My Year of Flops
Authors: Nathan Rabin
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Also By The A.V. Club
Inventory: 16 Films Featuring Manic Pixie Dream Girls, 10 Great
Songs Nearly Ruined By Saxophone, And 100 More Obsessively Specific Pop-Culture Lists
The Tenacity Of The Cockroach: Conversations With
Entertainment's Most Enduring Outsiders
Also By Nathan Rabin
The Big Rewind: A Memoir Brought To You By Pop Culture
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Manufactured in the United States of America
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2010018224
ISBN 978-1-4391-5312-3
ISBN 978-1-4391-6031-2 (ebook)
For Danya, who loves movies and books
and has taught me all about joy
My Year Of Flops: An Introduction
Bataan Death March Of Whimsy Case File #1:
Elizabethtown
Book-Exclusive Savage In Its Barbaric Intensity Case File:
The Conqueror
Upside Down And Starting To Like It That Way Case File #58:
The End Of Violence
Misunderestimated Book-Exclusive Case File:
W.
Book-Exclusive Patented, Pain-Free Case File:
The Great Moment
Testifying Book-Exclusive Case File:
Gospel Road: A Story Of Jesus
Chapter 2: Calamitous Comedies
Tenacious Teen Terrors Case File #54:
O.C. And Stiggs
Woody/Not Woody Case File #57:
Scenes From A Mall
Book-Exclusive $20 Million Case File:
The Cable Guy
Fun With Animals Case File #61:
Freddy Got Fingered
Hippified Book-Exclusive Case File:
Skidoo
Good-bye Blue Monday Case File #88:
Breakfast Of Champions
Trigger-Happy Teutonic Book-Exclusive Case File:
Postal
Kicking A Man While He's Down Case File #132:
The Love Guru
Chapter 3: Musical Misfires And Misunderstood
Masterpieces
Madcap Musical Miserablism Case File #59:
Pennies From Heaven
Biblical Disco Freak-Out Case File #79:
The Apple
Seven-Octave Butterfly-Shaped Case File #90:
Glitter
Seasons Of Cynicism Case File #98:
Rent
Let's Go Crazy Case File #102:
Under The Cherry Moon
All-Singing, All-Dancing Book-Exclusive Case File: The Musical Version Of
I'll Do Anything
It Ain't Over 'Til The Old Lady Sings Book-Exclusive Case File:
Mame
Chapter 4: It's A Bird! It's A Plane! It's A Flop! Superheroes,
Science Fiction, And Action
Lady And Gentleman, You Are Now Floating In The
Floposphere Case File #46:
It's All About Love
Mad Mutated Case File #64:
The Island Of Dr. Moreau
Spaced-Out Oddity Case File #91:
Southland Tales
Big Green Brooding Case File #100:
Hulk
All-Time Action-Comedy Classic Book-Exclusive Case File:
Last Action Hero
Disgustingly Patriotic Case File #122:
The Rocketeer
Reality Bites Case File #56:
The Real Cancun
Book-Exclusive, Freely Adapted Case File:
The Scarlet Letter
Desperotica Case File #86:
Body Of Evidence
Sex-Fantasy Island Case File #97:
Exit To Eden
Maniacal Death-Orgy Case File #107:
Tough Guys Don't Dance
Dominant-Paradigm-Subverting Case File #137:
Even Cowgirls Get The Blues
How Do You Solve A Problem Like
Lolita
? Book-Exclusive
Case File:
Lolita
Chapter 6: My Year Of Flops Jr.: “You Know, For Kids!”
When Middle-Aged Puppet-Men Attack! Case File #78:
Pinocchio
Fuck You, Jew Case File #96:
Santa Claus: The Movie
Totally Tween Case File #118:
Bratz: The Movie
Chapter 7: The Floppiest Flops
Honestly Unpopular Case File #3:
Ishtar
How The West Was Sung Case File #50:
Paint Your Wagon
Bicurious, Hankie-Waving Case File #63:
Cruising
Rat-Brained, Man-Animal-Friendly Case File #66:
Battlefield Earth
Animal-Abusing, Studio-Wrecking, Career-Killing Case
File #81:
Heaven's Gate
Trapped In A World It Never Made Case File #94:
Howard The Duck
Pointlessly Postmodern Case File #103:
Psycho
Epic, Extravagant, Excruciating Book-Exclusive Case File:
Cleopatra
Chapter 8: A Fairy-Tale Ending; Or, Manic Pixie Dream Girls
I Have Known
Constant, Total Amazement Case File #40:
Joe Versus The Volcano
Full Circle Case File #1, Take 2:
Elizabethtown
Death Is Not The End: An Afterword
Appendix: Waterworld: Director's Cut, Minute-By-Minute
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If He made me in his image, then He's a failure too.
âLaura Marling, “Failure”
From an early age, I learned to stop worrying and love the bombs. I've always been a failure junkie. I get giddy over toxic buzz, noxious press, and scathing reviews. I'm fascinated by the art and sociology of flops. You can learn a lot about society by the pop culture it embraces, and just as much by what it angrily rejects. As parents are keen to remind their children, there's no shame in failure, only in not trying. The biggest, most notorious flops generally fail because they try too hard, not because they lack ambition or audacity.
My solidarity with misfits, outsiders, and underachievers helped define my professional development. I began my film-reviewing career happily critiquing the dregs of cinema, forgotten ephemera like
Chill Factor
and
Gone Fishing.
As the first head writer of
The A.V. Club,
the entertainment section of
The Onion,
I've immersed myself in the dark, shadowy corners of the entertainment universe, where saner folks fear to tread: direct-to-video movies (for a column called Dispatches From Direct-To-DVD Purgatory), cheaply produced books by C-listers and hangers-on (for Silly Little Show-Biz Book Club), the
NOW That's What I Call Music!
series (for THEN That's What They Called
Music!), and audio commentaries on terrible films (for Commentary Tracks Of The Damned).
In
The A.V. Club,
I found a home and an audience willing to indulge my pop-culture masochism. Ah, but maybe “masochism” isn't the right word, because I love what I do; a trip to the multiplex to see the latest Tyler Perry movie or not-screened-for-critics dancesploitation cheapie fills me with anticipation rather than dread. Thirteen years on, I still sometimes can't believe I make my living writing about pop culture.
So when I decided to embark on a twice-weekly yearlong blog project in early 2007, I naturally gravitated toward an in-depth exploration of the biggest failures in cinematic history. I called the column My Year Of Flops. To qualify for My Year Of Flops, a film had to meet three unyielding/slippery criteria. It had to be a critical and commercial failure upon its release (domestically, at least). It had to have, at best, a marginal cult following. And it had to facilitate an endless procession of facile observations and labored one-liners.