As you know, Michael and I liked Wing Commander. It's the best silly space opera/sub movie/carrier movie I'd seen in a while.

Lost in Space, though, that sucked big wind. And I had to be sitting next to Greg for the bit at the end where they "changed the laws of physics, Jim".

OK, how we can have gone this far without Hudson Hawk making the list is beyond me. If it was supposed to be a comedy, it wasn't funny. If it was supposed to be an action adventure flick, it wasn't. As for Pete's hope for seriousness, if you get Wing Commander than I get Hudson Hawk.

Others include Gone With The Wind (forced myself to sit through the whole thing and sat there going, "Wait. That's it? That's supposed to be a classic?!!!"), Birth of a Nation (bad even on its own terms, forget about the values espoused) and the Phantom Menace, for which I didn't even like the action figures.

I've never seen "Hudson Hawk", so it can't make my list. I actually kinda liked "Phantom Menace". It was "Attack of the Clones" that was a steaming pile of CGI crap, and some day it will be on my list.

BTW, I highly recommend Roger Ebert's discussion of "Birth of a Nation" (see here and here).

I mentioned my worst in response to an earlier posting, however, I think "The Black Hole" was a better pinball machine than movie.

Wing Commander was probably the first PC video game that became popular on VGA based machines. That doesn't make it a great movie (Super Mario Brothers and Mortal Kombat may have been worse).

It's hard to beat "Glen or Glenda" for the worst movie of all time. (I haven't seen the Dan Haggerty "Santa" extravaganza yet, however, that sounds like a ripe piece of gorgonzola.)

Funny how, when The Black Hole came out, critics generally contrasted it favorably with the first Star Trek movie, which came out at the same time.

Amazing what time can do ...

Our personal worst movie: Private School. Yes, some people say the whole thing's a joke, but when the song lyrics over the opening credits go: "You're breaking my heart, you're tearing me apart, so fuck you," there is no better signal to turn around and head to the box office and demand your money back while you still can.

Has to be "Tank Girl". The only thing memorable about this movie was the fact that the night I saw it, I was literally the only person in the theater.

No, wait, I take that back. "Exorcist 2: The Heretic". And this one had Richard Burton, james Earl Jones, and Louis Fletcher (fresh off of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest")

OK, one more. "Lambada: The Forbidden Dance". Churned out during the 15 minute period in the 80s when the lambada was popular, this one starred the dark haired chick from "Mulholland Drive" as an amazonian princess who goes to L.A., where she has to enter and win a lambada contest in order to save the rain forest from an evil oil company.

Nobody saw "What Dreams May Come"? Or "The Avengers"?

Recent? "In the Cut," the travesty that might attract viewers with the prospect of seeing a haggard, ten-years-past-her-prime Meg Ryan semi-naked (pretty much the reason I saw the film). What an unmitigated piece of crap. Not even worth one nipple shot.

The last 20+ years? "Neighbors," ostensibly a "black comedy" with John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Tim Kaczurynski and other wasted talent in a horribly unfunny mess that goes on about two hours too long (I believe the film is 90 minutes) and made me forever dislike Saturday Night Live.

All time? Damn, that's a tough one... how about "The Astrologer"? I remember going to the drive-in in the early '70s to see that and wishing that I got not only my admission money back, but also gas money and an entire evening of my life. And a blow job. And therapy. That movie was the cinematic equivalency of the Bush presidency.

How about: any movie based on a TV series that got made solely to tap in to baby boomer nostalgia? That's a 10 Worst List in and of itself.

Hey, Gone with the Wind is wonderful ridiculous melodrama. Can I add Batman and Robin to the list? That movie was amazingly horrible. And Phantom Menace was, I think, rather more offensive than Attack of the Clones, if only for that horrible, horrible child actor and Jar-Jar Binks. On the other hand, Attack of the Clones showed us that even without the horrible, horrible child actor and (much) Jar-Jar Binks, we still wouldn't get a good movie. Ah well.

Wing Commander is a brilliant video game series. If you have a cat or two about the house, you'll never look at them quite the same. Clearly, you need to waste more time in front of the computer.

And yes, the movie wasn't very good.

I can't remember if Phoebe Cates got naked in "Private School." If she didn't, then it probably deserves a mention.

