The Screengrab : it's pat

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

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 07 May 2009 21:00:00 GMT

Scott Von Doviak's Top Ten Worst Movies Ever

1. CANNONBALL RUN II (1984)
2. BABY GENIUSES (1999)
3. HOWARD THE DUCK (1986)

Howard was a sardonic, sarcastic character trapped in a satiric and surrealistic “world he never made” — a seventies cult hero, part and parcel of his time. By 1986, he was long gone in a cloud of acrimony (on the part of creator Steve Gerber) and lawsuits (on behalf of the Walt Disney corporation, fiercely protective of the pantsless waterfowl image). That didn’t stop George Lucas, looking for something to pass the time during his fifteen year vacation between Star Wars trilogies. As much fun as it is to blame Lucas for every pop cultural misstep of the past three decades, in this case he is mere co-conspirator with director Willard Huyck and screenwriters Huyck and Gloria Katz. Assuming they looked at Gerber’s comics at all, this is what they absorbed from them: duck puns are funny. They then spent millions of dollars in a fruitless effort to prove it. Today even the worst comic book movies attempt to offer up some sort of production design or visual appeal, but Howard the Duck can’t even be bothered with a little Cleveland ambiance, unless you count the punk rocker who proclaims, upon seeing our hero for the first time, “I’ve been doin’ too much toot!” The general reaction to Howard’s presence is summed up by the bouncer who snorts, “That costume don’t fool me!” No shit.

4. BATMAN & ROBIN (1997)
5. GARFIELD: THE MOVIE (2004)
6. BATTLEFIELD EARTH (2000)
7. POOR PRETTY EDDY (1975)

This little-known descent into the depths of hixploitation probably deserves a cult following in the Troll 2 vein. Also known as Black Vengeance, Heartbreak Motel and Redneck County Rape, it’s the twisted tale of a well-known singer (Leslie Uggams) whose car breaks down near the kind of bar the hillbillies from Deliverance would think twice about stopping at for a beer. Elvis-wannabe Eddie takes a shine to her, much to the dismay of bar owner Bertha (Shelly Winters). There is a violent rape scene bizarrely scored to a tender Appalachian-style ballad and intercut with shots of a group of hillbillies (including TV’s Lurch, Ted Cassidy) gathering in the yard to watch dogs hump. The movie also features peculiar psychedelic interludes, fish-eye lenses, ominous banjo plucking, strange industrial noises, a freaky waterfall, Elvis poses…it’s the kind of movie David Lynch might make if something heavy fell on his head.

8. BALLISTIC: ECKS VS. SEVER (2002)
9. STOP! OR MY MOM WILL SHOOT (1992)
10. IT'S PAT (1994)

Click Here For Part One, Two, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine & Ten

Contributor: Scott Von Doviak

Unwatchable Recap: 81-90

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:00:00 GMT

Welcome back to the Unwatchable Halftime Report. We’re getting ready to tackle the 50 worst movies the Internet Movie Database has to offer, but before we get there, let’s take a little breather and survey the wreckage we’ve left in our path. Yesterday we checked out Unwatchables 91-100, so let’s move on up to the next ten.

90. The Bat People. “If The Bat People is notable at all (hint: it’s not), it’s as one of makeup guru Stan Winston’s earliest efforts, though I suspect he’d leave it off his resume if the IMDb didn’t exist. When we finally get a full view of the transformed John, he looks less like a bat than an extra who stole a mask from the set of the Planet of the Apes TV series.”

89. Bloodlust! “The exclamation point means extra thrills! At least, I wish it did.”

88. College Road Trip. “Fathers, it’s not a good idea to sneak into the sorority house where your daughter is staying and hide under her bed. In fact, it’s a good way to get tazed. And young ladies, if your dad hides under your bed, that just means he loves you. But not in a creepy way. Really.”

