Stay Tuned…
Posted: May 8, 2014 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment
Sorry for the extended silence. An Unwatchable announcement is coming…soonish.
Unwatchable #19: “The Ten Commandments”
Posted: June 19, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment
Your fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.
Rest assured, this is not the time-honored Cecil B. DeMille version of The Ten Commandments you grew up watching on ABC every Easter. No, this is 2007’s computer-animated take on the Biblical tale, designed to make the story of Moses accessible for younger viewers. And if there’s one thing guaranteed to get the kids interested, it’s Elliott Gould as the voice of God.
Read the rest of this entry »
Unwatchable #20: “From Justin to Kelly”
Posted: June 6, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 100 worst movies, from justin to kelly, kelly clarkson, unwatchable Leave a comment
Your fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.
I’ve only ever seen one episode of American Idol in my life. It happened when some friends threw a little viewing party for the first season finale ten years ago. As I recall, it was an impossibly bloated production, full of music I would never listen to on purpose, and seemingly hours worth of Seacrest-flavored filler. It’s hard to believe now that there was any suspense at all about the outcome. A decade later, winner Kelly Clarkson is a music superstar, while runner-up Justin Guarini is a Trivial Pursuit answer.
Read the rest of this entry »
Unwatchable #21: “Keloglan vs. the Black Prince”
Posted: June 1, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 1 Comment
Your fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.
One thing we haven’t touched on much throughout this dangerous experiment is the role that cultural differences can play in the evaluation of an Unwatchable. Take today’s subject, Keloglan kara prens’e karsi, for example. It’s a Turkish comedy about fairy tale characters, modeled roughly on the zany, anything-goes Zucker-Abrams-Zucker (or, in Unwatchable terms, Friedberg-Seltzer) style. I’m reasonably certain it’s the first Turkish comedy I’ve ever seen. I have no way of knowing how it compares to other Turkish comedies, or what sorts of things the Turkish people consider funny, and I have no frame of reference for any of the Turkish cultural content. I assume the people who voted this film into the Bottom 100 were primarily Turkish, as it doesn’t seem this movie had much of a life outside its home country. (It apparently got a release in the Netherlands, but that’s about it.)
Read the rest of this entry »
Unwatchable #22: “Ghoulies IV”
Posted: May 15, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 100 worst movies, ghoulies, ghoulies iv, unwatchable Leave a comment
Your fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.
Ladies and gentlemen, the once-mighty Unwatchable project is in disarray. We’re so close to the top (or the bottom, I guess), and yet so far. I could give you excuses. I could say I was busy writing a book that is coming out very soon, which you should buy in large quantities and distribute to needy children in your area. The truth is, however, I watched the latest entry in this countdown of the crapulent, Ghoulies IV, several months ago. Since then I have managed to lose my meticulous notes, and now that I’ve given up on finding them, I’m just going to have to reconstruct my review from memory.
Read the rest of this entry »
Unwatchable #23: “Manos: The Hands of Fate”
Posted: June 14, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 100 worst movies, manos, manos: the hands of fate, unwatchable Leave a comment
Your fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.
If you’ve been following the Unwatchable chronicles, lo these many years, you’re familiar with an issue I’ve encountered more than a few times in the course of my very important work. Many of the entries on the IMDb Bottom 100 list were also featured on the robots-chuckling-at-bad-movies show Mystery Science Theater 3000, which creates a sort of chicken-and-the-egg condundrum. Did people know these movies were terrible before they appeared on MST3K, or did the MST3K seal of disapproval convince IMDb users to vote films into the Bottom 100 that never would have made it otherwise? In most cases, I believe the latter to be true, and there’s no more open-and-shut case than Manos: The Hands of Fate, the long-forgotten 1966 horror movie that became the basis of perhaps the most famous Mystery Science Theater episode of all.
