This all started when I went to Disney’s A Christmas Carol back in November, hoping to hate it so I could write a fun review. To my surprise, it was strangely compelling, and got me thinking about Dickens’ story and how it’s been adapted ad nauseam. I made up my mind: I would read through the story, and then watch every adaptation I could get my hands on. Some of them were quite good. Some of them were nauseating. Read on for the results…

THE TEN BEST:

10. Scrooged (1988)

All I could think of when watching this one was “This is really weird.” And it is. And it might not even be that good, but it was definitely different enough to stick in my head. Bill Murray plays a TV exec haunted by spirits that include a golf-obsessed zombie (in the Jacob Marley role) and a fairy with a penchant for beating people up (as the Ghost of Christmas Present). The pacing is off, and the humor is hit-and-miss, but I imagine it gets better with repeat viewings. It’s not too hard to see why this one’s a cult favorite.

9. Scrooge (1970)

Another strange one, this picture is a musical with a snarkily macabre sense of humor. It was a bit jarring, coming off the high drama of the Alistair Sim version (see below), but the use of color is phenomenal and an added sequence in Hell is both disturbing and very, very funny. The finale is just plain weird (Scrooge in the ugliest Santa Claus outfit ever?), but Alec Guinness as Marley steals every scene that he’s in.

8. Disney’s A Christmas Carol (2009)

I was a little hard on this one when I reviewed it two months ago, but after re-watching it I’m ready to give credit where credit is due. This one just might be both the scariest version and the most faithful to the original story (notably, this is the only adaptation where the Ghost of Christmas Past actually looks the way Dickens describes him). Robert Zemeckis’ motion-capture CGI is still a little weird, but it has improved a bit over the years, and Jim Carrey is both well-suited to the animation and arguably the third-best Ebenezer Scrooge ever (after Alistair Sim and Michael Caine,  obviously). I still think the action sequences are dumb, though.

7. Mickey’s Christmas Carol (1983)

This cartoon short has some great moments and some lazy ones; it’s arguably best when it’s at its most cynical (“Marley left me enough money to pay for his tombstone — and I had him buried at sea!”). That said, the animation here is lavish and beautiful — some of the best that Disney produced in the ‘80s — and many of Dickens’ lines are cleverly rewritten to be appropriate to the characters, which makes it all the more charming. It’s also one of the first times that Scrooge McDuck was animated, which makes it vaguely historic. For whatever that’s worth.

6. Scrooge (1935)

The first sound adaptation of the novella, and also one of the best. Starring Seymour Hicks as Scrooge, this one boasts a dark, brooding aesthetic that owes as much to German Expressionism as anything (watch as the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, portrayed as a heavy shadow, gradually swallows up Scrooge). This version also manages to fit the whole story into just over an hour without much strain.

5. A Christmas Carol (1977)

If there’s a famous British novel, you can be sure that BBC produced a bare-bones adaptation of it at some point. A Christmas Carol got the treatment in 1977, and the result is a shadowy, atmospheric version with little in the way of set or special effects, allowing the excellent cast (including Michael Hordem as Scrooge) to shine.

4. Bugs Bunny’s Christmas Carol (1979)

Not only did Bugs get to A Christmas Carol four years before his mouse counterpart did, he did it better. Clocking in at a mere eight minutes, this television short feels like a dashed-off screed against the rampant overuse of Dickens’ public-domain tale, and doesn’t disappoint in the laugh department, either. Highlights include a cameo by Tweety Bird as Tiny Tim (“You’d be tiny too, if you had to live on birdseed”) and Bugs’ “Ghost of Christmas” threatening to take Yosemite Sam (as Scrooge) to see “The Man in Red Suit” (which, he clarifies, is not Santa).

3. A Christmas Carol (1971)

Directed by Richard Williams (best known as animation director for Who Framed Roger Rabbit, as well as director of the notorious The Thief and the Cobbler), this sublime, moody short has the look of an animated woodcut. Alistair Sim reprises his role as the voice of Ebenezer Scrooge, and the Ghost of Christmas Present’s flying sequences — which are cut from nearly every other adaptation — are restored, and done beautifully. A must-see.

2. The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)

I was wary before re-watching this one — I had loved it as a kid, and was afraid that my nostalgia might be painting it in rosier hues than it deserved. To my surprise, I found that it not only held up quite well, but also was actually one of the best adaptations out there, capturing the spirit of both Dickens and Henson quite effortlessly. Michael Caine gives an intelligently understated performance as Ebenezer Scrooge (making the role entirely his own), the look of all three ghosts is pitch-perfect (this just might be the only adaptation of which that can be said), and Paul William’s songs are all beautiful and serve the story quite nicely. Despite some small issues (the entire Christmas Past sequence completely misses the point), this one goes out highly recommended.

1.Scrooge/A Christmas Carol (1951)

For some reason, every adaptation of A Christmas Carol has to be titled either A Christmas Carol or Scrooge (both titles seem equally prevalent), and this one got saddled with both of them, being released as Scrooge in its native England and A Christmas Carol in the States. Despite the confusion, though, this one is by far the best adaptation (just like all the old people you know told you it was), with Alistair Sim showing the broadest range of any actor to ever fill the role of Scrooge. The most dark and adult take on the tale, this one makes the brilliant addition of a Marley death scene to the “Christmas Past” chapter, turning the tale into a brooding meditation on mortality that doesn’t let up until the finale.

AND NOW, JUST FOR FUN, THE FIVE WORST:

5. A Carol Christmas (2003)

Tori Spelling as Ebenezer Scrooge (here embodied in a TV talk show host)? Gary Coleman as the Ghost of Christmas Past? William Shatner as the Ghost of Christmas Present? Actually, it’s better than it sounds, and Spelling carries the material remarkably well. In its more satirical moments (Coleman pokes some good fun at himself), it’s not too bad, but the sentimental stuff (read: every child actor in the production) is completely unwatchable. Not that I’d expect anything less from the Hallmark Channel, but still.

4. Barbie in A Christmas Carol (2008)

Sometime in the last decade or so, Mattel, Inc. got bored of making toys and decided to mine the public domain for a series of Barbie-themed direct-to-DVD movies instead. As you’d expect, most of these are fairytale-inspired, but occasionally you get an odd one — like, for instance, a Dickens story about a greedy old man with one foot in the grave. Weirdly, this one seems to have borrowed more plot points from A Carol Christmas than Dickens’ book, right down to casting a pushy aunt in the Jacob Marley role. And is it just me, or does casting a young character (in this case, Barbie) in the place of Scrooge put a damper on Dickens’ themes of mortality?

3. The Stingiest Man in Town (1978)

Wikipedia tells me that this animated special was actually based on a live-action version made 22 years earlier and starring Basil Rathbone — but I couldn’t track that one down anywhere, so I had to judge this one based on its own merits. There weren’t many. The Rankin-Bass animation is fluid enough, but everyone looks like a hobbit (go figure), the songs are annoying (“Yes, There is a Santa Claus”? really?) the narrator is an obtuse insect (a humbug! get it?), and despite being a Grumpy Old Man, Walter Matthau isn’t particularly memorable as Ebenezer Scrooge. Not terrible, but definitely forgettable.

2. An American Christmas Carol (1979)

Henry Winkler — yes, the Fonz — stars as Benedict Slade, a businessman in 1933 New England, in this indictment of that most American of trade practices, the credit system. In a Wizard of Oz-inspired plot twist that never works (see also: A Carol Christmas), the Ghosts of Christmas are actually characters from his life. Also, will you people please stop letting the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come talk? He’s not very frightening when he does.

1. An All Dogs Christmas Carol (1998)

I’m not gonna lie: Before watching this one, I really hadn’t thought about All Dogs Go to Heaven since 1989, back when I saw it in theaters. I was four years old at the time. But apparently they made a sequel in 1996, which was followed by a TV series, which was followed by a direct-to-video Christmas Carol derivative. What a sad end to a sad series. Anyway, I have no idea what this one was about, because I fell asleep halfway through. I think there’s an evil dog named Carface (really?), and he can control other dogs’ minds with a magic whistle, so then this angel dog turns these other dogs into Christmas ghosts, and then there’s a showdown in a junkyard, or something. Um, yeah.

Did you try?

Cool. How’d it go? Not great, right?

Great taglines can make good movies great. They can even turn terrible movies into billion-dollar blockbusters. But then there are those bad days, when the marketing department decides to phone it in, and we end up with taglines like…

10. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

The tagline: Every saga has a beginning.

Why it sucks: Well, let’s be fair here: this one probably seemed like a good idea at the time, given the “legendary” status the franchise held in many people’s hearts. But taken at face value, this one really makes the film seem mundane, inevitable, and inconsequential.

…But the worst part is: The movie actually was mundane, inevitable, and inconsequential. (Then again, maybe this is that “truth in advertising” stuff I keep hearing about.) It seems that with each new piece of Star Wars canon, fans try harder and harder to forget everything that’s been made since Return of the Jedi — and this line will always be there, reminding them just how dang uninspired the series has been since George Lucas started living in a bubble.

9. The Prince of Egypt

The tagline: The power is real. The story is forever. The time is now.

Why it sucks: The Prince of Egypt has become something of a minor classic among animation buffs, but it was a film that was never really comfortable with itself. It was terrified of offending anyone — Jews, Christians, agnostics, Cecil B. DeMille fans, people who were expecting a half-assed Disney knock-off — and this tagline is merely an extension of that. Here we have three short sentences that all seem to be trying to say something without actually, y’know, saying anything. “The power is real” appears to be an attempt to get religious butts in the seats without actually committing to any theological tenets; “The time is now” is nothing more than an admonition to hurry up and buy your ticket; it’s that second sentence that has me stumped, though. “The story is forever”? Are you trying to tell me that God is continually redeeming his people throughout all of history — or are you just admitting you’ve made a slow, boring movie that feels like a bad Sunday school lesson?

…But the worst part is: It gave The New Yorker an excuse to publish this pithy little review:

The picture is O.K. The picture is fine. The cast is packed. The prince is Kilmer. The brother is Fiennes. The squeeze is Pfeiffer. (The dance is hubba-hubba.) The trouble is scale. The trouble is bombast. The predecessor is DeMille. The mood is tumescent. The music is nuts. Look. The thing is this. The cutting-edge computer-generated imagery is white-hot new. The movie is old-fashioned. The story is forever. The movie is for the holidays. The choice is yours.

I’m not fluent in Aging Hipster-ese, but I’m pretty sure the proper response would be “Pwned.”

8. Ghost Ship

The tagline: Sea evil.

Why it sucks: Let me be honest here: there was a lot of really low-hanging fruit in the horror department, and many of them have already been mocked to death on dedicated horror blogs. There were a couple, though, that were so bad that I thought they each deserved another thrashing. This is one of them: a little gem from the 2000s, that decade that will forever be remembered as a time when horror films got so stupid that we couldn’t even remember whether we were being ironic about them anymore. As implied by the title, this film was never developed very far beyond the initial concept of “They’re ghosts…but they’re on a ship!” Of course, the tagline is just as creative: “It’s evil…but it’s at sea!”

…But the worst part is: Even when I try to give it a bit more credit and assume it’s a reference to the Japanese proverb “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil,” that only makes it worse. On the one hand, the fact that “see” and “sea” are homophones hasn’t amused me since I was about four years old (well under the requisite age for an R-rated horror film, I might add); on the other, is this tagline implying that I should, in fact, make it my goal to see evil? Granted, that would sum up the attitude of most of America’s filmgoers…but still.

7. Suspiria

The tagline: The only thing more terrifying than the last 12 minutes of this film are the first 92!

Why it sucks: Venerable classic though it may be, Italian horror auteur Dario Argento’s masterpiece of shock is arguably even more of an easy target than Ghost Ship, mainly because it was released in the 1970’s — an era when violent horror movies with ridiculous taglines were the bread and butter of the drive-in industry. Still, this would seem to be the worst of them. Here are the problems I’m seeing here:

1. If you have to tell me your film is “terrifying,” that’s usually a pretty sure sign that it’s not.

2. Why the arbitrary division between the “last 12” minutes and the “first 92”? Why not the last 10 and the first 94? How do the first 64 minutes stack up against the last 40? What about the middle 17 and the other 87?

3. Why would I want to see a horror movie that’s going get progressively less scary? Methinks you slept through Screenplay Writing 101, signore.

…But the worst part is: Well — not that this is at all related — but this one has come up due for the Obligatory Remake next year.

6. Godzilla

The tagline: Size does matter.

Why it sucks: How would you introduce the world to your Western bastardization of a beloved Japanese movie monster? I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of a better way than a wink-wink joke about penis size that hasn’t been remotely edgy or amusing for at least 30 years.

