No. Not by a long shot, at least according to Joe Queenan, who knows about such things. Which isn’t to say that the new Paris Hilton vanity project, which earned a whopping $28,000 during its domestic release, is not a truly awful movie. Here, Joe uses it as a jumping off point for a meditation on what separates your run-of-the-mill stinker from an out-and-out train-wreck.
Though it is a natural impulse to believe that the excruciating film one is watching today is on a par with the excruciating films of yesterday, this is a slight to those who have worked long and hard to make movies so moronic that the public will still be talking about them decades later. Anyone can make a bad movie; Kate Hudson and Adam Sandler make them by the fistful. Anyone can make a sickening movie; we are already up to Saw IV. Anyone can make an unwatchable movie; Jack Black and Martin Lawrence do it every week. And anyone can make a comedy that is not funny; Jack Black and Martin Lawrence do it every week. But to make a movie that destroys a studio, wrecks careers, bankrupts investors, and turns everyone connected with it into a laughing stock requires a level of moxie, self-involvement, lack of taste, obliviousness to reality and general contempt for mankind that the average director, producer and movie star can only dream of attaining.
I can’t rival Joe’s encyclopedic knowledge of terrible movies, but I’ve certainly seen my share. Here is a list of some of the worst I’ve seen over the last few years. It’s not comprehensive by any means, just those few cinematic gems that spring immediately to mind when I think of the words Truly Crappy Movie.
Hulk: Many people see thing here Kamper not see. Many people seem to enjoy Hulk. Kamper not enjoy Hulk. Many people see complex story with Shakespearean undertones. Kamper not see that. Kamper see bad CGI and bad acting. That make Kamper mad! Kamper not pretty when mad!! Kamper crush you until you not like Hulk no more!!!
And now Kamper learn they are making sequel to Hulk? That make Kamper mad! Kamper not pretty when . . .
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones: Geez, even typing the title pisses me off. This movie, like anything else George Lucas has released in the last decade, does not seem to have been made for human beings, but rather for some droid race far removed from our hopes and cares and interests. You’ve heard of post-modern? This thing is post-human. It doesn’t even feel like a film under the commonly accepted definition of that term. It’s on film, certainly, and actors walk around sets delivering what appears to be dialogue, but there’s nothing here to engage with on even the most superficial level — Hayden Christensen least of all. As for its plot, things happen and then some other things happen and then still more things happen — it feels like the masturbatory visions of a 13-year-old with Aspergers and a $200 million budget. The closest experience I can think of to watching this movie was riding on this wretched thing.
Pirates of the Caribbean 3: Pirates on the Edge of Tomorrow: What an excruciating, draining, and ultimately depressing experience it was to endure this thunderously loud, incomprehensible mess of a movie. Saw it while on vacation in Provincetown, and all I could think of while watching it were all the funner things I could have been doing at that moment — like drowning in Cape Cod Bay. Gore Verbinski has made some good movies (The Ring, The Weatherman, the first Pirates), so let’s hope this was a contractual thing and not a harbinger of things to come.
Matrix 3 (whatever the hell it was called): Matrix 1 = excellent; Matrix 2 = tiresome; Matrix 3 = WTF?
Alexander: I can’t add anything to the opening paragraph of Eric Snider’s review of this one: “I’ll say this for Oliver Stone: When he makes a mess, he makes a HUGE MESS. He doesn’t just create trainwrecks. He knocks the train off the rails, sets it on fire, then kills every person onboard. (And takes three hours to do it.)”
The Wicker Man (2006 remake): Regular readers of HVNH already know of my veneration for the craptastic grandeur that is Neil LaBute’s remake of The Wicker Man.
Battlefield Earth: Every bit as godforsaken as you have heard or are capable of imagining.
What about you? What is the absolute worst movie you’ve seen lately?
