Bill S Presents: The 9th Annual Skelly Awards!

By Bill S.

The Academy Awards are airing Sunday night, and normally around this time, I'd be perusing the year's acting nominees to determine who should win the not-so-coveted SKELLY Award, for the Oscar nominee with the most embarrassing prior role. 

But things are a bit different this year. Five of the nominees are past Skelly nominees (including one winner), and thus ineligable. Of the fifteen remaining actors...none has a movie that's truly worthy of a SKELLY award. (To the best of my knowledge. Obviously I haven't seen every movie each of them has made.)

It might very well be time to retire the SKELLY.  Before bidding farewell to this tradition, let's celebrate one last time by looking back on the past winners (and a few notable also-rans). 

2013 WINNER: Denzel Washington, in Carbon Copy (1981)
In the first year, the award didn't even have a name yet, because I wasn't even sure if it would even be an annual thing. The decisive winner was Denzel Washington, for his very first movie--a film so bad he had nowhere to go from there but up.  It tells the story of a white businessman (George Segal) who has a 17 year old son (Washington) from a relationship he had with a black woman while in college. When the kid shows up at his door, it throws his life into chaos--he loses his job, his marriage crumbles, and he becomes a social outcast. All of this is absurdly over-the-top. The script seems horribly dated, as if it had been sitting on a shelf for a decade. Which is fitting because the leads both look about 10 years too old for their roles.

(This is also arguably George Segal's worst film, although Lost and Found was so bad, I walked out on it when it was airing on TV in the living room...and I was the only one home at the time.)

2014 WINNER: Meryl Streep, in She-Devil (1989)
Roseanne Barr's film debut and Meryl Streep's first comedy role should have been a scream, but it was more of a gag. It's about a put-upon housewife, Ruth (Barr) whose louse of a husband, Bob (Ed Begley, Jr.), dumps her for a glamorous novelist, Mary (Streep). Ruth proceeds to exact a slow, methodical revenge against them ("Not So Promising Middle-aged Woman"). The three leads are undone by the material, but no one is more undone by it than director Susan Seidelman, whose approach is so careless, so tone-deaf, you wonder if she was even paying attention to what was happening. To pick one of many examples: it's one thing for Mary's mother to embarrass her in front of Bob by revealing how old she really is. It's quite another when she drops the bombshell that Mary had a baby at 16 that she gave up for adoption. That this is played for laughs, as just another embarrassing secret, is odd enough, but it's treated as a throwaway joke, to be completely forgotten about for the rest of the film.

Maybe it would have been funnier if the kid showed up later and was played by Denzel Washington.

NOTABLE ALSO-RAN: Christian Bale in Swing Kids (1993)
In retrospect, maybe there should have been a tie in 2014. It depends on what you think is worse: a comedy that's not funny, or a drama that's completely laughable. "Swing Kids" tells the story of a group of teens in WWII Germany who rebelled against the Nazis by embracing American culture and in particular, swing music. That's an interesting subject for a movie, and had it featured actual German kids, it might have worked. But all the good guys speak with American accents, and all the bad guys speak with German accents, and when a good guy turns into a bad guy, they suddenly acquire a German accent. Then there's then ending. Oh that ending. I found it on YouTube. Just...watch it:

WHAT...in chicken-plucking Hell...WAS that? From the look on his face, even Christian Bale doesn't know what to make of it. According to some of the YouTube comments, Swing Kids is being shown in history classes. At what schools? Do those same schools screen Reptilicus in biology classes?

2015 WINNER: Edward Norton in "Death To Smoochy" (2002)
It was a flop when released, but has since developed a cult following, with fans who feel it was an underrated gem. I am not part of that cult. It tells the story of a disgraced childrens program host (Robin Williams, who unfortunately has made worse films) who plots to sabotage his replacement, a sincere, pure-of-heart dupe (Norton). It's hard to pin down why this movie never works -- it may be the most ambitiously bad movie on this list. The satire falls flat. Once you realize that everyone but Smoochy is terrible, there aren't any surprises. Watching it is like being sealed inside a bouncy castle with a family of rabid porcupines.

NOTABLE ALSO-RAN: Robert Duvall in The Detective (1968)
A crime drama about a police detective, Joe Leland (Frank Sinatra) searching for a killer whose victim is revealed to be a closeted gay man. The picture portrays gay men as either sniveling psychos, self-loathing monsters or bitchy queens who we're supposed think deserve what they get. Robert Duvall, in a supporting role, plays a fellow detective, chewing scenery in one of his few bad performances. It's based upon a book by Roderick Thorp, who wrote a sequel thirteen years later titled Nothing Lasts Forever. That book was later adapted into a film, with some plot changes, and a change in the lead character's name -- to John McClane. Yep, Die Hard is actually a sequel to "The Detective".

2016 WINNER: Sylvester Stallone, in Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot! (1992)
This movie didn't have to suck. An action buddy comedy featuring a mother-son team could have been funny, especially with Stallone and Estelle Getty in the leads. But what would have been funny would be if the mom was a shrewd, smart, street-savvy old broad--you know, like the characters Getty usually played. Instead, they made her the stupidest human being on the planet. She isn't stupid for any comedic reason (her stupidity isn't funny), she's stupid because the writers are stupid.  They've created a five minute sketch, and dragged it out into six hours. Oh, wait, it's only 87 minutes. Easy mistake. Sylvester Stallone considers it the worst film he's ever made, describing it as "maybe one of the worst movies in the entire solar system, including alien productions we've never seen".

NOTABLE ALSO-RAN: Charlotte Rampling in Zardoz (1974)
It's possible that Orca was Rampling's worst film, but that was just a dumb Jaws ripoff, while Zardoz is uniquely bad. It might also be one of the most entertainingly bad movies I've seen. Every frame of it is insane. This is also Sean Connery's worst film, for reasons that are obvious when you see the wardrobe.

The wardrobe.