And I have to disagree with Chuck on his choice of "Jaws 3-D." Nothing was funnier in that movie than the homoerotic undertones to the relationship between the Australian big game hunter and his lackey. "Phillliiiip!"

Titanic

Mission Impossible, or for that matter, almost any movie with Tom Cruise in it after Risky Business. Esepcailly the one where he drove cars. And the one where he was a bartender. And the one where he was a fighter pilot.

I didn't actually see Charlies Angels, but it may be a good candidate based on the nauseating trailers

And of course, there is the ever worthy Ishtar.

1) Burbs
2) Nothing But Trouble
3) Spawn
4) Varsity Blues

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation - Horrible sequel to a movie that was amusing if you went to see it with friends who spoke with the wit of Tom Servo and Crow. You also has to spend hours into the evening BBSing afterwards.

The Master of Disguise - The movie equivalent to a massive intake of ketamine: you're left wondering if you actually saw what you saw, and you're out 15 dollars.

The Age of Innocence - I don't care how beautifully filmed it was. Edith Wharton books shouldn't be turned into movies. Especially not ones starring Daniel Day Lewis.

Space Jam - The raping of my childhood, on the big screen. Was Mel Blanc dead before or after they made it? Can you tell?

The "Crow" Sequels - The inherenet creepiness of a movie franchise which capitalizes on the death its star cannot be overstated.

The Core - Sweet Christ Almighty. Whoever greenlighted this is probably turning rough tricks on Melrose right about now.

Liquid Sky - My girlfriend loves this movie. I need a new girlfriend.

Anything with Rachel Leigh Cook - Seriously. Stop making movies.

Anything with Freddie Prinze, Jr. - Seriously. Stop making movies. NOW. Before someone gets hurt.

Wing Commander was no good, but it was good fun, kinda like Armaggedon. A cotton candy movie.

Anybody else see "Very Bad Things"? The movie was well made but was gratutiously owful. That seemed to be the whole idea, but even so, it was unwatchable.

The story kicks into gear when a bachelor party stripper gets herself impaled on a towel rack while having wild sex in a hotel bathroom. It's very much down hill from there.

The House of Yes, which I recommend, has the distinction of having both Freddie Prinze, Jr and Tori Spelling and somehow using them perfectly.

The Prince of Tides has a very special place in my own house of cinematic horrors. "LOWENSTEIN!"

Glen or Glenda is actually okay if you don't take it seriously. Which Ed Wood OBVIOUSLY DID.

But unless you have had the misfortune of seeing Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band, I don't think any of y'all should talk. SERIOUSLY. This movie is indescribable. And indescribably bad.

The truly sad part about "Wing Commander"? Compare the movie to the third, fourth and fifth games in the series, which had extensive filmed cutscenes, full scripts and starred (in one or more of them) Mark Hamill, John Rhy-Davies, Malcolm McDowell, and Tim Curry.

The story was better, the script was better, the actors were better and the acting was better.

Funny how, when The Black Hole came out, critics generally contrasted it favorably with the first Star Trek movie, which came out at the same time.

There aren't enough contemporary reviews available at Rottentomatoes.com for me to double-check, but that's not the way I remember it, at least. I remember them both being jumped up and down on pretty thoroughly at the time (possibly because both of them sucked, of course), with Star Trek: Where Nomad Has Gone Before coming out perhaps slightly ahead. On the other hand, it was probably being held to a higher standard than Black Hole, because while the verdict of history on Star Trek: The Motionless Picture is that it was glacial and soporific, the verdict of history on Black Hole is: "Black Hole? Was that, like, a movie or something?"

Yes, some people say the whole thing's a joke, but when the song lyrics over the opening credits go: "You're breaking my heart, you're tearing me apart, so fuck you," there is no better signal to turn around and head to the box office and demand your money back while you still can.

Dude, that's Harry Nillson you're talking about, there.

I'm trying to come up with some truly awful films to add to the list, but all of the ones I can remember right now had tiny robot silhouettes in them, so they don't really count.

I think Phebes did get nekkid in Private School - I seem to remember a surf scene. Whatever happened to her anyway?

Worst movie ever: SOB.

Solarbabies. Twins.

Eyes Wide Shut. I rented it wondering if it could be as bad as everyone said.

It was.

I kept imagining Tom Cruise wandering the streets of NYC saying "I'm trapped in this unbelievably inane screenplay and I can't get out!"

