Leave it to Jennifer Aniston, lovable TV star-turned-Horrible Boss, to introduce a new frontier on Bad Movies We Love: the lovable, horrible TV movie. Three cheers for network budgets and forgettable scripting! Low-five! This week's selection is the summer camp non-classic Camp Cucamonga, which features an unphotogenic cavalcade of TV stars (Candace Cameron! John Ratzenburger! Jaleel White!), Wonder Years cast members for coming-of-age credibility (Danica McKellar! Josh Saviano! Not Fred Savage!), and so much of Jennifer Aniston's old nose that she looks like... an unpolished, Degrassi version of Jennifer Aniston. Cute!
more »
Before you watch Tom Hanks cling to Julia Roberts and a deplorable moped in Larry Crowne this weekend, please take a moment to remember when he clung to Sally Field and a mic stand in the 1988 riot of confusion called Punchline. It's about standup comedy. Which is funny! When it is funny. And Punchline? Is not that word, which is repeated repeatedly in Punchline. That's what qualifies it as a lovably bad movie, not to mention the most appropriately titled one of all time. Because it is not funny. But it is a joke. And I doubt you've heard this one before.
more »
Long before Bad Teacher, Cameron Diaz was a worse student (ha!) of karate and Soul Train choreography in Charlie's Angels. Shoot my face off. What a candy-colored crapden of jailbait, misery, and shattered dreamboards this movie is. What a clumsy potato gun aimed right at Jaclyn Smith's glowing visage. What a grim greeting to a decade that throttled us with movie remakes of outdated TV shows. What a barrel of burp gas dumped on Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu, and all women, feathered or not. What a glorious rapture.
more »
Judging by the amount of money spent on The Green Lantern, somebody really wants us to see this kelly-green caper. Unfortunately, I'm done waiting on Ryan Reynolds now that I've already adored him in a scatfest from 2002 called National Lampoon's Van Wilder. Is it a superhero's tale? Not quite. Is it worth $300 million in production and marketing all the same? Yes, because I believe the price of dog ejaculation humor should be nine figures.
more »
By now, Super 8 has either rekindled your fondness for Steven Spielberg's whimsy or -- well, it hasn't. Either you embrace nostalgia and the comforts of epic, innocent fantasy, or you're purposely done with them until another Toy Story comes out. I sympathize with the latter option, especially if you think the keywords "Steven Spielberg" and "innocence" call to mind Hook, the 1991 kiddie blockbuster that asks, "What if we took the story of Peter Pan, threw it out, and invented an unrelated story about a grumpy man who begrudgingly saves his kidnapped children?" Tah-dah! Yuck. And yet, I found a few reasons to love this troubling movie. Chortle with me as I rank them!
more »
I know there are important movies coming out this week like X-Men: X Marks the Suck, so forgive me for blowing off new releases when choosing today's Bad Movie. Truth is, I've been thinking about the star of next week's huge debut, Super 8's venerable Elle Fanning, and the merits of child actresses as a species. Why do child actresses rule? Or do they? Do we reward them for their raw abilities or for acting like pocket versions of adults (and therefore, ourselves)? I'm steering this train of thought back to the greatest kid thespian of all time, Jodie Foster, and a weird movie she made in 1976 called The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane. Have you heard of it? It's about being 13, matching wits with a pedophile played by Martin Sheen, killing some lady, and befriending a teenage magician. Gawk with me.
more »
I tried so hard to find an Oprah-themed Bad Movie We Love this week. Bad news, my darlings: they're all not good enough. Beloved is too boring, Native Son is too serious, and The Color Purple is too funny. (Trust me.) So I rallied and made big choices. This week I'm commemorating Tree of Life star Sean Penn's filthy past and Oprah's biggest finale guest: the ineffable, the insufferable, La Sleaza Bonita herself, Madonna. Read: THIS IS A GREAT DAY. And the movie is a legend among awful, latrine-stink cinema, a rancid little misfortune cookie called Shanghai Surprise. Or as I prefer to call it: Not-So-Fast Times with Frigid Wife.
