The Worst Movies... Ever (with a Miscasties on top!)

Congratulations, Batman and Robin (1997)!

When I started making a mental list of movies to include on this series, Batman and Robin was, of course, one of the first that occurred to me. But despite that, I've avoided it until now.

Why? Because making fun of Batman and Robin is almost too easy.

Talking about this hunk of monkey turds is more than anything an exercise in superlatives. I mean, exactly how many ways can you say "it sucks" before you run out of ideas?

For instance: does it suck "like a starving Ethiopian whore"?

Or is it's terribleness better expressed by the notion that if movies were US presidents, Batman and Robin is probably Stalin.

I distinctly remember the experience of watching Batman and Robin in the theater. I was 15 and had really liked Batman Forever, and even though they had replaced Val Kilmer as Batman, you know, who gave a shit? Val Kilmer was a mediocre Batman. I remember reading a story where some actress said all you needed to play Batman was great lips, and "George has great lips."

Yeah, not so much. From frame 1, you could tell Clooney had realized he'd made a mistake and had decided to phone it in. Hard. If Rule #1 of acting is to believe every line of dialogue you give... well, Batman and Robin proves George Clooney's capacity to be a terrible actor.

In retrospect, it should have been obvious he'd be terrible. Clooney's chief attribute as an actor is his ability to display a kind of ironic amusement. His entire performance in Ocean's Eleven is built on this.

As Batman, this is all wrong. After all, Batman is an inherently ridiculous concept. If you don't sell it, you make everyone in the audience sort of realize, "hey, that guy's wearing a rubber bat costume!"

This is not to say, of course, that even Laurence Olivier could have made Batman and Robin into a good movie (though I'd have paid good money to watch him try), or that Clooney is the only one terrible in it. I mean, the truth is that almost the entire cast of Batman and Robin could be given one of my coveted Miscasties.

After all, we're talking about Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl. And also Uma Thurman, as Poison Ivy, who clearly didn't learn her lesson from appearing in this piece of shit.

And then, of course, there's Arnold Schwarzenegger, as criminal supervillain Mr. Freeze.

On paper, casting Arnold as Mr. Freeze made some sense. After all, the script calls for Mr. Freeze to deliver a lot of cheesy one liners, and if there's one thing Arnold's good at, it's one liners.

But on Batman and Robin, they forgot something pretty important: the one liners have to be, you know, good.

Upon busting in:

Mr. Freeze: Ice to see you!

After hearing Poison Ivy's plan for them to rule Gotham together, despite the fact that one of them wants to turn the Earth into an iceberg and the other wants to turn the Earth into a giant greenhouse:

Mr. Freeze: Adam and Evil!

To his henchmen:

Mr. Freeze: Let's kick some ice!

I realize at this point I haven't even described the plot. Do I need to? By this point, you get the idea. The whole thing's a shit sandwich. And all of us who went and watched it in the theaters? Well, we all had to take a bite.

What do we get in return? Well, this.

The Miscast-ies -- A Tribute to Hilariously Bad Casting

The Miscasties, for those of you who don't remember, is my tribute to horrible casting choices from the world of cinema. For instance, I was once cast as Winthrop Paroo in the play The Music Man. The problem? Winthrop is supposed to be, like, 6, whereas I was like, 11 or 12, and nearly six-foot tall. 

Thankfully, the rich, famous and talented people of Hollywood usually get it better than that. But not always. And sometimes -- spectacularly not always. 

In this instance, the Miscastie goes to..........................

Cameron Diaz! For her role as football franchise owner and massive bitch Christina Pagniacci in Oliver Stone's legendary turdbomb Any Given Sunday! 

The Wikipedia entry on Diaz's character Pagniacci neatly sums up what I'm talking about.

"The owner of the Miami Sharks who inherited the team from her father. Given the team's poor results in the last few years, which she attributes to Coach D'Amato's "old-school methods", she attempts to take a more hands-on approach to the team, including bringing in innovative offensive coordinator Nick Crozier. She shows disregard for players' feelings and well-being, convincing Mandrake to cover up injuries. She has hinted several times that D'Amato will not return after his contract expires, adding to his distractions. She also begins political maneuvers that cause confrontation with the AFFA Commissioner and the Mayor of Miami." 

Does that kind of ball-busting Jerry Jones-style biznatch sound like something ditzy, goofy, empty-headed surfer girl Cameron Diaz could pull of to you?

No, me neither. The closest thing to an actual clip of Diaz's acting in this hunk of shit I could find is from the trailer (which should give you some idea of how bad the rest of the movie is).

In case you're wondering, she did actually ask Al Pacino (also poorly cast), "why the hell do you think my father put me in charge of the team you bullheaded moron?" 

Wonderful writing. Basically, Stone needed a female Gordon Gekko, and boy did he ever not get it. Try to imagine Cameron Diaz doing this famous monologue from Wall Street and you'll see what I mean. 

Yeah. Not so much. 

So congratulations, Cameron. You were pretty hot in The Mask, and of course we all loved you in There's Something About Mary. But ruthless career woman roles? For the love of God, no. 

The Miscast-ies -- A Tribute to Hilariously Bad Casting

Now and then you really realize how well a movie has been cast. I mean, is there anyone else but Tom Hanks who could have played Forrest Gump? Think about it. Then think about, say, Russell Crowe playing the part. 

"Mama always said life was like a can of whoop-ass."  

But then there are roles that are cast extremely poorly. And because, you know, that's a lot funnier, that's what I'm going to write about. My too-clever-by-half name for this? 

"The Miscast-ies." 

So, with no further delay, the first Miscast-ie goes to......

.........................................(drum roll).........................................

John Wayne... as Olson -- a Swedish (!) farmer -- in The Long Voyage Home (1940). 

Pictured: John Wayne on the set.  

So if you're trying to imagine just how bad Wayne would be at playing a Swedish guy, I've got news for you: he's worse. Truth be told, it's a miracle he doesn't ruin what's actually a pretty good movie. 

Actually, let me rephrase. The reason he doesn't ruin the movie is because director John Ford, not being a complete dumbass (only a big enough dumbass to cast John Wayne as a Swedish guy), cut out almost all of Wayne's dialogue, to the point where it took me like an hour and 20 minutes before I figured he was supposed to be Swedish and not Irish. By the end of the movie, though, he's jabbering on and on, in such a ridiculous sing-songy kind of Swedish mumbo jumbo it's amazing it wasn't declared a hate crime.  

Unfortunately, there aren't clips on YouTube to show you the massacre Wayne made of it, but imagine Wayne trying to play one of the Minnesottans from Fargo and you'll get pretty close to the cringing hilarity of it. As a video consolation prize, however, here's the video of another legendarily bad John Wayne performance -- as Genghis Khan in The Conqueror.

As you'll notice, this is the entire movie. Since it's considered one of the shittiest movies ever made, I wouldn't recommend watching it. But to get an idea of Wayne's total incompetence with accents, fast forward to about 3:50. 

So there you have it. It's a pretty simple equation, really. 

John Wayne doing accent = John Wayne giving crappy performance. 

Fortunately, after The Conqueror he learned his lesson and went back to shooting bad guys and using his regularly weird pausing-in-the-middle-of-sentences way of speaking. Unfortunately, due to the fact that The Conqueror was filmed near a nuclear test site, there's a pretty good chance that making the movie actually led to his cancer, and thus his death. 

The Long Voyage Home was much kinder to him, as the movie, these days, is mostly forgotten. This allowed Wayne to move on to far more important things, like making meatballs.