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.
As you know, Michael and I liked Wing Commander. It’s the best silly space opera/sub movie/carrier movie I’d seen in a while.
Lost in Space, though, that sucked big wind. And I had to be sitting next to Greg for the bit at the end where they “changed the laws of physics, Jim”.
OK, how we can have gone this far without Hudson Hawk making the list is beyond me. If it was supposed to be a comedy, it wasn’t funny. If it was supposed to be an action adventure flick, it wasn’t. As for Pete’s hope for seriousness, if you get Wing Commander than I get Hudson Hawk.
Others include Gone With The Wind (forced myself to sit through the whole thing and sat there going, “Wait. That’s it? That’s supposed to be a classic?!!!”), Birth of a Nation (bad even on its own terms, forget about the values espoused) and the Phantom Menace, for which I didn’t even like the action figures.
I’ve never seen “Hudson Hawk”, so it can’t make my list. I actually kinda liked “Phantom Menace”. It was “Attack of the Clones” that was a steaming pile of CGI crap, and some day it will be on my list.
BTW, I highly recommend Roger Ebert’s discussion of “Birth of a Nation” (see here and here).
I mentioned my worst in response to an earlier posting, however, I think “The Black Hole” was a better pinball machine than movie.
Wing Commander was probably the first PC video game that became popular on VGA based machines. That doesn’t make it a great movie (Super Mario Brothers and Mortal Kombat may have been worse).
It’s hard to beat “Glen or Glenda” for the worst movie of all time. (I haven’t seen the Dan Haggerty “Santa” extravaganza yet, however, that sounds like a ripe piece of gorgonzola.)
Funny how, when The Black Hole came out, critics generally contrasted it favorably with the first Star Trek movie, which came out at the same time.
Amazing what time can do …
Our personal worst movie: Private School. Yes, some people say the whole thing’s a joke, but when the song lyrics over the opening credits go: “You’re breaking my heart, you’re tearing me apart, so fuck you,” there is no better signal to turn around and head to the box office and demand your money back while you still can.
Has to be “Tank Girl”. The only thing memorable about this movie was the fact that the night I saw it, I was literally the only person in the theater.
No, wait, I take that back. “Exorcist 2: The Heretic”. And this one had Richard Burton, james Earl Jones, and Louis Fletcher (fresh off of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”)
OK, one more. “Lambada: The Forbidden Dance”. Churned out during the 15 minute period in the 80s when the lambada was popular, this one starred the dark haired chick from “Mulholland Drive” as an amazonian princess who goes to L.A., where she has to enter and win a lambada contest in order to save the rain forest from an evil oil company.
Nobody saw “What Dreams May Come”? Or “The Avengers”?
Recent? “In the Cut,” the travesty that might attract viewers with the prospect of seeing a haggard, ten-years-past-her-prime Meg Ryan semi-naked (pretty much the reason I saw the film). What an unmitigated piece of crap. Not even worth one nipple shot.
The last 20+ years? “Neighbors,” ostensibly a “black comedy” with John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Tim Kaczurynski and other wasted talent in a horribly unfunny mess that goes on about two hours too long (I believe the film is 90 minutes) and made me forever dislike Saturday Night Live.
All time? Damn, that’s a tough one… how about “The Astrologer”? I remember going to the drive-in in the early ’70s to see that and wishing that I got not only my admission money back, but also gas money and an entire evening of my life. And a blow job. And therapy. That movie was the cinematic equivalency of the Bush presidency.
How about: any movie based on a TV series that got made solely to tap in to baby boomer nostalgia? That’s a 10 Worst List in and of itself.
Hey, Gone with the Wind is wonderful ridiculous melodrama. Can I add Batman and Robin to the list? That movie was amazingly horrible. And Phantom Menace was, I think, rather more offensive than Attack of the Clones, if only for that horrible, horrible child actor and Jar-Jar Binks. On the other hand, Attack of the Clones showed us that even without the horrible, horrible child actor and (much) Jar-Jar Binks, we still wouldn’t get a good movie. Ah well.
Wing Commander is a brilliant video game series. If you have a cat or two about the house, you’ll never look at them quite the same. Clearly, you need to waste more time in front of the computer.
And yes, the movie wasn’t very good.
I can’t remember if Phoebe Cates got naked in “Private School.” If she didn’t, then it probably deserves a mention.
And I have to disagree with Chuck on his choice of “Jaws 3-D.” Nothing was funnier in that movie than the homoerotic undertones to the relationship between the Australian big game hunter and his lackey. “Phillliiiip!”
