People who know me know that I complain about movies. A _lot_. What can I say; I'm good at it! Mention Michael Bay's Transformers and I will yak your ear off for three hours or more. Easily.

Overall however, I'm actually a pretty forgiving guy. A movie doesn't have to be Citizen Kane for me to enjoy it. I try to judge films by one very simple criterion: 'What is this movie trying to achieve? What is it trying to make me feel?' If it accomplishes what it sets out to do, then I give it my seal of approval. If a horror movie scares me, or an action movie makes me get all tense and shout at the screen, or a comedy makes me spit soda all over myself, then I'm willing to overlook a hell of a lot of bad acting, bad directing, bad writing, etc.. In fact, there's quite a few movies that lots of other people hate that I personally love for being such quirky little oddballs. Here's a few, ranked by my fondness for each.

(BTW, just to be thorough, I checked all of these on RottenTomatoes.com and yes, they're all considered 'rotten'. Philistines.)
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#10: THE PURPLE PEOPLE EATER
Normally, this one would be indefensible. It's about a giant cyclopean purple thing that lands on earth and plays rock 'n roll and helps a bunch of old people pay the rent. Eeeyah. It goes on the list because I first saw it when I was too little to have any taste and I probably watched it eight times or more. So, it gets a place here for providing happy childhood memories ...Even if I wouldn't watch it now while wearing safety goggles and a radiation suit.


#9: MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE
This is the film that all other bad movies must bow down and worship. Thank God my friend and I watched the MST3K version or we might have both died. Any movie fan should sit through this as a test of courage. A rite of passage, if you will. It really is The Most Ineptly Made Film Of All Time. Even worse than Transformers (and that's _really_ saying something).


#8: CATWOMAN
Some of you will howl in pain at the mere mention of this film. But to hell with ya; I love it. See, a lot of bad movies end up that way due to lack of creativity, lack of budget, studio interference, or the people making it just not giving a shit. Catwoman does not fit into any of these categories. It is a species of badness unique in all the world. You watch this and you begin to wonder if it was made by Elder Gods. I'd go so far as to say that the director, Pitof, is a worthy successor to Ed Wood. For starters: _PITOF_!? WTF!?!? How do you even pronounce that? Sitting through this film, with it's perfume-commercial visual style, dialogue from the black lagoon, editing obviously done by chainsaw, screamingly crappy CGI, godawful flaming 'gay friend' character, and absolutely zero connection to the comics (or Batman), I can totally picture Pitof as this pudgy, tanned, bespectacled European uber-pooftah, mincing about the set in his own little world and giving stage directions via exaggerated hand gestures while holding a feather boa. Catwoman is the bad movie from the fourth dimension.


#7: WILD WILD WEST
Gigantic steam-powered mechanical spider. Gigantic Steam-Powered Mechanical Spider. GIGANTIC STEAM-POWERED MECHANICAL SPIDER. I know it's wrong to love this movie as much as I do, but I can't help it! I get a hard-on for ludicrously implausible clockwork technology! I adore Loveless' wheelchair and his gear-brained henchmen! Plus, the film is saved from being total forgettable summer blockbuster shite by the mere fact that no one is taking this seriously and the whole cast looks like they're having fun. A happy cast can make any movie exponentially more watchable. Plus, there's that whole scene with the fake breasts, the scene with Will Smith and Kenneth Branaugh trading a slew of hilarious black/cripple jokes, and the immortal line, "That... Is a man's... *Head*."


#6: SUPER MARIO BROTHERS
Okay, smartass; YOU try coming up with a Super Mario Brothers movie that makes any more sense than this one did! People will argue forever that this film should never have been made, but I've always been a fan of movies that aren't content to merely fail; they shoot for the moon and crash in a gigantic, fiery, entertaining explosion. I mean, come on. We've got one of the best casting choices in history (Who else could be Mario but Bob Hoskins!?), huge dudes with tiny dinosaur heads who groove on elevator music, two great dumbass henchmen, mutant sci-fi-ish cars, sentient orange gookum, a giant red-spiked black woman with flying boots, Was (Not Was)'s "Walk The Dinosaur", and Dennis Fucking Hopper. When this came out, I *so* wanted them to merchandise little wind-up B-Bombs. I would've bought dozens. And even if you hate the film with a passion, you cannot deny that Yoshi was freakin' adorable and an amazingly well done special effect, considering the budget.


#5: SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS
I could defend this film for hours. If you can get beyond the premise and actually watch the film objectively, it's _nowhere_ near as bad as everyone says. The premise even makes sense if you realize this was made in the sixties and space-mania had infected *everything*. The main reason I like the film is that it's a kids' film that feels like and looks like something a kid would actually dream up. The martians, their spaceship and the eye-poppingly-fake robot all look like something some little boy would draw with crayons. The flick also gets _major_ points for having a villain who actually has some motivation, instead of just being evil because the writer was too lazy to give him any depth. The martian leader is also not merely one-dimensional; he makes both good decisions and bad, but his heart's in the right place. He wants his kids to be happy. Awww. Also, pay attention to the little earth-girl's lines. Everything she says is a masterpiece of stating the obvious. When Voldar, the villain martian, tries to blow them out the airlock, she remarks accusingly, "You don't like us!" Everything she says is like that!! Add in the most unbelievably bad polar bear suit in human history, Santa actually getting off a few pretty decent jokes (including accidentally calling one of his reindeer 'Nixon' ), some cute martian kids, a brain-destroyingly catchy themesong and an overall lighthearted grade school-play kinda vibe, and this one's actually a lot of fun if you can regress yourself to childhood enough while you watch it.


