If you fear that sickly sweet feel-good Xmas fare like “The Polar Express” will rot your teeth, try the truly %$#&^%* nasty “Bad Santa”. I can’t see it taking over from “It’s A Wonderful Life” or “White Christmas” as a TV staple but it has a misanthropic charm that all us Scrooge types will love. Billy Bob Thornton is wonderful as Willie, a depressed alcoholic store Santa who hates everything about kids and Christmas. He and his elf partner (Tony Cox) play Santa each year to rob a different store and live on the proceeds. This year the store is run by a worried manager (John Ritter) and a colourfully dressed detective (Bernie Mac). Willie is stalked by a fat kid (Brett Kelly) who lives with his senile grandma (Cloris Leachman) while his father is off for years “exploring mountains”. He is also befriended by kinky bartender Sue (Lauren Graham) who likes to make Willie wear his Santa hat in bed because she has a Santa fetish.
Screenwriters John Requa and Glenn Ficarra manage to maintain the air of foul-mouthed drunken disaster even while throwing in a nod to the spirit of Chrismas. Director Terry Zwigoff (“Crumb” and “Ghost World”) deftly handles this potential trainwreck of a movie. Nice features, apart from the uniformly great cast, are a fight scene in a boxing ring, the worst reason for feeling good about yourself I’ve heard, Willie’s philosophising and some lovely sour arrangements of Christmas standards.
Be warned Willie drinks all the time (is there a scene in which he doesn’t?) and the film contains 243 profanities so don’t take the %$#&^%** kids. Oddly the movie was released in the US last year and although successful was not released anywhere else until this year.*
when it was released.
Last year for my “Bah Humbug a Cynic’s Christmas” I included it as the star atop the tree of Christmas movies, with The Ref, Critters, and The Silent Partner.
Yeah; that one triggered my “Who gives a damn what happens to any of these characters?” off-switch rather early. I had a similar reaction to The Triplets of Belleville, and my Spidey Sense is telling me to avoid Pan’s Labyrinth for the same reason.
Pulp Fiction - will always remain the worst movie I have ever seen in my multi-score years of seeing movies.
Memento - Second only to the above.
Saving Private Ryan - Actually, I would only like a third of the time back. The first part of the movie was truly great. The middle was forgettable but not actually bad. The last third left me feeling truly robbed of my time.
Star Wars parts I, II, and III. I just re-watched parts IV, V, and VI in the last week, and that made it even clearer how truly awe-inspiringly awful the prequels truly are.
Are you talking about the 1973 Wicker Man or the remake with Nicolas Cage? The remake is trash, absolute trash. But the original is amazing. Incredible atmosphere, and one of the most unique soundtracks I’ve ever heard.
The third (and hopefully last) Matrix movie. The first one was OK. I never saw the second one. I saw the third one on a blind date with a girl who was really, really into that series. We watched it at the Sony Metreon’s IMAX theatre in SF.
This was like reading the world’s worst book in LARGE PRINT. I was ready to gnaw my arm off to escape. It took a great deal of willpower to answer her question “So how’d you like it?” afterwards. She wasn’t my type of gal but social niceties forbid projectile vomiting on a first date.
Second on “Battlefield Earth”. Three of us rented it with the intention of doing our own MST3K routine (we had a camcorder set up and everything). Within minutes our joking turned into slack-jawed amazement at how truly aweful that thing is. The two funniest things about it:
The filmmakers evidently had one transition effect available to go from scene to scene, a “Moses parting the Red Sea” wipe, from middle to sides of screen. We started doing the Moses thing with our hands every time it happened.
Listening to the “Director’s commentary” with those poor bastards desperately trying to gold-plate this steaming heap of cow crap. They don’t sound like they believe themselves.
Me: Jesus Christ, that fuckin thing was only 98 minutes? Why did it feel like 12 hours? I haven’t seen a movie this boring in ten years. I know, I’ll go to the IMDB and start a support group with my fellow haters. Average IMDB user rating: 8.0. WHAT THE FUCK?!!! Typical pretentious IMDB love-anything-with-subtitles assholes.
anything with adam sandlar, will farral, tom cruise, or jim carry.
oh, wait.
:smack:
i’ve never seen any of their movies anyway…
i want the two hours back i wasted on ‘the village.’
i *like * what’s his name’s movies. i really do. but not that one.
the only two movies i’ve ever walked out on:
‘the thin red line’
had me figeting inside of 15 minutes. i finally told the boyfriend i’d had enough. we left. hated that movie. hated it.
john carpenter’s remake of ‘the thing’
i had the hots then and still do for kurt russell. even he couldn’t keep me in my seat. icky, icky movie.
dishonorable mention, altho i didn’t watch any of it in the theater, thank god:
‘eight below’
HATED HATED HATED HATED HATED HATED HATED that movie!!!
an especially unpleasant, lengthy, and painful curse upon whoever decided to make that piece of unadulterated shit.
I hatedSideways. I know a few people who didn’t care for it - but I loath it to the point where I almost don’t like people who enjoyed it. Man, did it rub me the wrong way.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Johnny Depp. I love JD, but ugh.
Pirates of the Caribbean II. No charm of the first one–just a not so slick set up for #3. Blech.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame ala Disney.
that stupid movie starring Tom Cruise and a (new) Nicole Kidman–lots of racing cars. Very boring. Watch the cars go round and round. Watch Tom lust after Nicole. Happy ending. Yaaaawwwwnnn.
The last movie Gilda Radner made–it was supposed to be funny. It wasn’t. May she rest in peace.
Some 80’s fare that had Richard Gere in it and it involved cars, Vegas and something else–the only time I have walked out of a movie.
