Folded:

• Son of Rambow on DVD (the most heart-warming movie experience of the year so far. Blub)
• Cool retro poster for Burn After Reading (God, how good does this film look?)
• John Akii-Bua (interesting documentary on BBC4 about this legendary athlete a couple of weeks back. You probably didn’t watch it)
• Team GB, or the Great British Team to give them their less shit title (well, we done alright, didn’t we?)
• Gillian Anderson (the movie sucked, but she has absolutely still got it)

Creased:

• Quantum of Solace teaser trailer (from the looks of this, Daniel Craig is just going to be thumping everyone he meets for two-plus hours)
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars (enough, George. Enough)
• The X-Factor (enough, Simon. Enough)
• This guy (God knows what his lady is so proud of)
• Karen Taylor and her belt collection (she wears a giant one for every single sketch in her show. Maybe to make her knockers look big, maybe because she’s a bit of a bloater)

Folded:

• Prawn cocktail Pringles (these really make sense)
• I Kissed a Girl by Katy Perry (annoying toy lesbian or taking the piss? Probably taking the piss, so laugh)
• Madonna’s jiggly boobs in the 4 Minutes video (okay, so we’re not Nuts magazine, but we’ve got eyes)
• Genuine Childs (they guys composed the menu music for The Bourne Identity DVD, just in case you were wondering)
• The XXIX Olympiad (numbingly compulsive. Quick, badminton is on!)

Creased:

• The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (the curse of Rob Cohen strikes again)
• Overuse of metaphors on The Hotel Inspector voiceover (about a former-lighthouse B&B: ‘The owners are all at sea’, ‘About to enter choppy waters’ or ‘The bathroom is flushed for success’)
• Bad news about Paul Newman (83 year old smoker or not, this sucks for a Hollywood legend. That’s right, legend. No exaggeration)
• Fat beauty queens (wow, look at the girl in white – she’s MASSIVE!)
• Alexander O’Neal (recently on Celebrity Wife Swap. Believe the hype! From twenty years ago)

Except they’re not the ones behind Jaws: The Revenge, the 1976 version of King Kong or Flashdance – no, these are ‘name’ directors, the ones who have by now been cemented as the worst of their kind.

The difference is that most of those mentioned below have arguably, at one time or another, had a good movie in them – it was the films that followed that secured their reputations for being among the worst famous directors ever.

Read and weep boys…

7 – Michael Winner

He’s a British national treasure, but for all the wrong reasons. Winner has helmed some of the worst cinematic pieces of crud imaginable, but ironically has also worked with some of the finest acting talent imaginable as well, (Oliver Reed, Marlon Brando, Robert Mitchum et al). After the bold, suspenseful vigilante thriller Death Wish (about to be remade by Sylvester Stallone), he churned out an utterly distasteful remake of The Big Sleep and the Michael Caine and Roger Moore buddy stinker Bullseye! only to then thankfully bow out a decade ago (after a 40 year stint) with the truly disastrous crime ensemble Parting Shots. To think he was even once given the opportunity to direct The French Connection – god help us. Stick to Esure advertising, mate. Your film work is certainly not a Winner.

6 – Edward Wood Jr.

Thanks to his cult status as one of the most cherished and cerebrated worst directors of all time,  Edward Wood Jr stands head and shoulder above his contemporaries due to his genuine intentions that often turned sour due to paper thin budgets. He may be associated with camp acting, crippling production designs and cringeworthy S/F but this didn’t stop Tim Burton from celebrating his hooky style in the brilliant biographical Ed Wood (Johnny Depp gave kudos to the man behind the moustache), restoring the deceased director with a whole new fan base. Where would we be without the pleasingly disastrous likes of Plan 9 From Outer Space and Glen and Glenda?

5 – John Glen

Working his way up from clapper boy to sound assistant and inevitable Bond helmer, John Glen was given the responsibility to direct some of the finest Bond ‘Bond gets mad’ novels from the Fleming collection – but ground them into some of the weakest, most redundant, stunt-driven Bond adventures ever. These have included the cringeworthy and pretty laughable likes of Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only and A View to a Kill (and culminated with the Timothy Dalton snoozefest License To Kill). But he must be given credit for having the utter defiance to make bedfellows out of the oddball likes of Roger Moore and temperamental Jamaican exotic ‘beauty’ Grace Jones.

