One Good Scene Saves It

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Among Joe Queenan's choices of the worst films ever made, he puts Futz ('69), about a man who falls in love with a pig, at the top of the list, followed by La Grande Bouffe, A Walk With Love and Death, Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom ("as vile as any film I have ever seen") and Sydney Pollack's The Way We Were for being "as treacly and flatulent as any movie I know of."

I've also found portions of Pollack's 1973 film grating -- I want to reach out and strangle Bradford Dillman's character every second he's on-screen, I've always hated songwriters Alan and Marilyn Bergman's title song, and Marvin Hamlisch's score has always strike me as way too stringy and MOR. But Queenan has an arterial blockage if he doesn't get that the curious spiritual tension between Robert Redford's Hubbell and Barbra Streisand's Katie is one of the most intriguing undercurrents ever used in a mainstream romance film.

As drippy as their union may seem to Queenan in other ways, it is based upon spiritual emptiness (in Streisand's character also) and a need to try and fill the void with what the other has. Redford plays a talented but relatively shallow writer whose attraction to Streisand is based upon her possessing the fire and conviction that he lacks, and her belief that he has more depth than he himself believes is there. Perhaps not the most profound idea to ever animate a film of this kind, but it's dramatized intelligently and with a certain old-school delicacy and poise. This alone means Queenan can't condemn TWWW as one of the all-time worst. It's sloppy critical thinking.

And you can't dismiss a film as a legendary stinker, even by curious personal standards, if it has a single great scene, which The Way We Were clearly does. You can't say the rapprochement-outside-the-Plaza Hotel scene at the very end doesn't work. Not when Streisand first meets Redford and his new shiksa wife, but when he comes back the second time, alone, and says, a little sadly, "You never give up, do you?" That is what's known in movie-lover circles, whether or not you hate Redford or Streisand or Hamlisch or anyone or anything else connected with this film, as "good stuff."

Which means that The Way Were cannot be dismissed in Queenan-type fashion. One of the most elemental Movie God laws states that any film that has one effective scene must always be afforded at least a measure of respect. Even if 95% of it is awful or mediocre, the presence of one great scene always saves it.

comment #1

George Prager says ...

There's no point in writing the piece if you don't write about a much-loved (or much-liked) movie like TWWW. It's gives it that extra oomph. LA GRANDE BOUFFE, though, is a classic.How can you not love a movie where a guy collapses and dies while farting? I want a remake (starring Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Rip Torn and Nick Nolte)!

comment #2

George Prager says ...

I actually went to the "world premiere" of his movie
TWELVE STEPS TO DEATH

http://imdb.com/title/tt0114747/

He was pretty funny in it. Tony Hendra was there.

comment #3

Jeremy Smith says ...

I guess LOVE STORY's an easy target anymore, but that's where Queenan should've directed his ire. And if he was worried about being trite, he could've always trotted out one of the all-time abominations, OLIVER'S STORY.

But maybe he hasn't seen OLIVER'S STORY. If so, I envy him.

comment #4

George Prager says ...

What's really funny is that Sally Kirkland is in FUTZ and THE WAY WE WERE.

comment #5

Undercover Brother says ...

So let's get that list of everyone's most hated going. Big budget stinkers and low grade trash is too easy.

I think my most hated contemporary film, besides the widely hated "Crash" and "Chicago", may be "Cold Mountain." Sorry to backslap the newly dead but MInghella's movie was a colossal waste of time and effort. Absolutely ridiculous movie.

Gilliam's "Tideland" was like a shot to the crotch with a cannonball. One of the worst ever.

comment #6

The Hoyk says ...

If we lived in a civilized society, Joe Queenan would have been set adrift on an ice floe years ago. His tired style of "humor" usually involves picking some sort of obvious thesis ("Hey, famous scenes from movies don't actually happen in real life!" "Wow, if I ask a celebrity an offensive question, they get pissed off!"), and BEATING YOU OVER THE HEAD WITH IT. And this column is no exception - first he chooses safely obscure and bizarre movies that most of the American public would not have the stomach for, then throws in THE WAY WE WERE to give the appearance of a curveball ("See! Here you thought it was going to be all stuff you've never heard of - SURPRISE!") when he is really just pandering to all the Maxim-magazine mouth breathers who already bag on "chick flicks." To paraphrase a better writer, what is mostly not funny is how sad he is, and I'd feel sorry for him if it wasn't for how dull he is. And that's my opinion from the blue, blue sky.

