All right, all right. Here's Part 2. Jeez.
What struck me about the BBC's list is the startlingly recent vintage of almost all the films listed. People complain about the short attention span of Americans, but only one movie on the BBC list is more than six years old. Noisome flicks didn’t just spring into existence, like Athena, from Jerry Bruckheimer’s head in the last decade. Even so, as I was coming up with my own version, I had to concede that the number of excuciatingly bad movies has exploded in the last 15 years.
Whatever. Here's the BBC list:
1. Titanic
2. A.I.: Artificial Intelligence
3. Pearl Harbor
4. Vanilla Sky
5. The Blair Witch Project
6. Batman and Robin
7. The Avengers
8. Battlefield Earth
9. Eyes Wide Shut
10. Highlander II: The Quickening
Interesting choices, but I tend to disagree.
"Titanic?" A hokey film, to be sure, but not out and out dreadful. And any movie in which Leo dies is automatically removed from consideration. I found "A.I.," up until the ending, to be a marginally interesting film. "Vanilla Sky" seems to divide a lot of people, but rarely have I heard it described as atrociously bad, and more people seemed confused than angered by "Eyes Wide Shut." You can certainly make strong arguments for the rest, and I even agree with the doughty citizens of Britannia on three of them, but on the whole it looks more like a list of the 10 Most Overhyped Films of the Last Decade than a true worst list.
So here are mine. They’re prone to change at any time, for no reason, or whenever Michael Bay makes another movie. If you disagree, you are free (as always) to make your own damn list.
Oh, and I've made a separate ranking consisting entirely of sequels, as they really deserve their own category. It comes after the Big 10.
10. Forrest Gump – If Mitch Albom (Tuesdays with Morrie) rewrote Candide and a superintelligent howler monkey signed on to direct, the results would look a lot like "Gump:" fortune cookie philosophy and a thinly disguised message of conformity masquerading as an Important Film.
9. How the Grinch Stole Christmas – Not so much a terrible movie as a movie that should never, under any circumstances, even if a crazed vagrant is holding a potato gun to your dog’s head, ever have been made. Doesn’t fail as a Seuss movie because it’s unrecognizable in that regard, it fails because it actually causes your gums to bleed as you watch it.
8. Life Is Beautiful – Beyond the misguided comparisons to Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator” and the defenders who claim, “It’s not about the Holocaust, it’s about triumph of the spirit” is the fact that Roberto Benigni sends every schmaltzy point in the film home with the subtlety of a rusty bazooka fired into your groin. And if you don’t want your movie to be “about” the Holocaust, don’t set it in a goddamn concentration camp. Could Jerry Lewis’ “The Day the Clown Cried” have been any worse?
7. The Lonely Lady - Watched this on HBO (with my mother, of all people), eager to see if it was as bad as everyone said it was. We were forced to gnaw off our own feet in order to survive.
6. Battlefield Earth – As someone who made the mistake of reading the book, I knew I’d have a difficult time finding anything positive to say about this. I was right, except instead of being difficult, it's impossible. After the reviews started rolling in, the creators cleverly took the "Showgirls" route and tried to spin "Battlefield Earth" as a camp movie. No dice. Quentin Tarantino should be stomped to death with Gene Simmons’ fanged platform shoes for bringing John Travolta back into prominence.
5. Armageddon - Any Bruckheimer/Bay picture is more or less interchangeable for purposes of this list, but "Armageddon" offered more insults to the audience's intelligence per second than any of the others. And they used up the "ooh and aah" factor elicited by Blowing Shit Up Real Good in "Independence Day." Would've scored points for killing off Bruce Willis, except he failed to take Affleck with him.
