You’d also figure there would be movies that gained a little notoriety by ripping off the plot of a famous horror movie that wouldn’t really be worth the effort to remake. Logically, you’re right. Practically, you’re wrong.

My Bloody Valentine was a ripoff of any random slasher movie that came before it, but that didn’t stop Lionsgate from jumping in on a remake, and in 3D no less. So far, Bloody Valentine has a worldwide box office of $71.8 million. Combine that with the $15 million budget and you’ve got yourself what movie studios call a winning formula.

So it is both with little understanding or surprise to hear that Piranha is going to be remade. If you couldn’t tell by the poster, Piranha was simply a ripoff of Jaws. It was just another of Roger Corman’s nondescript, over-the-top horror movies. It’s better than most since it had a capable director (Joe Dante), capable writer (John Sayles), and some great people working on the special effects (Rob Bottin and Phil Tippett). It was a weak concept that was elevated by the talents of the filmmakers.

I liked High Tension and all, but Alexandre Aja is no Joe Dante or John Sayles. Aja must be like the horror remake go-to guy, seeing that this is his third in a row. Maybe he has just enough talent and low enough salary demands that he hits a low-budget sweet spot. And Elisabeth Shue made a good babysitter, but casting her as the sheriff goes a bit far. No, much too far.

And the solution to making this bottom-dwelling remake work is to 3D-ify it. How much could be made on a straight remake of Piranha? Black Christmas was a reasonably obscure movie, and the 2006 remake made $21 million. The aforementioned My Bloody Valentine was also reasonably obscure, but the 3D remake is over $70 million. Valentine opened on the largest number of 3D screens at the time, and an estimated 80% of the movie’s opening weekend box office came from the 3D showings, about $17 million, leaving $4 million for the 2D presentation. As a 2D only movie, Black Christmas made almost $4 million it’s opening weekend.

What does that mean? Audiences are hungry for 3D and will shell out money to see anything. Studios know this and are more than willing to throw out anything for people to see. Hence, Piranha 3D. If they’re already scraping the bottom of the barrel this early in digital 3D’s life-cycle, how long will it be before they start turning out 3D horror movies you’ve never heard of? My guess: too soon.

very good: excellent; also: all right

Using this as a guideline, Entertainment Weekly tried to create a list of the 20 All-Time Coolest Heroes in Pop Culture. In descending order they are:

20. Sydney Bristow

19. Atticus Finch

18. Batman

17. Nancy Drew

16. Jack Bauer

15. Dirty Harry

14. Will Kane

13. Foxy Brown

12. Captain James T. Kirk

11. Mad Max

10. Spider-Man

9. Robin Hood

8. Buffy the Vampire Slayer

7. Han Solo

6. John McClane

5. Ellen Ripley

4. Harry Potter

3. Superman

2. Indiana Jones

1. James Bond

There’s a lot to quibble about with this list, but there is one huge glaring eyesore of a problem with this list. It sits right at number four: Harry Potter. I don’t know who’s idea that was, but Harry Potter is one of the least cool characters I could possibly think of. When it boils down to it, he’s a dweeby little nerd with a couple friends that practices magic all day. You ask anybody, that’s no one’s definition of cool.

And it’s not like there is anything inherently special about Harry Potter. It seems like he only knows anything about anything because one of his parents’ friends grabbed him by the shirt collar and forced something upon him. He’s always given special treatment and secret knowledge just because of his parents. That’s not cool. It sounds more like he’s kind of spoiled.

Even if it’s accepted that Harry Potter is one of the coolest cats to ever be thunk up, how in shit’s name is he cooler than John McClane or Mad Max. Harry Potter wouldn’t even be a forgettable pun for John McClane. Really, Han Solo too? How could anyone even think that up as a joke? Harry Potter flies on a broomstick. A freaking broomstick.

Then we’ve got Atticus Finch. I’ve seen the movie and read the book, and Atticus Finch just isn’t cool. A great character, deserving of a lot of respect and whatnot, but he’s square like… like the most square thing you can think up. No one runs up to Scout screaming about how cool her dad is. No one. Ever.

Same thing goes for Will Kane. He gets mad props for standing alone and risking his life to serve up the justice Frank Miller and his gang deserve, but he’s just not cool. Isn’t the cooler version of High Noon High Plains Drifter? Clint Eastwood’s character isn’t exactly nice, but he’s a hero of sorts, and a damn sight cooler than Will Kane.