We need a crusade. We need to gather up Joe Queenan, and Michael Ian Black, and Michael Showalter, and Kathy Griffin, and Dane Cook, and Larry the Cable Guy, and Chuck Klosterman, and all these other chunks of cholesterol in the comedic artery, and put them in the goddamned Goony-Goo-Goo-Mobile, and get them the hell out of this country.

comment #7

Arran says ...

Gummo. There is no other correct answer.

comment #8

George Prager says ...

Queenan's hilarious. His articles and reviews in the NY Times book review are always great. Kathy Griffin is also funny. The rest I have no use for, but I don't have a chip on my shoulder about this kind of crap the way "The Hoyk" does. Must be a frustrated comedian.

comment #9

buckzollo says ...

I seen me some Salo. WTF?

comment #10

LYT says ...

If you get rid of Larry the Cable Guy, Hoyk, another will spring up in his place. Rednecks love -- nay, require -- a comedian who reminds them of their absolute dumbest relative that they feel superior too.

comment #11

Malone says ...

The worst movies ever made:

St. ELMO'S FIRE

LESS THAN ZERO

Burton's PLANET OF THE APES

comment #12

racsluos says ...

Couldn't agree with you more on the Saving Scene rule, Jeffrey. Runnin' the risk of flat-out spam here, but it's that very rule that was a major inspiration for our site. Some great cases in point are Gary Busey's monologue in Surviving the Game and Michael McKean's bluestreak in Mystery, Alaska.

http://www.intenseguys.com/intense_guys/2008/02/surviving-the-g.html

http://www.intenseguys.com/intense_guys/2008/03/it-boggles-the.html

comment #13

Christian Licorice says ...

why Why WHY do people still rag on Heavens Gate.

lets be real - it is by no means THE worst film ever made, not by a long shot. not when things like Stroker Ace and Cannonball Run or Jaws: The Revenge exist (those titles jump out at me just as i peruse the cable listings; you know there are others).

Heavens Gate is equal parts brilliant & misguided filmmaking; but the misguidedness is born of true talent. there is no denying it is breathtakingly filmed (cinematography; production design; etc). did the story warrant such bloated, labored storytelling? probably not. is the acting truly terrible? no, not at all.

i like the film more & more each time i see it (I own the DVD and I have the soundtrack as well; its a great score) and i do recommend that people check it out; i will bet you that you have seen worse films than this.

cimino's next, Year of the Dragon with Mickey Rourke, was much much better, a great piece of pulp action cinema.

I wont defend The Sicilian or Desperate Hours but I still wish Cimino had continued making films; he is much more a true movie director than any number of hacks that have polluted movie screens in my life time (McG anyone? renny harlin? roland emmerich?)

comment #14

rr3333 says ...

My mom's least favorite movie is 'The Coca Cola Kid'.

As mentioned above, I also heard that Gummo (and anything by that idiot, no talent hack Harmony Korin) is god awful.

The list of horrible movies is endless.

comment #15

lionsfan says ...

Yes to "Salo." Ditto for "Beowulf," which is at least amiably bad, and also to "Alexander." I could even expand this sub-category to ANYTHING featuring Colin Farrell (has there ever been a more overrated actor? someone who is always too lazy to even half-try ditching the Irish brogue for once?) and anything with Adam Sandler as well (the idea that anyone would find this wimpy-looking guy threatening in all his movies is absurd, as is that he could convincingly play a former NFL QB). "Zabriskie Point" is another complete waste of time that comes immediately to mind. As do "Hello Dolly," "The Mirror Has Two Faces" and "Yentl" to stay in the Streisand vein.

And "Boom," let's not forget that excrescence from Burton and Taylor and.....(the road goes ever onward!!!)

comment #16

lionsfan says ...

And there is even another pig-screwing movie to consider, the one Peter Greenaway made with "Macon" (rhymes with bacon) in the title and Colin Firth trying to keep a straight face.

comment #17

Balthazar says ...

But Malone, all two of those films (St. Elmos, Less Than Zero) have at least one great scene. So you cannot include.

But you right on Burton's Apes. Zero great scenes. Stinker. Wahlberg's removed it from his resume.

comment #18

The Hoyk says ...

No, George, not a frustrated comedian. Just a frustrated comedy fan who remembers when you needed jokes, creativity, and soul instead of spleen, snark, and condescencion to be considered a comedian. You like Joe and Kathy, fine: I hope the three of you will be very happy together.
And Luke, you're my friend and you're ace, but Jim Varney and the cast of "HEE-HAW" could mop the floor with "Larry" seven days a week. And they never needed to talk down or appeal to people's prejudices to get a laugh.

comment #19

Breedlove says ...

