i don't wanna editorialize this thing but I'm just saying soul survivors was actually pretty decent okay

September 28, 2009 4:28 PM

Early or not, Rotten Tomatoes brings us the 100 worst films of the decade.
posted by kittens for breakfast (222 comments total)

Wow, Gigli didn't even crack the top 20. That's a little tough to imagine, but there it is.
posted by jquinby at 4:37 PM on September 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

I look forward to the heated discussions about how my least favorite movie doesn't actually suck that much.

Also, no "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell"? Fail.
posted by dersins at 4:38 PM on September 28, 2009 [5 favorites]

Strange Wilderness is definitely among the worst films I have ever seen. I wanted so much to like it, but, man, it really sucked hard.
posted by solipsophistocracy at 4:39 PM on September 28, 2009

I will go on record as saying, I agree with this list.
posted by pokermonk at 4:44 PM on September 28, 2009

Ben Kingsley sure is in a lot of shitty movies.
posted by Caduceus at 4:44 PM on September 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

> Wow, Gigli didn't even crack the top 20. That's a little tough to imagine, but there it is.

Well, Gigli did have Christopher Walken's awesome cameo.
posted by The Card Cheat at 4:47 PM on September 28, 2009

Awesome! I only saw two of these movies, but I didn't pay for either of them! SCORE!
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:48 PM on September 28, 2009

a.k.a. 100 movies i have not seen. though it does somewhat blow my mind that twilight didn't make it on here.
posted by 256 at 4:51 PM on September 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

Only 4 Uwe Boll films?
posted by ciderwoman at 4:53 PM on September 28, 2009 [4 favorites]

Ben Kingsley sure is in a lot of shitty movies.

I'm reminded of a quote from Michael Caine regarding his role in Jaws 4: The Revenge:

I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.
posted by jquinby at 4:53 PM on September 28, 2009 [53 favorites]

Why would ANYONE think a movie a guy who calls himself KAOS directed might be bad?
posted by josher71 at 4:54 PM on September 28, 2009

It was comforting to see Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer holding down the low end of things, but was this list limited to "major" motion pictures? No attention paid to The Room? That was a really, truly, complegely painful movie, and only suitable for consumption with Rifftrax or under heavy sedation.
posted by filthy light thief at 4:54 PM on September 28, 2009

Looks like I Know Who Killed Me just missed making the cut.
posted by Joe Beese at 4:55 PM on September 28, 2009

OBLIGATORY COMPLAINT THAT THE LIST IS UNNECESSARILY SPLIT ONTO MULTIPLE PAGES TO MAXIMIZE AD REVENUE
posted by ixohoxi at 4:56 PM on September 28, 2009 [21 favorites]

Awesome! I only saw two of these movies

I checked this list out a couple of days ago, and wow, there sure are an awful lot of horrible films I've never even heard of.

The thing I like about Rotten-Tomatoes ratings is that they're purely statistical (ie: 4% of reviewers gave it a thumb's up, it gets a 4% rating), so when you get a list like this, it really is the worst of the worst; films so bad that often as not the only people who've even seen them are reviewers (ie: it's their job).

Unlike what you generally get with a worst list which is a mix of the truly godawful and some personal axe-grinding (I, for instance, would be tempted to put JUNO on a worst list, just to piss certain people off).
posted by philip-random at 4:57 PM on September 28, 2009

What most of them seem to have in common is Larry the Cable Guy.
posted by Flashman at 4:57 PM on September 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

> Ben Kingsley sure is in a lot of shitty movies.

What were you thinking when you accepted a role in Bloodrayne? —It's hard to imagine someone so gifted not realizing what a terrible film that would be!

Shane O'Sullivan AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND

I don't know whether to be upset or flattered by that question. To be honest, I have always wanted to play a vampire, with the teeth and the long black cape. Let's say that my motives were somewhat immature for doing it.

I've seen ten of the movies on this list, one of which (#15) was co-written by a friend of mine.
posted by The Card Cheat at 4:57 PM on September 28, 2009 [4 favorites]

Battlefield Earth isn't in the top 10? Do I even want to look at the top 10 or is it going to burn my mind out?
posted by Artw at 5:02 PM on September 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

The list:

100 Whiteout (2009)
99 Glitter (2001)
98 Cheaper By the Dozen 2 (2005)
97 Boat Trip (2003)
96 All About Steve (2009)
95 Lost Souls (2000)
94 The New Guy (2002)
93 A Sound of Thunder (2005)
92 Babylon A.D. (2008)
91 Surviving Christmas (2004)
90 Dragonfly (2002)
89 Basic Instinct 2 (2006)
88 Kaena: The Prophecy (2004)
87 Testosterone (2003)
86 Pavilion of Women (2001)
85 Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector (2006)
84 Thr3e (2007)
83 Doogal (2006)
82 Supercross: The Movie (2005)
81 Extreme Ops (2002)
80 Big Momma's House 2 (2006)
79 The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002)
78 Deck the Halls (2006)
77 Date Movie (2006)
76 Johnson Family Vacation (2004)
75 Son of the Mask (2005)
74 Envy (2004)
73 Gigli (2003)
72 Broken Bridges (2006)
71 College (2008)
70 New Best Friend (2002)
69 The Cookout (2004)
68 Yu-Gi-Oh: The Movie (2004)
67 The Hottie & the Nottie (2008)
66 The Fog (2005)
65 Swept Away (2002)
64 Corky Romano (2001)
63 Yours, Mine, & Ours (2005)
62 Serving Sara (2002)
61 Good Luck Chuck (2007)
60 The Perfect Man (2005)
59 88 Minutes (2008)
58 Christmas with the Kranks (2004)
57 Godsend (2004)
56 Because I Said So (2007)
55 The Celestine Prophecy (2006)
54 Harry And Max (2005)
53 Modigliani (2005)
52 The Bridge of San Luis Rey (2005)
51 Fascination (2005)
50 Dirty Love (2005)
49 In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2008)
48 BloodRayne (2006)
47 Soul Survivors (2001)
46 Material Girls (2006)
45 My Baby's Daddy (2004)
44 Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009)
43 Darkness (2003)
42 House of the Dead (2003)
41 Zoom (2006)
40 Down to You (2000)
39 Miss March (2009)
38 Happily N'Ever After (2007)
37 Code Name: The Cleaner (2007)
36 The Whole Ten Yards (2004)
35 Deal (2008)
34 The Haunting of Molly Hartley (2008)
33 Delta Farce (2007)
32 Deuces Wild (2002)
31 The Covenant (2006)
30 Fear Dot Com (2002)
29 Bless the Child (2000)
28 Rollerball (2002)
27 Battlefield Earth (2000)
26 Kickin' It Old Skool (2007)
25 Meet the Spartans (2008)
24 Texas Rangers (2001)
23 The In Crowd (2000)
22 Disaster Movie (2008)
21 Epic Movie (2007)
20 Crossover (2006)
19 Half Past Dead (2002)
18 The Master of Disguise (2002)
17 Twisted (2004)
16 Daddy Day Camp (2007)
15 Alone in the Dark (2005)
14 Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (2009)
13 Constellation (2007)
12 Killing Me Softly (2002)
11 Merci Docteur Rey! (2002)
10 Witless Protection (2008)
9 Redline (2007)
8 3 Strikes (2000)
7 Strange Wilderness (2008)
6 Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2004)
5 National Lampoon's Gold Diggers (2004)
4 King's Ransom (2005)
3 Pinocchio (2002)
2 One Missed Call (2008)
1 Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002)
posted by CarlRossi at 5:04 PM on September 28, 2009 [34 favorites]

I could have guessed half of these just based on which DVDs are languishing in the "3 for $10" clearance rack at the local Blockbuster.
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey at 5:04 PM on September 28, 2009

Haven't seen any of them. I almost rented The New Guy once, though... guess I dodged a bullet there.
posted by Huck500 at 5:06 PM on September 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

I could have happily lived without the knowledge that there was a really bad 2006 movie based on the character Doogal from The Magic Roundabout. On the other hand, what a cast!
posted by Artw at 5:07 PM on September 28, 2009

OBLIGATORY COMPLAINT THAT THE LIST IS UNNECESSARILY SPLIT ONTO MULTIPLE PAGES TO MAXIMIZE AD REVENUE

Less than 100 pages though.
posted by Artw at 5:08 PM on September 28, 2009

I wasn't necessarily criticizing Mr. Kingsley. I bet they were all fun movies to make.
posted by Caduceus at 5:09 PM on September 28, 2009

Basic Instinct 2: There's also a story of some sort.
posted by Artw at 5:10 PM on September 28, 2009

I have a friend who bought a copy of Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (#1 on the list) at a truck stop in Alaska for $3, because it was there and he had three bucks, shortly after it came out on DVD.

He promised to loan it to me but he never did, I would still like to see the kind of movie that sold in Alaskan truck stops for a few bucks months after it comes out on DVD.
posted by Science! at 5:10 PM on September 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

I've only seen maybe 5 of these all the way through, but based on that limited sample size I bet this list is pretty good.
posted by cell divide at 5:11 PM on September 28, 2009

My comment from the last time we had this thread still stands.

