What film do you call the worst of all?

I miss lots of movies, but, here is my personal list of bad ones:
Blair Witch - whew

Forest Gump - Didn't like the author's presentation

The Shining - just a turnoff

Superman (first with C Reeve) - when the villain began acting like a refugee from the old Batman television series I walked

Space Balls - too crude; quit watching after fifteen minutes

Excorcist - tried to watch twice; revulsion

Winters and EB: I feel just the same way about Forrest Gump, but haven't found anyone who agrees until youse 2. This is great!

Tartarin, say it isn't so . . . you have blasphemed! Did you actually walk out of WSS? Was it recent? If so, I can understand, if not, I'm just so sorry you felt that way about such a wonderful movie . . .

And from what we now know, he wasn't acting.

I have a different take on "bad movies", I give those films a pass from folks who have no business making movies in the first place, and instead turn my discerning eye towards the stinkers that should have been a heck of a lot better.

From Dusk til Dawn.

Quentin Tarentino, sobering up and drying out from his flush breakout hit, "Pulp Fiction" George Clooney, at the height of his fullofhimselfness having just left ER, and Selma Hayek, who is, of course Selma Hayek.

AND THAT'S THE BEST THEY CAN DO!!??!!??

Sorry, it is so bad it makes me angry to remember it.

Oh, yeah, anything with Antonio Banderas in it.

I saw West Side Story in an outdoor movie place in the town of Murcia in Spain. Its glitzy hypocrisy seemed to scream out in that setting. I know it's a cultural icon, but (though the music is fun) it turned my tummy.

Maxsdadeo is quite right about Banderas when it comes to films he's made in this country. BUT, go back and look at the films he was in earlier on, and he's funny, seductive, and sinister and a wonderfully quiet actor.

My list grows:
Apocalypse Now - slept through it after Brando made his entry

One sunny summer afternoon in the early '60s my mother dropped my two brothers and I off at the matinee to watch the spell-binding epic "Reptilicus".

Essentially an American 'Godzilla', this cinematic tour-de-force put a sinister twist on the renowned Japanese lizard's tale: any time Reptilicus got unlucky in a dust-up with the mighty U.S. Military and lost a limb, why, that limb would grow into another Reptilicus.

Horrifying, isn't it?

For a five-year-old and his two-year old brother it was. For my older brother (8), it--and us--were just annoying.

In those days the theatres had "cry rooms" (for those who remember them, an acrylic-walled section of rows with a door on it) where inconsolable children were banished to minimize their disturbance to the rest of the viewers.

So by the time Mom arrived back to pick us up two hours later she had on her hands one hysterical toddler, one semi-hysterical youngster and one sullen one.

Many years later I found "Reptilicus" on some late night cable channel and tuned in with great interest, expecting to relive a pit-of-the-stomach fear from decades past.

The movie was completely unwatchable.

Cheap sets, toy soldiers and tanks, lame special effects, a ridiculously unrealistic dinosaur costume worn by a clumsy or drunken actor, punctuated by long scenes of interminably turgid dialogue by actors too obscure to wear the dinosaur costume.

To this day the earliest lifetime memory I have is bawling uncontrollably in a movie theatre as the dismembered foot of Reptilicus, flung to the bottom of a lake, began to sprout a leg.

And, having seen the scene many times since that fateful day, I can tell you that it still causes the pit of my stomach to feel something.

Something quite a ways away from fear, though.

As a rule, I avoided anything Banderas was in - saw him as a pretty boy who took himself way too seriously, but couldn't act. But I really liked his performance as Tom Hanks' gay lover in Philidelphia. And I thought he did pretty good comedic acting in The Mask of Zorro.

Bad movies? There are too many to name. Star Trek Generations comes to mind - halfway through, my wife and I (who both are avid Trekkies) looked at each other, burst out laughing and said almost simultaneously "this sucks!"

Banderes was good as Che in "Evita" and actually has a good signing voice (he also showed up at the Webber Birthday gala on PBS and did a nice rendition of "Music in the Night.") He's now on Broadyway bring down the house in "Nine" and critics are writing that he saves the day as the musical is only average.

Snood, I agree about "Star Trek Generations - (Nexus?)" It was almost as bad as no. 5, "The Final Frontier" which was written by Captain Kirk on some of that exotic alien libation. Sci-fi drek that rises to the level of Robert Altmans awful "Quintet."

OK,..I like bad movies!!

Nothing warms the cockles of my heart, like watching watching a group of "actors" (some good, some not so). try to take some pitiful excuse for a script, and play it seriously,....it just cracks me up!!

My favorite newer movie in this category is "Darkness Falls",..yes that "killer tooth fairy" movie from last fall,..you know, the one that was the #1 movie in the country for like 4 weeks.

I saw it in the theater,...laughed out loud for the whole time,..I thought it was so funny that I bought the dvd,...

Now that's entertainment (at someone else's expense! )

Here are some more stinkers that haven't drawn any attention yet. At least, I think they were stinkers, and I am restricting myself to the big studio stuff, and mostly movies that at least some people liked:

The Haunting- a travesty of overblown computer-generated special effects, particularly when compared to the original, much scarier version that relied on almost no gimmickry of any kind.

