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Crash is the worst Best Picture I've seen.

Posted by Lane | June 6, 2008 2:03 PM

Worst Best Picture usually goes to "The Greatest Show on Earth", especially execrable because it eclipsed "High Noon". There was that especially bad run in the 90s, with "Forest Gump", "Braveheart" and "The English Patient", but in retrospect I'm going to have to stick up for "American Beauty" as uniquely awful as far as modern Best Picture winners go.

For worst well-regarded film, it's going to take a lot to beat "Life is Beautiful".

Biggest unknown treasures for me goes to Gillam's "Adventures of Baron Munchhausen", Cronenburg's "Dead Ringers", and Sayle's "Lone Star". Fairly mainstream, I know, but they get none of the attention they should in spite of being accessible, well-constructed, and engaging films.

Posted by Dave | June 6, 2008 2:28 PM

The results of any thread like this are inevitably going to be skewed in favor of (or, in this case, against) recent films.

I believe the critical consensus is that The Greatest Show on Earth was the worst Best Picture winner by a good long margin. Certainly gets my vote. Jimmy Stewart as Buttons the Clown, a wife-murdering doctor hiding out in the circus! Can't beat that!

(Rottentomatoes.com actually did a poll of critics not terribly long ago and generated a list of all the winners in purported order of merit. It is likely still to be found on that site.)

Posted by roac | June 6, 2008 2:29 PM

1) Worst well-regarded film

My nominations:

Forrest Gump. That's probably my entry for category #2 also.

Or pretty much any well-regarded film from the 1950s (not directed by Alfred Hitchcock), for example:

- Some Like It Hot (what sub-species of homo sapiens actually laughed at this?)

- Rebel Without a Cause. Natalie Wood as bad girl...in a matching skirt set and saddle shoes? Father in an apron as the source of deep psychological wounds? Dean's horribly overwrought method acting? Gack.

Bonus discussion: is it time to declare a moratorium on DVD buying pending switchover to Blu-Ray, as one friend has already done, and if so, should it apply to things like 1930's films or grainy made-in-Italy postwar black and white flicks?

There really aren't all that many movies that I'd want to re-watch and would benefit all that much from the increase in resolution. Why, for example, would anyone care if they watched the DVD or BD of 'Knocked Up'? And, it's probably just as cheap to buy the low-cost DVD now and a low-cost blu-ray disc in a few years rather than an expensive BD disc now. Plus it's much easier to make backup copies of DVDs.

Posted by Slocum | June 6, 2008 2:31 PM

1) Waking Life
2) Casablanca
3) Crash
4) A History of Violence
5) Contact
6) Tie: The Cell, Belly
7) The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick

Bonus: Film isn't "grainy" in the same horrible way DVDs are. Hold out.

Posted by disinvited to movie night | June 6, 2008 2:35 PM

Worst Oscar winner: Marty

Posted by Diana | June 6, 2008 2:35 PM

wrt to Best Pictures, I wasn't a huge fan of Crash but the ones that really stand out are those that just haven't stood the test of time such as Mrs. Miniver. The forgettable duo of Ordinary People and Kramer vs. Kramer wouldn't be bad choices either. I'm not sure any of those are still well-regarded though so for "worst well-regarded" I'd pick something on the AFI Best 100 movies list such as E.T., Forrest Gump, or Dancing with Wolves. Of those, I'd probably put E.T. as the most overhyped.

Phantom Menace is a good choice for disappointing.

Posted by Gordon Haff | June 6, 2008 2:36 PM

Disinvited, your selection for (2) hurts me right here

Posted by bcg | June 6, 2008 2:46 PM

#1 is kind of self-contradictory, isn't it? If a consensus emerges, doesn't that mean that that film is not well-regarded?

With regard to #5 -- isn't anybody who can speak authoritatively confessing to severe masochism? The badness of most bad movies is readily evident, so why make a habit of spending money on them?

With that said, the worst movie I ever saw was Vanilla Sky. My wife likes Tom Cruise, and I agreed to go with her because some of my favorite character actors were in the cast (Timothy Spall, Tilda Swinton, Noah Taylor).

My wife also likes Nicolas Cage, which is why I saw ConAir. That was pretty bad, too.

Posted by roac | June 6, 2008 2:47 PM

1) Worst well-regarded film

"Well-regarded" is always debatable, but I'll throw Ghost out there.

2) Most overhyped film

Blade Runner. Perfectly competent sci-fi, but it did not deserve to be taught in my Great Works class college.

3) Worst film to win a best picture Oscar

Shakespeare in Love. Followed by Titanic. Boy, the Academy really screwed up the late 90s, didn't they?

4) Most disappointing film

Well, in terms of the gap between expectations and reality, I have to choose Star Wars Episode I. Maybe Waterworld as a runner up.

5) Worst movie, full stop.

Chairman of the Board. Starring Carrot Top. That is all.

6) Worst movie with good direction (ie terrible script, awful acting, producer interference, etc)

Didn't Spielberg direct The Lost World: Jurassic Park? Ughhhhh.

7) Biggest unknown treasure

Not sure if it's unknown per se but I always thought The Mission was underrated.

Posted by KobayashiMaru | June 6, 2008 2:55 PM

Blu-ray is almost a case study proof of Tainter's dimishing returns thesis.

Posted by themightypuck | June 6, 2008 3:02 PM

First of all, I really hated "The Americanization of Emily". Sorry.

Also, I'm generally holding off on buying anything that has even decent cinematography until it gets released on Blu-Ray, but if I can get something relatively obscure or older for a good price on DVD, I don't pass up the opportunity.

1) Worst well-regarded film:
---"Michael Clayton". It just recently got nominated for all these awards and Oscars, even robbing Amy Ryan of Best Supporting Actress by giving it to Tilda Swinton, but I thought it was complete and total shit. Maybe I missed the point or something, but I definitely got the impression that the only reason critics "liked" the movie is because it portrayed a fictional corporation as evil, allowing all these Hollywood types to conclude that all real corporations are evil and then pat themselves on the back for their moral superiority.

2) Most overhyped film:
---"Aliens"? I love Sigourney Weaver, but Ridley Scott's film is far superior to James Cameron's, and I can't help but think the success of the sequel is merely attributable to the hype surrounding the original.

3) Worst film to win a best picture Oscar:
---I have to go with "Shakespeare in Love". It was little more than a period romance comedy that happened to have a few good actors in it.

4) Most disappointing film:
---For me, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". I'd heard literally every joke in the film before I'd seen it, which totally kills the humor, but I can see where it wouldn't be disappointing if you hadn't been ridiculously familiar with it before seeing it.