Basically, at least. They seem to have removed two of the four movies that I have seen; I haven't seen any others. But the jist stands:

There's an undeserved melting of "badness" into indistinct levels here. While Battlefield Earth was abominable, Corky Romano was merely dumb.
posted by Flunkie at 5:11 PM on September 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

Also I think the key to a truly bad movie is that there is no chance of being "so bad it's good", which this list seems to honor.
posted by cell divide at 5:11 PM on September 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

Number 24, Texas Rangers, amuses me. Whoever would have expected that a western starring Ashton Kutcher would be terrible?
posted by Caduceus at 5:12 PM on September 28, 2009

I am alarmed and appalled that this list does not include Nicholas Cage's 2006 remake of The Wicker Man. That steaming pile of wreckage strewn with ridiculously silly images intended to be 'scary' and the absolute worst dialogue that I have ever heard in a movie may be the greatest masterpiece of awful that I've ever been lucky to witness. I've watched it four times, and every viewing brings me a deeper insight into the subtle nuances of bad: the first time you laugh at Nick Cage punching a woman whilst wearing a bear suit, but the second and third times you laugh at him acting like he's totally hammered after a few sips of mead and declaiming belligerently at a bar full of women that he's 'on official police business!' just before smashing a bee. Nobody actually talks to each other in this movie: they talk across each other, or at best at each other, every line dying into the ether as into so much lime jello.

The Wicker Man is one of the worst movies of the past 50 years, not just the past decade, and it deserves to be known as such.
posted by koeselitz at 5:13 PM on September 28, 2009 [22 favorites]

Paris Hilton has a small head.
posted by buzzman at 5:13 PM on September 28, 2009

I will watch any old shit with spaceships and lasers. Really, anything. But whilst watching Battlefield Earth I repeatedly got bored, started flciking between channels and eventually just didn't come back. Movies that are worse than Battlefield Earth have to be really, really shockingly bad.
posted by Artw at 5:13 PM on September 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

Only 4 Uwe Boll films?
Ben Kingsley sure is in a lot of shitty movies.

Yeah, I really want someone to go Nate Silver on this. How many writers, directors and actors are represented multiple times? Who 'wins' the title of most-likely-to-be-involved-in a bad movie?

I probably sound like I'm denying my Nixon vote, but I see a lot of films, but I have seen exactly zero of the one hundred on this list. What are the odds of that?
posted by rokusan at 5:16 PM on September 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

Number 24, Texas Rangers, amuses me.

It would have been funnier if Nolan Ryan directed?
posted by rokusan at 5:17 PM on September 28, 2009

But whilst watching Battlefield Earth I repeatedly got bored, started flciking between channels and eventually just didn't come back.

Really? Because I saw Battlefield Earth in the theater the Friday it came out; two days later I made a half-dozen or so of my friends come with me to see it again on a Sunday matinee because I couldn't believe how stupendously awful it really was. I mean, it was stunning. Truly stunning.

Also, I'm a dick for doing that to my friends.
posted by dersins at 5:18 PM on September 28, 2009 [8 favorites]

This all leads me to one question: is it even possible to come up with 100 GOOD movies from the last ten years?
posted by briank at 5:18 PM on September 28, 2009 [8 favorites]

Out of the hundred, I've seen ten minutes of Epic Movie while flipping channels and about and hour of Dungeon Siege which was so laughably terrible (Ray Liotta as a Wizzard?!!) I had to turn it off.
posted by octothorpe at 5:20 PM on September 28, 2009

3 - Battlefield Earth (partial), Darkness (which sort of passed the time, not sure why it's here) and, um, Swept Away.

I'm pretty sure Swept Away is here on the strength of Madonna hate. Don't get me wrong - it's pretty tedious and bad, but it's just not top 100 badness material.
posted by Artw at 5:23 PM on September 28, 2009

I will give Battlefield Earth this: if you ever wondered what John Travolta would look like as a goth from Camden Market it totally shows you the answer.
posted by Artw at 5:24 PM on September 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

I will watch any old shit with spaceships and lasers. Really, anything. But whilst watching Battlefield Earth I repeatedly got bored, started flciking between channels and eventually just didn't come back. Movies that are worse than Battlefield Earth have to be really, really shockingly bad.

I saw it in the theater, much to my dismay. I've never walked out on a movie in the theater, but I was very, very close with Battlefield Earth. It is easily the worst movie I've ever seen. According to imdb it's a couple minutes under two hours long, but before I looked it up just now I would have sworn to anything you wanted that it was over three hours. It was kind of like a small taste of purgatory.
posted by Caduceus at 5:25 PM on September 28, 2009

Number of movies per year:
2000: 6
2001: 5
2002: 16
2003: 5
2004: 13
2005: 14
2006: 13
2007: 11
2008: 12
2009: 5

Informal conclusion: Mid-decade is the worst time to go to the movies. Stay home and invest in real estate.
posted by ardgedee at 5:30 PM on September 28, 2009 [5 favorites]

wow.... lucy liu's all over that thing isn't she?
posted by Lacking Subtlety at 5:30 PM on September 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

God dammit! They didn't even wait for next week's premiere of my movie, Samuel the Sexual Stethoscope.
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 5:30 PM on September 28, 2009 [5 favorites]

From Justin to Kelly and Dungeons & Dragons deserve spots on that list.
posted by cog_nate at 5:30 PM on September 28, 2009

Is this where I admit I really liked Boat Trip, which I accidentally saw on DVD? Roger Moore is fantastic.

On the other hand, we like to watch terrible horror movies in the ozzy household, and One Missed Call was worse--in every possible way--than the majority of the straight-to-DVD junk.
posted by uncleozzy at 5:31 PM on September 28, 2009

The omission of Little Man implies that there are 100 movies that are worse, which is incomprehensible to me.
posted by fleetmouse at 5:34 PM on September 28, 2009 [3 favorites]

I've seen about a dozen of 'em, and here's the thing: reviews are mostly about expectations. And reducing review verdicts to an up-or-down means that a lot of mediocre, disappointing movies come out looking worse than no-budget unwatchable schlock. With a few exceptions, this is less a list of terrible movies and more a list of movies that critics like to tee off on.

Gigli had a target on its back before it was even released. Doogal would just be a phoned-in kids movie, except that it shits all over beloved boomer intellectual property and therefore must be condemned. I haven't seen any Larry the Cable Guy movies, but I can't imagine they're a whole lot worse than a million other dumb comedies starring dudes who never had a feud with David Cross. It's not Battlefield Earth they hate, it's Scientology. People love to rag on terrible sequels to bad movies, and pointless remakes, and video-game adaptations, and Uwe Boll, and etc.
posted by box at 5:35 PM on September 28, 2009 [3 favorites]

I win! I saw exactly 0 of these films.
posted by gurple at 5:37 PM on September 28, 2009

I'm proud to say that my son did not produce ANY of these movies... although one was a spoof of a movie he DID produce...
posted by HuronBob at 5:40 PM on September 28, 2009

It's not Battlefield Earth they hate, it's Scientology.

Have you seen it? I mean, I get where you're coming from, but have you seen it?
posted by Bookhouse at 5:43 PM on September 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

It's not Battlefield Earth they hate, it's Scientology.

Oh, I'm pretty sure I hated Battlefield Earth.
posted by Flunkie at 5:43 PM on September 28, 2009 [15 favorites]

I am so very, very, very sad that Whiteout was so very, very, very bad.
posted by xthlc at 5:46 PM on September 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I've seen it. And yeah, it's terrible.

But I don't think it's as bad as people say it is (that's not supposed to be a compliment).
posted by box at 5:55 PM on September 28, 2009

I've seen 1 of these films, Modigliani. It was poor but nowhere near one of the worst films of the decade.
posted by fire&wings at 5:56 PM on September 28, 2009

I have been a movie junkie since high school and it would be a rare year when I have seen fewer than fifty movies on the big screen. Many years I break a hundred. (I always stand baffled when I read that the mean number of times the typical North American goes to the movies is twice a year or something.) Film festivals; arthouses showing obscure Hungarian dramas; lining up for CGI-crammed Hollywood blockbusters; dollar-a-show second run -- you name it, I am there. At a guess, I have seen a thousand movies in the last decade. I am proud to say I have seen zero of these. And I have seen some crappy movies.

But these movies seem to occupy some weird basement below crappy movies. Mostly these are flicks that it would never occur to me that anyone would pay money to look at. This is like seeing a list of "100 Worst Restaurant Meals in America" and finding it just lists roadkill, tree bark, and slugs.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:58 PM on September 28, 2009 [22 favorites]

I haven't seen any Larry the Cable Guy movies, but I can't imagine they're a whole lot worse than...

And you're criticizing critics for just writing up their expectations?
posted by Jaltcoh at 5:58 PM on September 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

Planet of the Apes for mine. A standout worst. Lost in Space was very bad, too. Spiderman absolutely reeked. But maybe that's a case of what box said. I was expecting a whole lot more. This? THIS broke box office records?!

None of them on the list. Thanks for that, CarlRossi.

Disclaimer: I don't watch that many movies.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 6:00 PM on September 28, 2009

Lost in Space: 1998. I'm an idiot.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 6:01 PM on September 28, 2009

Who's criticizing critics? I was trying to talk about RT's methodology.
posted by box at 6:02 PM on September 28, 2009

Also I think the key to a truly bad movie is that there is no chance of being "so bad it's good", which this list seems to honor.

Yeah. With a few exceptions, these are movies that can't even really fail, because they're not aspiring to do anything in the first place. They're not even bad.
posted by roll truck roll at 6:07 PM on September 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

It's not Battlefield Earth they hate, it's Scientology.

"According to the director himself in different reports, [Dutch angles] are used in all but one frame of the film"

And that is the very least bad thing about the movie. Rifftrax couldn't even save that atrocity, by the end of the film the Rifftrax guys are actually saying, "Oh God, let this be over, this isn't funny anymore."

Apparently as their Wicker Man commentary goes on they just stop talking altogether, save to occasionally chime in to remind you that, yes, what you are seeing is actually happening.
posted by Ndwright at 6:07 PM on September 28, 2009 [4 favorites]

I'd like to see, for each movie, how many people went and saw it on opening night, never once checking the reviews (in fact, possibly bragging about how they never do so because critics are useless) and then complained about how awful it was.