87. The Sidehackers. “Vince Rommel (gravel-throated biker movie stalwart Ross Hagen, a poor man’s Steve McQueen) is the king of the sidehacking, “a new and exciting sport filled with thrills and spills you’ve never seen before.” And after you’ve watched The Sidehackers, you still haven’t seen them, despite the copious footage on display. Many minutes of sidehacking are presented for our consideration, none of them exciting in any way.”

86. Hobgoblins. “We’ve all heard of doing more with less, but somehow Sloane has managed to do less with less; if he spent any more on Hobgoblins than I spent on lunch today, he didn’t get his money’s worth.”

85. Battlefield Earth. “For a while, we were all so happy for Travolta and his big screen comeback. By the time Battlefield Earth rolled out, there probably wasn’t a person left on the planet who was still happy for him besides his agent.”

84. It’s Pat. “The premise was so thin that the true joke of the sketch quickly became: Can you believe we’re doing this fucking Pat sketch again? So it’s no wonder that the 1994 feature film version became a punch line long before it was given its belated, limited…I hate to even call it a ‘release.’ More of a parole, really.”

83. First Sunday. “The only point of interest is the flamboyant choir director played by Katt Williams, who walks a fine line between mincing gay stereotype and recently arrived space alien.”

82. American Soldiers. “Your old-timey war movies may have been cliché-ridden, but at least you could count on some reliable caricatures like Brooklyn, Country, Mad Dog, Four Eyes, Mama’s Boy and Sarge to help you tell the members of the unit apart. Here you have Sarge, and I think there’s another Sarge, and definitely a medic called Doc and then a bunch of beefy guys with very few acting credits among them. One of the Sarges spends most of the movie in a stretcher, so I was able to keep track of him pretty well.”

81. Soccer Dog: The Movie. “There’s a million family flicks like this – in fact, there’s a whole subgenre of “dogs playing sports” movies like Air Bud and its sequels, and even a Soccer Dog sequel, European Cup. (There’s also the baseball-playing monkey movie Ed, but I have a feeling we’ll be getting to that eventually.)”

91-100

2008 Highlight Reel: The Top Twelve Screengrab Posts of the Year

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Compiling the weekly highlight reels here at the Screengrab is not such an arduous task, but putting together a year's worth of the finest in film bloggery was a considerably more formidable undertaking. Using a complicated points system akin to the BCS in college football, I have surveyed my fellow Screengrabbers, weighted the page views and reader comments, and come up with the following dirty dozen: the best of the year in Screengrab.

Top Ten Reasons The Dark Knight Isn't As Good As You Think It Is

Love it or hate, it's hard to deny The Dark Knight was the pop culture event of the year. Our man Osborne has some qualms.

Why So Serious? The Dark Knight in the Political World

Of course, as with any pop culture phenomenon in an election year, The Dark Knight was used to score political points, few of which made any sense to me.

Forgotten Films: The Oscar

Phil neatly dissects one of the all-time great so-bad-it’s-good movies, and apparently gets legendary author (and The Oscar screenwriter) Harlan Ellison to comment. (L.P.)

The Screengrab Presents: The Five Kinds of Twist Endings

Gwynne knows that, just as there are only seven kinds of stories, there are only five ways to make the endings of those stories totally blow your mind. (L.P.)

Classless Man in Voiceless Brawl

Leonard brings us the heartwarming tale of film critics engaging in a stimulating exchange of ideas.

When Good Directors Go Bad: The Dark Wind (1991, Errol Morris)

Paul focuses on the single fiction film made by one of the cinema’s all-time greatest documentarians – a movie so bad I wasn’t even aware that it existed. (L.P.)

The View through the View-Master: The Iron Giant

Hayden - or as we call him around Screengrab headquarters, "the breeder" - looks at the Brad Bird classic through the eyes of both child and Childs.

CGI Must Die: 5 Reasons Why

Andrew asks the musical question, "Why so much digital crap, Hollywood?"

Take Five: Crime and Pyunishment

Leonard evaluates the oeuvre of one of our most underrated schlockmeisters, Albert Pyun.