4. Godzilla (1998) – Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich obviously saw the financial possibilities of making an American Godzilla movie…so why subject audiences to this celluloid monstrosity? Did test audiences in French Lick, Indiana not like that nasty radioactive breath? Is that why Godzilla just sneezes things away? Was demand that great for Matthew Broderick and Maria Pitillo to have a lover’s spat while a 300 FOOT FUCKING LIZARD rampages through New York City? "Godzilla" isn't the first, but it remains the most blatant example of the "all F/X - no plot" blockbuster template of Bruckheimer and Lucas.
3. Highlander II: The Quickening – Sean Connery has an uncanny knack for picking crappy movies to appear in (he's a lot like Lou Gossett, Jr. in this regard), and he hit it out of the park with this one. “Highlander II” is the perfect bad sequel: it's incomprehensible, it's completely contradictory to the original, and it looks like it was filmed at the behest of an insurance company that was trying to cover its losses due to skyrocketing inflation in the host country (which is actually the case). I never thought I could despise a movie with the toothsome Virginia Madsen in it, but “Highlander II” straightened me out. My only recourse after seeing this movie, on opening weekend no less, was to go out and get so drunk I could convince myself it was all a bad dream.
2. A Good Man in Africa – I mentioned the Connery-Gossett connection in the previous entry, and wonder of wonders, "A Good Man in Africa" has them both! The pair (along with John Lithgow) stumbles through this horribly edited, schizophrenic piece of shit in search of a paycheck. It's a comedy! No, it's a social commentary on colonialism! Wrong again, it's simply a piece of shit. Connery has ten minutes of screen time, then dies for no good reason. The audience should be so lucky.
[This film has the dubious honor of being one of two I’ve ever walked out of in my life. I watched the ending on cable just so I could legitimately include it on my list.]
1. Pearl Harbor – This isn’t a “visual masterpiece,” as some have suggested, nor is it any great shakes in the special effects department. “Pearl Harbor” manages the unthinkable: it takes one of the watershed moments of 20th century American history and makes it the backstory to a monotonous romance. It plays fast and loose with actual events (to the brink of revisionism), though the same can't be said for the pacing. Bruckheimer and company also choke any hint of genuine emotion to death with metric tons of self-important bombast and false sentiment. As a movie director, Michael Bay shoots one hell of a commercial.
Then there are the sequels:
10. Exorcist II: The Heretic - Up until "Exorcist II," sequels didn't really have that bad a reputation. In 1977, you could still point to the James Bond movies and "The Godfather, Part II." Not too shabby. When they talk about good sequels being the exception rather than the rule, this is the one that started it all.
9. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace - I'll bet Nuclear Man could kick Superman's ass now that he's in a wheelchair.
8. Arthur 2: On the Rocks – What, alcoholics aren't funny anymore?
7. Jurassic Park: The Lost World - Someone actually managed to make an unforgivably boring dinosaur movie. Someone not named Roger Corman, that is.
6. Batman and Robin – Should’ve been advertised as a parody, although including the Death of Robin storyline would’ve caused a lot to be forgiven.
5. Star Wars Episode I - The Phantom Menace - I am uniquely qualified to judge the badness of this movie. Two words: Jar Jar. Two more words: Jake Lloyd. Liam Neeson got off easy.
4. Caddyshack II - Replacing Bill Murray, Ted Knight, and Rodney Dangerfield with Jackie Mason, Robert Stack, and Jonathan Silverman must have sounded like a good idea to someone. Someone currently unemployed, I'll wager. The fact that Chevy Chase agreed to reprise his role as Ty Webb makes his talk show a little more understandable.
3. Jaws: the Revenge - This time it's personal, as a great white swims from Long Island to the Bahamas in three days. The first of many coffin nails in Mario Van Peebles' career, and the film that proved once and for all that Michael Caine would probably appear in a midget bukkake film if there was a payday coming.
2. Staying Alive – [Directing Stallone + pre-bloat Travolta] x Singing Stallone = box office gold, baby! Way to go, Manero!
1. Highlander II: The Quickening – Because it belongs on both lists.
Finally there are those that, for one reason or another, didn't quite make the cut.