The list does have some good females characters, but how could anyone think Ellen Ripley is cooler than Foxy Brown. Killing aliens is pretty sweet and saving little girls is heroic, but she wouldn’t know cool if it spit acid in her face. Foxy Brown, on the other hand, oozes cool with every bit of her take-no-shit attitude. She says things like “You pink-ass corrupt honky judge, take your little wet noodle outta here and if you see a man anywhere send him in because I do need a MAN!” Ripley calls an alien a bitch. The former is cool, the latter, not so much. And Foxy Brown’s thoughts on vigilante justice: “It’s as American as apple pie.” Enough said.

And does anyone in the real world think Robin Hood is cooler than Dirty Harry? Dirty Harry breaks up a bank robbery while eating a hot dog. He doesn’t even set it down when he starts blowing punks away. That. Is. Cool.

The movie studios and their comic cohorts are trying to make a movie of every damn comic that’s ever been made. It’s like every obscure comic they can find. Fathom, Jonah Hex, or Preacher anyone? Yeah, apparently those are comic books coming soon to a theater near you.

With both popular and obscure superhero/comic movies in the works and decades of comics to pull from, you’d think there would be plenty of fresh new movies coming out for years. You’d think that, but you’d be wrong.

As we learned in 2008, it’s never too soon to start over- The Incredible Hulk was released last year, just five years after Hulk. Why? Because the first one didn’t make Hulk fans shit themselves with joy or make a huge profit, either of which would have probably led to a sequel. But The Incredible Hulk wasn’t a sequel, it was a reboot. It just pretended that the first movie never existed and hoped audiences wouldn’t notice. The funny thing is though, Hulk made $245,360,480 against a $137 million budget and The Incredible Hulk made $263,427,551 against $150 million, pretty damn near the same numbers for both. Neither was a huge hit, but neither fell on it’s face. The result is two unrelated Hulk movies in five years, neither of which achieved the huge box office Universal Studios or Marvel Enterprises wanted. Don’t be surprised when you hear news of  re-reboot.

But this big Hulk test case isn’t deterring anyone from trying a do-over with other comic properties. Everyone was thinking Superman Returns was literally the second-coming, but it couldn’t double it’s $200 million budget. That clearly wasn’t good enough and earned us a brand new, starting-from-scratch Superman movie in the near future. It seems Daredevil is a huge star in the comic book world, to the point that making $179 million with a budget of $78 million was like a slap in the face. So yeah, we’re getting a Daredevil reboot.

Now there’s news that despite two financially successful movies in the past four years, the Fantastic Four franchise is going to get to start fresh. Not even two years after the second movie, they already want to wipe the slate clean and try again.

Are Marvel and DC convinced that every one of their properties has to be an unabashed blockbuster before they’ll give up? Are there that many people out there that are convinced the first Daredevil was compromised and should be forgotten? The damn DVD of Rise of the Silver Surfer hasn’t been out a year and a half and already they want to jump back in and pummel us over the head with more of the Fantastic Four’s mildly exciting exploits, of which none tie in to either of the first two movies.

Even though I ain’t no huge comic fan, I saw Hulk. I saw Daredevil and The Fantastic Four. Shoot, I even saw Rise of the Silver Surfer. But I didn’t see The Incredible Hulk, and dude, I’ve got no plans to in this life. One Hulk movie in five years is plenty for me, I won’t go back for seconds. One Daredevil movie a decade is overkill. I won’t be watching the reboot even if Roger Ebert says it’s the next Gone with the Wind. And holy hell, I sure as shit am not going to sit through another movie about the Fantastic Four. Ever.

I mean, all these comic book movies crowding up the theater is one thing, but do we really want to see the remake before the first one comes out on DVD? There has to be some point where even the biggest comic book fan wants them move on to something new.

With these half-assed horror remakes, is it better to see the original first to know what the remake did so wrong or see the remake first to see what the original did so well?

How can a deranged killer elude an entire police force, find every hidden entrance and exit, kill everyone that gets in his way, and somehow manage to be outsmarted by a teenage girl?

When a cop is stationed in their cruiser outside a house, it’s usually a death sentence.

To date, John Carpenter and Wes Craven have both had 11% of their movies remade, with more remakes in the works. They’ve each been credited as a producer on some of those remakes. Does that make them financial geniuses or corrupt artists?

When someone shoots the bad guy, why do they never aim for the head?

Boyfriends that are assholes usually die. Boyfriends that are nice usually only get maimed.