5) Worst movie, full stop:
---Does "Napoleon Dynamite" meet the criteria? If so, then...

6) Worst movie with good direction:
---"Artificial Intelligence: A.I." The film itself is a trite and contrived hodge-podge of Spielberg and Kubrick's very different approaches to filmmaking, generally consisting of the worst of both, but whatever else you may think of Spielberg, it can't be denied that he understands "the language of film" better than almost anyone out there, as far as directing goes.

7) Biggest unknown treasure:
---I have two for this one. I wrote the second paragrah first, but now I just remembered how much I *adore* "Hester Street". It's absolutely amazing, but it was made on basically no budget several decades ago, so the quality is really lacking. But the story and the acting are *soooo* good that after a while you don't mind the piss poor cinematography or that you can see the boom mic half the time.

Also, Peter Jackson's "Heavenly Creatures" is widely ignored, even though it was nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar. But it's surprisingly good for a low-budget, independent New Zealand film from the 90's, especially considering Jackson is becoming something of a Hollywood hack. The story is very compelling, well-told, and Melanie Lynskey's acting even puts the always-flawless Kate Winslet to shame, IMHO, in their breakout roles.
_______________________
I also just want to plug a book that I recently purchased (actually, received as a gift, but I basically paid for it myself) called "1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die". I'd already seen a good number of them, and there are some I really don't think deserve to be in the book (and some deserve to be there that I don't intend to watch) but it's still a great source for exposing yourself to more films, and I've been using it as something of a guide for movie purchases/rentals for the past few months, which has paid off...

Posted by Seth | June 6, 2008 3:07 PM

1) Thelma and Louise

Bonus: why buy? Rent 'em and copy them. handbrake, mac the ripper, etc. You'll have to compressmost films to fit on a single-layer disk (or shell our for a double-layers blanks and writers), but that's the price of piracy.

Posted by Matt B | June 6, 2008 3:27 PM

1. Gattaca. Pretentious, preachy, and dull.
2. Casablanca. Competent, entertaining romance film inexplicably thought of as one of the best films ever made.
3. Geez, an embarrassment of riches... Best Picture winners are total crap more often than not. I'd have to go with American Beauty, closely followed by The Apartment.
4. Eddie and The Cruisers could have been the Citizen Kane of rock movies in different hands. They totally botched it, though: the worst of their many mistakes was to get some crappy New Jersey bar band to do the music.
5. Well, if a film is really bad a la Robot Monster, it becomes a lot of fun to watch. So I think the worst films are the ones that are just competent enough that you can't make fun of them, but utterly lacking in all other qualities. On that basis, I'd have to say Laurel Canyon was the worst viewing experience I ever had.
6. Hmm... Detour? Not that it was interfered with, exactly... but every tangeable about the film was terrible--acting, writing, production quality, editing--and yet, somehow, it's a damn great film. You'd have to attribute that to the director.
7. Devil and Daniel Webster. Runner-up: The Rapture.

Posted by Kim Scarborough | June 6, 2008 3:44 PM

Yep, E.T. for worst well-regarded. In general, may I remark that Spielberg is the world's greatest B-movie director? "Saving Private Ryan" is the best B war movie ever. Wild card: "A Few Good Men." It had one great line ("YOU CAN"T HANDLE THE TRUTH!"). Otherwise it was a bad episode of NCIS.

Most overhyped. The competition is overwhelming. For some reason I want to say "Michael Bay" but that isn't a film, is it? How about the Matrix sequels? "Speed Racer?" "Pearl Harbor?"

Worst Best Picture. I bow to history. "Greatest Show on Earth" is the worst.

Most disappointing. OK, the Matrix sequels definitely go here. "Speed Racer" moves up on the overhyped list. "Midway" should be dishonorably mentioned -- an All-Star cast and a great subject, yielding a less than mediocre movie.

Worst movie. One day I was so sick that I couldn't even get up to turn off the TV. I watched "The Hunt for Red October" on HBO, then helplessly witnessed "Drop Dead Fred" and "Smilla's Sense of Snow." I'm not saying that either of these two last is the worst movie ever made, but one of them is the worst I've ever seen.
I give the award to "Smilla." There was at least a certain fascination in observing Phoebe Cates's unbending refusal to act in "Fred." But "Smilla" required me to believe, for plot purposes, that Julia Ormond was an ugly, over-the-hill native of Greenland, even though she was dressed and made up like a J. Crew model, and was in fact Julia Ormond. (Also that she could swim out to a ship embarked on a nefarious mission to steal a meteorite from a glacier in Greenland, and join its crew no questions asked, but that's just bad plotting. And don't complain about the spoiler. There are plenty of other twists that no sane viewer could anticipate.)

Worst movie with good direction? I don't know enough to separate things out like this.

Biggest unknown treasure. Leaning, admittedly, more on "unknown" than "treasure," "Vice Versa." A 1948 movie directed by Peter Ustinov, it has a teenaged Anthony Newley in his first major role. He plays a kid who switches bodies with his father. So, through most of the movie, he plays a middle-aged man who is forced to go to boarding school and generally treated as a child. (On the plus side, his girlfriend is Petula Clark.)

Posted by Bob Hawkins | June 6, 2008 3:47 PM

1.) Worst Well Regarded Film - Fargo. I love the Coen brothers, but this film was awful.

2.) Most over hyped film - Phantom Menace. No explanation needed.

3.) Worst film to win a best picture oscar - Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King. It made a lot of money, but it did not do the book justice.

4.) Most disappointing film - Prince Caspian. The first Narnia movie was so much better.

5.) Worst film - Solaris. I actually fell asleep in the theatre during this movie.

6.) Worst movie with good direction - House of Sand and Fog. Looks great, but the most depressing screenplay ever.

7.) Biggest Unknown Treasure - Snow Falling on Cedars. A wonderful and deeply moving film which never really got the attention it deserved.

Posted by John | June 6, 2008 3:49 PM

The worst Best Picture winner is "Million Dollar Baby", one of the most disgusting attempts at emotional bullying ever. I cannot fathom how people can allow themselves to be so crassly manipulated by a movie.

By the way, "Shakespeare in Love" is superior to "Saving Private Ryan", a great half-hour battle scene followed by every imaginable war movie cliche, hammy acting and empty characters.

Posted by Freddie | June 6, 2008 3:49 PM

The worst Best Picture winner is "Million Dollar Baby", one of the most disgusting attempts at emotional bullying ever. I cannot fathom how people can allow themselves to be so crassly manipulated by a movie.