Plan 9 From Outer Space - Still one of the funniest movies of all time.
Independence Day - Devlin/Emmerich are already well represented.
Waterworld - Bad, but not as bad as everyone said.
Exit to Eden - As horrifying as it is to see Dan Aykroyd and Rosie O'Donnell in fetish wear, one cannot help but make the Homer drooling noise at Dana Delany.
Chicago - Filming a Broadway musical and making a movie out of it doesn't alway translate into a good movie. Filming a shitty Broadway musical and making it into a movie never does. Almost became the third movie I've walked out of.
Cool As Ice - Hasn't Robbie Van Winkle suffered enough? Probably not.
The Goonies – I’ve opined enough about this movie to be tired of defending my selection. I will be brief here and say that if you like this movie you are a syphilitic Fascist.
Manos: The Hands of Fate – So bad it’s...really bad, yet its inclusion is starting to feel mandatory.
Congo - Just because Michael Crichton wrote it doesn't mean studios should feel obligated to make a movie out of it. This goes for "Timeline" and "Sphere" as well. And any more Jurassic Park sequels.
So there you have it. There are a number of films probably deserving inclusion which I've never seen ("Gigli," "From Justin to Kelly," "Baby Geniuses," any movie featuring a character from "Saturday Night Live"), and don't plan to. I think I've suffered enough for one year.
Wanna know what's worse than the MST3K classic, "Manos: The Hands of Fate"?
I'll tell you...it's the original, non-MST3K print of "Manos." Mind-numbingly bad, but it's almost beyond reproach, kinda like the "Plan 9" for our generation.
One cool thing, though, that the MST3K version cuts out...because of Mike and the Bots at the bottom of the screen, you never get to behold Torgo in all his glory. What do I mean, you ask? Torgo has hooves! That's right...he walks funnily, and has big bulging legs, because he's wearing artificial goat feet!
Ahhhhhh, Torgo.
Let's see...
Bill Murray : Dan Aykroyd
Rodney Dangerfield : Jackie Mason
Michael O'Keefe : Jonathan Silverman
?? : Dyan Cannon
Chevy Chase : Chevy Chase
Ted Knight : Robert Stack
?? : Randy Quaid
Brian Doyle-Murray: ??
I don't know, I think Caddyshack II looks pretty good, if you break it down scientifically.
Thanks to an earlier double-dog dare on my part, Pete has not only graced us (if that's the right word)......
| --Posted to Off the Kuff on Dec 2, 2003 2:21 PM:. |
Oh no, Torgo with hooves... that explains his shuffling gait (well partially, the bulging thighs sure seemed enough to throw him off-kilter).
Yep, Torgo with cloven feet, definitely nightmare material! If my "Manos" MST-3K DVD has the original uncut version you mention, I will give it a miss for sure!
Actually, with Phantom Menace, there's an interesting scene on the DVD where, during the making-of documentary, we hear him say: "Jar Jar's gonna be the funniest character we've ever had ..."
OK. Anyone still wonder why there's the petition to have Peter Jackson direct Episode III?
We really wonder if Lucas overrates his writing skills. Watch Episode IV again and you'll be surprised at how, between many of the memorable lines, there is trite and clichéd dialogue, especially on the Death Star as Leia, Han, Luke and Chewie fight their way back to the Falcon. Story is that Ford and Fisher really thought it was lame and mocked it to Lucas, who finally relented and allowed them to improvise things like "You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought."
Yeah, I first saw Star Wars with my dad way back when. He couldn't help but laugh because once you put aside the kewl space effects, it was essentially a Roy Rogers flick complete with corny lines and bad guys you just knew had to be bad.
Typical snooty liberal. The Titanic is bad enough for most people, but not you. No sir. You have to go bragging about even worse films you've seen.
The sequel to Titanic was fun, though. "Titanic II: Eaten by Crabs". Only the opening few scenes were really Leonardo.
