The Worst Films of All Time?

March 27, 2007 2:42 PM

The Worst Films of "The Modern Era?" There are dozens of places to start - do you go by cost of production to theater revenue? Here's a list of criterias to make it the worst of the worst. Or perhaps by continuity errors? Blatant ignoring of the laws of immutable physics? This Christian Group has their criterias ... (American Psycho-ZERO). IMDB's "people" votes? man, there's lot of hate for "Crossover." It didn't get any noms at the "Razzies." And if your memory fails, check out the previous "losers." Is Everyone a Critic? Or the best film critic - here's Ebert's list (though I SERIOUSLY disagree on TOMMY BOY!). Many others weigh in: Digital Dreams; Maxim, Rotten Tomatoes, Stinkers (in alphabetical order); Metacritic and Leonard Maltin for your PDA/mobile (you'll have to do a sort on BOMB). And of course, (NSFW) the worst porn titles. Er, Enjoy!
posted by jbelkin (75 comments total)

Some films on the Wikipedia "box office bombs" page have high artistic or entertainment value in spite of their financial failure.

I wish that Wikipedia table was sortable.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot at 2:53 PM on March 27, 2007

The definitive 63 worst films or TV shows ever made.
posted by signal at 2:57 PM on March 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

Well everyone has their preferences, I suppose. In the end, my criteria is trying to figure out what the film was supposed to be about, its theme, and then decide whether it even came close. For example, I kinda like Uwe Boll films. Dont get me wrong, they are bloody AWFUL, but they're supposed to be. He IS B-movie. So that's okay... sorta. Anyway, as opposed to something like Catwoman or Daredevil, which I think we were supposed to take seriously as a super-hero genre action flicks and were just absolutely dreadful. Casting Adam Sandler in either would have been better - at least we would have known when to laugh.

There were many films on the various lists that I have never seen, but for my 2 pennies, the worst film I have ever seen (that also made these lists) is Gymkata. Although I have to say, the scene (no exaggeration here) where he fights off like 100 ninja while doing the gymnastic horse-thingy routine had me blowing beer through my nose laughing so hard when I saw it.
posted by elendil71 at 3:02 PM on March 27, 2007

has their criterias
criteria is already plural
posted by fatllama at 3:12 PM on March 27, 2007

From Ebert's list:

"Deuce Bigalow" is aggressively bad, as if it wants to cause suffering to the audience. The best thing about it is that it runs for only 75 minutes.... Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks.

Priceless.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 3:14 PM on March 27, 2007

Your favourite worst film sucks.
posted by Flashman at 3:18 PM on March 27, 2007

Aww geez, I've already chimed in on this before.
If you're talking worst films of all time and you
don't mention Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny then you have absolutley no idea at all what a truly bad film is.

On a side note, great post -I love stuff like this.
posted by squidfartz at 3:19 PM on March 27, 2007

I can't believe Ebert lumped Constantine in the same list as Freddy Got Fingered. Somebody get me a mirror. I need a mirror!
posted by phaedon at 3:20 PM on March 27, 2007

The Turkish Star Wars
The Turkish Exorcist
The Turkish ET
The Turkish Star Trek
The Turkish Wizard of OZ
That Man from Harlem
The Dungeons of Harrow
Hell Squad
Sextette ......
posted by doctorschlock at 3:25 PM on March 27, 2007

No way! ${LIST} is totally wrong. I kind of liked ${TITLE} by ${DIRECTOR} even though ${REVIEWER} says it was awful. It had ${QUALITY} which, while ${OTHER_QUALITY}, was nevertheless ${REDEEMING_QUALITY}. Bleh. Nobody has taste.
posted by Rhomboid at 3:32 PM on March 27, 2007 [3 favorites]

Worst of the Web.
posted by psmealey at 3:32 PM on March 27, 2007

From Ebert's editor... "Whether they're so bad they're funny, so bad they're not funny, or so unfunny they're not funny, he must critique them..."

I seriously think just using "good and bad" to describe movies needs to stop. It fails to convey the situation.

There are movies so bad they are good, but not necessarily in the way that they were intended. Plan Nine From Outer Space entertains me again and again with repeated viewings. Most movies that got MSTed would fit into this category.

