There's no doubt that my perception of "worst films" is influenced by the perception of others. For a film to truly stick in my craw, for the very mention of its name to still cause my fists to clench even years later, there probably (though not in every case) had to have been a good number of otherwise intelligent people who actually claimed that it was a good movie.

To stick with films you mention, I doubt I would have HATED HATED HATED "Crash" as much as I did if not for the fact that so many people liked it. I mean, if it was a "Gigli" or "Freddie Got Fingered" it wouldn't make angry; I'd probably just put it right out of my mind altogether. Oh, I would have HATED "Crash" no matter what, but it wouldn't be in the anti-pantheon if not for the inexplicable praise it received.

It's not just a matter of reacting against the establishment, but rather the degree to which such an event shakes your faith in your perception of the universe. Surely it is not even POSSIBLE that any sentient being could watch "Crash" and not realize how manifestly awful it is. Yet it is very possible. It prompted David Denby to write the most incorrect sentence of film criticism I can recall reading: "I think it’s easily the strongest American film since Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River" To paraphrase Lisa Simpson "I know what all those words mean, but they don't make sense together."

Nothing makes sense in a world where intelligent critics can actually watch "Crash" and not be nauseated by the experience.

In addition, mere incompetence does not suffice. I don't consider garbage B-movies like "Yor, the Hunter" to be legitimate candidates for "Worst film" lists because they are merely poorly made; they do not personally offend. And that's the difference between awful and truly awful. I'm going to forget about a "Yor" in fairly short order; the mere whispering of "Crash" is going to make me physically ill for years.

I'm not sure he's seeking out bad movies as much as he's simply enjoys decrying them if they do come along.

If we're putting in nominations for Worst Movie Ever, I nominate Terry Gilliam's Tideland, which asks us to identify with the insane Jeliza Rose and suspend our very common sense so that we won't be appalled when a retarded man-child kisses a little girl on the lips. A film so awful that I have to share my hatred of it with the world.

I could put a nomination in for Cries and Whispers, Ingmar Bergman's stale tale of a group of women whose lives are a tissue of boring. (When a Tarkovsky fan says something is boring, it's boring.) But Tideland deserves it more for sheer repulsiveness.

Why was Clerks such an awful experience for you?

I'm not a critic and I'm not a culture maven so I mostly avoid the really, really bad movies. I don't get any damp thrill out of them and I'm not made of money. I always wonder, though, about the obsessing over budgets. It might be an interesting subject for discussion but it shouldn't really influence a critical reading of the final product. For those of us outside the industry, "Heaven's Gate", "Waterworld", "1941", etc. have the same ticket price as anything else. They might not have been very good but they weren't all that bad either. The hundreds of millions spent on them are no concern of mine unless the Fed steps in to bail them out with taxpayer money.

Aw come on now. Kevin Smith is such an easy target, but underneath his crudeness and clumsy storytelling, there's real love for his characters, which is more than you can say for most movies.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that thinks the supposedly "worst films of the year" really aren't the worst. I sat through Norbit, and I thought it was just average-bad. It takes much more than a dumb movie like Norbit to really offend me.

The movies I gave a 1-out-of-10 score to last year included Reign Over Me, August Rush, and In the Valley of Elah. Each one pretended it was a certain kind of movie and deceitfully acted as something else. Elah is not a police procedural: it's more and more of Preachy Paul Haggis telling people what to think. (For the record, I'm against the war in Iraq.) His delivery of his messages always make me cringe.

I really don't see why this dishonesty doesn't offend more people. Reign Over Me is at 63% on Rotten Tomatoes, and Elah is at 71%. So it's comforting to see Queenan kind of saying the same thing I've been feeling lately.

Though I do love Salo.

Never, never understood the fascination with seeking out deliberate camp. Once upon a time, my friends and I would have our "worst movie" festivals, but these were movies that were basically sincere about their intentions... they were just incompetently made. (Interestingly, Yor, Hunter from the Future, mentioned above, was the one dubbed "worst" of all the movies we watched... and we watched some stinkers.)

But crap is crap is crap, and I have to go with you on this, Jim: There's just too much other stuff to do than to seek out things that are bad. Right now, I have the luxury of picking only movies I WANT to see (or sorta want to see) for review.

The worst movie I've seen in a long time? Across the Universe. I hated it so much because it had such pretensions, and because I had middling-to-mild hopes for it. Its every whitewashing frame thus came across like a personal insult. "Here are the 60's, baby boomers, conveniently wiped clean of everything that might make you uncomfortable. Feel good about yourselves!" What cowardice.

I actually came straight home and wrote the review immediately, I was so angry. That never happens.

I guess it's that air of seriousness that gets me. Yor believed in itself, more or less, but was merely dumb. Across the Universe, or, say, Crash or Southland Tales... they believed in themselves, too, and also believed they were Very Significant. And there's no better way to get me to avoid a movie.

Bagger Vance is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. I remember after catching it on DVD, logging on to read Ebert's doubtless hilarious pan of the film, only to find- he liked it, he liked it very much, in fact- he praised it very highly- he praised every awful minute of it.

I didn't have a point, really, just wanted to mention how bad Bagger Vance is.

I do agree that there is bad-excruciating and bad-entertaining. A movie can be poorly made, and still have a certain... how to put it... kinetic energy, and have a grip on me. That's the case with Southland Tales (which I know you hated intensely), even though I wouldn't recommend it to anyone I know.

But the bad-excruciating also includes to me some insubstantial movies like The Beach (yegh). And others that seem to be rambling on forever (Heaven's Gate... and I would even make that case for Titanic, and Tideland, it's only 2 hours long, it feels like it's still going on).

And why do you hate Alan Parker so much by the way?

I finally saw Ryan's Daughter, and my eyes still hurt. Sarah Miles and Christopher Jones are less convincing as passionate lovers than the marionettes in Team America. The film is so overproduced and overlong, as if David Lean went out of his way to spend as much money as MGM would allow.

Mary Shelly's Frankenstein - I hated that movie. I watched it while woking at a video store (so I was being paid while watching it) and I STILL wanted those 2 hours of my life back. Also, as far as popular, mostly well received movies, I loathed Castaway - one long Fed Ex commercial. Emmerich's Godzilla is another, but I know I'm not alone there.

ps - how can you put Clerks on the list?!?!

Art is good or bad because of what the audience can take from it. When you seek a movie out because it's bad, you're actually seeking it out because it's good in some unorthodox way, just not in the way it was intended to be good.

The Postman was a bit over-ambitious, but no way would I categorise it as among the worst ever made. Heaven's Gate? The article appears to be confusing box-office returns with artistic merit.

Why is "Heaven's Gate"(perhaps the last great film Cimino ever made) still the whipping boy after all these years? I love the landscapes churned by the eyes of Vilmos Zsigmond, the lonely anti-hero portrayed be Christopher Walken, and the beautiful speechifying of John Hurt's drunken dandy and the fiery oration of Joseph Cotten's brimstone preacher. Why continue to malign this picture? After all, Cimino did follow with a lousy picture: "Year of the Dragon".