Love your list, but one correction: "Independence Day" is a Emmerich/TheOtherGuy project (their second, after Stargate) rather than a Bruckheimer/Bay thing.
Corrected. Thanks, Opurt. Even I get 'em confused sometimes.
"Highlander, you are from the planet Zeist!"
I suppressed my memory of A Good Man in Africa, because it's not just bad, it's a tragedy. It's based on a GREAT novel by William Boyd, and he wrote the script I think. It's one of those cases where a novel should never have been adapted into film.
Putting Academy Award winning films like "Titanic", "Forrest Gump" and "Chicago" on a list of the all-time worst films seems to me like sour grapes.
While you may not "like" the films and may have legitimate gripes about their having won the Oscar, it is too much of a stretch to say that they are among the worst films of all time.
There are far too many more deserving candidates out there - most of which I have seen simply because I am a fan of Mystery Science Theater.
On the sequels list, I think you left off Smokey and the Bandit III (I never saw Part II). I had the misfortune of seeing that movie on cable when I was in high school. It's the one where Burt Reynolds only makes a cameo and the role of the Bandit is played by Jerry Reed. Truly awful!
I've only seen #10 and #6 on Pete's list. Because I had the sense not to see the others in the theater. My God, Pete, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?
Pete:
any movie featuring a character from "Saturday Night Live"
How about the Blues Brothers?
WE need a set criteria. Anyone can pick a bad movie. Just choose something schlocky and straight to video. But I assume these lists are mainstream films, that were supposed to be better, or had better expectations. SO keep it to say, something like "top ten overrated films" or underrated, etc, you get the idea.
I am delighted to find at long last a list that so closely matches my own exquisite feelings. It also offers further evidence for my conviction that Jerry Bruckheimer Must Die!
Two thoughts: what would a worst-of list be without some Oscar winners? And also lists of crap camp classics often overlook "Flesh Gordon", where Flesh and Dale Ardor defeat the evil Emperor Wang, ruler of the Planet Porno. His great moment? "That's it, Flesh! I'm going to burn your fucking planet to a fucking crisp!"
re: Sour Grapes--I dunno Mike, I don't think Pete had films up for Academy Award consideration in those years. I've got personal Oscar hates (Gladiator is currently high on my hated movie list: plot holes large enough to sail a Quinquereme through, plus utter cop-out ending, plus unsympathetic hero, plus villain-most-likely-to-chew-more-scenery-than-Jeremy-Irons-in-D&D, plus failure to have the courage of its convictions should not equal Oscar. But I digress...) and I think a movie should only make this list if it aspires to be something better. I'm not sure Manos, though bad, can be consider 'worst'.
Ed: we do have criteria: http://www.whiterose.org/pete/blog/archives/004713.html
Thank you for including Chicago in you 'dishonorable mentions'. It is number three on my list of worst films of all time, right behind The Avengers (truly the worst length of celluloid ever produced) and Godfather III (can't we just pretend it never happened?) The funniest thing about Chicago is that all my buddies loved it (these are straight guys, mind you), and they actually have the gall to tell me I am not sophisticated enough to enjoy a well-executed musical. Of course the fact that it was a poorly executed load of horse-shit totally escapes them, but I am definitely the one with the bad taste, right?
Ughhh. Rock on.
Well, I don't mind if someone doesn't like the Chicago movie--I happened to, but I'll agree it's not perfect. But to call the original stage version "shitty"? By what standards? It's very funny, a pointed satire, and has an excellent score... To my mind, it stands up astonishly well to most musicals from the last 30 years or so. Then again, theatre is more or less what I do, but if you haven't seen the stage version, please don't judge it by the movie--there are lots of pretty profound differences that place them both in very different categories.
Once again:
"If you disagree, you are free (as always) to make your own damn list."
Mike Thomas:
Putting Academy Award winning films like "Titanic", "Forrest Gump" and "Chicago" on a list of the all-time worst films seems to me like sour grapes.