Titanic
Mission Impossible, or for that matter, almost any movie with Tom Cruise in it after Risky Business. Esepcailly the one where he drove cars. And the one where he was a bartender. And the one where he was a fighter pilot.
I didn’t actually see Charlies Angels, but it may be a good candidate based on the nauseating trailers
And of course, there is the ever worthy Ishtar.
1) Burbs
2) Nothing But Trouble
3) Spawn
4) Varsity Blues
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation – Horrible sequel to a movie that was amusing if you went to see it with friends who spoke with the wit of Tom Servo and Crow. You also has to spend hours into the evening BBSing afterwards.
The Master of Disguise – The movie equivalent to a massive intake of ketamine: you’re left wondering if you actually saw what you saw, and you’re out 15 dollars.
The Age of Innocence – I don’t care how beautifully filmed it was. Edith Wharton books shouldn’t be turned into movies. Especially not ones starring Daniel Day Lewis.
Space Jam – The raping of my childhood, on the big screen. Was Mel Blanc dead before or after they made it? Can you tell?
The “Crow” Sequels – The inherenet creepiness of a movie franchise which capitalizes on the death its star cannot be overstated.
The Core – Sweet Christ Almighty. Whoever greenlighted this is probably turning rough tricks on Melrose right about now.
Liquid Sky – My girlfriend loves this movie. I need a new girlfriend.
Anything with Rachel Leigh Cook – Seriously. Stop making movies.
Anything with Freddie Prinze, Jr. – Seriously. Stop making movies. NOW. Before someone gets hurt.
Wing Commander was no good, but it was good fun, kinda like Armaggedon. A cotton candy movie.
Anybody else see “Very Bad Things”? The movie was well made but was gratutiously owful. That seemed to be the whole idea, but even so, it was unwatchable.
The story kicks into gear when a bachelor party stripper gets herself impaled on a towel rack while having wild sex in a hotel bathroom. It’s very much down hill from there.
The House of Yes, which I recommend, has the distinction of having both Freddie Prinze, Jr and Tori Spelling and somehow using them perfectly.
The Prince of Tides has a very special place in my own house of cinematic horrors. “LOWENSTEIN!”
Glen or Glenda is actually okay if you don’t take it seriously. Which Ed Wood OBVIOUSLY DID.
But unless you have had the misfortune of seeing Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band, I don’t think any of y’all should talk. SERIOUSLY. This movie is indescribable. And indescribably bad.
The truly sad part about “Wing Commander”? Compare the movie to the third, fourth and fifth games in the series, which had extensive filmed cutscenes, full scripts and starred (in one or more of them) Mark Hamill, John Rhy-Davies, Malcolm McDowell, and Tim Curry.
The story was better, the script was better, the actors were better and the acting was better.
Funny how, when The Black Hole came out, critics generally contrasted it favorably with the first Star Trek movie, which came out at the same time.
There aren’t enough contemporary reviews available at Rottentomatoes.com for me to double-check, but that’s not the way I remember it, at least. I remember them both being jumped up and down on pretty thoroughly at the time (possibly because both of them sucked, of course), with Star Trek: Where Nomad Has Gone Before coming out perhaps slightly ahead. On the other hand, it was probably being held to a higher standard than Black Hole, because while the verdict of history on Star Trek: The Motionless Picture is that it was glacial and soporific, the verdict of history on Black Hole is: “Black Hole? Was that, like, a movie or something?”
Yes, some people say the whole thing’s a joke, but when the song lyrics over the opening credits go: “You’re breaking my heart, you’re tearing me apart, so fuck you,” there is no better signal to turn around and head to the box office and demand your money back while you still can.
Dude, that’s Harry Nillson you’re talking about, there.
I’m trying to come up with some truly awful films to add to the list, but all of the ones I can remember right now had tiny robot silhouettes in them, so they don’t really count.
I think Phebes did get nekkid in Private School – I seem to remember a surf scene. Whatever happened to her anyway?
Worst movie ever: SOB.
Solarbabies. Twins.
Eyes Wide Shut. I rented it wondering if it could be as bad as everyone said.
It was.
I kept imagining Tom Cruise wandering the streets of NYC saying “I’m trapped in this unbelievably inane screenplay and I can’t get out!”
I saw “The Black Hole” at a birthday party when I was six years old. Then, I got the picture book for Christmas, and may have slept with it under my pillow for a month or two. I believe this qualifies me to say that “The Black Hole” is one of the greatest films in cinema history. Please replace it with “Fair Game”, starring Cindy Crawford and a Lesser Baldwin.
one word: Showgirls.
