The Dreams in the Witch House (a book review post)

To say that Lovecraft was obsessed with dreams would be an understatement. I should probably do a count of how many of his stories have dreams as a main component, but I'm not going to do that. Someone else probably already has, anyway, and I'm not even going to look and see. Why? Because I just don't care. Generally speaking, Lovecraft's dream stuff is ludicrous. Yeah, you can probably tell I'm at the end of my patience with Lovecraft and his shit. Because his stuff was, on the whole, shit. And his writing didn't get better as he practiced. If anything, it got worse. Like with this story...

Granted, his career was cut short by his early death but after... some way too large amount of stories, you'd expect them to start improving. You'd expect some sort of variation or evolution or... SOMETHING! But, no, as with Tim Burton and his inability to quit putting Edward Scissorhands into every fucking movie he makes, Lovecraft seemed to have gotten stuck on one idea and just kept revolving around it and around it and around it. Not to mention the fact that "Cyclopean" is probably a word you never need to use more than once in your lifetime (unless you play Magic, because some the cards make use of the word), and Lovecraft used it ALL THE FUCKING TIME!

And, sheesh! Yes, I know that Edward Scissorhands is not literally in every one of Burton's movies, but, if you watch Burton end to end, I think you'll find he mostly keeps making that same movie over and over again. Mostly.
But I digress...

So, yeah, this book... Young man obsessed with oculty things moves into a house that was previously owned by a woman accused of being a witch. He starts having strange dreams... until all the evidence begins to show that they are not dreams at all, but he keeps telling himself they are. Basically, he ignores all the evidence and refuses to really do anything to stop what's happening, choosing to live in la-la land instead, until it's too late and people end up dead. Pretty typical Lovecraft.
Sounds kind of like Republicans, actually...

The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance (or Birdman) (a movie review post)

Remember the 80s and how Michael Keaton was "the man"? My first Keaton movie was Mr. Mom; now, thinking about it, I want to see it again. He was perfect in the role as this rather disheveled husband shoved into being the stay at home dad. He had this persistent look of panic that was appropriate.

But then came Tim Burton's Batman, and the look shifted from "panic" to "vacant," which really wasn't appropriate for Batman. He failed completely to pull off a believable Bruce Wayne, the reason he was chosen for the role. Then after Batman... well... nothing. For a long time. Nothing "real," at any rate.

All of that to say that on a certain level I love this movie for the sole reason of having Michael Keaton as Riggan. It brings with it a certain amount of awesome. But he was also excellent in the role. He brought with him just the right amount of desperation to make you wonder wether Riggan is completely sane or not, something necessary for the film to work. In fact, it's this question that elevates the movie from just being about a washed up actor trying to revitalize his career to being a great magical realism story. Keaton was terrific.

In fact, all of the cast were great. Some of them in the ways they normally are, like Emma Stone and Amy Ryan, but a couple of them really stood out.

Zach Galifianakis did not do his normal eccentric weirdo; instead, he was a rather fretful lawyer too heavily invested in Riggan's show. He did a good job. A really good job. If he wasn't so physically distinctive, I might not have known who he was.

But the real surprise of the show was Edward Norton. I should point out that I am not a fan of Norton. At best, I find him annoying. Rarely do I find that he lives up to his own vaunted opinion of himself. Okay, never do I find that he lives up to his opinion of himself. Except this time. His first scene is priceless and I have to think intended as a bit of self-mockery. Whatever it was, it was genius. His portrayal of Mike, a character who can only really be human when he's onstage (not a good human, mind you, but that's the only place he becomes real), is amazing. I would actually love to see Norton pull a best supporting actor nomination for this.

The camerawork is worth noting, too. It has a continuous flow to it leaving you to feel as if you are moving along with the actors, possibly stopping to glance at things that grab your attention along the way. It's not always a smooth flow, lending to the feeling of walking with the actors. The change of character perspective is often accomplished by two of the characters running into each other and the camera following the new character when the two separate.