Why do victims never look behind themselves while walking backward?

The killer will catch you no matter how fast you run.

If there’s a corpse hidden somewhere, it will probably fall on someone.

By my reckoning, out of the top 40 of the American Film Institute’s 100 greatest movies, Psycho (18) is the only one that has been remade.

If an unseen person is creeping around in the shadows, it’s probably not the killer.

Why is an upstairs closet such a popular place to hide?

Prudes tend to outlive sluts.

A creepy house in the middle of the woods is home to inbred cannibals. You can set your watch to it.

Directors that became famous for making good low-budget horror movies often become producers on bad low-budget horror movies.

When there’s danger about, even if all the characters vow not to, someone will wander off by themselves.

Why do people always forget they have a pet cat wandering around the house?

There is usually a strong correlation between a woman’s cup size and and the brutality of her death.

The guy that just escaped from the mental hospital is stealthier than a ninja, always sneaking up behind people.

It’s pretty hard to flood a fuel-injected engine. Unless you’re in a horror movie.

When the killer kills someone, that person’s dead. When someone kills the killer, the killer isn’t dead.

A good rule of thumb: less gore = better movie.

Above all else, horror movies have taught me that ANYTHING can be used as an instrument of death.

Ordinarily seeing a commercial for a sequel I would never see to a movie I never saw and have no plans to see would cause my brain to engage boob tube zombie mode where the images hit my eyeballs but fail to leave a lasting impression on my cerebral cortex. Unfortunately something caught my attention and now, for better or worse but most likely worse, I’ll forever have a part of my brain dedicated to Without a Paddle: Nature Calling.

So what was so incredible that it could break through my zombie-like state and make me stop drooling? Well someone at Paramount Pictures found it prudent to advertise that the movie was “funnier” and “better” than the original. I found it a very bold statement to claim a direct-to-video sequel was better than the theatrically released original. It’s not a statement that would get me to see either Without a Paddle movie primarily because if Nature Calling looked so ridiculously awful, there’s no way in hell I’m seeing a movie that’s acknowledged to be worse.

It did get me thinking, though. When would I be prompted to see a sequel only if it is advertised as being better than the original? Any one-off movie could get a sequel, so pondering the question is futile in that context, but what about movies that have already had sequels?

If this is now an accepted marketing technique in Hollywood, these are some of the movie franchises that are dead to me until the studio is willing to advertise that the new installment is better than the original:

Star Wars- If the next Star Wars movie ever comes around, unless it’s advertised as being better than the original Star Wars (do I really need to refer to it as Episode IV?), I’ll not see another. Honestly though, I can see this being done. Once George Lucas has completed creating all the symbols for all the alien languages in the Star Wars universe, I can see him exclaiming the next installment as the best ever because finally (FINALLY!) all the text that appears in the movie will be done in the proper language.

Indiana Jones- Kingdom of the Crystal Crap killed Indiana Jones as far as I’m concerned. In fact it might even take an apology to get me to see the next one.

Halloween- This franchise was run into the dirt long before Rob Zombie got a hold of it. The quality of the sequels diminished to the point that I no longer find William Shatner masks scary.

Jurassic Park- Hasn’t this idea run it’s course? The first one was a good idea, but the second and third installments were a little forced. At what point does it go from a cautionary tale of science run amok to just a movie about people getting chased by dinosaurs?

Pirates of the Caribbean- Part four is in the works. The first one was alright, if overlong. The second one was okay, but it was quite full of itself. For the third one, they seemed to take the oddest storyline anyone could think of and ramp it up to the nth degree. Really, where does it go from there? If it doesn’t go somewhere that makes Disney laud it as better than the original, I won’t bother tagging along.

The Ring- Despite it’s glorified chain letter story, The Ring was a pretty effective movie. Much like Pirates of the Caribbean, the sequel was too self-absorbed. Unless the third installment promises to outclass the first, and contains no random deer attacks, I’ll pass.

Spider-Man- I’ve got no real affinity for comic books, but Spider-Man was a decent enough movie. Since then the movies have just become more generic and I honestly couldn’t care less what happens to any of these characters. The only parts of Spider-Man 3 I enjoyed were the much reviled ‘emo’ Peter Parker scenes because that seemed like the only time Sam Raimi was really trying.

