My champion of the worst must be "THE KEEP", a A-rate 1983 Paramount production, based on a great novel by F. Paul Wilson, directed by Michael Mann, with Scott Glenn, Jurgen Prochnow, Gabriel Byrne, Alberta Watson and Ian McKellen. Cinematographer is Alex Thomson and the Creature was designed by Enki Bilal.

It had everything to be one of the greatest suspense/horror movies of all times, but the result is one the most ridiculous and senseless movies ever made. Why?

1) The "score" (did I said score? Sorry...) by Tangerine Dream. Completely out of place, ominous and overstated to the nth degree. It looks like Mann just picked some old Dream cues and placed it in the movie, without any logic or coherence.

2) You never see it the keep exterior. Only a brick wall with a little entrance and its fake interiors.

3) Directing and Screenplay. This adaptation is only a skeletal remnant of a magnificent work of horror fiction. Had I not read the book, I would not have understood much of anything that happened in the movie. Michael Mann cannot tell a story through film, at least not with this one. He jumps from one scene to another with little purpose or reason. Characters were unnecessarily added to the script. The characters that were relevant were boiled down to almost nothing in terms of any degree of dimension. Now, the visual aspects at times were nice in the film, in particular the first encounter with the inhabitant of The Keep as a vaporous mist. But when we actual see him or it, it looks like some red robot in a cheap rubber suit. Cinematographer Alex Thomson's widescreen lensing is completely inadequate to the task, employing tons of fake smoke that obscure most of the compositions, giving them the air of artificiality.

4)The acting was bland, with Gabriel Byrne and Jurgen Prochnow doing fine jobs as German officers. Robert Prosky as a character-not-in-book priest is ridiculous as he looks like a leprechaun in the middle of Romania. Scott Glen is given little to do and looks really embarrassed, and the worst performance surprisingly goes to Sir Ian McKellan as the historian Cuza. He is supposed to be playing an aged, sickly Jew saved from the death camp, and he is acting like the second coming of John Huston with a rough voice and manly swagger. He was simply miscast.

Well, that's it. Sorry if it was too long. I just saw the movie again today (maybe trying to discover something good on it) since I love the novel so much...

Anyway, any comments? What's yours worst of all times?

Hugs,
André

G.I. Jane
Spawn
Starship Troopers

Good thing I won tickets to all of them, because I wouldn't have paid money.

G.I. Jane was just a yawner, with nothing to hold your attention.

Spawn I didn't know anything about, and for good reason - it sucked.

Starship Troopers just disappointed me. It should have been called "Melrose Space" and I know Heinlein was turing in his grave.

Oh yeah, I forgot "Godzilla."

Kevin
NP - Galaxy Quest

However, all they do during the film is belittle women, both in general and specifically to those women present in the diner.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - Sooooooo boring and stupid.

"Deal of the Century" w/Chevy Chase & Gregory Hines (though I love Hines' flame-thrower touch-up scene)

"The World Is Not Enough" (words cannot explain the pain I suffered)

"Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" (never I have I not laughed so much during a comedy)

"The Phantom Menace" (where to begin, where to begin . . .?)

"Entrapment" (not even Connery could save this flick, though the heist scenes were well-made. Zeta-Jones' - dare I say - "talent" was too distracting and was VERY mis-cast)

"The Matrix" (good intentions, but it was just two hours of Keanue Reeves in slow-mo. "Menno's Mind" with Bruce Campbell did the idea much better, and first)

"Payback" (uh, boring . . . Mel Gibson's voice sounded like he'd been gargling with gravel)

NP: HALLOWEEN 5: THE REVENGE OF MICHAEL MYERS (Alan Howarth) ****/*****

Don't even ask.

THE POSTMAN

The ultimate in terrible cinema. For crying out loud, the main villain of this bucket of dung was a copier salesmen motivated by a self-help book. WERE THEY SERIOUS?!

Running at laughably obscene 3 hours in length, it was the most contrived, egotistical sap-story I have ever had the misfortune of seeing. It was fun to laugh at some of those classic lines, however, such as:

BLIND OLD LADY: You're a saint. A godsend.
POSTMAN: No ma'am, I'm just the postman.

Let me make it very clear that this is just my opinion. If you disagree (and I'm sure tons of you will), fine.

ARMAGEDDON Hehhhhhhhhh...
AUSTIN POWERS 2 I thought it would be at least as good as the first one (which I didn't like much either) but it was ten times worse.
FARGO Was this supposed to be funny or not? I wish they would have decided between comedy or drama, because in this case the combination just didn't work for me.
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK I won't go into this one.
SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER, AND UNCUT My jaw was dropped the whole time. I was completely, utterly appalled. The score wasn't bad, though.