There are other movies that are bad, they know they are bad, they wanted to be bad, and that's what makes them good. Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter for example, or Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.

Then there's movies that are just bad bad and they're so bad that they're just bad. Battlefield Earth. Mary Reilly. Constantine. The Blue Lagoon. I have yet to find a single redeemable quality in these films. I can't even come up with an entertaining drinking game.

Then there's great movies that didn't do well in the box office cuz they're artsy fartsy but they're still good. There's just not a market for what they had to offer, or there wasn't a market for the film when it came out, but it found its market later, and you can say it was bad because it didn't make money, but that's absolutely no measure for merit. Princess Bride comes to mind. Great movie. Tanked in the box office. Your children's children will be watching Princess Bride.

Just "bad or good" doesn't play. "Best of all time." "Worst of all time." Not good enough. We need a much better way of organizing cinema, so future generations can get a better idea what works and what doesn't.
posted by ZachsMind at 3:39 PM on March 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

Freddy Got Fingered is glorious. Look at my hooves! Look at my hooves!

OTOH, the other day my friend and I went to see The Number 23 purely for a laugh, but then our brains imploded and I wanted to shoot myself. Not even funny-bad. Pure punishment.
posted by Sticherbeast at 3:39 PM on March 27, 2007

Reading that "worst of the worst" link made me feel more icky than watching a Steve Guttenberg film.
posted by slogger at 3:54 PM on March 27, 2007

I seriously think just using "good and bad" to describe movies needs to stop. It fails to convey the situation.

I agree. In a world with Joe Bob Briggs reviews, new language needs to be developed for film criticism. My peer group is partial to the terms "cheesy bad-good" and "cheesey bad-bad" to describe the movies that can only fall into the other category.
posted by lekvar at 4:03 PM on March 27, 2007

Reading that "worst of the worst" link made me feel more icky than watching a Steve Guttenberg film.

I also cannot believe that "Nothing But Trouble" made somebody's worst list. This was one of my favorite movies growing up (that and the ridiculous fox/robin hood cartoon).
posted by phaedon at 4:04 PM on March 27, 2007

The worst film of the modern era is A History of Violence.
posted by fire&wings at 4:07 PM on March 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

I'm having fun going through The Nitpickers Site (the one jbelkin linked to under "continuity errors"). I love stuff like this.
posted by amyms at 4:09 PM on March 27, 2007

There's a scene in Howard The Duck near the end where they're sitting in a diner. A waitress takes the possessed guy's plate, and he looks up and says, "She took my eggs..."

Cracks me up every fucking time. I use it as a reference in similar situations from time to time but no one ever gets it.

And rifftrax! Holy shit! I'd totally forgotten about that site. My next paycheck will surely suffer for it, though.
posted by Cyrano at 4:09 PM on March 27, 2007

I'll give you "Gymkata," and raise you "Forbidden Zone."
posted by Marky at 4:17 PM on March 27, 2007

Ebert: "``Mad Dog Time' should be cut into free ukulele picks for the poor."

I love it when Ebert hates a movie so much, he gives it NO stars.
posted by ZachsMind at 4:18 PM on March 27, 2007

I actually like Constantine quite a bit, but I'm a confirmed genre junky with the ability to separate a fun movie from a serious one. I'm often quite surprised by the level of distaste people have for stylish, campy flicks like Constantine, but I can see why they wouldn't appeal to someone.

It's a fine line, though, between a good and a bad genre flick, as it basically boils down to, "is this stylish and self-assuredly indulgent enough to make me not care about what might be otherwise porous or laughable storytelling?" (or, more succinctly, is this "cool"?). Where this line is varies a great deal from person to person, but there are a certain subsection of people--and the percentage of them grows when you look at reviewers--that will almost never appreciate a film on those merits alone.

Because of this, there are certain reviewers, like Ebert, who are utterly fantastic and reputable when it comes to certain kind of films, and completely useless for others. A perfect example is Ebert's late 90s early 00s love affair with Jennifer Lopez, replete with outstanding reviews for at best mildly entertaining but otherwise un-noteworthy films: I'm almost positive, for example, that he gave The Cell a perfect four stars.

Rotten Tomatoes actually does a reasonable job of approximating this. There are a lot of fun genre type horror/thriller flicks (like Constantine) that seem to review right down the middle, between forty and sixty percent positive. These are the sorts of films that some people enjoy and others detest, but probably don't belong on a "worst of the worst" list like something truly awful (The Number 23 being the perfect example of a genre film that could have been Bad-Good but ended up as an un-entertaining, moralizing clusterfuck of vomit-inducing badness).

But, you know, to each their own. I'm more than willing to spend the time to argue about films I love, but spending more than a few paragraphs justifying films I just kinda like is a bit much.
posted by The God Complex at 4:26 PM on March 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

Marky, I'll echo ZachsMind comments and reiterate my own.

I have not seen 'Forbidden Zone' but it sounds like a "made to be B" film and therefore perhaps should be taken in context. The worst films are those that dont have that kind of sensibility and still are just frikkin awful.

But in the spirit of the game, I'll see your Forbidden Zone, and raise you Forbidden World. Great stuff - man cutting out his own softball sized stomach cancer and feeding it to the monster. Classic!
posted by elendil71 at 4:27 PM on March 27, 2007

The worst film of the modern era is A History of Violence.

Loved it. The violence was real enough to actually turn my stomach--on a purely meta-cinematic level, that itself is an interesting commentary on cinematic violence. But I'm an unabashed Cronenberg lover who enjoys everything from The Fly to eXistenZ.
posted by The God Complex at 4:30 PM on March 27, 2007

The worst film of the modern era is A History of Violence.

fire&wings you're going to have to make an argument for your views on that bit of provocation.

My vote? Let's go with a whole production company. Troma films are so bad they are bad.
posted by Rashomon at 4:45 PM on March 27, 2007

The definitive 63 worst films or TV shows ever made.

Top Gun? Remember the Titans? For mindless action flicks, Bad Boys I/II, The Rock, and Con Air? He's made cinematic bombs, but he's also made some pretty decent flicks along the way.
posted by jmd82 at 4:46 PM on March 27, 2007

I also hate History of Violence (and exCremenZ).

Movies on this list and/or that are generally considered shite that I truly like include

The Fountain (best film of 2006)
Ishtar (truly, I think it's hilarious)
Death to Smoochy
The Hulk (the script was 10x better than any of the Batman or Spiderman scripts)
Hurlyburly

I've seen each of these films more than once and Ishtar and Hurlyburly many times more.

And, I don't love it but I'd take EdTV over Truman Show any day of the week.
posted by dobbs at 4:50 PM on March 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

The Hulk (the script was 10x better than any of the Batman or Spiderman scripts)

I'll agree with you on Spiderman, but Batman Begins is at least 7.3x better than The Hulk. You just dropped two notches on my respect meter! ;)
posted by The God Complex at 5:01 PM on March 27, 2007

History of Violence is actually a pretty good film. I think some people's dislike of it comes from the fact that others like it. In other words, it's a political viewpoint.
One could say the same about most any film that ever won and Academy Awards. But what would be the point?

Movies should not be judged by what critics or the masses say; because invariably the criticism is not aimed at the movie but rather aimed at the critic or the masses - or whomever happens to like the film.

Bad movies - it seems to me - would be in the league of Battlefield Earth or Howard the Duck. Movies that were made with the intention of being quality entertainment but which just about everybody realized were just horrible on all levels.
posted by Rashomon at 5:05 PM on March 27, 2007

I can't believe Ebert lumped Constantine in the same list as Freddy Got Fingered. Somebody get me a mirror.

Agreed. Constantine was flawed (in that the script didn't really make any sense at all), but was at least well directed and beautiful to watch.

Worst movie of all time is a great subject that I could pontificate on endlessly, but I was thinking about it the other day, and I think I actually have a no. 1 for this:

BATTLEFIELD EARTH!

If you haven't seen it, it really is as bad as they say. I've probably never seen such inept direction/acting/writing/editing/you name it in any other movie, ever. And I had read the Hubbard book, and even liked it. This movie is an unbelievable piece of junk.