“Bicentennial Man”, “What Dreams May Come”, “Patch Adams” … surely an unequaled run of saccharine sick-making cinema on the part of Robin Williams. Probably more impressive in its way than Barry Bonds’ string of three consecutive MVP seasons.
Someone asked: Whatever happened to her, anyway?
Since her ‘retirement’ from films, Phoebe Cates and her movie star husbsand, Kevin Kline divide their time between their country estate in upstate New York and their luxury penthouse in Manhattans toney upper east side. When not supporting her husbands continuing fine stage and film work, she fills her time attending openings and benefits and her favorite activity, hosting dinner parties and ‘dishing the dirt’ with her celebrity friends.
(from the imdb)
>Liquid Sky – My girlfriend loves this movie. I need a new girlfriend.
Guh? I wish I had a girl who liked that movie. Excellent soundtrack too.
>1) Burbs
Buh? This isn’t bad. Its actually good. Maybe to only good thing w/ tom hanks in it.
For your edification, Susanna Hoffs (of the Bangles) mother is a director of “B” movies, and directed “The Allnighter.” Knowing this bit of trivia pre-release, I strongly suspected that the movied poster showed as much of Ms. Hoffs as I was going to get. Knowledge is power, or at least power to not pay 4 bucks (things were cheaper then) in the expectation of some glimpsing acres of hot rock-and-roll flesh.
Also, if I ever share an airliner seat row with Stockard Channing, I’m going to studiously avoid mentioning her role in “Six Degrees of Separation” and concentrate instead on her appearance in “The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh,” arguably the worst sports film ever made.
Grease II – mega-bad, even with Michelle Pfiefferffer (sp? 🙂 )
Last Tango In Paris – clip your fingernails before you shove them up someone’s ass. a fitting metaphor.
In no particular order:
Tank Girl
Exorcist 2: The Heretic
Manos: The Hands of Fate
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
Lambada: The Forbidden Dance
Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Can’t Stop the Music
Moulin Rouge
Sheena
I hope it hasn’t made the list because everyone avoided seeing it, but the worst movie of all time, bar none:
Freddie Got Fingered
If you put the greatest minds in Hollywood in a room for 10 days and told them to make the worst move ever, they’d start (and finish) with the script of Freddie Got Fingered.
Top Ten Worse Films
Charkles Kuffner started it, and Atrios has an interesting list. So, in the spirit of meaningless fun, here is mine….
On Deadly Ground
Worst premise for an action movie: Steven Segal very carefully blows up an oil well in Alaska in order to protect the environment.
I feel as though I should pipe in to defend Angels and Insects. I haven’t seen it since it was in theaters, but I really dug this when it came out. I thought it was creepy and decadent. I’ll have to go check it out again.
How did Battlefield Earth evade mention in all of the previous postings?
Okay—How about Disney live action movies from around 1989-1997? Little Giants? The Big Green? The Mighty Ducks? Blank Check? A Kid in King Arthurs Court? Fucking Air Bud? Ladybugs? First Kid? This stuff is laughably bad, and even worse are the entirely unwatchable direct-to-video series of sequels to otherwise popular lobotomizing kids cartoons. Operation Dumbo Drop?
Okay– Worst Adult Movie? I nominate 2 recent semi-arthouse flicks that deserve to be harped on for pretending to be good. 1– “Far From Heaven”. All the pretty fall leaves in Conneticut couldnt save this “satirical” mess. And 2.– “Mystic River”. Wow. Soccer moms eveywhere give a solemn nod to the heart wrenching performance of Sean Penn in this mysogynist puppetshow.
there was a movie where sigourney weaver bared her breasts. We turned it off before we got to see them. Can’t remember the name.
Howard the Duck – It’s classic Lucas. Words cannot describe it, although a call for hate crimes against furries is a good start.
Matrix: Revolutions – I cared only when two people died in that movie, the doctor and the girl with the rocket launcher. The rest can screw themselves hard.
Highlander II – It had a hard job ahead of it to be worse than the first one, but it somehow did it, causing even Highlander I fans to hate it.
Bloodsucking Nazi Zombies – I was about to sing “Deutschland Ueber alles” in a show of support for the zombies.
I can’t go on.
As a devoted “MST3K” watcher, I’ve seen all sorts of bad movies (I also own “Plan 9 From Outer Space,” but “Plan 9” is great to watch as an unintentional comedy). In my opinion, “Manos” is the nadir of filmmaking as I’ve see it. It’s telling of how bad a film is when the most sympathetic character in it is a slobbering, filthy, big-kneed pervert (hey, Torgo!).
Bad filmmaking is timeless. I recently had to go see “The Other” to review for my school paper and it was appalling. Everyone sleepwalked through their roles and the plot was so much “Exorcist” knockoffs and supernatural gobbledegook. The movie stole two hours of my life and I want them back.