…But the worst part is: Putting aside, for a second, the question of whether there’s anything sexier than Matthew Broderick administering a pregnancy test to a hermaphroditic mutant lizard (there’s not), the movie doesn’t even seem to live up to its own tagline. The entire second act revolves around the thousands of baby Godzillas, which are implied to be every bit as dangerous as their mother/father/whatever. I don’t really want to enter into this debate, but it would seem that what really matters here is how you use it. And by “it,” of course, I mean your mutant lizard. Obviously.

5. Wizards

The tagline: An epic fantasy of peace and magic.

Why it sucks: Wow, who came up with this one? Leo Tolstoy? But even if this one wasn’t a serious contender for the Sledgehammer Award for Subtlety, it’s still got one serious problem: “peace”? Um, guys, the movie’s about war. The working title was even War Wizards. And last I checked, war is pretty much the opposite of peace. Come to think of it, I can’t even imagine an “epic fantasy” that is about peace. Aren’t “epic fantasies” pretty much always about war? Would anyone even want to see a two-hour “epic” about peace?

But yeah, the “magic” part is right. The movie definitely has magic in it.

Wizards, too.

So there’s that.

…But the worst part is: This particular film was made by a talented animator named Ralph Bakshi — who you may also know as the man behind Fritz the Cat and The Lord of the Rings. As you can probably guess from this tagline, studios had no idea how to market his films. It’s no wonder he faded into obscurity in the 1980’s, only to resurface briefly in 1992 with Cool World, a film that was torn to shreds by studio meddling and probably set American animation back several decades. It all goes to show you that — as Walt Disney himself proved — talent might help, but if you want to be truly successful, you need a knack for shameless self-promotion.

I'm gonna do it all over again!

4. Rocky II

The tagline: Rocky shows he’s a champ…and wins!

Why it sucks: Let’s be honest with ourselves: it’s hard to imagine a less-necessary sequel than Rocky II (unless, of course, you count Rocky III, Rocky IV, Rocky V, and Rocky Balboa — but I digress). Rocky, like all good sports movies, wasn’t really about sports. It was about a man overcoming his personal demons and reclaiming his humanity. That’s why he didn’t actually win the fight at the end — the outcome of the fight wasn’t what mattered. Unfortunately, the American moviegoing public isn’t the brightest, so three years later, they made a sequel for the ones who still wanted to see Rocky win. And then they put the fact that he was going to win on the stinkin’ poster, to make sure even the stupidest of the stupid knew that this one wouldn’t be a disappointment. And then they raked in the cash. Hey, maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

…But the worst part is: Okay, two things: First, don’t people hate it when you tell them how the movie ends? Isn’t that why the Internet is littered with the phrase “SPOILER ALERT”? And second, is there a difference between “showing you’re a champ” and “winning”? Why not save space and say “Rocky shows he’s a champ, achieves victory, comes out on top, proves that he’s a winner, emerges victorious, triumphs, defeats opposition, wins, and seriously, he wins this time, guys!!!”?

3. The Butterfly Effect

The tagline: It will all end in the beginning.

Why it sucks: For anyone who didn’t spend the last ten years watching terrible movies, I’ll clue you in here: The Butterfly Effect is a film about time travel. Sort of. So, to a point, I guess that line makes a little bit of sense. In that, y’know, if you can travel through time, “the end” could potentially turn out to be “the beginning.” Sort of. I guess. But, as it turns out, this movie was actually like any other movie, in that it had a beginning, a middle, and an end. And the end was, in fact, just the end. Although, as with Prince of Egypt, it is possible that the tagline is just an acknowledgment that the movie is poorly paced and seems to go on forever.

On the other hand, maybe they’re just letting you know that if you hide in the theater after the movie ends, you get to see it again (!!!).

…But the worst part is: Ashton Kutcher, running around, constantly creating new lives that suck as much as or more than his previous lives, dialing 555- numbers, and trying desperately to act. Geez, did I even have to say that?

2. Office Space

The tagline: Work sucks.

Why it sucks (the tagline, not work): The year was 1999, and the American workplace had come full circle: Americans had finally gotten the Third World to do all of their hard labor for them; they had achieved their own dream of getting paid to do nothing but push numbers around on computer screens all day; they had realized that jobs where you do nothing suck at least as much as jobs where you do something; they had found a comic strip to help them whine about it; and they had gotten sick of said comic strip’s ubiquity. By 1996, Scott Adams’ Dilbert could be seen everywhere; by 1997 the title character was featured on the cover of Newsweek (with the slightly-more-clever catchphrase “Work is hell”); and by 1998, the powers that be were finally running out of awards to throw at the strip. By 1999, it had waned considerably in popularity — and right around that time, an ad for Office Space popped up on TV, with the insightful, witty, and oh-so-unique catchphrase “Work sucks.” Obviously, people lined up days in advance for the midnight showing.

…But the worst part is: Of course, Office Space had absolutely nothing to do with Dilbert, other than the fact it was also set in an office. It was, in fact, based on the Milton series of animated shorts that Mike Judge (Beavis and Butt-head, King of the Hill) had produced for Saturday Night Live — shorts which consisted of biting satire that was arguably much more potent than the broad bread-and-circuses of Dilbert — but there was nothing about the marketing that made any of this readily obvious. In fact, it almost looked as though the marketing department had chosen to try as hard as they possibly could to ride the fading glory of Adams’ creation all the way to the bank. If that was the case, they were at least two years too late, and the venerable film became the box-office flop they were practically begging for. (The good news: Word of mouth made it a huge hit on home video. But you already knew that.)

1. Kangaroo Jack

The tagline: He stole the money…and he’s not giving it back.

Why it sucks: I debated for a while whether to actually give this one the top spot. After all, this one’s not a good movie that was torpedoed by a bad tagline like Office Space, and it’s not a depressing note in a more-depressing career like Wizards. This one is just a truly awful film with an unbelievably awful tagline — one so bad that it couldn’t be placed anywhere other than the number-one spot. I’m not sure which is worse: the fact that someone in Hollywood thought it was a good idea to let the director of Coyote Ugly make a children’s film about a kangaroo with stolen drug money, or the fact that someone else thought this completely limp tagline was the best way to sell it. Here’s the first rule of writing taglines, guys: when you put an ellipsis before the second clause of a sentence, there had better be a shocking revelation in that second clause. I don’t know about you guys, but when I’m told that someone stole some money, I kind of assume he or she isn’t planning on giving it back. That’s kind of the point of stealing money. And it’s pretty much always a given with a caper like this. (You let me know if you ever see a movie with the tagline “He stole the money…but then he gave it back, so it’s all good.” Actually, come to think of it, that would probably have been the tagline if Rocky II had been a heist picture.)

