And now, from the other end of the entertainment spectrum, we present films that are better left unseen:
1. HARVARD MAN ^ Fans of so-bad-they’re-good movies will have a field day with this James Toback debacle involving the unlikely antics of an acid-tripping college basketball star (the undersized, over aged Adrien Grenier), his Mafia princess girlfriend (Sarah Michelle Gellar trying to be a white mall queen Pam Grier) and an excessively sultry Harvard philosophy professor (Joey Lauren Adams in a wildly absurd camp performance). Bring a dozen kegs and 5,000 of your closest friends: this one you have to see to believe. ^ STATUS: A brief and disastrous theatrical release this past summer; currently on DVD and VHS…caveat emptor!
2. CHRISTABEL ^ James Fotopoulous claims this avant-garde feature (with blurred, overlapping images and muffled, unintelligible dialogue) is a “loose adaptation” of the classic Coleridge poem. If it were any looser, it would fall off the screen. Occasionally the screen is filled with shots of topless women, clearly an homage to the pleasure domes of another Coleridge poem. ^ STATUS: Currently on the festival circuit, with no theatrical or home video release announced.
3. NITWIT ^ Xan Price’s feature offers plenty of foot-stomping, eye-rolling, simulated copulation, screeching in faux-Dixie accents and a toy spaceship floating around. What it lacks is anything that even vaguely resembles the basic tenets commonly associated with professional film production. ^ STATUS: Currently on the festival circuit, with no theatrical or home video release announced.
4. RUSSIAN ARK Alexander Sokurov’s excruciatingly boring mixture of time travel and Russian history has one vaguely interesting gimmick: it was shot throughout the rooms of the Hermitage in a single 86-minute take using a special HD camera. Strangely, a U.S. distributor decided to present the film in a muddy 35mm print transfer, with reel changes that hiccup the continuity. This film is as much fun as a one-way trip to Siberia. ^ STATUS: Currently in very limited theatrical release.
5. CRAZY JONES ^ An adult misfit with Tourette’s Syndrome finds himself in a special friendship with a too-wise-for-her-years teenager harboring a sad secret. Imagine “Sundays and Cybele” remade by and for dummies and you have this turgid and thoroughly unwatchable bomb. ^ STATUS: Currently on the festival circuit, with no theatrical or home video release announced.
Get the rest of the list in the next part of THE 10 WORST UNSEEN FILMS OF 2002>>>