2017 WINNER: Isabelle Huppert, in Heaven's Gate (1981)
This expensive, expansive Western epic ipecac is one of the most notorious bombs of all time. It actually bankrupted a studio. Over the years, it's been cut and recut, so I have no idea which version I actually saw. Presumably, there's a version that's actually good, but I have no desire to see every version to find it. One viewing of this incoherent mess was enough.

2018 WINNER: Gary Oldman in The Scarlet Letter (1995)
The movie that put the "Dim" in "Dimmesdale". To say they took liberties with the Nathaniel Hawthorne novel is an understatement.  They turned it into Hester After Dark. An actual porno film would have been more honest, and we'd know what the "A" stood for.

SHOULD-HAVE ALSO-RAN: Christopher Plummer in Starcrash (1978)
We're all saddened by the recent passing of Christopher Plummer, a consistantly fine actor with a career that spanned seven decades. When he received an Oscar nomination for All The Money In the World (becoming, at the age of 88, the oldest actor to be nominated), it hadn't occurred to me he had a movie worthy of a SKELLY. But I had not seen Starcrash. In fact, I never even heard of it until I watched the recent revival of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and it was used in one episode. It's a space opera, featuring an intergalactic pirate (Carol Munro, whose wardrobe consists mostly of bikinis), her trusty sidekick (Marjoe Gortner, whose hair upstages him), and a robot that for some reason speaks with a redneck accent. Along the way they meet the Prince of the Galaxy (David Hasselhoff. DAVID HASSELHOFF?) Christpher Plummer plays the prince's father, the Emperor of the Galaxy. He comes off a bit more dignified than the rest of the cast. I'm not sure if he's good, or it's just that the rest of the cast is so embarrassingly bad that his no-nonsense proffessionalism just makes him seem better by comparison. What I am sure of is that Starcrash is the lamest Star Wars ripoff ever. If action figures for this thing exist, owners can remove them from their original packaging, secure in the knowledge that a decrease in value would be mathematically impossible.

2019 WINNER: Richard E. Grant in Hudson Hawk (1991)
I considered canceling the SKELLY Awards that year, because it was basically a two-movie race (the other one being the lame Glenn Close vehicle Maxie) But, having avoided seeing Hudson Hawk for nearly 30 years, I finally watched it solely for the column. No way would I endure such an exhausting, mind-numbing experience, and have nothing to show for it.  Richard E. Grant, who played one of the movie's villains, detailed his experiences on the film in his autobiography With Nails. According to him, star Bruce Willis kept adding new ideas and re-writing the film during production, which explains why the movie went way over budget. It also explains why the plot is so incoherent, and there's no continuity.  Or, as Grant put it, "It was a stinking pile of steaming-hot donkey droppings" .

He was being kind.

2020 WINNERS: Al Pacino in Cruising (1980) and Tom Hanks in Mazes and Monsters (1982) [tie]
"Cruising" is the only movie on this list to have been picketed by a minority group. No, not film critics, though that would make sense. The LGBT community took offence to it, with good reason. Today, images of gay characters have become so mainstream that last December, there were four holiday films featuring gay couples (played by openly gay actors). But in 1980, a movie about an undercover cop (Pacino), tracking a serial killer targeting gay men who frequent leather bars, was one of the few movies to feature any segment of the LGBT community, and it confirmed everyone's worst assumptions. Controversy aside, Cruising is nothing more than a big-budget slasher flick, but the plot makes less sense, and nobody in it looks like they ever used deodorant. In their life.

From the opening, with a dribbly ballad dumped over the credits like syrup, to the WTF?? ending, Mazes and Monsters made me laugh harder than Carbon Copy, She-Devil, Death To Smoochy, Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot and Hudson Hawk combined. Too bad it's not a comedy, but a cautionary tale. It centers on a group of college students who play a role-playing game, "Mazes and Monsters" (a stand-in for "Dungeons and Dragons"), According to this movie, RPG's are a gateway drug to LARPing, which leads to mental illness. Tom Hanks' character, Robbie, loses all touch with reality and begins to believe he's a character in the game. This is presented as real danger. He's like that guy in Reefer Madness who winds up being committed to a mental institution for the rest of his life. If Tommy Wiseau adapted a Jack Chick tract into a feature film...no, even that wouldn't be as ridiculous.

I hope you've all enjoyed this annual column. I'll leave you all with one final note: I have a confession to make. I've seen every one of these movies...except one. In one case--and only one case--I bluffed having seen it. I meant to, but couldn't get hold of a copy in time for the column, but was confident that it was awful enough to decalre it the winner anyway. The first person to correctly guess which one it is...won't win anything, but will have the satisfaction of being a really fast guesser. And really, isn't that reward enough?

Flowers in the Attic (1987)

 I see from Twitter that this is an auspicious occasion for fans of campy acting choices:

Where secrets are kept, a dark legacy awaits.. NEVER cross a grandmother 👵!

On this day in 1987, FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC 🌸 broke out in 🇺🇸 theaters! pic.twitter.com/CbyF2QgU63

— ArrowFilmsVideo (@ArrowFilmsVideo) November 20, 2020

And if there's one film full of performances that cry out to be boned, pressed, and packed in water like Danish ham, it's this adaptation of the V.C. Andrews novel. So for those who may have missed it, here's Bill S.'s gentle but thorough colonoscopic survey.

Flowers in the Attic, Bats in the Belfry

By Bill S.

Last week, in celebration of Mother's Day, I offered up my annual list of Bad Movie Moms. There are some movie depictions of bad motherhood that need more than just a paragraph or two, but require a column all to themselves. In compiling my list this year, I came across two such films, Flowers In the Attic (1987) and Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot! (1992). After careful consideration, I determined that if I were to sit through the latter a second time, I'd probably want to shoot myself (I might -- repeat, might -- consider it next year), so I opted for the former. I have to confess I hadn't watched it in over 20 years, but I recalled it featuring not one, but two awful moms, and that I gave it a one-star rating after viewing it. (I should explain: back in the '80's when our family had HBO, I used to watch as many movies as I could, then keep track of them in a notebook, assigning star ratings to them. I'm aware of how geeky that is, which is why I no longer do it.)

