I’m going to put Love In the Time of Cholera on this list. Bad old people make-up, an overacting John Leguizamo (I know - big suprise, right?), white people posing as Columbians, a pretty realistic cardboard cutout of Benjamin Bratt, and a fairly boring story.
Was The Watchman any good? Judging by their advertisements it seemed incredibly crappy.
Perhaps, their slogan will be “Unwatch The Watchman.” 
That this travesty of a movie ruined a book I’d previously enjoyed was mitigated, however slightly, by its string of unintentionally funny (laugh-out-loud bad) scenes.
Every review I’ve heard of *Southland Tales * has been so hyperbolic in its denunciation that I’m tempted to watch it, just to see what all the venom is about. Would I be making a mistake in doing so?
It’s well established in the movie that the super-assassins have magic powers that let them bend bullets around obstacles. If you don’t accept the premise that their magic powers let them do magic like curve bullets around obstacles then yeah, it’s a bit unrealistic, because to curve bullets around obstacles would require the suspension of the laws of physics.
I thought Wanted was watchable, and the filmmakers clearly understood they were making something ludicrous and derivative. Not that it was a good movie or anything, but it had some pretty funny moments, especially Angelina Jolie’s final scene.
I just watched Street Kings, with Master Thespian Keanu Reeves.
I saw it on TV…but dammit, I want my money back!
Did the writers do any research on police procedure?
My son saw it, all he said was “Too much blue penis”
No one can include The Dark Knight in this list. You may not like it, but too many people did (including me) for it to be charitably characterized as unwatchable.
That said. . . the torture-porn flick “Captivity” was very much unwatchable. I like horror movies, I’m not squeamish about gore, but this was just a rotten little piece of vile shit that I didn’t even bother finishing it, I just shut it off halfway through.
BTW, RE: Watchmen, YMMV. I liked (not loved) the graphic novel; I liked (not loved) the movie. There are some good things in it (Jackie Earle Haley and Billy Crudup come off good) but a lot of middling things in it. Nothing great, but nothing outright awful, either. VERY impressive on IMAX, so if you see it anywhere, see it there.
I don’t know if these are recent enough but:
The Brothers Grimm movie. I made it as far as the kitten in the blender part when I realized that doing anything was better than watching the rest of the film.
A Scanner Darkly
Nim’s Island
(Usually anything that my husband adds to the Netflix queue with the exception of Six-String Samurai.)
Redbelt. Not even the presence of Chiwetel Ejiofor could save it.
Let’s put it this way. When Mamet’s good, you notice him, but don’t care so much.
When he’s bad? Let me tell you when he’s bad. I’m telling you fucking when. I’m about to fucking tell you. When he’s bad. That’s what I’m about to fucking tell you. Maybe in the next sentence. When he’s fucking bad, you notice he’s fucking bad. It’s the fucking bad you notice. The noticeable fucking bad. That’s when he’s bad. Now everyone give it up for the stylistic line readings of Ricky Jay and Rebecca Pidgeon.
I don’t recall anything with kittens OR blenders in that movie. I put it in the same camp as MIB II though–every scene was good, but the movie as a whole sucked balls.
I rather enjoyed Watchmen, which I was ambivalent about seeing–from the trailers it looked like it could wind up either working well or failing bad, with not much middle ground. Fortunately it didn’t take the latter approach, though the alternate history angle probably helped there. I have to agree though–too much blue penis (seriously, the guy can manipulate matter with his mind but he can’t put on a pair of pants?)
If we’re expanding it to “this century” as you seem to have hinted, I vote for 2006’s “The Pink Panther.”
The movie was a disgrace to everyone in it and cinema in general. It was billed as a comedy and there wasn’t one funny joke in the film. Everything about the movie was appalling. It wasn’t even bad in a funny way; it was bad in a squirm-in-your-seat, embarassed-for-everyone-in-it way. I should point out that I did not pay to see it; it was shown on my plane. And I’m still ashamed that I didn’t figure out a way to walk out.
That they’re making a sequel challenges my faith in the goodness of Man.
I still can’t believe The Happening happened.
See, that’s another one, like Wanted, that the ONLY thing it had going for it was watchability. Stupid, stupid, stupid, plot, but the energy of the filmmaking–like Wanted, all the knobs were on 11–it was compulsively watchable.
Okay, de gustibus and all. Rarely do I find a movie completely unwatchable: even stinkers are often fun. Whether a movie is watchable has little to do with whether it’s well made. My classic three unwatchables:
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover: an apparently excellent movie that I walked out on because it freaked me out so badly (touched a nerve about a really bad sneaky relationship in high school).
Wax, or the Invention of Television Amongst the Bees: possibly the single most pretentious thing ever created.
Wings of Desire: a beautiful movie that left me feeling like a fox in a leghold trap, wondering if I could escape it by gnawing off my ankle.
The most recent movie in this category, then, was something that many film buffs adored: Darjeeling Limited. Yeah yeah yeah, it was well made, it’s a journey of discovery, the director knows the main characters are deeply flawed, blah blah blah. I found them profoundly irritating. Not unsympathetic (although they were): I can deal with that. They were in every second like nails on a chalk board.
Midway through the movie, it looked as though it might pull a From Dusk Till Dawn, and turn into a horror movie about a man-eating tiger that picked off the brothers one by one during a long India night. Oh, how I hoped!
I very often find movies starring the problems of self-absorbed wealthy people to be infuriating instead of interesting.
Daniel
All these posts and no one mentions Paul Blart Mall Cop? Really? Movie so unwatchable that I dare not say anything more about it lest I accidently open a portal to the hell hole that spawned it. My son and I want our $15 back Kevin James.
Sorry dude, but if had to disqualify anyone from being able to receive a refund for Paul Blart, Mall Cop, my first category would be . . . anyone who actually paid money to see Kevin James–Kevin Friggin James–in a movie called Paul Blart, Mall Cop.
A customer came in one evening, and asked for a refund for Witless Protection, because it wasn’t funny. I said, “It’s a Larry the Cable Guy movie.” He said, “So?” I said, “It’s a Larry the Cable Guy movie.” He said “You just lost a customer.” I was like, “Uh, not a customer I really wanna keep.”
In my defense:
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My adolescent son really wanted to see it.
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Kevin James’ stand up and his work on King of Queens is mildly amusing.
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Roger Ebert said it rocked.
I was led astray I tell you. Led astray.
Minority Report - the closest I’ve ever come to walking out on a movie. Stupid plot plus scenes included just because someone wanted to up the ‘ick’ factor (Hey, let’s have Tom Cruise’s character accidentally eat the moldy sandwich instead of the good one)
The only reason I stayed was because I would have just had to stand around outside the movie theater the until my wife showed up.
The Transformers movie from 2007. Jesus christ. I like the occasional blowing things up movie, and my friends wanted to go, so I was all, “whatever, okay.” Boy howdy was that a waste of 12 leva. I think that movie actually made me stupider.
The entire works of Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg.