You've never seen an Olsen Twins movie, have you? Have you? You've never twisted your hair into braids like Hailee Steinfeld and discovered How the West was Fun or booked a trip to the UK for Winning London. You've never personally discovered that, indeed, It Takes Two. God. Now that you've admitted you have nothing in common with true cinéastes, allow me to educate you: Today we're visiting the quaint Manhattan of New York Minute, the Olsens' 2004 big-screen bomb costarring more than a few people you respect. Since their sister Elizabeth is defying cult order in Martha Marcy May Marlene this week, the least we can do is honor the original Olsens for their enslaved followers. These zealots prefer their Kool-Aid straight-up.
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A friend of mine once explained to me her chief problem with movies: "I don't like when movies have conflicts. Can't we just hang out with the characters and make jokes and have fun? It's nicer that way." This week's Bad Movie We Love answers that harebrained prayer with a conflict-free plot, a smiley disposition from beginning to end, and a huge helping of total irrelevance. It's the 1995 sequel Father of the Bride Part II starring The Big Year's lead amigo Steve Martin, Diane Keaton, and a company of stress-free actors. Father of the Bride Part II is the cinematic equivalent of vanilla ice cream with butterscotch syrup: old-fashioned, tasty, and fit for consumption on a Sunday afternoon with your grandparents. Put in your dentures and watch the sedatest version of a "wild and crazy guy" you'll ever see.
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Real Steel calls upon Hugh Jackman's ability to tame and train robots, but this isn't his first time at the robo-dome. He first conquered a borg named Nicole Kidman in Baz Luhrmann's failed epic Australia. Ha! Now, now, that's the first and last Nicole Kidman joke you'll hear from me because 1) Nicole Kidman is awesome, 2) Rabbit Hole is under-appreciated, and 3) BORGS ARE VINDICTIVE. Let's reinspect the joys of this looooong movie without ever caring about the story!
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Since Joseph Gordon-Levitt is titillating you with cancer this week in 50/50 and Josh Hartnett is storming the art-house circuit with Bunraku, we have no choice but to revisit their joint alma mater, the hallowed halls of Halloween H20. It's not the best Halloween movie, and it's certainly not the worst, but as October dawns and the season of the witch descends, we're due for a fright -- and Halloween H20 delivers. It'll loosen the Activia from your trembling constitution.
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What do you get when you take the cartoon/live-action interplay of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, remove the classic WB/Disney characters, and replace them with loud, gurgling, predatory sexual freaks? You get goofy gonorrhea and the 1992 bomb Cool World starring Moneyball-er Brad Pitt, a perverted young Gabriel Byrne, and Kim Basinger, an Oscar winner who exhibits the dramatic range of Claudia Schiffer. This movie's bad because it's drawn that way.
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I don't know how Sarah Jessica Parker does it, but a lot of her movies are staggering shit fortresses. Failure to Launch? Did You Hear About the Morgans? This weekend's I Don't Know How She Does It? The Family Stone? That movie made me feel like Diane Keaton's cancer, and it's still a Mensa candidate compared to today's Bad Movie We Love: the epic, Tropical Skittle-colored trek to Abu Dhabi, Sex and the City 2. It's so famously bad that its bad reviews are famous. It's the movie that asks the question, "How can we save a franchise that has devolved into materialistic fetishism?" and answers it with, "JEWELS." Cheers, girls!
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Since Warrior and Tom Hardy are planning to beat us up this weekend, I figured we'd counter their attack by revisiting the least gripping boxing movie of all time: The Main Event (a.k.a. "A Glove Story"). If flaxen, dimpled, Dancing with the Stars candidate Ryan O'Neal is your idea of a prizefighter and Barbra Streisand is your idea of his grimy promoter, then The Main Event is the pugilist saga for you. Otherwise? It's a terrifying medley of boner jokes and Barbra costuming. Ready to watch the stars of What's Up, Doc? threaten to pummel each other in front of a screaming crowd? Ding-ding!