So I viewed it again, and it all came back to me, much like a bad lunch coming back up. This picture's not so much creepy as it is "cringy." It's based on a book, the first in a series following the same characters, by V.C. Andrews. I've never read it, or any of her work. Perhaps someone who has can tell me how best to rate the quality of her writing: A-Passable, B-Mediocre, C-Terrible or D-"Sweet Lordy Gordy, How Did the Editors Refrain From Gouging Out Their Eyes After the First Three Pages?" Ms. Andrews passed away before the movie was released into theaters, but was on the set during production, and even makes a cameo appearance as a servant washing an upstairs window. She was reportedly pleased with the script and the casting of Kristy Swanson* in the lead role, both of which makes me think whatever illness she succumbed to impaired her mental judgement.

This is the story of the Dollangangers, a family so blindingly blonde and Aryan they make the Von Trapps seem like Sly & the Family Stone. The mother, Corinne (Victoria Tenant), teens Cathy (Swanson), Christopher** (Jeb Stuart), and five-year-old twins Carrie and Cory, all lead a happy, idyllic life, while the dad, Christopher, Sr.(Marshall Colt) goes to work. Each time the father comes home, the kids greet him by hiding behind the couch, jumping up and yelling, "Surprise!"

Cathy is especially close to her father, who considers her his favorite, and, away from the other kids, gives her a Very Special Gift, a ceramic ballerina. We in the audience begin taking bets as to who's going to the smash the thing. Since we see Corinne peering in with envy, she's our first candidate.

On the dad's 36th birthday, the kids ready themselves, arguing about how many candles to put on the cake, when they hear a car outside and assume position behind the couch. But instead, two policemen greet Corinne, and inform her and the kids that the father's been killed in an auto accident. This really ruins the birthday party, and that's the least of their trouble, because they eventually begin running out of money and have to sell off their possessions, eventually losing their house. At no time does Corinne try to look for a job. Perhaps she's not qualified to do anything useful, which gives her a lot in common with the actress playing her.

The family packs up and hops on a bus. Corinne informs them they're going to her parents' home, a stately mansion known as Foxworth Hall. We learn that she comes from a wealthy family, but is estranged from her parents, because, she explains, many years ago, she did something that displeased her father, and was disinherited. But on the bright side, he's now so old and decrepit, he's likely to kick the bucket, and her plan is to win back his love and put her back in the will before he croaks. I can see no flaw in this plan. No, none at all.

Cathy is a bit more skeptical. She also feels her mother should have prepared the kids better for death. "She never allowed us to have a dog, or a kitten...if we had a pet and it died, we would have learned something about that." Yes, good parenting is giving your child a pet in the hopes it will die eventually. Hey, if she was really looking out for those kids, she'd have gotten them a cute, fluffy kitten, clubbed it over the head with a mallet in front of them, and explained, "Life is short. Get used to it." 

Finally, they all arrive at Foxworth Hall, a place so creepy and forboding, little Cory observes, "Witches in there, Mama. Witches and monsters." Maybe not, but the grounds do have a bunch of noisy hell hounds and a creepy butler named John. The children meet their grandmother, who's identified in the credits as "Grandmother", but I've learned is actually named Olivia, because V.C. Andrews ran out of "C" names, I guess. It may be said that Louise Fletcher***, who plays Olivia, displays the only thing approaching competence in this movie, though she's stuck playing a psycho biddy so cold and heartless she makes Nurse Ratched seem warm and cuddly.

Olivia leads the children to an upstairs room, explaining that they're to stay there at all times. She also instructs them to never speak, or even whimper, without her permission, then exits, locking the children inside. There are bars on the windows. The next morning, she brings them breakfast, then asks if the children know why their mother left 17 years ago, and when they inform her they don't she explains: "Your mother's marriage was unholy! A sacrilege! An abomination in the eyes of the Lord! She did not fall from Grace. She leapt -- into the arms of a man whose veins pulsed with the same blood as hers! Not a stranger, but her own uncle! And you, the children, are the devil's spawn! Evil from the moment of conception!" I'm guessing at this moment, that "World's Best Grandma" mug they were planning on giving her, won't go over well.

This shocking back story is a lot for the kids, and us, to absorb, and it's never addressed in any meaningful way in the movie. We can't imagine how or why it would happen, and the writers don't seem to give a shit about telling us anything. (I'm sure the book it's based on offers a perfectly ridiculous explanation.) Olivia concludes by telling them their grandfather must never know they exist.

Meanwhile, downstairs, Corinne takes her first step towards reconciliation with her father, a creepily ancient man (he looks like he could be her grandfather) with long fingernails, who lies in bed withering away, unable to rise. She stands before him and lowers her blouse. Her mother reaches for a whip. The camera, mercifully, cuts away to an exterior shot of the house and we hear the sound of a whip.

(Did I happen to mention that this is movie got a PG-13 rating? I guess someone decided a depiction of incest and sadomasochism was perfectly acceptable fare for kids in middle school.)

My Heart Belongs to Daddy (Because He's an Organ-Collecting Psychopath)

By Bill S.

It's Father's Day, and, as we do every year, we celebrate by remembering the movie and TV dads who make us grateful for the ones we had. This year, we'll spotlight three memorably awful TV dads (if your own dad was worse, you have our sympathies.)

Billy (Denis Leary) on "Animal Kingdom"

It might not come as a surprise that none of the Cody brothers has the same biological dad. Apparently when Smurf was on the road, she hooked up with a different guy and added a new kid to her brood. (Instead of forming a pop band, like Shirley Partridge, she opted to make petty crime the family business. Probably because the wardrobe was cooler.) It's hard to decide which of Smurf's exes was the biggest waste of space, but I'd pick Billy, the father of youngest son Deran (the "nice" one). After abandoning him for years, Billy drops back into Deran's life, reeking of cheap liquor, skunk weed, and poor judgement (all of which were probably factors in the kid's conception). He nonetheless earns Deran's trust, and repays that trust by sticking around long enough to help the Codys pull off one job, then heading to Deran's bar to help out with some cleaning -- namely, the safe, which he empties, and takes off all over again.

August Cartwright (John Emmett Tracy)/Dr. Ethan Campbell (Sebastian Roche) on "Batwoman"

After witnessing a car plunge into a lake, he dives into the water to rescue 13 year old Beth Kane. He brings her to his home...and holds her prisoner, to be a playmate/pet for his facially deformed son Johnny, who's also basically a prisoner, isolated from the outside world. He turns those children into monsters. As a bonus, he also recovers the body of Beth's mother, and keeps the dead woman's severed head in a freezer, with plans to transplant her face onto his own mother. He later surgically alters his own face to assume the identity of a respected doctor.

This guy would scare the crap out of Norman Bates.

Dr. Martin Whitley (Michael Sheen) on "Prodigal Son"

A prominent surgeon, responsible for saving countless lives. Also, a serial killer responsible for at least 23 murders. When his son discovers one of the bodies, and with it, the truth about his father, he's emotionally scarred for life. 

Michael Sheen deserves an Emmy for turning "My boy!" into the creepiest phrase in the English language. In the Season one finale, we learn Whitley has also done severe damage to his seemingly normal daughter, leading him to proudly beam, "My girl!"

This guy would scare the crap out of August Cartwright.

I'll close with a message to all you Dads out there: Parenting is tough, and you may, at times, wonder if you've made the best choices for your kids. Take heart -- if you're not a murderous sociopath, chained to the wall of a prison cell, wondering when your kids will visit, then you're probably doing an okay job.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Birthday, MaryC!

By World O' Crap Special Birthday Correspondent Bill S.

Today we celebrate the birthday of MaryC, and, as always, search for that perfect gift. It's a bit different this year, with most of the country in quarantine. What do you get for the girl who's housebound?
Let's see what we can find in the Carol Wright Gifts catalogue

ZIP FRONT SEERSUCKER LOUNGER
all sizes only $19.99
This slimming-look, zip-front lounger has lace trim and two roomy pockets.

Best of all, it's stylish!








DELUXE GOPHER Pickup and Reaching Tool
$9.99, additionals $7.99
E-x-t-e-n-d You Reach Nearly 3 Ft.!

Hey, this is a great idea if you have to shop for essentials, such as liquor. Get two of them, grip one with the other, and hold it in front of you to maintain social distancing (and SMACK! anyone who tries to violate your space.)

PERSONAL HYGIENE REFRESHER
Why pay $11.99? Ours only $9.99
Your Own Personal Bidet

If the hoarding of toilet paper continues, this could be the biggest seller during the holidays. (A, um, stocking stuffer.)

But what about fun indoor activities? Perhaps we can find something in that other great catalogue, Things You Never Knew Existed

[Note from Scott: Sadly, Things You Never Knew Existed, which has been a part of Bill's birthday posts for many years now, has gone the way of the Steller's sea cow. When you click on the link above, this is what greets you:

So let this last appearance stand, not only as Bill's encomium to Mary's special day, but also as an epitaph for that great American institution, the Catalogue Full o' Bullshit.]

CHAIR EXERCISER
$42.98
Great Low-impact workout! Tone up your arms and chest muscles without ever leaving your seat! Sturdy fitness device secures to virtually any chair with 21" Velcro straps. Elastic Power Chord bands with cushioned handles--

So basically you sit on a bungee chord and stretch it out? I said a fun activity. Moving on...

Perhaps some light reading...?

EXECUTIONS IN AMERICA Over 300 Years of Capital Punishment
$14.99
Heavily illustrated with rare pictures of the condemned criminals, their executioners, the official instruments used to carry out the sentences, and in many cases, the actual execution.

300 years? So they're including future executions?

JEFF DUNHAM ALL AROUND THE MAP DVD
$18.98
Jeff Dunham and his iconic creations (Achmed, Walter, Peanut, and Bubba J.) travel the world pushing the limits on 5 continents, in arenas few Americans have dared to perform!

Well, that's probably a little bit funnier than the "Executions" book.

[From Scott: Only if it includes photos of Bubba J. in the gas chamber.]

POTTY PIANO MAT
$19.98
Electronic vinyl keyboard fits around the commode so you can tap out a tune with your toes while you tinkle!

Well, I'd refrain from doing a Jerry Lee Lewis impression, but apart from that, I think we've found our winner!

Happy Birthday, MaryC!

[From Scott: And what's a birthday around here without the traditional Sexy Birthday Lizard!]

This Parson's Chameleon wants you. Bad.

The 8th Annual SKELLY Awards

By Bill S.

The Academy Awards are airing this Sunday, but before we see who'll win the top prizes, it's time for the annual presentation of the SKELLY, awarded to the actor among the year's Oscars nominees has the most embarrassing prior role. The competition was pretty close--this year's candidates include stars who appeared in films that were nominated for Worst Picture of the Year in the very first Golden Raspberry Awards. It's hard to say whether the fact that they didn't win is a compliment or an insult.

7th Place: Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett's had a good year--she has two Oscar nominations, one for her lead role in Marriage Story and another for her supporting role in Jojo Rabbit. She began acting as a child performer in the 90's, which is also when she made most of her worst movies. In fact, it's hard to think of a child actor from that period with a more dismaying resume--while Anna Paquin was winning an Oscar, Christina Ricci and Kirsten Dunst were competing for the title of Cult Movie Queen, Scarlett was getting stuck in junk like...

Home Alone 3 (1997)
I'll bet you didn't know there even was a third Home Alone movie. (By that time, the franchise should have been called, "My God, We're Crappy Parents!") This one featured nobody from the first two films, which makes it less a sequel and more of a crappy ripoff. But at least there's no cameo by Donald Trump.

