My Year of Flops: The A.V. Club Presents One Man's Journey Deep into the Heart of Cinematic Failure

by Nathan Rabin

In 2007, Nathan Rabin set out to provide a revisionist look at the history of cinematic failure on a weekly basis. What began as a solitary ramble through the nooks and crannies of pop culture evolved into a way of life. My Year Of Flops collects dozens of the best-loved entries from the A.V. Club column along with bonus interviews and fifteen brand-new entries covering everything from notorious flops like The Cable Guy and Last Action Hero to bizarre obscurities like Glory Road , Johnny Cash’s poignantly homemade tribute to Jesus. Driven by a unique combination of sympathy and Schadenfreude, My Year Of Flops is an unforgettable tribute to cinematic losers, beautiful and otherwise.

Genres: Nonfiction, Film, Humor, Media Tie In, Pop Culture, Essays, Criticism

264 pages, Paperback

First published October 8, 2010

Reviews

[Michael Livingston · Rating 3 out of 5]

A passably entertaining compilation of Rabin's AV Club column revisiting and reviewing major movie flops, from the big names (Waterworld, Cleopatra, Heaven's Gate) to the obscure (Skidoo, OC and Stiggs etc). Rabin is a pithy, funny writer, but (betraying its weekly column origins) this is very much a book you dip in and out of rather than one that you should read in one hit.

[Les · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of reviews of movies that the author and often others have identified as some of the worst of 'modern times' Including The Diceman Cometh, Cleopatra, Howard the Duck, Elizabethtown, Heaven's Gate and a bonus retelling of Waterworld.

I liked it and I really liked the addition of interviews with people who were involved with the movies.

I got a really amazing deal on the book so it was worth it

[Tabs · Rating 2 out of 5]

I put this on my Christmas wishlist because I���m a fan of the A. V. Cub website and had enjoyed the handful of ���My Year Of Flops��� entries I had read on-line. As such, I really wanted to like this book, and I really kind of hated it.

The ridiculously long preambles? Hated them. After a few essays, I couldn���t help screaming ���What the hell is this movie about? When was it made? And who the hell is in it?��� because I usually didn���t have any answers to these things until 5-10 paragraphs into the essays.

I didn���t laugh at the jokes. I didn���t find them funny. I often found them mean. And I can���t say I cared much for the profanity and off-color commentary either.

As critical essays, I didn���t think they worked well either. The set-up of what the movie was about, when it was made, and who the principal players involved were often incredibly confusing. The tangents were also incredibly frequent and of unbelievable length.

In the afterword, the author writes that ���I began My Year Of Flops not to bury cinematic failures but to praise them. I have strayed early and often from that mission, yet I���ve tried my damnest to live up to the good intentions I laid out in my introduction.��� See, I didn���t pick up on hardly any of that intended affection for these movies. I really wish I had, because that���s what I was interested in reading, but I just didn���t see it there.

To borrow the author���s own rating scale, I���m going to call this one a failure I wish had been a secret success.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fun read, a collection of the column Rabin wrote for The Onion's AV Club, in which he investigated mega cinematic flops like Cleopatra ('63), Heaven's Gate ('80), The Cable Guy ('96), Gigli ('03), and of course, Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown ('05)— for which Rabin is credited for inventing the derisive term "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" to describe the character played by Kirsten Dunst (see also Natalie Portman in Garden State, among others). I appreciated that Rabin's motive wasn't just to pile on to already thoroughly derided failures, but to reevaluate them and point to those of which have been perhaps unfairly dismissed, or maybe improved with age (it's no secret that the passage of time allows for a much clearer eye on art of all stripes). His final rating system is elegantly simple: "Failure," "Fiasco," or "Secret Success." I've seen several of the movies covered here, and really enjoyed Rabin's savaging of the dreadful Rent ('05), his description of the totally insane musical The Apple ('80), and his assessment of the legendary gay male murder mystery Cruising ('80). I was perhaps most interested in certain films still shrouded in reputations of deadly, deadly failure that Rabin deems worth seeing; he has convinced me to (eventually) check out the likes of Ishtar ('87), Joe Versus the Volcano ('90), and The Cable Guy ('96), among a couple of others. If you've always been fascinated by bad movies, or movies with bad reputations, this book is for you.

