It has become an annual tradition. On the anniversary of the start of Bad Movie Thursday we take a look back at the year in review. With a name that’s just as bad as the films it honors it is ….
Smaddies Baddies! Smaddies Baddies! Ah what a year. We finished off the Fifty Shades series, delved into the minds of madmen, started the Map Streets Map Alright! Sklogpacking Across Europe, and explored friends we’d usually not watch for BMT. And as usual no year would be complete without watching the worst of the worst of 2018 marked mostly by the most Slender of Men slithering into our lives. Remember, any film we watched in 2018 qualifies for an award. Smaddies Baddies, what films do we want to bestow our highest (lowest?) honor in all of bad movie world to?
We’ll start with the BMT awards which are usually cut for time: the 6W awards. Let’s go!
The Three Musketeers Best Planchet Baddie (Who?) goes to Exit Wounds with Anthony Anderson as the best sidekick who just gets ripped on for the entire runtime of a film, but what’s this?! Did Exit Wounds also have the best fake (Vice) President as well?! A dual award is handed out for the extremely rare display of Steven Seagal clumsily saving a Vice President’s life. And the kicker? Seagal gets chastised for doing it and demoted to the worst precinct in Detroit. All in a day’s work Seagal.
The Adam Sandler Memorial Product Placement Baddie Brought to You By Coca Cola, Always Cool! (What?) goes to Behind Enemy Lines with one of our favorite product placements in BMT history. Owen Wilson has struggled his way across war-torn Bosnia, discovering war crimes and escaping enemy fire. Finally, exhausted, he hitches a ride with some Elvis-loving rebels and asks through parched lips for some water. But they don’t have water. All they have is a delicious and refreshing Coca-Cola. Will that work? Will it ever! Owen Wilson takes a swig of that Coke and the “Ahhhh” of his refreshment rebounds off the surrounding mountains, likely giving away their positions and spellings certain death. But he doesn’t care. Because he’s got that red and white can in his hand. You can’t see it but tears are streaming down our faces just remembering it.
The When in Rome Setting as a Character Baddie (Where?) goes to Show Dogs in a controversial upset. We had a whole cycle celebrating nations across Europe and none of those won. Even Deuce Bigalow couldn’t take the prize home. That’s because you have to remember what this award is all about. The setting must stand in as a character and when we learn about the love between two star-crossed talking dogs through their mutual glee at ziplining along the Vegas strip you know you got a winner. The name is even a play off of Show Girls for god’s sake. It’s not even something kids would understand, but they were required by law to make it the name of the film. Vegas was that much ingrained in its DNA.
The Jonah Hex Centennial Celebration Super Specific Temporal Setting Baddie (When?) In past years this award typically went to a secret Holiday film, but sometimes a very strange series of decisions made by a screenwriter results in a wild, wild, upset. That’s right, Wild Wild West takes home the settings prize by the film literally ending on the exact date (nay moment!) the golden spike completes the transcontinental railroad (May 10, 1869)! I had to wrack my brain to think of another BMT film that makes such an event the cornerstone of their film, it is exceedingly rare. And isn’t that really what temporal settings are all about?
The Street Fighter Legend of Chun Li Best MacGuffin Baddie (Why?) If you could only see the absurd list we had for the number of MacGuffin films this year. The Spike of Power, The Mask of Acheron, Softkill, The Apple of Eden, The Switchblade … all nonsense! Meaningless garbage! But only one was so mysterious, so magical, such a pointless driver of plots, that they felt like they had to put it in the title. Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid, a truly insane A+ MacGuffin! What does the Blood Orchid do? Well it, uh, blooms only like once every thousand years or something, and it has some … chemical, which makes you live a really long time. Get off my back! I just need it okay, it is the key to my biochemical research company! And that … that’s how you MacGuffin right.