Five Reasons We Want Mad Max Back

Enough with Indy, Rocky and Rambo. It's time for our favorite road warrior to make a comeback.

Tom Cruise, at Midlife, with a Freaking Eyepatch

Phil prefers the later, loonier Cruise. Find out why.

Unwatchable: It's Pat

I had to include an Unwatchable on this list, and this one seemed to be a favorite.

(Special thanks to Leonard Pierce for an assist on the comments and to Phil Nugent for diligent research.)

Unwatchable #76: “Kickboxer 3: The Art of War”

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.

The Internet Movie Database is a powerful engine that can be used for both good and evil, and those of us who have ceded a portion of our lives to its control can find ourselves victims of some capricious whims indeed. In the early days of the Unwatchable project, long before I’d been beaten down by the likes of It’s Pat and Anus Magillicutty, I first encountered the Kickboxer series in the form of episode four, The Aggressor. Now, more than two months later, I find myself face-to-face with Kickboxer 3: The Art of War.

Some confusion results. Kickboxer 4 opened with a lengthy montage, presumably made up of clips from the previous installments, designed to bring us up to speed on the story. So I assumed I had already seen a miniaturized version of Kickboxer 3…but now that I’ve actually seen the movie, I can’t see how it connects to its follow-up. It seems to take place outside the carefully established continuity of the Kickboxer series; the villainous Tong Po goes unseen and unmentioned, and our hero David Sloane (Sasha Mitchell) has a Miyagi-esque mentor who appears in none of the other films. I notice that both Kickboxer 2 and 4 are directed by chronic offender Albert Pyun, whereas Kickboxer 3 is directed by Rick King (Prayer of the Rollerboys). I can only assume that King’s work did not fit into Pyun’s vision for the series, and he chose to ignore it entirely. I’d research this matter further if I thought anyone gave a crap.

Anywhat, The Art of War finds Sloane and his wise old Asian mentor Xian (Dennis Chan) traveling to Rio for a big match. Shortly after they arrive, street urchin Marcos steals their camera and Sloane is forced to chase and put the beat-down on the lad. This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, and Sloane takes both Marcos and his jailbait sister Isabella under his wing. Lane (Richard Comar), the slimy manager of Sloane’s slated kickboxing opponent, is a slave-pimp in his off-hours, and he kidnaps Isabella with plans to sell her off to the highest bidder. Lane has his fortune riding on his own fighter, so it’s imperative that Sloane lose the upcoming match. To that end, he makes Sloane a deal: he will let Isabella go if Sloane complies with a special training regimen he’s cooked up. (He’s already asked Sloane to throw the fight and been turned down, but that was before Isabella was kidnapped. Presumably Sloane would be more willing to go along with the plan now that a child’s life is at stake, but then we wouldn’t get to enjoy the scenes of Sloane running up a hill with a backpack full of rocks and getting dragged behind a boat.)

The high point of Kickboxer 3 arrives with a montage of wise Xian’s efforts to heal Sloane in time for the fight. He collects various roots and mouse tails and the venom from a snake to prepare a healing elixir, then smears Sloane’s body with some sort of fungal poultice. Hey, it works! Sloane kicks ass and takes names and everyone lives happily ever after until Kickboxer 4. The question I’m left to wrestle with is whether or not Kickboxer 3 is really 22 bad movies worse than Kickboxer 4. On this score, I suppose it is: Kickboxer 4 features a lot more people getting kicked in the face.

Previously on Unwatchable:
77. BloodRayne 2: Deliverance
78. The Quick and the Undead
79. Anus Magillicutty
80. The Smokers
81. Soccer Dog: The Movie

Unwatchable #78: “The Quick and the Undead”

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.