[Bea · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are a aficionado of scathing but humorous reviews of bad films, this may be a good book for those times you can't concentrate on anything deeper. It doesn't beat Roger Ebert's Your Movie Sucks or I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie in the laughs department, though. Note: I find this kind of book fun even if I haven't seen any of the movies. It may even be preferable to come to these reviews with a clean slate.

[Adam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sometimes really thoughtful, sometimes really mean spirited and way too snarky for my tastes. Maybe it was just my optimism for the book fading the more that I read on, but it felt like it got more and more judgemental. Which would actually be an interesting emotional journey to track on this "Year of Flops", but it’s not written over the linear course of a year, so you can’t justify it like that.

I’ve had this on my shelf for years and years and I’m glad that I finally read it, but I didn’t really like it :( that last chapter on Elizabethtown is nice though, and is a sentiment that I hoped to see more of in the book (learning to find good in the oft-mocked and critiqued/looking towards positivity in art)

[Donovan Maguigan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great summary of some of the worst films ever made and sadly, some movies that I have actually enjoyed. Each chapter is a blurb about notes of the film, production history, and exactly why the film deserves to be in this book. A great contribution from the AV Club.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although we share a first name, the author and I have a very different view of the world and also a different view of what separates a secret success that most people never recognize from a garden-variety failure from an epic fiasco.  A great many people are ready all too quickly to pile on a movie for being a fiasco because it is not an immediate success, and all the same there are cult classics that are genuinely horrible movies and that can only be enjoyed with ironic distance and a sense of superiority on the part of the audience.  To his credit, the author and I both appear to be part of a world where it is possible to recognize what someone was trying to accomplish and not always the way it was seen by audiences.  Some films are ahead of their time, and some films are so tied to the minds that conceived and worked on it that they are not suitable for any time.  A great many films that are thought of as fiascos, moreover, are just simply not very good but not necessarily in very interesting ways (Waterworld comes to mind here).  And if I have different views about some films and about issues of political and moral worldview, at least the author is a good guide through bad films.

The author, who is (?) the main writer of a sister publican of the Onion called the A.V. Club, has divided a pretty harrowing set of bad films into eight chapters.  After an introduction, the author moves on to a look at disastrous dramas (1), including Elizabethtown, The Conqueror, The End Of Violence, W., The Great Moment, and Gospel Road:  A Story Of Jesus, whose stories and failures the author lovingly chronicles.  There are discussions of disastrous comedies (2), including O.C. and Stiggs, Scenes From A Mall, The Cable Guy, Freddy Got Fingered, Skidoo, Breakfast Of Champions, Dice Rules, The Adventures Of Ford Fairlane, Postal, and The Love Guru.  After that the author looks at musical misfires and misunderstood masterpieces (3), including Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Pennies From Heaven, The Apple, Glitter, Rent, Under The Cherry Moon, I'll Do Anything, and Mame.  Turning to action (4), the author discusses It's All About Love, The Island Of Dr. Moreau, Southland Tales, Ang Lee's Hulk, Last Action Hero, and The Rocketeer.  There are unsexy sex films (5) like The Real Cancun, The Scarlet Letter, Body of Evidence, Exit To Eden, Tough Guys Don't Dance, Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, and Lolita.  Children's movies (6) are not exempt from discussion, including Pinocchio, Santa Claus:  The Movie, and Bratz:  The Movie.  After this the author turns to legendary flops (7) like Ishtar, Paint Your Wagon, Gigli, Cruising, Battlefield Earth, Heaven's Gate, Howard The Duck, Psycho (the remake), and Cleopatra.  Then the author concludes with a fairy tale ending of movies he actually likes (8), with a look at Joe Versus The Volcano and another look at Elizabethtown, along with an afterward and an entertaining look at the director's cut of Waterworld, minute by minute.

Is this a good book?  For the most part, the author is an entertaining companion through bad movies, some of which I actually watched when they were in the theaters (Last Action Hero, for example), and some of which have at least some appeal to viewers.  The author's tastes and mine strongly differ about the cinematic value of Freddy Got Fingered, for example, which the author considers a secretly genius film of anarchical brilliance, but all the same, the author and I have a shared fondness for bad films and for seeking to find enjoyment in that which others sneer at with contempt.  If the author spent a year watching and thinking about and writing about these films, many of which were disasters that found little to no audience, the year was not totally a waste.  Not only is it worthwhile to discuss and study failures, but sometimes in looking at what has failed one occasionally finds something which deserves to be appreciated, or which is a success of a niche kind that one may happen upon despite its poor reputation with others.  Even in the muck and mire one may find and polish off the occasional diamond in the rough, as the author manages to do here. 

[Max · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of bad movies and stuff about bad movies. I've watched a fair bit of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and I loved the Razzie Movie Guide I had as a kid (which I kinda want to revisit at some point, though sadly I gave my copy away). So I'm always down for somebody making fun of crappy movies, even more so with the premise here that maybe some of them aren't so crappy. I appreciated Rabin's goal here: to explore movies that are widely regarded as failures and see if they actually aren't. His rating system nicely breaks things down into Failures, Fiascos, and Secret Successes. The vibe I got is that the latter are obviously worth watching, while the Fiascos might be fun to watch while mocking and the failures probably aren't ridiculous enough to be worthwhile. Unfortunately, the book itself fell into that third category for me.

I think a large part of it may be that most of these were originally articles online and even those that weren't are generally in the same format. I've looked at a few of the My Year of Flops articles online, mainly more recent ones so as to not overlap with this collection, and part of the fun is the comments section - seeing others weigh in on various films. As Rabin says in his afterword, all of these films are probably somebody's favorite, and it's sort of fun to see that kind of cult popularity. But also being articles on the AV Club website means they're relatively short and Rabin doesn't do a good job of using his word count, at least in my opinion. When dealing with terrible films, I like to be given at least some idea of the plot and some of the moments that are ridiculous or awful. Far too often the entries were vague and contained a lot of material that was only somewhat related. Plus a lot of the jokes fell kinda flat. It was rare for me to encounter a bit I really laughed at or enjoyed.

On the plus side, there are a few good articles in here. There's a surprisingly in-depth analysis of Lolita and its two film adaptations, exploring how the book and Kubrick version work in ways the later version don't. And the Heaven's Gate piece was interesting, since I honestly didn't know much about the film other than it was one of the floppiest flops ever. The book also has given me a few new bad movies to check out at some point, as well as some potentially fun ones like Joe Versus The Volcano. And the idea of interviewing people involved in some of the movies is neat, even if it doesn't always work out that well. Then again, Rabin did get Uwe Boll, which just makes me wish he could've sat down with Tommy Wiseau as well. Plus I will say that the handful of illustrations are rather entertaining, as is the cover art, and I think the book would've benefitted from having more of them.

Still, I'm glad I got this book from the library, especially since more than half of it is content reprinted from online. If you need inspiration for your next bad movie marathon this isn't necessarily a bad place to look, but if you want any sort of in-depth analysis on bad movies, it's best to go elsewhere.

[Ryan I · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's no secret that The Onion's AV Club is the place to get super-insightful, well-written commentary on all-things pop. But are the AV Club writers that awesome, that we should shell out money to re-read content that's already been offered for free? With the release of 'My Year of Flops' in floppy paper-form, the answer is the sound of a slow cap building to a rousing group applause.

It was Rabin's rambling -- but completely hilarious -- entry for 'Dreamcatcher' that first made me take notice of a writer I was insanely jealous of, on a mission I was even more envious of. After watching the train-wreck of Cameron Crowe's 'Elizabethtown', Rabin decided to document his "journey deep into the heart of cinematic failure", dissecting perceived cinematic messes, and grading them as Failures, Fiascos, or Secret Successes. But the grades are part of the fun.

Rabin brings dorky film students passion along with amany quick quips to each review, no matter how shitty the movie he's reviewing. It made me want to rewatch flicks I'd already seen (Hulk, The Cable Guy), made me appreciate others I've long-ago dismissed (Elizabethtown, Joe Versus The Volcano), and made me want to rescue films that passed me by (Ishtar, Heaven's Gate and the batshit insane sounding The Island of Dr. Moreau). The review of 'W.' also opened my eyes to what a sham Oliver Stone is. (Yup, took me that long.)

What's great about Rabin's targets isn't that he isn't just cleverly panning 'The Love Guru --' it's also about the assholery of Mike Myers. Each review is also a mini-biography of some of cinemas legends and icons, adding layers of sharp context, telling where larger-than-life people went horribly wrong.
Howard Hughes' cinematic turd that not only had John Wayne play a Ghengis Khan-future warrior, but also may have helped kill other cast-members by filming near a radioactive wasteland (or something). Equally catastrophic? Woody Allen's turn as a Los Angeleno and George Lucas' 'Howard The Duck.'

