It’s not hard for a bad movie to open on top of the weekend box office chart — a combination of heavy marketing, recognizable stars, and a simple concept pretty much assures it.  Every month, for example, a new bad horror movies comes and goes.  Remember The Messengers, Darkness Falls or Urban Legends: Final Cut?  They were all the #1 movie in America at one point.

Romantic comedies work the same way: Forces of Nature, Monster-in-Law, and Failure to Launch all topped the box office in their day.  And then there’s the awful kids’ movies that lazy parents pay for: Scooby Doo…Pokemon…The Pacifier…and the list goes on.

The thing about all these movies is that they’re passively bad.  Everybody already knew they would suck, and they’re quickly forgotten.  Sometimes, however, a movie opens at #1 that is really bad.  Offensively bad.  Beg-for-your-money-back, sign-of-the-impending-apocalypse bad.  Here are the 10 Worst Movies to Open at #1.  (more…)

OK, so maybe “glorious” isn’t the right word to describe WW2, but these movies certainly are badass. We’re really psyched about this weekend’s release of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, so we thought we’d take a look at some of the best cinematic World War II offerings of the past. In the effort to narrow down the list, we’re not counting Holocaust movies, nor are we counting TV movies — sorry, but watching Band of Brothers just would’ve taken way too long.  Recent flicks like Valkyrie and Miracle at St. Anna both have their moments, but they’re too new.  So, without further adieu, here are The 15 Most Glorious World War 2 Movies. (more…)

The holy grail of dating is to actually find a girl who’s hot but is still willing to go out with you.  And as you’ve already figured out, that’s really hard.  But even if you’re not as attractive or as suave as that friend who has so much sex you want to punch him, even if you “have no game,” there are a few ways to tip the scales in your favor.  These aren’t magic bullets.  They’re practical, actionable things that you can do to help you snag that gorgeous girl who it turns out has low enough self esteem to actually go for you. (more…)

Seth Rogen fatigue is setting in, so we left The Green Hornet off the list. Ditto to the inevitable Nightmare on Elm Street remake, even though it landed Jackie Earle Haley to play Freddy Krueger. Remakes of Clash of the Titans and Death at a Funeral and the possible Ben Stiller/Tom Cruise comedy The Hardy Men might be good, but there were too many other interesting movies to pick from.

Check out the 20 Most Anticipated Movies of 2010, here!

Ever watch an action scene in a movie and think to yourself, “that definitely wouldn’t work in real life”?  Heck, ever see an action scene you think would work?  See, action heroes aren’t just heroes, they’re gods.  Plug yourself into any action movie situation, even the seemingly plausible ones, and it becomes obvious: even with the right training, you would hopelessly, hopelessly fail.  Take these five common scenarios:

5. The Escape Sequence

James Bond gets captured in every single one of his movies.  But with the exception of Die Another Day, he stays captured for about fifteen minutes before he finds a handy escape route or tricks the guards.  (Die Another Day, which also features an invisible car and a character named “Jinx” whom everybody inscrutably calls “Jince,” begins with a pointless six-month stint in North Korean captivity.)

You or I couldn’t really escape, mostly because we’re not double-oh agents.  And therefore things wouldn’t go very smoothly:

• We would look for an air duct to crawl through, but even if we found one, it would actually be screwed onto the wall and not easily removable.
• We would try to trick the guards, but the guards wouldn’t turn out to be quite as stupid as Bond henchman.
• Any attempt to Judo Chop the guards would result in them punching us in the face and/or shooting us outright.
• And most unfortunately, there would be no super-hot girl hanging around who works for the bad guy but really wants to jump our bones, so much so that she’d help us escape.

4. The Car Chase in a Tightly-Packed City

These have been around forever, but the Bourne series used them to great effect in all three movies.  The 2008 Dennis Quaid/Matthew Fox flick Vantage Point also had a terrific car chase on the super-narrow streets of Spain, as well as classics like Ronin and The French Connection.  But let’s be honest: pretty much anybody would crash in less than ten seconds.

It’s not just the ninety-degree turns that any car should have to slow down to less than 30 MPH for.  It’s not just that you would get stuck behind things constantly.  It’s really that in a crowded, cramped city, you’re going to hit somebody.  The hero can’t look bad, so he never does: Matt Damon doesn’t hit any old ladies while he’s gunning it away from Karl Urban in India at the beginning of The Bourne Supremacy.  But you and I would.  Luckily, our horror at murdering an innocent due to plain old reckless driving would be cut short when Karl Urban walked up to us and killed us.

3. That Cliché Where Two Characters Are in Close-Up and then You Hear a Shot, and then One of Them Slowly Falls

Remember the end of Minority Report?  Max Von Sydow had framed Tom Cruise for a murder, Cruise finally figures it out, and the two of them are squaring off on a balcony.  Von Sydow has the gun, but he also knows he’s been exposed and his life’s work will be ruined, so as the two draw closer to each other, the question is: is he going to shoot Cruise, or himself?

The two of them get up really close to each other so you can only see their faces, and then you hear the gunshot.  Both their eyes widen, neither of them move, but then ever so slowly, Von Sydow falls to the floor.