…But the worst part is: Let’s put it this way: the film had talking animals. It was rated PG. That’s pretty much all you need to make a guaranteed fortune at the box office. And yet, it barely even recouped its production budget. (And keep in mind, that still leaves its promotional budget, which included, among other things, a menagerie of Aussie critters at an inexplicably lavish premiere.) When a guaranteed hit is that big of a flop, you know something’s wrong. I’m no expert, but I’m guessing it’s because the trailers practically screamed, “This movie is really stupid!” — and the tagline confirmed that fact beyond any sort of reasonable doubt.

I enjoyed making my “Ten Best Westerns of the Last Ten Years” so much that I decided to start an irregular feature called “Genres that Time Forgot” where I highlight a genre that had a heyday but has since become a niche endeavor. I started this post months ago but never finished it, so here it is, in conjunction with MovieZeal’s Noir month, the Ten Best Noirs of the Last Ten Years.

10. Dark City (1998)
Dir. Alex Proyas

Unfortunately I haven’t seen the recently released Director’s Cut of this movie, but even the version the studio put in theaters is quite a winner. Proyas is best known for the overrated schlockfest The Crow, but this is a much better movie. The only plot information I’ll give away is that The Matrix rips this movie off heavily, but it’s best to go in knowing nothing. Probably the most oppressively dark films in the movie on this list, the eponymous dark city is a noir wonderland, inhabited by a whole host of noir types. Our hero is played by Rufus Sewell, an astonishingly odd everyman, who wakes up arrested for brutal murders he can’t remember committing. The road he goes down to find the truth, aided by neo-noir standout William Hurt, is a dark rabbit hole indeed.

Watch the first 8 minutes of Dark City here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

9. Veronica Mars (2004-2006)
Creator Rob Thomas (not that Rob Thomas)

Veronica Mars isn’t the best noir set in a 21st century high school, but it certainly gets credit for being first. Forgetting Sarah Marshall’s Kristen Bell brings her inability to act to the proceedings as our lead, but that’s not a problem (at least not in this show, which was a WB original and features WB level acting from everyone). But each of its seasons is possessed of a twisty, noirish plot that keeps you guessing, and some soap opera elements that wouldn’t be out of place in The OC but are nevertheless fun. Creator Rob Thomas is frequently compared to Joss Whedon, but I can listen to Thomas’ dialogue without wanting to kill myself, so I give him the edge.

8. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (2005)
Dir. Shane Black

Shane Black, as the creator and screenwriter of Lethal Weapon, is responsible for some of the worst crimes against filmdom ever recorded. Luckily, his directorial debut has an indie soul, which means we’ve replaced blander than bland Gibson and Glover with wacked out Robert Downey Jr. and a charming Val Kilmer (it’s hard to believe that Kilmer actually turned out to be charming when he stopped being a movie star). This is an in-your face postmodern endeavor, which means that Downey’s character addresses the camera and mentions noir cliches, while Black built the story by decoupaging various classic noirs. As such, the movie always threaten to collapse under its own weight, but while it’s standing, it’s as fun as an action movie gets.

The opening title sequence for Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is phenomenal.

Click here to view the embedded video.

7. The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001)
Dir. Coen Bros

The Coen Brothers are the driving force behind the neo-noirs of the last three decades, but this is probably their only film that really looks noir. It’s a classic noir story of infidelity and murder, with Billy Bob Thornton toning down his crazy guy act for a very mild turn playing the protagonist, a laconic barber who goes through life as if he wasn’t there, but gets mixed up in some serious business. I know there are lots of candidates, but I don’t think cigarette smoke has even been filmed so well – this is the Coens only black-and-white movie, and it makes me wish they’d shoot more like this. Full of their patented mix of darkness and dark comedy, and a Coentacular cast (Frances McDormand, Tony Shaloub, Jon Polito, and a small but great role for a pre-crappy Scarlett Johannson), The Man Who Wasn’t There is top notch neo-noir.

6. The Lookout (2007)
Dir. Scott Frank

Like Shane Black, Scott Frank is a screenwriter who’s committed some cinematic crimes (Minority Report, The Interpreter) but those have been whitewashed with his directorial debut. Joseph Gordon-Levitt has emerged as Hollywood’s best actor under the age of 30, and his intensity is perfectly suited to the noir genre. Gordon-Levitt plays Chris Pratt, a small town Kansas kid with brain damage who’s recruited to help rob the bank he works at as a janitor. The heist goes predictably and fatally wrong, and Chris is left to pick up the pieces. It’s not hard for us to follow the action, but it is for the impaired Chris, and his efforts to keep everything together while making wrongs right make for a compelling story.

5. History of Violence (2005)
Dir. David Cronenberg

Sci-fi/horror master Cronenberg was an unlikely director to make a masterful neo-noir, but he’s done it here. In a play on both Out of the Past and The Killers, Viggo Mortensen plays a small-town diner owner who brutally intervenes when a pair of killers try to rob the diner. The event gets him recognized by Ed Harris, a gangster with a nasty scar who’s convinced Viggo is a hit man trying to hide out in a small town. A great deal of nasty violence and one of the weirdest sex scenes ever recorded on celluloid follow, as does another wicked performance by William “neo-noir” Hurt.

4. Sin City (2005)
Dir. Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller

The case against Sin City: It’s unnecessarily violent and joyfully misogynistic, with dialogue so pulpy it sounds like it’s been through a blender and a visual look that approximates what The Third Man would like like to a toddler on acid. The case for Sin City: Ditto

3. The Big Lebowski (1998)
Dir. Coen Brothers

There’s not much to say about The Big Lebowski and its excellence that hasn’t been said. So let me just point out, in case anyone didn’t notice, that this is the only stoner movie-film noir mashup I’m aware of. The plot of The Big Sleep, carried out by characters who would fit just find in Raising Arizona, written and directed by two men who still might go down as the greatest of all time, and with a cast to rival Batman Begins (Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Julianne Moore, John Turturro, Sam Elliot, David Thewlis, Jon Polito. Just try to ignore Tara Reid).