Read the rest of this entry »
Unwatchable #24: “Police Academy 7: Mission to Moscow”
Posted: May 20, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 100 worst movies, mission to moscow, police academy, unwatchable 1 Comment
Your fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.
It’s been six months since the last installment of Unwatchable, and while I could try to come up with some legitimate excuse for my prolonged absence – say, that I’ve been busy negotiating with HBO over the television rights to this blog – the truth is, I just sort of forgot. When I finally did stop to think, “Gee, I haven’t done Unwatchable in a while,” it turned out I couldn’t find any trace of the movie that was ranked number 24 on the list when I started this project back in the halcyon days of the late, lamented Screengrab. That would be 1997’s Glam, described thusly by the IMDb: “Traveling from the backwoods to Los Angeles to visit his cousin, a writer discovers a world of sex, drugs, crime and violence revolving around a beautiful young woman and her mobster boyfriend.” It stars Frank Whaley, Natasha Gregson Warner and Tony Danza (!), was rated NC-17 for “a scene of explicit sexuality and some sexual dialogue,” and is truly a movie the ’90s forgot, as all existing copies appear to have been wiped from the face of the earth.
Read the rest of this entry »
Unwatchable #25: “Santa Claus”
Posted: November 10, 2010 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment
Your fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.
Halloween and Election Day are both behind us, which must mean it’s Christmas season again, which in turn must mean it’s time to revisit a beloved, perennial Yuletide classic. No, not It’s a Wonderful Life or A Christmas Carol or even the Star Wars Holiday Special (which has still not gotten the digitally restored 3D re-release it so richly deserves – and some people still think George Lucas is a genius!). You can have your Christmas stories and your polar expresses and your miracles on 34th street; when I’m relaxing in front of the fireplace, nursing an egg nog and wearing nothing but my “Jingle Balls” thong, there’s only one movie that truly summons the spirit of the season for me, and it’s simply called Santa Claus.
Read the rest of this entry »
Unwatchable #26: “Going Overboard”
Posted: September 17, 2010 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 100 worst movies, adam sandler, going overboard, unwatchable 1 Comment
Your fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.
When Adam Sandler’s latest comedy Grown Ups was released earlier this summer, it was largely derided as an essentially plotless (and pointless) paid vacation for him and his comedian pals. What many pundits didn’t realize is that Sandler had actually come full circle. I don’t think he talks about it much in interviews, but Sandler’s feature debut was, to quote IMDb, “shot entirely on a cruise ship going from New Orleans to Cancun.” Not only that, but this love boat was crammed to the rafters with beauty queens en route to the Miss Universe pageant, many of whom make bikini-clad appearances in the film. Not a bad first gig if you can get it, but as Steven Soderbergh once noted, having fun making a movie does not necessarily translate into making a good movie. (Quoth Soderbergh: “That shouldn’t matter. If that meant anything then Cannonball Run would be a great movie, because I’m sure it was fun to make.” Ironic words coming from the man who went on to make Ocean’s 12 and 13.)
Read the rest of this entry »
Unwatchable #27: “Bottoms Up”
Posted: July 20, 2010 Filed under: Uncategorized 1 Comment
Your fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.
If Uwe Boll is the king of Unwatchable, it’s quickly (or, more accurately given my recent pace at this project, very, very slowly) becoming apparent that Paris Hilton is the queen. I think this is not so much due to her acting (which is bad) or her choice of projects (which is worse). It’s just that people hate her. People who probably haven’t seen her work in the likes of Nine Lives and House of Wax nevertheless feel the need to pull up her IMDb page and cast negative votes against these films, because that’s the only way these otherwise powerless individuals can make it clear to the world that, whatever it is Paris Hilton stands for, they’re agin it. I suppose that’s admirable in a way, but what of the collateral damage? And by collateral damage, I of course mean – what about me? I’m the guy who decided it would be a good idea to watch the Bottom 100 movies and write about them as a means of entertaining you, and this is how you repay me?
Read the rest of this entry »
Unwatchable 