So, "The Odd Couple" is on the same level of quality as "Porky's 3"?

I'm not sure I agree with you a hundred percent on your movie criticism work, there, Jim.

Any bad or mediocre pointless film should lead to eternal damnation... hee! With the amount of money being used in moviemaking, some people should really think twice before spending their money, when it could have gone elsewhere, to something more useful.

Well what I've gathered thus far is there are many ways for a movie to be downright terrible.

It can be poorly made (Yor), morally repulsive (Good Luck Chuck), inherently dishonest (Crash) or talentlessly manipulative (Stell Magnolias).

But once in a while comes a movie that espouses an aesthetic belief so foul that it devalues the whole artform. Which brings me to my selection for worst film ever.

Sin City (widely praised), aside from being pointlessly violent and misogynist, plays to that most horrible of misnotions that the best adaptations are those that refuse to adapt. If all the movies are good for is creating an experience identical to that of another medium, then the entire artform is pointless.

I think Christopher Long got it exactly right: A lot of the movies people hate are only because others seem to like it so much, like "Crash" and "Life Is beautiful" which for the record I enjoyed, atleast when I initially watched them in the theater and on TV respectively.

Speaking of which, based on your blog entries, Jim, you seem to be a very reasonable person in that you clearly describe what makes you hate or love a particular movie. What is it about "Life Is Beautiful" makes you call it "morally repugnant"? It seemed like a perfectly harmless and "innocent" movie to me! Whatever other attributes were ascribed to it were certainly not done so by the film-makers!

No Country For Old Men is one of the worst films. Anyone who thinks No Country was a masterpiece has no idea what the cinema actually is. Someone give me one good example of great mis en scene or montage from that film? Its impossible because there is none!

I think "Tideland" and "Cries and Whispers" are both dubious picks for worst-film-ever, as a comment above mentioned. I'd nominate "Boondock Saints". What a pile of garbage that is. Being a college senior, I've had to watch countless of my future ex-friends turn glassy-eyed and smile at the mention of that movie. It's such a big, melo-dramatic, unfunny, unbelievably stupid film that uses homosexuality as a punchline and makes gods out of hoodlums. Then during the credits it poses as a think-piece. Oh, wait, let's make "Boondock Saints" #2, I just remembered watching "Belly".

Christopher Long: "To paraphrase Lisa Simpson 'I know what all those words mean, but they don't make sense together.'"

Maybe you'd have more fun at a Yahoo Serious Film Festival.

"To me, a bad movie is by definition something that's excruciating to watch -- and the more it conforms to conventional standards of "entertainment" the more offensive and agonizing it becomes"

So true.

I remember when I came out of E.T., I was so viscerally angry, so enraged at the film, the filmmakers and the moviegoers around me, who were acting like they had just seen something wonderful and not one of the most execrable, trite, manipulative abominations ever, that I literally fled from my family and into the parking lot, in search of something I could punch or kick legally.

I found a giant soda cup, which turned out not to be as empty as I thought. My ridiculous self-dousing calmed me a bit. Still, every time I see a "Great Films" list with that piece of crap near the top I'm disgusted all over again.

I find this conversation fascinating, especially considering I loved Crash, Life is Beautiful (frankly, I'm tired of hearing short-sighted comments about its "moral repugnance"), Natural Born Killers, Mississippi Burning, Tideland, Across the Universe, and Reign Over Me, and consider all of them to be either the best or close to the best films of their respective years.

To me, the truly terrible movies are those that are incompetently made on every level (Alone in the Dark), or else just smugly written by amateurs who have no idea how to write a screenplay (Little Miss Sunshine). I'll usually give points for effort, or if talent is clearly on display somewhere (Funny Games being the exception... indeed, the fact that there is immense talent there just make its worse).

There's several kinds of bad, from the look of it:

1) Incompetence. The people making the movie are simply not good filmmakers, and don't care. They're in this to make a buck. "Yor" would probably fit in this category, as would most Z-grade programmer trash.

2) Arrogance. The creators have no idea just how offensive their work is, because they haven't thought about its implications. Lester Bangs once interviewed Emerson, Lake and Palmer (whom he walked in despising and walked out despising all the more), and said something to the effect that the reason he hated them so much was not just because they were such pretentiously arrogant boobs, but didn't even realize it. "Crash" offended me for this reason: it was such pious, shallow junk that tried to be about something Deep and Meaningful and simply recapitulated all the trashy cliches about its subjects.

3) Insouciance. The creators are determined to offend you. John Waters fits in this category.

As someone else once said, few people consciously set out to make a bad movie. Everyone thinks they are doing the right thing -- even if that's nothing more than the urge to entertain or make a buck.

These responses show why you can't come up with a definitive worst movie list. Not because people have different criteria for worst movie status, but because for lots of people, other people's opinion are really the deciding factor. Or, more to the point, it's not someone's worst movie unless other people actually like it. And the outrage that lots of other people liked a movie that you absolutely hated makes it an even worse movie, in your mind. Crash seems to be the worst recent offender, since the people that hate that movie hate it so vehemently that they can't understand why anyone would like it, especially Oscar voters who are "supposed" to be "intelligent". The same reaction seems to be gotten from Life is Beautiful (already mentioned here) and American Beauty.

Oh, and the worst movie I've ever seen? Date Movie. The only time I've ever sat through an entire comedy and not laughed at all, even once. I don't even think I smiled.

I remember disliking both "The Aviator" and "The Departed" when I saw them in theatrical release (I actually walked out of "The Aviator") but gave them both a second chance on dvd and found them to be better, just not the masterpieces everyone else claims them to be. I'm still bewildered on how "The Departed" took home an Academy Award for Best Picture. Huh? And while I don't loathe "Crash" like other folks, I don't understand why so many people like it either. Again, I'm bewilderd about the Best Picture Award.
But the WORST that I've seen hands down has got to be "Elizabethtown". It was so awful that I was embarrassed for all invloved in the making of the film, most notably Susan Sarandon due to the excrutiating scene where she dances to "Moon River". I cringe thinking about it. I'd watch "Crash" again before I'd rewatch this turd of a film.

"Monster" or "The Martyrdom of Aileen Wuornos."

Charlize Theron needs 2 hours of make-up to give half the performance Gena Rowlands could raw, and without all the tics and affectations.

The sentimentalizing of Aileen Wuornos's story is disgraceful. What if Henry Lee Lucas had been treated with such pity in a biopic about his murder spree? His childhood was filled with as much abuse, neglect, and destiny-shaping as Wuornos, only he was male. Patty Jenkins, the director, should be ashamed of herself. Charlize Theron's decision to play the part probably had more to do with her deep, deep empathy for the poor woman and getting her tragic story out to the public than it did with "ooh, this is a juicy part that'll show 'em all I'm not just a pretty face!" Sure. Opportunism and self-serving exploitation of a sensational attention-grabbing character was the furthest thing from Ms. Theron's mind when she signed on.