I saw "The Black Hole" at a birthday party when I was six years old. Then, I got the picture book for Christmas, and may have slept with it under my pillow for a month or two. I believe this qualifies me to say that "The Black Hole" is one of the greatest films in cinema history. Please replace it with "Fair Game", starring Cindy Crawford and a Lesser Baldwin.

one word: Showgirls.

"Bicentennial Man", "What Dreams May Come", "Patch Adams" ... surely an unequaled run of saccharine sick-making cinema on the part of Robin Williams. Probably more impressive in its way than Barry Bonds' string of three consecutive MVP seasons.

Someone asked: Whatever happened to her, anyway?

Since her 'retirement' from films, Phoebe Cates and her movie star husbsand, Kevin Kline divide their time between their country estate in upstate New York and their luxury penthouse in Manhattans toney upper east side. When not supporting her husbands continuing fine stage and film work, she fills her time attending openings and benefits and her favorite activity, hosting dinner parties and 'dishing the dirt' with her celebrity friends.

(from the imdb)

>Liquid Sky - My girlfriend loves this movie. I need a new girlfriend.

Guh? I wish I had a girl who liked that movie. Excellent soundtrack too.

>1) Burbs

Buh? This isn't bad. Its actually good. Maybe to only good thing w/ tom hanks in it.

For your edification, Susanna Hoffs (of the Bangles) mother is a director of "B" movies, and directed "The Allnighter." Knowing this bit of trivia pre-release, I strongly suspected that the movied poster showed as much of Ms. Hoffs as I was going to get. Knowledge is power, or at least power to not pay 4 bucks (things were cheaper then) in the expectation of some glimpsing acres of hot rock-and-roll flesh.

Also, if I ever share an airliner seat row with Stockard Channing, I'm going to studiously avoid mentioning her role in "Six Degrees of Separation" and concentrate instead on her appearance in "The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh," arguably the worst sports film ever made.

Grease II - mega-bad, even with Michelle Pfiefferffer (sp? :) )

Last Tango In Paris - clip your fingernails before you shove them up someone's ass. a fitting metaphor.

In no particular order:

Tank Girl
Exorcist 2: The Heretic
Manos: The Hands of Fate
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
Lambada: The Forbidden Dance
Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Can’t Stop the Music
Moulin Rouge
Sheena

I hope it hasn't made the list because everyone avoided seeing it, but the worst movie of all time, bar none:
Freddie Got Fingered

If you put the greatest minds in Hollywood in a room for 10 days and told them to make the worst move ever, they'd start (and finish) with the script of Freddie Got Fingered.

On Deadly Ground

Worst premise for an action movie: Steven Segal very carefully blows up an oil well in Alaska in order to protect the environment.

I feel as though I should pipe in to defend Angels and Insects. I haven't seen it since it was in theaters, but I really dug this when it came out. I thought it was creepy and decadent. I'll have to go check it out again.

How did Battlefield Earth evade mention in all of the previous postings?

Okay---How about Disney live action movies from around 1989-1997? Little Giants? The Big Green? The Mighty Ducks? Blank Check? A Kid in King Arthurs Court? Fucking Air Bud? Ladybugs? First Kid? This stuff is laughably bad, and even worse are the entirely unwatchable direct-to-video series of sequels to otherwise popular lobotomizing kids cartoons. Operation Dumbo Drop?
Okay-- Worst Adult Movie? I nominate 2 recent semi-arthouse flicks that deserve to be harped on for pretending to be good. 1-- "Far From Heaven". All the pretty fall leaves in Conneticut couldnt save this "satirical" mess. And 2.-- "Mystic River". Wow. Soccer moms eveywhere give a solemn nod to the heart wrenching performance of Sean Penn in this mysogynist puppetshow.

there was a movie where sigourney weaver bared her breasts. We turned it off before we got to see them. Can't remember the name.

Howard the Duck - It's classic Lucas. Words cannot describe it, although a call for hate crimes against furries is a good start.

Matrix: Revolutions - I cared only when two people died in that movie, the doctor and the girl with the rocket launcher. The rest can screw themselves hard.

Highlander II - It had a hard job ahead of it to be worse than the first one, but it somehow did it, causing even Highlander I fans to hate it.