2. Memento (2000)
Dir. Christopher Nolan

It’s confusing that Amores Perros and Memento came out in the same year, because as near as I can tell, Alejandro Inarritu’s entire filmmaking credentials come down to having seen Memento. Tarantino made chronological muddling cool, but Chris Nolan made chronological muddling matter with a brilliant plot device: our hero Leonard (Guy Pearce) can’t make new long-term memories, so he forgets whatever just happened whenever his short-term memory runs out. Nolan tells half the story straight, and half the story backwards, working back through Leonard’s perspective to the film’s earliest events. What sounds disorienting is in fact invigorating, as standard noir fare becomes a puzzling thriller. As Leonard tries to make sense of his life through notes and tattoos, and the Matrix team of Joe Pantoliano and Carrie-Ann Moss manipulate him along the way, a standard noir story becomes a metaphysical adventure. Still one of Nolan’s best films, including his double-dose of Bat-Awesomeness.

1. Brick (2005)
Dir. Rian Johnson

As a crushingly dark noir set in a high school, Brick works on a multitude of levels. On the one hand, its premise is absurd comedy, as seemingly normal high schoolers think and talk like Bogart and Mitchum and Bacall. On the other hand, the same premise rings powerfully true: high school can be every bit as dark and opaque as Chandler’s L.A, as social groups scheme and drugs and sex begin to make their mark. For me, Brick is both laugh-out loud hilarious in a very ironic manner, and claustrophobically serious. All of the actors are fantastic, especially Lukas Haas as the drug dealer “the Pin” and Richard Roundtree as the assistant principal who uses our protagonist Brendan as an inside man. But this movie belongs heart and soul to Joseph-Gordon Levitt (as Brendan), who I guess is the next William Hurt. As Brendan, Gordon-Levitt is a violent, intense figure who meets out physical and verbal violence with a facility I’m not sure I’ve ever seen. He’s also a lonely kid who eats lunch by himself, ever since his girlfriend started hanging out with the cool kids. This is not just my favorite noir of the last 10 years, but one I’d rank with the best ever produced.

10. Ben Kingsley in The Love Guru
1982: Ben Kingsley wins an Oscar for his portrayal of The Mahatma in Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi. Flash-forward 26 years to The Love Guru to witness Kingsley play a dirty-minded sex guru giving advice to a digitally young Mike Myers. Perhaps even more disturbing than merely seeing him on the screen is witnessing how much he actually gets into the part. You’d actually think Sir. Kingsley enjoys making a mockery of the culture he venerated in his Oscar winning role with infantile sex gags and fart noises. Ahh, but the Americans will laugh; perhaps that’s all that matters.

Paycheck, please.

9. Robin Williams in August Rush
Robin Williams can be a legitimate actor when he puts his mind to it (see One Hour Photo for example), which makes his sell-out roles all the worse in comparison. And nothing stinks more than his turn as a washed-up music guru in August Rush. As if the soul patch didn’t scream “pervert” loud enough, the screenwriters have intentionally made many of Williams’ lines into a double entendres. Perhaps we’ve been watching Arrested Development too much, but just take a look at the first half this clip. Uh-huh … sure — I’ll definitely trust this guy with my kids.

Click here to view the embedded video.

8. Sean Connery in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Yes, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is even more embarassing than this.

You’re one of the most loved actors in the world, having portrayed perennial favorite James Bond in no less than eight films, and your career has grown into nothing short of a legacy, blossoming into an autumnal glory that’s enjoyed by only a handful of elites. The only question is: How to go out with a bang? For Sean Connery, the answer was desecrating the great literary works of the English language. And so was born The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which featured various characters from classic English literature fighting crime, fighting amongst themselves, and generally acting really stupid. The film, not surprisingly, was a flop, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief when Connery retired, thus sparing us from the sequel that the ending so strongly implied. (Note: LXG is, however, arguably worth a rental. Just turn your brain off first.)

7. Arnold Schwarzenegger in Batman & Robin
My problem is that I like Arnold Shwerzenager. I guess he’s kind of turned into a cardboard cutout of himself, but I like a lot of his films. I mean, they can’t all be gems, but I am quite partial to the Arnold Shwazernator that Saved John Conner and Would Always Be Back, the Arnold Sxchenimazser who Totally Recalled and gave Micheal Ironside a hard day, the Arnold Zhcewerfinster who was The Last Action Hero, even the Arnold Czejertalker who had a Short Twin and a Baby. I like that nonsense. I really do. But I’m torn, friends, because there’s just no excusing a Blue Man Who Really Likes The Cold, And Also Uma Thurman. Mr. Freeze gets no love from me. Nevermind how regretable the REST of the film was, the very thought of Arnold being a genius scientist gives me a headache. I’m sorry you made this film, Arnold, I really am, but you’ve got my hands tied here.

This clip speaks for itself. Can you believe this guy actually governs an entire state?

Click here to view the embedded video.

6. Halle Berry in Catwoman
If you’re going to make a fool of yourself on an international scale, you might as well accept a Razzy for it. At least, that’s what Halle Barry thought about Catwoman. She stood proud to represent a film she believed in! Sure it was full of terrible writing, hokey characters, and perhaps the most ridiculous outfit ever to be shown in public, but it can’t be all bad, right? I’m sure there must be some justification for it. Like, I guess some people got paid for their work? I don’t know, seems like a bad idea to me.

This, my friends, is class.

Click here to view the embedded video.

5. Vanilla Ice in Cool as Ice
The truth is that Robert van “illa Ice” Winkle’s career was headed straight for the toilet, anyway—but this film didn’t exactly help matters. It turns out that if you want to manufacture street cred, the best way to do it isn’t to star in a nostalgic, PG-rated melodrama where you play the leader of a motorcycle gang. The tagline for the film read “When a girl has a heart of stone, there’s only one way to melt it. Just add Ice.” Seriously, you can’t make that stuff up even if you tried. The results for the Ice-man are the stuff of legend, including a stint on The Surreal Life (perhaps the least notable reality series ever made) and a perennial position as a wrestler in JCW, the Insane Clown Posse’s very own professional wrestling league (nope, not making that one up either).

This could be the most amazing clip of all time, I kid you not.

Click here to view the embedded video.