First, my apologies to those of you expecting to see the latest installment of Summer of ’78 in this space. It will not appear this week due to technical difficulties beyond my control. And by technical difficulties, I mean it’s Netflix’s fault. They had to ship this week’s DVD from their Outer Mongolian branch for some reason, and it won’t get here until Saturday. Honestly, I think Netflix is just very disappointed in me. Until recently, it recommended only the most respected classics and toniest arthouse fare for my viewing pleasure. Then it noticed I was ordering the likes of It’s Pat and Battlefield Earth on a regular basis. “Oh,” Netflix sniffed. “Just another dumbass after all. Here – perhaps you’ll enjoy Encino Man.” If only I could explain to Netflix that I am, in fact, performing a valuable service for the Screengrab readership. But Netflix doesn’t listen. Anyway, the point is: look for a double dip of Summer of ’78 next week.

On to the next order of business, in which we find ourselves in a situation similar to the recent Levottomat 3/Soccer Dog: The Movie imbroglio. As you may recall, Levottomat 3 was number 81 on my version of the IMDb Bottom 100, but I was unable to locate a copy of this 2005 Finnish movie about sex maniacs. So I was forced to make a substitution from a later version of the list, and that turned out to be Soccer Dog: The Movie. As it happens, number 78 on my list is Dis - en historie om kjærlighet, a 1995 Norwegian film that also eluded my grasp. I can only assume that movie fans in the Nordic countries are particularly vigilant about voicing their displeasure on the IMDb. In any case, I was forced to make another substitution from a later iteration of the Bottom 100, and it turned out to be 2006’s The Quick and the Undead (#66 on the list as of this writing).

What we have here is your basic meat-and-potatoes (but mostly meat) post-apocalyptic zombie western. (That reminds me, someday I’m going to have to tell you fine people about the zombie western I wrote. Have I ever mentioned that I invented fast zombies? I should be a gazillionaire by now and instead I’m doing this. Not that I’m bitter!) More specifically, writer-director Gerald Nott (who really should reconsider the name of his production company, Nott Entertainment – that’s just asking for trouble) has conceived The Quick and the Undead as a Clint Eastwood/Man With No Name zombie picture, and then cast another guy named Clint. It is in fact Clint Glenn who stars as zombie bounty hunter Ryn Baskin, who goes up against his rival Blythe Remington (Parrish Randall) in a town infested with the walking dead.

I’ll get right to it: I have no idea what this movie is doing on the list. Presumably, most folks who sat down to watch it knew it was going to be a zombie movie, and that generally entails entrails being eaten and plenty of heads exploding. The Quick and the Dead delivers on both counts. It even has a reasonably clever twist on western conventions: instead of collecting scalps, the bounty hunters remove fingers from their victims and save them in a bag in order to collect their reward. Remington hits on the bright idea of infecting towns previous spared from the zombie plague and then killing all the residents to pad his finger count. Okay, maybe it’s not ingenious, and Clint Glenn’s Eastwood impression is not the most inspired, but The Quick and the Dead at least flirts with competence. There’s a world of difference between this and a genuinely worthless piece of shit like Anus Magillicutty; I do believe that Mr. Nott set out to make the best zombie western he possibly could, given his limitations. I can’t say I recommend it, exactly, but I’ve seen far, far worse.

Previously on Unwatchable:

79. Anus Magillicutty
80. The Smokers
81. Soccer Dog: The Movie
82. American Soldiers
83. First Sunday

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: June 14-20, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 21:00:00 GMT

It’s time to hit the ol’ fishin’ hole (wink-wink), but before we go, let’s bask in the glory that was the week in Screengrab.

We’ve outdone ourselves with this week’s Top Ten list. To be specific, we’ve outdone ourselves by ten with the Gay Pride Top Twenty.

We may go back to Summer School, but First Sunday will be our last.

Don’t mess with the Norton. He’ll Hulk you! He’ll Hulk the shit out of you!

So was that Shyamalan guy ever any good? A look back at The Sixth Sense.

Stan Winston and Cyd Charisse are still dead.

We’re about ready to let Roman Polanski back in the country, how about you?

