The Worstest

So. The Worst list this year could for seriously go on forever. Which is nice since it seems like maybe I enjoy them more nowadays than I do things that are supposedly good. But I've limited myself anyway. These probably don't need explanations, but they get them anyway.

1) The Producers - You know the face the people in the audience make when they're watching Springtime For Hitler? That's the face I had the whole movie. And I thought maybe I was just upset that they'd tarnished the original, but that has absolutely nothing to do with it. It's just completely awful all by its lonesome.

Reason to watch it anyway: See how unbelievably bad a famous and otherwise not terrible actor can be.

2) Black Cloud - I thought this one had things sewn up most of the year. It was one of those things that I'd never heard of, and just showed up at the theater, excited to be surprised. But as I walked into the theater, I made the mistake of looking at the poster. Directed by Rick Schroeder. Woe is me.

Reason to watch it anyway: Rick Schroeder's best performance. For serious. He directed himself very well. And then forgot to pay attention to anything else.

3) Son Of The Mask - It seems too easy. Like it should have been one of those sequels nobody even noticed happened, like the ones to Cruel Intentions or The Skulls. And then it wouldn't have counted. And I would never have thought to see it. But it was there. With fairly decent people in it. One even looked forward to viewing Jamie Kennedy's Jim Carrey impression. And while we were so so so wrong to think that, it was that baby that made this so horrendous and unwatchable. And not just because it looked alternately stupid and creepy.

Reason to watch it anyway: Watch Alan Cumming struggle to do the completely illogical things his character is called upon to do.

4) Nobody Wants Your Film - Alexandre Rockwell couldn't get the money to finish his awful movie so he commandeered the scant footage some guy had been shooting behind the scenes and tried to turn that into a documentary about the injustice of not getting the money to finish an awful movie. The result was even more awful. Partly because there's not enough stuff to fill a feature length movie and so the picture will loop or slow or stop altogether to elongate it. And not in the cool/funny John Woo way. But mostly because it whines so transparently while really just a promotional piece for investors. I hope no one was fooled. Though 13 Moons did get finished eventually.

Reason to watch it anyway: David Proval

5) Lords Of Dogtown - Wow. Stacy Peralta writes his own life story. And gets it wrong. Which we would never have noticed if he hadn't released a documentary about himself a year before. But apparently even that was sort of wrong too. Just one of the most self-indulgent disguised as ensemb le pieces ever created. That, or one of the most subtly crafted parodies ever made.

Reason to watch it anyway: Well, the list is really endless. Emile Hirsch's dance of seduction. Victor Rasuk's angry face. Johnny Knoxville's beyond over the top villain. Heath Ledger's Val-Kilmer-as-Jim-Morrison impression. Truly amazing all around.

6) Alone In The Dark - Again, very easy. Uwe Boll can be counted on to make this list every year, and with the most narrow of genres, the video game adaptation (he may do it twice this year.) He either thinks he's making the most mass-appeal movies in Hollywood history or he honestly doesn't care. And he shouldn't since he gets his money from foreign investors who wouldn't keep supplying his crap to us if it wasn't profitable somewhere in the world.

Reason to watch it anyway: Tara Reid as an "anthropologist."

7) Cursed - You'd think the problem with this movie would be that everyone was so bored with it, having done it all before (most of the film was lost somehow and they had to reshoot everything.) But instead, they apparently decided to prevent boredom (their own anyway) by filling the movie with random (and obsolete) inside-Hollywood references. Oh, and werewolves. But I guess that was there before too.

Reason to watch it anyway: Christina Ricci catches a fly with chopsticks as a way of showing us she is becoming a werewolf. I guess Danielsan was a werewolf too.

8) High Tension - If you don't know what the "twist" is within fifteen minutes, you are an idiot. And even if you somehow didn't figure it out and still cared to after those same fifteen minutes, you are still an idiot. Just one of the worst excuses to pour red corn syrup on the floor of an old house. And a van. And a girl.

Reason to watch it anyway: You know that giant blue alien woman who sings the space opera in The Fifth Element? Yeah, she's in it for a little bit. I guess she's okay. But nobody digs space rocks out of her stomach, so don't get excited.

9) XXX: State Of The Union - It seemed like they realized how silly the first one was and were going to embrace it, what with Ice Cube and Xibit. But no. They really did think thay had an urban James Bond on their hands. Thank you for not proving them right everyone, by the way. There are so many crazy plot holes in this movie that you start to believe it's being done on purpose. Then Samuel L. Jackson says something like "We have to go off the grid on this" and you know they're not. Poor Samuel L. Jackson.

Reason to watch it anyway: lines like this one with which the President starts his State Of The Union address, "The state of our union... is strong."

10) Stealth - The only one listed here that I will surely watch again. And again. It is the Torque of its day. Which granted, is only like 500 days after Torque's, so that didn't last long. It's wall-to-wall terrible lines with a fantastic lightning-induced Artificial Intelligence scene right in the middle. Which can't even be called a plot device since it wasn't necessary at all. They had a brilliant (seriously) reason for the plane going rouge without it, but they go and do it anyway. Genius!

Reason to watch anyway: um, everything

(The Fog, Palindromes, Elizabethtown, The Brothers Grimm, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith)