Ten Ways to Ruin Your Day

Since everyone seems to be talking about the recent Rotten Tomatoes 100 Worst list, I decided to try my hand at pondering a few unsightly gaffes dished out by Hollywood and beyond.

Here are a few of my least favorites in no particular order. Caution: Spoilers abound.

1) Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)
      Dear Disney: Please don't set us up for the ideal romantic ending between two people who clearly have no chemistry only to make it so they can't actually be together in the end. After three hours of stunts where people roll down hills in round or cylindrical objects while delivering punchline-less jokes, all I wanted was the freaking happy ending. And you couldn't even deliver that. Thanks for literally nothing.

2) Summer Catch (2001)
       Gross, humorless, plotless. Even the eggy Freddie Prinze Jr. with his perpetually freshly glossed lips couldn't inspire any interest in this insanely tasteless and bland dud.

3) A League of Their Own (1992)
      Before anyone gets upset, I have to say that I used to like this movie. The issue is now I have seen it way too many times and the goodness wore off, leaving behind the aftertaste of how I used to feel when I watched it. Now whenever I see it on TV I have to contend with the onslaught of emotion that used to confront me while sitting on a couch on a Sunday late afternoon in winter watching HBO, knowing I had a huge pile of homework waiting in the next room and an entire week of school ahead of me. Downer! Note that those feelings have nothing to do with the content of the film. Yet just the thought of the music accompanying the final scenes makes me feel middle school era lethargy and depression all over again.

4) Burn After Reading (2009)
      Gigantically mis-marketed film. A case of expectations way out of line with what was delivered. Left feeling so let down and sour that the rest of my night was ruined. It makes the list mainly because the Coen brothers are the writers and directors of one of my favorites (that somehow didn't make it onto my top ten list), Blood Simple (1984).

5) Lilo and Stitch (2002)
      Obnoxious and intensely not cute. Couldn't get into it at all. Just wanted it to end. Still cringe when I come across clips and stills.

6) Blood and Chocolate (2007)
      Based on a popular young adult novel of the same title, this movie had little to nothing to do with the original source material.  Terrible acting. Bad cinematography. Ridiculous dialogue. Stayed only because walking out seemed like giving up, and I wanted to prove that I could give the book the respect of sitting through the movie adaptation. Extremely poor judgment on my part.

7)  Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
      The kind of movie where you go and you just get so angry because of all the unnecessary blue filters and dramatic slow motion. Atrocious dialogue. Poor performances. Generated a headache that lasted beyond the credits.

8) Hancock (2008)
      Holy lord. This was a train wreck. Whoever wrote/made this did not edit it. Played like a short story written for a creative writing class by a physics major at 3am after having just taken two midterms and had stomach flu.

9) Birth of a Nation (1915)
      I don't care if D.W. Griffith established parallel editing or whatever with this movie, I hate it. I hate it so much. The obvious reason is that its racist, yet still intensely famous. The not so obvious reason is that it just sucks. 

10) T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G (1969)
      If you ever get the opportunity to watch this avant-garde classic, don't. Just walk away. Don't question me, just walk right back out through the door you came in.

Aaaand that's the long and short of it.

Arguments? Additions? Please feel free to comment!