Best and Worst (not up to date)

Your humble reviewer (moi) picks the top ten best and worst movies ever made (in no particular order).

BEST:

Animal House (1978): We really were like that in 1964.

In the Heat of the Night (1968): Bold film making still in the era of civil rights violence.

M*A*S*H (1970): Written by a doctor. Korea morphed to Vietnam. Suicide is painless.

Brokeback Mountain (2005): That an undying passion for “the one” can be gender neutral.

Dr Strangelove (1964): “Mein Fuhrer…….I can walk!!”

One Eyed-Jacks (1961): Best Western ever filmed, in range of “Unforgiven”.

Lawrence of Arabia (1962): cinematographic masterpiece. Defines visual overload.

The Deer hunter (1978) I have not been able to bring myself to watch it again since 1978.

Airplane (1980): The most consistently hysterical farce ever made. Still funny today.

American Graffiti (1973): First movie to use rock and roll music through the entire soundtrack and it defines the genre.

The Godfather I and II.

WORST (not counting Plan 9 from outer space):

Mars Attacks (1996). Stunningly stupid and unwatchable. Only movie in my life I actually walked out of…….into the blessed relief of a rainstorm.

What Dreams May Come (1998). A film so profoundly depressing half the patrons went straight home to stick their heads in an oven. Should have finished Robin Williams’ career.

Stayin’ Alive (1977). Do the math. The fourth-rate sequel of a third-rate film featuring a second-rate male lead, fifth-rate director and a score by a sixth-rate musical act. Said by critics to be a vision of the end of film as an art form.

Catwoman (2004): Halle Berry in a leather S&M outfit that would embarrass Grace Jones. Not to be catty about it, but the stench of the litter pan was all over this big-screen $90 million disaster.

Patch Adams (1998). Did for doctors what Theodoric of York did for the Renaissance. Showed the public that medicine could descend to the pits of insipid inanity and still not be funny. Ate seven of Robin Williams’ nine career lives.

Howard the Duck (1986): Heckled, maligned and insulted, more people made fun of the movie than actually saw it. Howard was run out of theaters in a flash. Howard in the sack with a shapely babe? Don’t dwell on it.

Battlefield Earth (2000): The most universally shellacked movie of the last ten year. Vividly shows they don’t make bad movies like they used to. The next actor that wants to blow thirty one million on a showcase for his quasi-religion will be lined up against the wall and summarily shot.

Heaven’s Gate (1980): Box office disaster single handedly collapsed United Artists, ended Director driven film productions. Vincent Canby comparing it to “a forced four-hour walking tour of one’s own living room. Destroyed the director’s career

Glitter (2001: Likened by critics to a cinematic Sir Edmund Hillary on a frenzied quest for the highest peak of Mount Bad. Mariah’s idea of acting consists of opening her eyes as wide as she can and delivering her lines with an emotion and depth usually only heard during dinnertime telemarketing calls. Not even the obligatory Mariah overhang could save this one. Beyond the cringe.

Gigli (2003). The New York Times gave the movie the rating below their lowest possible score of 0 stars, the only movie in their history to receive this score. Proved a dud movie will end any relationship anywhere.

Ishtar (1987): It’s so synonymous with expensive flops that when Waterworld proved disastrous, people called it Fishtar. Roger Ebert gave it half a star. Never released on DVD.