For column two in that data set, I'd like to see the number of people who did, in fact, hear that the movie was awful but paid to see it anyway because they wanted to "decide for themselves".

And column three would be the number of people from column 2 who decided that since they were expecting the movie to be a festering pile of dog shit, and it turned out to not be quite as festering as they thought, felt they got their money's worth.

What I'm trying to say is, idiotic movies get made because we are, by and large, an idiotic movie-going public.
posted by Legomancer at 6:13 PM on September 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

100 is too small a number.
posted by munchingzombie at 6:14 PM on September 28, 2009

Only 4 Uwe Boll films?

Huh? The javelin thrower?!

Uwe Hohn could throw the javelin so far that officials had to redesign the thing. Change its centre of gravity. They were worried he was gonna shish kebab a track athlete one day. Anyway, that's who I thought you guys were talking about and it gave me my morning WTF and morning laugh combined.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 6:14 PM on September 28, 2009

According to the director himself in different reports, [Dutch angles] are used in all but one frame of the film

I didn't know what a "Dutch angle" was, so I just looked it up in Wikipedia. Wikipedia's article on the term is accompanied by a picture from Battlefield Earth.
posted by Flunkie at 6:15 PM on September 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

While Larry the Cable Guy is beaten out in total number of entries, he handily wins in having every movie he's ever starred in represented.
posted by codacorolla at 6:18 PM on September 28, 2009 [3 favorites]

I rather enjoyed Babylon A.D. The story wasn't much but the world it was set in was rather imaginative. I thought a lot of work went into developing it. It's certainly not even in the same class of badness as Battlefield Earth, which if it was up for anti-Emmys for badness would sweep every category from acting to directing to scenery to lighting. BE is bad in so many ways it's almost as if they tried to find ways to be bad.
posted by scalefree at 6:21 PM on September 28, 2009

"According to the director himself in different reports, [Dutch angles] are used in all but one frame of the film"

This is also true of Fay Grim, which is certainly flawed, but too interesting to be bad.
posted by roll truck roll at 6:23 PM on September 28, 2009

Isn't putting films marketed as gross-out/bodily-function comedies in such a list cheating? I mean, if they do what it says on the box, one surely shouldn't penalise them. Unless they go off into a 20-minute Ayn Rand-esque monologue about the nature of reality in between poop jokes or something.
posted by acb at 6:28 PM on September 28, 2009

I am intelligent, partially college educated, and consider myself a bit of a pop culture snob. That being said I have a bizarre, embarrassing love for "_______ movie" movies. They have this rapid fire surreal element to them, like freakazoid but not as funny. They rarely get a sober laugh out of me (minus epic movie, one of the better ones) but I find them consistently entertaining.

Now my shame is on the table.
posted by Betty_effn_White at 6:36 PM on September 28, 2009

16 movies on the list from 2002, but SIX OF THEM IN THE TOP/BOTTOM 20.

2002 was my worst year of the decade too, so I appreciate the validation.

But "Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever" has to be the ALL TIME WORST MOVIE TITLE EVER, which I think unduly influenced its ranking.
posted by wendell at 6:36 PM on September 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

Way too early. Avatar's not even out until December.
posted by xmutex at 6:36 PM on September 28, 2009 [7 favorites]

Larry the Cable Guy is the new Pauly Shore.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 6:36 PM on September 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

I confess to having seen one of these movies (Down to You).

The Battlefield Earth is so legendary in these sorts of lists, I have my own story about this. A friend of mine is much like ricochet biscuit in that he watches a lot of movies. At a certain point, people who watch a lot of movies simply like the experience of watching movies, and my friend was this way, to the point where he always liked a movie. Well, one weekend, while hanging out his friends, he came by to tell us how terrible Battlefield Earth was. We had literally never heard him dislike a movie (he even found something to like in the 1994 Fantastic Four movie). So to hear from him that it was a bad movie was unprecedented. We decided not to see it and thanked him for his willingness to "take one for the team."
posted by deanc at 6:41 PM on September 28, 2009 [4 favorites]

There are a couple on the list that my daughter likes to watch repeatedly. But she's only nine. What does she know?
posted by Sailormom at 6:49 PM on September 28, 2009

Rollerball is the only one I saw, and only because it was filmed in Montreal and because LL Cool J made me wait outside while he hit on my gf while she tried to close up at Ben & Jerry's and I wanted to make sure my passive aggressive wish came true.
posted by furtive at 6:51 PM on September 28, 2009 [3 favorites]

Redline's an interesting movie, not just in that it's awful, but also in that the guy who made it was a subprime mortgage tycoon who had kind of gone from rags to riches all of a sudden doing a job that didn't really seem to take much skill. It's a weird story, and it kind of makes me a little mad somebody could get so rich selling bad loans and then spend the cash so conspicuously. There a video and charts to go with that article.

I think the CNBC documentary House of Cards also profiled him.
posted by mccarty.tim at 6:51 PM on September 28, 2009

I think the only movie on here that I'm really surprised by is Darkness. I remember seeing trailers for a lot of these and thinking, "Wow! That looks like a piece of shit!" A Sound of Thunder, for example. But while Lost Souls (I borrowed it from a friend) wasn't atrocious, but merely mediocre, I actually really, really like Darkness. Maybe it's because I have only seen the uncut version, and the reviews I read seem to be (obviously) the theatrical version. I sorta wanna see the theatrical version to see how incoherent it really is.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 6:54 PM on September 28, 2009

As a person who loves Everything is Terrible, I'd like to see a list of the best "so bad it's good" movies. The problem is that the worst of the worst tends to be stuff that's so awful a blank screen would be better. What's sad is that you can't even read about those movies and have fun. All the life and essence of what makes an engaging film is gone. By engaging, I mean worthy of attention. A bad movie can grab your attention just fine, after all.

In short, I demand to know where Ed Wood has gone.
posted by mccarty.tim at 6:55 PM on September 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

I've seen MOST of the movies on that list. I guess I'm a masochist or whatever. I've seen The Room seven times.

That being said, I think people are fucking crazy for not liking Darkness. I thought that movie was much better that about 75% of other films in that genre. Give me Darkness over Jason vs Freddy any day. I want to be clear too - I'm not saying it's the best of a bad lot - I'm saying I thought it was very, very good.

I agree with the rest of the list though.
posted by Bageena at 6:56 PM on September 28, 2009 [3 favorites]

Man, this ranking really needs a proper spreadsheet. I want to be able to see how it breaks down by genre, stars, director, etc. Ideally, future generations could feed this data into a massive neural network and use it to generate new premises for films.
posted by mccarty.tim at 6:57 PM on September 28, 2009

I'm totally with you, Bageena.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 7:00 PM on September 28, 2009

Dutch angles were used extensively in the original TV series and 1966 film of Batman, where each villain had his own angle

Awesome.

(the Dutch Angle is apparently also known as the Batman Angle and that makes me very happy)
posted by device55 at 7:01 PM on September 28, 2009

Worst "real" movie I ever saw was 1998's "The Avengers", the only saving grace was my date, otherwise I would have walked out. Previously I would have said it was "Young Einstein" (my date and I were the only one's in the theater EXCEPT for one other guy so we couldn't even take advantage of the situation), but in hindsight I can't really think that "Young Einstein" was made with the intent to entertain anyone.
posted by bottlebrushtree at 7:02 PM on September 28, 2009

What? No Soul Plane?!?
posted by Dr. Wu at 7:03 PM on September 28, 2009

Luckily, the only one on that list that I've seen is In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Seige Tale, and honestly, I liked it more than The Informant.
posted by darlingmagpie at 7:11 PM on September 28, 2009

Given the number of shitty movies that I've seen, I'm surprised I've only seen more than 50% of one of these: Corky Romano during boring days watching Comedy Central. I think I've seen snippets from 1 or 2 others, but that's it.
posted by Saxon Kane at 7:15 PM on September 28, 2009

Ben Kingsley sure is in a lot of shitty movies.

That's Sir Ben Kingsley to you. Sir Ben Kingsley of Shitty Movie Shire.
posted by bwg at 7:16 PM on September 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

I have a serious question here... A lot of these movies don't even sound good in concept. How do they ever get made?
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 7:23 PM on September 28, 2009

I feel bad for the critics who watched a lot of these and more. Man what a job, kind of like being a pooper scooper in a zoo.
posted by woodway at 7:26 PM on September 28, 2009

ugh how is Swordfish not on this list?
posted by cristinacristinacristina at 7:33 PM on September 28, 2009 [3 favorites]

I saw both Whiteout and Pandorum within the past 2 weeks. Pandorum was the worser movie.

Worse than even than 'Event Horizon' which Paul W.C. Anderson and Jeremy Bolt _also_ produced a mere 12 ywars ago.
posted by vhsiv at 7:34 PM on September 28, 2009

They made a movie out of The Celestine Prophecy? Really?

Because that was the only book that actually made me respect somebody less for having recommended it to me.

Pretty sure I physically threw that one across the room.

Not even kidding.