6th Place: Joe Pesci
Joe made his movie debut as "dancer at the Peppermint Lounge" in the 1961 film Hey, Let's Twist. He wouldn't make another film for 15 years, although he did release an album in 1968, "Little Joe Sure Can Sing"(under the name Joe Ritchie). Raging Bull finally brought him name recognition, and along with it steady acting gigs, and an Oscar for his role in Goodfellas. While I'm tempted to name 8 Heads In a Duffle Bag as his most embarrassing role (the title would be reason enough), I'll instead pick the other unnecessary sequel to Home Alone...

Home Alone 2: Lost In New York (1992)
In which Pesci, Daniel Stern and Macaulay Culkin reprised their roles from the first film, and Brenda Fricker played Jane Darwell playing the Bird Lady in Mary Poppins, for some reason. This was the one where Donald Trump made a cameo. When the movie aired on the Canadian Broadcasting Company in 2014, Trump's scene was cut. Five years later, he took this as a political swipe. He then went on to praise Clark Gable for all the great roles he's been getting.

5th Place: Charlize Theron
Charlize made her film debut as an uncredited extra in Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (I didn't even know there was a second one.) Her first credited role was in Two Days In the Valley (1996). She always seemed on the verge of landing a "breakthrough" role before her decidedly un-glamorous role in Monster finally proved she was more than just a pretty face. Before that, the quality of her films was erratic, some good, some bad, and some...just a waste of her time and ours, like...

Sweet November (2001)
The movie tells the story of a man (Keanu Reeves) who begins a month-long romance with a woman (Theron) who's revealed to be terminally ill. It's a remake of a 1968 movie that starred Anthony Newley and Sandy Dennis. That version was pretty bad, so I'm not sure why anyone would remake it. Perhaps in the hopes of improving it? Well, they failed on that score. I'd still recommend the bad original, if only because the supporting cast included beloved soap star Marj Dusay, who passed away last month.

Incidentally, in addition to Charlize Theron and Margot Robbie receiving Oscar nominations for their roles in Bombshell, the movie is also nominated for Best Makeup & Hairstyling. I think it deserves to win, not for turning three beautiful blonde women into three other beautiful blonde women, but for turning John Lithgow into Jabba the Hut's uglier, more repulsive cousin.

4th Place: Brad Pitt
Brad got his start acting on television, with his first credited role being on the daytime soap "Another World". He also appeared on "Growing Pains" twice, first as a love interest for daughter Carol, then as a rock star idolized by younger son Ben. (I mention the characters to underscore the fact that he had minimal interaction with Kirk Cameron, and so maintained his will to live.) Just about every actor who began working in the 80's has appeared in at least one dumb teen comedy, one dumb slasher flick, or one of each. Or, in Brad's case, a movie that was both:

Cutting Class (1989)
In this movie, a bunch of characters are getting killed at a high school, and Brad becomes a prime suspect before it turns out to be exactly who we expected it to be in the first place. Also, Martin Mull stumbles around the woods aimlessly, and his connection to the story remains a mystery to us until the very end. Every adult character in this thing is completely obnoxious--they'd make the ones in a John Hughes movie cringe. When I watched this movie (which you can find in its entirety on YouTube) I honestly couldn't tell whether it was supposed to be a horror movie or a spoof of one. I could, however, tell it was really stupid.

3rd Place: Anthony Hopkins
Anthony's first movie role was in The White Bus (1967). He'd done some television work prior to that. As you might expect with any actor who's been working for over 50 years, he's had his share of career ups and downs, and the biggest drop would be...

A Change of Seasons (1980)
In this movie, Hopkins plays a married college professor who begins an affair with a student, played by Bo Derek. When his wife of 20 years (Shirley MacLaine) finds out, she begins having an affair with a younger man (Michael Brandon). They all wind up in a vacation cabin and...oh, just watch the trailer.

I suppose they were aiming for a sophisticated bedroom farce. All they needed was, you know, wit and sophistication. And characters who talked and acted like normal human beings. The screenplay for this thing was written by Erich Segal, of all people, and he did have to say he was sorry this time.

2nd Place: Kathy Bates
Kathy made her movie debut as an unnamed "audition singer" in the 1971 film Taking Off, in which she was billed as "Bobo Bates". She played supporting roles throughout the 70's and 80's, in both film and television, but was making a name for herself on Broadway with lead roles in "Night, Mother" and "Frankie and Johnny in the Clare De Lune".  Her role in Misery finally made her a movie star, and that of course led to her getting better roles. It also led to a friendship with director Rob Reiner, which may explain why she took a small part in his worst film (and hers):

North (1994)
This movie tells the story of a young boy (Elijah Wood) who, fed up with his parents, decides to divorce them and set off to find new ones, encountering, each time, one dumb ethnic caricature after another. Kathy Bates plays an Eskimo lady who sends her father (or father-in-law, it's not quite clear) to drift off on an icy raft to his death because he's outlived his usefullness. This is supposed to be...funny? The movie is full of scenes like that.

How bad is it? Well, it inspired the following review from Roger Ebert:

"I hated this move. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it."

Gene Siskel didn't like it either, and Richard Roeper called it one of the 40 worst films he'd ever seen, saying it was "the most difficult to watch from start to finish. I have tried twice and failed." Five minutes would be enough of a challenge.

This movie also marked the feature film debut of then nine year old Scarlett Johansson, so I guess she's not only a dual Oscar nominee, but a dual SKELLY nominee. (She said that when she was on the film set, she knew intuitively what to do. But I guess she resisted that urge to flee.)

Which leads us to this year's winner and...

OH, MY GOSH, WE HAVE A TIE!

For this first time in the history of the SKELLY Awards (all eight years of it) I couldn't declare one winner. It was simply too close to call, so our TWO lucky recipients are...

AL PACINO and TOM HANKS

Pacino made his film debut in Me, Natalie (1969), and became one of the most acclaimed actors of 1970s. But  in the 80's he seemed to suddenly hit some career slump, only to rebound in the 90's. I'm not exactly sure what happened--why he spent the entire 80's in one disappointing film after another--but it began with his first 80's film, which was also his worst:

Cruising (1980)
In this grisly whodunit/character study, Pacino plays an undercover cop investigating a series of murders. The killer has been targeting gay men, all of whom are part of an underground "leather" scene. As a movie, the picture was a confused, gruesome mess, and it was impossible to figure out whether his character was being drawn into the world of sex clubs, was repelled by it, or if he might, in fact, be the killer.

But the movie's actual badness wasn't the only reason to award it the SKELLY. Crusing was inspired by a real-life series of murders, and when the movie went into production, a lot of LGBT activists, including the reporter whose coverage of the murders led to the movie being greenlit, were outraged, and began protesting the film while it was still in production. They felt, with good reason, that it presented the gay community as sick, twisted, deserving of violence. They also feared it might lead to violence against them.

It's easy to forget today, but until very recently, there were very few movie depictions of LGBT people, and positive portrayals were even fewer and far between. So when pictures like The Detective, Freebie & the Bean and Cruising come along, they add insult to injury. In addition to being an insult to audience intelligence.

Tying with Pacino for this year's SKELLY award is Tom Hanks, who made his movie debut in He Knows You're Alone (1980). Before becoming a movie star, he did a lot of TV, including the sitcom "Bosom Buddies", which was funnier than it had a right to be, thanks to the chemistry between Hanks and Peter Scolari, and a fabulous all-female supporting cast. He also did guest spots on "Family Ties" and "Taxi". And then he made what may be the single goofiest film of his career:

Mazes and Monsters (1982)
This made-for-TV movie centered around a group of college kids involved in a role-playing game called "Mazes and Monsters", similar to "Dungeons and Dragons". It seems hard to believe (to the point of being ridiculous) but back in the 80's, there was a growing fear that role-playing games could be dangerous. When the kids grow bored with playing the regular game, one of them suggests acting it out, turning it into a live action role-playing game. And that's when the movie goes from dumb to straight-up, bugfuck insane, because Tom Hanks' Robbie begins to lose touch with reality, and starts to believe he is  his game character. I guess we can look forward to another story about the dangers of being in an acting class, a danger his co-stars have clearly avoided. (Chris Makepeace, as a kid with an I.Q. of 190 and a hat collection that exceeds that, seems to be acting as badly as he can on purpose--nobody could be that bad by accident). The ending of this thing is one big WTF?

You can find the entire movie on Youtube, if you're starved for unintentional laughs. You may wind up overdosing.

Congratulations and condolences to all the winners.

Live Bloggin' Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

BILL S: I think I'll "Liveblog" tonight's airing of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"

SCOTT: I think that might be a good idea--

BILL S: TRY AND STOP ME!

SCOTT: Um...

BILL S: In the 50's and '60's, Burl Ives was known as an Oscar-winning character actor and Grammy-winning country singer.Today he's known mainly as a talking snowman.

SAM THE SNOWMAN: Some people say I'm just a ripoff of Frosty the Snowman, but can Frosty play the banjo? No. And do I make sinister promises as I melt, like "I'll be back again someday!", which sounds like something a serial killer would whisper just as you pulled the lever on him in the death house?

Again, no.

Anyway...🎶 Have a holly, jolly Christmas... 🎶

BILL S: If I can't recall "the most famous reindeer of all", why would I remember the others?

BILL S: The lightbulb aspect of Rudolph's nose isn't nearly as off putting as that damn NOISE it makes--it's worse than the Emergency Broadcast test signal.

SCOTT: This has been a test of the Emergency Broadcast Network. Had this been an actual red-nosed reindeer, you would have been instructed where to tune in your area for news and official information.

BILL S: Why aren't Rudolph's parents more freaked out by the fact that he's only a few minutes old and can already speak, and identify Santa? That's some creepy demonic shit there.

SCOTT: To be fair, baby Rudolph is slightly less disturbing than the madly crackling zombie deer head in Evil Dead II.

Slightly.

BILL S: In the first of many times Santa will behave like a total dick in this cartoon, warning Donner that his kid's abnormality will disqualify him to pull the sleigh.

SANTA: Why you little freak! Your parents ought to pin your ankles together and leave you to die of exposure on a hillside, like Oedipus. But I suppose then you'd just come back and bang your mother!

BILL S: All these years I thought the elf aspiring to be a dentist was named "Herbie". It's HERMY--a name that probably dropped in popularity after this cartoon aired.

BILL S: Donner is so embarrassed by his kid's birth defect he forces Rudolph to wear a fake nose. Great parenting, dude.

BILL S: The elves put on a cheerful musical number about how great it is to work for Santa. His reaction: "It needs work". First off, it sounded fine, and second, even if it wasn't, they're toymakers, not professional singers. And they're doing it for him. Ungrateful bastard.

BILL S: The Reindeer Games: bringing back all of our most awkward memories from middle school gym class.

Oh great, now the President's weighing in...

DONNER J. TRUMP: So ridiculous. Rudolph must work on his Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Rudolph, Chill!

BILL S: How the heck does Clarice get that bow on her head? Even if she could somehow grip it with her front hooves, she'd fall flat on her face. And don't get me started on the fake eyelashes.

BILL S: "She thinks I'm cuuuuute!!!"

So we have confirmation Rudolph's straight. Still not so sure about Hermy.

BILL S: Santa, being a dick again, telling Donner he should be ashamed of Rudolph, who remember, is still a child, and being subjected to taunts, not just from other kids, but even the coach.

SANTA: You're son's a FREAK! You should have had him DESTROYED!

DONNER: I know, but there's so much paperwork--

SANTA: Nonsense! I RULE these frozen wastelands with an iron hand! Say the word and I'll make that grotesque insult to nature DISAPPEAR! We'll bury him in an unmarked grave, salt the ground, and declare his very NAME a CURSE!

DONNER: Um--

SANTA: What! YOU have a BETTER idea??

DONNER: No! Of course not, sir. I mean...you know...maybe show him unconditional love? Build up his self-esteem a little...?

SANTA: None of that's covered in your dependent benefits. Check your employee handbook, under the "So You've Whelped an Abomination" section, then skip down to subsection IV: Bury, Salt, Curse.

BILL S: "There's Always Tomorrow". Nice tune. Clarice has a nice voice. Yes, I know what I just said.

BILL S: I could swear when this thing originally aired, Hermy and Rudolph had another duet, "Fame and Fortune"--was it cut to make room for more commercial time?

SCOTT: From Wikipedia:

1965–1997 telecastsThe 1965 broadcast also included a new duet between Rudolph and Hermey called "Fame and Fortune", which replaced a scene in which the same characters sang "We're a Couple of Misfits". Viewers of the 1964 special complained that Santa was not shown fulfilling his promise to the Misfit Toys (to include them in his annual toy delivery). In reaction, a new scene for subsequent rebroadcasts was produced with Santa making his first stop at the Island to pick up the toys. This is the ending that has been shown on all telecasts and video releases ever since. Until sometime in the 1970s the special aired without additional cuts, but eventually more commercial time was required by the network. In 1978, several sequences were deleted to make room for more advertising: the instrumental bridge from "We Are Santa's Elves" featuring the elf orchestra, additional dialogue by Burl Ives, and the "Peppermint Mine" scene resolving the fate of Yukon Cornelius.The special's 1993 restoration saw "Misfits" returned to its original film context, and the 2004 DVD release showcases "Fame and Fortune" as a separate musical number. 

1998–2004 CBS telecastsMost of the 1965 deletions were restored in 1998, and "Fame and Fortune" was replaced with the original "We're a Couple of Misfits" reprise...The "Peppermint Mine" scene was not restored; until 2019, it had not been shown on television since the initial broadcast in 1964.

 BILL S: Is anyone else completely grossed out by the Abominable Snow Monster, AKA The Bumble?

Yukon Cornelius: Beware, boys! His tangled, matted, hairy junk is right at eye level!

BILL S: Oh great, they escaped from the Bumble--by floating on a tiny ice raft to who knows where.

SCOTT: I always assumed they were floating down river, Huck 'n' Jim style, to the town of Hyperthermia, MO.

BILL S: The Misfit Toys are sentient, and can talk, sing and dance--that's way cooler than the crap the elves are making.

BILL S: "How would you like to be a bird that doesn't fly--I swim!"
So...a penguin?

BILL S: King Moonracer is a winged lion--which makes him the biggest freak on the island.

KING MOONRACER: Yeah, very funny, smart guy. Too bad for you my cloaca's opening...

BILL S: Rudolph returns home, and learns that his parents and Clarice have left to look for him. They could be dead or seriously injured, but all Santa cares about is how it affects HIM. Without Donner, what will he do? I dunno, use the other seven Reindeer? All this time, he never had a backup plan?

SCOTT: And he's agitated and skinny--everyone comments on it. I think while everyone else is busy making toys, Santa is off secretly cooking meth.

BILL S: Why don't the reindeer escape the Bumble by just FLYING AWAY?

SCOTT: People asked John McCain the same thing, and the answer is the same: the Bumbles, like the North Vietnamese, received sophisticated anti-aircraft batteries from the Soviet Union. The North Pole is where the Cold War got COLD, man.

BILL S: "Why doesn't he get it over with?" Gosh, you almost never hear someone in a holiday special aimed at children express a yearning for the sweet relief of death.

If I ever go missing, I hope nobody in my family is stupid enough to look for me in the den of a dangerous predator.

BILL S: Oh, great the Bumble wants a job. Just what we need, a ladder that eats and poops.

BILL S: "That silly elf song is driving me crazy"
It's a good thing he didn't hear the new verse:
"We are Santa's elves
No life for ourselves
We're enslaved by a cranky tyrant,
We are Santa's elves"

BILL S: The snowstorm is so terrible Santa will have to cancel Christmas. I'm sure Jesus will be very disappointed.

JESUS: Alexa, where's my stuff??

BILL S: So, earlier, Santa was worried about how he'd be able to fly without Donner, his lead reindeer, but now he's asking Rudolph, who's NEVER done it in his life, to lead them all?

Rudolph is was too forgiving. If it had been me, I'd be like, "Oh, NOW you want my help? Suck my pointy antlers, old man."

BILL S: I wonder if those living Misfit Toys are creeped out by the inanimate toys the elves made--imagine being on a plane where half the passengers are mannequins.

SCOTT: Well, I was on a plane once where about half the passengers were watching Mannequin.

It was chilling...

BILL S: Also, an umbrella isn't a parachute, so those Misfit Toys are crashing to the ground to their deaths.

LES NESSMAN: The toys are hitting the ground like bags of wet cement!

BILL S: In the X-rated version of "Rudolph", the line "he went down in history" had a different meaning entirely.

BILL S: Well, that's it. Hope you all enjoyed my live blogging of 'Rudolph". Good night all.

Happy Father's Day

By Bill S.
It's Father's Day, and as always, we celebrate the occasion by remembering TV and Movie dads who make us grateful for the one we had. This year I thought I'd take a slightly different approach, by focusing on one TV show, and honoring a film actor who excelled at playing questionable dads. I'll call it the "RiverDuvall" edition.

WORST TV DADS
The men of Riverdale.  An insane mix of Beverly Hills 90210, One Tree Hill and Peyton Place (with just a smidgen of Twin Peaks sprinkled in), Riverdale is one of my favorite current guilty pleasures. (To give you an idea of just how far it strays from the old "Archie" comics, the reigning male sex symbol is Jughead, owing mainly to the casting of Cole Sprouse.) Just about every parent on the show is a hot mess in one way or another, with the exception of Archie's dad Fred (one reason among many why Luke Perry will be sorely missed). Among the show's terrible dads...