Beat me to it. Not to mention how awful Morgan Freeman is, the fact that the whole thing is shot in darkness/sickly shades of green, the horrible pacing, writing, the mawkish crap with the key lime pie, the execrable Swank-family-comes-back-from-Disney-World scene... you could just go on forever.

Posted by Asher | June 6, 2008 4:10 PM

4) Most disappointing film:
---For me, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". I'd heard literally every joke in the film before I'd seen it, which totally kills the humor, but I can see where it wouldn't be disappointing if you hadn't been ridiculously familiar with it before seeing it.

See, this is a film that has to be watched with a group of friends -- the closer to college age, the better -- who have nothing better to do at 11pm on a Friday night, but do have a disturbingly large stash of junkfood and/or alcohol.

Then it becomes as funny as all get-out.

Posted by aMouseforallSeasons | June 6, 2008 4:11 PM

List like this will be skewed toward recent vintages because history tends to forget bad films. I'm sure their are zilions of 50's era cornball horror movies that could decorate this, if anyone remembered them.

1) Worst well-regarded film -- Jerry Maguire. Some of the most cliched ball peen hammer to the head dialogue ever; massive overacting. It's this movie that makes me sympathize with people who hate LOTR (which I love). Nothing makes your hatred deeper than people trying to tell you it's a great movie.

There seems to be an anti-Spielberg cabal here. What gives?

2) Most overhyped film -- Given that hype is growing exponentially with time, this isn't fair to older films. But I would have to go with Armageddon (or any Bay picture), which made so much money and was soooooo bad.

3) Worst film to win a best picture Oscar - So many choices. I am rarely very impressed by best picture winners. Greatest Show On Earth makes your jaw drop. But you could throw Shakespeare in love (criminal that it beat Private Ryan), Gladiator, Chicago, Kramer vs. Kramer,

4) Most disappointing film - two Matrix sequels

5) Worst movie, full stop. Battlefield Earth has to on this list. I watched this one night, convinced its reputation was anti-Scientology bias. It was not. Awful. Horrible. Plan 9 calibre.

6) Worst movie with good direction - Hulk. Ang Lee is good; the picture is terrible.

7) Biggest unknown treasure - i'd like to point out two comedies. Mr. Roberts (better known among older generations) and Real Genius.

Posted by MikeS | June 6, 2008 4:20 PM

1) Worst well regarded film:
Picking a movie from IMDB's top 250 I would probably chose "The Departed", which is the worst and least interesting movie Scorsese has ever made. His heart doesn't seem to be in it, and the plot is generally handled better and more imaginatively in the original version. Special mention: Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption.
I thought about picking a movie from the Sight and Sound 2002 poll of critics and directors, but all of the top 10 is kind of great, with the possible exception of Singing In The Rain; while it is a great musical that still is hugely enjoyable, it doesn't really belong in a top 10.

2) Most over-hyped film:
All the films in "The Lord of The Rings" trilogy; the effects are kind of great I guess, but the characters, dialogue and acting is extremely wooden and uninvolving. This has most to do with the book not really being any good. I like Peter Jackson, and I can appreciate the effort (and Gollum), but this really bored me.

3) Worst film to win a best picture Oscar:
Having seen all best picture winners my choice for the worst 5 would be Cavalcade (extremely dated and dull), Gentleman's Agreement (dull, dull, dull and didactic), Cimarron (dated and actually racist in a good-humoured way), Around the world in 80 days (unfocused mess) and Titanic (great sets and effects, but the story and acting was an abomination). Special mention: The Departed, The Lord Of The Rings: The Return of The King and Tom Jones.

4)Most disappointing film:
I kind of want to pick the last two Pirates of the Caribbean films or the last two Matrix films. In both cases the first movie was very entertaining and likeable, while the movies that followed took themselves far too seriously. But, painfully, I would have to choose either Eyes Wide Shut or AI. I love Kubricks movies, and both of these movies have moments and elements of greatness, but they don't really work neither artistically nor as entertainment.

5) Worst movie, full stop.
The only movie I have ever wanted to walk out of is The Specialist with Stallone and Sharon Stone. I really wanted James Woods (the bad guy) to slaughter Stallone in the final fight.

6) Worst movie with good direction:
You could really pick any Spielberg film that tries to be serious. He is a good visual director, but he just doesn't take any real chances, and doesn't try to challenge you or himself in any meaningful way.

7) Biggest unknown treasure
It would probably have to be a 70s movie, my pick would be Night Moves by Arthur Penn with Gene Hackman. It is not as great as The Conversation, but it is quite similar in spirit and it has really dated well.

Posted by Kirenaj | June 6, 2008 4:40 PM

2) Most over-hyped film:
All the films in "The Lord of The Rings" trilogy; the effects are kind of great I guess, but the characters, dialogue and acting is extremely wooden and uninvolving. This has most to do with the book not really being any good. I like Peter Jackson, and I can appreciate the effort (and Gollum), but this really bored me.

Uhhhhh...right about here is where you need to concede that the actual problem is, "not my genre". I can understand liking both, or liking only the book since it came first and was more expansive, but if you liked neither, then perhaps fantasy adventure simply isn't your muse. Time and human interest have proven that there is nothing wrong with the books, and the movies did pretty good, too.

Posted by aMouseforallSeasons | June 6, 2008 5:08 PM

My friends and I have a habit of watching awful movies for the purposes of mocking them, and I can think of a few that are really, really bad. Mostly Ed Wood.

For category 4 I'm putting up three entries

Plan 9 From Outer Space -Ed Wood, and Bella Lugosi, who died 1/3 through filming and was replaced by Wood's wife's chiropractor holding a cape over his face for the entire movie.

Bella Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (Title says it all)

And although it wasn't a major release of any kind, the worst thing made in the history of the motion picture by anyone in any context has to be 'Manos, The Hands of Fate.'

From one of the IMDB reviews of Manos, which I think is pretty accurate, describes Manos as follows "The script is non-existent, the acting makes Steven Seagal look like a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the editing could have less horrendously botched by a blind Eskimo with no arms."

Posted by Peter | June 6, 2008 5:16 PM

Worst well-regarded: Forrest Gump, bearing in mind that I've never seen The Greatest Show On Earth.

Most overhyped: Braveheart, which wasn't even the best "Scottish patriots battle the nefarious English" movie of the year it was released.

Worst "Best Picture" winner: Forrest Gump, which was even worse than Braveheart.

Biggest disappointment: Signs. It's easy to make fun of M. Night Shyamalan (fun, too), but The Sixth Sense was a legitimately excellent movie, and I thought Unbreakable was overrated. Then came Signs, which despite a promising cast and premise stank on ice.

Worst movie: Congo.