Wish I was.
posted by Afroblanco at 7:35 PM on September 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

Hey, at least these films got a theatrical release. Unlike this monstrosity, in which I have the dubious honor of anchoring the opening shot - possibly the movie's high point, I might add.
posted by anigbrowl at 7:37 PM on September 28, 2009

Sigh. I've seen at least 15 of these, and probably well over half of the SF+horror films on the list. I'll be over in the corner with the PHILISTINE hat on and y'all can throw Bergman and Kurosawa films at me.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:42 PM on September 28, 2009

How is Taxi not on this list? The Queen Latifah, Jimmy Fallon, um, comedy? I watched half of that while donating double red blood cells last month (I let the nurse pick the movie) and wow, the only way that you could endure that movie would to be while strapped to a table. Bad action movies usually at least have something to watch but bad comedies are just excruciating to sit through. Even woozy from a lack of oxygen carrying cells to the brain, I didn't even approach a chuckle or even a smile watching that.
posted by octothorpe at 7:47 PM on September 28, 2009

I'm somewhat proud that I've survived 9 of these movies start to finish and none of those were "____ Movie," Larry the Cable Guy, or Uwe Boll movies. Thank you subscription to HBO and severe boredom!
posted by crashlanding at 7:47 PM on September 28, 2009

This would be an excellent metric for the next metafilter vs reddit or fark vs digg etc pissing match. Whichever site has the highest percentage of members who has seen none of these movies is the best site. Or at least has the best taste.
posted by aerotive at 7:49 PM on September 28, 2009

What? No Soul Plane?!?

Dude, that movie was AWESOME!!!! The plane had hydraulics. I mean, seriously, that's some quality entertainment right there.
posted by Go Banana at 7:50 PM on September 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

Give me Darkness over Jason vs Freddy any day.

Wow. Pretty damning praise.

How is it that neither Ultraviolet nor Aeon Flux made it on to this list?
posted by deanc at 7:53 PM on September 28, 2009

Your least favorite movie rocks.
posted by GameDesignerBen at 7:57 PM on September 28, 2009 [6 favorites]

ugh how is Swordfish not on this list?

I think documentaries were excluded from this list.
posted by GameDesignerBen at 8:00 PM on September 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

Those Rotten Tomatoes ratings are deceptive. Ballistic was bad, but just kind of bland and boring, not nearly the epic trainwreck I would expect for being the most poorly-rated movie in RT history. I was pretty disappointed, actually.
posted by adamdschneider at 8:08 PM on September 28, 2009

Swordfish is a great, "what the fuck am I watching" kind of film. My brother and I both agree the best part of that film was the TVR that Travolta drove around in.
posted by hellojed at 8:12 PM on September 28, 2009

Wow, yeah, Rollerball 2002. Why did I see that? SPOILER: The first scene has a helmeted person doing something badass, then removing their helmet and shaking out their hair to reveal that (gasp!) it's a woman!
posted by gubo at 8:15 PM on September 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

From Justin to Kelly and Dungeons & Dragons deserve spots on that list.

From Justin to Kelly got 8%, and the cutoff for the list was 7%. Except that one of the "positive" reviews is: "So awful it hits the bottom of the bad-o-meter and bounces back up to be sort of good. I haven't laughed this hard in a while." Robbed, I tell ya.
posted by smackfu at 8:19 PM on September 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

Oh, and I highly recommend picking up Rodger Ebert's Your Movie Sucks. All of Hollywood's failures taken to task.
posted by hellojed at 8:19 PM on September 28, 2009

What? No Soul Plane?!?

Dude, that movie was AWESOME!!!! The plane had hydraulics. I mean, seriously, that's some quality entertainment right there.

Oh, now I remember... As well as being terrible, I also thought it was extremely racist. And to think, every one of those brothers agreed to sell out and act in that movie coz the money was right.

How about that fella who kept on grabbing girls? Like, constantly grabbing their bits. The fah?
posted by uncanny hengeman at 8:20 PM on September 28, 2009

Appreciate the list reproduction in-thread, but if you're like me, you had to page through the article to get a sense of all these movies you'd never heard of (incredibly, almost all of them).
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 8:24 PM on September 28, 2009

On films shot almost entirely with Dutch angles:
> This is also true of Fay Grim, which is certainly flawed, but too interesting to be bad.

Ditto. It wasn't nearly as good as Henry Fool (which I really enjoyed). I couldn't tell what the hell was going on at times, but it was fun to watch. At the time, I blamed it on the beer.
posted by xorry at 8:24 PM on September 28, 2009

Did anyone see "Chaos" (2005) dir. David DeFalco? I think that was the only film I've ever been driven to boo/hiss aloud at
posted by squeakyfromme at 8:25 PM on September 28, 2009

How is Taxi not on this list?

It scored 11% on the tomatometer. The list starts with movies scoring 7% and only goes down from there.

How is it that neither Ultraviolet nor Aeon Flux made it on to this list?

Same. 8% and 10%.

You guys do realize this is not a subjective list, right? It's the numerically lowest 100. It's not like those end of year lists where somebody actually choses what's on them.
posted by Rhomboid at 8:28 PM on September 28, 2009

Ballistic was bad, but just kind of bland and boring, not nearly the epic trainwreck I would expect for being the most poorly-rated movie in RT history.

It just means no one gave it a positive review, and it had the most reviews of movies with no positive reviews (the top 14). It could have gotten a consistent two stars and still scored the lowest.
posted by smackfu at 8:34 PM on September 28, 2009

"According to the director himself in different reports, [Dutch angles] are used in all but one frame of the film"

One of my favorite of the many classic lines written by reviewers who were falling all over themselves the excoriate Battlefield Earth was something along the lines of:

"Someone clearly told the director, Roger Christian, that great directors sometimes tilt the camera; unfortunately, nobody seems to have told him why or when."
posted by dersins at 8:36 PM on September 28, 2009

was this list limited to "major" motion pictures? No attention paid to The Room?

That would explain why The Man From Earth is missing too.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 8:39 PM on September 28, 2009

I thought I was going to be able to say I hadn't seen a single one of these but then I remembered that I did in fact watch The Covenant, which is a movie about what would happen if an Abecrombie and Fitch catalog were brought to life by a gay warlock.
posted by nanojath at 8:40 PM on September 28, 2009 [5 favorites]

The Cell is 43% fresh?! Holy cow that bar sure is set low.
posted by nanojath at 8:45 PM on September 28, 2009

Wait, Soul Plane was a real movie? I thought it was just a punchline in an episode of Boondocks. Dearie me.
posted by ixohoxi at 8:56 PM on September 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

I thought I was going to be able to say I hadn't seen a single one of these but then I remembered that I did in fact watch The Covenant, which is a movie about what would happen if an Abecrombie and Fitch catalog were brought to life by a gay warlock.

I hope nobody thinks this is some kind of joke. Oh no. nanojath is simply stating the absolute irrevocable truth. A&F+Gay Warlock=The Covenant. It's that simple. Science has proved it. It's as correct a statement as "March of the Penguins is a movie about penguins."

It actually provided a ton of entertainment for me and my friends, in that we compared notes for a good hour afterward on the various points (dozens) where we each assumed the movie would go for a mediocre, cliched option, and instead took its story down an even more boring, uninteresting, and - yes, let's be honest - hilariously homoerotic (in that creepy Abercrombie aesthetic, all half-frozen shirtless smooth skin) path.

The Cell is 43% fresh?! Holy cow that bar sure is set low.

Dude, The Cell is a bad movie. But it is merely a bad movie; it cannot even hope to approach the astonishing awfulness of most of the entries on this list. Also, it had some really cool visuals, which means it has at least one marginally redeeming factor. That's a lot more than Soul Plane or Larry the Cable Guy. Or, God save us all, Son of the Mask.
posted by Tomorrowful at 8:56 PM on September 28, 2009

Is it better to be ranked first or last?
posted by Brian B. at 8:57 PM on September 28, 2009

I'm actually kind of sad that I haven't seen any of these films.
posted by Kattullus at 9:00 PM on September 28, 2009

Number of movies per year:
2000: 6
2001: 5
2002: 16
2003: 5
2004: 13
2005: 14
2006: 13
2007: 11
2008: 12
2009: 5

I call fraud. None of those numbers end in eight.
posted by rokusan at 9:02 PM on September 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

You guys do realize this is not a subjective list, right? It's the numerically lowest 100. It's not like those end of year lists where somebody actually choses what's on them.

indeed. this is a statistically correct representation of just how many BAD movies there are out there, which were received enough reviews to classify (there are many more that too few reviews were even filed on).

William Goldman said it about Hollywood but it applies to filmmaking in general, worldwide: "Nobody knows anything."
posted by philip-random at 9:02 PM on September 28, 2009

I find it hard to imagine how most of these found funding. Most of them are just so offensively stupid in premise, even when compared to their competition, that anyone could see their failure coming from a million miles away. If I can tell it's stupid in a three line description, how could a professional screw it up?
posted by Mitrovarr at 9:03 PM on September 28, 2009

I call fraud. None of those numbers end in eight

... which is the square root of 64, the number of hexagrams in the I-Ching. Holy shit, this list is out of balance.
posted by philip-random at 9:04 PM on September 28, 2009

It just means no one gave it a positive review, and it had the most reviews of movies with no positive reviews (the top 14). It could have gotten a consistent two stars and still scored the lowest.

Yes, exactly, which is why Rotten Tomatoes ratings can be somewhat deceptive!
posted by adamdschneider at 9:07 PM on September 28, 2009

What? No Soul Plane?!?

Dude, that movie was AWESOME!!!! The plane had hydraulics. I mean, seriously, that's some quality entertainment right there.

Oh, now I remember... As well as being terrible, I also thought it was extremely racist. And to think, every one of those brothers agreed to sell out and act in that movie coz the money was right.


Soul Plane 2: The Blackjacking

(Most of the voice actors are playing themselves!)
posted by Ndwright at 9:23 PM on September 28, 2009

I did not know that it was called a "Dutch angle", but I really love to wallow around in a screening of Battlefield Earth, and Ebert's money quote is burned into my brain:

The director, Roger Christian, has learned from better films that directors sometimes tilt their cameras, but he has not learned why.

posted by Rat Spatula at 9:26 PM on September 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

I find it hard to imagine how most of these found funding. Most of them are just so offensively stupid in premise, even when compared to their competition, that anyone could see their failure coming from a million miles away. If I can tell it's stupid in a three line description, how could a professional screw it up?

