Roger Ebert's I HATED, HATED, HATED THIS MOVIE
The movies listed in Ebert's first compilation of bad films from 2000. -- https://amzn.to/2JaKRb6
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- DirectorTom ShadyacStarsJim CarreyCourteney CoxSean YoungA goofy detective specializing in animals goes in search of the missing mascot of the Miami Dolphins."The movie basically has one joke, which is Ace Ventura's weird nerdy strangeness. If you laugh at this joke, chances are you laugh at Jerry Lewis, too, and I can sympathize with you even if I can't understand you. I found the movie a long, unfunny slog through an impenetrable plot. Kids might like it.
Real little kids." - DirectorSteve OedekerkStarsJim CarreyIan McNeiceSimon CallowAce Ventura, Pet Detective, returns from a spiritual quest to investigate the disappearance of a rare white bat, the sacred animal of a tribe in Africa."I knew a guy once who had an amazing party trick. He could tilt his head back and stick a straw all the way up his nose. I hesitate to recount this memory, because if my review falls into the hands of Jim Carrey, we'll see that trick in the next Ace Ventura movie and, believe me, it's not the kind of trick you want to see again."
- DirectorArthur HillerStarsRyan O'NealCoolioChuck DWhen a rookie filmmaker with the unfortunate name Alan Smithee realizes he's an unwitting studio puppet, being forced to make a big-budget action movie he knows is horrible, he steals the master reels and tries to make a deal."One is accustomed to seeing bad movies, but not incompetent ones. Sophomores in a film class could make a better film than this. Hell, I have a movie here by Les Brown, a kid who looks about 12 and filmed a thriller in his mother's basement, faking a fight scene by wrestling with a dummy. If I locked you in a room with both movies, you'd end up looking at the kid's."
- DirectorJean-Pierre JeunetStarsSigourney WeaverWinona RyderDominique PinonTwo centuries after her death, a powerful human/alien hybrid clone of Ellen Ripley aids a crew of space pirates in stopping the aliens from reaching Earth."This is a series whose inspiration has come, gone, and been forgotten."
- DirectorLewis TeagueStarsRobert ForsterRobin RikerMichael V. GazzoA pet baby alligator is flushed down a toilet and survives in the city sewers. Twelve years later, it grows to an enormous size thanks to a diet of discarded laboratory dogs injected with growth hormones. Now, humans have entered the menu."These early scenes in the movie are probably the best, because they work on the dumb fundamental level where we're all afraid of being eaten by an alligator in a sewer. (Show me a man who is not afraid of being eaten by an alligator in a sewer, and I'll show you a fool.)"
- DirectorAlbert MagnoliStarsMitchell GaylordTiny WellsJanet JonesSteve has given up on football and gymnastics after breaking an arm. Julie comes to town to train for the U.S. gymnastics championship, the first step to the Olympics. They meet and she motivates him to return to the gym."Skilled moviemakers know that, in sports movies, you don't create suspense by making something look easy, but by making it look difficult. Yet Gaylord's competitive routines in "American Anthem" are the equivalent of a "Rocky" movie where Rocky knocks his opponent unconscious with the first swing."
- DirectorAnthony WallerStarsTom Everett ScottJulie DelpyVince VielufAn American man unwittingly gets involved with French werewolves who have developed a serum allowing them to transform at will."I was not one of the big fans of John Landis' original 1981 film, "An American Werewolf in London,'' but, glancing over my old review, I find such phrases as "spectacular set pieces,'' "genuinely funny moments'' and "sequences that are spellbinding.'' My review of the Paris werewolves will not require any of those phrases."
- DirectorRoger VadimStarsRebecca De MornayVincent SpanoFrank LangellaAspiring and incarcerated rock singer, Robin Shea (Rebecca De Mornay) seduces hardworking carpenter Billy Moran (Vincent Spano). Robin marries Billy to get out of jail, but Robin's concerns are on politician James Tiernan (Frank Langella)."Movies like this frustrate me because they do not have enough ambition to match their imagination."
- DirectorAndy TennantStarsJodie FosterChow Yun-FatBai LingThe story of the romance between the King of Siam and widowed British schoolteacher, Anna Leonowens, during the 1860s."Now here is a straight dramatic version of the material, named "Anna and the King," starring Jodie Foster opposite the Hong Kong action star Chow Yun-Fat. It is long and mostly told in the same flat monotone, but has one enormous advantage over the musical: It does not contain "I Whistle a Happy Tune.""
- DirectorMichael BayStarsBruce WillisBilly Bob ThorntonBen AffleckAfter discovering that an asteroid the size of Texas will impact Earth in less than a month, NASA recruits a misfit team of deep-core drillers to save the planet."Here it is at last, the first 150-minute trailer. "Armageddon" is cut together like its own highlights. Take almost any 30 seconds at random, and you'd have a TV ad. The movie is an assault on the eyes, the ears, the brain, common sense and the human desire to be entertained. No matter what they're charging to get in, it's worth more to get out."
- DirectorLarry PeerceStarsElizabeth TaylorHenry FondaHelmut BergerAfter getting plastic surgery in Switzerland to help rejuvenate her shaky marriage, Barbara Sawyer has an affair with a younger man while waiting for her husband's arrival from the U.S."The movie's story is not really very interesting, but we're intrigued because the star is Taylor. Weak as the role is, she was nevertheless just about the inevitable choice to play it."
- DirectorRichard DonnerStarsSylvester StalloneAntonio BanderasJulianne MooreProfessional hit-man Robert Rath wants to fulfill a few more contracts before retiring but unscrupulous ambitious newcomer hit-man Miguel Bain keeps killing Rath's targets."Believe me, I know how to believe stuff when it happens in the movies. I believe bicycles can fly. I believe sharks can eat boats. I even believe pigs can talk. But I do not believe "Assassins," because this movie is filled with such preposterous impossibilities that Forrest Gump could have improved it with a quick rewrite."
- DirectorAnita RosenbergStarsElizabeth KaitanChristina WhitakerTammara SouzaTwo go-go dancers, Lulu and Peaches, are framed for the murder of their employer by the real killer, sleazy gangster Vinnie. Picking up waitress Darlene along the way, the three are involved in wild car chases with cops as they head south to cross the border into Mexico, where they unexpectedly encounter Vinnie in a fleabag Mexican motel."The title is, of course, the best thing about it. I saw this film advertised at last year's Cannes Film Festival, where it was a finalist, along with "Space Sluts in the Slammer" and "Surf Nazis Must Die!" in my annual search for the most unforgettable bad-movie title since "Blood-Sucking Monkeys of Forest Lawn." The amazing thing about the title is that it does, indeed, accurately describe the movie."
- DirectorKevin ConnorStarsDoug McClurePeter CushingCaroline MunroA Victorian era scientist and his assistant take a test run in their Iron Mole drilling machine and end up in a strange underground labyrinth ruled by a species of giant telepathic bird and full of prehistoric monsters and cavemen."David is played by Doug McClure. You remember Doug McClure. Good. I don't."
- DirectorMike NewellStarsCharlton HestonSusannah YorkJill TownsendAn archeologist discovers his daughter is possessed by the spirit of an Egyptian queen. To save mankind he must destroy her."The Awakening is bad in so many ways that I'll just have space to name a few. It is, for example, completely implausible in its approach to the science of archaeology-- so hilariously inaccurate, indeed, that I can recommend the move to archeologists without any reservations whatsoever. They'll bust a gut."
- DirectorArthur HillerStarsJohn GoodmanKelly McGillisTrini AlvaradoBabe Ruth becomes a baseball legend but is unheroic to those who know him."Spending these 115 minutes with the Babe is a little like being jammed into the window seat on a long-distance bus, next to a big guy with beer and cigars on his breath and nothing to talk about but his next meal and his last broad."
- DirectorBob ClarkStarsKathleen TurnerChristopher LloydKim CattrallScientists hold super intelligent talking babies captive, but things take a turn for the worse when a mix-up occurs between a baby genius and its twin."This is not right."
- DirectorRobert TownsendStarsHalle BerryNatalie Desselle ReidMartin LandauTwo tacky homegirls move to L.A. to become dancers; instead they scam a dying millionaire but eventually become B*A*P*S (Black American Princesses)."There is a thin line between satire and offensiveness, and this crosses it. Its portraits of these two working-class black women have been painted with snobbery and scorn. The actresses don't inhabit the caricatures with conviction. The result is a hurtful stereotype, because the comedy doesn't work to redeem it.