Clifford Blossom (Barclay Hope). The father of twins Jason and Cheryl, he earned his money supposedly by selling maple syrup, but that's just a front for drug trafficking, including a substance known as "Jingle-Jangle" (an in-joke reference to a bubblegum pop hit by The Archies). When Jason found out, Clifford killed him. Once his secret was known by the town, he committed suicide. Barclay Hope returned to the series to play Clifford's twin brother Claudius, allowing to play a terrible uncle.

Hiram Lodge (Mark Consuelos). Don't ask my why I know this, but Mark won the "Choice TV Villain" prize at last year's Teen Choice Awards. Veronica's dad is the richest man in town, and it turns out he's a mob boss intent on owning all of Riverdale. Which is pretty much what we all suspected although in the comic book, although there he didn't have washboard abs and teeth that outshine the sun.

Hal Cooper (Lochlyn Monro). I'd have to recap three seasons worth of storylines to describe how evil Betty's father was, but I'll just bottom-line it for you all: he turned out to be the serial killer known as "The Hood" who'd been terrorizing the town. Which really put a strain on his relationship with Betty.

Edgar Evernever (Chad Michael Murray). The leader of a creepy religious cult known as "The Farm". With the help of his teenage daughter Evelyn, he lured otherwise sensible people into joining by hypnotizing them into believing they were seeing deceased loved ones...and then harvesting their organs for sale on the black market. Edgar's inclusion on this list is debatable though, since we eventually find out that Evelyn is neither a teenager nor his daughter, but actually his wife. Well, one of them anyway.

WORST MOVIE DADS
A while back, I devoted a Mother's Day column to actress Jessica Walter, who played quite a few terrible moms in her career. This year, I thought I'd single out an actor for his portrayal of bad dads: seven time Oscar nominee Robert Duvall. Of course in his six decades long career, he's played a wide variety of memorable characters. Yet it's surprising how often he earned a spot on the Bad Dad list. Among them:

Lt. Col. Wilbur "Bull" Meechum in The Great Santini.  Probably the movie character who leaps to the front of our minds when we think "terrible dad", Bull was a bully, a racist, homophobic, sexist and seemingly incapable of showing any warmth. Who could forget the scene where he bounces a basketball off his son's head? Most of the characters are afraid of standing up to him, which is why we're grateful for his daughter Mary Anne (Lisa Jane Persky), who uses humor to undermine his authority and call him out on his crap. My favorite scene is the one in which she jokingly claims to be pregnant, describing the father, "Rufus", as  a negro, intellectual, pacifist homosexual: "You'll get to like him after awhile, Dad. Dwarfs are easy to like, especially when they're cross-eyed!" Bull is not amused.

Mac Sledge in Tender Mercies. The role that won him an Oscar. Mac is a once famous country star who destroyed his life with hard drinking and hard living. He gets a second chance in life when he meets a young widow with an eight year old son, quitting drinking and finding Jesus. Which is all very nice for him, but what about the people he left behind? He hasn't had contact with his teenage daughter, Sue Ann (Ellen Barkin) in many, many years, and when she tries to re-connect with him, he barely makes any effort. He won't even sing the song he sang to her when she was a child--her one fond memory of him--he pretends not to remember it. (The song in question is "Wings of a Dove", which every country singer knows) Later, we learn the girl has died in an automobile accident. This is heartbreaking for us, and we only saw her for a few minutes. But Mac doesn't seem to register any grief about it. Which is not the case for his ex-wife, Dixie (Betty Buckley). In a movie where everyone--especially Mac--keeps a tight reign on their emotions, Dixie wears them on her sleeve. If Mary Ann called out her dad in The Great Santini, Dixie fills that role here. She suffers a breakdown following Sue Ann's death, and, from a hospital bed, lays into Mac like nobody else would. We'd have liked to see her smack him (he used to knock her around, which why they split up). But I guess her words packed enough punch, because by the end of the movie he's finally able to admit how senseless his daughter's death was. Which means that, just maybe, he won't screw up things with his stepson.

Mr. Childers in Sling Blade. He's not the main villain in the film--that would be Dwight Yoakum's scuzzball character Doyle. In fact he's barely in the film. But as the father of this film's protagonist Karl (Billy Bob Thornton), he was an abusive creep, who may even be responsible for his son's brain damage. He's definitely responsible for the death of his second son, who was born prematurely and was, according to Karl, "no bigger than a squirrel". He gave the baby (wrapped in a bloody towel) to Karl (then about six or eight years old) and told him to "get rid of it", which Karl, afraid of disobeying him, does by burying the baby alive.

Euliss "Sonny" Dewey in The Apostle. Sonny arrives in the Bayou of Louisiana to start a new church and preach the Gospel. His natural charisma brings in a lot of followers--he even wins over a construction worker (Billy Bob Thornton) who'd planned on knocking the church down. He also becomes a local celebrity, appearing on the radio.

Oh, did I happen to mention that the reason he's really in Louisiana is to flee a murder charge in Texas? See, after showing up at his kid's little league game, he beat his wife's lover with a baseball bat, leaving him in a coma (he eventually dies), and attempted to drag his wife home (by her hair), scaring the crap out of the kids. He leaves town, dumps his car in the lake, and destroys all evidence of his past life. When his wife hears him on the radio, she notifies the police, who show up at the church during the service. He asks them to wait until it's over, then proceeds to give a long, long sermon (it's like a filibuster) but finally turns himself in.

Judge Joseph Palmer in The Judge. When he becomes the suspect in a hit and run accident, he seeks the help of his attorney son Hank (Robert Downey, Jr.). One problem: Hank is reluctant to take the case, because he's convinced the judge is guilty. That probably tells you all you need to know about him. (Although Hank does change his mind once he finds out the attorney appointed to his father is Dax Shepherd.)

Robert Duvall is now 88 years old but as far as I know, isn't retiring. He could probably keep playing terrible dads when he's 100. I'm rather looking forward to seeing him, at 100, bouncing a basketball off his 80 year old son's head.

Happy Father's Day to all the Dads out there!