3

John Candy -- Wagons East!!

John Candy was part of the ruling comedy family of the 1980s, starring in movies like Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Spaceballs, Stripes, Uncle Buck, and Cool Runnings. If you watched movies at all between 1979 and 1993, chances are you've seen him in something.

He was the uncle and space dog we never had.

Candy died in the middle of filming Wagons East!, which was made during that puzzling run in the mid-'90s when Hollywood was trying to convince us that the 19th century was hilarious (see Almost Heroes, above). The filmmakers decided to try and finish the movie anyway. As a result, many of Candy's scenes had to be magicked together with computer wizardry and a stockpile of dialogue-free reaction shots, taking what little dignity the film might have left him with and dragging it through the blazing Mexican desert like a rancid coyote lure.

"Is there some way to digitally add our urine to his face?"

The film also stars Richard Lewis, who, for some reason, is dressed like Richard Lewis in 1993, rather than the retired Civil War surgeon-turned-rancher he is supposed to be portraying. He's literally wearing a shirt, a vest, and an overcoat, as if he's about to film an ad for Boku.

We're pretty sure that hairstyle would get you burnt for being a wizard back then.

Most of the plot threads in the movie are never resolved, the primary antagonist dies three quarters of the way through and is replaced by an entirely new character, and the whole thing ends with the most poorly edited fistfight ever captured on film. The fight is so boring that the characters themselves can't even bear to watch it, and they struggle to turn it into a meta joke that only succeeds in emphasizing the failure ballet unfolding before our eyes.

2

Raul Julia -- Street Fighter: The Movie

Raul Julia was a fairly accomplished character actor who starred in several dramas throughout the 1980s that most of us weren't allowed to see, like Kiss of the Spider Woman and Tequila Sunrise (the latter contains Mel Gibson nudity, which I think officially classifies it as a hate crime). You might recognize Raul as Gomez from the Addams Family movies:

If not, I hope you have absolutely no idea who Raul Julia was, because the only other possibility is that you recognize him as M. Bison from 1994's Street Fighter: The Movie, and quite frankly it would be better if you never even knew he existed.

Van Damme's face is bigger than all of the other characters combined.

1

Sean Connery -- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Sean Connery is one of the most well-known actors of all time -- he originated the role of James Bond, he played Indiana Jones' father, he taught the Highlander how to chop people's heads off as the most improbable Spaniard in history, and he's responsible for one of the earliest Internet memes, which is a dubious distinction but a distinction nonetheless. Sean Connery is such a giant figure in pop culture that it's easy to forget he hasn't been in a movie since 2003's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a film so penis-bruisingly awful that it makes Chill Factor look like Schindler's List.

And it's arguably more depressing than the latter.

The worst part is, Sean Connery is totally still alive. He could end this curse any time he wants, but he hated the experience of making The League so much that he refuses to ever act again. Apparently, the only reason he agreed to be in it in the first place was because of residual bitterness over having refused the part of Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings, a role he turned down because he didn't understand the script. And to be fair, I am in no way surprised that Sir Sean Connery, lord of the perpetual scowl and crusher of international ass since 1962, had no fucking idea what J.R.R. Tolkien was talking about. So when The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen landed on his desk like a fat wet turd and he found himself equally baffled by its contents, he decided he had no choice but to accept the lead role. I imagine any attempt on the part of Sean Connery's agent to question the wisdom of starring in a movie that he didn't understand was met with a jawbone-dusting knucklefist explosion.

The League follows a group of famous literary characters who join forces to stop a bunch of terrorists from unleashing Steampunk Apocalypse. Sean Connery's Allan Quatermain is the de facto leader of this bowtie-spinning clownshoe parade, and when his team is finally recruited, they spend about an hour standing around talking to each other before embarking on a trip to a Siberian fortress for a climactic action sequence on one of the worst miniature sets in the history of film.

That's supposed to be the top of a giant submarine in a field of massive glaciers.

The movie barely makes narrative sense, the majority of the characters are dull and completely unrecognizable from their respective source materials, and the special effects are embarrassing, even for 2003. The whole thing ends with Quatermain about to burst triumphantly out of his grave like a zombie pro wrestler, but the credits roll just before we see his clenched fist punch through the burial mound. This cliffhanger was meant to lead into a second installment, but for obvious reasons a sequel was never produced. So the ending is unintentionally symbolic -- Sean Connery would rather molder in the forever darkness of his own interred casket than reemerge and risk being in something as bad as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2. Do you hear me? I would rather be fucking dead."

Tom had to pause several times during the writing of this column to look at his Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade poster for strength. Read his novel Stitches and follow him on Twitter.