An ex-flatmate of mine wondered this about the actors involved. Surely they knew it was a flop on first setting eyes on the script? I wasn't so sure. Proper direction, set, editing -- it all makes a huge difference. Ever see some of the excrement cut out of these things? But I do wonder: at what point do the actors realize that it's going to be a bad, bad movie?
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 9:30 PM on September 28, 2009

The only two movies I've seen that even approach being as awful as Ballistic: EvS were Battlefield Earth and Transformers II.

Battlefield Earth just made me laugh and pity the hapless morons who were responsible for it. It was like watching a pug on ice skates, but more boring and less elegant. The only positive blurb they could find to put on the box was from "Joe Blow's Movie Emporium," and it praised the film's... scene transitions. (Which turned out to be shitty, far-too-noticeable wipes.) Plus, I'm pretty sure every single shot was tilted to either 30 degrees or 330 degrees.

Transformers II was even worse, because instead of boredom and pity it induced boredom and rage. I hated the editors for confusing movement with action, and for turning the last HOUR into a single, sustained explosion of incomprehensible noise and color. I hated John Turturro for showing me his ass in a jockstrap on a thirty foot screen. I hated the screenwriters for their disregard for character and their bloated, meandering, capricious plot. I hated the visual effects department for jerking off all over every frame. I hated Michael Bay: For his blatant crassness and his casual vulgarity. For putting a poster of one of his own movies in one of his own movies. For his idiotic pandering, his casual racism, his childish humor, his leering close-ups of Megan Fox and all her pouty coed analogs. But most of all, I hated the studio for presuming they could spend 200 million bucks shitting out a big, looooong turd, then 150 million bucks marketing that turd, and vast throngs of people would shell out ten bucks apiece to eat it up. I hated those vast throngs of people for proving the studio absolutely right. I hated myself for being one of those people, and I hated the friend who talked me into being one of those people. It wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen, but it was the only one to make me feel that by watching it I was personally hurting the art of filmmaking.

If you made it through my rant, you might be thinking, "how could he hate any movie more than he hated Transformers II?" Well, I don't. And I don't really hate Ballistic: EvS. But it is certainly the worst movie I've ever seen, and thinking about it actually makes me sad, and I have no doubt that it deserves that top spot. Why? Because it's the only completely humorless movie I can think of. That's what really sets it apart. For ninety minutes I neither laughed nor smiled. Every other movie I've watched has had at least a shred of humor in it, whether intentional or unintentional. But Ballistic is uniquely soul-crushing. I don't remember ANY of the plot, or what the characters said or did. I do vaguely recall Antonio Banderas smoking a cigarette in a rainstorm and looking constipated, and Lucy Liu scowling about something. And I remember thinking, "this movie is ridiculous! It's laughable! ...So why am I not laughing?" But aside from that, those ninety minutes are a black hole in my memory. Through some mysterious alchemical process, Kaos created a film entirely devoid of genuine hope, compassion, elegance or logic. (I guess he at least gave himself an appropriate name.) In conclusion, don't ever watch this movie unless you want to experience the cinematic equivalent of a dementor attack. Ballistic makes The Seventh Seal look like Blazing Saddles.
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 9:35 PM on September 28, 2009 [14 favorites]

I hadn't heard the term "Dutch Angle" until today. For me, it's always been "the Batman Angle".

It works best for villains.
posted by rokusan at 9:35 PM on September 28, 2009

Whatever, afroblanco, I'll have you know that The Celestine Prophecy is one of Jay-Z's favorite books.

Oh dear.
posted by sugarfish at 9:39 PM on September 28, 2009

An ex-flatmate of mine wondered this about the actors involved. Surely they knew it was a flop on first setting eyes on the script?

William Goldman, mentioned above, actually writes at length about this in one of his books. It's either "Adventures in the Screen Trade" or "Which Lie Did I Tell".

If I was in the right city I'd find the relevant passages, but the summary is that They Just Don't Know. The way films are made, shot out of order, sixteen takes on every shot, and with the actors seldom/ever involved in the editing process... they really have no idea until they first see the finished work. Often they're on tour promoting the movie on talk shows before they've even seen it.
posted by rokusan at 9:40 PM on September 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

there are many more that too few reviews were even filed on

Especially now that studios don't even bother having screenings for their bombs or genre films. What's the point of a screening when you're business plan = good trailer + light competition + one weekend? A few online sources might still review it, but no local newspaper is going to bother to run a review on Monday.
posted by smackfu at 9:55 PM on September 28, 2009

I find it hard to imagine how most of these found funding.

I imagine with many they know it's bad but that it will make a profit anyway. I picked one at random: Corky Romano, budget $11 million, Gross revenue, $23.9million

The spectacular failures (like Pluto Nash with a budget of $100 million and a worldwide gross of $7 million) all seem to have a big star that some short-sighted Hollywood exec probably thought was guaranteed to make money. So they spend all their budget on the star (why waste money on a script? Anyone can come up with a plot! This movie has Eddie Murphy!)
posted by eye of newt at 9:56 PM on September 28, 2009

sugarfish: Whatever, afroblanco, I'll have you know that The Celestine Prophecy is one of Jay-Z's favorite books.

I actually find Jay-Z's list kind of awe-inspiring, I mean, it has both the aforementioned Celestine Prophecy and The Odyssey. It's incredibly all over the place. The other books are Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, Dick Gregory's autobiography Nigger, Seth Godin's marketing book Purple Cow and Gary Zukav's Seat of the Soul.
posted by Kattullus at 9:57 PM on September 28, 2009

I've only seen one of these, Twisted, a god-awful movie which, not coincidentally, is the only movie I have seen in years without consulting the Tomatometer first. Out one night and caught it on a whim--and then swore never to see another movie with a fresh rating.

I do add a 30 point curve for Kate Beckinsale films, but even that isn't enough to get me to see Whiteout.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 10:02 PM on September 28, 2009

Needs more Matthew McConaughey.
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:05 PM on September 28, 2009

rokusan: If I was in the right city I'd find the relevant passages, but the summary is that They Just Don't Know. The way films are made, shot out of order, sixteen takes on every shot, and with the actors seldom/ever involved in the editing process... they really have no idea until they first see the finished work. Often they're on tour promoting the movie on talk shows before they've even seen it.

That possibly excuses the actors, some of the time (and it is interesting that some big-name actors do seem to take the hint and stay the hell away from obvious future failures, like Jim Carrey and the second Mask movie.) However, what about the people who actually have to read the entire script to do their job like the producer, the director, and the studio execs? I guess I can understand having one idiot on the team, like Uwe Boll, who probably statistically produces less good movies than someone acting completely at random would, but at some point there's got to be someone who has it as their job to read the script and decide it warrants spending money on. Some of these movies can't be made to sound plausibly good in a three-line blurb written by a professional paid to make anything sound good.

Put simply, I refuse to believe someone who thought that "The Hottie & the Nottie" could plausibly be good in any potential universe, even knowing nothing of it beyond the title, could possibly possess enough brain function to continue breathing.
posted by Mitrovarr at 10:06 PM on September 28, 2009

Pluto Nash with a budget of $100 million and a worldwide gross of $7 million

Wow. It lost 93 million dollars? That's fucking mind-boggling, and the sad thing about it is that it probably isn't even the losingest film ever. It's like, that movie actually made the world a worse place. That's $93 million gone, that could have been spent on alternative fuel research or feeding the poor or anal bleachings or SOMETHING. Now I finally get the Robot Chicken sketch about Pluto Nash.
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:09 PM on September 28, 2009 [6 favorites]

Saxon Kane: Needs more Matthew McConaughey.

I'm fairly certain that's the first time that sentence has ever occurred to anybody.
posted by koeselitz at 10:17 PM on September 28, 2009

I'm fairly certain that's the first time that sentence has ever occurred to anybody.

Except maybe Matthew McConaughey.
posted by adamdschneider at 10:22 PM on September 28, 2009 [3 favorites]

This list is crap... I didn't see "Signs" on it, or anything by M. Night. Slapamanalong for that matter.

Everyone knows he is the worst director ever and that "Signs" was the worst movie ever made. Even masochists would admit that watching anything by M. Night Shamonmydong (exception maybe 6th Sense *The FIRST Time*) is worse than Battlefield Earth (which was at least not painful to watch).

Crap I say!
posted by DetonatedManiac at 10:23 PM on September 28, 2009

M. Night Sham...uh... alam... uh... guy... uh... his lowest rated film, The Happening scores a massive 18% on Rotten Tomatoes, well clear of the 7% needed to get on the list.
posted by Kattullus at 10:29 PM on September 28, 2009

Everyone knows he is the worst director ever and that "Signs" was the worst movie ever made.

DUDE, it's meaningful. See, the priest character has lost his faith, right? And... and Swing Awa -- oh I can't that movie was fucking dreadful.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 10:33 PM on September 28, 2009

Saxon Kane, thank you! Here's the link.
posted by eye of newt at 10:33 PM on September 28, 2009 [4 favorites]

I've seen none of them. Yea me!
posted by neuron at 10:40 PM on September 28, 2009

Burhanistan: I posit that "Bad Boys II" is the worst movie released in the past 10 years, if not all time, and is strong evidence for the extermination of humanity.

But they invade Cuba. That alone makes me laugh just thinking about it, which is more than I can say about many other films.
posted by Kattullus at 10:43 PM on September 28, 2009

In terms of badness Signs is no Lady in the Water.
posted by Artw at 11:04 PM on September 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

...and Lady in the Water is no The Happening.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:12 PM on September 28, 2009

Number of movies per year:
2000: 6
2001: 5
2002: 16

9/11 changed everything!
posted by the_bone at 11:12 PM on September 28, 2009 [4 favorites]

I'm saddened to hear that Pandorum and Whiteout suck - Whiteout because the comic is kind of neat and Pandorum because, well, Event Horizon is kind of a guilty pleasure of mine - I'd even make an argument for the first two thirds of it being good.
posted by Artw at 11:13 PM on September 28, 2009

I find it hard to imagine how most of these found funding. Most of them are just so offensively stupid in premise, even when compared to their competition, that anyone could see their failure coming from a million miles away. If I can tell it's stupid in a three line description, how could a professional screw it up?

An ex-flatmate of mine wondered this about the actors involved. Surely they knew it was a flop on first setting eyes on the script? I wasn't so sure. Proper direction, set, editing -- it all makes a huge difference. Ever see some of the excrement cut out of these things? But I do wonder: at what point do the actors realize that it's going to be a bad, bad movie?

One of the first movies Michael Bay ever worked on he thought was the dumbest thing he'd seen in his life. It was a hokey throwback to 1930's adventure films, replete with golden idols, howling natives, and a low budget because the director's last film, a WW2 screwball comedy, had been a catastrophic flop. He went through the entire process sure that he was wasting his time on this piece of crap that would bomb and be promptly forgotten.

The film was Raiders of the Lost Ark.

(Oh, and as for Transformers 2, I've never seen a movie so bad that I actually became acutely aware of my own mortality. It was so bad that for the last 60-90 minutes all I could think was 'I am going to lie on my deathbed haunted with the knowledge that I spent 2.5 hours watching this movie. FML.')
posted by Ndwright at 11:15 PM on September 28, 2009 [4 favorites]

Everyone knows he is the worst director ever and that "Signs" was the worst movie ever made.

I actually thought that large swaths of Signs were quite watchable. Horror is definitely a director's/editor's genre, and it's become one of the hardest genres to pull off successfully, but Signs had me watching pretty eagerly until the last few minutes. I mean, say what you like about his plot twists, Shyamalan has a talent for shooting and splicing together a suspenseful scene. Not to mention a sense of compassion and a sense of humor, both of which are crucial for any filmmaker.

But... yeah. When they realized the aliens were allergic to water, a substance that covers 70% OF THE EARTH'S SURFACE and FLOATS AROUND IN THE FUCKING ATMOSPHERE (and yet they had been planning the invasion for years or decades what with the FUCKING SIGNS all over the place), I immediately forgot almost everything I had liked about the movie. And that's a damn shame, because it would have been so easy to cobble together a slightly less ridiculous mechanism for the aliens' defeat, and we would have a much better movie for just a little more effort.
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 11:32 PM on September 28, 2009 [4 favorites]

But Ballistic is uniquely soul-crushing.

More than Safe? Or just the most soul-crushing of this decade?
posted by yath at 12:46 AM on September 29, 2009

I have a serious question here... A lot of these movies don't even sound good in concept. How do they ever get made?

There are a lot of bone-dumb people in the world, and even more people of average intelligence who are willing to pretend to be bone-dumb in order to be entertained by flashing images for 2 hours. Not to mention a lot of people who can think if they're being paid for it, but don't enjoy having to think any more than the average person enjoys running a marathon. They may be accountants, academics, anaesthesiologists or what have you during the day, but when the day is done, they waht to switch their brains off and be carried along on a wave of spectacle that doesn't require thinking. Making movies that appeal to them is a better investment than making films which assume that the viewer has some intelligence, and thus immediately alienate a segment of the market. And there's more of them than people who take clichéd plots and fart jokes to be insults to their intelligence.
posted by acb at 1:24 AM on September 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

I haven't seen one movie on that entire list, and not one movie on that list even slightly appeals to me on any level...with one exception. I have to admit I'm intrigued that the third worst movie of the decade is Roberto Benigni's Pinocchio. This is the first I've heard of it. Apparently it's the most expensive movie in Italian history, and Benigni wanted Fellini to direct it.

I feel as though I must now go watch this unwatchable Benigni flick.
posted by dgaicun at 1:58 AM on September 29, 2009

Kinda proud that I've seen none of these, but feel a bit sad that Roberto Begnini's Pinnochio made the list.

I'm sure it sucked, but stilll... unfortunate.
posted by markkraft at 2:31 AM on September 29, 2009

I'm relieved not to have seen any of them, but thanks to the wonder of billboards feel that I already know too much about some, i.e. that they exist.

Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam, you're spot on about Signs; I remember ranting into the void in similar fashion at the time, and wondering why so many people still liked it (where "so many" > 0).
posted by rory at 3:09 AM on September 29, 2009

Horror is definitely a director's/editor's genre, and it's become one of the hardest genres to pull off successfully

I would give that honour to Comedy. There are way too many bad comedies on this list.

I am disappointed to see Ballistic at the bottom of the heap. I was expecting something like Dungeons and Dragons to take out number one. Sure, Ballistic was implausible and unengaging, but it had production values, dammit. The sets were generic, but they weren't cardboard cutouts. I didn't care about the people getting blown up, but the explosions weren't just CG pasted on the scene. Really, I forgive a lot of bad movies if they at least make an effort.
posted by WhackyparseThis at 3:16 AM on September 29, 2009

Wow. I must be having a good decade, I don't recognize a single movie on that list. Hooray!

My question is this though: what is #6 Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2004), and why isn't the first Superbabies on the list? Is it possibly worth seeing?
posted by mannequito at 4:09 AM on September 29, 2009

Holy crap...I just realized I must have taken the entire decade off, seeing as how I've not seen a single one of those films. None. 0/100.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:10 AM on September 29, 2009

Oh fuck me. I've actually seen the top two movies on this list. I've seen at least a handful or two out of the whole list, come to think of it.

Despite all of her wonderful attributes, my girlfriend doesn't have the best taste in movies.
posted by Stunt at 4:14 AM on September 29, 2009

My question is this though: what is #6 Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2004), and why isn't the first Superbabies on the list? Is it possibly worth seeing?

1. A painfully unfunny sequel to Baby Geniuses, a painfully unfunny film involving babies talking (with creepy superimposed lips) and disco dancing and a guy getting whacked in the crotch three times in a row because the first two times WEREN'T HILARIOUS ENOUGH. (Directed by Bob Clark, who also gave us both A Christmas Story and Porky's. He had quite a range there.)

2. Baby Geniuses came out in 1999, so it didn't make the list.

3. No. No no no no a thousand times no. Not even if you've got a quarter and an afternoon to kill.
posted by Spatch at 5:29 AM on September 29, 2009

I worked on the promotion of at least four of the movies on the list. Man, I don't miss that job.
posted by Hogshead at 5:42 AM on September 29, 2009

Put simply, I refuse to believe someone who thought that "The Hottie & the Nottie" could plausibly be good in any potential universe, even knowing nothing of it beyond the title, could possibly possess enough brain function to continue breathing.

I'm pretty sure the studio executives weren't thinking about quality but rather about the odds of the movie bringing in more money at the box office and dvd than it cost to make.
posted by deanc at 5:47 AM on September 29, 2009

No accounting for taste &etc. &etc. &etc.

However: I think I'll take rotten tomatoes reviews with a grain of salt (tastier that way.) I mean, yeah, there are a lot of obvious dogs here that I would never even consider renting. I find that crowd-sourced reviews like this are not particularly discriminating. They tend to pile-ons for no reason other than its fun to hate bad films. Hey, I love hating on bad cultural artefacts myself! But it doesn't necessarily mean anything.

Case in point: Pluto Nash. It /wasn't/ as bad as people make it out to be. Sure, it's a stupid and clownish bit of entertainment, but there is no way it is in the same category as Glitter. It isn't even on the same planet (pun intended) as Glitter. There is a difference between a harmless bit of Hollywood fluff, and a film that few people would bother to sit through an entire viewing of.
posted by clvrmnky at 5:54 AM on September 29, 2009

I'm proud to say that I've only seen two of these, yes they were awful, and I haven't even heard of most of the rest.

Obviously, the bad movies I've been watching are way more esoteric.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 5:54 AM on September 29, 2009

I haven't seen any of these movies, but I have seen the posters over and over. Does the same person do ALL the posters for these movies?
posted by BozoBurgerBonanza at 6:06 AM on September 29, 2009

I have proudly seen about 24 of these movies. Not because I wanted to enjoy a good movie but because I wanted to see a bad one. Every once in a while my friends and I will rent several really bad movies and bet the over/under as to how long it takes us to stop watching it.

Also Ray Liotta as a wizard was the reason we watched Dungeon siege the whole way through. Plus the ninjas in the woods helps a bit as well. Also I'm surprised Transporter 2 didn't make it on this list. The scene were Jason flips the car over in mid air to remove the bomb made me die inside a little.
posted by Mastercheddaar at 6:19 AM on September 29, 2009

Pluto Nash. It /wasn't/ as bad as people make it out to be

Oh yes it was. I can't imagine anything that could have made Pluto Nash bearable, other than a considerable stash of whatever mind-altering substances the film crew snacked on.
posted by Skeptic at 6:22 AM on September 29, 2009

I'm with Mister Moofoo and Bageena; I saw Darkness randomly late one night on a movie channel. Afterward, I went to check it out on Rotten Tomatoes (because I'm mildly interested in reading reviews and gathering opinions on things) and was positively shocked by how low the rating was.