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Happy belated birthday to Michael Jackson, who would've turned 53 on Tuesday like his Oscars date Madonna did a couple weeks ago. May Michael thrive in heaven's Neverland where the PYTs go on forever. Since we haven't toasted MJ yet, why not revisit the Baddest Movie We Love of 1978, The Wiz? Wait, I know why: Because we hate dancing and fun. Wait. No. Reverse that! Let's strap on our flyest ruby slippers and ease on down the road!
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I'm afraid of Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, but for silly reasons. It has something to do with the title, which sounds like either an eerie whisper at Neverland Ranch or a creepy Paul Anka hit, and the track record of Ms. Katie Holmes, who first tried to terrify us in 1999's hyper-dorky Teaching Mrs. Tingle. You'd think Scream maestro Kevin Williamson would want to explore a darker teen fantasy than "getting back at a mean teacher," but no -- this movie is the horror equivalent of the Nickelodeon Takes Over Your School sweepstakes. Your history instructor is getting slimed! With her own blood! Sweet!
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Sexually exciting news: This week's important new movie Spy Kids: All the Time in the World 4D (that's not the sexually exciting part) is both "futuristic" and "sci-fi" -- which means we have reason to revisit the futuristic, sci-fi lovefest of Logan's Run. Hooray! It's one of the most decadent, senselessly gorgeous Bad Movies We Love of all time. Better we re-watch it now than after the remake comes out and destroys our nostalgia. Are you ready for ray guns, cult-like "carrousels" of death, and the hirsute hotness of Peter Ustinov?
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Ryan Murphy -- the candid, theatrically hostile Svengali behind Glee -- would have you believe Glee: The 3D Concert Movie is the first cinematic musical with high production value, recognizable pop hits, and abject homosexuality. Not so! In 1980, director Nancy Walker (YES, OF RHODA) blessed us with Can't Stop the Music, the hip-poppin' extravaganza starring the Village People, Steve Guttenberg, Bruce Jenner, and other American forefathers. It is marvelous, enchanting, stupid, a little too long, gay as an elf's sneeze, the first Razzie winner for Worst Picture, and unforgettable. Respect. Let's revisit.
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I have disturbing news about those countless movies in which pairs of characters switch bodies and walk two moons in each others' Reeboks: They're often good! Seriously. From Big and Vice Versa to the Lindsay Lohan Freaky Friday remake and the Katherine Heigl TV movie Wish Upon a Star, the switcheroo trope is a proven success model. There are exceptions, of course -- such as Like Father, Like Son and The Hot Chick -- but it's hard to screw up a formula that forces its stars to go so broad. Then there's 17 Again, which forces its stars (including switcheroo movie The Change-Up's Leslie Mann) into a story about grim adulthood and Zac Efron hair. It's bad with Garnier succulence!
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Child actors of the early '90s understood chutzpah, you know? The newsies gyrated, the Cucamonga campers jived, and even the Tonka-tough Little Leaguers burst with starpower. Case in point, Thomas Ian Nicolas, the future American Pie and Please Give costar, bounds into Camelot with Louisville Slugger confidence in A Kid in King Arthur's Court, the kiddie flick from '94 that also features two of Cowboys & Aliens's best attributes: a hokey mashup of disparate eras and -- oh yes -- Daniel Craig.
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I don't love Black Swan. I barely even enjoy it! I barely even get what there is to enjoy. It boasts the hammiest dialogue of the past Oscar season? It's the most transparent psychodrama in film history? It can't establish a tone, a fully believable character, or consistency because it resorts to camp at every turn? I just don't know. But if Friends With Benefits star Mila Kunis ever starred in a Bad Movie We Love, it's this. (Sorry, Krippendorf's Tribe -- you're just bad.) There's an argument for its inclusion in our weekly feature, and reservations aside, I'm picking out five utterly bizarre instances in Black Swan that justify that inclusion. I will now recite them diplomatically!
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The wranglers of Movieline's Bad Movies We Love (me and me alone) always dredge up dismissible teen comedies from the early 2000s, in case you haven't noticed. What's with them (me)? Wait, I know: Those movies are bad and we (I) love them. Yes! Right! On that note, say hello to Orange County, the breakout vehicle for Movieline pal and Lucky star Colin Hanks, who holds together this funny but aimless romp with the help of Jack Black, a thrilling supporting cast, and a botched Beatles haircut.
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