12. Any zombie film ever made. I guess its perhaps due to the success of The Walking Dead tv show, but I will be so happy when this zombie craze goes away. I've never at all understood what was supposed to be scary about zombies. They're not scary and it's not even like the worst horror movies in that they're not so bad that they're funny. Zombie films as a whole are an utter bore and all have the same predictable plot line, usually terrible acting and for that matter, they're really unpleasant to look at. I'm sure that speaks to the job that the makeup people do in these films, but they're just absolutely unpleasant to look at. Even films that are meant to satirize these films, such as Shaun of the Dead are utterly atrocious as well and that's bad because Simon Pegg is not a bad actor in any way. It's just a shame that he was dragged down by a total waste of a film that is neither funny nor scary. Basically that's the best way to describe anything to do with zombies. Not funny, not scary and a complete waste of cinematic time.
11. O Brother Where Art Thou. Everyone loves the Coen Brothers. Dan Le Batard has stated on television that "those guys are incapable of making an uninteresting movie." Well I beg to differ. In fact, the Coen's not only are capable of making an uninteresting movie, they're little more than one hit wonders as far as directors go. For the record here, I have not seen Fargo so I can't comment on that film, but I have seen this one mentioned above, The Big Lebowski, The Ladykillers, True Grit and No Country For Old Men and of all those, No Country For Old Men is the only one of them that even begins to approach "good." But I digress. I guess I should've made this entry about the Coen Brothers entire filmography but I picked the one here that I think is most beloved of the list that I just absolutely hate. The story is a badly executed loose re-telling of Homer's The Odyssey and yet the Coen's have the nerve to insult me by telling me that they've never read the story before. So you guys are not only piss-poor filmmakers, you're also flat liars? A winning combination in my book. But again, I digress. Let's look at the main star of the film, George Clooney. Where did this guy get his popularity from? He's like this generation's Pauly Shore. Okay, maybe not that bad. I mean he has made one good movie and that was the Ocean's 11 remake. And while I'm on the subject, Pauly Shore did at least make one decent movie with In The Army Now. So by my scorecard, they're both even on the scale of decent movies between them. Another major player in this film is John Goodman. My Lord the Coen's have such an ability for wasting this man's talent. O Brother Where Art Thou indeed. That's my exact quote to my television remote whenever this movie comes on tv. It's not funny, it's not heartwarming, it's not even interesting and having George Clooney shoved at me for 2 hours is never a winning proposition.
10. Mortal Kombat (1995). I'm stretching a bit when I say everyone else "loves" this film, but at the same time, when you ask most people what the best video game film adaptation is, usually Mortal Kombat ranks in the top 3 and in many cases, it ranks as the top of the list. The only other film I've ever seen that consistently ranks as high as this one is Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children which, as I understand it, is not an adaptation of the game but more or less a continuation of the game's story line. Why do I hate this movie so much? Simple. It has so very little to do with the actual game itself. Basically the creators took a generic martial arts movie, slapped a few character's names into it, called it Mortal Kombat and there you go. I guess I don't really hate the film for being a bad film per se. It has a good performance by Cary Tagawa as Shang Tsung but other than that, most of the characters are utterly forgettable. I guess my biggest gripe is that the film is EXTREMELY tame. You just can't have Mortal Kombat without violence and blood. We all should've known what would be coming by the first trailers released in 1995 which showed the movie had a PG-13 rating. This movie can't be properly made without an R rating. Beyond that, the movie follows very little of the actual Mortal Kombat tournament itself which should be the focal point of any film based on this franchise. How in the hell does Johnny Cage get to fight Goro simply by asking? He wins one fight and somehow asks to get to Goro when Goro is the last guy you get to before Shang Tsung. And who are all these fighters that none of us have ever seen or heard of? Just a jumbled and total mess of a film that somehow 17 years later is still held in high regard by video game film fans and Mortal Kombat fans.