The 88 Minutes Starring Leelee Sobieski Worst Twist Baddie (How?) Pretty easily goes to Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever. The twist in this film is so nonsensical that you almost can’t take it seriously. We see Ecks a total wreck years after the death of his wife. We are treated to flashbacks of her death in a car bombing, but the whole time you assume that she’s alive and they’ll use some clever way to reveal just how that could be. Nope. It literally is just that the bad guy set up a car explosion and they both assumed the other one had died and then went about their lives assuming this… for years… in the same city. You can almost imagine the bad guy going like “wait, did they actually fall for that shit?” after, because it is completely unbelievable that Antonio Banderas would do absolutely no follow up on whether his wife was killed in an explosion he only kinda saw. He’s a special agent! Apparently the dumbest special agent that ever lived. Were there no funerals? Did no mutual friend go like “yo… I definitely just had brunch with your wife last week and she also thinks your dead and she’s pregnant. You guys should probably figure this out cause it’s weird.” We’ve even seen the movie several times before and on this viewing we still were like “what?!”
Phew. Now onto the big awards, now officially based on The Good, The Bad and The BMT (plus Live!). And without further ado:
The Freddy Got Fingered Surprisingly Good Baddie (The Good) Nominees: Hunter Killer, Anaconda, Monte Carlo, The 13th Warrior, Behind Enemy Lines
And the Winner is: Hunter Killer. After the success of GEOOOOOOSTORM I could not tell you how excited I was to get my boy Gerard Butler back. Combine that with Jamie featuring it on a submarine movie podcast (Mac East 2nd Floor Studios Presents Submersion) and it was a match made in heaven. Narrowly avoiding the disastrous 40% flat on Rotten Tomatoes, we settled in for some sweet one on one time with Gerard. One problem … the movie is kind of good? It isn’t great, like Gerard is still Gerard Butler, but if you want some submarine action with some jolly Ruskies, then boy howdy, do I have a film for you! Congrats Hunter Killer, you weren’t that bad! You weren’t that bad!
The Strange Wilderness Unpleasantly Terrible Baddie (The Bad) Nominees: Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, Little Man, Meet the Spartans, CHIPS, Death Wish (2018)
And the Winner is: Little Man. Woof, after White Chicks I thought the long awaited sequel in Little Man could not fail to deliver. I was sadly mistaken. Instead of the delight of seeing two literal monster people wandering around on screen and people legit thinking they are real people, instead we get an unpleasant and unfunny fake CGI little person … It isn’t the same. And a grown adult getting treated like a baby? The weird uncomfortable sexual undertones of that whole thing? Not a fan. Ooof, I have to stop, I’m feeling a bit queasy. This is like Norbit, the more I think about the film, the more upset I get in a very visceral way.
The Here on Earth Most BMT Baddie (The BMT) Nominees: Underclassman, Speed 2: Cruise Control, Wild Wild West, Righteous Kill, Exit Wounds
And the Winner is: Wild Wild West. Wicky wild. Wicky wicky wicky wild wild west! Jim West, desperado babyyyyy! Giant robot spiders, magnets, the transcontinental railroad, a half-of-a-person from the confederacy, zombies, Will Smith cross dressing. This movie has it all. Don’t be surprised, there are reasons the classics are classics. We only have ourselves to blame for waiting so long to watch the film. Righteous Kill is the typical BMT choice here, the more … perplexing choice for people who aren’t familiar with our specific bad movie tastes. But sometimes, like Owen Wilson stuck behind enemy lines in Bosnia, you just need a (Coca Cola) classic.
The Jack and Jill Worst of 2017 Baddie (The BMT Live!) Nominees: Fifty Shades Freed, Slender Man, Truth or Dare, Midnight Sun, Death Wish (2018)
And the Winner is: Fifty Shades Freed. This is its Return of the King moment! A film so weird and terrible we couldn’t even bring ourselves to actually watch it in theaters. We found some stream online so as to not repeat our mistakes from Fifty Shades Darker! Darker and Freed are kind of what I imagined BMT Live would be when we came up with it. Instead most of the time it involves us desperately trying to find any film that is released in the US and UK reasonably close together with reasonably bad reviews. All except for February 14th every year. We knew exactly who our Valentine would be then. Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan and some weirdo who wants to kill them. I will truly miss the series. I could count on it. And that counts for something.
Smaddies Baddies, Smaddies Baddies. Quite an impressive set of films. As usual, for those of you who slipped into a gentle slumber during the announcements: Watch Hunter Killer, Wild Wild West, and Behind Enemy Lines. Skip Fifty Shades Freed, Little Man, and Show Dogs. Ah, who am I kidding? Watch them all! Watch them all in a row and feel your brain melt!
Bad Movie Twins 