The Worst of Cinema in 2000

Here it is folks, the worst of 2000 as selected by me and my collaborators Hollyfeld, Tyler Durden and Q-Brick. I hope you enjoy reading about all the bad movies released this past year. Coming up are my top ten wish-list of 2001 and my personal top ten best movie of 2000. I'll also see Traffic and 13 Days, so stick around this week.

The Top Ten Worst Films of 2000

10-Cecil B. Demented/The Perfect Storm
The first one is a joke that only director John Waters gets. The idea of militant film makers mobilizing against Hollywood is pure fantasy. Folks, it takes money to make movies...even this mish-mash. While for the second, don’t act shocked. I still can’t believe a movie about CGI waves and clouds made so much money.

9-Scream 3
Great opening scene, which is the only high point of this flick. The movie goes downhill from there and so does Craven's career. Fans of the Scream franchise couldn't have asked for a worst conclusion to their beloved trilogy. Everyone involved with that project needs to re-invent themselves FAST.

8-The Contender
Just watching the third act unfold is like watching a car wreck in slow motion. Screenwriters in the making should take good notes on how not to scrap a film late in the game.

7-But I'm A Cheerleader
This horrid flick falls into the category that a film, that for various reasons is so unwatchable that you want to run from the cinema. I could barely sit through this bomb with it's attempt at 'hipper than thou' humor and awful performances. The whining of Natasha Lyonne was enough to make my ears bleed.

6-Battlefield Earth
What a disaster of Xanadu proportions. This movie was so bad that I am not surprised Travolta was in it because he has been the face-man on some of the worst movies the 80’s ever produced. Not that I am against Christian Scientists or their beliefs, but how can you expect to make good science fiction when you don’t even believe in going to the doctor. Oh, I need one just thinking about the DVD release of this film. (Comments by 'Tyler Durden'.)

5-The Beach
I don't think much needs to be said about this one, except that Danny Boyle, Andrew MacDonald and John Hodge need to rethink their careers, and fast.

4-Mission: Impossible 2
I hate this movie. Not so much because it is a really bad remake of the really good Notorious, so much as it was the worst possible direction for the franchise to go. It was a SPY MOVIE. They snuck around, and avoided direct conflict in the first one, making the final action sequence that much cooler. Now, Cruise is James Bond. It pisses me off to no end.

3-The 9th Gate
Unforgivable. Too much talent was wasted on this movie. Slow. Boring. Johnny Depp frantically trying to put together a real performance. Roman Polanski frantically trying to remember how to build suspense. An utter failure, and only worth watching as a treatise on how NOT to do a horror film. Read H.P. Lovecraft's Call of Cthulu instead. PLEASE.

2-Scary Movie
I'm as surprised as you that this is on the list. The popularity of this film is proof positive that America is in it's last days. Did they find the screenplay scrawled on a bathroom wall?

1-Boys & Girls
I want that hour and half of my life back. I'll admit that I've enjoyed She's All That and even Down To You but this one is AWFUL. The script is bad, the direction is disastrous and the acting is non existent. Freddie Prinze Jr. and Claire Forlani have a few scenes near a cliff in the San Francisco bay in the film. If someone could have just pushed them off. Jason Biggs was even worse, I've never seen someone being so UN-FUNNY. Miramax should be ashamed of this piece of cinematic shit.

The Worst Actors of 2000

Freddie Prinze Jr. (Boys & Girls)
Just when we were sure the circle of bad male actors would stay at Damon, Affleck and Leo, a new member is initiated. This guy is just so bad that words can’t describe him. Maybe if we beat and scar his face bad enough he won’t be cast in any more films. I would give this award to Travolta, but Prinze is just that much worse.

Leonardo DiCaprio (The Beach)
I like Leo. No, really. I think he has done some brilliant work... before Titanic. I don't know what he was thinking with this mess, and find it really hard to care what he's doing next after having seen it. He needs to get over thinking how cute he thinks he is, and get back to the business of acting. PLEASE.

Josh Hartnett (Here On Earth)
The After School Special comes to the Big Screen. Note to Josh: Squinting is not acting.

The Worst Actresses of 2000

Piper Perabo (Coyote Ugly)
I really toiled over this one. I looked and looked for a bad female performance that compared to Prinze Jr. I really couldn’t find one. Ms. Perabo was in Coyote Ugly and Rocky and Bullwinkle though and was not very good in either. I hope she rebounds to something better in 2001.

Neve Campbell (Scream 3)
Tough call between her and Halle Berry in X-Men, but Neve's (hopefully) final performance as Syd was made all that much worse compared to her first two. Halle at least had the excuse of being miscast.

Emily Watson (Trixie)
After 10 minutes of Emily Watson's portrayal of a sweet, dumb wannabe detective and her non-stop malapropisms I needed a seat belt to keep me in the theater.

The Worst Directors of 2000

Dominic Sena (Gone in 60 Seconds)
We finally understood why Sena didn't direct any films since 1993's Kalifornia.

Roman Polanski (The 9th Gate)
I don't want to say any more about this film. I don't think I could bear it.

Brian DePalma (Mission to Mars)
This was an easy pick for me because I had such high hopes for this film. How did the man who gave us Scarface, Wise Guys, Body Double and The Untouchables give us this? DePalma had the talent, the background and the budget to try and make this film a winner and he blew it.