Best direction in an otherwise awful movie: The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Something has to explain why people fixated on making RHPS into a cult, and I think it's because the badness was channeled so skillfully.

Biggest unknown treasure: While the correct answer is Heavenly Creatures, this has already been nominated, so I'll cast a sympathy vote for Ghost Ship, which by all rights should have been a mediocre slash-flick but turned out to be legitimately gripping.

Posted by cminus | June 6, 2008 5:22 PM

1) Worst well-regarded film
The Piano

2) Most overhyped film (note that this is slightly different from above; the first measures the absolute badness level, while the second measures the delta between reputation and actual quality)
Terminator 2

3) Worst film to win a best picture Oscar
Annie Hall

4) Most disappointing film (ie should have been good but wasn't--Godfather III, Phantom Menace, the latest Indiana Jones atrocity)
Haven't seen the latest Indiana Jones but the other two are tough to beat in this category.

5) Worst movie, full stop. (Must have been a major motion picture release--no direct-to-video, or film festival torture tactics, please)
It has to be among the collected works of Adam Sandler, but I can't narrow it down to just one.

6) Worst movie with good direction (ie terrible script, awful acting, producer interference, etc)
This category contradicts itself: part of the job of a director is getting good performances from the actors.

7) Biggest unknown treasure
Freeway

Posted by Anon Y. Mous | June 6, 2008 5:32 PM

1) Worst well-regarded film REDS

2) Most overhyped film (note that this is slightly different from above; the first measures the absolute badness level, while the second measures the delta between reputation and actual quality)
Casablanca though I like it, it is overhyped, WAY overhyped.

3) Worst film to win a best picture Oscar

Titanic

4) Most disappointing film (ie should have been good but wasn't--Godfather III, Phantom Menace, the latest Indiana Jones atrocity)
agree with Phantom Menace

5) Worst movie, full stop. (Must have been a major motion picture release--no direct-to-video, or film festival torture tactics, please)
Battlefield Earth...my brain wailing at the memory...

6) Worst movie with good direction (ie terrible script, awful acting, producer interference, etc)
The 13th Warrior The interference and screw ups in production are legendary... I wish they would remake it competantly. Blade Runner a close second...

7) Biggest unknown treasure
Legend ...back when Tom cruise wasn't such a self absorbed idiot. I think you may never see a better Demon/Satan either...

Posted by SwissArmyD | June 6, 2008 5:39 PM

5) Worst movie, full stop. (Must have been a major motion picture release--no direct-to-video, or film festival torture tactics, please)

Godsend. This movie had Robert de Niro, so I thought it might be good. Unspeakably bad. It's about a couple whose one child is killed; Robert de Niro is a mad scientist type who offers to clone their child so that they can have him all over again. But at age 8 or 9 (I forget), the clone starts acting homicidal. Turns out that Robert de Niro somehow mixed in the genes of his own son, who had himself was a homicidal maniac that had died. So the clone (even while looking exactly like the couple's own son) somehow took on the same homicidal qualities when he turned the same age that Robert de Niro's son had been when he died. The movie ends with the clone trying to kill his mother in one scene, and then in the next scene (with no explanation) they've moved into a new house.

Posted by Stuart Buck | June 6, 2008 5:47 PM

1) Blade Runner - Bad acting, laughable imagery, "Ooh look at me I'm a Christ Figure!"

2) Citizen Kane - Supposedly the best movie ever, with grandiose voice-overs that would get a film student laughed at in class.

3) The worst of the ones I've seen was "Dances with wolves", though I think that might make a good reality show.

4) Definitely Godfather III. The first two were great examples of one of my favorite genres. The third...ugh

5) I think I must stick my tongue in an outlet whenever I see a bad movie. I can't remember seeing any of the major releases people agree are bad. I vaguely remember "The Avengers".

6) I don't know, but it was almost certainly made in Hong Kong.

7) "The Girl Most Likely To", probably the best network made-for-TV movie ever. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070112/

8) (yeah, there was no #8) My favorite guilty pleasure is also a made-for-tv movie from 1973, "Don't be afraid of the dark" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069992/

Posted by Njorl | June 6, 2008 6:02 PM

As long as we are willing to skewer comedy classics like "Some Like it Hot" (the nomination of which I totally endorse), lets include any Marx Brothers film in either category 1 or category 2. --sw

Posted by Scott Wood | June 6, 2008 6:19 PM

disinvited to movie night, you're right, The Cell was crap with a great director. Fortunately, the director, Tarsem Singh, has a new one out right this moment in a filmhouse near you: "The Fall." And it's even more brilliant, visually, and has a good plot, cast, etc. TARSEM, as he is now called, spent his own money to make it, co-wrote the screenplay, etc. etc. It's brilliant, and entirely makes up for The Cell.

Posted by LAN3 | June 6, 2008 6:23 PM

5) The Traveling Executioner, one of the many films funded in the wake of Easy Rider. Give lots of money to a young counter-cultural director, and he'll make you as rich as Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper did -- yeah right.

6) Worst movie with good direction (ie terrible script, awful acting, producer interference, etc)
I have to agree with the previous commenter who suggested any intentionally serious Spielberg movie. In particular, AI is appallingly mawkish -- there's a good movie under there if the right editor re-cut it, and removed about an hour. Similarly, Private Ryan has moments of film genius with an overall sentimentality that just killed it for me -- I would paid five times as much as the admission price not to have had to watch the last 5 minutes.
Robert Bresson's Lancelot of the Lake is a close second, but that was intentional.

Posted by rashomon | June 6, 2008 6:29 PM

Biggest unknown treasure

The Terry Gilliam film that almost didn't get released: Brazil.

Posted by big al | June 6, 2008 6:57 PM

1) Worst well-regarded film

Moulin Rouge: Chacun a son gout and all, but, um, wow.

2) Most overhyped film (note that this is slightly different from above; the first measures the absolute badness level, while the second measures the delta between reputation and actual quality)

Raising Arizona. The brothers Coen went on to do great things, but I found this early work of theirs truly dismal. I saw The French Connection recently too (for the first time) and I must say I don't think it holds up well, given the massive hype

3) Worst film to win a best picture Oscar

Gump narrowly edges out Silence of the Lambs.

4) Most disappointing film (ie should have been good but wasn't--Godfather III, Phantom Menace, the latest Indiana Jones atrocity)

New York, New York. Scorcese, DeNiro, and a still young dynamo full of talent named Liza Minelli. Shouldda been good. It wasn't. An honorable mention goes to Good Morning Vietnam.

5) Worst movie, full stop. (Must have been a major motion picture release--no direct-to-video, or film festival torture tactics, please)

Well, it was far from the worst, but Dreamgirls sure seems like it was the longest.

