breaking the waves - The Screengrab

The Screengrab's Top Ten Worst...Movies...Ever!!!! (Part Nine)

Phil Nugent's Top Ten Worst Movies Ever (Part Two)

6. RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD, PART II (1985)

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To judge from the overly polite reactions to the recent Rocky Balboa and Rambo pictures, some critics who were there when Sylvester Stallone was the biggest star in the world and who had sense enough to cringe about it now feel so sorry for the poor has-been son of a bitch that they're happy he's still alive, steroid-addled, and capable of pulling crows to a cornfield at sundown. They were right the first time and need to get over it. Stallone's naked need for not just ticket sales but approval and respect was always pathetic, and in order to reap these ill-gotten rewards, he made a string of movies that were progressively more brutal in their stupidity, to the point that you could actually sit there feeling the collective I.Q. points being shaved off the audience. Nor does it necessarily make one a humorless tight-ass to regret the fact that, in order to get those fists pumping to his satisfaction, he had to throw gasoline on the fantasy that Vietnam in the mid-1980s was full of captive American POWs, which amounted to emotionally torturing the families of MIA servicemen for the sake of an adrenaline surge, as well as the idea that we didn't lose the war but "weren't allowed to win it," a contention that guaranteed one an interesting crowd reaction in theaters where Vietnam vets were present. The next time somebody as hard up for stardom as Stallone and as shameless about how he gets it comes along, for God's sake, let him be satisfied with making movies where he kills Martians or something.

The Screengrab's Top Ten Worst...Movies...Ever!!!! (Part One)

Under normal circumstances, with Mother’s Day just around the corner, I’d probably be introducing a list of the Top Ten Best and Worst Movie Mothers of all time (hello, Stella Dallas, Edna Turnblad, Mrs. Robinson, Mrs. Bates and, uh, Mothra)!

But, sadly, these are not normal circumstances, and as your doomed pals here at the Screengrab kick off the first of our Final Four Lists of All Time, we figured we’d better get down to brass tacks with some big-time definitive statements.

And so, this week, we’ve all joined our esteemed colleague Scott Von Doviak down in the deepest depths of the cinematic junk heap to compile our own list of Cinematic Unwatchables. And judging from our picks, it seems Tolstoy was correct when he said, “Happy audiences are all alike; every miserable audience is miserable in its own way.”

In other words, our picks were all over the map, but thanks to the cutting edge calculating powers of the state-of-the-art Screengrabulator 5000, we hereby present our ultimate, irrefutable list of THE TOP TEN WORST MOVIES EVER MADE!!!!!!

Face/Off: Breaking the Waves

This post inaugurates what will hopefully be a regular Screengrab feature: two writers debating a specific moment in a great film. I'm calling it Face/Off until someone thinks of something better; sorry. In the meantime, here are Paul Clark and Scott Renshaw on the last shot of Breaking the Waves. Guys, have fun, but please don't take each others' faces. . . off. — ed.

Paul: I should preface by saying that I think Lars Von Trier is one of the world’s greatest filmmakers, and Breaking the Waves is one of his finest films. But I've never liked the final shot of the movie — the bells, the God's-eye view, all that. It bugs me for two reasons. First, it betrays the style of the film, which aside from this shot is a ground-level, documentary-style drama. Second, it ruptures the ambiguous approach the film takes toward Bess. I realize I’m in the minority here; Scott, your thoughts?