Bloodsucking Nazi Zombies - I was about to sing "Deutschland Ueber alles" in a show of support for the zombies.

I can't go on.

As a devoted "MST3K" watcher, I've seen all sorts of bad movies (I also own "Plan 9 From Outer Space," but "Plan 9" is great to watch as an unintentional comedy). In my opinion, "Manos" is the nadir of filmmaking as I've see it. It's telling of how bad a film is when the most sympathetic character in it is a slobbering, filthy, big-kneed pervert (hey, Torgo!).

Bad filmmaking is timeless. I recently had to go see "The Other" to review for my school paper and it was appalling. Everyone sleepwalked through their roles and the plot was so much "Exorcist" knockoffs and supernatural gobbledegook. The movie stole two hours of my life and I want them back.

I never saw "Battlefield Earth" (thank God), but I saw "The Postman" in the theathers (my mother dragged the whole family to it, something I still hold against her). What a dull, drab, appalling movie. Didn't Costner get the whole "post-apocalypse epic" thing out of his system after "Waterworld?" What more can you say about a film that sets up a big climatic battle between armies and instead ends with two guys rolling around in the dirt like scuffling school boys. It was like a Mel Brooks movie, only this was serious.

And "Wing Commander" did suck. You know a film is horrible when it's main advertising draw was that people should see it because the trailer for "The Phantom Menace" was playing before it. Having Freddie Prinze Jr. was bad enough, but seeing the evil aliens in that was the nadir of the film. They're big cats, for God's sake! Apparently the human race is getting its ass kicked by the planet Garfield.

Oh man, I forget "Matrix Revolutions." God, what a horrible ending to a trilogy that started out so well. Some of you may bitch about the "Star Wars" prequels, but the special effects and some characters make them worthy (hell, Christopher Lee in "Clones" was enough for me). "Matrix Revolutions" was just one long disaster. The ending especially was bad (not ANOTHER sequel, please). Except for Agent Smith, I didn't give a crap who lived and who died. And Keanu Reeves still can't act (so why does he keep getting cast in Victorian-era period pieces?).

Ask an expert

Private School is indeed famous for the surf scene, in which Cates insisted on wearing small pieces of masking tape,which can be seen if you freeze frame through the scene

Don't know whether committment or imprisonment is the proper judgement for we who do such things

I second "Matrix Revolutions." An hour into the movie, I turned to my girlfriend and said "The best part about this movie is that at some point it will end and we can go home." Little did I know I had an hour and a half left. How do you make climatic battle scenes BORING?!

El Guapo, you make climactic battle scenes boring when (a) they go on too long and get repetitive), (b) they're filmed in a wayt that you can hardly tell what's going on, and (c), you don't give a rat's ass about the characters involved. All three were the case in "Matrix Revolutions." "The Lord of the Rings" battle scenes are wrenching and involving (and also pretty damn cool). "Revolutions" were just damn boring. I cared if none of the characters lived or died. At the end of "Fellowship of the Ring," when Sean Bean's Boromir died, I cried. When Trinity died in "Revolutions," I yawned, looked at my watch, thought "Thank Christ, it'll soon be over" and tried not to giggle at Keanu Reeve's pathetic emoting.

Sticking with relatively recent films (and please note that I have avoided watching many really bad films) here is my list off the top of my head:

Me, Myself and Irene
Sweet November
The Sweetest Thing
Mission to Mars
The Hunted
The Hulk

I was pretty bummed out by "The Deep End" - I thought it was going to be a mystery/thriller and it turned out to be a cheeseball soap opera where the murderer and the cop fall in love (if i remember correctly, and I'm trying not to).

How can it be that no one has yet mentioned "Boxing Helena"? Had to be the worst movie ever made. I saw it for free, and was still furious when I left the theatre - I wasn't getting those 2 hours back, ever. I would rather have spent them shaving my head with a cheese grater.

Being There - The Forrest Gump of the 1970s, without the funny.
Gladiator - bit.
Lost In Space - My reaction to the setup-the-sequel ending was "who must I kill to prevent more atrocities?"
Rhona Jaffee's Mazes and Monsters - the depths of my hatred for this wretched excuse for a movie are beyond what mere mortals understand as loathing. Tom Hanks rose from this to Bosom Buddies.