If you want something with a clear story and no unanswered questions, though, this is not your movie. There are pervasive questions about what is real and what is imagined, and the movie doesn't really answer those. Or even try to. It's the kind of film that will leave you questioning and wanting to see it again just to see if you missed anything. Or to see the Keaton/Norton scenes again. Or to figure out the jellyfish. That's the one I want to know, so, yeah, I'm going to need to see it again.

Ninja Mutants: An Extended Review -- Part One: The Bay Movie

The new Bay Ninja Turtle movie is one of those that I could hardly avoid seeing. For one thing, my daughter has been dying to see it ever since she first saw the trailer for it. Yes, you heard me right: my daughter. Which is not to say that my son (the younger one) didn't want to see it, but it was much more passive with him. You know, sure, he'd like to see it but, if he didn't get to, it wasn't gonna kill him. Not just did my daughter have to see it, but she had to see it ON OPENING DAY! OR ELSE!

So we went to see it on opening day. It wasn't the first showing, but I'm here writing this, so it must have been close enough to it to keep me alive. For now.

Added to all of that with my daughter, I like the Turtles. The original comic series was pretty brilliant, and the first movie (1990) was so well done it sealed my fate as a fan. That said, I never liked the original animated series. I was more than a few years too old for that when it came out, and "silly" was probably the best description I ever had for it. Needless to say, the Turtles have undergone many changes and interpretations over the years, so I'm not going to try to compare this to any previous incarnations. As much as that's possible, at any rate.

There will be spoilers:

As with any Michael Bay movie, the story is the movie's weakest link. If you've seen The Amazing Spider-Man, you might recognize the plot device of releasing a pathogen from a tower on the top of a prominent building in New York City which accompanies a rooftop battle to stop said release of said pathogen. Add to that the rather overused (at this point) plot of having a secret stash of the antidote to the pathogen on hand to charge the unsuspecting populace for and become insanely wealthy and you'll see the lack of thought that went into the story. Even the twist, that the antidote is in the blood of the Turtles and they must be drained to retrieve it, has been done more times than I can count. Or remember.

But, hey, I suppose considering their target audience... actually, I'm not sure what their target audience is since I'm sure they're trying to get the nostalgia audience along with the kids... Oh, well, for a movie more geared toward kids, I'm sure the plot is fine. Mostly, what the movie needs is good, snappy dialogue, and it has that. My daughter loved Michelangelo because he was so funny. Honestly, there were a lot of laughs in the movie, which ought to be the case for a Turtle picture.

And, as in any Bay movie, the action was spectacular.

There's nothing to complain about with the acting, either. Megan Fox was good as April O'Neil, maybe better than good. She really was the part. Will Arnett was great but, then, it's hard not to enjoy Arnett. The voice actors did a great job, especially Tony Shalhoub whom I didn't even recognize during the movie. Possibly the only issue with the acting wasn't actually an acting issue but a casting one: As soon as I saw William Fichtner, I knew he was the bad guy because, well, that's kind of what he does. It's not fun to know who the villain is because of typecasting.

Speaking of the villain, the other villain, Shredder, although he does have the huge rooftop battle with the Turtles, is hardly the bad guy in the movie. He's just this sort of background character who seems to be controlling things, but, other than the fight, he's not really there. That was disappointing. He, as a character, was hardly menacing because of that. The only thing that made him scary was the huge cybernetic armor suit that he had. I mean, really, anyone can have a suit.

The other main issue goes back to the story, and that's having the Turtles start out as April's childhood pets. It's like ever since Tim Burton did that whole "I made you" thing in Batman, everyone has to have everything circle back around and be all connected and stuff. I suppose it's supposed to make it cooler but, really, it doesn't do anything for me other than cause my eyes to roll. Seriously, it's not even voluntary.

Still, as long as you buy into the plausibility of the Turtles, there's nothing really to break the suspension of disbelief. It never goes to "Seriously!? You expect me to buy that?!" Even the big rig scene stayed within the bounds of Ninja Turtles.

