1. Aladdin. Largely infantile and utterly mystifying. Migraine inducing mind-control.
2. Star Wars. Grotesquely expanded beyond its meagre charms. Reheated ideas polished up and served to children. If they did that in a restaurant, it'd be shut down. And then the "series" decends (if poss.) into muppets. A green wrinkled sock with a bloke's fist up its
dispensing wisdom. George Lucas is a genius, because he could see all those punters coming.3. Bram Stoker's Dracula. No it isn't. Hasn't little or nothing to do with Bram Stoker. Largely facile, when not cretinous.
4. Sliver. I walked out. The next day I had my car accident. I blame this film (this is not entirely rational and admittedly, says litle about the film. However, as I walked out, it would be hubris to criticise a film I haven't seen all the way through. Who knows? The end may be beyond genius, although given the rest, that'd be a hell of a twist).
5. The Tailor of Panama. A new entry to the list. Wholesale massacre of a mediocre text, which itself is a thinly disguised rip-off of Our Man in Havana (which is exquisitely written). Its existence is pretty inexplicable, and Mr Brosnan is staggeringly miscast as an overweight Englishman in his late twenties. Story goes nowhere, seems to have been filmed through a cup of mud and Pierce Brosnan (and to give her her due, Jamie Lee Curtis) is staggeringly wooden to the point when Greenpeace are threatening to tie themselves to this paragraph to stop me writing any more about it. There are probably worse acted films (somewhere) and worse filmed and worse photographed and worse written, but I've rarely seen a film which seemed so pointless.
6. Carry On Columbus. No, don't. Desecration of something that did not deserve desecrating. A successful series, and then generally pooed over. Wholesale and unsuccessful change of direction. Hold on a mo, that bain't Carry on Columbus, it's Licence to Kill....what can I write to differentiate them...erm...one has Jim Dale in it. That'd do, and that's enough to put it on any such list. Poor, and worse than poor, not worth paying any attention to.
7. The Godfather part III. See Carry on Columbus, above. Although this doesn't have Jim Dale in it. Which, frankly, is its major weakness. Apart from Al Pacino mistaking shouting loudly for acting. Yet again.
8. Pokemon 2000. Look, I have three children under 10. Sometimes, I have to watch this stuff. I cannot go through its deft, delicate narrative structure piecemeal, because it lacks one and that's probably me covering up for not understanding it fully. Or at all. The children enjoyed it, although they appear to have enjoyed the merchandise more. I doubt they could tell me anything about the film any more, although they were screaming at me for weeks to go see it.
9. Saving Private Ryan. Watch it without watching the first twenty five minutes or so. Then consider whether this is not the most overrated piece of pat, flag-waving, unoriginal nonsense to have been foisted upon us in recent years. There were, patently, no British soldiers dying in Northern France in 1944. A historical aberration, and little more than a training film with a very large budget. Cynical manipulation of the audience, historical naivety and jingoistic filth. Utter crud, but presented in the flag, so it's either an emotional and eviscerating work of art. Or crud wrapped in a flag.
10. Peter's Friends. An emetic. This, I have little doubt, is the worst film I've ever seen. It is quite shockingly inept, both in script and direction and all available copies should be locked in a room with a revolver and given the option to do the decent thing, to put it out of our misery. Quite frankly, vile.
