Thanks to an earlier double-dog dare on my part, Pete has not only graced us (if that’s the right word) with his ten worst films list, he even went so far as to detail his methodology for choosing said films. I can’t hope to compete with a master of disaster like His Cromulency, but I can certainly slap together my own list. Here they are, in no particular order:
- Wing Commander: I went to see this film for the sole purpose of seeing the “Phantom Menace” trailer. Had I left immediately afterwards, I’d have gotten no less value for my admission dollar. Rule #1: Movies based on video games you’ve never heard of suck.
- Lost in Space: The only moment of genuine emotion I felt during this craptacular was at the end when the filmmakers made it clear they’d planned for a sequel. The emotion in question was nausea.
- Godzilla: Do I really need to dissect this one? When you find yourself asking how a creature that could hollow out the Chrysler Building could also fit into a subway tunnel, you realize just how far off the “willing suspension of disbelief” mark the directors are.
- Soul Man: As liberals go, I like to think I’m not that easily offended. Movies about C. Thomas Howell in blackface so he can get into Harvard are where I draw the line. Pete’s rules say that you have to sit through the whole movie in order to truly hate it, but if walking out on this piece of gristle is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
- Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold: I took a date to see this bomb. My only consolation was that she was the one who suggested it. No, there was no second date.
- The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik-Yak: It’s hard to hate a movie that features a higher breast count than any late night Skinamax offering, but this one should have come with bags for theatergoers to put over their heads as they exited.
- Jaws 3-D: There was an inexplicable flurry of 3-D movies in the early 80s. All of them sucked, but only this one featured exploding shark guts hurtling at your face. I’m reminded of something Roger Ebert said in his review: “Jaws had four interesting characters: Brody, Quint, Hooper, and the shark. Jaws II had Brody and the shark. This one just had the shark.”
- Angels and Insects: zzzzzz…I’m sorry, I must have nodded off. The films they show in defensive driving classes have more action and excitement than this snoozefest.
- The Allnighter: Before we had Britney Spears, we had the lead singer of the Bangles in this piece of 80s fluff. I’m pretty sure the only reason my roomie and I saw it was because of the poster that featured Susanna Hoffs in a bikini. Staring at the poster for two hours would have been a better use of our time. Even worse, that bikini was nowhere to be seen in the movie itself.
- The Black Hole: Disney’s first PG-rated movie. They’d have been better off betting the company on the “Herbie” franchise.
That’s my list. What’s yours?
UPDATE: See this later post for pointers to other lists.
george:
The movie was “Half-moon Street.” Not only did Sigourney bare her breasts, she did so while riding an excercise bike. Played it for laughs as some sort of fetish that Michael Caine has. It was about the least sexy thing I’ve ever seen an otherwise attractive movie actress do. You saved yourself some flashbacks, buddy. Feel good about fate.
There’s MST3K bad–the kind of movie that’s unintentionally hiliarious–and then there’s really, really, really bad. Just ugly, bad. The kind of bad that causes regret on your deathbed, considering how that 145 minutes were cheated from you. That kind of bad is hard to come by.
Wing Commander III was the high point of that series. Great for showing off what video from a CD could do. Mark Hamell is the lead. The big cats are cool and have great voices. Privateer II had great film sceens, but the game playing AI sucked hard.
The films “MST3K” shows are undoubtably god awful, but they’re still fun to watch because of how bad they are. “Plan 9 From Outer Space,” the acclaimed “Worst Movie of All Time,” is funnier than most intnetional comedies. Movies like that may be bad, but they revel in their own badness and they’re so cheesy that they’re good for a laugh (it doesn’t hurt to have a guy and two robots making wisecracks either).
Truly bad films, however, are films that just hurt to sit through. They’re not fun at all, they just make you squirm in your seat and pray for the end credits. In my opinion, that makes a film like “Batman and Robin” far worse than a “Plan 9.” I was entertained watching “Plan 9,” bad as it was. I was bored and nauseated watching “Batman and Robin.”
Dr. T and the Women
Heist
blecch. that made my keyboard want to vomit.
Good choices, all. But you left out
The Howling: Werewolves at an est Retreat.
Reservoir Dogs: Which was worse, the mindless violence or the sucky self-importance? I can’t decide.
The Cable Guy: Jim Carey as psychotic stalker. Ha. Ha.
Days of Thunder: Mainly because I can’t think of the overstimulated racer drama with Stallone. Though Tom Cruise is always a tough competitor for bad movie.
Over the Top: Speaking of Stallone: This one had it all: trucks, father-son bonding, arm-wrestling competition. Besides, Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot was supposed to be bad. Wasn’t it?
Xanadu: Just awful. Gnaw-off-your-foot-to-get-out-of-the-theater awful. And then they started roller-skating.
1.)Mac & Me
2.) Even Cowgirls Get The Blues
After listing those two movies, trying to think beyond that sends me into a catatonic stupor.
1.)Mac & Me
2.) Even Cowgirls Get The Blues
After listing those two movies, trying to think beyond that sends me into a catatonic stupor.