John Waters (Cecil B. Demented)
Because he should know better.

The Rest

"Hollyfeld, here. I haven't seen ten completely crappy films this year, but that will certainly change as they come out on video. Here are some of my other choices for worst of 2000.

The Tao Of Steve: A big brouhaha was made over this film when it came out, but ultimately I cannot recommend it because the main character is wholly unlikable and is not supposed to be (at least, not throughout the entire film). Not really that bad - it just seems to fail in its goals.

High Fidelity: Same problem as The Tao of Steve, but also seems structurally 'off' - almost like there wasn't a definite plan while writing it. It just seems to do whatever it wants at the time, with mixed results.

Meet The Parents: A practice in sadism. Unfortunate things happening to someone who doesn't deserve it isn't comedy - it's tragedy. I felt physical pain at several parts of the movie, just watching Stiller suffer. Anyone who's met future in-laws sympathizes.

Worst Sappy Ending: Gladiator - Maximus carried out of the Coliseum by the people of Rome with a glorious sunset in the background. Made worse by the comparative excellence in every scene preceding it. (Runner-up: Pay It Forward - only lost because I didn't actually see it. I read the script though, and that was enough.)

Most Boring Work of Brilliance: The Wind Will Carry Us. It's an Iranian film which reeks of true artistic vision, but if it's not interesting enough to keep me awake (I fell asleep twice -once is rare enough), then who needs it?

Worst Miscasting: Patrick Fugit - Almost Famous. (But only because I auditioned.) :-)

(Commentary by This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .)

"Now on to the Top Ten Worst of 2000: For me there are two basic criteria for placing a film on this list. The first is a picture, that for various reasons is so unwatchable that you want to run from the cinema. The other kind is the movie that's actually enjoyable. It's so bad that you MUST watch it to see if it will get any worse.

Trixie: The most irritating film of 2000.

Dancer in The Dark: Call me an old fart, but people who make films that look and sound like home movies should stay at home. Dogma's no-frills film making is really no-skill film making.

Hollow Man: Paul Verhoeven's comic book violence is really getting tiresome. There is no real love for the audience in these brain-burners. However, this film does fall into the second category of Bad Films. It was so awful that it was enjoyable. Hollow Man contained some of the year's most unintentionally funny sequences. Didn't Bacon, Shue and company READ this script before committing to the project?

Nurse Betty: Another flick beloved by many critics that I just loathed. Neil LaBute should enroll in his nearest film appreciation class and learn the difference between what is funny and what is foul. After the vivid, sickening killing of Aaron Eckhart's character, the movie went south for me. Not this year's feel-good movie.

I Dreamed of Africa: A movie that should have gone straight to the Discovery Channel. It was a travelogue disguised as a feature. Yawn...

Here on Earth: Lee Lee Sobieski is a fine actress but she'd better stay away from this stuff.

(Commentary by 'Q-Brick'.)

"After all the hype, I must say the year 2000 was an all-around bomb. The stock market tanked, we elected a cocaine freak to the White House and Hollywood failed to live up to the greatness that was 1999. Maybe Prince was right when he talked about partying like it was 1999, maybe not. Sure there was some good in 2000, but there was more bad and ugly. Thank goodness I am in the soap business and can easily wash the crap off me when I get home. So here is my take on the WORST OF 2000.

The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle: They should have never even tried. Big money, big cast and a big ass flop. I would say more, but this movie was pulled from screens so fast that most of America got whiplash. I am still recovering.

Mission to Mars: You would think that having Tim Robbins, Don Cheadle and Gary Siniese in the same cast would guarantee you $100 million+ and some Oscar nods. This movie is Hall of Shame material for all three of these guys, but in the end I blame the executives. This is what happens when you go cheap on the script and the effects. Another failure for Hollywood’s attempt to give us Mars and we thought such failure was limited to NASA. Maybe they should have added CGI waves.

Ready to Rumble: Why is Courtney Cox married to Arquette? Why didn’t Patricia and Rosanna drown their brother in a toilet bowl? Why does AT&T put this guy in their commercials? Why does WCW suck monkey nuts? If anything this movie shows us how superior the WWF is to WCW.

The Skulls: Seriously, just because we all LOVE Katie Holmes doesn’t mean we want to see her cast mates from Dawson’s Creek in films. Let your legacy be The Mighty Ducks Joshua Jackson. I can’t believe The COACH himself, Craig T. Nelson, even let his face be seen in this film.

Loser: Jason Biggs and that little slut from American Beauty should feel like losers after this one.

Little Nicky: I know the masses of America love his cheap humor and annoying screams of rage. Even I liked The Waterboy and Big Daddy, but did Sandler think he could get away with this one? He must have been out of his mind. In other years this would have been the #1 worst movie, but this was a bad year.

Honorable Mentions: Coyote Ugly, Dungeons & Dragons, The Cell, Scream 3, Art of War and Dude, Where’s My Car.

And here is the TOP 5 MOVIES I NEVER SAW BUT KNOW THEY SUCK ANYWAY!!!
Thomas and the Magic Railroad
Dr. T & the Women
Pokemon 2000
Digimon: The Film
Flintstones 2: Viva Rock Vegas

And remember, there is no better cure for a hangover than having another beer. Out."

(Commentary by 'Tyler Durden'.)

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That's all folks...

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