Though to be totally fair, I could only make it through an hour or so before turning it off and doing something productive, like sticking my thumb up my butt.
posted by zardoz at 5:11 PM on March 27, 2007

I think it's mostly impossible to come up with a definitive worst of all time. I cannot be so moved by a lot of the films that appear on that list. Most of them just inspire various degrees of boredom. I think what is possible to list films by that so elicited one visceral response, you can categorize it by that. You can carve it up any number of ways, but just for fun, becuase I'm lately feeling fond of David Fincher, let's pick the seven deadly sins:

• Wrath: Though not generally viewed as a "bad" movie, I fucking loathed Natural Born Killers. Everything about it, the self indulgent direction, the acting, the plot the dialogue, everyting.
• Lust: Mulholland Drive. Practically every scene with Naomi Watts (where she wasn't a rotting corpse), was a huge turn on.
• Greed: Wall Street. As loathsome and 2 dimensional as all of the characters were, I definitely wanted their lives.
• Vanity: Buffalo 66. I am so much better than all of the characters in that stinky little film.
• Gluttony: The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. Some sick shit in that film, but the food shots were sumptuous.
• Envy: I Spit on Your Grave. I envy everyone and anyone that doesn't have to live with the blot of this atrocity on the memory.
• Sloth: Leaving Las Vegas. After watching this self-indulgent overrated piece of sickening tripe, I was so depressed, I couldn't do anything for a week.

posted by psmealey at 5:14 PM on March 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

Zardoz, isn't it a smidge eponysterical for you to rip on Battlefield Earth? Or at least genre-nysterical?

Oh the boots in Battlefield Earth. The boots...
posted by abulafa at 5:22 PM on March 27, 2007

Oh, man, you guys have got Battlefield Earth all wrong. That movie was hilarious. The tilted shots, the purple filter, the 'leverage' speeches....sublime. Plus, the movie starts the way Rvenge of the Sith ended, laughably, with "NOOOOOOOO!!"
posted by graventy at 5:30 PM on March 27, 2007

See, Starship Troopers I can buy as intentionally over-the-top. Battlefield Earth... I feel like you're granting it more than its due.

Maybe it's the dreads.
posted by abulafa at 5:39 PM on March 27, 2007

I saw Son of Blob this past weekend, on film no less. OH MY GOSH. So bad it was good, etc. Never seen anything (terrible) like it.
posted by statolith at 5:45 PM on March 27, 2007

Zardoz, isn't it a smidge eponysterical for you to rip on Battlefield Earth? Or at least genre-nysterical?

Well, as soon as I figure out what "eponysterical" means, I'll get back to you. If you're talking about my namesake, then yes it's bad, but a different breed of bad. I enjoy watching that film--as an avid SciFi reader, it has a lot of elements from 60s and 70s SciFi that're downright cool--but B.E. doesn't work on any level. B.E. is just plain painful to watch.
posted by zardoz at 5:57 PM on March 27, 2007

I've only walked out of one movie in my life: Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. Bad dialogue, bad acting, nonsensical source material, sickeningly self-indulgent. Ugh.
posted by 1adam12 at 6:00 PM on March 27, 2007

Starship Troopers I can buy as intentionally over-the-top.

there's nothing over-the-top about Starship Troopers. that is a brilliant movie and terrifyingly true to life.
posted by geos at 6:05 PM on March 27, 2007

Troma films are so bad they are bad.

I submit that this is not always true. Tromeo & Juliet, Terror Firmer and the original Toxic Avenger are all good, funny films.

I've walked out of XXX (the movie, not the porn-rating) and Flags of Our Fathers in recent memory.
posted by Bookhouse at 6:22 PM on March 27, 2007

The real worst movies in my mind are the ones that get good reviews but actually stink to all hell. Such titles include:
A History of Violence
Metropolis (the anime)
Best in Show
Titanic
Star Wars: Episode 3
etc.
posted by Vindaloo at 6:38 PM on March 27, 2007

300, there I said it. (Also: History of Violence?!!? You my friend are a philistine.)
posted by Jeff_Larson at 6:41 PM on March 27, 2007

Don't knock Existenz! Best video game related movie ever. Clitoral sentient game pods, mutant sea-bass from breeding pools ... breeding pools ... (gives previously unimagined taste sensations), and Willem Dafoe as the creepiest gas-station attendant/black-market spinal bioport surgeon.
posted by snoktruix at 6:43 PM on March 27, 2007

And again, Constantine is the best.
posted by Jeff_Larson at 6:43 PM on March 27, 2007

I saw Battlefield Earth in the theater, and I couldn't breathe from laughing so hard. The scene where the aliens try to figure out what humans eat by sending them off into the wild... that's pure comic gold.

