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4. The Phantom of the Opera

There are two ways that one can look at this entry. One is that it was predictable that a movie based on one of the most beloved stage musicals of all-time was bound for failure. The other is that the makers of this movie simply screwed it up. I ascribe more to the latter view.

What is clear from watching the movie version of Phantom is that they tried very hard to repeat things that had led to Academy gold for the movie version of Chicago - the quick editing, the dark lighting, the music interspersed with speech. It simply didn’t work for Phantom. Those elements made sense for the slapsticky, raunchy tale of the Vaudevillian murderesses, but seemed completely off in the context of the haunting story of the Phantom.

The people behind Phantom also tried a trick that sometimes works when story tellers are tasked with repeating a well-known story or depicting an uber-famous historical figure: pick unknown actors so as to not distract the audience. The move also backfired here, as the ingénues prove inept at tackling these demanding and nuanced characters.

Add to all of this the death knell of any musical - like Glitter - the complete failure of the sound team to use the powerful music as an asset rather than an afterthought, and you have a complete failure of a movie. In retrospect, this one should have best been left unmade.

3. From Justin to Kelly

As if we needed more after the oversaturation that became the American Idol phenomenon in its first season, the greedy Hollywood/TV machine decided to “delight” us with a movie starring the two finalists of the first season. The plot is contrived and confusing (the love triangles are probably better described as tetrahedrons), and the names of the characters are so dully stupid as to be insulting (the leads are Kelly and Justin, respectively, like the lead actors).

I enjoy Kelly Clarkson’s singing as much as the next guy, but her “acting” is terrible - because, let’s be clear, those moments that are supposed to be candid on Idol are so clearly and painfully scripted that it makes us wonder why they didn’t just come up with a mostly fictionalized (but based closely on real life) version of the events behind Season One for the movie, instead of some off beat rags to riches story about struggling singers.

In the end, it wasn’t clear if this movie was a musical, a romantic comedy, a high school slapstick piece, or all of the above and none at the same time. This is another movie that clearly should have never been made - and absolutely should never be seen again.

2. The Producers

This is another colossal failure that should not have been so. This is such a tight musical on stage, beloved and classic, that it seems impossible to screw it up. But screw it up they did. Matthew Broderick gave perhaps one of the worst performances of his career, and the slapstick humor that characterizes the play proved to be more adept for live human interaction than for the more two-dimensional depictions on screen. Even Nathan Lane, a reliable comic for movies, was unable to project his considerable talent with his mostly flat singing.

The irony should not be lost on anyone. In telling the story of two sleazy producers who set out to purposefully produce a flop and accidentally make a hit, the directors of this movie surely set out to make a hit and accidentally but predictably made it a flop.

But perhaps what was most glaringly missing from the movie version of the acclaimed musical was something original to distinguish it from the stage version. Most of the great movie musicals that I have seen are either wholly original works (such as Moulin Rouge! accounting for the fact that it uses known songs in creative ways) or give spins to characters and plotlines so as to provide just enough novelty with the overall sense of familiarity that these movies induce.

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