What, no love for "Life is Beautiful?"
The only Best Picture winner on my all-time worst list is "Forrest Gump." "Titanic" topped the BBC list. "Chicago" was an also-ran.
"Sour grapes" for what? For the waste of my money? For the excessive hype and critical adulation heaped on an undeserving piece of crap? For Cameron turning down my "Piranha IV" screenplay?
You either didn't read my methodology, or you ignored it. To sum up, any low budget movie can be crap, and many are. Films with millions of dollars to play with, big name acting talent, and studio backing have no excuse.
And I stand by my picks. "Forrest Gump" is awful, sentimentalist tripe.
Greg Morrow:
>any movie featuring a character from "Saturday Night Live"
How about the Blues Brothers?
I've seen "The Blues Brothers." I was trying to indicate those SNL movies ("Night at the Roxbury," "It's Pat") that I haven't actually seen. I should've been clearer.
Matthew Murray:
but if you haven't seen the stage version, please don't judge it by the movie--there are lots of pretty profound differences that place them both in very different categories.
"Shitty" was a little harsh, perhaps. Still didn't like it.
I should also point out that I haven't seen two movies that make a lot of others people's lists: "The Avengers" and "Lost in Space." I suppose now I'm going to have to.
Oops! I had not read your methodology before making my first comment. Sorry.
That does make it a bit more challenging, especially for someone who is very picky about the movies they will see.
But I still think that putting an Academy Award winning Best Picture on the list is a bit like including Madonna on a list of the World's Ugliest People just because you really can't stand her. Well, you may not like her, but that doesn't mean she is ugly.
You can make an entirely separate list for the most undeserving Oscar winners.
Just go watch "Sweet November" with Kenau Reeves and Charlize Theron sometime and you will probably be forced to bump "Forrest Gump" off of your list. :)
...and then you can watch "Being There" and bump "Forrest Gump" right back onto the list.
Being There was the Forest Gump of the 1970s, except without the funny.
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...
| --Posted to Antinome on Dec 4, 2003 1:24 AM:. |
Much like Dave Barry when he did his Bad Song Survey, I was rather overwhelmed by the response to my......
| --Posted to Off the Kuff on Dec 4, 2003 9:13 AM:. |
Inspired by Pete and Chuck, and a bunch of other folks, I'm posting a short list of movies that I've......
| --Posted to Perverse Access Memory on Dec 4, 2003 11:07 AM:. |
Chuck, Pete, and many others have been playing the Worst Films List game. Being the good sheep that I am.........
| --Posted to hanging-fire.net on Dec 4, 2003 1:07 PM:. |
Thanks in large part to Pete and Charles (who now even has a list of lists), bad movie lists are......
| --Posted to Lean Left on Dec 4, 2003 1:17 PM:. |
Okay, first of all my sister is not a syphilitic Fascist. (I haven't seen Goonies myself, but I've gotta stick up for her.)
The Avengers is a bad movie, but it's entertaingly bad. They were trying to be funny, and it didn't work, but it's fun to watch. And there's Uma to look at.
Lost In Space, however, is an abominably awful movie. It would be at the top of my list.
I found "Lost In Space" to be not nearly as bad as I'd been led to expect -- it sort of fell into that "dumb, but inoffensive" category I reserve for certain types of movies that have no pretensions to being more than what they are. You know who you are.
In the "Avengers" weight class, let me offer my (dis)recommendation for "Mission: Impossible", a dumb movie with a plot nobody understood, about characters nobody cared about, doing things nobody believed.
Thank you for giving Highlander II the dubious recognition it deserves. Talk about a sequel that should have never, ever been made! Weak analogy here, but it's like making a sequel to "The Princess Bride" - heaven help us if that ever happens. And the only good thing "Manos" has to offer is that it's perfect fodder for Mystery Science Theater and it has Torgo. Pretty sure that movie was a genuine slice of the first or second circle of Hell.