Basically, it's a fun movie... if you like the Turtles. Or if you're a kid who is going to end up liking the Turtles after seeing the movie. If you're not a Turtle fan, this one's probably not for you.

Dystopian Marketing

I have made no secret of my dislike of the whole "dystopian" thing in popular culture these days. Much of my dislike springs from the fact that it, mostly, is not actually dystopian but post-apocalyptic, and I got over the whole post-apocalyptic thing back in the 80s. Names mean something to me, which is part of the reason I never liked Tim Burton's Joker movie. What? You're telling me that Burton never made a Joker movie? Sure, he did; he called it Batman. I walked out of that movie completely dissatisfied and the first comment I made to friends that I saw it with was, "I might have liked it if they'd called it The Joker." [I'm not just giving an opinion here. If you watch any of the interviews with Burton at the time, he says repeatedly that the movie was focused on the Joker. That's the character he found interesting. He could really have cared less about Batman.]

Anyway, if you want to know more about my whole thing with dystopians and calling things what they are, hop over to Indie Writers Monthly and read the post.

Now, I have a question. Last month, I did a little experiment focused on getting reviews. Mostly, that didn't work out. I did get one review from it, so it wasn't a total failure, but one is hardly what I'd call successful, either. However, I did get some sales from the push for reviews. So here's the question: What is it that makes you go from thinking you might want to read a particular book some day to actually buying that book in preparation for reading it? I know what it is for me (sort of), but I don't think, at this point in my life, that I'm a good example of how people buy books. Then there's that it seems to work to some extent (no matter how much I don't like doing it) when I say, "Hey, buy my book! please" And I do know that I don't do that "enough," at least, not according to all of those marketing people who say you ought to have such and such a ratio of self-promotion to other stuff. I tend to, um, not self promote at all.

So, yes, specifically, I'm looking to find out what it would take those of you out there who have been thinking about buying one of my writing things to move from the "thinking about it" side of things to the "doing it" side of things, but I'm assuming that it's the same process for my stuff as for any other books. So let me know:

What's the thing that pushes you over the edge from just thinking about buying a book to actually buying the book. Aside from how it might benefit me, I am curious. Let's call it a data study.

And don't forget, after you answer that question, here, hop over to Indie Writers Monthly and read all about the "dystopian thing"!

Bait and Switch

Back in the summer of 1989, I was walking out of the most ginormous superhero movie ever made. Actually, it was the most ginormous movie release ever, at the time, bringing in $40 million its opening weekend. All of my friends were ecstatic and cheering, and my cousin wouldn't shut up about how the Joker had pulled that three feet long pistol out of his pants and shot down the Batwing, a moment I'd thought was especially stupid, and I wasn't really happy.

Yeah, I know. I hear all of you out there being oh so shocked.

But, see, the thing I kept thinking, the thing I still think today, was, "Maybe, if Burton had just been honest and called the movie The Joker, I would have liked it." [And I could go into a whole thing of all of the things wrong with having Burton make that movie to begin with and how the Joker was the only character he found interesting and how he didn't (and doesn't) like the movie nor, even, the idea of making it--he just wanted to be a part of what he expected to be a vast pop culture phenomenon. But all of that is for some other time.]

And that's how I feel about Man of Steel. If Nolan wanted to make a movie about General Zod, he should have just called it General Zod. As it is, I'm left with feelings of dissatisfaction because Superman was only included as what amounts to an afterthought. He's the guy that's going to defeat Zod, and there's only just enough information in the movie to let us know who he is.

Which brings me to what I think is the biggest issue with Man of Steel, which includes Nolan's abuse of the title (and let's not fool ourselves into thinking that this was not Nolan's movie, even if Snyder directed it. The story and style was Nolan's, which makes it his). Nolan exploits our outside knowledge of who and what Superman is to skimp on the origin, which he then changes. It's sloppy storytelling. Worse than sloppy. And I don't like feeling exploited. The truth is, if I didn't already know Superman's background, I would have had a difficult time with the movie.

