Category Archives: IMDb Bottom 100

Reviews of current members and alumni of the IMDb Bottom 100

IMDb Bottom 100: 4 Years Later

August 20, 2018 Gordon Maples 1 Comment

It has been a long while since I went back to my initial project here at the blog: watching and reviewing the entire IMDb Bottom 100 list of movies.

For those that weren’t following the blog back then, I gave myself a year to get through the entire list of movies. However, there wound up being some intriguing difficulties with doing so.

First off, the list is based on live rankings, so it is in constant flux. Movies come and go off of the list with significant frequency. After all, the list measures the public perception of the worst movies of all time, and that is undoubtedly going to change over time. For instance, Saving Christmas and Gunday popped on the list while I was going through it, and a few movies I covered dropped off.

Another long-standing issue with the list is a matter of accessibility – because of how the ranking system works, only a small quota of votes is needed to qualify a film for the list. This opened the door for some films with only limited, regional distributions to crack onto the list, which were basically unattainable for people in other areas to view (like A Fox’s Tale, The Tony Blair Witch Project, and Danes Without A Clue). To make up for this, I found some archived versions of the IMDb Bottom 100 rankings, and covered a handful of “alumni” to fill in the gaps. If you are curious, I even made my own subjective ranking of the films I covered from the list.

I’ve only officially gone back to the IMDb Bottom 100 once since I completed my challenge at the end of 2014, to cover new list addition Theodore Rex. One of my readers recently asked me if I was keeping up with the latest rankings – admittedly, that answer is essentially “no.” However, I did take a look at the current rankings, and something major stuck out to me – not only are there a ton of new films, but almost all of those inaccessible films are now off of the list. I’m not sure if this is due to a change in the list’s qualifications, of if IMDb community members manually voted them off the list with unwarranted high ratings, but someone taking on this challenge now would have a much easier time of it.

Here are the films that have cracked the IMDb Bottom 100 (and held their position) since I wrapped my challenge in 2014. Movies that I have covered have their reviews linked.

Code Name: K.O.Z.
Dragonball: Evolution
Meet the Spartans
Who’s Your Caddy?
Date Movie
Jaws: The Revenge
BloodRayne
Kazaam
Rollerball
Left Behind (2014)
The Human Centpede 3
Catwoman
The Emoji Movie
Daddy Day Camp
Barb Wire
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation
Spice World
Vampires Suck
Police Academy: Mission to Moscow
Crossroads
The Starving Games
The Master of Disguise
Far Cry
Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd
Scary Movie 5
Feardotcom
The Room
The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D
Batman & Robin
Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star
The Wicker Man
Superman IV: The Quest For Peace
Spy Kids 4
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
The Fog (2005)
The Open House
Race 3
Dragon Wars: D-War
Fifty Shades of Black
Dungeons & Dragons
I Know Who Killed Me
You Got Served
Speed 2: Cruise Control
The Avengers (1998)
The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas
2001; A Space Travesty
Piranha 3DD
The Love Guru
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
Street Fighter
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li
Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever
The Cat in the Hat
Dance Flick
The Adventures of Pluto Nash
Swept Away
Stan Helsing
Exorcist II: The Heretic
The Human Centipede II
Beverly Hills Chihuahua
Caddyshack II
S. Darko
Norbit
Prom Night (2008)
Fifty Shades of Grey
Enes Batur Hayal mi Gercek mi?
Furry Vengeance
Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2
Plan 9 From Outer Space
One Missed Call
Extreme Movie
Material Girls
The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure

I’m not going to say that I’m going to go back to cover all of these new additions to the list – you couldn’t pay me enough to sit through that many parody movies, and I simply don’t have the free time that I used to – but I will say that a good number of these were already in my mental queue. Rollerball is a movie that I have intended to cover since I started the blog; Blair Witch 2 has been on my short list since I saw the GoodBadFlicks defense of the film; Kazaam is on my imminent list of movies to cover due to the whole Mandela Effect controversy, and plenty of others here have my attention.

I can say this though – I’m going to be paying attention to this list again. I have a feeling that it’ll give me some ideas.

IMDb Bottom 100

IMDb Bottom 100: Theodore Rex

September 8, 2015 Gordon Maples 10 Comments

Theodore Rex

Today, I’m going back to my old stomping grounds of the IMDb Bottom 100 to cover a flick that has recently broken into its ranks: Theodore Rex.