6) Worst movie with good direction direction.

Saving Private Ryan. The first half hour rocked. The rest not so much.

7) Biggest unknown treasure

Since several people including yours truly are knocking Spielberg, I'll say Munich. Really terrific film making (though, yeah, hardly "unknown"). I'm a big fan of a quiet little mid 90s movie called A Simple Plan -- Billy Bob Thornton gave a truly harrowing performance. I'm still expecting a best actor statue for him one day because of it. Another one I'll recommend -- especially to jazz fans -- is a mid 80s chestnut starring the late Dexter Gordon called Round Midnight.

Posted by Jasper | June 6, 2008 6:58 PM

2) Citizen Kane - Supposedly the best movie ever, with grandiose voice-overs that would get a film student laughed at in class.

That's because 68 years worth of filmmakers have been ripping it off.

Posted by RMc | June 6, 2008 7:51 PM

1) Worst well-regarded film

I'm gonna go with Eyes Wide Shut here. The plot is ludicrous, the script is laughably bad, the characters are unrealistic (the writers must have been time-warped in from the Victorian era, being utterly shocked that people are sometimes tempted to stray from their marriages or that women have sex for pleasure), the acting is terrible (Cruise and Kidman can't play a married couple convincingly even when they were one), the direction is heavy-handed, and the message is muddled and pretentious. Terrible, terrible way for the director of Dr. Strangelove to exit the stage.

2) Most overhyped film

It's hard to think of one that tops The Phantom Menace, but The Matrix Reloaded is close.

3) Worst film to win a best picture Oscar

Of the ones I've seen, this one's easy - Crash was terrible. Contrived, preachy, overacted, and utterly unrealistic.

4) Most disappointing film (ie should have been good but wasn't--Godfather III, Phantom Menace, the latest Indiana Jones atrocity)

Troy. Good director, fantastic cast, big special effects budget, impeccable source material, and the result was a technologically spiffier version of 50's/60's sword-and-sandal camp.

5) Worst movie, full stop. (Must have been a major motion picture release--no direct-to-video, or film festival torture tactics, please)

Swordfish. Still trying to scrub the stink of this one from my cerebrum the better part of a decade after seeing it.

6) Worst movie with good direction (ie terrible script, awful acting, producer interference, etc)

The first Narnia film. Great looking CGI and well-staged battle scenes but completely fails to produce the magic of the best fantasy films.

7) Biggest unknown treasure

My personal favorite is the 1966 anti-war satire King of Hearts starring Alan Bates. Sort of a kindler, gentler Strangelove.

Posted by Xeynon | June 6, 2008 8:22 PM

I completely agree with "A Simple Plan".

Thornton's performance is one of the best performances ever. His portrayal of a slightly dim, down on his luck individual (but knows this) is amazing.

Posted by Brad | June 6, 2008 8:34 PM

1) Fantasia

2) Braveheart- if I have to watch it one more time on TBS, TNT, or USA I will poke my eyes out.

3) Titanic

4) Gangs of New York- Cameron Diaz is not a particularly convincing redhead.

5) Has no one else here seen Alexander? I mean, it has a literal bird's eye view battle scene...

Posted by Tim | June 6, 2008 8:41 PM

Just because I feel that most people generally agree on bad movies, I'm going to throw out a few more "unknown treasures":

"Ed Wood". By far Tim Burton's best film, lovingly acted and deliciously campy. It makes the real Ed Wood's terrible movies totally worth their existence.

"The Fisher King". I'm a huge fan of Terry Gilliam generally, and this film is definitely no exception. The story is really powerful IMHO and the performances are great. It's sad that a movie that can be simultaneously so serious, whimsical, funny, sad, and satirical can be so ignored.

"Ha:xan". (The colon should be an umlaut... but I don't know how to type that.) I actually just watched this Danish silent film on TCM last weekend, and it's a really fascinating half-horror-half-documentary film about witchcraft superstitions. You have to keep in mind that it was made when film was young, however, because it completely disregards any sort of genre conventions, simply because they didn't really exist back in 1922.

"Hannah and Her Sisters". This is one of Woody Allen's films that people tend to be less familiar with, but it's probably his best. And it actually is way, way better if you read the screenplay, which is really well-crafted and adds a lot of insight to the film.

"Paris, je t'aime". Actually a collection of short films, this film is just fantastic. I thought I would feel bored after about two or three segments, but it just gets better and better, it really does. And speaking of French films...

"Delicatessen". Jean Pierre-Jeunet's Sweeney-Todd-esque science fiction film is definitely almost as good as "(Le Fabuleux Destin d') Amélie (Poulain)". Certainly it doesn't seem fair that "Amélie" receives so much attention when this film receives so little. But it is French, so I shouldn't expect too many people to know about it.

"Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore". I think people ignore this movie because they prefer to think of Martin Scorsese as a manly-film maker, with a lot of violence, language, sex, but this film has none of that. However, it still has all the attention to character development and psychological introspection of his best-loved films.

I guess I'll stop there... but I really like this "unknown treasure" category!

Posted by Seth | June 6, 2008 8:54 PM

1) Worst well-regarded film

La Vie en Rose.

Posted by brooksfoe | June 6, 2008 9:34 PM

Overhyped: I have to go along with Bladerunner , a movie I really like and will happily watch anytime, just like say From Dusk til Dawn . But that doesn't make either one a classic.

Underappreciated but not necessarily obscure: Mildred Pierce , The Conformist 1970ish Bertolucci before he got silly, and for bouts of nihilistic Gotterdamerung when Wagner is just too heavy, The Wild Bunch

Posted by Gene | June 6, 2008 10:26 PM

1) Worst well-regarded film

Going down the IMDB Top 250, the first truly bad movie to appear is "Little Miss Sunshine". I hate movies that patronize their characters.

2) Most over-hyped film

"One the Waterfront" is not a bad movie, but it is not overly memorable. However, it is treated like a genuine classic.

3) Worst film to win a best picture Oscar

"Braveheart" is utterly joyless to watch.

4) Most disappointing film

"The Phantom Menace" was bound to be disappointing after the wait, but still it didn't have to be that disappointing.

5) Worst movie, full stop.

"Batman & Robin" is dollar-for-dollar the worst movie ever made.

6) Worst movie with good direction (ie terrible script, awful acting, producer interference, etc)

7) Biggest unknown treasure

Kubrick's "The Killing" is a taut, acid gem that I rarely hear discussed.

Posted by Dean | June 6, 2008 11:54 PM

I'm going to be lazy and say "Titanic" for the first five categories.