If you see "Monster," you'll come away thinking she was just a misunderstood, unfortunate woman in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Apologies for the rant. It's just she won the flippin' Oscar for that performance, while Edie Falco gets stuck playing minor parts in crap like "The Quiet" and "Freedomland."

Sin City, The Departed, E.T., No Country, I wonder why people are so eager to take down popular and entertaining films as the worst of all time when all of those movies very obviously offer something invaluable to the viewer (Sin City is the easiest to attack, but if you can't at least admire its impressionistic aesthetics and innovative production, you're lying to yourself). I guess Ishtar is too pedestrian a movie to pick on.

Allow me to out cynic everyone: How about Ikiru? What a steaming turd!

Ditto on "E.T." "...one of the most execrable, trite, manipulative abominations ever" yet it is considered "a classic." I grew up on Spielberg, but more often than not, the man seems only able to think in cliches.

Movies like "Norbit" "(Insert Genre) Movie" "300" "The Boondock Saints" and anything by Kevin Smith are just too obvious.

While not even a film I don't like, "Primer" pisses me off every time I watch it and gets worse with each repeat viewing.

Shane Carruth: "Whoa, we know engineering jargon! We are so brilliant, aren't we? Don't answer that. I know I am. Can't you tell from my smug attitude?"

The blonde guy doesn't bother me, but I hate Shane Carruth.

Perhaps it's late to jump in this discussion, but I can share what I learned years ago. Not to sound totally sanctimonious, but bad movies should be considered a form of Anthropology; we owe it to ourselves to watch and design the experience to have meaning in our own lives. These movies have cultural markers, language idioms, tool usage, and period dating that give us insight to the human condition.
From a metaphysical perspective, there is a Kabbalist axiom that claims there is no such thing as bad or evil, these concepts are considered "stepping stones" or foundations we move through life by standing on.
We should love the worst films, because they remind us of the best, and are far more ambitious than the mediocre. Nobody should feel like they wasted hours of their life on a movie (unless you are being waterboarded while it's playing).

I really need to do a search on the internet, but I don't believe that anyone hated (HATED HATED!) Crash until it started to get attention during awards season. I remember some, particularly Ebert, being ecstatic about it when it came out in March or April '05, but the whole HATED HATED HATED thing I only started to hear around awards season. It's a shallow film, to be sure, but it's a pretty standard Hollywood issue film, not particularly any more offensive than, say, Grand Canyon. And I don't recall anyone HATING HATING HATING Grand Canyon.

Most of the time, I don't understand the vitriol surrounding any of the films mentioned. But then I myself just think about how angry Fight Club or The Matrix made me, and then I can join all of your company.

Jeez, I hate coming into one of these comment-a-thons late.

So let me just say this:
I get no kick from such pain. Brilliant pun Mr. Emerson. And I'm with you on bad movies. They're my idea of nothing to do. But... ah you know the rest.

JE: Mere folderol doesn't thrill me at all.

Amazing that everyone picks "Life is Beautiful", when Benigni's "Pinocchio" has to be one of the all-time worst movies in the history of cinema. I caught some of it on television and could not bear to sit through more than 30 minutes of it. A 49-year-old man pretending to be a little boy in what looked like a leftover circus from an F.W. Murnau set that caught fire. Clearly the man has lost his mind, and has made me think his jumping around at the Oscars was more indicative of his instability than we thought.
Everyone tells me "Battlefield Earth" is the worst movie ever, but to me it committed a worse sin than being bad - it was incredibly boring. That to me makes all the difference with bad films. You can watch an Ed Wood movie and laugh, which is a valid form of entertainment - unintentional comedy - but when a film is merely pathetic, or a massive vanity project it's best to steer clear.
Now, when everyone mentions "Crash," do they mean David Cronenberg's film, or the Paul Haggis one - both of which I did not like. If I had to choose though, I'd say Cronenberg's film was worse, since I quickly forgot the Haggis film, while the Cronenberg "Crash" left me fuming with its poor acting, really bad fake sex and wildly unbelievable story.

What makes a bad film bad is subjective. In some cases, it depends on the environment. For example, taken on its own merit, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" is perhaps one of the worst films ever made. I can't imagine that someone who rents/buys the DVD, having heard that it's a great flick from a "Rocky" groupie, would think that it's anything but a complete waste of time.

However, taken in the context of a midnight movie showing, with a knowledgeable audience that has all the props, dresses the part, and knows all the lines, it's one of the most enjoyable experiences at the movies I've ever had. I used to go about once a month when I lived in Hawaii, and one of the film professors would show it at the University of Hawaii. My friends and I would dress up for the occasion and we got in free because the prof knew that we were the reason he would sell out the shows. We made a mess of that classroom every month, with the blizzard of rice, toilet paper, playing cards, and toast liberally sprinkled with squirt bottles, but we had a blast.

Listening to the "Audience Participation" track does no good on the DVD because it's so muddled that the "lines" are for the most part unintelligible. "Rocky Horror" is one of those films that has to be experienced in a theater, with the right crowd, and management who knows what kind of mess to expect when showing it.

That said; the movie that I'd like to claim my two hours back would be "Dumb and Dumber." I think I snorted twice, but otherwise I found it repulsive. To this day, I have a hard time accepting Jim Carrey in anything because of that film. And that includes his "good" ones such as "Truman Show" and the recent "Horton Hears A Who."

There are other actors out there who fit that bill, most of them ex-SNL players: Pauly Shore, Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler, Chris Farley. However, one man's revulsion is another's belly laugh.

It's all subjective.

This article and the responses are quite interesting. As someone who gets great enjoyment out of "so bad they're good" movies, I often wonder how people can watch the same film and get absolutely nothing out of it. And then I go to see a film like Meet the Spartans and wonder how the hell it got made, how anyone could enjoy it, and how anyone could sit through it without wanting to claw their eyes out.

I work as a film critic for my college newspaper (the Daily Egyptian down at SIUC) and I've had to stomach a lot of crap films, but as Jim mentioned, most of them are crappy in the same ways. Two experiences stand out:

1. The remake of The Wicker Man. By the end of the film, when Nicolas Cage started punching women in the face, you would have thought the audience was watching a comedy. I've never seen such a full scale revolt against a film before.

2. Watching Hannibal Rising on opening night and realizing about 20 minutes in that I was watching what would probably end up as the worst film of 2007, and there was still over an hour and 20 minutes to go. That was excruciating, and the audience agreed.

I think watching a bad movie with an audience is the way to do it. When it's a collectively shared bad movie experience, it makes it all the more enjoyable. When I saw The Reaping with a bunch of my friends, we correctly guessed the plot twists about 20 minutes in, and the people sitting in front of us agreed. We were correct.

An interesting topic that I'm glad is up for debate. By the way, the worst movie ever made is certainly Manos: The Hands Of Fate. But Elizabethtown gave it a run for its money.

I love movies and I hate this thread.