One of the most recent victims of my new philosophy was The Love Guru. And I couldn’t even give that pile until the first act. By the time it got to the hockey rink, I was through with it. In those few minutes it was annoying, stupid, idiotic, moronic, asinine, unfunny, kind of insulting, and devoid of any compelling reason to continue watching. I mean I just sat through Step Brothers, so it’s not like I give up that easily, but Guru opens with multiple dick jokes. If it starts off that low, I don’t want to find out what quasi comedic depths it’s going to plumb. I inadvertently learned it ends with elephants boning, so I think I was justified in my assessment.

Now that “worst movie” lists are coming out, I think cutting bait on The Love Guru was a prudent decision. It is popping up on all kinds of those lists. You can see examples here and here and here and here and here and here and here. The other movie that is ubiquitous to most lists is Disaster Movie, but no one involved with that movie gave a crap about it. Except Carmen Electra. Her boobs and these stupid spoof movies are all she has going for her.

But people expect more out of Mike Meyers. He’s had a successful track record of turning laughs into money. Guru proved that his mojo is gone, but I could see this coming for a while. Specifically while I was siting in a tiny theater watching Austin Powers in Goldmember.

Have you ever seen the Simpson’s episode HOMR? During the episode, it’s discovered that Homer has a crayon lodged in his brain. He gets it removed because, in a classic Homer misunderstanding, he thinks it will increase his killing power. Instead it just increases his intelligence- from village idiot to learned scholar. Homer’s newfound intelligence causes the usual calamities, but the major problem doesn’t occur until Homer goes to see the latest romantic comedy. The movie is full of cliches and catchphrases and all the usual crap, but everybody in the theater thinks it’s a riot. Well, everyone but Homer. He just can’t find a single damn thing funny about it.

I’m not trying to boast about my intellect, but while I sat in that theater watching Goldmember, I was the only one not laughing. I laughed at the jokes in International Man of Mystery and I chortled at them in The Spy Who Shagged Me, but by the third time they just weren’t funny. It was a pattern of going back to the well that, for me anyway, had gone totally stale. And now, it looks like most other people are starting to feel the same way.

Psychic alien skulls and inter-dimensional flying saucers are about as relevant to the Indiana Jones universe as the appendix to the human body- they’re unnecessary and you’re often better off getting rid of them. It could be argued that the religious relics of the previous three movies were just as ridiculous, but at least they’re existence would be applicable to a movie about an archaeologist. Last time I looked, Indiana Jones was no extraterrestrial researcher.

Well before the movie really got into the guts of the plot and most of the alien nonsense, it had already jumped the rails. Let me begin at the beginning.

The opening credit sequence was completely superfluous. The teens in the car and Elvis’ ‘Hound Dog’ had to be some sort of homage to American Graffiti, but it sets the wrong tone when it’s followed by soldiers being gunned down. If the purpose was to ground the audience in the time period, then it was pretty redundant since it’s directly followed by the date overlaid on the screen. It should have opened with the establishing shot of the military base as the convoy pulls up to the gate. It’s sets an ominous tone when the soldiers are killed and doesn’t jerk the audience around.

Then, and it continues for about 30 minutes or so, Harrison Ford looks utterly uninterested in what’s going on. He’s got no facial expression other than a half-grin and his delivery sounds the same way mine does when I tell a joke no one laughs at- it just hangs there waiting for a congratulatory remark. How can we be expected to take the movie seriously when he’s not?

The opening should have ended with the rocket sled escape, but noooo, they had to put him in the middle of a nuclear test site. It’s just more excess. Not only does it not serve any explicable purpose, but having Indiana Jones survive the blast by hiding in a fridge is just flat-out stupid. Somehow the fridge was not obliterated, but instead catapulted through the air and gently hits the ground. He’s really some dude if he can survive a nuclear blast, get thrown hundreds of feet through the air unharmed, and not suffer any ill effects from the fallout.

By the time Jones emerges from the refrigerator, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg have both shown they’re perfectly fine with throwing anything up on the screen, regardless of if it benefits the movie or even makes sense. There’s little doubt in my mind that the movie was made without any artistic intent and no one involved ever looked past the dollar signs. If you doubt that, ask yourself if this is what you expected as Spielberg’s directorial followup to Munich or what Harrison Ford had been doing lately. The answers are something better and nothing worth talking about, which both kind of sum up my feelings about The Kingdom of the Crystal Crap.

