Top 10 Movie Hotels We Would Never Stay In

Hotels are brilliant, aren’t they? I, personally, am a huge fan. When I was six my mum burnt down our house and our whole family got to stay in one for like, a month. Can you imagine how cool that was? I used to go swimming every morning before school and then laud my chlorine smelling hair over those loser kids who didn’t live in a hotel all day.

Yes, hotels are great. So when the New York Chelsea was bought by a property developer for $80 million who in then turned it over to an architect best known for creating Holiday Inns, pop culture as we know it took a jab to the nose. Because it isn’t just a hotel, it is the hotel. Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road there, but even he was late to the party: Mark Twain, Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill also wrote their opuses within its walls. Dylan Thomas drank himself to death there. Sid Vicious stabbed Nancy Spungen to death in room 100. Ahh, good times. Such good times in fact, that Leonard Cohen even wrote a song about Janis Joplin giving him oral sex in room 415.

For over a century, the New York Chelsea hosted the very best and the very worst of times, so it only feels right that we pay homage. The way BFF pays homage best, which is by making a big ruddy list.

# 10 – Lost In Translation

So let’s imagine for a second you’re Bill Murray. Not Caddyshack Bill Murray, more like Groundhog Day Bill Murray. Feels good, doesn’t it? So you’re in Japan, falling in love with children and feeling world-weary about it, until suddenly, a prostitute arrives at your door. You are confused. You didn’t order any prostitutes. It turns out that not only is this prostitute unannounced, but she is also a psycho, who wants you to rip her stockings. Why? Because she likes it? Because she wants to prove to her boss that the two of you got it on? We’re never quite sure.

Sorry, crazy Japanese Lost in Translation hotel. We’ll be taking our business elsewhere.

# 9 – Hotel Chevalier, a.k.a. that terrible short film at the start of The Darjeeling Limited

Resolutely Wes Anderson’s most flawed film, the Darjeeling Limited was kind of unlikeable for a lot of reasons. It had all the Anderson bits we normally like – that is, the existential crisis’ of privileged white people – but something about it was kind of hollow, and let’s face it, dull. Perhaps the most unforgivable thing about it was the short film that precluded it, the horrible Hotel Chevalier. Hotel Chevalier was the sixteen minutes that killed Wes Anderson for a lot of people. It focuses on a slimy, deeply unsexy Jason Schwartzman and a deeply annoying, slutty Natalie Portman. They gaze at eachother and have irritating dialogue like:
“How long are you going to stay?”
“How long are YOU going to stay?”
And then they have hideously unsexy sex.

Maybe this entry is cheating a little, in that there’s nothing wrong with the Hotel Chevalier itself. I genuinely think I would never stay here because those sour-faced trollops got their rocks off in it.

#8 – Maid in Manhattan

Don’t be fooled by the rocks that I got, I’m still … going to steal all your clothes and pretend to be you? Wait, what? NOT ON, J.LO. We do NOT steal Natasha Richardson’s things in order to sleep with a Ralph Fiennes. (As noble a cause as that is)

#7 – Borat

Ah, the hotel fight. The single scene in cinema that makes you want to go back in time and un-invent cinema. If you’re the one person in the world that doesn’t remember this, let me remind you: The naïve Borat’s finds his friend Azamat getting too friendly with a Baywatch annual he picked up at a jumble sale. All hell breaks loose as the two tear through their hotel in a very naked, very passionate fight to the death. Would you like your soup with a side of testes?

#6 – Barton Fink

Problems with the Hotel Earle in Barton Fink:

#5 – True Romance

If you’ve never seen True Romance, I’m going to need you to go over to the BFF store, pick up a copy for three quid, and wait for it to be delivered to your house. Then I want you to watch it, and then come back and finish reading this list. Have you done it yet? Good. Great.

True Romance is the best film ever made, and I will fight anyone to the death who disputes this. However, that doesn’t mean I’d like to stay in the hotel in its penultimate scene. The Mob are there, the police are there, the DS are there, and I’m pretty sure some miscellaneous characters make their way in, too. SPOLIER ALERT: Massive shootout, everybody dies.

#4 – Vacancy

You’re a young couple. You’re driving in a remote area at night. Your car breaks down. For the love of God and all that is holy, please do not leave your car. Do not seek help. Do not mention that there’s a ‘place just up ahead’ that takes in weary travelers. Die of exposure in your car first, because in all likelihood, the people who run the motel ‘just up ahead’ are going to be snuff movie makers looking to find their next star.

#3 – The Shining

You’d be forgiven for forgetting that The Shining takes place in a hotel (built on an ancient Indian burial ground, mind) because Jack Nicholson absolutely WRECKS the gaff with a giant axe.

#2 – Hostel

I think this goes without saying, but if some offers you a stint in an “undocumented” hostel in Eastern Europe, you should probably just say no. If you like your eyeballs and toes where they are, that is.

#1 – Hotel Rwanda

Because, well… obviously.

I mean would you LOOK at that wicker porch furniture? So tacky.

Anything to add? Or just feel like a rant about hotels/the Chelsea Hotel in general? Drop us a line, we’ll leave a mint on your pillow and everything.

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