Theodore Rex was written, directed, and produced by Jonathan Betuel, who was also behind the films My Science Project and The Last Starfighter.

The cinematography on Theodore Rex was provided by David Tattersall, who also shot the flicks Speed Racer, Next, The Green Mile, and Con Air, among many others.

Theodore Rex featured two primary editors: Steve Mirkovich (Con Air, 16 Blocks, Big Trouble In Little China) and Rick Shaine (Pitch Black, A Nightmare On Elm Street).

The music for Theodore Rex was composed by Robert Folk, who also provided scores for movies like Lawnmower Man 2, Wicked Stepmother, and Police Academy.

The makeup effects work for Theodore Rex was done by the combination of Michael Burnett (Baby Geniuses, The Dentist), Jake Garber (Battlefield Earth, Ed), and Joseph Yuss Simon (Battlefield Earth, Escape From L.A.).

The Theodore Rex special effects team included Marilee Canaga (Silent Hill, Dr. Doolittle 2), Thomas Dickens (Carnosaur, Army of Darkness), Mike Edmonson (DeepStar Six, Wild Wild West), Steve Fink (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Men In Black), Patrick Gerrety (Red Planet, Con Air, Mortal Kombat), Doug Hudson (Happy Gilmore, White Chicks), Hans Metz (Mannequin, McBain), Darren Perks (Spawn, Leprechaun 4), William Stout (House, The Hitcher), and Joshua Pinney (Death Race, The Cell).

The visual effects for the film were provided by Jesse Silver (The Core, Super Mario Bros, Highlander II), Thomas Thill (Volcano, Blade), Jongwoo Heo (Daredevil, Swordfish, Red Planet, Mortal Kombat), Robert Habros (Suburban Commando, Leviathan, SpaceCamp), and Allen Blaisdell (Red Planet, Anaconda).

The cast for Theodore Rex is famously headlined by Whoopi Goldberg (Ghost, Sister Act, The Color Purple), and also includes Armin Mueller-Stahl (The Game), Juliet Landau (Ed Wood), George Newbern (Scandal), and Richard Roundtree (Shaft, Maniac Cop, Q).

Theodore Rex takes place in an alternate universe where dinosaurs have been resurrected bu a team of scientists, and co-inhabit the Earth with humanity. After a dinosaur is mysteriously murdered (the first instance of such a crime), an investigation is launched that teams up a hard-nosed veteran cop with a rookie dinosaur new to the force.

Reportedly, Whoopi Goldberg desperately wanted out of her role in Theodore Rex almost as soon as the production began, but wound up forced to complete the movie after a nasty lawsuit. However, she was ultimately paid an extra $2 million on top of her initially agreed cost to do the film.

Theodore Rex was never released to theaters in the United States, as the distributors decided that the film wouldn’t be worth the cost of a theatrical release domestically. Because of this, it is widely regarded as the most expensive straight-to-video movie of all time.

Theodore Rex himself, along with the other dinosaurs in the film, were portrayed with complicated puppetry, often requiring at least two operators per creature.

Theodore Rex shockingly racked up only one Golden Raspberry nomination, specifically for Whoopi Goldberg as Worst Actress. However, it came out during a stacked year that also boasted the legendarily terrible movies The Island of Doctor Moreau and Striptease.

Theodore Rex unsurprisingly received miserable reviews, and is well-remembered as a massive failure. It currently holds a 2.4 rating on IMDb (landing it in the site’s Bottom 100 listing) and has a 21% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.

One of the biggest issues with Theodore Rex is the Rex suit itself: it is distracting, the mouth movements are awful, and it has clear mobility issues that were clearly a hassle for all of the actors that had to work around it. At the same time, the cumbersome spectacle of the puppet suit may also be the only reason to actually watch this movie, or at least a few clips of it.

As you could probably deduce from the lawsuit and her outspoken disdain for the film, Whoopi clearly didn’t give her all in Theodore Rex. Interestingly, her attitude about the film in real life mirrors her character’s disdain for dinosaurs in the story, giving her performance an almost method sense of genuine emotion at times. For most of the duration, however, she is just garbage.