Posted by Reality Man | June 7, 2008 1:18 AM

1) "Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid"

2) Any Disney animated movie since 2002.

3) "Ben-Hur". I will now run away. Quickly.

4) You're going to hurt me for this one. "16 Candles."

5) Easy one. "Airborne"

6) "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom." I don't think I need to explain that one.

7) "Pump Up The Volume"

Posted by Off Colfax | June 7, 2008 2:56 AM

#1: I am going to interpret the question as "highest rated movie on IMDb which I rate rock bottom"; at the moment, that's The Deer Hunter.

#2: Hype does not last for long. At the moment, I'd say that the most over-hyped is V for Vendetta.

I decline to answer all the middle questions.

#7: "Himalaya - l'enfance d'un chef".

Bonus Q & As:
Most underrated epic: Conan the Barbarian.
Most underrated comedy: Mystery Men.

Posted by Snorri Godhi | June 7, 2008 3:09 AM

(1) "It's a Wonderful Life." Surely I can't be the only American who hates this--I've never met any of the others, though.

(5) "Spencer's Mountain." Even sappier than "It's a Wonderful Life." But not so well known.

Posted by Alan Gunn | June 7, 2008 8:12 AM

1) Worst well-regarded film

The Passenger, directed by name-brand alleged genius Antonioni. During the 30's or 40's, some wag in a studio poster department put together a single scene in which every major prohibition of the then-regnant Hayes Code was violated. The Passenger serves as an unintended (one presumes) full-length filmic analogue - an encyclodedic example of everything loathsome and detestable about post-war European cinema rolled into one interminable, excruciating film.

2) Most overhyped film (note that this is slightly different from above; the first measures the absolute badness level, while the second measures the delta between reputation and actual quality)

I've got to go with Out of Africa, despite the recent death of its director making this a case of speaking ill of the freshly dead.

3) Worst film to win a best picture Oscar

See (2) above.

4) Most disappointing film (ie should have been good but wasn't--Godfather III, Phantom Menace, the latest Indiana Jones atrocity)

Conan the Barbarian. John Milius somehow managed to waste the awesome physicality of the young Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sandahl Bergman and captured essentially none of the atmospherics that make the original Robert Howard stories such good reads.

5) Worst movie, full stop. (Must have been a major motion picture release--no direct-to-video, or film festival torture tactics, please)

I haven't seen Battlefield Earth and don't intend to, but I fully believe its detractors to have a very defensible case because there is nothing worse than a bad John Travolta vehicle. I'm sympathetic to nomination of Swordfish for this reason alone. But I have to give the edge to The Punisher. Swordfish has to rank at least a bit higher if only because of the gratuitous flash of Halle Berry's splendid breasts.

6) Worst movie with good direction (ie terrible script, awful acting, producer interference, etc)

Put the name of pretty much any Michael Bay movie here. Up until Transformers, which was uncharacteristically muddy and poorly framed, I'd have said the man had an unfailing eye for the arresting image/composition combined with a hopelessly tin ear for absolutely everything else needed to make a good movie. Now his eye seems to be getting dodgy as well.

7) Biggest unknown treasure

Another enthusiatic vote here for Penn's Night Moves. I would also offer the names of John Milius's best film, The Wind and the Lion, and an early post-war British gem starring Jimmy Stewart, No Highway in the Sky.

Posted by Dick Eagleson | June 7, 2008 9:25 AM

Having just saw "Prince Caspian" with my son, I was wondering if there would be interest in another category: movies that were significantly better than the books on which they were based. "Caspian" fits the bill, as the book is the worst one in the Narnia series by far. The other one I can think of off the top of my head is "The Firm".

As for BD, I am torn. There are categories of movies that fit the bill of getting in BD, a few that I have in DVD that I will get as soon as they come out in BD ("Lawrence of Arabia"), and some, as it has been said, that make zero sense to get in high-def.

Posted by rlgordonma | June 7, 2008 9:34 AM

Most overhyped film is surely Gone With the Wind.

Posted by tsiroth | June 7, 2008 10:41 AM

1) Reds.

2) Phantom Menace. Not that I didn't line up to see it the first weekend anyway...

3) A Beautiful Mind

4) tie- Phantom Menace and Godfather III (which should have been AWESOME)

5) Ishtar. Come on, seriously. Ishtar.

6) Titanic

7) Lots of them. God bless Netflix. Recently I've seen Monsoon Wedding, Eat Drink Man Woman, Shirley Valentine, and that's just a start.

Posted by jonathan | June 7, 2008 11:07 AM

3.) Worst film to win a best picture oscar

Let us never, never forget that Rocky won best picture. And best director. This is when I stopped paying attention to the Oscars. (What is it with boxing movies, anyway?)

4.) Most disappointing film

Buckaroo Banzai. When you've got a brain-surgeon particle physicist rock-'n-roll star lead, with blue eyes that can remove womens' clothing with a glance, how can you go wrong? But they did.

7.) Biggest Unknown Treasure

Funny Bones. The blackest, funniest black comedy I know. Think: a morgue scene that has tears of laughter streaming down your face.

Posted by Steve Roth | June 7, 2008 11:28 AM

rlgordonma, really? My wife and I planned on rereading all the Narnia books before the first movie came out, but Prince Caspian was so bad we quit halfway through and didn't read the rest. If it's the worst, maybe we should just skip it and get on with the rest.

1) The Bicycle Thief. Ugh, it was awful.

4) Matrix Revolutions. Reloaded could have been completely redeemed if Revolutions had been great. But alas it was awful.

I don't quite get the Phantom Menace hatred. I mean, sure, something of a disappointment, but nothing in it is as bad as the worst bits of Return of the Jedi. Attack of the Clones was a bigger disappointment to me, because instead of fixing the flaws of Menace, they amplified and highlighted them. There's nothing in Menace I want to fast-forward through the way I do the allegedly romantic scenes in Clones.

Posted by Sol | June 7, 2008 11:44 AM

1) I've gotta go with The Thin Red Line here. Maybe I was a bit on the young side when it came out, but I remember it as being eye-stabbingly awful.

2) Blair Witch Project/Napoleon Dynamite

3) Could it be anything but Forrest Gump?

4) This is a personal one for me: Ghostbusters II. I loved the original as a child, and I waited impatiently for the 6 or 7 years it took for them to get around to making a sequel. That it turned out to be so bad was perhaps not unexpected, but still deeply disappointing.

5) It's impossible to pick just one. Off the top of my head, a recent movie with absolutely no redeeming value whatsoever would be something like The Ring 2. Just utterly pointless. (Killer deer? Really?) I found Wertmuller's Swept Away to be pretty contemptible, along with Visconti's Death in Venice.