more »
"Sperminator!!!" There's your trenchant Arnold Schwarzenegger dig of the day. Arnold knocked up a lady, see, and it wasn't Maria Shriver, who is famously his wife. That's the big-time joke of our now. Great. What a happenin' occasion to remember Arnold's single worst film (emphasized because I can't believe there's a clear standout -- and Arnold even acknowledged it himself), the 1985 box office fiasco Red Sonja.
more »
Like all responsible Movieline readers, I'm strapping my debit card to my garter and seeing Bridesmaids this weekend. A few times, perhaps? In the name of hilarious lady ensembles? Indeed. And not just because I write about the potential for female-driven comedies in my spare time, but because Bridesmaids seems like a watershed moment of sass and brass in this very slim genre, which brings us to today's Bad Movie We Love: the hokey, pointless, and righteous 2009 non-hit Spring Breakdown.
more »
We're stocked up on Hemsworth family hype, no? Between Liam Hemsworth's casting as Gale Hawthorne in The Hunger Games and brother Chris Hemsworth's premiere this week as Angry Barry Gibb in the Bee Gees documentary Thor, I'd say all bases are covered. Since Chris's filmography is largely devoid of guilty pleasures (aside from, perhaps, A Perfect Getaway), Bad Movies We Love is proud to gurgle up bile all over Liam's sappiest film to date, The Last Song. It's Miley Cyrus' cry-party in the U.S.A! And I'm weeping! And I love this movie. So shut up.
more »
I'm thrilled that Fast Five cuts the wobbly title The Fast and the Furious 5: Rio Heist down to the franchise's purest essence. TFATF:RH is so cumbersome. So baroque. But Fast Five? That sounds like a bad-ass Chili's appetizer platter or a failed Robin Antin burlesque troupe. Excellence! In a tube top! With a side of southwestern eggrolls! Perfection. Before you and your nitrous-huffing buddies head out to watch Vin Diesel steer more Popsicle-colored cars, revisit the movie that started it all: the definitively bad, the delicious trashy The Fast and the Furious.
more »
According to movies, teenagers enjoy one activity: scheming. Who could disagree? I schemed as a high-schooler. Certainly. If by "schemed" you mean "ate Wheat Thins for dinner, wore Kohl's cargo shorts, and cried at Natalie Imbruglia lyrics," which you do. Cruel Intentions perpetuates the myth that teenagers inhabit more exotic, scheme-filled lives than Danny Ocean, and its melodrama predates the emo generation by an impressive half-decade. Great! Star Reese Witherspoon may tame pachyderms in Water for Elephants this coming weekend, but in Cruel Intentions she conquered the more formidable "trunk" of Ryan Phillippe, which should be its own Big Top spectacle.
more »
The other day I was thumbing through my "Glowering Vixens of Party of Five" multiyear calendar when I realized something: I know just the mediocre slasher to prepare you for Scream 4! Or Scre4m! Or SCRE4M! Or Justin Bieber: Always Say Neve. It's I Know What You Did Last Summer, screenwriter Kevin Williamson's followup to Scream that abandoned wit, subversion, and scares, and replaced them with a slow-ass murderer in a denim Eddie Bauer jacket. Fine, that's terrifying.
more »
What do you say about the film that says it all? How can words add anything to this towering cinematic fortress of prestige? Is it wrong to "describe" senselessness? I'm a valiant first-time viewer of Tommy Wiseau's 2003 dada vortex, and I'm going to attempt to convey the whimsical hemorrhage I just experienced. Spoiler: I ain't Jill Bolte Taylor, and I won't succeed at this feat. Here's to a good effort. (NSFW!)
more »
Now that the procession of Elizabeth Taylor tributes is finally over, the real fanaticism can begin! I'm staining my corneas with purple Crayola Washables, pounding shots of White Diamonds straight from the tube, and slurring, "Tell mama all" to my saliva-drenched Montgomery Clift poster. I'm also revisiting one of Elizabeth Taylor's most senselessly elegant movies, the 1963 "drama" The V.I.P.s. It's about attractive people who are horny at the airport. I've already taken off!
more »