For instance, my sister-in-law is a Marvel girl, so she doesn't really know about Superman, not the details, anyway. Her entire exposure to Superman was the godawful Superman Returns, so there were parts of Man of Steel that she didn't get. Like why we should care about Perry White. Within the context of the movie, the fact that we spend so much time watching Perry and friends run away from falling buildings makes no sense. We have no reason to care about that character UNLESS we already know about who he is from the comics (or previous movies or whatever). And she didn't feel any real connection to Clark because the whole reason we care about Clark is we know the Kents took him in and raised him as their own. They accepted him. But what we get from the movie is Jonathan Kent constantly telling Clark what an outsider he is. And don't get me started on the ridiculousness of Jonathan sacrificing himself to the tornado to "protect" Clark's secret. All of this includes the lack of context for calling the movie Man of Steel, which does not come from the movie. Unless you know that Superman is called the man of steel, there's no reason to understand the title, so, again, outside knowledge. Also, the name the "Man of Steel" was given to Superman when humans thought Superman was actually human. They never think that in the movie, so that particular moniker becomes inappropriate, so, in effect, it's a stupid title for the movie and something only chosen to distinguish it from the other Superman movies. He should have just gone with Superman or, even better, General Zod.

So, with all of that in mind, no, I did not like the middle of the movie. I thought the origin part of the origin story of Superman was very poorly handled. We have no idea of who this new guy is, no idea of the strength of his character, no idea of why we should trust him. Other than, well, he says we should, and that after trashing Metropolis (at least, I suppose it's Metropolis--the movie wasn't explicit with that). What we do know is that, when he was a kid, he saved a busload of kids and got in trouble for it. Later, after having a fight with his dad, he allowed his dad to be killed by a tornado.

Also, the idea of Clark having spent 15 years as a drifter while looking for his origins is... well, it's dumb. Why didn't he ever stick that key into the spaceship in the barn? The technology should have been exactly the same. Or is it that the spaceship was "broken"? I'm just not buying that explanation. And why would he even expect to find anything else on Earth from wherever it was he was from? There's no good logic for any of that. It's just a contrived way to bring Lois into contact with Clark and not a very good one at that. And I have nothing to say about the "symbolism" of having Clark be 33 when Zod comes to Earth. That, also, was just dumb. As was Clark learning to fly, basically, because daddy left him a super suit. For which, by the way, there is no good reason for it to have been on a spaceship buried under arctic ice for 20,000 years.

The beginning of the movie, though, I liked. Mostly. It was good to have a back story for Zod beyond "space criminal." The swimming scene and the codex being a skull, though, was, again, dumb. As was depositing the codex within the body of baby Kal-El. The rest was pretty cool, even if it was rather like watching Star Wars what with the big battleships while Jor-El flew around on some kind of giant insect. Yes, I'm overlooking the part where, basically, the entire population of Krypton chooses to stay on Krypton and die rather than evacuate despite having the technology to do so. [I'm also overlooking the fact that, evidently, every single Kryptonian colony failed despite having huge world engine terraforming machines.]

So... we open the move with Zod, and we end the movie with Zod. It was a movie about Zod. And the end of the movie just went on and on and the destruction was beyond my ability to accept. See, here's the thing, we, as viewers, accept that Superman is a good guy, because, well, we know he's a good guy. We have 75 years of prior knowledge that tells us he's a good guy. But the people of Earth in the movie have no such prior knowledge. They don't know who Superman is any more than they know who Zod is. What they do know is that two aliens showed up and destroyed a major city and tried to destroy the world. But, yet, they just accept that Superman is a "good guy," and Nolan gets away with it because he bases that on our knowledge of the character, not what's revealed of the character in the movie (who, remember, allowed his human father to die because of an argument).

But how was Zod? So much of the focus is on him, so how was he? Michael Shannon was, actually, very excellent as Zod. If you've seen him in Boardwalk Empire, it's apparent why he was chose, and it was a good call. He brings just the right amount of zeal to the role to make it believable.