"You can learn a lot about society by the pop culture it embraces, and just as much by what it angrily rejects. As parents are keen to remind their children, there's no shame in failure, only in not trying. The biggest, most notorious flops fail because they try too hard, not because they lack ambition or audacity."

[degelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rabin has done me a great service here. His work has pushed me to be a better writer. By that I mean that I have learned from what we have in common and what we don't.

Our similarities lie in the fact we are drawn to the same material (bad/overblown/misunderstood films). Our differences lie in how we express ourselves. Oftentimes I got the impression that there wasn't much excitement and learning in his write-ups as much as snarkiness and annoyance. Rabin is a critic at heart, which isn't a crime, but once you choose that route it's easier to be insulting instead of insightful or innovative.

If you're evaluating art (even bad art) you don't need to get personal or mean-spirited about it. In his review of "Skidoo" he says it "unleashes a horror beyond words, beyond reason, beyond even madness: 46-year-old Carol Channing, stripped down to her bright yellow underwear, writhing suggestively on [a] bed." I was taken aback, even though I hadn't seen the scene myself. Was Rabin being ageist? Sexist? Both? I watched the scene in question and it was nowhere close to how he described it. Carol Channing is charming, attractive and funny in the scene. It seems her crime is being 46 and not being a sexpot. Either way, this observation has little to do with what "Skidoo" is all about.

In this age where everyone's a critic it's harder to avoid taking cheap shots. "My Year Of Flops" reminds me to keep that impulse in check when evaluating something you love (or don't). In Rabin's own words (and borrowing from The Smiths): "It's easy to laugh and hate but takes strength to be gentle and kind."

[Tabs · Rating 2 out of 5]

I put this on my Christmas wishlist because I’m a fan of the A. V. Cub website and had enjoyed the handful of “My Year Of Flops” entries I had read on-line. As such, I really wanted to like this book, and I really kind of hated it.

The ridiculously long preambles? Hated them. After a few essays, I couldn’t help screaming “What the hell is this movie about? When was it made? And who the hell is in it?” because I usually didn’t have any answers to these things until 5-10 paragraphs into the essays.

I didn’t laugh at the jokes. I didn’t find them funny. I often found them mean. And I can’t say I cared much for the profanity and off-color commentary either.

As critical essays, I didn’t think they worked well either. The set-up of what the movie was about, when it was made, and who the principal players involved were often incredibly confusing. The tangents were also incredibly frequent and of unbelievable length.

In the afterword, the author writes that “I began My Year Of Flops not to bury cinematic failures but to praise them. I have strayed early and often from that mission, yet I’ve tried my damnest to live up to the good intentions I laid out in my introduction.” See, I didn’t pick up on hardly any of that intended affection for these movies. I really wish I had, because that’s what I was interested in reading, but I just didn’t see it there.

To borrow the author’s own rating scale, I’m going to call this one a failure I wish had been a secret success.

[Alex Gregory · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nathan Rabin is a powerhouse who slapped film critique in the face during his year-long "My Year of Flops" experiment, and this book collects many of his reviews into one easy-to-read tome. Unlike some of the other reviewers here, I believe Rabin's work is well-worth paying for.

If anything, we were spoiled on his reviews for the AV Club. Rabin's essays on various underperformers, box-office bombs and maligned cult classics deserve special mention for seamlessly melding conversational asides, film criticism and an examination of the internal/external forces behind each film into eminently-engaging essays.

There's so much great material here - Prince's insanity during the filming of "Under the Cherry Moon", an examination of the Vietnam-esque plot of "OC and Stiggs", the oft-misunderstood brilliance of "The Cable Guy" and more. The extra material in this book includes 15 bonus reviews and a handful of interviews with cast and crew on selected films. Michael Jai White's experience filming Breakfast of Champions is hilarious.

It's one of the better film critique compilations I've read, and works in a similar fashion to Mr. Cranky's "100 Crankiest Reviews Ever" - while the latter dealt with short, abbreviated reviews in a similar format, both have a keen eye for pointing the minutiae that makes films what they are, along with the general insanity of the productions themselves.

Highly recommended.

[Louisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm obsessed with the ScreenJunkies Movie Fights show on YouTube and so my interest in movies has really grown over the past few years. I saw this at the library and it seemed like a perfect book for me.

Nathan Rabin mentions several films that I've never heard about but will forever now remember such as "Exit to Eden" featuring Rosie O'Donnell and Dan Aykroyd as love interests.