Lately, though, I've had to sing the praises of Funny Man. It's an attempt at a horror comedy that fails so hard at being either scary or funny that it warps itself through a sort of comedy vortex and comes out the other side as absolutely hilarious. It's even got Christopher Lee in it. Everyone needs to see this.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:46 PM on March 27, 2007

My Chauffeur was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It irritated me so much I got physically upset.
posted by Falconetti at 6:46 PM on March 27, 2007

Cannibal! the Musical was (at least released) by Troma, and this alone redeems them.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:46 PM on March 27, 2007

And snoktruix, you're absolutely right about Existenz. I regularly quote the line "The speciar... is onry for speciar occasions..."
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:49 PM on March 27, 2007

I can't believe this is a thread about bad movies and people are talking about Constantine.

CONSTANTINE?!?

Somewhere Antonio is weeping.

Loudly.
posted by squidfartz at 7:09 PM on March 27, 2007

Did any of you read the "worst of the worst" link? The guy's choices as examples are debatable, but he nailed the criteria for bad films that ZachsMind and others here have been talking about. If you didn't, here are his elements of a bad movie:

• Feature Known Talent Who Have Done Good Work Before.
• Bad Concept to Begin With.
• Fair Sized (to Huge) Budget.
• They Actually Wanted to Make a “Statement.”
• Inept Directing.
• Inept Editing.
• Inept Writing.
• Bad Acting.
• Repellent/Stupid Characters.
• Technical Ineptitude.

Before you comment, he explains his rationale for each item in detail on the page, and I think he's totally right. It's stupid to call Shazaam one of the worst films of all time, because it wasn't supposed to be good. No one expected an Oscar for Shaq and was surprised when he didn't get a nod...
posted by Sangermaine at 7:15 PM on March 27, 2007

History of Violence is actually a pretty good film. I think some people's dislike of it comes from the fact that others like it. In other words, it's a political viewpoint.

Yeah, because anyone with a different viewpoint from your own can't have come to it honestly. In other words: give me a fucking break.

I saw History of Violence at a film festival before it had opened anywhere in the world. If there were reviews of it prior to that screening, I didn't see them. To repost my comment from a previous thread:

I hated everything about it. The acting, the score (good Christ, it was shit--felt like I was in Lord of the Rings), but mostly, the script sucked. The dialogue was poo, the scenarios were cliche and predictable (not a single "reverse" or "twist" was surprising).

The sex scenes were laughable and out of place (and, I later confirmed, didn't come from the graphic novel), the "moral" was of a gradeschool level. The film had no basement whatsoever, no reason to ever need to see it again.

Questions that the film answered should have been left unanswerered and weak characters should have been strong and vice versa. The filmmakers took the easy route at every opportunity.

In my opinion, it's the antithesis of good filmic storytelling. In short, it sucked.
posted by dobbs at 7:21 PM on March 27, 2007

Is Constantine really bad? It was ...entertaining. It was funny. Not always when it meant to be funny. At points it was pretty, but in that dark sardonic depressing emo goth punk way.

Constantine was bad because it wasn't Constantine.

Perhaps if they had used different names, I could have swallowed the absurdity of it. Anyone who actually read a half dozen or so issues of Hellblazer would agree with me - that film has as much in common with its source material as The Wiz has to its own source material.

And I love The Wiz. It had soul. It showed Wizard of Oz from a Motown perspective, and that was fine for what it was.

I feel about Constantine similarly to how many fans of P.K.Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep? feel about "Blade Runner." If you're not going to do the story that's in the book, why make the damned movie?

There's talk about the WATCHMEN being put to film. If they do to The Watchmen what they did to Hellblazer, I'd appreciate it very much if those responsible stuck their own heads in toilets and flushed the commode.

