Best Worst Movies In History

The Poor Man Institute starts a series that I'll be monitoring with rapt attention. Already they've got Ghost Dad and Hard To Kill, so they're off to a rousing start. I'll be extremely disappointed if they don't cover the following:

Cop and a Half: 8 year-old black kid joins the police force with a past-his-prime Burt Reynolds as his partner. The Fonz directs. 'Nuff said.

Stop or my Mom will Shoot: What is it about cops paired with unconventional partners that makes for movies of the sublimely bad variety? Am I going to go with Turner and Hooch? The Jim Belushi vehicle K-9? No. But Estelle Getty and Sly Stallone fighting crime makes for hours of hilarity.

RoboCop 3: I think this is the one where RoboCop's nemesis is a 10 year-old kid. It's either this one or RoboCop 2. Whatever, put them both on the list.

Nothing But Trouble: Let's take all the comic actors who ceased being funny ten years earlier (Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, John Candy), add Demi Moore, give them no script, and put lots and lots of kabuki makeup all over them! The best is that the middle-of-nowhere mansion upon which Chase and Moore stumble and are terrorized by a bizarre cast of characters is supposed to be in NEW JERSEY, despite Aykroyd and company talking mostly with a Southern accent the whole time. And it's inspired by true events.

Boris and Natasha: There are actually a lot of people I like in this, including a good bit of the original cast of SCTV (Dave Thomas, Andrea Martin, the aforementioned and late John Candy, who could be funny until he was routinely cast as the fat guy). But I don't even think Rocky and Bullwinkle are involved in this. Why would you take Boris and Natasha out of their original element and give them a star vehicle? It's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead for stupid people.

Larger Than Life: Road movie with Bill Murray and an elephant. The conceit of this film is that a father would leave his son an pachedyrm as their inheritance. Ari from Entourage is in it.

Caddyshack 2: The Shack is Back. Only with perenially unfunny Jackie Mason in the Rodney role, dangerously unfunny Dan Aykroyd (I see a pattern) in the Bill Murray role, Robert Stack (!) in the Ted Knight role, and way more money than the filmmakers knew what to do with, most of it funneled into the conversion of the golf course into a life-sized mini-golf course with theme holes. Maybe the most ill-conceived sequel ever, which is saying a lot.

Haunted Honeymoon/Heartbeeps: I don't know why I wanted to put these together, as they're totally different, one a musical from Gene Wilder's darkest days (when Gilda first got sick with cancer), and the other starring Andy Kaufman and Bernadette Peters as household robots who elope. But for some reason they're the same movie to me. I can't think of one without thinking of the other. Haunted Honeymoon also is Dom DeLuise's best drag role (he's Aunt Kate), which beats out I think about ten other films. Oh, and I just found out that Heartbeeps director Allan Arkush also made Caddyshack 2, which is fitting.

And if this isn't number 1 The Editors have no credibility whatsoever:

Jaws 4 The Revenge: First of all, the premise of this movie is that Jaws, who's not even the same great white shark as in the first couple movies but a DESCENDANT, somehow is so advanced that he knows the FAMILY of his dad's killer, and can follow them 3,000 or so miles from upstate New York to the Caribbean. Second, they couldn't get Roy Scheider for the movie, but wanted to make sure everyone remembered his relation to the series (since Jaws 2 and 3-D went away from the initial plot), so in the first scene there's this enormous picture of him that dwarfs the other actors, as if to shout "Remember Roy Schieder? This is about Roy Scheider's family!" Third, in what has to be the best film flub in the history of the movies, Michael Caine (this was during the "Michael Caine must be in every movie released in the United States" phase) dives into the ocean after his plane crashes, but when he reaches the boat and climbs aboard, his clothes are bone dry. That's one of about 20 screw-ups in this picture. The shark ROARS in the movie, which they, er, can't do. Also Mario Van Peebles plays a Rastafarian.

It's number one, you can't beat it. No contest.