4. Roberto Benigni in Pinocchio
Roberto Benigni, the Italian answer to Robin Williams, charmed his way into our cineplexes with Life is Beautiful and into our hearts with his exuberant processional and acceptance speech at the Oscars. The obvious follow-up was to direct a beloved children’s classic, but rather than cast a child in the titular role of the wooden-boy-who-could, Benigni decided to get a little frisky with the material and cast himself as Pinocchio. Ah, nothing screams “family friendly” like a 50 year old man prancing around in pink pajamas with a long wooden nose. Or does that scream “sex offender on the loose, grab your kids and run”? I dunno, sometimes I get confused.

Roberto Benigni - making the alphabet terrifying for a whole new generation.

3. John Travolta in Battlefield Earth
There was a time when Tom Cruise wasn’t the posterboy for Scientology insanity. I know, hard to believe, right? But way back when in the ancient days of 2000, John Travolta decided to bring his passion project, a sci-fi epic from the pen of his Glorious Leader L. Ron Hubbard (the book is actually quite good – I’ve read it twice), to the screen, and to cast himself as the evil alien-thingy-person Terl. In recognition of his efforts, American audiences fled from the film like the bubonic plague, and Travolta was bestowed with a Golden Raspberry Award for “Worst Screen Couple”, which he won along with “anyone sharing the screen with him.” But really, is a film that brought us this magical line of dialogue all that bad? “Crap-lousy ceiling! I thought I told to get some man-animals in here and fix it.” You tell those man-animals, John. You tell them.

2. Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest

Because Ex-Lax isn't the only way to free up that pesky bowel movement.

One of the most epic miscalculations in the annals of cinema, Faye Dunaway’s portrayal of Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest is either the most horrific example of overacting ever or courageously brilliant. Audiences went with the former, and begin flocking to the picture armed with AJAX and wire hangers to “interact” with it ala The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Paramount capitalized on this and punched up the marketing with a cult-classic-in-the-making angle, slapping the tagline “Meet the biggest MOTHER of them all!” on movie posters and ads. And remember, whenever you’re feeling blue, whenever life has got you down, just tell yourself “NO MORE WIRE HANGERS!” and everything will be better.

This is clip is worth the 3 minutes it will take you to watch it.

1. Cuba Gooding, Jr. in Boat Trip
The son of a pop star, Cuba Gooding, Jr. had to claw his way up from the bottom, and eventually landed an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Jerry Maguire. After that, he apparently ran out of ideas. Boat Trip, a “comedy” where he and Horatio Sanz find themselves on a cruise for gay men—somehow forcing them to pose as gay themselves—was apparently designed to offend absolutely everyone, from conservative evangelicals to the gay community. It now carries the dubious distinction of being the worst film an Oscar winner has ever starred in (and yes, you can quote us on that). Now he can only find work supporting that other has-been, Eddie Murphy (in Norbit)—or simply replacing him (in Daddy Day Camp). Also, be sure to check your local DVD store for his inspired performance in The Land Before Time XIII (seriously).

Why Cuba, why?

Click here to view the embedded video.

10. Showdown With the Nihilists from The Big Lebowski
Every twisted, convoluted story needs a bizarre, confusing ending (just ask Raymond Chandler, who served as much of the inspiration for this film). On this, The Big Lebowski delivers. This is the scene that left every (sober) person in the audience scratching their heads once and for all. There’s not a lot to be said about this one…just watch it and be amazed.

Most Memorable Line: “No Donny, these men are nihilists. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Fun Fact: Gratuitous ear biting was invented just a year prior to this, by boxer Mike Tyson.

NOTE: The following clip has a lot of naughty language. Certainly NSFW, and certainly not good for the kiddies.

9. Hotel Shootout from No Country For Old Men
The film has been building relentlessly to this moment, when Chigurh finally catches up with Moss at the ramshackle hotel he’s hiding out in. I remember watching this in the theater, and it was as if the collective breath of the audience was being held. It is one of the finest examples of suspense that I have ever seen. The Coens decision to play the entire scene from Moss’ perspective, keeping Chigurh cloaked completely in shadow, gives the scene the feel of a classic horror flick. The unstoppable monster, seen only from underneath the door or heard from around the corner, is coming like the vengeance of God, and nothing can stop him.

Most Memorable Line: Like so many of the great Coen scenes, there is hardly a word of dialogue. However, a few scenes earlier, this exchange occurs over Chigurh:

“Just how dangerous is he?”
“Compared to what? The bubonic plauge?”

Fun Fact: Josh Brolin had his agents beg the Coens – repeatedly – in order for him to get the role. While on the set of Grindhouse, he even had Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino help him shoot an audition tape for the brothers with a million dollar Genesis camera. Joel and Ethan’s reaction when they saw the tape? “Who lit it?” Persistence obviously paid off and Brolin got the part, leading the Coens to joke in an article for Esquire that they had originally wanted James Brolin, but because of an epic miscommunication, they had gotten stuck with his son.

Click here to view the embedded video.

8. The Lone Biker of the Apocalypse from Raising Arizona
It is, perhaps, a physical impossibility not to laugh at the visual image of Leonard Smalls – aka the Lone Biker of the Apocalypse – executing small woodland creatures with extreme prejudice. Combining Rambo, Dogg the Bounty Hunter, and a bum who’s been left in the rain for too long, Smalls is a soft talking archetypal character of Biblical proportions, riding through the flames of hell and into H.I.’s restless dreams. The Coens would later revisit Smalls in the form of Anton Chigurh – the two are virtually identical. One, however, is played for guffaws, and the other…not so much.

Most Memorable Line: “He was especially hard on the little things, the helpless and the gentle creatures.”

Fun Fact: Randall ‘Tex’ Cobb, who played Smalls, was a renowned boxer, infamous for stubbornly becoming heavy weight champion Larry Holmes’ 15 round punching bag in 1982. The fight led veteran commentator Howard Cosell to swear off boxing forever, calling it a “brutalization.” Video of the last two rounds can be found here.

7. Jesus Quintana from The Big Lebowski
What would a 90’s stoner comedy be without preening homoeroticism? The answer: I dunno, but we won’t learn it from The Big Lebowski, thanks to this iconic scene. In what is arguably the best character introduction of all time, the Coens establish one of their most memorable (though not necessarily for the right reasons) characters. John Turturro is apparently having more fun here than an actor should be allowed to, ever. You’d never guess that in a mere two years, he’d be playing a hayseed in O Brother, Where art Thou?

Most Memorable Line: Not repeatable here. This is a family blog for crying out loud!

Fun Fact: Famed producer (and frequent Coen brothers collaborator) T Bone Burnett dug up a Gipsy Kings cover of the Eagles’ “Hotel California” (which had previously been buried on some obscure 40th-anniversary compilation disc for Elektra Records) for this scene…and made it famous.