6) I'm going with Requiem for a Dream. It's a poorly aged film substance-wise, but a powerful visual work nonetheless.

7) Not exactly an unknown, but more or less forgotten: The X-Files. I was a big fan of the show, so I'm biased, but it is actually fairly engrossing, well-acted, and visually pleasing, if overlong and convoluted plotwise (unless you were current with the show's story through season 5). Another one would be Visconti's Ossessione. A gorgeous neorealist work.

Posted by sciascia | June 7, 2008 1:15 PM

I'd like to be able to say that Crash was the worst best picture win in recent years, but I could only get through about 10 minutes of it before I was like, you have got to be kidding me and I left the room. I think Shakespeare in Love is a terrific picture, and I especially like that it didn't fit the usual Best Picture molds — it's not a self-consciously important "issue" flick, it's not about a disease or disability, and it's not a bloated, guy-style epic like Gladiator or Dances with Wolves. Its main attribute, I think, besides its romantic, emotional content, is literateness, something it seems like the Academy can usually take or leave.

Posted by HJA | June 7, 2008 1:28 PM

Unknown treasure! "Martin," by George Romero, 1978. A very peculiar, low-budget, sort-of vampire movie with a lot of 1970's anomie in it. Allmovie calls it his best non-zombie movie and I bet that's right.

"Q: the Winged Serpent"? 1982, by Larry Cohen? Another cult movie, 70's in feel despite its release date, and more funny and thrilling a la "The Night Stalker" than moody. Michael Moriarty is fantastic.

Speaking of the 70's, everyone knows that "The Taking of Pelham One-Two-Three" is great, right? Yes, the original, with Walter Matthau, not the remake.

"Pickup on South Street" — real hardboiled noir from Sam Fuller, has a sort of gangster vs. commies thing going on, if I remember correctly (it came out in 1953). Richard Widmark is in it, he's great.

Not very obscure, but "The Thin Man" — the first of those movies — is really good, and tougher and less whimsical than the later ones. But still very funny, great for drinkers.

Posted by HJA | June 7, 2008 2:34 PM

With regards to Blu-Ray, most decent HDTV's have good upscalers on their DVD inputs - unless you're buying the movie primarily for the visuals, there's no reason not to own it at the lower price point.

The rea question is, as I currently have DVDs and not a DVD player, and have no intention of buying a Blu-Ray player (whose prices won't be falling anytime soon) or Apple TV at this time, do I buy a standard DVD player to tide me over, or just make do with the laptop?

Posted by Craig M. | June 7, 2008 2:36 PM

7.) Biggest Unknown Treasure - The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
A delightful and deeply moving film which never really got the special attention it deserved. Perhaps the finest movie ever made

Posted by Alex | June 7, 2008 2:37 PM

7.) Biggest Unknown Treasure

Hmm.. Arizona Dream comes to mind. Johnny Depp, Jerry Lewis, Faye Dunaway, Lili Taylor, Vincent Gallo and Paulina Porizkova are directed by Emir Kusturica. What else do you want or need? A fish and some dogs also take part! I think the story is about how we become our parents albeit working against it.. but who knows. Warner Bros never released the movie

Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984) might come across better today in the light of confirmed environmental destruction than it did back in 1984. Some people say that certain scenes are unintentionally funny - I do not agree. After having read the book Next of Kin in which the author explains some interesting background info to the makings of the film, as well as the connection between human autism and apes signing in ASL.I see conscious humor and other messages in the film. Humans in ape costumes will always look silly but then again.. have you ever been to Wall Street or Mao's China? A film that Thoreau and Emerson would approve of.

A genius Ian Holm, a fit Christopher Lambert, a young and synchronized Andie MacDowell (she didn't know how to speak English at the time but partook in one of the sweetest love scenes that I have witnessed), Ralph Richardson.. etc.

Posted by Hugo Pottisch | June 7, 2008 7:31 PM

Hudson Hawk is the worst movie ever made.

Posted by mj | June 7, 2008 8:36 PM

Unknown treasure: "Our Man in Havana"

Which was unavailable for years and years, though it stars Alec Guinness and Ernie Kovacs, and is based on a Graham Greene novel.

Posted by Jim Miller | June 7, 2008 10:27 PM

"Hudson Hawk is the worst movie ever made."

Bite your tongue sir! It's a tour de farce.

As for the DVD to Bluray switch I saw an excellent comment on the topic on another forum where someone pointed out that even the old movies can benefit greatly from HD but it's a question of the methods which the studio uses to make the conversion. If they still have access to good prints then good HD version is a definite posibility. So it makes sense to decided on a case-by-case basis.

Posted by Nick | June 8, 2008 1:12 AM

1) Worst well-regarded film

An Inconvenient Truth.

2) Most overhyped film

Pulp Fiction.

3) Worst film to win a best picture Oscar

American Beauty

4) Most disappointing film (ie should have been good but wasn't--Godfather III, Phantom Menace, the latest Indiana Jones atrocity)

Casino Royale (2007)

5) Worst movie, full stop. (Must have been a major motion picture release--no direct-to-video, or film festival torture tactics, please)

Battlefield Earth

6) Worst movie with good direction (ie terrible script, awful acting, producer interference, etc)

pass

7) Biggest unknown treasure

Mystery Men

Posted by Robert Duquette | June 8, 2008 2:16 AM

Worst movie, full stop - The Snows of Kilimanjaro, with Gregory Peck and Susan Hayward. I doubt that anyone else has watched this in the last 20 years. It destroys brain cells for two hours and then ends with Gregory Peck's miraculous, abrupt, incredibly frustrating but totally unexplained recovery from gangrene.

Posted by ahab | June 8, 2008 8:53 AM

1. Worst well-regarded film: The English Patient (Mesmerising, sensuous, sinuous, richly layered...do I need to go on?) I must say, I've always had a hard spot for His Girl Friday, a super-paced ode to urban cleverness that merely fatigues.

2. Most overhyped: Philadelphia ('The Green Berets' for Gays). The leaden 2001 is a strong contender, so replete with insignificant significance...rather like those Chinese character tattoos.

3. Worst to win the Oscar: American Beauty (Message: the 'burbs are bad, and, worse, they're not cool.) But score half a star for 'Bali Hai'.

4. Most disappointing: yeah...that third Godfather.

5. Worst, full stop: 7even maybe? (super-bleak euro-atmospherics meet bubble-gum dialogue - eg 'I'm getting too old for this'.)

6. Worst well-made movie: Capote. Perfect crafting of perfect crud.

7. Unknown treasure: Try The Uninvited, genuinely eerie with a ripper of a plot twist. And you get 'Stella by Starlight' on the track.