We should sense some affection for them from the filmmakers, but we don't--not until they receive a magic Hollywood makeover in the later scenes of the movie, and miraculously lose their gold teeth. The movie invites us to laugh at them, not with them, but that's a moot point since the audience I joined did not laugh at all, except incredulously." - DirectorAlfonso BresciaStarsLincoln TateLucretia LovePaola TedescoA tribe of vicious female warriors terrorizes the countryside, and especially the males, until one day the men and some local villagers decide to fight back."One thing is for sure: No movie in the last 20 years has been dubbed more ineptly. No, not even "Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster." In one scene, a man has his head split open with a ferocious blow from a sword. On the screen we see his lips opening in an anguished scream. On the soundtrack we hear him say, in English: "Oh, no!" It is possible to respect his opinion while questioning his sincerity."
- DirectorKen KwapisStarsFran DrescherTimothy DaltonIan McNeiceA New York City cosmetologist, mistakenly thought to be a science teacher, is offered a job to teach the children of an Eastern European dictator."The direction is by Ken Kwapis, whose "He Said, She Said" (1992) is invaluable for getting you from John Tesh to the Addams Family in the Kevin Bacon game. Kwapis tries to build suspense where none can possibly exist, which is always an annoyance; is it a crime for a movie to know as much about its story as the audience does?"
- DirectorRod DanielStarsCharles GrodinBonnie HuntNicholle TomBeethoven, the St. Bernard dog, becomes a father, but his girlfriend Missy is dognapped, and his puppies are in danger of the same fate."There is a scene in "Beethoven's 2nd" in which Beethoven, who is a large St. Bernard dog, takes his girlfriend, Missy, also a large St. Bernard, to a drive-in theater for the movies. They sit on a hill above the parking lot, where they have a good view of the screen.
This much I was prepared to believe. Some dogs are very clever. But when Beethoven came back with a box of popcorn for Missy, I realized these were not ordinary dogs but two of amazing intelligence, and when it was revealed that Missy got pregnant later that night, I found myself asking if they'd never heard of taking precautions." - DirectorJohn SchlesingerStarsMartin SheenHelen ShaverHarley CrossCal Jamison, a police psychologist, is forced to deal with a series of ritualistic murders and a malevolent cult."There are lots of shots of ashes and blood and weird little voodoo charms, but no real explanations of what's going on-- possibly because it doesn't matter."
- DirectorPhil KarlsonStarsLee MontgomeryJoseph CampanellaArthur O'ConnellA lonely boy befriends Ben, the leader of a violent swarm of killer rats."You know what a geek is, or at least you do if you grew up near a county fairgrounds like I did. He's the guy who bites the head off a living chicken. I used to hate the geek show, but I sat through it manfully because that was a test of your courage. If you passed it, you got to pay the extra quarter and see the lady who was tattooed all over. Also the Half-Man, Half-Woman, who, to my intense disappointment, turned out to be the wrong half of each."
- DirectorBernardo BertolucciStarsThandiwe NewtonDavid ThewlisClaudio SantamariaWhile in exile in Italy, an African woman finds herself trying to get back home and free her imprisoned husband. But the only man that can help her do so is in love with her."Bernardo Bertolucci's "Besieged" is a movie about whether two people with nothing in common, who have no meaningful conversations, will have sex--even if that means dismissing everything we have learned about the woman. It is also about whether we will see her breasts. How can a director of such sophistication, in a film of such stylistic grace, tell such a shallow and evasive story?"
- DirectorLucio FulciStarsCatriona MacCollDavid WarbeckCinzia MonrealeA young woman inherits an old hotel in Louisiana where, following a series of supernatural "accidents", she learns that the building was built over one of the entrances to Hell."In a film filled with bad dialogue, it is hard to choose the most quotable line, but I think it may occur in Liza's conversations with Martin, the architect hired to renovate the hotel. "You have carte blanche," she tells him, "but not a blank check!" The movie is being revived around the country for midnight cult showings. Midnight is not late enough."