#4: TANK GIRL
The character's creators and the director herself will gladly tell you that this movie sucks. I've heard from multiple sources that the studio screwed every creative idea in this film straight up the ass. Still, the bits of crazy-ass random awesomeness that managed to make it through are enough to salvage it for me. If you go into this film realizing how much the people working on it were forced to cut and change and leave out, it's easy to sympathize with them and root for this colorful little celluloid explosion. We've got the most insane-looking tank imaginable, outfits that defy the laws of physics, giant anthropomorphic kangaroo-people (with remarkably well made animatronic faces), ripping cool fsequenced of comic panels and cartoons, Cole Porter, a device that kills people by sucking all the water out of their bodies, and, holy shit, is that Naomi Watts from "The Ring" and "King Kong" as Jet Girl!? Yes, yes it is. I thought Lori Petty was pretty much perfect as Tank Girl, several of the Rippers made my furry radar go 'boing', and Jet Girl has massive amounts of Gadget-esque-ness. So, ^__^ (If you do watch it, hop online afterwards and go to the director's website to watch clips of the stuff that was cut. Including one that makes it much clearer that Tank Girl and Booga did the horizontal bop.)


#3: LITTLE NICKY
How Could Anyone Possibly Not Like This Movie!? It's so much fucking _fun_!! It's like Adam Sandler said, 'Hey! Let's get drunk and high and have as much fun as possible making this crazy-ass cartoon of a movie about Hell!!!' There are eighty billion jaw-dropping cameos, a ton of fun characters, lots of great costumes, Popeye's Chicken, a guy with boobs on his head, a dog who shoots an arrow out of his cock, Jon Lovitz getting ass-raped by a humongous bird, Harvey Keitel's disembodied lips, Adam Sandler turning into several hundred spiders, and HITLER IN A FRENCH MAID OUTFIT GETTING A PINEAPPLE SHOVED UP HIS ASS. That scene alone should have netted this film an Academy Award. Plus, do I even need to point out that Bartleby's Descent would have never existed without this movie?


#2: TOYS
Now, I'll freely admit that this film's story is fractured as fuck and it goes on much too long. And, heck, I'm not even sure what the point of it was. But, Sweet Deep-Fried Jesus, this movie has some of the most knock-you-out-of-your-seat visuals ever put on screen. It's like a Magritte painting, FAO Schwartz and a Devo video in a blender on LSD. There is a bed that is a giant duck. There is a room that turns into a crossword puzzle. There are giant replicas of old tin toys that you will immediately wish you could run out and buy as soon as the film's over. I won't even go into the brilliant faux music video scene. Add in the fact that there's a lot of interesting characters (Alsatia is wonderful!), a ton of good character actors playing them, a fun soundtrack, and the fact that the film was obviously made with great affection, and it really, really deserves to have its faults overlooked. Turn off all your logic circuits; this is pure porn for eyeballs.



And finally, we come to the number one movie on the countdown!

#1: ONCE UPON A FOREST
This movie has a 0% rating on RottenTomatoes. I cannot effing describe the heartbreak I felt at having found that out. Actually, I *know* why it's got a rating that low; no one's ever freaking _seen_ it! Even among us furries, I'm constantly having to tell people about this sweet, fun, clever little animated movie. 'Three adorable furry kids set out on a journey to find the herbs that will make their friend well after an accident caused by humans destroys their little forest community.' I mean, I get it. People see this and immediately assume it's basically Ferngully with fuzzy woodland varmints. And in all fairness, the movie does fall prey to many of the usual kiddie cartoon movie cliches. The reason it's my number one however, is the characters. Abigail the wood mouse is *squealingly* cute, and a rare example of a smart, capable female lead in animation. Russell the hedgehog and Edgar the mole are also so darn lovable I wanna scoop 'em up and snuggle 'em. But Michelle, the little badger, really steals the show. She may be the cutest character in the history of cinema. If you can get past the unfortunate stock situations the script hurls at the three Furlings (plus the overly-long swamp bird musical number), there's a lot of genuine emotion here. The plot gets into some pretty heavy stuff for a kids' film. Plus, Michael Crawford does some fine voice acting, and even better singing, as the Furlings' wise old teacher. They even get Actual Children to play the furry kids, as opposed to hiring some squeaky-voiced adults. To top it off, the flying machine the Furlings end up building is cool enough that I wish to heck they'd merchandised this film more. I would have bought everything they made. As it is, all I have is an Abigail pencil topper that I treasure. I'd shoot my mom in the face with a bazooka for plushies of the main characters. So, in summation, if you're a furry and your soul hasn't been completely obliterated by the harshness of the internet, this movie is definitely worth a look.



Now get your ass to a video store. (: