Awful is the new awesome

Incoherence can inspire. Stupidity often spotlights truth. Condescension is a crack-up and a beautiful disaster can still be dazzling. For proof of that last assertion just go watch “Glitter” and prepare to be wowed by the moment when Mariah Carey’s head seems to explode in a shower of happy fireworks. Even better, Salman Rushdie’s wife Padma Lakshmi is a co-star, which means he had to see it too. You don’t think you’re better than Salman Rushdie, do you? So here are some cinematic corkers, in alphabetical order only, because in Suck Town all movies are equal…

“Alone In The Dark” — This movie is so crafty that it wipes your brain clean every five minutes, making you forget its insane ineptitude. Based on my spotty memory retrieval, I sort of recall Tara Reid as an archeologist who wears glasses because she’s smart. There are some monsters running around and Christian Slater paranormally investigates them. Christian and Tara do it but she won’t take off her bra even though the movie’s rated R. Then people with giant guns come along and kill the monsters. I think.
Why you should see it anyway: Uwe Boll, the man to blame for this, is the Kubrick of Krap. He’s almost an outsider artist when it comes to directing, because from watching his movies it is possible to believe that he has never seen one himself.

“Bewitched” — Have you heard about how Hollywood is going down the money toilet this year? Perhaps you have. All the Suits are running scared because young men won’t go to movies anymore. So of course a great idea for a movie is a stiff, unfunny remake of a 40-year-old sitcom that the audience doesn’t even remember. Putting Will Ferrell in a movie doesn’t fix anything.
Why you should see it anyway: For an object lesson in what constituted miscalculated Hollywood Product in the year 2005 — that means it’s historical. It’s also Exhibit G for the prosecution’s case to convict Nora Ephron as Hollywood’s worst director ever. (A to F are the other half dozen horrible movies she’s directed.) Uwe Boll is automatically a better and more entertaining filmmaker because at least his movies have Tara Reid in them.

“The Cave” — It’s about this cave where slimy, fanged monsters live — monsters who never knew how much they liked to eat people but then BAM here come the people and they are so delicious. “Coyote Ugly” star Piper Perabo is a smoking hot scientist in this movie. She’s part of a whole team of smoking hot scientists who are really all there to study their own sublimated sexual anxieties. One by one they die. Hilarious.
Why you should see it anyway: If this movie were any more about how men actually fear female sexuality it would be called “Looking For Mr. Goodbar.” Breasts are on PG-13 display as often as possible and one of the hot chick scientists actually whines to one of the hot dude scientists, presumably about how far down in the spooky monster cave they are, “You promised you were going to go deeper!”

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“Crash” — Kids, racism is really really really bad and wrong. Look, just watch this heavy, important movie about how everyone who lives in Los Angeles — all 12 of them — is super racist and awful. There. Did you watch it and pay very close attention? Good. Do you now understand the message? Because if you don’t then you’re going to have to watch it again. With Oprah. She thinks it’s as good as “Citizen Kane.” She said so on her show.
Why you should see it anyway: Because it’s really funny when Hollywood decides to tackle a serious moral issue and throw star-powered weight behind something that everyone but Neo-Nazis agrees on already. To ice the Let’s Pat Ourselves on The Back Cake, they’ll probably give it Oscar too. I know the scene where Racism pushes Sandra Bullock down a flight of stairs deserves some kind of award.

“The Man” – Samuel Jackson and Eugene Levy duke it out to be Alpha Male in this bizarre “buddy” comedy. Jackson does that bad-ass thing as an undercover agent who gets saddled with Levy’s trademarked nebbish routine. They’re supposed to be catching bad guys but they’re really competing in a freakish, emotional S&M contest. The loser gets… what’s the polite word for this…“violated” at the end of the movie. Literally.
Why you should see it anyway: Because “Brokeback Mountain” doesn’t hold a candle to this one as a study in homoerotic fear. In fact, “Cruising” was less creepy than this.

“Memoirs of A Geisha” — Costumes? Check. Beautiful sets? Check. Actors with countless hours of dialect coaching under their kimonos? Check. Okay, let’s get that “Showgirls” script and we’ll change the dates, location and race of the women. Now, where’s our Academy Award nomination?
Why you should see it anyway: Because you never knew that a P.F. Chang’s vision of “Oriental” would make this kind of cultural comeback. And when “Showgirls” made its bow in the mid 1990s, no one could have predicted it would become the cult phenomenon it is today. Seeing this now will guarantee you a spot on that future-camp bandwagon.

“Shopgirl” — A how-not-to on landing and maintaining a Sugar Daddy. It was better when they called it “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.”
Why you should see it anyway: Because it’s maddeningly, fascinatingly insistent that it’s about relationships when really it’s about booty calls and who’s got the power. It even goes so far as to punish the film’s sole character, a golddigging slut played by Bridgette Wilson-Sampras, who dares to announce the truth about the female lives on display.

Special Bonus Mention: “War of the Worlds”

Fast-paced, scary, tense, exciting, meta-terrorist fear-stroking-as-popcorn-movie. It’s so much dark fun that you forgot that just two weeks earlier you were wondering why Tom Cruise was jumping up and down on couches on national television acting a fool and really freaking you out. And then come the last 10 minutes of the movie when it all comes crashing to a screeching happiness halt, all the main characters — even the ones that should have been dead by then — safe and sound and dressed in cozy sweaters, the world spared from doom. Hooray.
Why you should see it anyway: To see what happens when directors of remakes are too slavish to the source material, too full of self-esteem and too happy to be hanging out with weirdo A-list actors.

Dave White is the film critic for Movies.com and the author of the forthcoming “Exile in Guyville.” Don’t argue about movies with him at www.livejournal.com/users/djmrswhite.

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