Field of Dreams-A stupid concept wrapped in a calculated, emotionally manipulative package. I actually liked Waterworld and The Postman better, but probably only because, after this lemon and Dances With Wolves, I went in with such low expectations.

What Dreams May Come-A Robin Williams three hanky weeper which sets up a ridiculous version of the afterlife and then betrays its own vision. Patch Adams would probably make my list but I have never had the stomach to watch it. Most Robin Williams movies would make my list.

South Pacific-I'm sorry. It's a classic Broadway musical, but the screen version is stilted, if not completely lifeless.

Bird on a Wire-This Goldie Hawn-Mel Gibson adventure comedy is forced, unnatural, and an embarrassment to watch. Plus there is little adventure, and no comedy.

The First Wives Club- A grab bag of strident feminist grievances disguised as entertainment which is neither entertaining nor thought provoking.

The Big Sleep-Its Bogart. Its Bacall. Its Blasphemy to criticize...but the darn thing has a murky, confusing plot, and I've fallen asleep in the middle every time I sat down to watch it.

Planet of the Apes (the remake)- Technically superior to the original, but fatally flawed by an ending that just doesn't make a lick of sense. And the original was a classic anyway, like The Haunting, would have been better left alone.

The Patriot-Mel Gibson's overwrought, histrionic Classics Illustrated version of how we won the war against all odds against the sub-human British. Cheap patriotic drivel.

There are a lot more out there, of course, but it's late, I'm tired, and its time to let someone else take a few swings....

Ah, well, "Nine" won best revival of a musicaln at the Tony's last night -- anyone who didn't know Banderas could sing should have taken in last night's performance.

Welcome to A2K and the Film Forum, Greyfan.

I agree with your list to a point ("The Big Sleep" is a big sleep for some people -- it's the atmoshphere and performances that makes it a great movie).

The most irritating thing about "South Pacific" is those ineffective and jarring filters used in the musical numbers. It kind of worked in "Bali Hai," but they couldn't leave it alone. It was also overlong, dwelling an a very simple story with a lot of scenes which should have ended up on the cutting room floor.

I tend to agree, Greyfan -- and welcome! Even about Big Sleep but with the footnote added by Lightwizard. If you're into film noir (I am), Big Sleep is mandatory, if not one of the best! But am in unqualified agreement about South Pacific and the rest, at least the ones I've seen. I once saw about the last fifteen minutes of Patriot on a movie channel and that did it -- no more Mel Gibson for me. Once he and Michelle left that hot tub, he's been a real disappointment. I'd like to add that I can watch no films which contain Clark Gable (aside from everything else about him, he was reputed to have absolutely terrible breath -- kind of off-putting knowledge) and John Wayne -- too chubby and soft.

NB -- I will watch perfectly awful, unnamed films with the sound off -- if they are filmed in a place I want to see.

Lightwizard and Tartarin- Thanks for the welcomes. I will have to defer to your judgement on The Big Sleep--its not really fair to condemn a movie I haven't seen, but lord knows I've tried to watch it. I tend to like film noir very much, so I'm not certain why I can't get through that one.

Your bad breath comment reminds me of another Gable fable--he had false teeth, and apparently not of the best fit. One of his leading ladies tried to get even with him for the breath problem by attempting to dislodge his choppers with her tongue on camera. This story is perhaps apocryphal because open-mouthed smoochies were not too common in the films of the 30s and 40s, but awareness of the possibility does add a level of morbid curiosity to the romantic scenes.

Of the films named by greyfan that I have seen, I have to agree.

'Signs' by Shyamalan, because it was an insult to the talent of the director to be used for psychological influencing of the public.

Since the Bush-cabal came to power, an enormous amount of movies were made that try to scare us from extraterrestrial life. Three guesses why this is so.

The same strategy is apparent when you count the number of movies the past two years that give glamorous or normalizing accounts of CIA and other non-democratical agencies.

Hollywood-scenarios are now a more Goebbelsian tool than ever. The question is if the public is so susceptible to be influenced by this.

I just saw a rerun of an old episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. They were showing a Japanese scifi pic called 'Prince of Space'. Wow. The hero says at least 20 times during the movie, "your weapons have no effect on me" but never bothers to explain why. The bad guys are the dopiest looking aliens since "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians." The sheer quality of that film was underwhelming.

You HAVE GOT to admit that the Japanese are FAR FAR ahead of North America and Europe in the production of bad movies. How did the same country that made "Godzilla versus the Smog Monster" come out with "The Seven Samurai" and "Rashomon" and "Ran"?

It's those rich old Jewish guys, in that darkened room in Hollywood, chomping those damn big cigars and plotting their evil designs about how to get rich and subvert the morals and minds of the populace. Dang them.


<that lump in my cheek is my tongue, people - just in case>

It's more a state of mind than a conspiracy, I'll give you that. But it's semi-organized. Intelligence & military agencies clearly want to scare us for anything extraterrestrial. Signs was a mediocre attempt at this. Mediocre because nearly every viewer scorned the movie.

Signs made over a quarter of a billion dollars in the US alone. Pretty good for a "mediocre" movie.