Would you do a live-action remake of Snow White And The Seven Dwarves but not have the dwarves be represented as Little People cuz research and polls indicate that audiences would respond more favorably to Keanu Reeves? NO. YOU WOULDN'T! WHY? CUZ IT'S FUCKIN STOOPID IS WHY. If Keanu Reeves is John Constantine, then I'm Yul Brenner.

...

Regarding recent super hero films: I think Sam Raimi's approach to Spider-Man blows away both the Batman Begins thing and The Hulk. Why? Because Raimi knows what it feels like to be a comic book fan. Yes he is taking editorial license and not being 100% true to the source material. No Gwen Stacy. I know. For some people that's just downright blasphemy. Still, Raimi captures the feel of reading a Spider-Man comic. He brings to the screen all the things that are right about Spidey. All the stuff that makes you wanna read about Spidey. All the things that when I was a kid, made me choose picking up a Spider-Man comic over I dunno... doing drugs or joining gangs or running for student council.

I didn't even recognize Batman in the Batman Begins thing until about twenty minutes before it was over, and by then, I didn't care anymore. I know it was supposed to be Batman's secret origin a la Frank Miller's "Batman Year One" thing. Whatever. And The Hulk? That was a terrible film. It didn't make the premise believable. It was poorly cast. It was directed by some artsy fartsy guy who obviously had never picked up a Hulk comic in his life. Even the CGI was lousy.

...

I've only walked out of one movie in my life: Nightmare on Elm Street Part Two. And I left my date behind. I realized if she was more interested in watching that movie than in making out, we just had nothing in common and there wasn't a future between us.
posted by ZachsMind at 7:54 PM on March 27, 2007

Worst movie ever? Turbulence...
posted by gemmy at 8:00 PM on March 27, 2007

Zachsmind, I've only walked out of one movie in my life and that was Spiderman.

I really like Raimi's other movies, (at least the 3 or 4 others that I've seen) but about 3/4 through Spidey, I got up from the full theater and left my friends behind. I thought the directing was pretty good, but what got me was the writing. I thought the screenplay was unadventurous, cliche'd, run-of-the-mill Hollywood crap.

It wouldn't make my 10 worst movie list, but it is the only movie I've ever walked out of.
posted by Sir BoBoMonkey Pooflinger Esquire III at 8:28 PM on March 27, 2007

I find it difficult admitting to this, but i will do it for academic posteriority, in case some super alien race chances upon this dusty old server case a millions years from now:

I went and saw Beerfest on opening night. By myself.
posted by phaedon at 9:10 PM on March 27, 2007

Damn you, dobbs, I came this close to seeing The Fountain in the theater and now you're really making me regret that I didn't, since I figure anyone who couldn't stand Natural Born Killers has got to have some taste.

It's not a movie, but the worst two hours ever put to film? The last two episodes of The Prisoner. Sure, people laugh about the bit where Patrick McGoohan is fleeing the bizarre underground tribunal and confronts a man in a monkey mask, and yanks off the mask to reveal — gasp! — it's Patrick McGoohan! And the whole "Oh, well, we're out of funding, guess I'll just hitch a ride off the island peninsula on the next lorry" bit. But that's nothing compared to the penultimate episode, one entire fucking hour of bizarre underground free-association psychotherapy with clowns. Upon looking it up, I find there's also a caning by a midget, which I'd somehow, mercifully, been permitted to forget.

Don't get me wrong. The Prisoner had its moments. Some nice dialogue about Number Six and Number Two and who is Number One and so on. The evil weather-balloon creature was nicely droll. But after episodes 16 and 17, none of that can save Patrick McGoohan from going to the special hell.

Don't talk to me about spoilers. You can't spoil television this bad.
posted by IshmaelGraves at 9:12 PM on March 27, 2007

Ishmael, yeah, you missed out not seeing The Fountain in the theatre. I saw it twice in a week. I think even those who hate the movie have to agree it's something to see--beautifully shot and designed. I'm hoping they put together a kickass dvd set for it to make up for the low BO.

Note: wasn't me that commented on NBK.
posted by dobbs at 9:17 PM on March 27, 2007

Once a friend and I were walking down the street when we saw a line. "What is this line?" I asked a member of the line, and this line member - a pleasant middle-aged lady - told me that it was a free screening for a French movie.