Image courtesy scragz via Flickr

Seriously, who keeps giving Terry Gilliam money? Seriously. Twelve Monkeys, The Fisher King, and Time Bandits all made some money, but he’s had some straight up bombs, like The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Tideland. And the guy really couldn’t care less about his audience. At the beginning of Tideland, there’s an introduction by Gilliam where he says you probably won’t like the movie. Why do we need him to preface his movie by telling us we’re going to dislike it? I don’t understand how that helps the viewer enjoy the movie, unless he’s hoping they’ll end up saying, “Well, it really wasn’t that bad.” I think people praise his artistry because they need to come up with an excuse for wasting their time.

Profitability aside, the reason I hate Terry Gilliam is because of the way he uses children in his movies. Sarah Polley starred in Baron Munchausen when she was nine. When she heard about another young girl cast as the lead in Tideland, she exchanged emails with Gilliam about her concern for the girl’s safety due to her own bad experiences during the filming of Munchausen. Gilliam basically says he couldn’t tell she was having such a bad experience and that maybe, as a kid, she saw things as more dangerous than they really were. But that’s kind of the point- a kid sees things differently and can suffer lifelong problems caused by something an adult would shrug off. So, how did Gilliam use this info? He had nine-year old Jodelle Ferland prepare heroin syringes, watch her mother die, lay with her father’s preserved corpse, talk about being pregnant, and kiss an older guy, amongst other things. Individually you could say some of those things really aren’t so bad and could be directed so she might not understand what was she was actually doing, but taken as a whole, I’d think a lot of adults would be disturbed by having to act out those things.

What can I say about Brett Ratner? Nothing good, that’s for sure. Wait, I think I can say he’s really had a lot of success for someone without much talent. That’s a compliment, right? As I prophesized, Ratner has been on a life-long cosmic collision course with this list. It’s not that his movies are terrible, even if they are pointless. Not everyone gets the concept of subtlety, and I’m fine with that. I hate him because he just doesn’t care about what he’s doing. He makes movies so he can be famous, go to parties, and get laid. He’s the guy who says “There’s no difference between a tacky Jew from Miami and a rap star. They both want the Cadillac and the Rolex with the diamonds”, “I’d wear that brunette! She was totally cute!”, and the one that kills me (final cut, if you don’t know, is having the last word on what the finished film looks like) “Why do I need final cut? Final cut is for artistes quote unquote–directors whose movies don’t make a lot of money. Maybe Scorsese should have final cut because a guy like Harvey Weinstein or a studio might change it to make it a little more accessible or a little more commercial and he has a vision of what he wants it to be. He wants it to be four hours long or whatever.”

Gus Van Sant has made some decent movies, but I hate him, hate him, hate him for remaking Psycho. A shot-for-shot remake of a classic, revered movie sounds like a good idea. Right? Right? RIGHT? Well, it must have to someone, because that’s what they did. It was like some extremely oblique way of colorizing the original while making it uninteresting and irrelevant in the process. There’s a reason no one had done it before- because it’s a fruitless effort. What could the best outcome have been? Did someone really think people would say that they outdid Hitchcock? Matched him? Getting credit for being able to accurately copy him is about the best that could have been done, but why even try for that? Just to prove you could? I’m asking a lot of questions because I’ll never understand the impetus behind remaking Psycho. Never ever.

John Landis directed the first segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie. During filming, actor Vic Morrow and two child actors were killed, and that’s why I hate John Landis. He violated child labor laws to hire the two children so he would be able to film at night. It also left them without an advocate on the set. Despite other crew members raising concerns over the special effects in the climactic scene, Landis pushed ahead. After 2:00 AM, well after the children should have been removed from the set, a fireball got too close to a low-flying helicopter, which crashed, crushing one of the kids and decapitating Morrow and the other child. Landis and two others were indicted for on two counts of manslaughter for the deaths of the children, based on the theory that their deaths resulted form the illegal act of hiring them. Landis did the best he could to lay the blame on everyone but himself and was ultimately found not guilty. He was the director and the person in charge of what happened on the set. Things got out of control and three people died. Those are facts. And I hate him.

I’ve always hated Quentin Tarantino the person. I can’t think of another human being who would be more appropriately described as “a dick.” Egotistical, arrogant, narcissistic, self-absorbed, smug, pompous- take your pick. But I thought Tarantino the director was okay. And with Jackie Brown, I thought he’d matured past having the hallmarks of his movies be violence, silly situations, and giving himself lots of screen time. Then Kill Bill came along and crapped on everything. He wasn’t noticeable onscreen, but the rest of his foolishness was back with a vengeance. Add Death Proof to the mix and now his trademarks are ripping off old movies and self-idolation, which falls squarely in line with his personal traits. Kill Bill, Death Proof, there’s really nothing there but a lot of style and movie references. This guy is a dick and I hate him.