If you’re offended by the South Park soundtrack, we suggest you blame Canada.

Hey, Mike Myers! People sure don’t like your new movie much – aside from Deepak Chopra, of course. Perhaps you should have read Take Five: Gotta Get a Guru first.

We didn’t read the alleged Frank Darabont draft of Indiana Jones, but we posted about it anyway.

And finally, those two words that strike fear into the hearts of all right-thinking Americans: It’s Pat.

Unwatchable #84: "It’s Pat"

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.

When we looked at Hobgoblins the other day, I mentioned that it might be possible to construct a Bottom 100 list made up entirely of Gremlins ripoffs. Now it occurs to me that you could probably do the same with Saturday Night Live spinoffs, a thought that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. What horrors await me further up the list? Coneheads? Superstar? A Night at the Roxbury? But after watching It’s Pat, my mind was put at ease. For there to be another SNL movie on the list, it would have to be worse than It’s Pat, and science has proven this to be impossible.

By “science” I mean “me sitting through all 77 minutes of It’s Pat.” Now, 77 minutes may not sound like long to you, but let’s remember that all time is relative. A 77-minute James Bond movie would probably zip on by, but for a movie based on a sketch that wore out its welcome thirty seconds into its first of many iterations, it’s 4620 seconds of pure torture. Surely you remember Julia Sweeney’s beloved Pat character – the tight curls and bushy unibrow, the thick-rimmed glasses, the western shirt and khaki slacks clinging tightly to a blobby physique. And you remember the one and only joke about Pat: Is she a he or is he a she? Nobody knows!

The premise was so thin that the true joke of the sketch quickly became: Can you believe we’re doing this fucking Pat sketch again? So it’s no wonder that the 1994 feature film version became a punch line long before it was given its belated, limited…I hate to even call it a “release”. More of a parole, really. Anyone in their right mind would rather watch 77 minutes worth of surveillance footage of writers Jim Emerson, Stephen Hibbert and Sweeney trying to cobble the script together. “Okay, I’ve got it! Pat falls down the stairs and cries, ‘I’ve crushed my nuts!’ But it turns out – Pat has a pocketful of walnuts! And now they’re crushed!” “That’s good, but I’ve got you beat. We see Pat’s equally androgynous lover Chris (Dave Foley in a unisex bob and colorful assortment of muumuus) with his hand in her lap, or her hand in his lap, or whatever, and Chris says ‘I love to stroke your pussy.’ But –get this – Pat has a cat in his or her lap!” And so it goes, until you’re half-convinced you’re watching some sort of experimental anti-comedy.

To the extent that I’ve spent any time thinking about it, I guess I’ve always figured Pat for a dude, but of course, it makes no difference. Either way, Pat is perhaps the most repulsive character ever to headline a comedy. Self-absorbed, rude, oblivious, and gross beyond human measure, this is no one you want to spend your valuable time with – man, woman or otherwise. It represents a career low point for everyone involved, including former SNL regular Charles “One Season” Rocket and cult band Ween, who seem only mildly embarrassed. Really, the only funny thing about the movie is its German title: Was ist Pat? Now that’s comedy.

Previously on Unwatchable:
85. Battlefield Earth
86. Hobgoblins
87. The Sidehackers
88. College Road Trip (pending)
89. Bloodlust!

The 12 Greatest Movies Based on TV Shows, Part II

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 08 May 2008 20:30:00 GMT

THE FUGITIVE (1993)

