Twisted (2004)

If there are two things that come naturally to Ashley Judd, it's being (a) tough, and (b) sexy. She's starred in plenty of thrillers requiring her to be tough and sexy, and even though Double Jeopardy was the only good one, at least she found her calling. Twisted is like a parallel universe where Ashley Judd is a gross, wimpy lesbian who thinks she's the real Ashley Judd.

The terrible premise: Jessica Shepard (Judd) is a homicide detective who likes to get wasted and pick up nasty dudes at the local dive bar. And every guy she screws is found dead. If you just made a connection between Jessica and these murders, you're an hour and 15 minutes smarter than anyone in this movie.

I swear to god I have not seen acting this bad since Jessica Alba in Honey. I thought Ashley Judd could act, I really did, but there is no excuse for her performance here. Oh wait, maybe she's WASTED. This movie should be called "Ashley Judd Drinks a Whole Bottle of Wine in Every Scene." And every single time, Jessica passes out and wakes up with a dead body. Like, if that happened to me ONCE, I wouldn't drink again for a while. Cut to Jessica guzzling another bottle of wine the next damn night!

The biggest mystery in Twisted is that there is no mystery. Jessica is the #1 suspect from the first frame of the movie, and soon there is a mountain of incriminating evidence, and everyone is still wondering how these murders happened. And Jessica never stops to think, "Wow, I black out for 18 hours and wake up next to dead bodies every day. I hope we get a lead soon!" Did Jessica commit the murders? No, but that doesn't mean she shouldn't have been arrested after the opening credits. The solution is even dumber than you can imagine.

Have I mentioned that Ashley Judd's acting is terrible? Every time she swore, I was like, "She's never cursed before." Every time she pulled out her gun, I was like, "She's never held a gun before." You know what she has done before, though? GOTTEN WASTED AND KILLED DUDES EVERY DAY. This is to say nothing of her crunk hairstyle, which changes in every single scene and makes her look like Mary Martin as Peter Pan. Except Mary Martin would look more convincing kicking Samuel L. Jackson's ass.

Recommendation: This movie is HILARIOUS. I highly recommend it if you're looking for a procedural-type slow roll.

NOTE: As an added bonus, Twisted features not one, but TWO cast members in common with Riding the Bus With My Sister.

The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002)

Somewhere between "I'm Gumby, dammit" and "It's great to be nominated," Eddie Murphy experienced a brief career slump known to his career as "most of the 1990s and 2000s." Not content to make a few generally terrible films (Holy Man, Metro), make a few more (I Spy, Showtime), and sink into obscurity, Murphy decided to go supernova, headlining one of the most staggering critical and commercial failures of all time. Costing $100 million (plus $20 million in marketing) and earning just $7 million (that's worldwide box office, people), this miserable flick doesn't work as a thriller, doesn't work as a comedy, doesn't work as science fiction, and certainly doesn't work as a showcase for the vocal stylings of Jay Mohr. It also features an alarming number of horny robots, including Randy Quaid in what must be the most humiliating moments of his life captured on film.

There's nothing to say about The Adventures of Pluto Nash that you couldn't already guess, but we'll say it anyway: poor Rosario Dawson. Poor Pam Grier. Poor Peter Boyle. Poor Luis Guzmán, doomed to drive a Winnebago loaded with Mexican stereotypes across the lunar wasteland just in case Eddie Murphy and his gang of bozos need a ride. If you're wondering about the chain of events that led Murphy & Co. out there in the first place, don't look at us -- we're still wondering why mankind would choose to develop property on a moon made entirely out of Styrofoam. The production design is so shoddy it's impossible to forget that you're watching actors on a set, making us wonder where a dime of that $100 million went; we suspect the money was sunk into subsidizing the cost of lobotomies for the six people who dared to sit through this movie.

Memorable quote: "Do you know how hard it is to get wood on the moon?"