That's just to name a few...

My logical side would also include WATERWORLD, however I must admit Tina Majorino saved the movie for me. I could be watching the worst film ever made, and if Tina showed up and grinned once I would enjoy the movie thoroughly.

James
NP - Beethoven's "Appasionata" Sonata (*****)

Another nomination for worst movie . . .

LEGENDS OF THE FALL
THE BODYGUARD (Costner version)
A FEW GOOD MEN (I ran screaming out of the theater after about an hour)
THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER
GODZILLA (Emmerich/Devlin, 1998)

Hey, I sense a pattern there...

But seriously, this was a jacked movie, and not even Costner could save it. Too bad it didn't get made with Steven McQueen, which is who it was originally written for. Now THAT woulda been a killer movie.

That was just reflex on my part. THE BODYGUARD is the literal translation of the Japanese title YOJIMBO, from which the Costner BODYGUARD is slightly inspired (even uses some footage from the Kurosawa picture, as I recall). Otherwise there is no other version, I devoutly hope.

John Barry was asked to score the Costner BODYGUARD, and he knew producer Lawrence Kasdan from BODY HEAT and Costner from DANCES WITH WOLVES, so you'd expect smooth sailing; but instead, they all had a great big falling out (this happens a lot with Barry, I've noticed), and director Mick Jackson recommended Alan Silvestri, with whom he had just worked (very well!) on SOAPDISH. Thus did Silvestri go on to probably the biggest commercial success of his career: he had a cue or two on the BODYGUARD album which also featured the multiplatinum-selling Whitney Houston cut, hence Silvestri had a piece of the profits -- however small, still certainly more than he'd ever made off a soundtrack album before. If he's invested wisely, he probably doesn't really have to work again ever. (Though I'm happy he still is. He's not one of my favorites, but he's done good work.)

Other incredible AWFUL movies I remembered:

- THE FIFTH ELEMENT (and I was forced to watch that dreadful thing till the end since I was right in the middle of a crowded theater!!)

- VOLCANO (realy embarrasing)

- THE CROW 2 (first time I left the theater in the middle of the flick)

- BATMAN & ROBIN (second time)

- STARSHIP TROOPERS (aka MELROSE IN OUTER SPACE)

CONDORMAN - really abysmal film with Micheal Crawford, made by Disney in the early 80's, when it was having an identity crisis & trying to upgrade their films to a more 'adult' audience. Despite a decent score (by Henry Mancini) and a good premise, I spent a good 2/3 in the theatre lobby.

The only film that I demanded a refund for was ANNIE - it was just all wrong from the opening frame on. I had hopes that it would improve, but no... (mainly due to a really, really BAD script)

And a whole lot more where I don't even bother to remember.

Do take note that the above mentioned movies were watched on video (DD) and on TV (BTiLC).

While "Spartacus" did take some liberties with its subject material, at least it didn't have the blatant disregard for history that "Braveheart" did. The latter film had the hero siring a son with a woman that not only did he never meet, but would have to have had a member that would stretch over half of Europe to impregnate.

Furthermore, "Spartacus" fills its running time with fascinating politics and good acting. Sorry, but Mel Gibson vs. Patrick McGoohan are no match for Kirk Douglas vs. Laurence Olivier. And "Spartacus" has Jean Simmons, Peter Ustinov, Charles Laughton, Woody Strode...

Other "worthies" :

ARMAGEDDON
THE POSTMAN
WATERWORLD
SHOWGIRLS
STARSHIP TROOPERS
BATMAN & ROBIN
SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE
STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER
ANOTHER 48 HOURS
LETHAL WEAPON 4
END OF DAYS

....all overbudgeted/produced, under-written, and as pretty as they are vapid. We'd better get used to these annual CLEOPATRAs, though, because big $$/small script "extravanganzas" are here to stay.

All of the above is IMHO, of course. Interesting thread, for the "One man's poison..." aspect. Folks are gonna get worked up defending Michael Bay's "ouvre"; and I simply cannot comprehend that RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK made it to this post.....

- Every single one of Van Dam's movies
- Every single one of Segal's movies
- And a whole lot of Stallone movies

Basicaly give me IFC (The Independant Film Channel) and I'm happy.

However, my taste in film music greatly differs.

NP - Days of Thunder Boot (Hans Zimmer)

Oh yeah, forgot to ad one thing: Any that is ANY movie that stars Bett Midler, Goldie Hawn, or Barbara Streisand or ALL THREE. ARRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHH

As for bad movies, "Fly Away Home" threatened to bore me to tears when it wasn't driving me insane with such agonizingly pert-and-pretty filmmaking. I almost lost total brain function watching this one!