6. Man of Constant Sorrows from O Brother, Where Art Thou?
What more can be said about the scene that almost single-handedly launched the turn-of-the-century bluegrass revival (paving the way for the popularity of artists like Nickel Creek and the Mammals)? Well, how about the fact that, music or not, this is simply a masterpiece of physical comedy? George Clooney’s only lip-synching here, which gives him a chance to show off his range of facial expressions…and, um, wow. As for Stephen Root as the owner of the radio station…just look at that guy. Just look at him. You really can’t have more fun than this at the movies.

Most Memorable Line: The whole friggin’ song. Just try and stop singing it to yourself afterwards. Just try.

Fun Fact: The music of the Soggy Bottom Boys (an oblique reference to Lester Flatt’s 1940s group, the Foggy Mountain Boys) was provided by none other than Allison Kraus’s band Union Station, with Dan Tyminski on vocals.

5. The Coin Flip from No Country For Old Men
What will become the signature scene of No Country for Old Men is one lifted almost verbatim from Cormac McCarthy’s novel. Without much background, the Coens plop right into a remote gas station as Anton Chigurh talks things through with the station’s elderly own. If Chigurh doesn’t kill you, he’ll certainly put the fear of God in your loins. This scene proves that even candy wrappers squirm in his presence.

Most Memorable Line: “Call it, friendo.”

Fun Fact: After reading the script, Javier Bardem told the Coens “I don’t drive, I speak bad English, and I hate violence.” The brothers responded: “That’s why we called you.” I think they found a winning combination.

4. The Woodchipper from Fargo
Just in case Peter Stormare taking an axe to Steve Buscemi wasn’t enough, the Coens throw in one of their most grisly scenes in all their movies by having Stormare feed Buscemi’s dead body into a woodchipper. Watching the scene, audiences are forced to contemplate a classic Coen conundrum: are we viewing something darkly hilarious, disturbingly grisly, or just a little bit of both? It’s yours to decide.

Most Memorable Line: Few things are said in the scene except for “STOP” and “Police!”, but Marge sums up the whole movie while talking to Stormare in the police car afterward: “All for a little bit of money. There’s more to life than a little money, you know. Don’t you know that? And here you are. And it’s a beautiful day.”

Fun Fact: the Coens got their inspiration for Fargo from a news story concerning the disappearance of a woman in Connecticut. When she disappeared, her husband said that she was visiting her sick mother in Denmark. The family baby-sitter reported seeing a dark stain on one of their carpets. When the rug disappeared, a private detective found it at a local landfill. The stain was blood. The woman’s husband had fed her through a woodchipper more than a month prior. As the sheriff in No Country for Old Men would tell you: “You can’t make up such a thing as that. I dare you to even try!”

3. The Tommygun Hit from Miller’s Crossing
The Coens are consistently adept at subverting expectations, but here they’re at the top of their game. The scene begins in stereotypical Godfather fashion, with trenchcoated hitmen striding past a dead guard and into the mansion of gang boss Leo O’Bannon, tommyguns slung at their sides. Frank Patterson’s gentle crooning of “Danny Boy” plays in the background as the seemingly geriatric Leo turns the tables – spectacularly – on his would be assassins. In spite of the fact that the scene has little bearing on the complex movie surrounding it, it remains one of the most memorable in the Coen canon.

Most Memorable Line: There is no dialogue in the scene, but afterwards it is said of Leo, “The old man’s still an artist with a Thompson.”

Somber Fact: Trey Wilson, who played Nathan Arizona in Raising Arizona, was originally cast as Leo. 2 days before principal photograph was set to begin, he died of a massive brain hemorrhage, and Albert Finney was quickly brought in to fill the role.

2. Evolution of the Hula-Hoop from The Hudsucker Proxy
If you can find a movie with a better montage, you buy it. Heck, if you can find a better use of Aram Khachaturian’s “Sabre Dance,” you let me know. More than anything, though, this sequence adds that all-important explosion to the film—and as Michael Bay would tell you, it’s just not a movie without explosions.

Most Memorable Line: “The Hoopsucker!”

Fun Fact: One of the silhouettes in the name thinktank is none other than Sam Raimi—who, of course, co-wrote the film.

1. Stealing Huggies from Raising Arizona
Nothing in the entire Coen canon can match the frantic memorability of H.I. McDunnough running through suburbia, panty hose over face and Huggies under arm, with slathering dogs, trigger-happy coppers, hand-cannon wielding clerks, and his own banshee-pissed wife in hot pursuit. The first time I saw it I couldn’t stop laughing. The second time I saw it I wet myself. The third time… best not go there. Sure they got Oscars for Fargo and No Country For Old Men, but this scene…this is their magnum opus, and incidentally the finest strip of celluloid Nick Cage has ever been committed to.

Most Memorable Line: “Boy, you got a panty on your head!”

Fun Fact: The convenience store clerk’s alarm button reads “Odegaard-Trend Security,” which happens to be the name of the security company in Sam Raimi’s 1985 Crimewave. Crimewave, written by the Coens and directed by Raimi, is quite possibly one of the worst films of all time, a cinematic endurance test not unlike being chased by dogs and Magnum waving vigilantes whilst wearing a woman’s stocking on one’s head.

10. Jingle All the Way
Okay. We admit it. The only actor worse than Arnold Schwarzenegger is probably Jake Lloyd, and this film has both of them. And yeah, the pacing’s all off, and the ending is just ridiculous and kind of stupid. But this film has something no other Christmas movie does: honesty. Isn’t everyone sick of Christmas movies like Elf and Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas that pretend to be all about family values and anti-consumerism, but really just exist to take away the paychecks of gullible, suburban parents? At least this one admits it: Christmas is a big, commercial sham, and you, the audience, just fell for it. Again.

9. Anastasia
“Lonely Russian girl discovers she’s a princess.” This really isn’t the sort of thing we’re supposed to like as twentysomething males, but we just can’t help ourselves. What can we say, though? In an era when everyone in L.A. was rushing to rip off Disney, Don Bluth managed to craft a work that was similar enough to be a commercial success, but offbeat enough to be distinctive (we don’t know about you, but we don’t think Disney will ever use a rotting corpse as a villain in one of their animated opuses—and no, the Horned King does not count). And when you combine the beautiful (if somewhat motley) animation with David Newman’s fantastic score, this one becomes a sight to behold. Unless, of course, you know anything about Russian history.