The book has two problems for me. First, the articles ran together and it was hard to keep track of what film was what. I read this book straight through. I saw on another review that that user recommended reading this book in short spurts or by articles. I think this is a book that is hard to read straight through but is the perfect bathroom book because you could probably finish one article every time you have to go.

Second, there were parts where I couldn't tell if the author was trying to make a joke and be sarcastic or if the author was wrong with his facts. When talking about the film "Gigli", he mentioned how J Lo was in the movie "Selena" which was about the late singer. However, the author said Selena Gomez was who J Lo was portraying in the movie. I couldn't tell if his editor just missed this fact or if he was trying to be funny.

I picked up new information from this book and it gets a few laughs. But don't read it in one sitting. This is a book for the coffee table in your living room or for the bathroom.

[James Spurrier · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd only read a handful of these as they came out in the Onion AV Club back in the day, and thought now that Rabin is embarking upon a second Year of Flops on his website it would be a good time to check out the originals.

Initial thoughts: It's always somewhat strange reading cultural criticism and commentary that's recent enough to not seem like it's from another era, yet just different enough from the present day that it might as well be. Rabin's always been a great film and culture writer, but in the years since he wrote the reviews comprising this book I feel like he's become just that much better. And there's a number of passages in this book that do feel like they came out of the word processor of a pre-2010 writer who hadn't yet been immersed in the consciousness-raising waters of social media. While its perhaps a bit disheartening to remember a time when casually jokey misogyny/ablism was standard internet humor, it also feels like an encouraging sign of progress to see that change happen in just a matter of years.

As for the reviews, although a bunch of the films listed here have since become part of what fellow AV Club writer Scott Tobias would later term the "New Cult Canon", there's a few that I'm either reading about for the first time or have become newly intrigued to seek out after not necessarily being sold before. I'll have to track down a complete list, since I didn't have time to get one down before taking the book back to the library.

[Richard Oosse · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a big fan of Rabin's memoir The Big Rewind and generally love all his work at The AV Club. I think the ultimate value of this collection will depend on how much of his "Flop" column you've already read.

Of the 50 reviews here, only 15 are book-exclusive. Of the new material, I was most looking forward to his piece on the infamous musical version of Brooks' "I'll Do Anything" but was ultimately disappointed at Rabin not going into enough specific detail on the difference between the two versions and not mentioning much on the censored musical numbers at all. After going to the trouble of acquiring this bootleg, his review felt like a missed opportunity.

Also appearing for the first time here are a few interviews with participants of the flops reviewed here (many of which admit not understanding the film, either), a second look at "Elizabethtown" and a minute by minute description of the three hour director's cut of "Waterworld" (which is largely unfunny and offers nothing new on the topic).

Readers unfamiliar with the already-published material can add one star to my rating while all others are encouraged to save a few bucks by just checking out the book from a library.

[Writer's Relief · Rating 5 out of 5]

Years ago, Nathan Rabin, head writer for the pop culture website The AV Club (a sister site to the satiric newspaper and website The Onion) began a column called “My Year Of Flops.” The idea was to view 52 failed films over the course of a year, not only to find out what went wrong, but why things went wrong. Were these movies Failures (legitimately bad movies), Fiascos (director “passion projects” that no one else really understood), or were they in fact Secret Successes that just happened to be released at the wrong time to the wrong audience? (The column proved popular enough that it continues to this day as “My World Of Flops,” now appearing bi-monthly.)

The book collects dozens of the best entries from the online column and includes several new reviews, illustrations done in the style of carnival posters, a minute-by-minute review of the colossal failure Waterworld, and some very interesting, revealing interviews as a bonus for those who are unsure about paying for something you can get for free online.

Generally each review is about 3-5 pages, so it’s perfect for when you just want to do some light reading. This is an excellent book for lovers of film or just very well-written humor. Guaranteed, this book will make you laugh out loud.

[Terry Heller · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, and, if you like movies, you'll enjoy it, too. I've read Rabin's My Year of Flops column since it debuted in the AV Club, and, to be honest, it works better as a regular column than as a book. Because the essays have nothing in common with one another, its a better book to read an essay or two at a time, on the subway or on your lunch break than it is a book to curl up with on the couch or hunker down with at a coffee shop.

