Glitter and Crossroads (How Bad Can They Be? Part I)



When Gigli (2003) was released, it was hailed as one of the worst movies ever made. But is it really? The users of the imdb certainly seem to think so. For a while this summer Gigli was listed as the second worst film on the "Bottom 100," with the recent musical From Justin to Kelly (2003) taking the #3 spot. Since then Gigli has dropped (or risen) to number 10 and From Justin to Kelly has taken the #2 spot, behind only 'Manos' the Hands of Fate (1966).

But are these films really that bad? As a (sometime) professional writer on bad movies, I have to wonder if trashing current films hasn't become too fashionable, resulting in a dilution of the term "bad movie." Is Gigli really worse than The Lonely Lady (1983), Ishtar (1987), and Nukie (1993), or even Queen of the Damned (2002), Cruel Intentions 2 (2000), and Dreamcatcher (2003), none of which have even made the Bottom 100 list? I've decided to watch some of the most eagerly trashed examples of recent cinema and see if they're really that bad.

It's not hard to notice that many of the most poorly reviewed films of recent years have had a musical element. I've decided to start off with two starring hit singers trying to become actresses. Glitter (2001), starring Mariah Carey and Crossroads (2002), starring Britney Spears.

Glitter, currently #15 on the Bottom 100, was released just as news broke about Carey's mental breakdown. The resulting publicity probably didn't help the film much. In it, Carey plays Billie Frank, an aspiring singer who has lost track of her mother. She is taken under the wing of a DJ named Dice (Max Beesley, struggling heroically to bury his British accent with a bad New York accent), has a hit single, makes music videos, has some tragedy, then finds her mother at the end.

It's not a good movie. Mariah Carey, while an undeniably attractive woman, is nearly dead as a screen presence. You'd practically think she's was just a member of the audience, she so passively watches everything that happens around her. The film also destroys any drama the scenario might have by not having Billie do anything to compromise her moral character. In a film like this the main character is supposed to do things she will regret, but Billie is just a victim pure and simple.

Even the scenes of her victimization play badly, because they directly contradict what we know about the real Mariah. For instance, in the movie we see the filming of a video for the song "Loverboy," and a big deal is made about how Billie is being exploited by being to made to wear in bikini for the shoot. But in real life, Mariah's fashion sense veered to the slutty when she took control of her own career, and the heavily promoted real "Loverboy" video you could see on MTV had her wearing hot pants, halter tops, and sometimes just a bandana over her breasts. Perhaps she could have gotten away with these contradictions if she had come across as a distinct character in the movie, but she always looks like Mariah Carey trying to be an actress.

Crossroads (currently #57 on the Bottom 100) stars Britney Spears, in her first attempt to be a movie star. She plays Lucy the virginal valedictorian of her high school, and the only guy interested in her is her chemistry lab partner. Obviously, this is a bit of stretch, and it doesn't help that Britney looks as immaculately coifed and made-up as in real life. But putting the ridiculous casting aside, Britney has some spark on screen, and she isn't that bad an actress. The plot is a standard coming-of-age road trip movie, with Lucy and two alienated ex-friends (one pregnant, the other in a long distance relationship) traveling cross-country with some guy they barely know to enter a singing contest. They bond, the cry, they sing bad karaoke. The movie isn't that bad, but it is very predictable. People looking for a really bad movie will have to focus on Dan Aykroyd's unsubtle performance as Lucy's dad, which seems to be left over from some more broadly comedic movie.

In final calculation, are these moves that bad? Compared to The Lonely Lady, also about a young woman making it in show business, no. Pia Zadora has Carey and Spears licked when it comes to awful acting, and neither film is as much of an embarrassment to everyone involved as The Lonely Lady was.

Posted: Sun - January 25, 2004 at      

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