The bad movies to good movies ratio for films I have seen in my life is probably 10:1. So a top ten list (or bottom ten list) isn't possible for me. However there is one movie that ruined my life.

THIS FUCKING MOVIE RUINED MY LIFE!!!

It's called Happiness. I actually like the movie, think it's well acted, original, etc. Judged on its own, it certainly qualifies as a good movie. And watching it with someone who has never seen it before is a fantastic experience due to the jaw-on-the-floor factor.

It is not, however, a good date movie. I found out the hard way, on the first or second date with a girl I was MADLY in love with. After the film, we had nothing to talk about, except stammering about what a fucked up movie that was. So we had to go get drunk.

We didn't go on very many more dates and I've been sad ever since.

Jesus Louiseus, how did I forget "Titanic"? That was the most bloated, useless piece of effluvium ever to wash up on American movie screens. The fact that it won a Best Picture Oscar just proves that there is no god. Utter, irredeemable crap.

george:

The movie was "Half-moon Street." Not only did Sigourney bare her breasts, she did so while riding an excercise bike. Played it for laughs as some sort of fetish that Michael Caine has. It was about the least sexy thing I've ever seen an otherwise attractive movie actress do. You saved yourself some flashbacks, buddy. Feel good about fate.

There's MST3K bad--the kind of movie that's unintentionally hiliarious--and then there's really, really, really bad. Just ugly, bad. The kind of bad that causes regret on your deathbed, considering how that 145 minutes were cheated from you. That kind of bad is hard to come by.

Wing Commander III was the high point of that series. Great for showing off what video from a CD could do. Mark Hamell is the lead. The big cats are cool and have great voices. Privateer II had great film sceens, but the game playing AI sucked hard.

The films "MST3K" shows are undoubtably god awful, but they're still fun to watch because of how bad they are. "Plan 9 From Outer Space," the acclaimed "Worst Movie of All Time," is funnier than most intnetional comedies. Movies like that may be bad, but they revel in their own badness and they're so cheesy that they're good for a laugh (it doesn't hurt to have a guy and two robots making wisecracks either).

Truly bad films, however, are films that just hurt to sit through. They're not fun at all, they just make you squirm in your seat and pray for the end credits. In my opinion, that makes a film like "Batman and Robin" far worse than a "Plan 9." I was entertained watching "Plan 9," bad as it was. I was bored and nauseated watching "Batman and Robin."

Dr. T and the Women
Heist

blecch. that made my keyboard want to vomit.

Good choices, all. But you left out

The Howling: Werewolves at an est Retreat.
Reservoir Dogs: Which was worse, the mindless violence or the sucky self-importance? I can't decide.
The Cable Guy: Jim Carey as psychotic stalker. Ha. Ha.
Days of Thunder: Mainly because I can't think of the overstimulated racer drama with Stallone. Though Tom Cruise is always a tough competitor for bad movie.
Over the Top: Speaking of Stallone: This one had it all: trucks, father-son bonding, arm-wrestling competition. Besides, Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot was supposed to be bad. Wasn't it?
Xanadu: Just awful. Gnaw-off-your-foot-to-get-out-of-the-theater awful. And then they started roller-skating.

1.)Mac & Me

2.) Even Cowgirls Get The Blues

After listing those two movies, trying to think beyond that sends me into a catatonic stupor.

1.)Mac & Me

2.) Even Cowgirls Get The Blues

After listing those two movies, trying to think beyond that sends me into a catatonic stupor.

Gawd, how could I forget:

2.5) Rhinestone

I cant believe no one has mentioned MEGAFORCE yet!!! Where were y'all in the early 1980s?? It had Barry Bostwick with a headband, Henry Silva AND the bald chick from the 1st ST movie!!!

"the good guys always win...even in the '80s"

I almost forgot, one of the most overplayed movies on cable, JUST ONE OF THE GUYS. Is there some sort of deal the producers have with this cable stations to show this? Does the director have naked pictures of Viacom Execs? Is this on Comedy Central every week?

Does the STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL count since it was on TV???

Quick show of hands - how many of you were so disappointed as kids when you watched this?

I think I turned it off when Jefferson Airplane started playing inside that crystal ball

What about the eposide of different Strokes when Dudley gets molested by Gordan Jump?