Russel Crowe, whom I generally dislike, was pretty good in his role as Jor-El. Well, except for the hide-and-seek bit in the spaceship, but that was hardly his fault. Seriously? The virtual Jor-El is going to play hide-and-seek with his son upon being uploaded? Another bit of contrivance to get Clark out of the way so that Lois could injured. [And, um, just why didn't Clark hear her coming down  the tunnel? It's not like she was being quiet. Or that that should have mattered at all.]

Henry Cavill was adequate as Superman, although I think he really got the part due to his resemblance to Tom Welling from Smallville. They have the same "farm-boyish" grin. I liked Costner as Jonathan, even if I didn't like the part, much, as it was written. I don't have, however, have strong positive feelings for Diane Lane as Martha. I also thought Amy Adams was good in her role. The rest were non-spectacular.

The final result is that I have a lot of mixed feelings about this newest Superman, which is a far cry better than how I felt about the last Superman. This new one is just too much Nolan for me, who seems to be more concerned on an ongoing basis with what seems cool rather than what makes a good story. Seriously, I didn't need more of the Inception-type building collapses. I am interested to see where Nolan is going to take the story, unless this just ends up being a setup for the JLA movie that DC and Warner Brothers are still trying to get off the ground, at which point, I will decide that DC needs to scrap all the previous movie history it's developed and start over, just like they keep doing with their comic book world. Maybe, someday, they'll get it right.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Being in the Wrong Movie

Ghost Rider has never been one of my favorite Marvel characters; although, I do like him. He's just not one of my favorites. However, I did love the series that started up in 1990, and you have to admit that he just looks cool.

That was easily one of the best comic series on the market at that time and still stands out as one of the best runs ever. Well, at least for the first 25 issues or so. It turned out to be the series that almost caused Marvel Comics to cease to exist, but that's a story for another time.
Wait, wait! Here's another one:

Maybe it was really just about the amazing art of Mark Texeira. Okay, no, it wasn't, because I'm a story guy, but his art certainly didn't hurt anything and really set the mood of the comic.

It's not surprising that Marvel licensed the character out to be made into a movie. I thought the first movie was pretty good, despite what people say about it. They did a pretty decent job of melding the classic 70s Ghost Rider with the modern 90s Ghost Rider. It wasn't a great movie, but it was pretty decent.

I just saw the new one, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, and, I have to say, I have no idea what that was. It acted like a sequel, but it twisted up enough of facts from the first movie to be unrelated to it. It sounds like they want it to be a reboot, too, so that's just messed up. Really, what the movie did was give Nic Cage a chance to act crazy. Which he's really good at, but it just didn't fit in this movie, because it's not the character he established in the first movie. The movie tries really hard, and it almost succeeds (it does have some pretty cool visuals (but the cackling/crackling whenever GR is around is dumb)), but, in the end, it just falls flat on its face. Like, at one point in the movie, GR is blown up with a grenade and Blaze ends up in the hospital because of it, but a little while later, he takes multiple blasts from missiles without slowing down.

It's disappointing, because I always want Marvel movies to succeed (because I'm still just a Marvel kid at heart). But Marvel isn't doing well with this whole Marvel Knights line of movies and is now 0 for 2 (the other being Punisher: War Zone (another sequel/reboot)).

The worst thing about the movie is that the movie was not about Ghost Rider. This is a problem. It seems that when they decided to do the second movie, they wanted to go with a story that fit "very much in the zeitgeist, like Da Vinci Code." So what they wrote was another story about the devil trying to have a half human kid that will be the anti-Christ. Because, you know, that's in the Bible. That the anti-Christ is the son of Satan. Except that it's not. But maybe people think it's a good balance since Christ is the Son of God? At any rate, they wrote this story about how the devil is trying to become the anti-Christ, the same cliche' story you've already seen in dozens of movies, and through Ghost Rider into it to stop him. But the story is never really about Johnny Blaze or about Ghost Rider, so it never feels right.

Have you ever had that experience?