One more nomination: that old cartoon version of Gulliver's Travels (1939) for its horrible bastardization of the source material. (You can see it for free online; it's in the public domain.) *cringe* Lilliput and Blefescu go to war because the kings cannot agree what song should be sung at the wedding of one's son to the other's daughter. And everything's so god damn cartoonish! (The only drawing point is the rotoscoped Gulliver, but that's not enough to heighten the source material.) There's a scene where the Lilliputians climb on top of Gulliver, who only one of them has seen so far. And the idea is that he's so big they don't even know they're on top of him. The scene goes on forever, and it's obvious every second that they're standing on Gulliver's chest. The audience screams "You're standing on top of him, you f***tards!" but the movie does not hear.

Wes, I certainly agree with the idea that seeing a bad movie with an audience to share the experience would be preferable to seeing it alone....if that crowd is in a family room, or rec hall. In theaters, though, I don't really want the people in front or behind me serving as judge and jury to decide when the movie has crossed that line that allows them to replace the movie soundtrack with their own. I've been to too many movies that I thought were truly excellent that the bulk of the crowd gave up on and tried to ruin for me, as well. This includes "Fargo", if you can believe that. I won't deny, though, that it can be vaguely entertaining when someone nearby *thinks* they have the plot all figured out and is wrong again and again. I remember one such loudmouth at "The Crying Game" who was stunned, I tell you, to find out: "It's a guy!" I thought he was going to be literally sick when he figured it out an hour after everyone else. He slumped down in his seat and didn't say another word the rest of the movie.

One movie I absolutely hate with every fiber of my being: "Little Children". That stupid voice-over narration which tells the audience exactly what they're watching onscreen, therefore not allowing us to interpret the scenes for ourselves, made me feel incredibly insulted. How anyone can watch that movie and not feel like they're being talked down to is beyond me. And yet it managed to get rave reviews and even a few Oscar nominations! Don't believe the hype, people. The title refers to what Todd Field treats the audience like.

Eric, I agree that the voice-over narration was pompous and insulting, but it really isn't in the film that much. You can't condemn the entire film for it.

Kate Winslet was wonderful in it. As disappointing as "Little Children" was, Kate Winslet was marvelous.

I loved reading all these comments (though I really enjoyed Crash.) I think "Lovell" said it best "And the outrage that lots of other people liked a movie that you absolutely hated makes it an even worse movie, in your mind."

I have three kinds of movies that I "hate" -- movies that for whatever reason I did not connect with at all ("Sahara" and "Extreme Prejudice" come to mind - I walked out of both they were so awful), movies that are exceptionally lazy -- I usually manage to avoid these -- and movies that take either great premise or source material and completely muck it up... for that, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" ceratinly floats to the top of my list.

While certainly not the worst I have ever seen, there are a number of films that others love that I could really do without: Southland Tales, Top Gun, Caddyshack, Robocop, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Napoleon Dynamite, Office Space, Team America, 300, Fatal Attraction, Gummo, Battle in Heaven, Superbad, Fellini Satyricon, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, The Doom Generation, Boondock Saints,Rosetta (love the Dardenne's other films, but not so much this one) and The World (not my favorite Jia ZhengKe

I typically get in more passionately argumentative discussions about films that others love but I find mediocre.

I can agree with you Raymond. I can't imagine someone watching "Fargo" and deciding it was a movie worthy of public derision. But I've found in my filmgoing career that some audiences collectively know when they're watching a turkey, and I think it's all the more fun to be in those audiences. Though I also must admit that as a whole, being a respectful filmgoer outweighs the fun of verbally abusing a really bad movie in public. I actually felt sorry watching "300" because I could tell there was a clear rift between the people in the theater who thought it was just brilliant and the people in the theater who thought it was really pretty trash. (I fell in the latter category, but I did find the visuals to be quite excellent.) We really need to all be more respectful as filmgoers and leave the snarky comments and cutting remarks at home. Unless it's a midnight screening of Rocky Horror.

Another film that connected with a lot of people that I found to be just awful: Sideways. Maybe it's because I'm not a middle aged person suffering a crisis, but I found the film to be a long, slow slog punctuated by scenes (like the "describing wine but we're really describing ourselves" scene) that were cloying, manipulative, and simple minded. I just didn't care about a single one of these idiots. Though Giamatti did give a strong performance.

I don't know how the hell anyone could consider "Cries and Whispers", "The Departed", "Fargo", or "No Country for Old Men" to be anywhere CLOSE to the worst films ever made. "Crash" doesn't even come close to being the worst. Try "The Doom Generation", "The Silence of the Hams", any "Friday the 13th" sequels, recent torture porn ("Saw", Eli Roth's garbage, and the like), "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues", "Freddy Got Fingered" -- stuff like that. Or what about all the films MST3k picked on, like "Manos: the Hands of Fate?" What about "Plan 9 From Outer Space?"

There's a lot of very good films here (and some mediocre films) being bandied about that have quite a bit of merit. "No Country for Old Men" one of the worst fims of all time?! "Crash?" I might understand if you were discussing Cronenberg's film of the same name (which, in my opinion, is excellent). Truly bad films have absolutely no reason to exist. They exploit the lowest, basest instincts of human depravity and are simply made for a quick buck. They have no artistic merit and offend in an intentional manner in order to separate people from their hard-earned cash. Bad films are car wrecks, with filmmakers hoping for a bit of rubbernecking to pad their wallets. The absolute worst film I've ever seen was "Caligula," to date the most offensive experience I have had to endure at the theater. Additional films that come to mind include "Showgirls," "Saw," "Mark of the Devil," "Shooter," "Feardot.Com," and "8MM." These are films in which quite a bit of money was invested in stories and actors simply to exploit human suffering on an epic scale in order to make money. These films make me angry and depressed about the filmmaking medium....

I don't get people when they call a movie "manipulative". I mean, every movie ever made is manipulative! That is the darn point! That being said, "Babel" should be on this list. "Crash" was a masterpiece because it depicted everyone as both good and evil. "Babel" just had no real focus. Maybe a point, but not one second of that film felt connected. Maybe I'll like it more if I see it again, but then again I'm not into horny deaf teenagers.

Having read all the 50+ comments, I have to say that I'm stunned at how serious some people are in their hate for movies - being an avid, sometimes passionate filmgoer myself; moreover a few seem to imply that they also despise everyone who likes, say, Crash. Is one bad film really worth all that hate? On topic:
A recent film which I found staggeringly awful is Jumper; the mere thought of the million-dollar expenses for that mess is excruciating.

It's all math. How bad a movie is should be directly proprotional to how hard it tries to be good, divided by how good the filmakers think it is times the square root of its critical reverence. This along with the Ebert postulate; no film that agrees with my politics will be rated lower than 2.5 stars should make this very easy. Take Crash: very pompous, very full of itself, very well reviewed but written on the level of 7th grade advanced theater class. Preachy and obnoxious. Then take Evil Dead 2. Every frame is full of effort and love of film, not full of itself, and best of all, most critics hated it thereby solidifying its genius.

Incidentally, my own personal rule is that critics cannot ever be trusted on two types of films; horror and period pieces. They almost always miss the point of horror films and almost always overrate period pieces. Again, simple math. The star rating of a period piece movie is equal to the sum of the pieces in the main actress's dress.

