Sooner or later, the subject always turns to bad movies, doesn’t it? Well, movie badness is something Americans care deeply about. I’ll just point you to my personal list of bad movies, which thanks in no small part to my subsequent parenthood hasn’t changed much, though you might be able to talk me into adding the Send In The Clones episode of Star Wars, which to my mind made The Phantom Menace look like The Empire Strikes Back.
I will say this: If you don’t have a ready list of ten or so bad movies you’ve sat through and lived to tell about, you haven’t seen enough movies in your life. So leave your regrettable choices in the comments, and we’ll all have a good cringe together.
Think you need to lay out a few ground rules Kuff
1. Has to be a movie that you’ve actually SEEN. No throwing up “Battlefield Earth” or “Gigli” or other movies so bad that no one actually ever watched them.
2. Has to be a big budget or star-vehicle movie that had pretenses towards greatness or at least success. No obscure 1970s Mystery Science Theater B-movie fare.
3. No “so bad it’s good” movies that have generated cult followings for being bad. Like Showgirls or the original so bad its good move…the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Under those criteria, I offer up the following movies:
Catwoman: Yikes, they managed to make Halle Berry unsexy
Waterworld: Enough said.
Batman and Robin
Speed 2: Cruise Control (a speed movie about a lumbering cruiseship?)
Ishtar: I actually saw it in the theater on opening weekend on a date. I remember how bad the movie was but can’t remember the date. What’s the point of casting a young Isabelle Adjani if you’re going to wrap her in a burka the whole movie?
I’m sure I’ll think up a whole bunch more as soon as I hit post, but this will get the ball rolling.
Yeah, Star Wars episodes 1-3 were pretty awful, especially 3.
Not all bad movies are genre, of course. I hated the portion of The Gods Must Be Crazy that I saw, and don’t understand what anyone thinks is funny about it. Another popular one I hated was Gosford Park which I thought was endless. I suppose everyone has at least one Robert Altman film they can’t stand, and that one is mine.
Howard The Duck
The Rocketeer
Dick Tracy
No Country For Old Men
Ahh come on Justin, where’s your appreciation of cheesy fun (the first three)? Or of inhuman malevolence (No Country)?