Colin Farrell? He's been around for less than a decade and has already been in the best movie of the year three times - 'Minority Report,' 'Miami Vice' and 'The New World.' Other than that, good call. Geez.

'Cold Mountain' is also a very good movie that is needlessly trashed all the time. The opening battle scene is classic.

Movies I can remember thinking were possibly the worst I'd ever seen after watching them include 'The People Under The Stairs,' 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch,' Burton's 'Planet of the Apes' (dead-on about this one - about as angry as I've been walking out of a movie theater in the past decade)...I'm having trouble thinking of more. I try to forget the really bad ones.

comment #20

jjgittes says ...

La Grande Bouffe is a great film.

I watch it every couple years - usually right before Thanksgiving !

Love the movie and the performances.

comment #21

Balthazar says ...

The People Under The Stairs is a freaking cult classic, baby!!

If you aspire to nothing but horror camp, you can't be the worst ever.

comment #22

MickTravis says ...

My least favorite contemporary films?

"Eight Crazy Nights," "Bringing Down the House," "Swept Away," "Nuts," "Wyatt Earp," "The Stepford Wives."

A six-pack and not one good scene between them.

comment #23

DarthCorleone says ...

Salo is almost unwatchable, but Caligula is unwatchable.

Tideland was the most painful experience of my recent movie-watching life.

I've never understood the Cold Mountain bashing. I greatly enjoy that film.

comment #24

scooterzz says ...

'gerry' immediately springs to mind for me.....

comment #25

AndrewOwens says ...

I have to say, Semi Pro is one of the worst films I've ever seen in a theatre. Because I always check out reviews and get a critical concensus before going to the cinema, its rare I actually see anything I want to walk out of, as even if I have a problem with the film it will have something, some quality, performance or scene, that will make it worth watching. But I was with friends and they chose the movie...just torture. And I'm usually amused by Will Ferrell...as I've only seen the good stuff. I sat in the theatre thinking " this is one of those mouth breathing, low thread count type films Jeff Wells is always talking about!"

comment #26

christian says ...

I'm with The Hoyk. Joe Queenan is who Chuck Klosterman will grow up to become. They do see certain cultural elements and completely misread them from a smug ignorant and unfunny zone.

And ZABRISKIE POINT is flawed, but one should be so flawed.
It's a master's skewed vision and should not be ignored.

comment #27

Rosebudsthesled says ...

There's mediocre bad, funny bad, and then there's outrageous, anger-inducing bad. Mediocre bad movies for me include films which I walked out of due to sheer boredom, ALONG CAME POLLY and THE LONGEST YARD spring to mind. Funny bad movies are the MST3K films, and more recent disasters like CATWOMAN and CONSTANTINE.

I think the three worst films ever made, are in order of release date, I AM SAM, SPANGLISH and LADY IN THE WATER, because they are the only films which have ever sent me into a rage while talking about them. I AM SAM is so monstrously manipulative, and Sean Penn's performance so cloying that I just want to smack it across the face. SPANGLISH is so misogynistic and its script filled with cliches and inconsistencies. Did anybody ever tell James Brooks it wasn't worth making? LADY IN THE WATER is the most infuriating film I've seen recently, largely because Shyamalan had to put himself in it as the writer character. Had he not been in it, it would've been mediocre bad, but by putting himself in it (as well as Bob Balaban's critic), the movie became about him. It's an egotistical nightmare on film. Can't wait for the fourth film to join this list. Oh wait, I can.

comment #28

lipranzer says ...

I've never liked Cimino as a director - I don't even like DEER HUNTER - but I grant the ambition and photography preclude it from holding a space on my worst list. And while I don't like Streisand, I would never put THE WAY WE WERE anywhere near a worst list either - Redford, for one, was terrific in that role. I've never seen the others Queenan lists, but I agree he needs to be marooned on a desert island as quickly as possible.

As far as the worst movie I ever saw, my standard answers to those are JADE and EUROPEAN VACATION, though THE LIFE OF DAVID GALE and WILD WILD WEST run pretty close.

comment #29

lipranzer says ...

Oh, yeah, forgot about SPANGLISH. Only movie I ever saw to make me feel sorry for Adam Sandler. I would include I AM SAM except I walked out halfway through - I try only to include movies I forced myself to watch all the way through. Also, I did like the soundtrack.

comment #30

Jack Lint says ...

I never got the love for The Way We Were. Not one of the all time worst, but a grating experience nonetheless.

