extremely crap movies x 2

this week I had the misfortune to hone in, sort of spookily, on two maxtremely (thanks to TBL for that excellent bogue word) bad flicks. first was "the other man". on the face of it you might understand why I snaffled it. liam neeson, laura linney, and that barthelonian midget, antonio banderath, as - you guessed it - The Other Man. made by the dude who did "notes on a scandel", an excellent film. so, looks good right? wrong. started beautifully, middle-aged attractive wifey dreamily smiling at the object of her clear affection, in a boat, on lake como. we don't see who she's in love with, thus setting up the Big Twist. hubby, liam neeson in all his gruff and blokey irish bigness, is a sort of confused labrador puppy for the most part, with an edge of nutty. anyhoo, wife disappears (to the viewer), and husbot finds, on rifling through her belongings in search of answers, smoochy pics and emails from mystery man. heads off to italy, where emails originate. lots of nutty angst, meets The Other Man, befriends him purely to wreak revenge, then can't. all the while wifey nowhere to be seen, no explanation. turns out she's dead (gee, what a surprise), and all this Other Man hunting is posthumous. wifey had had the fling with antonionio 12 years previously. Twist is that while wifey is dying (from cancer - how cheery), husbot asks her to write down where in her life she was most happy. she writes "lake como", but he doesn't find the piece of paper til after she dies. she never went to lake como with husbot - it was The Other Man in the boat - which is revealed during credits. noice! anyway, godawful and depressing story, bad acting from antonionio, liam, and some other personnel. The other crap flick was so bad I actually enjoyed it! "The Long Weekend". containing claudia karavan and jim caviezel. australian made, set on wilsons prom of all places. normally I avoid oz movies like the plague, as some of you know, but this intrigued me on account of jim caviezel, who's astonishing performance as the messianic figure in "the thin red line" has never left my saggy memory banks. "he wouldn't do a crap oz film" I told myself. oh yes ... he would. warring couple leave vast mansion for weekend camping on the prom with friends at a 'secret surfing location'. now don't get me wrong, I'm all for low budget independents, but this took crapness to such a stinking low that I half believed it was a comedic gesture on the part of the man responsible (who produced, directed, edited AND wrote the score ... for our sins). the most dire of the lot was claudia karavan. underacting one minute, then shockingly overacting in the very next line. poor old jim, who actually performed in a polished and consistent way, was rendered cartoonishly colourful by his deadly colleague. anyway, enough of the technical, down to the story. couple gets lost on way to beach, can't find friends, end up at some place that may or may not be the right one. both hideous peeps, destructive, annoying, yada yada. mother nature takes revenge via wailing babies in the night (!?!) and other real or imagined horrors. both end up dead, one at the hands of the other, the other at the bullbar of a truck. really, it was so very very VERY bad that I watched agog for it's entirety, then watched all the extras in a quest to learn more about it's awfulness :D