Thanks guys, this was fun.

Posted by Robert Townshend | June 8, 2008 9:03 AM

Add a vote for "The Taking of Pelham One-Two-Three" as underappreciated treasure. The acting of Matthau and Shaw; astonishing sense of place (1970s New York); sharp and funny writing ("14 sure votes ..."); a soundtrack to beat all; plus tying up the entire plot with the movie's very last word ("Gesundheit").

Posted by David Walker | June 8, 2008 9:05 AM

Why would anyone who had seen Return of the Jedi have been disappointed by The Phantom Menace?

Posted by roac | June 8, 2008 11:28 AM

I agree with those voting for American Beauty for #3. For most disappointing, I'm surprised no one has mentioned Starship Troopers; perhaps because fans of the book realized very early in the prerelease publicity that it was going to be a disaster.

Longer exploration of my picks here.

Posted by Jim Hu | June 8, 2008 12:49 PM

(1) Dances With Wolves- The musical score is the only good part of it.

(2) Casablanca I love this movie, but really, to call it one of the best movies of all time is a bit much.

(3) The Greatest Show on Earth. This is fairly common choice amongst movie critics, and having seen half of it once, I really have to bow their wisdom on this one. However, Tootsie and Shakespeare in Love get honorable mentions.

(4) The Phantom Menace wins hands down. The subsequent two episodes are equally bad, but by the time they arrived my expectations were in the basement (actually underneath the concrete floor).

(5) Matrix Revolutions. Would have been a good choice for #4, but the second one was bad enough that I didn't have high expectations any longer, so I moved this one down to category 5. This movie is simply incoherent on a level rarely reached by even the mentally ill.

(6) The Shining. Stanley Kubrick was a brilliant director, but the script and the acting are horrid, but everything else is done with a high level of skill.

(7) There are a number of well-known, unknown treasures such as Double Indemnity or The Conversation, but of the recent 20-25 years, I would have to select Lone Star by John Sayles or Blood Simple by the Coen brothers. Two great films that are rarely known by anyone.
(6)

Posted by Yancey Ward | June 8, 2008 1:45 PM

Worst movie that should have worked: Battlefield Earth. Hundreds of millions of dollars, and they can't get the camera on a level tripod. Plus John Travolta enunciates each individual "Ha!" in his maniacal laughter, which--take note, world conquerers--is not right.

Unknown treasure: The Lizard. Iranian film, came out in '06 or so. It's a good fun crowd-pleaser that's actually smart when it plays with religion, which doesn't happen every day. V. v. unknown, though, b/c it rocked Teheran's box office for three weeks and got banned. AFAIK there's no official release, but a few prints made it out of the country before the ban. You can find decently subtitled versions w. some looking.

Unless you live in King County, Washington, where the local libraries have it. Yay for tech industry immigration!

Posted by Tim | June 8, 2008 4:01 PM

Numbers 1-6 all go to the offensive baby-boomer circle-jerk that is Forrest Gump. For an unknown treasure I would nominate You Can Count On Me and Zero Effect.

Posted by Bob | June 8, 2008 9:07 PM

1: Worst Well-regarded film: Chicago. It's great, except when Renee Z. "sings" and "dances".

2: Worst most-hyped film: An Inconvenient Truth. It's not a documentary, it's a power-point presentation. Guggenheim's so lucky he's married to Elizabeth Shue. SATC is close, though.

3: Worst Best Picture is Ordinary People. It beat Raging Bull, remember?

4: Biggest disappointment: One From the Heart and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

5 and 6: Eyes Wide Shut is the worst big-release film made by a well-regarded director with high-priced movie stars. The Last Tango in Paris is a close, very close 2nd.

7: Where The Day Takes You, Light Sleeper, and Withnail and I deserve to be better known.

Posted by Kate | June 8, 2008 10:33 PM

"The rea question is, as I currently have DVDs and not a DVD player, and have no intention of buying a Blu-Ray player (whose prices won't be falling anytime soon) or Apple TV at this time, do I buy a standard DVD player to tide me over, or just make do with the laptop?"

You know, the time you are spending agonizing over this question is worth more than it costs to buy a DVD player these days. Honestly, they're one step away from putting them in happy meals.

Posted by MikeS | June 9, 2008 12:24 AM

1) Worst well-regarded film

TR: I'm tempted to say "Most anything by Kubrick." I didn't care for "Dr. Strangelove" or "2001: A Space Odyssey." I'm almost tempted to think "2001: A Space Odyssey" is some kind of scam and that the number of people who actually like it is way smaller than the number who claim to like it.

2) Most overhyped film (note that this is slightly different from above; the first measures the absolute badness level, while the second measures the delta between reputation and actual quality)

TR: If we're talking disparity between reputation and reality then I'll say "Rules of the Game" or "La Regle du Jeu." This is classed as so very brilliant on these film polls that I felt I had to see it. However it kind of struck me as just a mediocre comedy that was kind of silly and full of unlikeable characters. (I think it gets rewarded because of the circumstances surrounding its making, but if so then what should be highlighted is a documentary about that)

A runner-up would be "Amadeus", which for some reason I have a weirdly hostile reaction to. I don't like movies where I hate most every character and hope they all just go away.

3) Worst film to win a best picture Oscar

TR: I've not seen enough of the winners to judge.

4) Most disappointing film (ie should have been good but wasn't--Godfather III, Phantom Menace, the latest Indiana Jones atrocity)

TR: Phantom Menace is a good choice. As would the Matrix sequel.

5) Worst movie, full stop. (Must have been a major motion picture release--no direct-to-video, or film festival torture tactics, please)

TR: If we can't count things like "Fire Maidens from Outer Space" than I guess "Highlander 2: The Quickening."

6) Worst movie with good direction (ie terrible script, awful acting, producer interference, etc)

TR: Uncertain.

7) Biggest unknown treasure

TR: "Happy Accidents", a weird but kind of fun sci-fi/Romance thing. I also like "Forget Paris", but I'm not sure it counts as unknown.

Posted by Thomas R | June 9, 2008 2:17 AM

I think I may have focused too much on the "unknown" element of 7. If what's wanted is more "lesser known treasure" than I'd go "Groundhog Day" and "The Dark Crystal."

Posted by Thomas R | June 9, 2008 2:29 AM

1. Worst well-regarded film
- Surprised no one has mentioned Lost in Translation. Utterly pointless.
- Glad to see that someone else mentioned Thin Red Line. Unbelievably pretentious.

2. Most overhyped film
Apocalypse Now Redux. The original is actually pretty good. I remember watching Francis babbling away in Hearts of Darkness (the very

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