My first real experience of this was with Tim Burton's Batman. I just want to say, right now, that I can't stand that movie. Not only did Mr. Burton know nothing about his subject (as Burton says, "I would never read a comic book."), he didn't even want to make a movie about Batman. He wanted to make a movie about the Joker, so the movie just never felt right to me. Sure, it had Batman in it, but it wasn't really Batman's story, and it just didn't work for me.

This is also why I don't read licensed books. I loved the Dragonlance Chronicles when that came out back in the 80s. I loved Dragonlance Legends, too, but that was still Hickman and Weis. Later, they started letting other people write books set in that world and stories with the characters from the books, and I just couldn't get into them. They never felt right. Like... like I want to tell this story, but I want to use those characters even though they don't really fit what I'm doing. So, even though I tried to read some of the other Dragonlance stuff that came out, I never liked any of it and just quit trying.

The same thing happened with Star Wars. I read a few of the first Star Wars novels that came out when I was a kid: Han Solo at Star's End and the rest of that trilogy, Splinter of the Mind's Eye, and I liked them well enough, but books taking place in the expanded Star Wars universe didn't really hit it big until the 90s when Timothy Zahn wrote Heir to the Empire. What a great book. Zahn nailed it. Often, I would feel just like I was watching the movies while I read his books. However, when I went on to other Star Wars books, which exploded after Zahn's Thrawn trilogy, I was sorely disappointed. Most frequently, the characters just didn't fit the stories. The writers were doing things with the characters that just weren't in character for them in order to meet the needs of their story.

Which brings us to the point. Yeah, yeah, I know... that was a lot to go through to arrive at some point other than what it looked like I started with, but, really, it's all the same thing. See, I went to see this Ghost Rider movie and kept wondering why Ghost Rider was in the movie. He just didn't belong. The movie was about this kid, Danny, not about Ghost Rider. In that, they spoiled both things: they spoiled Ghost Rider, and they spoiled the movie about the kid. Why? Because they didn't know what to do with the character they had.

I'm not sure, but I think this may be the biggest issue that writers have. This issue of making a character do something that the character wouldn't do in order to further the story. More often than anything else, it's the thing that will ruin a book/movie/TV show/whatever for me. When I stop and think, "Why? Why did that character just do that? That's not what that character would do," the writer has failed. Like Alfred bringing Vicki Vale down into the Batcave or Batman taking off his mask in front of the Penguin. Or Ghost Rider being in eastern Europe with the flimsy reasoning "God has brought you here."

Writing is always about character vs plot, I suppose. I tend to be more plot driven myself, so I understand the temptation to bend your character to your will in order to meet a need in the plot, but you just can't do that. To give this a color metaphor, if you've painted your character red and blue, you can't have him do something green. If you need him to do something green, go back and repaint him red, blue, and green. It's probably better that way anyway. The more colors you use, the more depth the character has.


And now for some notes (LOOK! I actually remembered to put them IN the post!):

Note #1:
Last week, I won a copy of Rusty Webb's  "A Dead God's Wrath" playing in Briane Pagel's amazing Star Wars Blogathon. I already own a copy of this great little book, and you should own a copy, too. In fact, if you go over and sign up for the blogathon (just follow the link), mention that I sent you, I'll donate my copy to the first person that does. You'll also get 50 points just for signing up! It's a no lose scenario.

Note #2:
Speaking of Pagel's blogathon, a copy of my very own book, The House on the Corner, is this week's prize. The great thing? All you have to do is comment to be eligible to win. You don't have to be first, you don't have to be correct. Everyone that comments is entered into the weekly drawing. And you'll get 50 points if you mention my name! What a deal. And Briane believes that everyone should read my book, so go sign up for a chance to win your very own e-copy!

Note #3:
There's really no note #3... I want there to be one, but I'm all out. Have a great weekend!

I want my two hours!

Today is the day of the

being run by Alex J. Cavanaugh. Should be an interesting topic. See, the thing is, everyone's favorite movies tend to all run in the same direction. Which is not to say that everyone has the same most favoritest movie, but, if you go looking around at people's favorites lists, the movies listed become rather repetitive. It's not all that often you'll come across something that really stands out. However!
People tend to have different lists for movies they hate, and that list can be much more  interesting than favorites. I mean, generally, when you hear that someone loves Star Wars or Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, you just smile and nod in agreement, "Yeah, that's a great movie." But, when you hear the list of movies people don't like, there is the opportunity for those, "What are you talking about?!" moments, "I love that movie!"

Contrary to popular belief, I quite like movies. Back when I was in high school and college, my friends believed, except for a few exceptions (like Star Wars), that I hated movies. Really, I just made them hate movies. We'd come out of seeing something, and I would point out the flaws and weaknesses, and they would go from "that movie was great" to "oh... that movie really wasn't very good." They interpreted that to mean that I had not liked the movie when that was usually not the case at all. Even though I could pick the movie apart, it didn't (necessarily) diminish my enjoyment. I just accepted that (most) movies would have issues and accepted them for what they were despite plot holes, bad acting, or predictable endings. Eventually, I learned to keep my mouth shut so that my friends could retain their own enjoyment.

None of that is to say that I don't have my own list of movies that you couldn't pay me to sit through again. Okay, well, you probably could pay me, but you'd really have to make it worth my while. I mean, really, really worth my while, and I consider my while to be worth quite a bit. Mostly, I'm going to focus on big, blockbuster movies that I think are completely overrated, although there will be a few where, if I could have, I would have demanded my two hours back. Keep the money, just give me back the time I wasted.

I'm not going to do a countdown here. Well, except for the top few. Mostly, I'm going to go sort of chronologically and deal with them at the time in my life when they happened, and why I think they don't deserve the attention they get.

10. Superman. There has not been a Superman movie made that is worth seeing. I grew up watching the old George Reeves Superman television series, which I thought was great (I haven't seen it since I was a kid, so I don't know how I would feel about it, today, but I loved it back then). The first movie was so much worse than the TV series. Not that Christopher Reeve wasn't good, but the movie itself was just boring. I've never understood why so many people hold it up as the epitome of the super hero movie. Yes, it was the first, but that doesn't make it the best. Besides the boring, it had one of the stupidest endings ever. You  have to understand that this is coming from the 8-year-old me, too. The idea that Superman could fly around the Earth really fast and make time go backwards is just... well, it's stupid. If an 8-year-old could recognize that, there's no excuse for all the adults that were all giddy over the film. And that was the high point of the Superman franchise. Don't get me started on Superman Returns. That's one of those where I want my 2 hours back. Brandon Routh did a great job with what he was given; unfortunately, what he was given was a steaming pile of crap, and there's just not a lot you can do with that.

9. Star Trek. Excluding the latest Abrams version, these movies should never have been made. Again, the first one was the best, and they just went down hill from there. Yes, I hear you all out there cursing me and protesting with mumblings about Wrath of Kahn, but, really, it just sucked. At least, the first one actually had an interesting plot. It might even have been okay if they hadn't been so busy patting themselves on  the back over their less than adequate special effects that they felt it necessary to devote over 30 minutes of screen time to absolutely nothing happening. "Ooh! Our model of the Enterprise looks really cool doesn't it?" "Yes, it does!" "Let's just pan around that sucker for, like, 15 minutes so the audience can really appreciate it!" "Oh, yes, absolutely!" And, then: "Ooh! Look at all the pretty technicolors we can make!" "That's awesome!" "Let's just have Spock fly into this stuff for the next 20 minutes so the audience can appreciate all the cool stuff we can do!" "Oh, yes, absolutely!" What a waste of time.
Now, to be fair, I'm a Star Wars kind of guy, and the action in Star Wars is "faster and more intense!" Action in the Star Trek movies is pretty yawn inducing. That's not tension; it's boredom.
In the end, though, the biggest issue with Star Trek as movies is that I never felt like I was watching a movie. They were just episodes of the TV show that were, for some reason, being shown at the theater. That's just not right. If they'd been on TV, they might have been okay.
The Abrams one, though, that was a movie, and doesn't belong in this list.

8. Batman. To be specific, the Batman franchise that was started by Tim Burton. I think I was the only person that came out of the theater in 1989 with the words "well, that sucked" on my lips. The thing is, if Burton had just been honest and called that first movie The Joker, I might have been okay with it. As it was, though, I hated it. And Keaton, whom everyone was worried couldn't do Batman was fine as Batman, but he sucked as Bruce Wayne. And the more of those movies they made, the worse they got. To the point of, "I want my two hours back!"
Years later, I found out why they were so bad. During a controversy with Kevin Smith, Burton proclaimed, "I would never read a comic book." Tell me how, exactly, you can attempt to make a movie about Batman without ever looking at the source material. That explains why he got everything wrong about those movies.

7. Catwoman. Is there even anything that needs to be said about this one? Well, maybe, source material. Use it. What a disaster of a movie.

6. Event Horizon. I honestly can't tell you why I hated this movie. It was so bad, I've wiped the memory of it from my mind. I just know that my wife and I barely sat through it. In retrospect, I'm not sure why we did. Stupid, stupid movie. One of those movies that forgets that people that really like sci-fi tend to be pretty smart people so failed to bring any amount of intelligence to the table.

5. The Matrix 2 & 3. These movies prove that sequels shouldn't be added after the fact. Although, now, the Wachowski brothers claim that The Matrix was always intended to be a series, that's just a way to justify making sequels for a movie that was never intended to have a sequel. They said as much before they started work on Matrix 2. But the money got into them, and they added a Terminator ending onto what had been a smart, thought-provoking movie. I want my 4 hours back!

4. Green Lantern. I already did a post about this one (you can see it here), so I'm not going to re-review it. Just give me back my 2 hours, okay? With the amount of money this one lost (like $100 million), I can't believe they're making a sequel.

3. Independence Day. The only stupid movie I'm glad I saw in the theater. It was worth seeing it that one time in the theater, because it really did have some cool scenes that would have been lost seeing on just a TV. However, that doesn't justify the utter stupidity that was the plot of this movie. Peter David (one of the greatest writers of comic books ever) did a great review of it back in the day which totally supported all the things that I had been telling my friends that sucked about it. It was one of those movies where the makers tried to distract the audience from the stupidity with cool, flashy things on the screen. Unfortunately, it worked. The only saving grace was Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum; they were great together. It wasn't enough to disguise the big platter of poo poo that was Independence Day, though. At least, not for me.

2. Highlander II: The Quickening. I loved the first Highlander movie. Yes, I realize it's pretty cheesy looking, today, but it was such a great concept. I watched everything that Lambert did for years after Highlander. And there was Sean Connery, too, who was already in my top 3 actors back then in 1986 (he's not anymore, although he probably still makes the top 10). How could they go wrong with a sequel? They forgot they're own source material, that's how. "Hey, I have an idea! Let's take this great fantasy movie we have and turn it into some weird sci-fi movie! That'll work, right?" Wrong. I got to see Highlander 2 for free at a special screening and walked out feeling like I'd been ripped off. That's pretty darn impressive, if you ask me.

1. The Dungeonmaster. Easily, the worst movie I've ever seen. Which I've mentioned before. I don't think 14-year-olds are supposed to walk out of movies feeling like they just wasted 2 hours of their lives. I mean, 14-year-olds are supposed to be wowed by anything that approaches special effects and be easy to please, right? Evidently, that was not the case with me. I walked out of that movie with the thought that it was the worst movie I'd ever seen, and that opinion hasn't changed in more than 25 years. Considering that Highlander 2 and Green Lantern are on this list, The Dungeonmaster is impressively bad. I want my 2 hours back!

There you have it. The worst movies I've ever seen. Well, many of them, anyway. There are a few more that could have made the list, like that monstrosity of a Godzilla movie that was made by the Independence Day people. And the animated Transformers movie. Probably even Cowboys vs Aliens, but I actually haven't seen that one, yet, and I'm not sure I'm brave enough to do it after what I've heard.
Okay, you can all scream at me, now.