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Authors: Nathan Rabin

My Year of Flops

BOOK: My Year of Flops
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SCRIBNER
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Copyright © 2010 by Onion, Inc.

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First Scribner trade paperback edition October 2010

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Designed by Carla Jayne Jones

Manufactured in the United States of America

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

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

Contents

My Year Of Flops: An Introduction

Chapter 1: Disastrous Dramas

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

Hickory Dickory Dock, George H. W. Bush–Era Playground Shock Book-Exclusive Case Files:
Dice Rules
And
The Adventures Of Ford Fairlane

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

Beatles Smile-Time Variety Hour Without The Beatles
Case File #51:
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

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

Chapter 5: Unsexy Sexy Films

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

Fucking Original Straight First Foremost Pimp Mack
Fucking Hustler Original Gangster's Gangster
Case File #52:
Gigli

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

Acknowledgments

 

If He made me in his image, then He's a failure too.

—Laura Marling, “Failure”

My Year Of Flops: An Introduction

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.

BOOK: My Year of Flops
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