Gawd, how could I forget:
2.5) Rhinestone
I cant believe no one has mentioned MEGAFORCE yet!!! Where were y’all in the early 1980s?? It had Barry Bostwick with a headband, Henry Silva AND the bald chick from the 1st ST movie!!!
“the good guys always win…even in the ’80s”
I almost forgot, one of the most overplayed movies on cable, JUST ONE OF THE GUYS. Is there some sort of deal the producers have with this cable stations to show this? Does the director have naked pictures of Viacom Execs? Is this on Comedy Central every week?
Does the STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL count since it was on TV???
Quick show of hands – how many of you were so disappointed as kids when you watched this?
I think I turned it off when Jefferson Airplane started playing inside that crystal ball
What about the eposide of different Strokes when Dudley gets molested by Gordan Jump?
My Dinner (from Hell) with Andre. The single most boring evening of my entire life (and I had pneumonia for the month of January 2000). Especially despicable because both Siskel and Ebert made it their no. 1 movie the year it came out. Doesn’t help that Wallace Shawn seemed to be bored, too, during his dinner with Andre. Irony about boredom is STILL BORING!
A.I. is the worst movie I’ve ever seen. Full disclosure: I can’t term Batman and Robin an actual “movie,” otherwise that might lead the list. And What Dreams May Come was horrible, but it was so pathetic that I almost hate to pick on it. A.I., on the other hand, was the stuff that bad movies are made of: ponderous, often incomprehensible, and OH-so-pretentious…
How about Pirahna? I was 17 in a yough summer work program w/ the forest service, we drove into town, and the camp paid our way in. We all wanted THEIR money back.
Try islands in the stream, also.
I found Solaris (with George Clooney) boring as crap!
Megaforce, Titanic, Matrix revolutions..
I would just like to speak out in support of Disney’s Black Hole, which was mostly competant, and Tank Girl which my friend and I thought was hillarious at the time (although we were rather under the influence at the time.)
Oh and of course anything with Steven Sagal (other then the battleship movie) or Van Damnit makes the list (with the possible exception of the lance henrickson one or maybe timecop)…
Sorry, SarahC–but “My Dinner With Andre” is one of the funniest movies of ALL TIME. It is all talk by Andre Gregory, but new-ageish over-the-top talk that is slyly and subtly satirized.
On the other hand, correspondent Brent is on the right track in identifying the pretentious as a major aspect of movies deserving to be on an All-Time Worst list. The thousands of disposible, shoddy try-to-make-a-quick-buck or let’s-grab-the-acne-crowd flicks don’t deserve a look-in for all-time bad.
But something like Woody Allen’s “Crimes and Misdemeanors”–self-centered, self-righteous, solipsistic, self-consciously arty, PRETENTIOUS–now THAT movie deserves to be on an All-Time Worst list.
Bad Movies
Both Pete and Chuck were discussing bad movies earlier this week. A day late I throw my random thoughts into the ring. Using Pete’s methodology makes this a bit difficult since it requires seeing the whole movie. With the uber
10) “Car 54, Where are you?” The real Toody and Muldoon would’ve beat this one with their nightsticks and sent it to NYC for the broomstick.
9)”Howard the Duck”. A completely fupped-duck adventure.
8) “Ishtar”. Two wander but sadly, never get lost.
7) “It’s Pat – The Movie”. Androgeny that makes you itch.
6) “Leonard – Part 6”. Made me want to pour a vat of boiling Jello on the Arthur Godfrey of Jello, preferably while the hooves were still attached to the beasts.
5) “The Postman”. I’ll never touch an envelope again.
4) “Rhinestone”. Take the worst of country singing, add a guy who neither sings or swings, add Dolly Parton’s dirigibles and you’ll be wondering why Stallone shouldn’t be made to squeal like a pig.
3) As a giant hormone blob (aka: teenager), I recall it being racy and pushing the porn envelope to see the nekkid Jane Fonda in “Barbarella”. Years later, a revisit made me long for shag carpet, gloopy mood music, and Black Velvet paintings of Golda Meir vamping.
2) “Spice World”. A post-birth abortion with knitting needles would be too kind for the director of this.
And the vilest, cheese-foodest, liver & onion purgative, meat-chunkiest enema eyesore of all time…
1) “Bush on an Aircraft Carrier”. If Karma existed, California would have chosen this moment to slide into the ocean, creating a giant vortex that would suck that monster down. Firepokers in my eyes can’t blot out the memories, so I’m trying to resurrect Spiro Agnew, who was kinder and gentler.
Btw, I must be tasteless, Michael, because “Being There” is one of my all time faves. Ah well.
Movies That Suck
Inspired by Pete and Chuck, and a bunch of other folks, I’m posting a short list of movies that I’ve…
baby saw a bad, bad movie
Chuck, Pete, and many others have been playing the Worst Films List game. Being the good sheep that I am……
No one has seen Plan 9 From Outer Space? Possibly THE wosrt movie of all time. Bela Lugosi died while they were filming and they had to have someone else take his role and keep his face covered. Attack of the B Girls. The only good part is some boobage, especially the boobage of Victoria Vetri (Angela Dorian) a 60’s Playmate of the Year.
