looking at what's been shot so far and I can't tell who the characters are what their names are and what the relationships between them are so I want to know do you expect us actors to work that out between us? I'm just saying this because I've already got the job, or I don't, whatever." (this is not exactly what he said btw just paraphrasing the gist of it from memory).

Mike Figgis reply to him is basically "don't worry about it that will all come out in the editing".

Honestly I'm not a Burt Reynolds fan - something about his manner comes off as arrogant to me - but after trying to watch this confusing movie I sure wish Mike Figgis had paid more attention to what Burt was trying to tell him!! The only scene that worked well for me in the whole movie was the scene of the Flamenco dancer. Which I think is telling because it's the closest thing to a music video in the movie - i.e. the 4 screen technique I don't think works well for trying to tell a story. But for something like the flamenco dancer it's interesting visually to have closeups of her feet and her pretty face, etc. all juxtaposed on the screen at the same time. To overwhelm the viewer with the flash and fury of all this motion and music at the same time. But when trying to tell a story it's just frustrating really, as a viewer you don't know where to look and if you're missing something important.

I *love* Leaving Las Vegas obviously Mike Figis has incredible gifts as a film maker. But for me this movie was pretty much an experiment that failed.

Everything you have heard about this film is true. It is horrible, it is an experiment that went terribly bad. I think Mike Figgis has perhaps lost his mind. What motivataed him to put such CRAP on film. Seriously, and to pay some actors who are not too bad in their own right, to play in it. The screenplay is irrelevant, because the horrible amateur hand-held cameras similar to blair-witch but even more annoying, and the horrible editing already make the film fall under a 5/10, then on top of that, the wasting of actors, the horrible dialogues, annoyingly boring script, and nonexistent directional voice just cause me to give perhaps the worst review i have ever gave of a film. I mean hated crap like Bad Company, when a stranger calls, etc.. but this is far outclasses those films in regards to how extremely bad it is...--- IMDb Rating: 4.5, my rating: 3/10

There have been a few times when I've watched a bad film and said the words, "Oh, God, that was the worst film I've ever seen", but I knew I never really meant it, I couldn't possibly make a serious judgement like that. Until now. This film remains the worst film I have ever seen. Even now, years later, when I watch some load of crap and say that it's the worst, this one comes back to me and I always have to add, oh no, apart from "Hotel", now that really was THE worst. It is pretentious. It is boring. God knows how they managed to get good actors to lower themselves to this wanky rubbish. You cringe and you squirm, just at the thought of how painful it must have been for all involved to have rammed their heads that far up their own arses. I watched this film ages ago, but I have come here, years later, and I still have the urge to shake my head at people over the internet, and say, no. No, don't do it. Don't watch it. There is absolutely no worth in it at all. Nothing.