4 – Michael Bay

The epitome of the brainless action director, Bay is renowned for creating some of the worst piles of cinematic sludge imaginable. After the pretty good guilty pleasures of Bad Boys, The Rock and Armageddon, Bay’s power went to his dollar-hungry head and the kinetic, strangely unemotional feat of Pearl Harbour happened. After that monumental disaster he nurtured another Bad Boys film which took away any creditability from the original and went haywire with box office stinker The Island (ironically probably his best movie) only to be redeemed with Transformers. But that will surely be undone with the up and coming death-defying sequel that is currently in the works.

3 – Renny Harlin

If Bay has a fellow contemporary then it is this Finnish excuse for a director, who’s so bad he actually makes Bay look brilliant. Again it’s the unfortunate passing of time that hasn’t been kind to him. After a cool stint in the early 90s with a passable Die Hard sequel, and a decent Sylvester Stallone vehicle (Cliffhanger) Harlin completely lost his manhood and directed personal project Cutthroat Island (with then romantic muse Geena Davis) which became a phenomenal globe disaster (he also lost Davis). To add to the mix he helmed Driven - a paltry racing movie with a needy Stallone back in the driving seat and a plastic-faced Burt Reynolds – and put further insult to injury by replacing a fired Paul Schrader to re-work a turgid frightless Exorcist prequel with a demented Izabella Scorupco.

2 – Brett Ratner

…and if Harlin has a contemporary then it has to be sequel scoundrel Ratner who has spent his whole career destroying franchises with the brain cell obliterating likes of the Rush Hour series, and X-Men: The Last Stand. He even had the audacity to attempt to wreck all memory of Manhunter and remake the Michael Mann movie into the detestable Red Dragon.

1 – Guy Ritchie

How the mighty have fallen. But Guy Ritchie was only ever a one hit wonder anyhow. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels appeared to cement him as a British talent to be reckoned with, but then came Snatch and it seemed a suspicious case of a little history repeating. Never mind by the time he married Madonna and her vanity project surfaced with Swept Away, his reputation was tarnished beyond all recognition. Not even a return to the gangster formula with the laughable likes of Revolver could shake the feeling that we have sorely misinterpreted Mr Ritchie – he indeed is a one trick pony.

[story by Oliver Pfeiffer]

What’s so wrong with being called a musician? Does it not pay the rent anymore? Do you have to get another job as an actor just to make your ends meet? Times are hard for multi-millionaire rock stars, you know. Playing a guitar nicely and singing some catchy lyrics is not a bad living, but you can’t retire on it. And, of course, what the world really wants is more shit actors.

Well hecklerspray has had enough. It’s time to name and shame the worst offenders…

9. Ice T in Tank Girl (1995)

Who ever thought that playing a mutant human-kangaroo hybrid was a smart move? Any respect he earned from his half-decent display in New Jack City was quickly forgotten as soon as he donned the cute ears and whiskers

8. Madonna in, er, anything

Whoever told Madonna she could act deserves to be stabbed with one of her pointy breasts

7. Jon Bon Jovi in U571 (2000)
The rocker lopping off his spaniel locks in a film that not only defied the history books but also belief was, quite frankly, the final insult.

6. Neil Diamond in The Jazz Singer (1980)
Not even Laurence Olivier, Love on the Rocks or Diamond’s eyebrows could save this pile of crap.

5. Sting in Quadrophenia (1979)

Possibly the biggest miscast ever. Sting, cool? You must be joking. Are we the only ones wishing Sting had been strapped to that scooter at the end

4. Mick Jagger in Freejack (1992)

Just beats Jagger’s performance in Ned Kelly to the worst acting display of all time. They really should give more roles to Keef.

3. Britney Spears in Crossroads (2002)

Watching this film drove us nuts too.

2. J-Lo in Gigli (2003)

We can only hope she pays for this in another life.

1. David Bowie in Labyrinth (1986)

What was he thinking? We’re not sure what was more frightening: his performance as Jareth the Goblin King or his wig.

So let us present to you the top 10 worst singer celluloid performances by musicians who frankly knew they really stunk as actors but signed up for the goddamn movie anyway…

1. Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard (1992)

There's no denying her status as an R&B diva, but when you take away her singing voice what are you left with? Well a temperamental rich diva playing a temperamental rich bitch diva, who continuously mounts pussy fits and gives a largely soap operatic performance that is more in tune with an overblown episode of Dynasty than a glossy thriller, (then again it was the early 90s). With absolutely no spark ignited between her and her equally wooden co-star Kevin Costner (who should have known better) this 'romantic thriller' falls flat no matter how high Houston can belt out a note.

2. Tom Jones in Mars Attacks! (1996)

Blurting out It's Not Unusual comes naturally to the Welsh singing sensation, but unfortunately acting doesn’t! In Mars Attacks! – Tim Burton’s preposterous parody of 1950s sci-fi B-movies – Mr Jones is required to perform his signature tune and then act all concerned when he, and the entire population are under attack by a sudden slew of intangible aliens from outerspace. The result is… well frightening!

3. Madonna in Die Another Day (2002)

To be honest Madge is pretty awful in almost every movie role she chooses (Evita was a musical performance above anything else), but Die Another Day bears special mention for both her equally dogawful contribution to the title score, and hopelessly flimsy cameo appearance as a lesbian fencing instructor who jabs "I don't like cockfights". Well, as Bond once said in Live and Let Die, "There's no sense going out half-cocked" is there Madge?

4. Phil Collins in Hook (1991)

In Buster the Genesis front man gave a fine, witty performance, but his bit-part performance as Detective Good in Steven Spielberg’s disastrous fairytale flop was… well, not good at all. In fact it's a largely pointless embarrassment, rather like the film itself.

5. Diana Ross in The Wiz (1978)

The former Supreme was revealed as an acting calamity when she put in a truly preposterous turn as Dorothy in Sidney Lumet's musical take on The Wizard of Oz. By all accounts her hammy 'acting' is so out of sync with the story that you wonder whether she was caught up in her own dizzy chain-reaction?

6. Wayne Newton in License to Kill (1989)

A truly cringeworthy turn for the American singer and Las Vegas entertainer. Newton stars as  manipulative faith-healer Professor Joe Butcher in what amounts to a largely forgettable turn as an odious Bond henchman, who irritatingly hisses "Bless your heart!" at regular intervals.

7. David Bowie in The Prestige (2006)

Under normal circumstances Bowie is usually a show-stealing presence in the movie limelight, installing an appropriately surreal and supernatural charge into his characters (see Labyrinth, The Hunger and The Man Who Fell to Earth). But in Christopher Nolan's brilliant mystery thriller The Prestige his performance is destroyed by his decision to adopt a goofy voice, making him sound more like a dreaded Frank Spencer impersonator then a powerful enigmatic wizard.

8. Bob Dylan in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973)

While he contributed a suitable rich, nostalgic and atmospheric score for Sam Peckinpah's seminal western, Bob Dylan also put in a largely thankless role as the constantly mumbling gunslinger Alias. It's an unfortunate pitfall amongst the beautifully sun-drenched aesthetics, but we're  thankful for the music.

9. Busta Rhymes in Halloween: Resurrection (2002)

OK so the material for this detestable horror sequel is dog shite at best, but it isn't helped by Mr Rhymes's cockamamie presence as a kung-fu kicking victim. His performance is so incredibly awful that his iconic status in the American hip-hop scene should have been subsequently tarnished. It certainly Ain't Safe No More!

10. Britney Spears in Crossroads (2002)

Judging from her feeble appearance at the London premiere in Leicester Square, Britney blatantly didn't have much faith riding on her acting debut. And appropriately her pitiful turn in this teen road movie was so critically panned it garnered her a Razzie Award for Worst Actress. Threatening to hit us one more time with another comeback movie role pegged Memoirs of a Medicated Child will inevitable make it clear that she should have stuck to the Mickey Mouse Club.

[story by Oliver Pfeiffer]