The story of Theodore Rex contains a number of blatant parallels to real societal racial tensions that feel beyond unnecessary, particularly for a movie that is theoretically a family-oriented comedy. The entire movie becomes a little too dark as a result, which is further exacerbated by some of the noir-like aesthetics of the film.

If the acting and effects weren’t enough, Theodore Rex is also a very slow-moving movie that takes its time to get through the loose plot framework. It felt to me like there wasn’t quite enough written story to fill out the film, and that comedic asides had to be injected to pad out the length. The obvious downside of this is that the supposedly comedic moments bring the motion of the story to an absolute stop, making the film seem longer than it is.

I’m sure that this has been said before, but Theodore Rex looks and feels very much like Super Mario Bros. The dinosaur designs, the dark scenery and tone, and the weird juxtaposition of childlike antics with adult themes all pop up in very similar iterations in both productions. That is particularly astounding given that Super Mario Bros. released and very publicly failed just two years prior to Theodore Rex, begging the question of why the team chose to use such a similar aesthetic?

Overall, Theodore Rex is a dull movie that lacked focus all the way back to its inception. There might have been a nugget of a good idea in the premise somewhere, but it never came to fruition. As I stated earlier, the spectacle of the massive, unwieldy dinosaur puppet is the only reason to sit through this movie, and that can really be satisfied by watching a handful of clips. If you ask me, this is a movie that you can skip without any regrets.

UPDATE:

Right after I finished the initial writing of this post, a fantastic piece on Theodore Rex released on /Film, which features in-depth interviews with the major players involved with the production and release of the movie. If you are interested in delving further into the trivia surrounding this colossal flop, definitely check it out.

IMDb Bottom 100

Ranking the IMDb Bottom 100

December 31, 2014 Gordon Maples 1 Comment

Well, here it is: an entirely subjective, rough ordering of the IMDb Bottom 100 movies I watched over the course of 2014. If you want to read some thoughts on why there are 104 of them, how they were selected, etc., check out my previous IMDb Bottom 100: COMPLETE post.

I tried to rank these by giving consideration to production values, earnestness, dialogue, acting, plot coherence, off-screen calamity, entertainment value, technical prowess, and sensory/general offensiveness. It wasn’t easy to do, and I tinkered with it constantly while writing it up: there are just too many factors and subjective aesthetic aspects for this sort of ranking to be broken down into a science. In any case: here they are, in a rough order from best to worst:

Happy New Year! Be sure to check back in 2015 for more Misan[trope]y movie reviews and (Plot)opsy Podcasts. Thanks to all of you readers and listeners for making 2014 the best year yet here at Misan[trope]y Movie Blog!

IMDb Bottom 100

IMDb Bottom 100: COMPLETE

December 31, 2014 Gordon Maples 1 Comment

It has been many months, but I can confidently say that I successfully watched over 100 movies from the IMDb Bottom 100 ranking in 2014. That was my goal at the beginning of the year, and here we have it! In no particular order, here are links to my reviews of 104 IMDb Bottom 100 movies.

Let me explain why there are 104 movies, and what those asterisks mean. As it turns out, watching all of the IMDb Bottom 100 is more complicated than you might think for a number of reasons.

Thanks to the international representation that has grown on the list in the past couple of years, there are a fair number of films in the ranking that did not get a Region 1 release: this means that no only was there no official distribution in the US, but there are also no official English subtitles or dubs. For some of these films, like “Daniel der Zauberer” and “Turks in Space”, they have enough of a following that fans have created subtitles so that English audiences can watch them. More often than not, however, these international entries in the IMDb Bottom 100 are just not available in any form to an English-speaking audience. Movies like “A Fox’s Tale” and “Danes Without a Clue”, for instance, just do not exist in an English-friendly form, and aren’t popular enough to have fans distributing them online and creating subtitles for them.

danes — “Danes Without A Clue” never made it to Region 1 distribution

In addition to foreign films that lack English language versions, a number of other movies in the IMDb Bottom 100 simply don’t have any distribution, and similarly lack the popularity for there to be online copies of them available. IMDb Bottom 100 movies like “The Tony Blair Witch Project”, “Anus Magillicutty”, and “Ghosts Can’t Do It” all fall into this category: the first two are just low-budget projects that didn’t get spread around, whereas “Ghosts Can’t Do It” is simply out of print and only available (scarcely) on VHS.