The worst movie of all time is "National Lampoon Goes to the Movies" a/k/a "National Lampoon's Movie Madness" which somehow made it to DVD release in recent years. This film is absolutely interminable and makes the viewer want to gouge his or her eyes out.

Wes, I was 18 or 19 when I saw "Sideways" and loved it. You say "I just didn't care about a single one of these idiots. Though Giamatti did give a strong performance." So does that exclude Miles (Giamatti) from the idiots? And if you were disgusted with Jack (Thomas Haden Church) and thought him an idiot, that's because he was an idiot. The film is pretty disgusted with him too, as is Miles.

Nathan, I personally found "Gummo" to be a trashy sort of masterpiece, and visionary, but I understand if someone hates it. I've shown it to friends, and have since found I have fewer of them. And if anybody reading this is thinking, "You like "GUMMO?!!" in my defense, Werner Herzog admired it very much. Here is an interview he conducted with Harmony Korine where he shares his thoughts and analysis of "Gummo:" http://finelinefeatures.com/gummo/inter01.htm

Werner Herzog starred in Korine's 2nd film "Julien Donkey-Boy" as the abusive, cough-syrup chugging father of a schizophrenic. The father also listens to bluegrass music while wearing a gas mask, which is not out of place in his house where all the family members are mentally ill or handicapped. I did not care for "Julien Donkey-Boy" as it quickly turns into really nothing more than an artless geek show. "Gummo" might be a geek show too, but it has beautiful cinematography and a wickedly perverse sense of humor. Like "Funny Games" it shows scene after scene of transgressive, relatively appalling content hoping to provoke the audience into shutting it off in disgust. It's provocative, and disgusting, but I've seen people elsewhere compare "Pink Flamingos" to "Un Chien Andalou" and maybe there is some truth in that. I'm not sure, but I wouldn't get into an argument with someone who hated "Gummo" because it's a very, very subjective experience.

Some films are good objectively, like "No Country For Old Men."

Anyone who picks "No Country for Old Men" as the worst movie ever made is saying a lot more about themselves than about the movies.

For the record, I loved Crash, and honestly believe that the only reason why people hated so much was because it beat out "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner 2" for Best Picture.

Actually had this conversation last night with some friends.

They voted for _Caligula_, the extended porn version, as the worst movie of all time.

I countered with _Dog Park_ and the Hong Kong category 3 shocker _Red to Kill_. The first is unfunny untouching unfunny; the second is beyond depraved--it's about the serial rape of a retarded woman.

Dishonourable mention: _Cannibal Ferox_. Woefully badly made, gratuitious and why do the have to kill the poor turtle?

@Stefan: Wait, I thought everyone was into horny deaf teenagers! Especially Japanese ones.

But seriously, why do people keep saying certain types of movies are "too easy"? These movies are widely recognized as bad (except maybe Kevin Smith films, a few of which I actually like), so maybe, just maybe, they are actually worse than some of the "good" movies being brandied about in these comments? You shouldn't get a pass for making a bad movie simply because everyone hated it! That really makes no sense. As a matter of fact, that should be the reason that it is one of the worst movies ever.

There seem to be many sorts of films run together here as "bad," including ones that are merely overrated (the Paul Haggis Crash, perfectly decent ensemble drama that had no business winning Best Picture) and those that people find politically objectionable (Life is Beautiful; I think that film is fine, but I can see why people might object).

There's also the category of personal dislikes, which is not subject to much debate (I would put all Merchant-Ivory films here, but many disagree, mileages vary).

There are some films that pretty much everyone can agree on as exceedingly awful, however. Exposed (1983, Nastassja Kinski and Rudolf Nureyev) is a good example of a competently-made film based on a script so inane and with performances so inept that it sears into the memory. The other kind of objective dead loss are films like Ed (1996, Matt LeBlanc) – you remember, the one with an animatronic chimp that plays baseball – that are not only inane and ineptly acted, but seem to have been produced by someone who'd never even seen a movie. That's a rare accomplishment.

I completely agree with Mike De Luca, Heaven's Gate does not deserve inclusion here. I actually find it a better--certainly a more honest--movie than The Deer Hunter. How long has it been since a lot of people saw it? It needed a good long while to break free of all the ill will caused by its catastrophic filming.

As for bad movies, it's a fun subject, if not one you want to linger on all the time. The fact is, there is a hierarchy even to bad movies. I discussed this once at my own place and I take the liberty of linking to here. The Bad Movie That Thinks It's Good is definitely the worst sort, and Life Is Beautiful fits neatly into the category for me.

since becoming obsessively interested in movies about seven years ago, there is only one movie that i could not bear to finish. "Goodbye Dragon Inn". A movie about the final night of a movie theatre in which we watch the ticket girl eat lunch, and then head to the bathroom. We get to see movie goers watch a movie, fall asleep, get annoyed at the patron a few seats over who's eating his candy at a high volume. I understand why Ming-Liang Tsai made the movie. It's a homage to the past time of going to the movies. But really if i wanted the experience of going to a movie, i'd go to one. i can't imagine how it would feel to see this movie at a theatre. i might scream. i couldn't finish the movie. there have been other horrible movies over the years, but usually i can find something in each one to enjoy. maybe a pretty face, or maybe the cinematography, or maybe the way an actor delivers their lines, or sometimes it's even fun to watch extras. but this movie had nothing at all.

As they say "Opinions are like assholes, and they all write in this comments section."

Never got the "manipulative" argument, either. A movie starts being manipulative as soon as pencil is put to page.
Documentaries are manipulative, too. It's called Editing.

I'm always a little taken aback at the vitriol people spew at the films they hate. A film has to be pretty horrendous to actually make me angry (in recent years, "Tomcats" and "FeardotCom" come to mind).

I think oftentimes a distaste for a certain subject matter can almost literally blind someone to a movies other merits. I've harped on the anti-"Life is Beautiful" thing in another thread, but I've never quite understood what's so "morally repugnant" about a loving father trying to make bearable what he assumes will be the last weeks of his five-year-old son's life.

Wes: Fellow Saluki here; I went to film school at SIUC back in the late 80s-early 90s.

Is there a single movie out there so excrutiating, SO awful that the mere act of viewing it is more tedious than reading dozens of multi-paragraph diatribes about bad movies?

The answer is...yes. And its name is "The Devil's Advocate".

I'm one of the people who thinks while Crash wasn't that great, it wasn't bad, and certainly isn't worth hating. Sure it didn't deserve to win Best Picture, but how is that a worse injustice than Gladiator's win in 2001?

Speaking of which, I hate it when a critic doesn't stand by his or her opinion if they lose the popularity contest. Gladiator opened to many negative and lukewarm reviews, yet Roger was one of only a few critics who maintained their position through all the end of year lists and Oscars.