My Dinner (from Hell) with Andre. The single most boring evening of my entire life (and I had pneumonia for the month of January 2000). Especially despicable because both Siskel and Ebert made it their no. 1 movie the year it came out. Doesn't help that Wallace Shawn seemed to be bored, too, during his dinner with Andre. Irony about boredom is STILL BORING!

A.I. is the worst movie I've ever seen. Full disclosure: I can't term Batman and Robin an actual "movie," otherwise that might lead the list. And What Dreams May Come was horrible, but it was so pathetic that I almost hate to pick on it. A.I., on the other hand, was the stuff that bad movies are made of: ponderous, often incomprehensible, and OH-so-pretentious...

How about Pirahna? I was 17 in a yough summer work program w/ the forest service, we drove into town, and the camp paid our way in. We all wanted THEIR money back.

Try islands in the stream, also.

I found Solaris (with George Clooney) boring as crap!
Megaforce, Titanic, Matrix revolutions..

I would just like to speak out in support of Disney's Black Hole, which was mostly competant, and Tank Girl which my friend and I thought was hillarious at the time (although we were rather under the influence at the time.)

Oh and of course anything with Steven Sagal (other then the battleship movie) or Van Damnit makes the list (with the possible exception of the lance henrickson one or maybe timecop)...

Sorry, SarahC--but "My Dinner With Andre" is one of the funniest movies of ALL TIME. It is all talk by Andre Gregory, but new-ageish over-the-top talk that is slyly and subtly satirized.

On the other hand, correspondent Brent is on the right track in identifying the pretentious as a major aspect of movies deserving to be on an All-Time Worst list. The thousands of disposible, shoddy try-to-make-a-quick-buck or let's-grab-the-acne-crowd flicks don't deserve a look-in for all-time bad.

But something like Woody Allen's "Crimes and Misdemeanors"--self-centered, self-righteous, solipsistic, self-consciously arty, PRETENTIOUS--now THAT movie deserves to be on an All-Time Worst list.

10) "Car 54, Where are you?" The real Toody and Muldoon would've beat this one with their nightsticks and sent it to NYC for the broomstick.

9)"Howard the Duck". A completely fupped-duck adventure.

8) "Ishtar". Two wander but sadly, never get lost.

7) "It's Pat - The Movie". Androgeny that makes you itch.

6) "Leonard - Part 6". Made me want to pour a vat of boiling Jello on the Arthur Godfrey of Jello, preferably while the hooves were still attached to the beasts.

5) "The Postman". I'll never touch an envelope again.

4) "Rhinestone". Take the worst of country singing, add a guy who neither sings or swings, add Dolly Parton's dirigibles and you'll be wondering why Stallone shouldn't be made to squeal like a pig.

3) As a giant hormone blob (aka: teenager), I recall it being racy and pushing the porn envelope to see the nekkid Jane Fonda in "Barbarella". Years later, a revisit made me long for shag carpet, gloopy mood music, and Black Velvet paintings of Golda Meir vamping.

2) "Spice World". A post-birth abortion with knitting needles would be too kind for the director of this.

And the vilest, cheese-foodest, liver & onion purgative, meat-chunkiest enema eyesore of all time...

1) "Bush on an Aircraft Carrier". If Karma existed, California would have chosen this moment to slide into the ocean, creating a giant vortex that would suck that monster down. Firepokers in my eyes can't blot out the memories, so I'm trying to resurrect Spiro Agnew, who was kinder and gentler.

Btw, I must be tasteless, Michael, because "Being There" is one of my all time faves. Ah well.

No one has seen Plan 9 From Outer Space? Possibly THE wosrt movie of all time. Bela Lugosi died while they were filming and they had to have someone else take his role and keep his face covered. Attack of the B Girls. The only good part is some boobage, especially the boobage of Victoria Vetri (Angela Dorian) a 60's Playmate of the Year.

I won't volunteer my worst because, as I walked out of them, I can't honestly say whether they had redeeming features or not.

What I will say is that there are two time-honored, guaranteed ways to make a bad film.

One is to take a cheesy script, cheesy sets, and lousy actors and shoot something silly in six days, only it turns out to be seven days because one day it rained. These movies cost very little to make and whatever faults they have, so what? The whole point is that a good time is had by all. Plan 9 from Outer Space is a star example.