The Fugitive might not have been the first TV series remade for the big screen, but it was almost certainly the one that proved how bankable- and even respectable- such adaptations could be. The film took as its inspiration one of the most influential series of its day, a four-season cat-and-mouse story of an escaped, convicted killer out to clear his name. While The Fugitive remains true to the spirit of the series, director Andrew Davis and his screenwriters do so in a way that reconfigures the formula for the big screen, beginning with a famous, still-impressive bus crash. The film also benefits from placing nearly equal emphasis on the pursued Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) as it does on pursuer, U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerrard (Tommy Lee Jones, who in a rare display of Academy affection for a genre performance won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar). The Fugitive also has a sense of place that’s rare for a big-budget thriller, utilizing Chicago so perfectly that the story becomes unimaginable in any other setting. But the best scenes in the film are the ones that remain truest to their television inspirations, specifically the near-miss suspense sequences in which Kimble barely manages to evade capture through a combination of luck and formidable intelligence. Of all the TV adaptations up to that time, it was The Fugitive that showed that films of this kind, when done right, could be much more than a simple grab for nostalgia-driven box office, and in doing so became more or less the standard by which big-budget TV-to-film translations are judged.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (1996)

Yes, really. A huge hit on its original release, Mission: Impossible was mostly dismissed by critics as a dopey Tom Cruise action movie, while being criticized by many viewers for having too much plot, not enough stuff blowing up. But a second look at the film reveals what a gripping suspense movie it really is, translating the formula of the TV series- gadgets, undercover missions, realistic masks, and the like- into the form of a summer tentpole release. Mission: Impossible contains at least three or four wonderfully tense scenes- the opening operation gone fatally wrong, the tête-à-tête at Prague’s Akvarium, that awesome Rififi-esque break-in at Langley- more than most Hollywood thrillers can claim. In addition, the film represents the most successful attempt by director Brian DePalma to fuse the silky-smooth cinema-saturated style of his most characteristic work with a big-budget blockbuster, and in the process becomes a surprisingly lean and satisfying thriller. If nothing else, Mission: Impossible deserves respect as the only film in the series to date that’s remained true to the team-centric nature of the show, with subsequent efforts becoming increasingly focused on Tom Cruise saving the world. Supporting players like Jon Voight, Vanessa Redgrave and Henry Czerny make such a strong impression here that it’s a shame that Cruise has become so intent on hogging the spotlight in later films in the franchise.

THE BLUES BROTHERS (1980)

Netflix, video stores and pay cable movie channels are littered with the toxic waste spew of that very special category of cinematic detritus: the SNL movie. Sure, the never-as-funny-as-it-should-be/ never-as-bad-as-its-rep Saturday Night Live has produced more than its share of legitimate comedy stars and second bananas over the years, from Chevy Chase and Bill Murray to Amy Poehler and Tina Fey. But one-dimensional SNL characters, barely tolerable in five minute doses, can be downright unbearable in full-length features (i.e., It’s Pat, A Night At the Roxbury, Coneheads, etc.). Wayne’s World is one notable exception, but to my way of thinking, The Blues Brothers is far and away the best of the SNL films (and, for the purposes of this list, one of my favorite TV-to-movie adaptations), transforming a recurring, ego-driven musical duo (whose routine and appeal I never really understood) into iconic figures in a John Landis/John Belushi/Dan Akroyd phantasmagoria that bends over backwards in its efforts to entertain: car crashes! cast-of-thousands musical numbers! more car crashes! Illinois Nazis! country and western! rhythm and blues! John Candy! Aretha Franklin! Carrie Fisher with a machine gun! (And did I mention the car crashes?) I mean, fuck! The endless, mind-boggling demolition-derby pile-up of police cars in the climactic car chase alone is worth the price of admission (take that, CGI!), but the musical numbers (by Franklin, Ray Charles, James Brown, Cab Calloway, John Lee Hooker, et. al.) are even better, and introduced me and countless other white people to a whole bunch of talented black people we’d never fully appreciated before. And if all that weren’t enough, The Blues Brothers is endlessly quotable (“We’re on a mission from God,” “Three orange whips,” etc.) and spawned a pretty damn tasty jambalaya at the late-lamented Cambridge House of Blues...and how many movies can you say that about? True, The Blues Brothers also spawned the execrable Blues Brothers 2000...but the original, indispensable 1980 version will forever stand as the Cadillac Ranch of movies, a bizarre, fascinating, coke-fueled white elephant at the crossroads of cracked genius and howling oblivion.