I'll throw out The Scarlet Letter 1995 as candidate for the worst bodice ripper ever made (although to be fair, I've never seen Endless Love or the Blue Lagoon). Laughably unacceptable for anyone who's read the book, too badly acted and written for anyone wanting a revisionist historical romp, and too slowly paced and uncomfortable for anyone just wanting to see Demi Moore take off her frock. A perfect failure.

Hmmm, it never occurred to me that "Across The Universe" was trying to be Very Significant. I thought it was just trying to be a musical with a certain amount of gravitas, not as much as "Cabaret", but more than "Singin' in the Rain". And a bunch of really good songs, even when sung by the actors.

I think the movie I hated the most was Charlie's Angels 2, although a lot of films I might hate I haven't seen, like Funny Games or The Hottie and the Nottie.

I don't negatively react to whether a movie is acclaimed by many others. I just saw The Godfather film a couple of years ago(on DVD, not in a theater). Would it make my subjective list of 10 best movies ever? No. Do I therefore hate it? No.

If I may point out a connection between this entry and one from three years ago, there was one discussion Jim, that you started about AO Scott's column "Where Have All The Howlers Gone?", that asked if the movies today are bad enough. His point was of course that too many films seem to just fall into mediocrity, while a movie that falls from greater height is at least worthy of observing: well, they tried.

I'm not sure if Kubrick was thinking the same thing when he said bad movies were very inspiring to him when he was growing up, because "I didn't know a thing about making movies, but I knew I'd be able to make better movies than that." But for me, a supremely preposterous film like Dreamcatcher is a little hopeful, because if such an incomprehensible script can get made, then good original scripts by writers who knew what they were doing can slip through too.

Christopher (way, way up in the first comment): I didn't see "Crash" until it came out on DVD, but before it was up for any awards (the year-end critics groups ignored it). I thought it was a bad movie in every way (my first response, as a former Los Angeleno, was that this was a movie made by a guy who lived way up in the hills and imagined what things were like on the grid below), but I wouldn't have thought twice about it until I saw how some people were treating it as a revelation. Then I tried to watch it a second time. I even tried a third and a fourth, but I find the thing simply unwatchable. It's so offensive in the ways it tries to avoid giving offense, so racist in its limited conception of what racism is. It's the self-congratulatory phoniness of the movie that appalls me.

shawn, Gman: Two things about "Clerks" (which I saw on its opening day in theaters) bothered me about it: 1) the jokes were trying so hard to be funny that, to me, they weren't; and 2) I didn't feel it communicated anything in particular about the feeling of working in a convenience store, which was the whole selling-point. It felt like the store was just used as a generic work setting, like a TV sitcom set in a coffee shop or something. You're probably right about Smith's affection for his characters, though. I'll give him that, even if I don't feel it myself.

I just love to make fun of bad movies but there are so many I can name but here are some films that are truly just awful they include Patch Adams,Catwoman and North and films so bad that they are funny such as Batman and Robin. There also were films that critics hated that I liked such as Godzilla,3000 Miles to Graceland and Papilion.

Wes, I wouldn't say the audience was treating "Fargo" with derision but they were treating it as purely a slapstick comedy, and therefore an audience participation picture. For me, finding the laughs very funny yet secondary to a great character study, they might as well have been throwing stuff at the screen. It was a major distraction.
Tim Morris, you mentioned "Ed" which makes me wonder: Why do they make so many monkey movies? Other than the Eastwood "Which Way" flicks which ones have been successful? And those may be the worst things Eastwood was ever connected with even if they were hits.

I think a few of you have already tapped into what was my initial thought about all of this - I have always thought that the more people (especially non movie geek people) start to adore a movie, the more the "film" crowd gets annoyed with said film.

"Crash" is a PERFECT example of this. When it was on the festival circuit, it was a masterpiece. Then, you're Mom called and told you how much she liked it, and now its the worst movie ever made. "Crash" is not that bad; it's bad, but it's not THAT bad. It's just trite. It's "Magnolia" and "Babel" for the people that love Meg Ryan movies. Let them enjoy thinking that they're deep for a minute or two. It's not even the worst movie that ever won best picture. That title still belongs to "Dances with Wolves".

As for "Life is Beautiful" - same scenario - I don't know ANYONE that didn't like that movie when it was art house. Then Begnini started acting like an idiot at the Oscars and now its the worst movie ever made. I still kinda like it, but I liked "Tideland" too. And I love "Clerks". I don't even get that argument.

As for the worst movie ever made? I'm not sure I have a vote - I've seen a lot of crap. I think "Most Overrated" would be a better description of what we are really talking about here, and that prize, for me, goes hands down to "Silence of the Lambs". Not a bad movie, just not nearly as good as people tell me it is.

Jim, I wonder about your use of the phrase "self-congratulatory phoniness" to describe Crash. I think a lot of the problems people have with this movie stem from a discrepancy between what they want to see in the film and what the filmmakers actually convey. I don't view Crash as a sociological study aimed at conveying the nature or definition of racism, but as a series of stories that explore people's personal struggles and the way those struggles are sometimes manifested in repulsive ways - like racism. For me, the emotion in the movie doesn't come from its exploration of racism, but from the sense of empathy I felt with the characters - I felt for Cheadle's character and his mom at the end of the film, I could understand the complicated moral choice Cheadle had to make before the press conference, I could relate to the complex issues brought up by the television director and his wife's experience with the cop. The film affected me because it brought me into the lives of many unique characters and helped me to understand them on both an emotional and an intellectual level. Even those who didn't experience the same sense of empathy as I did with the main characters can appreciate the film on an intellectual level. All of the characters are three-dimensional and moments when they show their best qualities are juxtaposed with moments when they show their worst. The film makes the viewer reflect on how certain characater flaws are manifested in people in sometimes morally repugnant ways, whether those ways be racism, intolerance, or bigotry.

That said, I think this movie has far too many coincidences to work on any realistic level, and I view it as more of a morality tale than as an accurate depiction of life in Los Angeles. I don't think the setting of the movie really matters (despite Don Cheadle's words in the opening scene), and I don't think a change in setting would alter the effect of the movie as a whole - that may be why the film's failure to convey the essense of Los Angeles may not affect me as much as others, in addition to the fact that I have never been to the city. Nonetheless, when the movie relies on glaringly unreaslitic coincidences to generate emotions in its viewers (which happens for me in two of the storylines), that's when it becomes phony and manipulative; otherwise, I think it develops as a result of realistic character developments that demonstrate the filmmakers' true understanding of human nature. Sometimes, this film is reduced to a message movie with the theme "racism is bad." For me, the film works because it relies on genuine emotion and triggers real thought among its viewers - I don't think it is aiming to present a profound or revelatory message on racism, but is just attempting to show how the problems in various people's lives can manifest themselves in sometimes hateful ways. I treat the movie more as a character study than a message picture, and on that level, I think it works.

Scott,

I'll have to disagree with you on Crash-hating. I was not aware of the film as a festival hit - did it really have a big festival run? It doesn't seem the type. My keenest memory of it was first hearing from my professor who told me it was dreadful, then hearing from another friend who told me it "wasn't anything special, but OK." Now my professor, being a film studies teacher, tends to hate almost everything so I decided to watch it anyway.