My list, in relative order: Natural Born Killers, KIDS (I'm a big Gummo fan, however), S.F.W., Murder By Numbers (possibly the most infuriating ending ever), The Village, and The Patriot (my Gibson whipping boy).

Gregg Araki's The Doom Generation used to be on there, but given my admiration for his recent work, it might be worth revisiting.

And while I can see where much of the hate for Tideland comes from (it was a frustrating watch, admittedly), I think it's possibly Gilliam's best since Brazil.

comment #31

Nick29 says ...

I just watched Southland Tales and if we're not calling it one of the worst of all time, 20 years from now, I'll be shocked.

i still consider Junior (the prego governator misadventure) to be the worst film released during my lifetime.

comment #32

christian says ...

THE DOOM GENERATION might be the worst film I've seen in the past decade and a half.

comment #33

Major Calloway says ...

POLICE ACADEMY 8: Assignment al-Nissour

comment #34

Pinko Punko says ...

Farrell was awesome in In Bruges.

I have nothing else for terrible films. The Phantom Menace comes to mind.

comment #35

Undercover Brother says ...

Lady in the Water - Agreed. A new low in big name directors making egotistical, moronic movies. Shyamalan really did walk onto the battlefield of cinema and commence to fuck a football while the whole world watched. He may never recover.

Wild Wild West - Unusually horrible or just a run of the mill big budget clunker? A few years a go I would've said the former. Now I don't know.

Spanglish and I Am Sam - Was never foolish enough to watch these.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch - What kind of genuine movie fan could hate this? Shame on you!

Burton's Planet of the Apes - Agreed. A bucket of monkey shit.

comment #36

Rich S. says ...

The Sweetest Thing.

I caught about ten minutes of it while channel surfing one day, and I've never quite gotten over it. There was one scene about a character getting her braces caught in a man's crotch while fellating him. That was followed by a musical number about some extremely vile subject I can't recall. That was all I could take. But I notice that Lifetime or Comedy Central trots it out about once a week. Maybe there's a redeeming scene in there, but I'll never try to find it.

comment #37

George Prager says ...

I loved THE DOOM GENERATION. It's a 90s comedy of manners. Gregg Araki as Noel Coward.

You know what movie really sucked? CHILDREN OF MEN.

comment #38

racsluos says ...

By the One Good Scene rule, Jade gets a pass for the no-brakes Mustang crash.

comment #39

Major Calloway says ...

CHILDREN OF MEN? Really? I'm a defender, but even those who didn't go for it should admit the One Good Scene rule is in full force with that one. You could even apply the One Great Shot rule, with its much higher criteria, and I would argue that that film meets it at least three times over.

When I was a kid my parents always forced me to eat everything on my plate, which may help explain why I find it almost impossible to walk out on a bad movie. For some reason, I will just sit there and squirm instead. In my memory there are Three Terrors in particular which were the equivalent of being strapped down to listen to Vogon poetry.

They are, in no particular order:

2. HIGHLANDER II: THE QUICKENING
3. THE LAST ACTION HERO
1. THE ADVENTURES OF ROCKY & BULLWINKLE

comment #40

christian says ...

The Sweetest Thing script sold for a million dollars.

And we left out MONSIGNOR.

I give a pass to films that aspire to something higher like THE LAST ACTION HERO, which has a clever central idea and within the mess of AC/DC and bad jokes, it has some witty cultural insight. A movie that mingles HAMLET, TERMINATOR 2 and THE SEVENTH SEAL can't be all bad.

comment #41

George Prager says ...

THE ENGLISH PATIENT

comment #42

Rosebudsthesled says ...

CHILDREN OF MEN is the movie of the decade, or damn close to it. What's it doing on a worst list?

comment #43

Rich S. says ...

Last Action Hero passes the one good scene rule just for the moment that Maria Shriver chews out Arnie for bringing the HumVee to a premier yet again. I also liked the scene where the kid proves to Arnie that they're in a PG movie. Not a great film, but it had some fun ideas.

comment #44

Richardson says ...

Recently discussed on this website, 'Screwed' belongs on any list of the worst films of all time.

comment #45

will_butler says ...

The only movie I've ever walked out on, lest I be forced to slash the screen out of pure rage, is The Science of Sleep. It may not belong on the list as there may have been a transcendentally beautiful scene later in the film, but from what I've seen thus far, if I could, I'd burn the negatives.

comment #46

Dave Polands Gut says ...

I'll have to agree with him. Kevin Smith films are beyond awful.

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