In an interview with MovieMaker Magazine, Carpenter laid out his philosophy on remakes at the first question:

Jason Matloff (MM): What’s up with all these remakes? It feels as if your whole filmography is being recycled.

John Carpenter (JC): It’s a brand new world out there in terms of trying to get advertising. There’s so much going on that if you come up with a movie that people have never heard of they don’t pay attention to it—no matter how good it is. So it becomes, “Let’s remake something that maybe rings a bell and that you’ve heard of before.” That way, you’re already ahead. I’m flattered, but I understand what’s going on. They’re picking everything to remake. I think they’ve just run down the list of other titles and have finally got to mine.

He sees it as a business thing that’s pretty much out of his control. But it seems like he’s forced himself to be artistically ambivalent, saying, “When I was younger and they said, ‘Well, we’re gonna remake Halloween,’ I went, ‘Aw shit, why? Come on guys, don’t do that!’ My years in the business have taught me not to worry about what you can’t control.” Carpenter goes on to say he views the remake as “somebody else’s movie, not mine” and is unconcerned with any changes.

In an interview for the DVD release of his movie Mother of Tears, Dario Argento gets into his view of remakes. When asked about his involvement in the remake of Suspiria, Argento says he isn’t, nor does he wish to be, involved and “I hope they respect the idea and don’t do other things. They some times remake films and the film is totally different from the original. In this occasion, I hope not.” He says he’s worried this remake will prompt other filmmakers to remake his other films and reiterates that he hopes “they don’t just use the title and change everything.”

There you go. Two directors seeing their movies getting remade and having different opinions on the subject- Carpenter doesn’t really care and Argento isn’t exactly thrilled and worries how the remake will reflect on his work.

I hate Simba. It doesn’t have anything to do with The Lion King. Although he picked up some bad habits from Timon and Pumba, there wasn’t anything to get too upset about. Mrs. Furious is a Disney fan, so at some point someone bought her the Wonderful World of Disney Trivia Game. Not to miss a chance to push their product, Disney filled the game with questions about their latest animated movie- The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride. It was like the answer to every other question was The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride or the question started with “In The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride…” I heard The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride so many times that I eventually had to vow to never play the game again, much to Mrs. Furious’ chagrin. Now every time I hear The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride I wish for a Lion King 3 featuring a wildebeest stampede wherein Simba is trampled flat, just like Mufasa.

I don’t remember when I first saw Lady and the Tramp, but can’t say I really thought enough of the movie to remember much. EXCEPT FOR THE SIAMESE CATS. Those two abominations and their nightmare inducing song totally freaked me out. Still to this day, I can’t look at Siamese cat without hearing that song. And I’m not the only one that developed a complex. To my knowledge, this was the most I was ever scared by a movie when I was a kid. Just look at them in the picture- their evil, satanic eyes are trying to burn a hole straight through your soul.

How The Grinch Stole Christmas! is pretty much a Christmas staple in our house, along with Mickey’s Christmas Carol and Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics. But the one thing The Grinch has that the others don’t is the despicable Cindy Lou Who. That little thing is so over the top sweet that the word saccharine doesn’t apply- she created the term “aspartame sweet.” Anyone who can inspire the Grinch to have the strength of 10 Grinches plus 2 is way too sweet for me.

If you were unfortunate enough to see Robots, then you probably know that Fender is one of the most annoying characters in the history of animation. Robin Williams got a lot of praise as the genie in Aladdin, but he was relatively under control in that movie. For Robots, I think the recording engineers gave him pixie sticks, amphetamines, and Jolt Cola before each session. He is so out of control the entire time that all he does is distract you from everything else in the movie, not that there’s much going on. I’d rather watch a classroom full of kids with ADHD than that stupid red robot.

Here it is, the most vile, foul, evil creation to ever exist in an animated movie- that dick who shot Bambi‘s mom. Even though we never see him, he still totally makes the list. In the history of movies, is there a character responsible for more tears than that psychotic, gun-wielding piece of trash? Like my Magic 8-Ball would reply, “My sources say no.” Untold numbers of children went into that movie expecting to see the mischievous antics of a deer and his woodland friends, but instead were forced to face the cold, cruel reality of death. Bambi’s mom’s death may be the lowest, most ignoble moment in movie history.