I never saw “Battlefield Earth” (thank God), but I saw “The Postman” in the theathers (my mother dragged the whole family to it, something I still hold against her). What a dull, drab, appalling movie. Didn’t Costner get the whole “post-apocalypse epic” thing out of his system after “Waterworld?” What more can you say about a film that sets up a big climatic battle between armies and instead ends with two guys rolling around in the dirt like scuffling school boys. It was like a Mel Brooks movie, only this was serious.
And “Wing Commander” did suck. You know a film is horrible when it’s main advertising draw was that people should see it because the trailer for “The Phantom Menace” was playing before it. Having Freddie Prinze Jr. was bad enough, but seeing the evil aliens in that was the nadir of the film. They’re big cats, for God’s sake! Apparently the human race is getting its ass kicked by the planet Garfield.
Oh man, I forget “Matrix Revolutions.” God, what a horrible ending to a trilogy that started out so well. Some of you may bitch about the “Star Wars” prequels, but the special effects and some characters make them worthy (hell, Christopher Lee in “Clones” was enough for me). “Matrix Revolutions” was just one long disaster. The ending especially was bad (not ANOTHER sequel, please). Except for Agent Smith, I didn’t give a crap who lived and who died. And Keanu Reeves still can’t act (so why does he keep getting cast in Victorian-era period pieces?).
Ask an expert
Private School is indeed famous for the surf scene, in which Cates insisted on wearing small pieces of masking tape,which can be seen if you freeze frame through the scene
Don’t know whether committment or imprisonment is the proper judgement for we who do such things
I second “Matrix Revolutions.” An hour into the movie, I turned to my girlfriend and said “The best part about this movie is that at some point it will end and we can go home.” Little did I know I had an hour and a half left. How do you make climatic battle scenes BORING?!
El Guapo, you make climactic battle scenes boring when (a) they go on too long and get repetitive), (b) they’re filmed in a wayt that you can hardly tell what’s going on, and (c), you don’t give a rat’s ass about the characters involved. All three were the case in “Matrix Revolutions.” “The Lord of the Rings” battle scenes are wrenching and involving (and also pretty damn cool). “Revolutions” were just damn boring. I cared if none of the characters lived or died. At the end of “Fellowship of the Ring,” when Sean Bean’s Boromir died, I cried. When Trinity died in “Revolutions,” I yawned, looked at my watch, thought “Thank Christ, it’ll soon be over” and tried not to giggle at Keanu Reeve’s pathetic emoting.
Sticking with relatively recent films (and please note that I have avoided watching many really bad films) here is my list off the top of my head:
Me, Myself and Irene
Sweet November
The Sweetest Thing
Mission to Mars
The Hunted
The Hulk
I was pretty bummed out by “The Deep End” – I thought it was going to be a mystery/thriller and it turned out to be a cheeseball soap opera where the murderer and the cop fall in love (if i remember correctly, and I’m trying not to).
How can it be that no one has yet mentioned “Boxing Helena”? Had to be the worst movie ever made. I saw it for free, and was still furious when I left the theatre – I wasn’t getting those 2 hours back, ever. I would rather have spent them shaving my head with a cheese grater.
Being There – The Forrest Gump of the 1970s, without the funny.
Gladiator – bit.
Lost In Space – My reaction to the setup-the-sequel ending was “who must I kill to prevent more atrocities?”
Rhona Jaffee’s Mazes and Monsters – the depths of my hatred for this wretched excuse for a movie are beyond what mere mortals understand as loathing. Tom Hanks rose from this to Bosom Buddies.
The bad movies to good movies ratio for films I have seen in my life is probably 10:1. So a top ten list (or bottom ten list) isn’t possible for me. However there is one movie that ruined my life.
THIS FUCKING MOVIE RUINED MY LIFE!!!
It’s called Happiness. I actually like the movie, think it’s well acted, original, etc. Judged on its own, it certainly qualifies as a good movie. And watching it with someone who has never seen it before is a fantastic experience due to the jaw-on-the-floor factor.
It is not, however, a good date movie. I found out the hard way, on the first or second date with a girl I was MADLY in love with. After the film, we had nothing to talk about, except stammering about what a fucked up movie that was. So we had to go get drunk.
We didn’t go on very many more dates and I’ve been sad ever since.
Jesus Louiseus, how did I forget “Titanic”? That was the most bloated, useless piece of effluvium ever to wash up on American movie screens. The fact that it won a Best Picture Oscar just proves that there is no god. Utter, irredeemable crap.