9. Batman (1966). This one makes the list more because of the television show that it was made from. Prior to Christopher Nolan's masterpiece trilogy, I was not a fan of Batman and to be honest, I still am not a fan outside of Nolan's trilogy. I have seen Keaton's Batman and didn't like it beyond Jack Nicholson as the Joker and none of the sequels to it are any good either. But the worst of all here is the 1960's version of Batman. For the record, I'm referring to the movie and television show since they're basically one and the same. This film/series took Batman towards a campy tone and both are just unwatchable. I like a good satire but this movie/show went beyond satire and was just plain insulting. Even as an 8 year old child seeing this for the first time, it was an experience in which my feelings were literally hurt by seeing it because I just felt dirty and insulted. It was one of the first instances that I can remember feeling the need to take a shower simply after viewing it. There's nothing redeeming whatsoever about anything related to this version of Batman. It basically took Bob Kane's work and made into the butt of a joke and how this version of Batman became popular (AND STILL IS) is something I will never get. In fact, I've heard quite a few people make the statement that this version of Batman is still the best version. I simply can't reply to that because if you truly believe that, you're beyond intelligent discussion.
8. Spiderman Trilogy. This falls under a similar category as Batman in that I don't usually like superheroes. Whereas Chris Nolan made one of the best film trilogies in history with a character that I don't really care too much for, Sam Raimi took a character I didn't care for and simply reinforced that apathy and really turned it from apathy into hatred. Tobey Maguire might actually be a pretty good actor but he certainly wasn't here. In fact there is nothing redeemable about any of the performances in this entire trilogy. The only one of them that resembled "good" was Thomas Haden Church as The Sandman in part 3. Let's talk about part 3 as it is indeed the worst of the worst in this trilogy. A jumbled mess with no real tangible plot line(same can be said for the other 2 as well) as well as apparently a mandate by Marvel to showcase as many villains as possible. Someone a long time ago made the statement about Spiderman 3 which was "too many crooks can spoil the broth" and I'm inclined to agree wholeheartedly although this broth was spoiled and rotten before it even made it to the stockpot. An overhyped, overrated film trilogy that somehow lead to literally billions of dollars in returns. Personally, if you want to see a film that is everything this film wants to be and literally can't be, find 12 Angry Men sometime because that film is the prototype for how you take a wide variety of characters, make them all interesting, and give them all plenty of screen time without making the film an utter waste.
7. It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. I will sum up my hatred for this film with a couple of sentences followed by the cast listing for this film straight from Wikipedia. How in the hell can a film with this cast be so boring and not funny? It just doesn't seem possible to me but it's here before my eyes. This film has to be one of the biggest disappointments in my lifetime of watching movies. It isn't the worst I've ever seen but it's certainly up there with most disappointing given all the praise I've read about it over the years. I watched the movie twice and literally never cracked a smile. None of the main characters in it are in anyway redeemable or even likable which is just amazing given some of the people in this cast. One day, I hope to watch Inherit The Wind and Judgment At Nuremberg. Both films directed by Stanley Kramer who also directed this train wreck. I fear for them but perhaps he's better at dramas than he is "comedy" and I use that last term loosely with this film. Anyway, here's the cast list and just remember that NOT ONE of these names turned in anything that was good or even funny in this "comedy."