Fists clenched, I raced home and called the second friend: "You could have warned me! You had the chance to save me, but you made me suffer anyway. You are dead to me." Since he had previously made me sit through Exorcist: The Beginning (Renny Harlin version), he still owes me big time.

Crash really is that bad. But it only continues to fill me with anger simply because there are far too many people who don't realize how objectively and indisputably bad (and profoundly morally repugnant) it truly is.

Dan,

Funny you should mention Dreamcatcher. That film taught me how auteurism can lead to errors in critical thinking. I came out of that film thinking it was actually rather clever. I mean, obviously it was so intentionally bad it was a satire and maybe even a tongue-in-cheek commentary on how even Stephen King's trash gets made into blockbuster material. I mean obviously Lawrence Kasdan and William Goldman wouldn't make something that dimwitted and awful unless they meant to. I prepared to go home to read all the reviews lauding the film's satirical edge. I still haven't found one. I'm pretty sure I was wrong.

Then again, I have that reaction to a lot of films these days. I still think Scorsese must have intentionally made "Gangs of New York" so ludicrous and incoherent for a good reason 'cause, dammit, he's Martin Scorsese.

Campaspe,

I wish you hadn't put that link to your blog in your post. When I read your facile dismissal of "Se7en" I almost threw the laptop across the room. Since the laptop belongs to my younger brother, I resisted the urge.

Your objections:

1. "That ridiculous typo in the middle of the title." That typo, for lack of a better word, is cool, and a million times more distinctive than "Seven." Your complaint, besides not addressing the content of the film, is like criticizing the Criterion Collection DVD of "Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas" because Ralph Steadman's rendering of the title is splotchy and frenzied with blots and inconsistencies. In short he makes plain old text and makes it interesting.

2. "Pointlessly murky cinematography that made me wonder if anyone in that police department could find the damn light switch, let alone a serial killer." You say yourself that the film wants to exaggerate ugliness and it deals with dark subject matter. Its murkiness accentuates that point and creates a potent feeling of dread.

3. "Scene after scene of sadism all to make some trite point about apathy and the world's ugliness." The film goes out of its way to distance the awfulness from the viewer. The film has many sensational murders, but they are dealt with in a restrained fashion, often leaving most of the crime to the imagination. You see plenty of aftermath, but no actual sadism is present. Except the psychological suffering inflicted on Pitt at the end. David Fincher is a disciplined formalist, not a trashmongering gorehound.

4. "Tacit endorsement of the killer's contention that his victims had it coming because one was fat, one was vain, one had sex for money, etc." Wrong. The film does not admire John Doe. Perhaps there is a bit of perverse pleasure from flauting convention, but the eye of the film is too removed and dispassionate to be supporting Doe.

5. "And the hoariest cliche of all: the part where the killer brings out the savagery in his pursuer, because you know, we all share the beast within." Sounds like you don't know what the definition of a cliche is. I thought it was an idea/concept that has become worn or commonplace from overuse, an idea with no originality. Tell me, what other films have you seen where the end sees the killer manipulating the hero into murdering him? John Doe desires with all his heart for Pitt to execute him and goes to great lengths to ensure that this happens. I've only seen one movie with this plot development. The very definition of ingenuity.

I nominate "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" as one of the worst films ever made. While picking a stupid Adam Sandler movie might seem obvious, the outright vileness of this pic stunned me. It was racist, spitefully homophobic despite its obstensible message, pathetically acted and directed, but most of all, it had not one gag that made me so much as contemplate a giggle.

Really, Sandler has made a host of films that could qualify from "The Waterboy" on. But people get so used to the garbage he stars in that I feel like they give him a quasi-pass when review time comes, as if they must score his films as compared to stock footage of the Holocaust. I've nothing against Sandler's films when he is removed from the writing process ("Punch-Drunk Love"), but his touch on the screenplay is absolute poison.

I'm glad s/o mentioned Patch Adams. Simply thinking of this movie makes my blood boil. S/o mentioned earlier the difference between bad movies of little consequence (Freddy Got Fingered, Date Movie) and films so bad that their awfulness resonates throughout the ages (The Postman, Battlefield Earth)

Patch Adams takes the cake because it shows so little respect for its characters and audience that is dangerous. Who would feel comforted if, while awaiting a serious, possibly deadly operation the attendant surgeon entered the room dressed as a clown performing foolish histrionics?

Even worse than this was the scene in the movie where Patch's girlfriend is murdered by a man with psychological problems who had been attending Patch's ad-hoc clinic that he set up to test his foolish theory about the healing power of laughter. Then we as an audience are supposed to feel sorry for Adams? He should have gone to jail for that young woman’s murder. Perhaps if the murderer had been under the care a real psychiatrist that could have assigned him the proper medications that girl wouldn't be dead.

Anyway I hope you all like this post, because now I'll be angry for the rest of the week.

Anyone who is a parent of young children has probably suffered through the painful "bad family film" experience because there was nothing else playing, or the kids begged to see something popular. I had to suffer through films that were downright traumatic before my kids were old enough to see films we could all agree on.
I was scarred by "Baby Geniuses," a film so offensively bad, it may have been responsible for raising my blood pressure for 6 months. Films like "Inspector Gadget," the live-action "Rocky and Bullwinkle" and the "Pokemon" film made me feel like I was Alex in "A Clockwork Orange" with my eyes pinned open in horror. My wife had the lucky gift of being able to doze off during these torture fests. I pity the poor parents who had to suffer through "Cat in the Hat" and other nightmares from Hollywood's attempts at bludgeoning victims. After several years of that, you'd even welcome a Michael Bay film....okay, maybe not, but I'm sure other parents know that welcoming feeling when they can go off on their own and watch a film made by adults for adults. We wear badges of courage having endured hours of excruciating films, many of which make the bottom 100 lists of many film critics.
As parents we've got the bragging rights at parties during bad movie discussions. Nothing beat the look of shock and pity when someone would say to me "Oh my God, you actually saw that film?" and there would be a moment of speechlessness. Thank goodness those years are behind me now.

Late to the discussion, but here's my 2 cents...It's all about what combination of factors provoke visceral hatred.

Last year, Norbit was easily my least favorite, even though it was made by talentless hacks and I didn't expect much. It's woefully unfunny and has arguably the worst ethnic stereotype since Breakfast at Tiffany's...However, the environmental factor played a role b/c I was in a theater full of people who seemed to think it was the funniest thing ever and this made me angrier.

But this year, the film I suspect I'll hate more than any other is Funny Games, which is a case where I hate the film not b/c Haneke lacks technical skill, but because I think the film's phony and smug.

So, I think it's valid to include generically bad flicks like Norbit or Uwe Boll films on your personal worst list, as well as crimes against humanity committed by talented directors (as was the case with Funny Games and Tideland).

