A few journals back, I proclaimed that Frank Miller's The Spirit is The Worst Movie I've Ever Seen. A number of people urged that I go see this movie or that movie in hopes of crowning a new champion, as if I were asking people to help me actively seek out a more painful experience. I wasn't. Despite this, I have since seen two movies that could be contenders for the title.

A number of you nominated M. Night Shyamalan's "The Last Airbender". Being a huge fan of the show, I was actually excited for this movie from some of the initial stills and teasers, but avoided it when it hit the theaters due to the intensely bitter reaction from other fans. However, last night with friends, we were drinking, a copy was brought out... we really didn't have any choice but to watch it.

Airbender is not a good movie. You've heard the complaints before: The plot is cobbled together from a number of the first-season episodes, so there isn't so much a story arc as there is a series of story speed bumps. Everybody's names are mispronounced. They use voice-overs and montages to skip over plot development, and character development is completely gone. Momo and Apa are there, sometimes, but they don't really do anything. They aren't even referred to by name, but they'd probably just call them Moo-moo and Opah anyway.

It's my personal belief that Shamalamadingdong intentionally had the actors mispronounce all the names as revenge for everybody calling him Shamalamadingdong all the time. I, for one, do not plan to stop.

But Airbender critiques are a dime a dozen. Instead, let's talk about "Vegas in Space".

I found "Vegas in Space" on Netflix's online streaming service, under the "Similar To Babylon 5" category (incidentally, there actually is a space Vegas in the Babylon 5 universe, New Vegas on Mars). Not being one to pass up unheard-of crappy Sci-Fi, I fired it up.

So the titles start up, looking for all the world like a crappy VHS transfer, and actors' names start flashing by. Ginger Quest? Tippi? Miss X?! These sound like porn names. But Netflix doesn't have porno... Does it?

The movie starts. A group of manly(ish) space cadets, assigned to investigate a crisis on a girls-only pleasure colony, take sex-change pills. Transformed, they arrive at Vegas in Space, a city which looks suspiciously like a collection of perfume bottles. The plot is all building up to a big musical number.. Everybody seems to be a princess or a queen... They've all got overly elaborate dresses, slathered-on make-up, and big fake hair.....

Dear God, those weren't porn names. Those were drag names! I'm watching drag queens in space!!

There are no words to describe exactly where this movie goes from there. I can only say that it's campier than Camp McCamperson's 60's Batman Reenactment Camp, and gayer than a gaggle of furries at the Folsom Street Fair.

Digging deeper for information about this movie, I learn that the director/writer/lead actor (Philip Ford, AKA Doris Fish) poured eight years of his life and all his savings to pull this movie together by its frilly shoestrings, and died shortly thereafter.

In the end, no, neither of these movies came even close to topping The Spirit as the worst movie I've ever seen. Vegas in Space stands out clear and proud of what it is: a way, WAY over-the-top labor of love. And despite astoundingly poor execution, Airbender has some respect (or at least doesn't completely desecrate) the core concepts of the source material. I can't say the same of The Spirit.