In an attempt to make up for these unattainable members of the ranking, I went back through some archived versions of the IMDb Bottom 100. Because the list is democratic and constantly accepting new votes, movies regularly fall out and break into the ranking, meaning that a snapshot of the IMDb Bottom 100 from 2004 looks very different from the one that exists today. All of the movies in the above list marked with an asterisk were pulled from these archived lists to make up for the missing movies that I couldn’t get copies of.

highlander5 — “Highlander II” was one of these Alum features I covered

So, how did I wind up with 104 movies covered? As I mentioned, the IMDb Bottom 100 is consistently shuffling in new movies as votes come in and movies reach the qualification quota of 1500 votes for the list. As was the case with “ROTOR” and “Saving Christmas”, I chose to cover new movies as they popped into the Bottom 100 over the course of 2014. Between covering movies from the IMDb Bottom 100 archive and new members of the ranking from 2014, I managed to tip over 100 movies covered in total. In fact, there are even more IMDb Bottom 100 movies that I could still cover (and in all likelihood I will at some point).

For now, I am going to put the IMDb Bottom 100 on the back-burner: I managed to watch and review over 100 of them in 2014, and I am interested in taking on some new bad movie challenges in 2015. That said, I am planning on doing my own ranking of those 104 movies in the near future, and writing a more in depth retrospective on the challenge after I’ve had some time to mull it over.

As for now, I wish you all a Happy New Year, and look forward to having you back in 2015!

IMDb Bottom 100

IMDb Bottom 100: Blubberella

December 30, 2014 Gordon Maples 8 Comments

Blubberella

“Blubberella” is yet another entry in the IMDb Bottom 100 brought to us by the much-maligned director Uwe Boll, who was also behind IMDB Bottom 100 flicks “Alone in the Dark” and “House of the Dead”. His immense unpopularity as an individual (among critics and audiences alike) is almost as notable as his his astoundingly awful filmography at this point, something that has certainly had an effect on the public perception of his works. Given that the IMDb Bottom 100 is in many ways based on popularity and public opinion, it is no surprise to see Uwe Boll pop up numerous times in the ranking.

However, “Blubberella” sets itself apart from the typical Uwe Boll fare: not only is it a comedy (not Boll’s strength), but it is also a parody movie. If there is anything that the IMDb Bottom 100 can tell you at first glance, it is that parody movies can go wrong very easily, and Uwe Boll certainly isn’t Mel Brooks when it comes to the craft of cinematic comedy.

Adding to the bizarreness, “Blubberella” is a parody of a Uwe Boll flick that was being filmed simultaneously (“BloodRayne 3”), so it isn’t even aping a movie that the audience would identify with. According to some behind the scenes footage, this was a decision made first and foremost to save money: Boll’s logic was that it would cost the same to make two movies at the same time with the same sets, cast, and crew. In theory, if both movies did well, the profits would be exponentially better. This is an old principal that dates back to the classic Roger Corman B-movies, but those films were usually unrelated apart from the cast and setting: they weren’t designed to be symbiotic.

Personally, I feel that Uwe Boll’s already unpopular personality combined with this economic motivation for the making of the film would have led to a negative perception of “Blubberella” regardless of whether it was any good or not. Unsurprisingly, though, it is absolutely awful. Not only is it the worst Uwe Boll movie in the IMDb Bottom 100, but I personally think it is the worst parody movie as well. That put it is some truly elite company.

The humor in “Blubberella” is not just crass and lazy (just as with the other parody movies in the IMDb Bottom 100, it relies heavily on stereotypes), but it also comes off as generally cruel and bitter. I think just about every joke in the movie punches down, which is generally a poor practice and sets a thoroughly uncomfortable tone to the movie. By the end of the movie, it is pretty clear that Uwe Boll not only isn’t funny, but that he has a lot of personal ire for women, homosexuals, and fat people (not to mention pretty much everyone else). He comes off as even more of an asshole than everyone already believed he was.

Another huge issue with the humor in “Blubberella” comes from the fact that the movie is effectively unscripted: Uwe Boll left an excessive amount of the dialogue up to the actors to improvise (the two lead actors apparently did enough of this to justify co-writing credits on the film). Shows like “Curb Your Enthusiasm” can pull off this style of improvised scripting because of the comedic talents of the players, but it definitely requires a lot of skill from everyone involved for the technique to work. If you haven’t seen poorly done improv before, I assure you that it is some of the most uncomfortable, miserable comedy you will ever come across. In the case of “Blubberella”, the actors just aren’t up to the improv weight that is thrown on them by Boll. In the behind the scenes interviews, it seems like the actors are appreciative of the freedom that they were granted with this style, but I highly suspect that Boll made the decision to go with improv dialogue because he didn’t want to waste the time writing a fleshed out script (time is money, after all). In any case, it doesn’t work, and the end result is poorly paced and painfully unfunny.

blubber3 — A titanic comedy duo, in the sense that all of the humor sinks into the icy depths of misery

As far as the cast goes, the only real bright spot is beloved oddball character actor Clint Howard, and even he doesn’t perform up to his usual par. Worst among the cast list by a mile, however, is Uwe Boll himself, who portrays Adolph Hitler. To put it lightly, his acting is atrocious.

blubber4 — Clint Howard playing a Nazi Doctor

There is nothing to recommend about “Blubberella”: it is a creature spawned from hate-based humor and cheap economic logic. The pacing and comedic timing throughout the film is just awful, and there aren’t any redeeming performances or aspects that can justify sitting through the flick. Worse yet, you can tell how rushed the production was, and it is evident that there was no effort put forth to make this movie. Unless you are planning to watch all of Uwe Boll’s movies for the challenge of it, I would definitely avoid “Blubberella”.

IMDb Bottom 100

IMDb Bottom 100: Monster A Go Go

December 29, 2014 Gordon Maples 5 Comments

Monster A Go-Go

1965’s “Monster A Go Go” is an astoundingly bad film, enough so to be a true separation from the rest of the IMDb Bottom 100. The movie is a patchwork built primarily from parts of an unfinished product (that was poor in its own right), and then supplemented with original footage filmed years after the fact to complete the movie. This has been done with a number of other B-pictures (“They Saved Hitler’s Brain” comes to mind), but “Monster A Go Go” is the most distractingly awful example of this that I have come across.

monstergogo3 — The props are pretty awful as well. But then again, so is everything else in “Monster A Go Go”

Apparently “Monster A Go Go” was only cobbled together to fill out the second half of a bill for a double feature. With that in mind, a lot of the flaws in the movie make more sense: the sound issues, continuity errors, inexplicable sets, and abrupt editing are all explained by the simple fact that there was only a minimum amount of effort put into creating the film. The fact that “Monster A Go Go” was also a cheap attempt to salvage an abandoned film certainly contributes to almost all of the most glaring problems in the movie, such as the replaced actors and seemingly unrelated asides throughout the film. The disjointed product of all of these problems is a film so unfocused and bizarre that it is nearly unwatchable and incomprehensible.

monstergogo4 — You have to love the laundry room science lab set

As with many of the other IMDb Bottom 100 entries, “Monster A Go Go” owes much of its reputation to the show Mystery Science Theater 3000. However, none of the other movies in the list have the honor of being considered by the MST3k crew as being the worst movie ever to have been featured on the show*. Considering the sort of movies that made their way onto the MST3k screen, that is really saying something. That said, they certainly do their best to make the movie worth the watch, and the episode highlights are worth checking out:

Personally, I am conflicted about Monster A Go Go. It is undoubtedly a spectacle of how to do everything wrong in making a movie. From an academic perspective, that makes the movie kind of fascinating. On the other hand, it lacks much of the entertainment value that people expect from “good-bad” movies. The MST3k riff is fun and makes the most of the overall rather dull movie, but it is still a tough film to sit through if you are expecting to have a good time. Some of the lighting goofs, silly sets, and the hilariously awful ending get genuine laughs, but they are very few and far between. Unless you want to watch a bad movie for the sake of seeing a movie gone terribly wrong, “Monster A Go Go” is skippable. It certainly isn’t the ideal flick to watch with a group of people to have a good time.

Surprisingly, “Monster A Go Go” is pretty low in the IMDb Bottom 100 (it has been sitting in the 80s). Without a doubt, this is one of the most objectively worst films I have seen while going through the list, standing out with movies like “The Starfighters” and “The Maize”. Given the influence of MST3k fans on the IMDb Bottom 100, I don’t expect it to fall out of the ranking anytime soon, but it is quite surprising to see it so low. I am somewhat curious if there is an odd subset of people over-ranking this movie intentionally, because I have a hard time believing that any significant number of people would rate this movie with more than one star in earnest. In any case, it is sitting where it is for some reason hidden within the will of the masses.

(Plot)opsy Podcast, IMDb Bottom 100

Plotopsy Podcast #6 – Santa Claus (1959)

December 18, 2014 Gordon Maples 3 Comments

Santa Claus (1959)

Today on the (Plot)opsy Podcast, I am spotlighting a particularly infamous IMDb Bottom 100 film as part of the 15 Days of Bad Christmas Movies: a 1959 Mexican production called “Santa Claus.” Despite the simple title, this is one of the strangest Christmas movies out there: the plot involves Satan, Merlin, some of the creepiest surveillance devices in cinema history, robotic reindeer, and Santa’s captive child workforce who are housed indefinitely in his space castle. I recommend seeking it out.

santaclaus6 — An assortment of Santa’s humanoid listening devices

santaclaus11 — An assortment of Santa’s humanoid listening devices

santaclaus9 — The demon Pitch attempting to tempt Lupita

santaclaus10 — Lupita with giant, horrific, dancing dolls

santaclaus7 — Promotion for the December 2014 Rifftrax Live event featuring “Santa Claus”

Be sure to visit my cohorts in the “15 Days of Bad Christmas Movies”:

Stinker Madness Podcast
If We Made It Podcast
JT Movie Podcast
Dark Corners of This Sick World

Also, you can check out previous episodes of the (Plot)opsy Podcast here.

IMDb Bottom 100

IMDb Bottom 100: Anne B Real

December 16, 2014 Gordon Maples 3 Comments

Anne B. Real

This may seem to be an obvious caveat for a post covering a movie on the IMDb Bottom 100, but I feel like it still bears stating: “Anne B Real” is not a good movie. However, in my opinion, it is also not an excessively bad one.

When I initially heard the synopsis of “Anne B Real”, I expected that the film would be blatantly offensive, and generally atrocious. Here is the sort version currently on IMDb:

ANNE B. REAL is the coming of age story of a young female rapper, who finds her inspiration by reading the Diary of Anne Frank.

From reading that alone, it certainly seems like there are a lot of ways for the story to go very wrong. As it turns out, “Anne B Real” is basically just a low budget passion project about growing up in the face of adverse circumstance, and is a story that focuses on a young girl slowly gaining self-confidence in her abilities. Again, this isn’t a good movie: it is the sort of thing that wouldn’t make the cut at your average film festival I feel. Mercifully, Anne Frank doesn’t serve as an ethereal rap coach or anything like that, which was what I was expecting. The downside of this, however, is that the movie is really boring.

There isn’t a whole lot to say about the movie: every aspect of it is just a little below par. The writing, the acting, the directing: nothing is offensively bad, but none of it is particularly good. This actually brings up a very interesting question: how did “Anne B Real” wind up in the IMDb Bottom 100? How did this little passion project art film draw so much ire and garner so much attention as to break into the ranking in the first place? Honestly, I have absolutely no idea. The movie is very forgettable and boring, but it is nothing like the rest of the films in the IMDb Bottom 100.

This is the only actor I recognized, and I only know him as "that one guy from Dexter" — This is the only actor I recognized, and I only know him as “that one guy from Dexter”

The only other movie where I had this feeling after watching it was “Crossover”, which I covered way back when I first started with the list. That movie is similarly low-budget and amateurish, but not at all painful to sit through if you ask me. Honestly, I’m inclined to say it is better than “Anne B Real”, if only for Wayne Brady’s role in the movie as a skeevy sports agent.

There is a pretty notable similarity between “Crossover” and “Anne B Real”, and as much as I hope it isn’t why these films are so lowly ranked, it may very well be the case: both films have almost entirely black casts. One of the downsides of a no-holds-barred democratic ranking system like the IMDb Bottom 100 is that it will inevitably reflect biases among the users. I’m not saying that IMDb is like Stormfront or anything, but I am curious if there are some latent tendencies in the IMDb userbase to be unfairly harsh on films like “Crossover” and “Anne B Real”. They are both bad movies, but they are also ranked much lower and judged much more harshly than I think they should. These aren’t Ed Wood level movies by a long shot.

In any case, there aren’t any compelling reasons to recommend “Anne B Real”. The movie is pretty dull, and there isn’t much in the way of entertainment value to be had. The story isn’t all that bad, but it just feels sloppily executed and poorly paced. It is squarely on the wrong side of mediocre when it comes to bad movie enjoyment, but I would rather sit through this countless times than take on another Ulli Lommel movie.

IMDb Bottom 100

IMDb Bottom 100: In The Mix

December 15, 2014 Gordon Maples 7 Comments

In The Mix

There are plenty of things to complain about with “In The Mix”. It is definitely not a flawless movie (it isn’t even a good movie), but it was damn near refreshing compared to most of the things I have had to watch in the IMDb Bottom 100 as of late.

Most of the complaints I have seen about “In The Mix” are completely valid. More than anything else, I have seen a lot of criticism of the stereotype-laden script, which also spends an inordinate amount of time worshiping the lead character played by Usher. The way women treat Usher in the film is far beyond unrealistic, to be sure, and the constant reliance on Italian and African-American stereotypes is both lazy on the part of the writers and tiring to sit through. Even more baffling is the fact that Usher has no loss of mobility after being shot in the shoulder at the beginning of the movie, and is allowed to act as a bodyguard while recovering from a serious injury. However, I’m going to focus on some positives with this review. Because, shockingly, I found a lot of things positive worth noting in this train-wreck of a movie, particularly in comparison to other IMDb Bottom 100 flicks.

inthemix7 — “Look, it is just a gunshot wound. I can still be an effective bodyguard for your daughter”

First off, “In The Mix” bears a significant similarity to a handful of IMDb Bottom 100 members, primarily in that it is structured around and starring a non-actor celebrity. But, in comparison to those (“Daniel der Zauberer”, “From Justin to Kelly”, “Popstar”), “In The Mix” pulls this off pretty well. The problems with “In The Mix” are almost entirely compartmentalized to the writing, which is shocking for being a movie centered around a non-actor. Usher, despite what I expected, was pretty serviceable in this movie. Compared to Justin Guarini or Aaron Carter, he’s Orson Welles.

inthemix9 — Well, he’s at least Robert Costanzo. Maybe not Orson.

More importantly, Usher seems to actually have chemistry with his co-lead Emmanuelle Chriqui, and both of them seem to be enjoying themselves. I think the greatest weakness of any of these celebrity vehicle movies is a lack of connection between the actors, which can make a huge difference in how watchable and believable the movie is on the whole. Usher manages to pull this off, and despite the poor quality of the movie overall, deserves credit for that.

I’ve noticed that a lot of folks direct their ire about this movie towards Usher, but not typically because of his performance. More often than not, I’ve seen complaints that he didn’t take responsibility as one of the film’s Executive Producers to ensure the ultimate quality of the project. I have a bit of a problem with this complaint. First off, the director is the one responsible for the project as a whole. When it comes down to it, the role of Executive Producer is left intentionally vague: it can mean a lot of different things on different productions. As I understand it, Usher was given that credit primarily due to his vested interest in the product as its public face. Just because he holds an Exec. Producer title doesn’t mean he is responsible for the quality of the film: producers are far more likely to be responsible for the fundraising and the marketing of the flick than anything else. Also, Usher isn’t an experienced movie maker, so how exactly would he have spotted a problem during development if he didn’t know what to look for? It may not have been wise to give him a producer nod, but even that falls back to being the director’s fault. From what I can tell, at worse Usher was complicit in the failure of the movie. At best, he did his damnedest to make it better, and failed to single handedly save the movie.

The accessory cast of “In The Mix” is, appropriately, a mixed bag. The poor dialogue and writing in general anchor the whole product down, but a few folks still deliver half decent performances. It is always nice to see a bunch of character actors like Robert Costanzo and Chazz Palminteri doing their mobster thing, but the grating comic relief performance by Kevin Hart leaves a whole lot to be desired (like, for instance, the sweet embrace of death).

“In The Mix” is a film teetering on falling out of the IMDb Bottom 100, and for good reason. It is a movie that is just “good” enough to not be entertainingly bad, which puts it unfortunately into the range of forgettable mediocrity. There isn’t anything outlandishly bad enough about it for me to recommend watching through the whole thing, but it serves as an interesting side-by-side comparison with the other celebrity-driven IMDb Bottom 100 features I mentioned here.

IMDb Bottom 100

IMDb Bottom 100: Daniel – der Zauberer

December 12, 2014 Gordon Maples 6 Comments

Daniel – der Zauberer

Ulli Lommel is one of those rare filmmakers who seems to be able to do no right. I honestly can’t think of any other filmmaker who so thoroughly embodies the legendary incompetence of Ed Wood for today’s film world. Some time ago, I covered his film “Zombie Nation”. As bad as that film is, it is a masterpiece in comparison to Lommel’s infamous part-documentary, part-fever dream known as “Daniel – der Zauberer”, which is widely considered to be the worst German movie of all time.

“Daniel der Zauberer” is a thoroughly fictionalized tale centering around the inexplicable German pop sensation Daniel Kublbock, who gained notoriety after winning Germany’s equivalent of American Idol. Speaking of which, this movie makes “From Justin to Kelly” look like a narrative masterpiece and in-depth character study.

In the world of “der Zauberer”, Daniel Kublbock is not just a pop star, but is also a wizard in training under the tutelage of his long-deceased grandfather (played by Lommel himself). In addition, he is apparently such a divisive figure in German society that a number of teenagers feel so much ire for him and his music that they wish to see him die. A good deal of the plot centers around a couple of these disgruntled youths attempting to assassinate Daniel, and that is unbelievably one of the less ludicrous aspects of the movie. Daniel ultimately wins over his would-be assassins and all of his other passionate detractors with his positive energy and friendliness by the time the movie ends, which is particularly notable given how painfully awkward Daniel is in front of a camera. Frankly, Daniel wouldn’t be able to win over a puppy with his charm and charisma.

daniel3 — Daniel with Ulli Lommel, who plays his wizard mentor / dead grandfather / sometimes one-armed brass musician companion.

For “Daniel – der Zauberer”, the devil is definitely in the details. All of the things that are typically invisible in well-crafted movies stand out like swollen thumbs here. The cinematography is on par with an amateur home video, the editing and sound are painfully distracting, and one continuity error is even so blatant that there is a half-hearted attempt to write it into the movie (Ulli Lommel’s character has a disappearing and reappearing arm).

The writing is really unfocused and vague throughout the movie, and fails to establish important elements to the story for the audience: most notably, it is not made absolutely clear that Daniel is a wizard in training until the last act, and his relation to Ulli Lommel’s character isn’t covered until the film’s conclusion. The dialogue isn’t much better, but it is hard to tell whether the writing or the acting is more to blame for what ultimately makes it on screen. Either way, the result is nothing short of abysmal.

There are a number of directorial decisions in this movie that truly boggle my mind. In a number of scenes, archival footage from various reality show appearances by Daniel are spliced in for seemingly no reason at all. I can understand the extensive use of concert footage in the movie given it more or less ties into the character, but the reality show clips just don’t make any sense at all. One of these sequences takes place while Daniel is having a nightmare where a mysterious man slowly approaches Daniel with a knife while he is sleeping. During the sequence, clips of Daniel on a German version of “Fear Factor” are cut in seemingly at random. Without provocation, the screen flashes to Daniel covered in bugs on what is clearly a reality show setup. In a more baffling sequence, footage is shown of Daniel playing with a couple of baby tigers, intercut with him…not really doing anything at all. He is just kind of standing around.

I am on the fence about whether I can recommend “Daniel – der Zauberer”. Part of me wants to say that this is a movie so incompetently made that it has to be seen to be believed. At this point, even Daniel Kublbock has admitted that it is truly awful, and that has to mean something from someone whose career is built on spreading positive energy. However, it is also a pretty boring experience to sit through, and given it didn’t get a release in English, the necessity of digging up the fan-made subtitles means that you have to go a bit out of your way to watch it. If you have a handy copy, give it a watch. I would just say do it with the caveat that it isn’t going to be a fun experience. This isn’t a movie for a group of people to watch and enjoy ironically, it is a movie that must be suffered individually, like a ritual.

Reviews/Trivia of B-Movies, Bad Movies, and Cult Movies.