So we got in line and we sat next to her and we made idle chit-chat.

Then the film started and the lady left within five minutes and for the next hour and a half or so I willed my internal organs to stop, because that movie is fucking godawful.

High Tension. It may be the worst movie ever made.

The most misogynistic and homophobic movie I've ever seen in my life, too. Oh my dear, silly Lord. You could film the execution of Melissa Etheridge and it still wouldn't be as hateful towards lesbians as that movie.

...

I would also like to cast a vote against Dreamcatcher, which, much like The Number 23, we had rented as a joke, but then the joke backfired and just kept raping our faces during the runtime. It's like the movie won't stop screaming at you. It's honestly mystifying. I don't know how that story ever looked coherent. I'm amazed the images were in focus, even. You'd think something that shitty would just shatter lenses and call down the Wrath of God onto the set, but no, bushy-browed Morgan Freeman and saintly retard Donnie Wahlberg keep soldiering on, the frames running by at 24 frames a second, sucking out all watchable light and motion like something made of anti-movie.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:19 PM on March 27, 2007

Oops, apologies for the misattribution.
posted by IshmaelGraves at 9:19 PM on March 27, 2007

Even as someone who did not like The Fountain, I had to admit that it was ambitious. Beautiful music, too. But for some reason the whole thing left me a bit flat.

Also, I only like Rachel Weisz when she's playing unlikeable characters. I found her a flat spot in both The Constant Gardener and The Fountain - playing the "doomed mewing pretty porcelain-white lady" both times. Bleh.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:22 PM on March 27, 2007

Zachsmind: Constantine was bad because it wasn't Constantine.

Perhaps if they had used different names, I could have swallowed the absurdity of it. Anyone who actually read a half dozen or so issues of Hellblazer would agree with me - that film has as much in common with its source material as The Wiz has to its own source material.

Listen, I may be guilty of not knowing the context that "I'm supposed to know" having watched Constantine. But when you say Constantine around my household, there's only two fucking people you could possibly be talking out - and thats either the emperor, or my cousin, and in that order. So if this was a comic book or something that i don't know about, i still tip my hat off to the movie because i had no clue there was any pretext, and i caught on rather quickly.

your other points are excellent. i never thought about that distinction between Batman Begins and Spiderman. but you're spot on. there is something to be said about the "infantalization" of consumers (as ben barber would put it). and im a little worried raimi will lose his direction in the third installment for precisely that reason - bringing more adult themes to a splendfully_tm great series so far.
posted by phaedon at 9:23 PM on March 27, 2007

Stitcherbeast, Dreamcatcher is indeed one of the worst films I've ever seen. However, it's so bad it's good, imo.

That said, the lead in Dreamcatcher was in my favorite movie of 2004, Keane. I met him and told him how much I loved it and asked him why on earth he was in Dreamcatcher. He didn't really have an answer and looked so terribly disappointed that I'd brought it up after praising his work in Keane. He was also excellent in the HBO series Band of Brothers.

High Tension was a mess. The lead gave a good performance but the movie was terrible.
posted by dobbs at 9:28 PM on March 27, 2007

Batman Begins is at least 7.3x better than The Hulk

That's madness. BB was capital B Boring. It's villain(s) had no charisma, the chase scene was ludicrous (4000 pound car on clay rooftop buildings), it had 15 endings... etc. etc. Bale was good, the beginning was mildly interesting but Nolan went down 2 notches in my respect-o-meter for that dreck.

The Hulk screenplay was fantastic. Terrific twists--unexpected deaths. The editing was glorious--if it'd been a hit it would have had a serious effect on editing as a whole, I think.

PS How's Heroes. ;)
posted by dobbs at 9:35 PM on March 27, 2007

Its! Arrgh.
posted by dobbs at 9:35 PM on March 27, 2007

Phaedon, that was about my response to the Blade Runner / Android Dream argument. I have not read PKD's book and I don't plan to, because I enjoyed the film. I fear if I ever read the book, it'll adversely affect my fond memory of having enjoyed the movie. However, I'm still left with this naive uncertainty and disappointment, that perhaps Blade Runner could have been even better, had those behind it taken the source material more seriously.