8. Escape From L.A.
Let’s get one thing out of the way to begin with: Escape from L.A. is a perfect movie. Oh, I’m sure you thought The Godfather was, or perhaps Schindler’s List, or maybe even Casablanca. But no, these movies all lack something. It’s that something that validates ones own existence, a something that changes lives. In fact, it’s something that no other movie can ever hope to beat: Kurt Russell surfing a tidal wave through Los Angeles. In fact, if there’s any reason not to like this film, it’s because it is simply TOO awesome. How are we supposed to handle Bruce Campbell as the Surgeon
General of Beverly Hills? We are but mere men, and John Carpenter has come to us, our very own Prometheus to help light our way in these dark times. And to think – it was a SEQUEL!

• Click here to view the embedded video.

  
  See Snake get surfboard, see Snake ride tidal wave, see Snake beat Steve Buscemi up!

7. You’ve Got Mail
In the world of romantic comedies, there are many mephitic monstrosities to make film aficionados squirm. As pretentious as we like to seem (we did just use the word mephitic), there are still a few that have the ability to make us forgive wrongs and come to love the human race all over again. One such film is Nora Ephron’s 1998 cyber-love festival of emotion, You’ve Got Mail. It’s longer than any romantic comedy should be (a full two hours!), is not aging well at all, and features some of the most sappy, snappy, “quirky” dialogue you’re likely to find. We don’t know what it is that makes us like it: the bouncy music score, the wry wit, the glowing charm of the over-written characters? We’ll never know. We try not to think about it, but whenever we need a pick-me-up, You’ve Got Mail is always an “enchanting” alternative to depression and hostility.

6. Kung-Pow!: Enter the Fist
It’s true: this one is pretty much a third-rate rip-off of What’s Up, Tiger Lily? and Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, but if you can think like a 13-year-old boy, it has a serious irresistible charm. Steve Oedekerk, the genius who brought us Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls and a whole series of “thumb” parodies (Thumb Wars, Thumbtanic, etc.), decided his true calling in life was to take an old Hong Kong martial arts picture, splice himself in, and redub it with all new dialogue (doing all the voices himself, of course). The end result: a pastiche of obvious slapstick jokes, bad computer animation, and all-around weirdness. If he was French, he would have been hailed as a Dadaist genius; since he’s American, the critics were ruthless.

• Click here to view the embedded video.

  
  Like watching a car wreck – you just can’t take your eyes off of it.

5. Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever
Following in the grand tradition of films with titles containing both colons and ‘versus’ abbreviations, Ballistic will make you truly believe that people who’ve undergone frontal lobotomies can make movies too, just like normal human beings. The leaps of logic Ballistic makes as it gaily skips from incoherent scene to even more incoherent scene are a wonder to behold, and for some reason fill us with a warm, fuzzy, blissful feeling. Ah, Antonio and Lucy, only you two could bring depth and pathos to lines like these:

ECKS: Where did you get all this ordinance?
SEVER: Some women buy shoes.

The icing on an already scrumptious cake comes when you realize the director’s name is Kaos. We are but putty in the hands of an auteur clever enough to replace ‘Ch’ with a ‘K.’

• Click here to view the embedded video.

  
  Lucy Liu, aka Sever, beats up a bunch of SWAT guys with what appear to be windshield wiper blades.

4. Extreme Days
Practically unwatchable as cinema, but seriously compelling as a study in Why Christians Should Never Be Given Movie Cameras, this is one train wreck you won’t be able to look away from. First-time writer/director Eric Hannah has spliced together footage of teens going on a road trip, lighting their farts on fire, and learning to trust Jesus together with badly filmed and tedious footage of TOTALLY X-TREME sports stunts performed by body doubles who look nothing like the actors. The soundtrack album, which features Christian radio staples like tobyMac, Skillet, and Fold Zandura, actually achieved much greater notoriety than the film itself.

• Click here to view the embedded video.

  
  This clip melted our eyeballs out of our heads with it’s awesomeness.

3. Super Mario Brothers
First, Disney acquired the film rights to the cutest, most family-friendly videogame of all time. Then they handed the project over to co-directors Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton, whose only previous credit was mediocre sex thriller D.O.A. The end result is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller that has nothing at all to do with the game, aside from some characters that have the same names. Fifteen years later, we’re still wondering exactly who this movie was made for, but we personally just can’t stop watching the thing. Why? Most of its undeniable appeal comes from the smirking performances delivered by the actors—it’s clear Bob Hoskins is having quite a bit of fun here—and some endlessly quotable lines (“Was she corpulent?” “Nah, she was round. Real round.”). In any case, it’s definitely reassuring when the name “Uwe Boll” doesn’t show up in the credits.

• Click here to view the embedded video.

  
  Some guy with way too much time on his hands actually uploaded the entire movie to YouTube. This is only part 8 or 9 out of 10. Its a testament to this movie’s badness that nobody has asked for the clips to be removed yet.

2. British Adaptations of Jane Austen Novels
Not a film by itself, per se, but the British adaptations of her stories (Keira Knightly, we spurn you – you’ll never be Elizabeth Bennett in our hearts) blend together after a while into a hazy kaleidoscope of cinematic happiness. The realization came when we were watching Northanger Abbey, that even though the story was derivative, and even though it was pathetically predictable, and even though there were no less than 42 separate dances (dancing is crack cocaine to these people), we gobbled up every bit of it and then said, “More please.” There is a charm to the British versions that beats you over the head until you willingly submit to it’s siren call. Embarrassing to admit, but Jane Austen, we heart you.

1. High School Musical
We confess. We’ll gladly join the ranks upon ranks of 11-year-old girls out there and admit that we love High School Musical. We know it wasn’t made with us mind; we know that life and high school are nothing—absolutely nothing—like the way this picture portrays them; but we just don’t care. The songs are bouncy and fun, the actors sizzle with energy, and there’s a happy ending. What more could anyone want in a movie? We just can’t turn down a film that’s so determined to entertain, even if it is made for someone half our age. Say it with us, arthouse buffs: “Ubiquitous does not equal bad.” Now doesn’t that feel better?

• Click here to view the embedded video.

  
  20 million plus views on YouTube (and this is only one of the songs) can’t be wrong, can it?

Luke Harrington, Evan Derrick, Phillip Johnston, and Ghost Lyon all contributed to this list