Unfortunately, I had seen the exact same thing happen in the 1998 sci-fi TV movie Chameleon.  Really.  So the Minority Report version didn’t have much of a “wow” factor.  But, of course, it got me thinking: why does the person who didn’t get shot just sort of…stand there?

Because if it were me, I would freak the hell out.  Think about it: somebody is exactly one foot away from you, has a loaded gun, and fires said loaded gun.  Would you (A) stand there with wide eyes, quivering slightly, until the other person decided he was going to fall down, or (B) scream like a girl and jump backward?  Yeah, me too.

2. Resisting the Femme Fatale

Another staple of James Bond: a random hot girl shows up in his room and tries to seduce him; he goes for it, but then realizes she’s trying to kill him at the last second and a fight ensues.  This happened most famously in Goldfinger, thanks to the best pun in the history of movies.  Bond eventually electrocutes the chick in the bathtub, and before he leaves the room, he looks at her and says: “Shocking.”

But if it were me?  True, a girl coming onto me would be a new experience, but I certainly wouldn’t take the time to get all suspicious about it.  Stab me, shoot me, whatever you were planning on: my mind is going to be on exactly one thing.  And I’m guessing yours would be, too.  Hey, we’re only human.

1. Everything John McClane Has Ever Done

A bunch of people complained about Live Free or Die Hard turning Bruce Willis’s John McClane into too much of a superhero, I guess as opposed to an ordinary guy.  To them I say: did you ever see Die Hard 2?  The climax of that movie features him blowing up a plane that’s already in the sky while he’s standing on the runway thanks to some impossibly perfect timing and a whole lot of gasoline.  That would require me to get my lighter to work on the first try, so…no.

How about the classic scene from the first Die Hard in which McClane is barefoot and walks over the broken glass?  He just does it.  I, personally, would’ve taken a more crafty approach, like maybe taking off my shirt and sweeping all the glass away.  One of Professor Snape’s goons probably would’ve killed me in the process, but I think it’d be worth the risk.  Because that glass would’ve really hurt.

Well, school’s over for the year.  You former freshman have moved back in with your parents and secured that summer job and, after the first couple of weeks, have discovered a sad truth: while you’re a college student, summers blow.

You’re working forty hour weeks in menial labor.  None of your college buddies are around anymore.  Your parents don’t seem to appreciate when you show up at your house drunk at 4 a.m.  Your mom still does your laundry, but she’s sharing her car with you, so you have to let her know when you’re going anywhere.  You never thought you’d ask this, but: is it September yet?

You call up the ever-dwindling number of people you still talk to from high school and see what they want to do, and at some point, somebody suggests going to the bar — you know, that crap-tastic small town dive bar filled with locals.  Sure, why not?  When you walk in, here’s what you can expect to find: (more…)

Seth Rogen fatigue is setting in, so we left The Green Hornet off the list. Ditto to the inevitable Nightmare on Elm Street remake, even though it landed Jackie Earle Haley to play Freddy Krueger. Remakes of Clash of the Titans and Death at a Funeral and the possible Ben Stiller/Tom Cruise comedy The Hardy Men might be good, but there were too many other interesting movies to pick from.

So what does that leave? Well, it’s an accepted fact that Hollywood has run out of ideas and is just coasting on remakes and sequels, so while putting together this list, we tried to come up with as many totally original movies as we could. In the end, we’ve got four sequels, three of which are based on books; four additional non-sequels based on books; three movies based on TV shows; and one based on a well-known legend.

That left only six original movies. Oh well. Despite that, we think we put together a damn good list. (more…)

You’re in for a treat this summer: Star Trek is poised to be a popular success on the level of Iron Man.  It’s exciting, funny, and entertaining in ways that are accessible both to die-hard Trekkies and average movie lovers… except for the parts where it sucks.

I had a chance to see Trek at an advance screening last week, and yes, I liked it a lot.  But the critics have already started over-praising it Dark Knight-style, and I know everybody else is going to join in soon too.  So allow me, just for a moment, to counterbalance the raves with some sanity and present to you the reasons Star Trek might not be the best thing ever.  (Be warned that there are spoilers in this article.) (more…)

We are all uniquely and individually disgusting. This was brought to my attention on a recent trip to the drug store, when I discovered, en route to the candy aisle from the shampoo aisle, that there are a lot of really disturbing products out there. So I decided to go back to see what else I could find. Turns out there was a lot of stuff to work with — mostly found on bottom shelves, out of view of the average consumer (but fully in view of little kids, ironically). Only one rule: I’m keeping this list free of “old people” products, of which there are understandably quite a lot. Making fun of the Depends-wearing elderly feels akin to setting a puppy on fire. (more…)

Network TV has been dying for years, but in the 2008-2009 which ends this coming month, it finally croaked.  If some of you don’t care, well, no crap.  Did you check out Better Off Ted the other night?  Yeah, me either.

It didn’t used to be like this — networks rolling out dozens of new shows each year only to cancel them four episodes into their runs.  In 1953 — yep, I’m going way back — an episode of I Love Lucy aired that played on 71% of all television sets in the United States.  Just yesterday I heard that ABC is considering renewing Scrubs for a ninth season.  The percentage of television sets tuning into Scrubs in its eighth season?  3.5. (more…)