The other way to make a truly awful movie is to take a script that is basically a marketing idea, hire a egomanic of a producer (especially if he's addicted to cocaine), spend a fortune on rewriting the script, hiring and firing stars and directors (especially if you end up with the talent-free one-hit wonders), and on creating ever more pretentious sets or special effects. Then alter the plot in the cutting room, after all the scenes have been shot.

One easy way to tell if this has happened to a movie is if there's a scene in the preview that's not in the movie itself. This indicates massive recutting very late in the editing process.

Of course, by then you have watched the movie and it is too late, but if you are sitting there, trapped, it's something to distract yourself with.

I can't decide which is the worst movie that I've ever subjected myself to: "The Postman" or "Armageddon"?

It was as if "The Postman" was all buildup with no payoff at all (all that time WAITING for the Tom Petty cameo and a big battle secene setup which...uhh, just stood there looking menacing) while "Armageddon" was more of the game of "Hey! Name How Many Movie Scenes Bay/Bruckheimer (R-Crassly Comsumeristic Cocksucker/Mass Media Militaristic Marketing Motherfucker) Ripped Off From Other Movies With Some Sly Activist-Bashing Thrown In As A Bonus, Boneheads!"

Thankfully, I wasn't the one who rented them but my family members did. It's shit like that which made Edward Zwick's "The Siege" look steady-handed by comparison ("Glory" and "Courage Under Fire", on the other hand, are what I would classify as work he is to be remembered by.)

On the other hand, "Eyes Wide Shut?" Granted, I'm a fan of Kubrick and nobody did military satire like him with "Dr. Strangelove" (y'all MUST watch this again and again since it just keeps getting more relevant with time as with Orwell's novel "1984" and the movie based upon it). But what a turkey "Eyes Wide Shut" is. When I have bouts of insomnia caused by the realization of the Rethuglican nightmore I'm living within I have to watch that movie to get drowsy because it is just so friggin' BORING!

Okay. Maybe I do have a few more movies in mind now that I'm writing through stream-of-consciousness. I'm surprised that NOBODY short of MYSELF has DARED to mention those HIGHLY REVISIONIST military films of the 80's! How can one talk about truly AWFUL cinema without mentioning the "Missing In Action" series, "Invasion USA", "The Delta Force", "Red Dawn", "Top Gun", "Iron Eagle" and "Uncommon Valor" to name a few (okay, I'll give "Valor" a tip'o'the Mad Hatter's hat because the sheer juxtoposition of Gene Hackman playing it straight in the company of a rather balletic Randall "Tex" Cobb deserves some merit...not to mention the pleasure to be found in watching the enemy "inadvertantly" set off a choreographed series of tripwired explosives one after the other).

I guess I overextended this comment so I guess I'll hang it up and reminice 'bout the good ol' days of the imagery of hunters drinking tainted deer blood and being so poor they couldn't afford to keep a gallon of radiator coolant in the pickup but could afford a few cases of beer.

--dr.bomb

For discussion:

Battlefield Earth (Travolta took it WAY too seriously)
Freddy Got Fingered (no plot whatsoever, only movie I have ever walked out of)
Lost in Space (you are in trouble when Joey Tribiani is considered a weighty character in your film)
Scary Movie 2 (James Woods has the "My check has cleared, right?" look on his face for most of this abomination)
Scooby Doo (ugh, and they are making a SEQUEL?)
Rocky V (Sly, please, please promise us you will do "Stop or My Mom will Shoot 2" before you do Rocky VI)
Gods and Generals (4 hours of my life gone, even the battles were uninspired)

1- Austin Powers-I don't get the humor. I turned this off after 20 miserable minutes. O.K., he's got bad teeth.. haha- hate mike..

2- Time Bandits- Awful.

3-Boys And Girls-Freddie Prince in a dreadful bore-fest

3.) Exit To Eden

Rosie O'donnell in lingerie- Ewww.

Wrapup time.

No one in this entire thread has even mentioned a single time The Worst Turkey In Movie History. That settles it. So bad that the memory has been repressed in the general population.

I've just got one word for you. One little word.

DUNE.

I tend to buy the argument that B-bad movies like "Plan 9" can be redeemed by their unintentional humor. A movie can be so bad that it is good.

But a pretentious stinkbomb like DUNE doesn't even achieve that sort of salvation. It just sits and stinks.