Now, I'm a fan of horror movies, and I greatly enjoy bad ones, but Darkness just doesn't seem bad to me. It was a very serviceable semi-Lovecraftian "inescapable dark forces" story and it had an enjoyable twist (which was one of the few good reasons I've seen explaining why the bad guys are dawdling around with their Master Evil Plan instead of just shooting the good guys.)

I dunno. I wouldn't call it an earth-shattering cinematic masterpiece, but it should at least be up closer to fifty percent on the Tomatometer. I'm glad I'm not the only person in the world who went "Hunh!?" when they saw that.
posted by Scattercat at 6:23 AM on September 29, 2009

Every time I see the title of Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever my brain persists in reading it as Ballsack: Ecks vs Sever. Make of that what you will.
posted by marginaliana at 6:45 AM on September 29, 2009

"I win! I saw exactly 0 of these films."

I think I'm tied for the win. The only one I've seen is #1 Ballistic.

I've seen it twice. The second time because I'd forgotten I'd seen it before. Recently I saw a clip on tv. It was like seeing it anew. So it does have the advantage of being awful and amnesia-inducing.

posted by TWinbrook8 at 6:58 AM on September 29, 2009

I'm amazed. I didn't see any of these movies either, and I have seen some awful movies in the last decade.
posted by JBennett at 7:08 AM on September 29, 2009

No Observe and Report? Just saw it. It was the worse movie I've ever seen. I'm used to dumb, boring, not funny, lame, etc. but none of those categories fall into the worse movie ever made. Seth needs to stick with Apatow.
posted by stormpooper at 7:25 AM on September 29, 2009

On a tangent: wasn't there a Uwe Boll film whose cast was entirely comprised of prostitutes or strippers or similar, just in case hiring professional actors didn't make it bad enough to write off his taxes?
posted by acb at 7:32 AM on September 29, 2009

Pluto Nash. It /wasn't/ as bad as people make it out to be

Totally agree. I actually really, really liked Pluto Nash.

What I would add to the list: Cube 2: Hypercube.
posted by rottytooth at 7:34 AM on September 29, 2009

so.. we need a movie starring Larry the Cable Guy, Ben Kingsley directed by Uwe Boll. Something like the celebrated "Ow, My Balls", which would feature the two main actors repeatedly kicking each other in the balls.

and no I haven't seen any of these either, but I am notoriously hard to get to the movie house anyway. I've also never seen Titanic or ET
posted by edgeways at 7:36 AM on September 29, 2009 [2 favorites]

I was getting all excited because I hadn't seen any of the movies on the list, and then I reached #27: Battlefield Earth. Dammit! My partner persuaded me to watch it one night because it's so hilariously bad. And indeed it was hilariously bad. But still, the memory, it burns.

Haven't seen any others, though.

Is it weird that I kind of like the poster art for Witless Protection? Except the whole bolding of the "less" part. GET IT? CAUSE IT'S LIKE WITNESS BUT IT'S WITLESS CUZ HE'S DUMB. DO YOU GET IT YET?
posted by transporter accident amy at 7:36 AM on September 29, 2009

I posit that "Bad Boys II" is the worst movie released in the past 10 years

Oh, come on, dude. This shit just got real.
posted by adamdschneider at 7:43 AM on September 29, 2009 [4 favorites]

Zohan. I'm shocked Zohan isn't on there. I walked out. No, I ran.
posted by atchafalaya at 7:49 AM on September 29, 2009

I wish I could say I've not seen a single one of those movies.
Damn you Battlefield Earth!!!

(In my defence, I think that half-watching it while drinking beer on a boat shouldn't really count)
posted by jonesor at 7:54 AM on September 29, 2009

Actually, on second thought: I remember I saw White Chicks in Spanish with a bunch of older Spanish couples on the bus from Tarragonna to Pamplona once. If there is a foreign-language category, then White Chicks in Spanish should win, hands down.

Really, if you were planning to translate a movie into another language and export it to Spain, why in the name of all that is holy would you choose that one? I'm pretty sure - although maybe it's just wishful thinking - that that kind of, er, 'racial humor' doesn't exactly translate well.
posted by koeselitz at 8:10 AM on September 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

How is it possible to produce a multimillion dollar movie that is so bad?

It seems a cursory glance at withering dialogue would be enough to scuttle a project.

And yet, there are hundreds of examples.

Something, somewhere, is broken terribly.
posted by plexi at 8:36 AM on September 29, 2009

I planned to go to Battlefield Earth. I'd read the book over and over when I was a teen. (I was an indiscriminate consumer of SF, and it was the only 1000 page book I could read in four days.) For at least 10 years, the paperback reprints of the book had "Coming soon as a feature film!"

It wasn't, really, not till John Travolta made his comeback and got the thing going. With all that history behind it, I was going to see it, no matter how bad it was.

I made my boyfriend come with me. I apologized in advance for how bad it was going to be. I didn't know it would be that bad. We were the only ones in the theater, and about halfway through we were so bored that we ended up having sex.
posted by cereselle at 8:41 AM on September 29, 2009 [6 favorites]

Battlefield Earth is Hilariously Bad. A.I., on the other hand, is Pretentiously Bad. The only reason I didn't walk out is because The Card Cheat told me the last 20 minutes were even worse than the rest of the movie, and I didn't see how that was going to be possible. But damn, he was right!
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 8:42 AM on September 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

you're spot on about Signs; I remember ranting into the void in similar fashion at the time, and wondering why so many people still liked it (where "so many" > 0).

I can't speak for everyone, but I liked it because despite certain let-us-say shortcomings in the scripting department, Shyamalan is capable create mood better than most other filmmakers working today. Even his next movie, the deeply regrettable The Village (where the narrative tension hangs on a twist so obvious that I saw it coming from partway through the trailer months before, and rejected it as too stupidly obvious) has a couple of moments of superb tension.

Incidentally, I can think of no other director who has had such a consistent career: after Wide Awake (which about seventeen people on the planet saw), he started the run of what people think of as Shyamalan-brand movies: The Sixth Sense to Unbreakable to Signs to The Village to Lady In The Water to The Happening: each one notably lesser in every regard than the one before. I defy you to find anyone else in the business today who can claim a similar downward trajectory.

In any event, the criticisms of Signs I see are mostly based on critics' unwarranted assumptions about the movie. I have seen it twice and I recall not one word to confirm that the aliens we see are the intelligence behind the invasion. Taking it to task because the aliens are evidently ill-suited to this planet is as dumb as criticizing a documentary about the Soviet space program as ridiculous because it is clear that there is no way Laika could have built Sputnik II, and even if she did, why did she make no provisions for her safe return?
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:46 AM on September 29, 2009

No Observe and Report?

Now see, I thought O&R was the best thing Seth Rogen has ever done. I despise most Apatow or Apatow-influenced movies (40 Yr Old Virgin as the notable exception, because Steve Carell carried it) and I think Rogen's lovable dumpy dude schtick is unbelievably lame. But O&R was such a fucked up movie, especially for a big studio "Comedy," that I was pretty much shocked into liking it.
posted by Saxon Kane at 8:58 AM on September 29, 2009

I find that crowd-sourced reviews like this are not particularly discriminating. They tend to pile-ons for no reason other than its fun to hate bad films. Hey, I love hating on bad cultural artefacts myself! But it doesn't necessarily mean anything.

Rotten-Tomatoes ratings are not based on crowd sourcing. They're based on a critical mass of actual film critics/reviewers posting their reviews (with rotten, or fresh as their version of thumb down, thumb up). So in the case of a movie like Deal (no, I've never heard of it before either), its 3% rating is based on a total of 31 reviews (1 fresh, 30 rotten).

The weakness, as noted, is that a mediocre film (ie: not AWFUL, just lame enough to garner very few "fresh" verdicts) might end up with a rating equal to ... well, Pluto Nash.
posted by philip-random at 9:02 AM on September 29, 2009

While Larry the Cable Guy is beaten out in total number of entries, he handily wins in having every movie he's ever starred in represented.

Yeah, but he's filthy rich. I mean, not a billionaire but on his way. And it's a character he invented. Larry the Cable Guy may be dumb, but the man who created and plays him, Daniel Lawrence Whitney, surely is not.
posted by krinklyfig at 9:26 AM on September 29, 2009

Darkness seems to be the primary example of that.
posted by Artw at 9:27 AM on September 29, 2009

The consistant medium-to-low ratings giving something an equivalent rating to Pluto Nash problem that is, not the rolling in Scrooge McDuck style money pits but not being considered a real artist problem.
posted by Artw at 9:28 AM on September 29, 2009

This is completely unsupported, but I'm guessing the more shit a comedy on the list sounds the bigger piles of cash it made, and that in terms of money the comedies on the list did way, way better than anything else on there.
posted by Artw at 9:30 AM on September 29, 2009

This all leads me to one question: is it even possible to come up with 100 GOOD movies from the last ten years?

Yes.

Absolutely.

Maybe not 100 widespread, major, studio releases. But there's plenty of good movies out there if you take the time to find them. Limited-release, or even films that don't make it past film festivals. I just checked my IMDB vote history, and I've got over 200 movies from 2000 forward which I've rated 8 or higher. A lot are limited-release or film festival films, and a good number of those are short films rather than feature-length. But to your question as stated, the answer is a clear yes. Don't discredit all recent movies based solely on the major studio releases any more than you would discredit all modern music based solely on what gets played on top-40 radio stations.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:43 AM on September 29, 2009 [2 favorites]

I used to defend film critics against accusations of elitism, but after seeing a movie I really enjoyed being dumped on this list, I'm incredulous.