John Constantine is from Liverpool England, and not California. I was able to forgive Kevin Costner's slipshod portrayal of Robin Hood more easily than I can forgive what was done to Alan Moore's invention.
posted by ZachsMind at 9:39 PM on March 27, 2007

ZachsMind, I've read DADoES and am a big PKD fan. I don't think Blade Runner could have been any better. The writers did a fantastic job of caputuring the spirit of Dick's characters and story and, I think, did one of the best adaptations from book to film ever made. They managed this because they appreciate that film and novels are different mediums with different strengths and weaknesses. The more recent adaptation of ond of Dick's books failed miserably at this.

I think you should read DADoES. It's definitely possible to appreciate them both.
posted by dobbs at 9:45 PM on March 27, 2007

my bad. let me just add that, no matter what the context, you will never regret reading androids, and it will never make you regret the movie. they are both equally beautiful on different plateaus.
posted by phaedon at 9:48 PM on March 27, 2007

Dobbs likes Ishtar.
I think I just creamed myself.

God, I love that film.
posted by squidfartz at 11:40 PM on March 27, 2007

PS How's Heroes. ;)

It was better than Battlestar for awhile, but the last three episodes of BSG were mind-numbingly good...
posted by The God Complex at 12:28 AM on March 28, 2007

I just bought the first two seasons of BSG on recommendation (right after the episode of Lost with Bai Ling in it). I'm gearing up to watch it soon, and I hope it's as good as they say!
posted by phaedon at 12:32 AM on March 28, 2007

A friend who is infatuated with Milla Jovovich dragged myself and another friend to go see Ultraviolet. He'd been talking up the whole thing, stopping conversations in bars whenever the commercial for it came on tv, the whole bit. Even though I didn't like Equilibrium and he loved it he managed to talk me into actually being a little excited about seeing this movie.

Oh gods. I can't even remember what exactly happened in that movie and I can quote lines and scenes from movies I saw once 15 years ago. People were walking out left and right. At one point, I think during a particularly bad looking CG chase scene that had visible jaggies I turned to my friend to make a snarky comment only to be stopped short; he was rocking back and forth he head bowed and buried in his hands. I turned to my other friend only to find him punching his temples repeatedly. The movie was so bad that it had reduced my friends to gibbering psychotics.
posted by thecjm at 12:38 AM on March 28, 2007

The worst film of the modern era is A History of Violence.

Certainly the worst film that was supposedly great. And not because of any political viewpoint, but because the writing and acting sucked. My gf and I watched it and couldn't believe this was the movie we'd heard such good things about. The only redeeming thing was we didn't pay $10 each to watch it a theater but instead watched it at home where we could pause the dvd to ridicule the movie.
posted by chris24 at 5:38 AM on March 28, 2007

Great concept, lousy execution is a formula that guarantees major suckage. Best example in my mind of that: Even Horizon. One of the worst movies I have ever seen. Utter shit.

And keep in mind, I once paid 10 cents to see The Stupids in a movie theatre.
posted by grubi at 6:43 AM on March 28, 2007

I don't understand the hate for A History of Violence.

You know what shocked me on the Wikipedia list? The cost-to-income ratio of Cradle Will Rock. Not because I was surprised that so few people saw it, but because I was surprised that someone convinced a studio to spend $30 million making it. I saw it. It wasn't bad. It had some good moments (I loved Hank Azaria's character). I can't possibly imagine the film being able to attract a wide enough audience to make back $30 million in production costs. Truly this had to be a situation where the producer and director forgot they were making a niche independent film and deluded themselves into think that their film was so meaningful that everyone would have to see it.
posted by deanc at 12:04 PM on March 28, 2007

There's a scene in Howard The Duck near the end where they're sitting in a diner. A waitress takes the possessed guy's plate, and he looks up and says, "She took my eggs..."

YES. That line basically redeems the entire rest of the film. And ater 20 years, I still can't eat eggs without thinking about it.
posted by MrBadExample at 9:53 PM on March 28, 2007

The real worst movies in my mind are the ones that get good reviews but actually stink to all hell. Such titles include:
A History of Violence
Metropolis (the anime)
Best in Show

BEST IN SHOW?!? You CANNOT be serious.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:38 AM on March 30, 2007