Juno was my latest experience: I found every moment an unbearable cliché, moments presuming their greatness so aggressively, moments where everyone else found genius. American Beauty is a similar example -- pure clichés the entire time, yet people interpreted them as profound (Happiness is the truly great version of this film). Like most of those posting here, there is an element of presumption which leaves such violent distaste; innocently bad films, like The Rock (probably the highest example of innocence: the assembly of horrible genre conventions is so tight, I actually consider this a great action film!), or Highlander 2 leave you in peace.

I think unbearable films can be likened to people who constantly and aggressively make bad jokes: they excite a certain level of distaste which feels worse than boredom.

All this Crash-hate and nothing for Million Dollar Baby or In the Valley of Elah? Frankly, I liked Crash more than Million Dollar Baby, and Elah more than both, though all three are pretentious, inauthentic, and manipulative, by which I mean they trick the audience into thinking they're deep and contrive emotional climaxes. I'm not particularly pleased Crash won Best Picture, but I hate that Million Dollar Baby did even more (although 2004 at the Oscars was kind of a throwaway year in my opinion). Maybe it's the same reasons already cited--that my perception is everyone else loves it.

I'm reminded of Jim's list of the films one must see in order to have an intelligent conversation on cinema. Perhaps we need a list films you must see in order to discuss the worst ones.

You certainly can't discuss the worst films of all time, or even what it means to be one of the worst films of all time, if you haven't seen Eric Schaeffer's "Wirey Spindell."

SEVEN

Seven is my least favorite movie.

The director seemed to think that he could have it both ways. He advocated for this violence in every image, then sought to absolve himself with a few speeches decrying the violence he celebrates.

A precursor to the lovely world of torture porn films we get today.

Harry - I shall not speak for Campaspe, who is one of the wittiest and most insightful bloggers on the map, but just a clarification: I think with the cliche at the end, she was, in my opinion, referring to the age-old "Night Journey" theme, used since Conrad wrote "Heart of Darkness" in which the protagonist "darkens" or becomes like his nemesis. And this theme has been used/repeated several times in movie history, from Glenn Ford in The Big Heat to Kevin Costner in The Untouchables. In other words, I don't think she was referring to the specific plot point of Pitt and Spacey and the climax but rather the reduction of his person to savage behavior.

Sorry, Meinert, no medal from me. I'm not a parent so I have no right to say this....but I will anyway. You must be strong, man! You are creating a new wave of (gulp) consumers by giving your kids free-will! All parents should dictate taste to their kids starting in the womb! Please begin taking them to the opera and to Kenny G concerts immediately. And make sure to spike their milk with a nice cabernet.

Oh, I just read your last sentence. I guess I'm too late. I'm so sorry.

Long thread, but let me ramble on:

A really awful movie is one that I simply will not sit through. I left the theater of one bad anime flick and have vowed to heed the advice of critics in the future. I frequently pull the plug on a DVD. I fast-forwarded "Transformers" after the first 30 minutes felt like an hour and I'm disgusted by that movie's colossal waste of money and I'm disturbed that audiences enjoyed it. Occasionally, this leads me to missing the theatrical run of a movie that I enjoy, but that's life.

Occasionally, I'll see a movie by a filmmaker that I admire and therefore sit through a bad movie like "Dreamcatcher," hoping it will improve. (Funny aside about "Dreamcatcher"--the theater accidently started playing "the Core" we all yelled, "No! Not "the Core!" Ten minutes later, projection problem solved and free passes to another movie from the management and then about an hour into "Dreamcatcher" someone yelled "We should have stuck with "the Core.")

(One other movie-going experience: "Tremors" was one of those B movies that worked beautifully on the audience I saw it with. We all laughed all the way through its enjoyable run, then, at the very end, some guy, all by himself and wearing a suit, stood up, turned around and yelled "I hope you're all happy for ruining this movie for me." I'll never forget that freak.)

What ammuses me the most about this post, though are people that watched (and continued to watch) a movie like "Charlie's Angels 2" thinking it might be worth their time. Critics are there for a reason. I will grant the above writer who points out that sometimes a parent is dragged to drek, but man, it's a parent's responsiblity to provide a nourishing experience. I saw "Ran" as a kid and it blew my mind.

Final thoughts: Don't go see crap like "Superhero Movie" unless you want to waste your time and money. Ignore the critics at your own peril. Vote with your wallet. And finally, don't freak out if someone likes a movie that you hated. I hate "the Postman" but it's so stupid and awful that someday I'm sure I'll want to watch it for a third or even fourth time. Tom Petty: "Hey, yer tha Postman!" Classic.

All of the people on this blog have pointed out lots of bad movies, other bad movies to consider are Lost in Space and Charlie's Angels which stand as classic examples of small screen hit to big screen garbage.

I'm surprised that only one person has mentioned Napolean Dynamite. The more I think about the movie the more it upsets me. The movie was stupid, but so are a lot of movies. I also thought the movie was patently racist, but I could be wrong about that. Regardless, those are minor arguments in my distaste for the movie.

My main objection to Napolean Dynamite is how it manipulates the audience. The main character is nothing more than a punching bad for the audience. The audience isn't laughing because they relate to Napolean. He's so eccentric he's really past the point of relatability. They're not laughing because he's especially witty. No, the audience is just laughing at him. In essence, the filmmakers have turned the audience into one big bully, allowing them to comfortably laugh at the weird kid. The bullying is encouraged, as the character serves no purpose other than as the object of ridicule. I find that detestable.

Jonathan - I have visited your blog and admired it, and trust you when you say Campaspe is a witty and insightful commenter on film but I saw no evidence of this in her few sentences concerning “Se7en.” Perhaps themes such as hopelessness in a world overrun by violence and an older lawman’s bitter resignation in the face of all the incomprehensible cruelty are old hat. But the ingenuity comes into play when the filmmaker and screenwriter take a broad theme that’s already been covered and utilize a new framework to illustrate it in a way that’s not familiar. Beneath the existential meditation, “No Country For Old Men” is a fairly straightforward cat-and-mouse action thriller with shootouts, etc. But because of the editing, the mise en scène, the use of silence, the aesthetics transform something familiar into something breathtaking. The same formal rigor applied to “NCFOM” is applied to “Se7en,” which has a chase scene (a chase scene – yawn) which is edited in such a way and with such fine craftsmanship that it is elevated from merely a chase scene into a balletic flowing wonder. Notice when the shadowy figure being pursued leaps over a railing with his long overcoat flapping behind him evoking the image of some infernal goblin pouncing up and out of hell. The details’ the thing.

As for Tom’s accusation that “Se7en” advocates violence, I ask, do the Coen Bros. advocate violence when they show Anton Chigurh committing murder after murder with startling ease? And then he gets to murder the hero AND his wife *AND* gets away with it? You recall what happens to the hero’s wife in “Se7en.”

More similarities:
Detective William Somerset: “Guy’s out walking his dog, gets attacked. His watch is taken, his wallet…and while he’s lying there on the sidewalk, helpless, his attacker stabs him in both eyes. Now this happened just last night, about four blocks from here.”

Police Captain: “Yeah, I read about it.”

Detective William Somerset: “I don’t understand this place anymore.