Testosterone, which I was apparently the only person in America to see outside a press screening, is a treat. I mean, first up, consider that Antonio Sabato, Jr.--yes, this specimen of manhood--is the least-attractive member of the cast. Pretty people can make anything watchable. Even an actually-terrible movie, like Velvet Goldmine (which...55% fresh? are you kidding me?), coasted by on the good looks of its cast without having any sort of plot.

As for Testosterone's plot...look, it's a shaggy-dog story. It's also a gay story, which apparently means that film critics have to shoehorn it into one of their preferred genres. It's not a coming-of-age story or a romantic comedy or a thriller, so they went with...film noir? Film noir doesn't have raunchy cameos from Jennifer Coolidge. I'm not saying it's The Big Lebowski, but it's a rambling, random excursion. (With hot sex scenes and murderous rage, but still!) It's a fun, loose, pretty trip. It's not the absolute greatest thing I've ever seen, but it's solidly enjoyable, and the idea that it's somehow worse than Basic Instinct 2 is ridiculous.

grumble grumble same bastards who thought There Will Be Blood was praiseworthy instead of excruciating hmph
posted by kittyprecious at 10:07 AM on September 29, 2009

Number 65 is Swept Away. I've no idea what that is. But for just a minute I thought it was Spirited Away by Miyazaki and my head asplode.
posted by Babblesort at 10:25 AM on September 29, 2009

Zohan. I'm shocked Zohan isn't on there. I walked out. No, I ran.

But to do that you first had to buy a ticket and walk in willingly. This is where you and I part ways.
posted by krinklyfig at 10:27 AM on September 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

Of all of those, I've only seen Lost Souls. SPOILER: the twist ending is exactly what you think it's going to be!
posted by katillathehun at 10:29 AM on September 29, 2009

On a tangent: wasn't there a Uwe Boll film whose cast was entirely comprised of prostitutes or strippers or similar, just in case hiring professional actors didn't make it bad enough to write off his taxes?

Bloodrayne was filmed in Romania, where apparently prostitutes are cheaper than extras.

There were still real actors in the film. Like Michael Madsen and Meatloaf. I am not making this up.
posted by Ndwright at 10:34 AM on September 29, 2009

Sweet Jesus, I've seen way too many of these (mostly the god-awful horror films). In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale is, I must say, fucking hysterical, if only for Matthew Lillard's completely unhinged "performance." I really couldn't tell if he was dead drunk or in the throes of some undiagnosed thyroid malady. Add to that Ray Liotta's pop-eyed evil cackling and Burt Reynolds' hanky-waving fainting-couch death scene, and it all adds up to comedy gold.

One night, at around midnight, I started to watch Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever on cable with my wife. She fell asleep fifteen minutes in. I stayed up to watch the whole motherfucking thing. Then I died. I am a dead thing because of Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever. I shamble among you, the living, but I am dead. My wife--who, I emphasize, did not watch Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever, and thus lived on--makes me sleep on the porch, because I carry the scent of putrescine. Some would say that Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever ruined their lives, but I would not say that, because I am dead for watching it.
posted by Skot at 10:35 AM on September 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

I'm pretty sure the studio executives weren't thinking about quality but rather about the odds of the movie bringing in more money at the box office and dvd than it cost to make.

Yup. It's really not surprising that so many bad movies get maid. With international sales & all the movie channels that will air anything with a somewhat famous face in it, bad movies can make money. Also, making movies and being in the movie business is fun for a lot of people no matter the quality of the film. Also, haven't you ever worked on a project for your job that you knew wasn't great, but hey, it's good enough to get past your pain-in-the-ass boss? Movie people have those too.

The amazing thing is that good movies sometimes get made.
posted by Bookhouse at 10:37 AM on September 29, 2009

It's really not surprising that so many bad movies get maid.

*hangs head in shaim*
posted by Bookhouse at 10:39 AM on September 29, 2009 [4 favorites]

I've seen 26 of these from beginning to end and probably another 10 of them that I started and just couldn't make it the rest of the way through.

Babylon A.D. was an incredibly frustrating film for me, because the production design is stellar. It really is just spectacular; the graffiti, the clothing, the locations, even the cast choices, it's just such a massively cool effort only to be spoiled by a mediocre script, and an ending that made me scream "What the fuck?".

And I would love to see the movie that was advertised early as "Ecks vs Sever" before it went through whatever focus group convinced them to recut it and rebrand it with the Ballistic: crap. Because I seem to remember the early trailers as seeming really promising, and being disappointed with what was obviously a severely changed film.

I'll forgive it just because I get to watch Lucy Liu beat people up with Asp batons and that alone makes it marginally better than at least half the other films on the list.

And Larry the Cable Guy and Uwe Boll? Fuck those guys.
posted by quin at 10:39 AM on September 29, 2009

I believe there is some kind of special edit of Babylon A.D. which "fixes" it. I've seen neither version though.
posted by Artw at 10:48 AM on September 29, 2009

With international sales & all the movie channels that will air anything with a somewhat famous face in it, bad movies can make money.

Plus there's always the $5 DVD trough at Walmart.
posted by smackfu at 10:52 AM on September 29, 2009

Where's Catwoman???
posted by exhilaration at 10:55 AM on September 29, 2009

Plus there's always the $5 DVD trough at Walmart.

I actually found a widescreen version of Fargo in that bin, among others. Unfortunately, most of the good movies that end up there are cropped to "full screen" 4:3 aspect ratio, but you can still find some original formatting if you look long enough.
posted by krinklyfig at 10:56 AM on September 29, 2009

Battlefield Earth is one of those movies that's just plain boring it's so bad...and that hits you at about the 10 minute mark. You then realize you have another 90 plus minutes to go. I was a trooper; I watched it for an entire hour before crying Uncle! and turning it off to watch my living room wall for another hour. The wall was better.

I read the book Battlefield Earth (the first one anyway), and it was a pretty entertaining action novel. To say they screwed up the adaptation is woefully inadequate; there is truly nothing redeeming about that movie. And I can't believe I've spent the time to write this post about it. Aarrrrgh!
posted by zardoz at 5:16 PM on September 29, 2009

cereselle: I made my boyfriend come with me [to Battlefield Earth]. I apologized in advance for how bad it was going to be. I didn't know it would be that bad. We were the only ones in the theater, and about halfway through we were so bored that we ended up having sex.

You can just imagine how bad it was for the rest of us; we didn't have anybody there to hold our hands and tell us it was going to be okay after we got fucked.
posted by koeselitz at 7:55 PM on September 29, 2009 [2 favorites]

@eye of newt: That link to Robot Chicken: Pluto Nash Day was so awesome. I'm doing the proverbial ROFLMAOPMP. Or at least weeping.
posted by A-Train at 6:08 AM on September 30, 2009

House of 1000 Corpses. I don't know which was the bigger disappointment, the movie itself, or meeting up with people later and discovering they actually enjoyed it. I seriously wondered if I went into a different theater as the rest of my friends.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 6:22 AM on September 30, 2009

I have seen two of these (neither of which I paid for). Christmas with the Cranks (My Mom bought me the video-yes she still buys videos because they are cheaper), and Deck the Halls (I have no excuse for this other than eggnog overload and nothing else on tv.)
I am a bit of a sentimentalist and, as illustrated above, it sometimes leads me into trouble. If you call it a Christmas movie I will probably watch it, reviews be damned.
In my defense I have seen neither Glitter nor Gigli, despite an almost overwhelming morbid curiosity.
posted by Wendy BD at 9:21 AM on September 30, 2009

You don't really need any Christmas movies other than It's a Wonderful Life, Gremlins and Die Hard. Just get those on DVD and you'll be covered.
posted by Artw at 9:25 AM on September 30, 2009

I've seen none of these movies. IMMD (which also sucks)!

Woot!
posted by Man with Lantern at 10:54 AM on September 30, 2009

You don't really need any Christmas movies other than It's a Wonderful Life, Gremlins and Die Hard

This is true, but I would extend the list to include Scrooged, A Christmas Story, Bad Santa, and The Ref.

And maybe Trading Places.
posted by quin at 11:38 AM on September 30, 2009

Trading Places is a New Years movie you freak!
posted by Artw at 11:39 AM on September 30, 2009

I feel I must step in to defend Battlefield: Earth. It's not a good movie at all, mind you. However, it does qualify as so bad it's good, and I can't believe that several of you denied it that right. (These points are made from hazy recollection of a movie I've seen 3-4 times, so they may be horribly wrong.)

1. The movie practically opens with a "NOOOOOOOO!!"
2. Everything is filmed at 45 degrees.
3. Leverage, man. It's all about the leverage.
4. American planes work just fine after sitting around for ~300 years. *salutes flag*
5. The ending is so bloody brilliant and stupid that some guy in front of us in the theater shouted out "What the fuck?!"

I'd put it on the level of Hudson Hawk, for just enjoyable awfulness.
posted by graventy at 2:46 PM on October 4, 2009

I'm definitely in the "don't enjoy crappy movies anymore" category by now.
posted by octothorpe at 4:24 PM on October 4, 2009

I think I may have discovered that about myself while watching Crank 2 recently.

(The first Crank on the other hand is genuinely and without trying-too-hard actually quite awesome)
posted by Artw at 5:13 PM on October 4, 2009

koeselitz: I am alarmed and appalled that this list does not include Nicholas Cage's 2006 remake of The Wicker Man.

Due to a Netflix error I saw The Wicker Man today. It is a mindscouring shitpile. Bits of it are amusingly bad and provide relief, much in the same way that after being worked over by a pair of particularly thuggish torturers it is a relief if they take a couple of minutes out from inflicting physical horrors to instead fart in your face.
posted by Kattullus at 5:04 PM on October 11, 2009