Main actors
- Sid Caesar as Melville Crump
- Edie Adams as Monica Crump
- Milton Berle as J. Russell Finch
- Dorothy Provine as Emmeline Marcus-Finch
- Ethel Merman as Mrs. Marcus
- Jonathan Winters as Lennie Pike
- Mickey Rooney as Dingy Bell
- Buddy Hackett as Benjy Benjamin
- Spencer Tracy as Captain T. G. Culpeper
- Terry-Thomas as Lt. Col. J. Algernon Hawthorne
- Phil Silvers as Otto Meyer
- Dick Shawn as Sylvester Marcus
[edit]Secondary actors
- Jim Backus as boozy and rich airplane owner Tyler Fitzgerald
- William Demarest as Aloysius, Chief of the Santa Rosita Police Department
- Jimmy Durante as "Smiler" Grogan
- Peter Falk as a cop-hating cab driver
- Eddie "Rochester" Anderson as a cab driver
- Paul Ford as Col. Wilberforce
- Barrie Chase as Sylvester Marcus' bikini-wearing girlfriend, Mrs. Haliburton (or Halliburton)
[edit]Cameo appearances
- Jack Benny as a man who drives by in a Maxwell, offering to help, but is put off by Mrs. Marcus
- Paul Birch as a Santa Rosita Police Department officer
- Ben Blue as the vintage biplane pilot
- Joe E. Brown as the union official giving a speech at a construction site
- Alan Carney as a sergeant with the Santa Rosita Police Department
- Chick Chandler as detective outside Chinese laundry
- John Clarke as helicopter pilot
- Stanley Clements as a local reporter at police station
- Lloyd Corrigan as the mayor of Santa Rosita
- Howard Da Silva as an airport official
- Andy Devine as the Sheriff of Crockett County, California (fictional)
- Selma Diamond (voice only) as Ginger Culpeper, Captain Culpeper's wife
- Minta Durfee as a crowd extra
- Roy Engel as a Santa Rosita Police Department officer
- Norman Fell as primary detective at the "Smiler" Grogan accident site
- James Flavin as a Santa Rosita Police Department officer
- Stan Freberg as a Crockett County Deputy Sheriff
- Nicholas Georgiade as supporting detective at the "Smiler" Grogan accident site
- Louise Glenn (voice only) as Billie Sue Culpeper, Captain Culpeper's daughter
- Leo Gorcey as a cab driver bringing Melville and Monica to the hardware store
- Stacy Harris (voice only) as police radio voice unit F-7
- Don C. Harvey as a Santa Rosita Police Department officer
- Sterling Holloway as a Santa Rosita Fire Department fire captain
- Edward Everett Horton as Mr. Dinckler, owner of the hardware store
- Allen Jenkins as a Santa Rosita Police Department officer
- Marvin Kaplan as garage/service station co-owner Irwin
- Robert Karnes as Simmy, a Santa Rosita Police Department officer
- Buster Keaton as Jimmy the Crook (boatman)
- Tom Kennedy as a Santa Rosita Police Department traffic cop
- Don Knotts as the nervous motorist
- Charles Lane as the airport manager
- Harry Lauter as a police dispatcher of the Santa Rosita Police Department
- Ben Lessy as George the steward
- Bobo Lewis as vintage biplane pilot's wife
- Jerry Lewis as the man who runs over Culpeper's hat
- Bob Mazurki (presumed) as Eddie, the miner's son
- Mike Mazurki as the miner bringing medicine to his wife
- Charles McGraw as Lt. Matthews of the Santa Rosita Police Department
- Cliff Norton as a reporter
- Barbara Pepper as an ice cream counter waitress (scene deleted)
- ZaSu Pitts as Gertie, the Santa Rosita Police Department Central Division's switchboard operator
- Carl Reiner as the Rancho Conejo airport tower controller
- Madlyn Rhue as secretary Schwartz of the Santa Rosita Police Department
- Roy Roberts as a Santa Rosita Police Department officer (scene deleted)
- Eddie Ryder as Rancho Conejo air traffic control tower staff member
- Charles Sherlock as a crowd extra
- The Shirelles (voice), singing "31 Flavors" in Sylvester's bachelor pad scene
- Eddie Smith as an extra
- Arnold Stang as garage/service station co-owner Ray
- Nick Stewart as migrant truck driver forced off the road
- The Three Stooges (Moe, Larry, and Curly Joe)[2] as Rancho Conejo Airport firemen (they have the shortest cameo appearance; five seconds)
- Sammee Tong as a laundryman
- Doodles Weaver as a hardware store employee
- Jesse White as a Rancho Conejo air traffic controller
So there we have the first half of my top 12 films that I hate that everyone else loves. Tune in tomorrow for 6-1 on this list. I'm sure this list will raise your blood pressure sufficiently and if it doesn't, tomorrow's most certainly will.