HEAD (1968)

It was 1968 and the studio chiefs were very confused. There was something called “youth culture” or “the counterculture” or whatever – you know, dirty smelly hippies who wanted to see weird shit at the movies! Hopelessly out of touch, these suits had to turn to the scruffy people for help. The kids seemed to like that TV show The Monkees, so Columbia Pictures hired the show’s producer Bob Rafelson, and he teamed with that really weird Jack Nicholson dude from the Corman pictures, and they smoked a bunch of weed and they came up with Head. Surreal, satirical, self-referential, psychedelic and pretty much plotless, the movie bore little resemblance to the kiddie show that spawned it and failed at the box office. In retrospect, it never had a chance; the heads wouldn’t be caught dead seeing a Monkees movie and the young fans of the show wouldn’t be able to make heads or tails of it. But there’s enough inspired weirdness, bizarre cameos (Annette Funicello, Frank Zappa, Victor Mature and Sonny Liston) and good music (notably the Michael Nesmith-composed “Circle Sky”) to make it a worthy cult object, if not a great movie.

THE NAKED GUN: FROM THE FILES OF POLICE SQUAD! (1988)

The Naked Gun has very little competition as the least likely TV-to-movie transition of all time. It’s derived from a series that only yours truly and four other people watched, one that lasted six episodes and went off the air six years before the movie reached theaters. But Police Squad! had a pedigree; the Airplane! team of Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker created it, star Leslie Nielsen was nominated for an Emmy for his deadpan turn as Lt. Frank Drebin, and the show became a cult favorite through reruns and home video. Even so, The Naked Gun was an unexpected smash hit, spawning two lousy sequels and an entire craptacular genre of Leslie Nielsen parodies. Don’t hold those sins against it, though. The Naked Gun is a well-oiled laugh machine – from the slapstick stylings of the always hilarious O.J. Simpson to the climactic baseball game honored in an earlier Screengrab list, it’s like a MAD magazine come to life, complete with blink-and-you’ll-miss-it marginalia crammed into every corner of the screen. It’s really the last time Nielsen was ever funny, and that goes triple for the ZAZ triumvirate, who have separately and together foisted the likes of Brain Donors, Rat Race and Scary Movie 4 on their once loyal fans.

TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME (1992)

The second and final season of Twin Peaks ended in a flurry of bizarre cliffhangers, so when rumors of a movie began to circulate, those few of us who were still watching shared a brief moment of hope that at least some resolution would be forthcoming. Then we heard that Fire Walk with Me would be a prequel covering the last seven days of Laura Palmer’s life and, well, so much for that idea. Presumably the reasoning was that a reboot of the story would draw in a larger audience than a continuation, or at least that’s how we imagine David Lynch explained it to the suits at New Line. It’s a safe bet that 99% of any potential new audience fled the theater within the movie’s first 30 minutes, set in a deliberately alienating bizarro Twin Peaks called Deer Meadow, where the cops are unfriendly, the waitresses are hags and the FBI is represented by Chris Isaak as a pale echo of Kyle MacLachlan’s Special Agent Dale Cooper. (MacLachlan makes only fleeting appearances in the movie, unaware that his career is Showgirls-bound.) But those who left early missed out on one of Lynch’s most intense and emotionally charged fever dreams. Stripped of the quirky humor that had soured into tiresome shtick long before the series ended, Fire Walk with Me unwraps Laura Palmer from her plastic for a one-of-a-kind descent into hell. Sheryl Lee burns through the screen in a shoulda-been star-making performance and Lynch cooks up some of his most indelible set pieces, most notably the subtitled “Pink Room” sequence set in what appears to be Satan’s roadhouse. Just don’t ask us about the David Bowie cameo.

- Paul Clark, Andrew Osborne, Scott Von Doviak

READ PART I