I won’t volunteer my worst because, as I walked out of them, I can’t honestly say whether they had redeeming features or not.
What I will say is that there are two time-honored, guaranteed ways to make a bad film.
One is to take a cheesy script, cheesy sets, and lousy actors and shoot something silly in six days, only it turns out to be seven days because one day it rained. These movies cost very little to make and whatever faults they have, so what? The whole point is that a good time is had by all. Plan 9 from Outer Space is a star example.
The other way to make a truly awful movie is to take a script that is basically a marketing idea, hire a egomanic of a producer (especially if he’s addicted to cocaine), spend a fortune on rewriting the script, hiring and firing stars and directors (especially if you end up with the talent-free one-hit wonders), and on creating ever more pretentious sets or special effects. Then alter the plot in the cutting room, after all the scenes have been shot.
One easy way to tell if this has happened to a movie is if there’s a scene in the preview that’s not in the movie itself. This indicates massive recutting very late in the editing process.
Of course, by then you have watched the movie and it is too late, but if you are sitting there, trapped, it’s something to distract yourself with.
I can’t decide which is the worst movie that I’ve ever subjected myself to: “The Postman” or “Armageddon”?
It was as if “The Postman” was all buildup with no payoff at all (all that time WAITING for the Tom Petty cameo and a big battle secene setup which…uhh, just stood there looking menacing) while “Armageddon” was more of the game of “Hey! Name How Many Movie Scenes Bay/Bruckheimer (R-Crassly Comsumeristic Cocksucker/Mass Media Militaristic Marketing Motherfucker) Ripped Off From Other Movies With Some Sly Activist-Bashing Thrown In As A Bonus, Boneheads!”
Thankfully, I wasn’t the one who rented them but my family members did. It’s shit like that which made Edward Zwick’s “The Siege” look steady-handed by comparison (“Glory” and “Courage Under Fire”, on the other hand, are what I would classify as work he is to be remembered by.)
On the other hand, “Eyes Wide Shut?” Granted, I’m a fan of Kubrick and nobody did military satire like him with “Dr. Strangelove” (y’all MUST watch this again and again since it just keeps getting more relevant with time as with Orwell’s novel “1984” and the movie based upon it). But what a turkey “Eyes Wide Shut” is. When I have bouts of insomnia caused by the realization of the Rethuglican nightmore I’m living within I have to watch that movie to get drowsy because it is just so friggin’ BORING!
Okay. Maybe I do have a few more movies in mind now that I’m writing through stream-of-consciousness. I’m surprised that NOBODY short of MYSELF has DARED to mention those HIGHLY REVISIONIST military films of the 80’s! How can one talk about truly AWFUL cinema without mentioning the “Missing In Action” series, “Invasion USA”, “The Delta Force”, “Red Dawn”, “Top Gun”, “Iron Eagle” and “Uncommon Valor” to name a few (okay, I’ll give “Valor” a tip’o’the Mad Hatter’s hat because the sheer juxtoposition of Gene Hackman playing it straight in the company of a rather balletic Randall “Tex” Cobb deserves some merit…not to mention the pleasure to be found in watching the enemy “inadvertantly” set off a choreographed series of tripwired explosives one after the other).
I guess I overextended this comment so I guess I’ll hang it up and reminice ’bout the good ol’ days of the imagery of hunters drinking tainted deer blood and being so poor they couldn’t afford to keep a gallon of radiator coolant in the pickup but could afford a few cases of beer.
–dr.bomb
For discussion:
Battlefield Earth (Travolta took it WAY too seriously)
Freddy Got Fingered (no plot whatsoever, only movie I have ever walked out of)
Lost in Space (you are in trouble when Joey Tribiani is considered a weighty character in your film)
Scary Movie 2 (James Woods has the “My check has cleared, right?” look on his face for most of this abomination)
Scooby Doo (ugh, and they are making a SEQUEL?)
Rocky V (Sly, please, please promise us you will do “Stop or My Mom will Shoot 2” before you do Rocky VI)
Gods and Generals (4 hours of my life gone, even the battles were uninspired)
1- Austin Powers-I don’t get the humor. I turned this off after 20 miserable minutes. O.K., he’s got bad teeth.. haha- hate mike..
2- Time Bandits- Awful.
3-Boys And Girls-Freddie Prince in a dreadful bore-fest
3.) Exit To Eden
Rosie O’donnell in lingerie- Ewww.
Wrapup time.
No one in this entire thread has even mentioned a single time The Worst Turkey In Movie History. That settles it. So bad that the memory has been repressed in the general population.
I’ve just got one word for you. One little word.
DUNE.
I tend to buy the argument that B-bad movies like “Plan 9” can be redeemed by their unintentional humor. A movie can be so bad that it is good.
But a pretentious stinkbomb like DUNE doesn’t even achieve that sort of salvation. It just sits and stinks.