I really want to start a meme
Last year, I published my Top 10 movies and asked other weblog people to contribute their own lists. This year, I think it’s only fitting to give the Bottom 10 movies list a try. Can’t wait to see what other people come up with.
Just to clarify, I’m not talking about “so bad they’re good” movies like “Zardoz” or “Troll 2.” Or about “realized what they were trying to do, but for me it was dreadful” movies, like “Moulin Rouge.” I’m talking just out-and-out gouge-your-eyes-out terrible.
Here goes (not in ranking order):
1. Taps. A pointless and stupid glorification of militarism. First movie where I wanted to ask for my money back (but didn’t).
2. Ricochet. The most gleefully ultraviolent movie I’ve ever seen. If you want to see John Lithgow kill people with a power drill, this is your movie.
3. Swordfish. The modern equivalent to #2. I’ve written about it before.
4. The English Patient. Eighteen hours long and nothing happens. I saw a guy get up at about the 2.5-hour mark and leave; when I realized he wasn’t coming back, I envied him.
5. Brazil. Saw this movie at the Fine Arts theater in Chicago while I was in college. After the movie, I had a strong urge to lie down in the middle of Lake Shore Drive and end it all.
6. Passion of Mind. Horrible Demi Moore debacle, although that doesn’t narrow it down enough. Also written about before.
7. The Princess Diaries. Longest movie ever made. When we finally stumbled out of the theater, I wondered what decade it was.
8. The Tin Drum. Egregious foreign “film” about nasty dwarf who uses high-pitched scream to get what he wants. Won Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1980 (big surprise).
9. Neighbors. Incomprehensible and bizarre mess – John Belushi’s final movie. He deserved better.
10. The Piano. I love Holly Hunter, but this redefines the word “horrible.” Bitter, pointless, pseudo-“empowerment” flick from Jane Campion.
This kind of a list is interesting, because we don’t seek out bad movies, and I don’t think we remember the bad ones (other than a few notable stinkers) as well as we do the good ones. I’m sure I missed a lot of good candidates. What would your Bottom 10 be?
I don’t know if this falls into your “Zardoz” category, but “Nightfall,” based on the classic Asimov story and starring David Birney, was so uniformly awful that it is the only movie I have seroiusly considered walking out. It was so bad, it went past being poor, past being so-bad-it’s-good, that it turned into … a profoundly bad movie.
Natural Born Killers is the only movie I’ve ever walked out on.
I should have walked out on Swordfish, even though it wasn’t the violence that got to me. It was the Travolta character’s pseudo-moralizing that he was the good guy, because he was using his mass-murderous techniques to fund fighting terrorism, that pissed me off. In the end, when not only did the Travolta character get away, but the Jackman character realized it and didn’t give a damn, I just felt betrayed. I ended up screming obscenities in the parking lot until my throat hurt.
The only movies I detest are either incompetent (which are mostly movies marketed to teenagers) or amoral (which fall into all sorts of categories). So I can’t hate a movie for being incomprehensible or dull — I don’t think Brazil, The Piano, The English Patient or even Neighbors fit with the rest.
Granted, it’ll be a cold day in hell before I rent any of them again…
Worst – The Adjuster
Close Second – The Stupids
New Entry That May Take The Title Once More Time Has Passed – Y tu mama tambien
Why don’t you reprint your “best” for those of us who missed it?
Becky: I added a link in the post to my Top 10 list from last year. It mutates over time, of course, but it’s still a pretty good list.
American Beauty was the worst piece of sh*t that I have ever seen. There is no reason that this film should have ever been made…were we supposed to get enjoyment from watching a man be destroyed piece by piece, in very short order, for no reason?
I DEMANDED my money back for this insult to humanity. I must have looked Psycho, because they gave me my money back plus a stack of free passes to more movies. You should have seen the look on their faces when I tore the passes up and threw them back in their faces. I probably sound nuts, but I swear, I’ve never done anything like that before or since.
Until 2 weeks ago, when I finally went to see Amelie, I haven’t gone to a theatre since.
Something I noticed — lots of people take a strong dislike to movies with unpleasant, disturbing or uncomfortable. Not unusual, but I’m not sure having a movie make one angry or squirming classifies it for bad movie-ness.
I tend to classify movies by how soon I walk out (I’m infamous with my friends for walking out of movies to sit in the lobby and read a book. I’ve walked out on Evolution (pointless), Mission Impossible II (the theatre sound system was set much too loud, but I was unable to sit through another long loving John Woo shot when I was wishing the characters would just die and get it over with). The Muskateer was a sad, sad thing in that, first, why mess around with a perfectly good plot, and, second, wirework0fu and swashbuckling are NOT complimentary styles. Then there was the last two Star Wars movies — well, actually, I skipped “Clones” and do not feel the least bit deprived. After watching Lucas turn Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor into wooden puppets and then spend the next tirty years of the movie having his war-bot unfold, I just looked at the pretty pictures. I almost walked out, but stayed for the pretty pictures.
But hating a movie because it made me uncomfortable? A.I. had be crying most of the way through it and I was heartily depressed afterwards. I never want to see it again. But it wasn’t an awful movie. Payback is a vicious film, with hardly a worthwhile character in it, and I’m never sure I want to root for anyone in it, but as a piece of film making, it’s fascinating for all the rule breaking it does. Same goes for Ronin — here’s a huge action/mystery where we never find the answers to the Big Questions — what’s in the case and who are all these people running around after it?
I should confess, I suppose, that I adore almost any movie with Godzilla in it (except the remake — that wasn’t Godzilla. That was a ig Fucking Lizard Takes Out New York, but it wasn’t Godzilla) but can’t stand most other movies of the ilk.
A good movie, in my own humble opinion, is one that keeps you thinking about it and maybe talking about it long after the movie is done. A bad movie is one you enjoy on some level while it’s on and then forget later. A worthless movie is one you walk out of angry that you wasted your time when you could have been sorting socks. An absolutely awful, stupid, pointless movie is one that you leave in the middle of so you can go home and sort socks (or run to get that root canal you’ve been putting off).
What’s your criteria for movie grading?
damn it, missed words — first sentence, too. Should have said lots of people take a strong dislike to movies with unpleasant, disturbing or uncomfortable subjects/presentations.”