Rabin classifies each of these flops as either a fiasco, failure or secret success. Fiascos, typically, are bad ideas that were poorly executed. Failures are poorly-executed movies that could have been a success if one or two things had gone differently, and secret successes are good movies that, for one reason or another, lost money. Many of the 'secret successes' have been added to my Netflix queue, but my favorite part of the book was his analysis of the failures and fiascos, and how he found something worthwhile in even the worst movies, even if its only a morbid fascination at how somebody could have ever thought that some of these movies were a good idea.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked Rabin's "My Year of Flops" column for the AV Club so I was really happy to see that his book - also titled My Year of Flops - contains extra book-only reviews and a few interviews as well. I especially enjoyed the interview with Roberto Benigni about Pinocchio, a movie I've had the misfortune of seeing (I saw the subtitled original Italian, not the dubbed-in-English-by-Breckin-Meyer one, so I'm sure it was better than the theatrical dubbed release but it was still creepy with a 50-year-old Italian man-child playing a bratty wooden puppet). Some of the movies are, yes, bad movies that result from spectacularly poor judgement on the part of directors/stars/studios/writers/producers (like The Conqueror, The Scarlet Letter, and Exit to Eden not to mention Waterworld) but some of the movies Rabin reviews are secretly quite enjoyable (The Rocketeer is one, and I'm surprised that it was considered a flop because my little brothers watched it all the time). Rabin has a great writing style and I really hope he writes more (I loved his memoir, The Big Rewind).

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a huge movie buff, so I see tons of movies a year, many good ones, but many more terrible ones. This book is a celebration of all of the terrible movies floating around out there. This funny book lets it be known that no one deliberately sets out to make a terrible movie, but through a myriad of events, some movies just crash and burn with the general public. Some over the years have developed cult followings, while others are pure embarrassments that should never see the light of day again. Rabin dissects a wide variety of movies in all genres and explains their sordid histories and all of the aspects that make the movies what they are. Many of the reviews are snarky and contain a great deal of humor that spares no one. Often, I found myself laughing at Rabin's comments about plots, actors, directors, etc. The funny thing after reading this book is that a number of these movies I really want to see.

[Asa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nathan Rabin writes columns for The AV Club that I like, so I thought I'd like this book of his, which is based on his columns from The AV Club. Indeed, I liked it. Not a whole lot, but it was enjoyable enough. Enjoying it requires an interest in movies and the stories behind making them, as well as an appreciation for Rabin's sincere-side-of-snark style.

The book consists of essays on films that didn't do well. At the end of each, Rabin gives his verdict: Was the film a mere failure, a fiasco, or a "secret success"? Really, though, it's between fiasco and secret success; "failure" is almost never used. I suppose a mere failure is usually not worth writing about, so there's really no reason to include that rating. I found this mildly annoying. Oh well.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this book lists the usual suspects of bad-bad films, what I like is that it attempts to categorize films as Failure, Fiasco, or Secret Success. By doing so, it explains why some films that were initially panned or bombed at the box office deserve a second chance. I'd say that a good half of these films I've never bothered to watch (either because of word-of-mouth or just my Spidey Sense), but because they earned a "Secret Success" rating here, I'm reconsidering and plan to add them to my playlist.

In addition to the general reviews, the author makes an effort to dig up tidbits about the making of the films as well, which is much appreciated.

Oh, and very very funny writing in general. Made me laugh out loud a few times. If you're a film buff, and appreciate an irreverent sense of humor to boot, definitely check it out.

[James Brotheridge]

When My Year of Flops entries were being published over at the A.V. Club, their length and depth felt impressive for the time. I just wasn't ready anything that went into this kind of detail with this quality of writing on the kinds of movies covered here. Strangely, revisiting the book recently, the entries feel somewhat cursory in some instances. Maybe part of that is that I've been mainlining some of Ebert's collections –– first Your Movie Sucks and now A Horrible Experience of Unbearable Length, and he covers so much so well in such short stretches of writing that it's hard for much else to compare at the moment.

Sometimes Rabin's genuinely funny. Other times, he puts me off with his attempts. Like when he calls the woman in Verne Troyer's sex tape a skank. Stuff like that just left a bad taste in my mouth.

[CountZeroOr · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is something that I would consider a seminal work of film criticism, and in its own way shows how the internet and home video have changed film and film criticism.

Because of the internet, and the ability to take films home with us, the obscure films, the flops and the bombs have a chance to get legs, find their audiences later on, and get the fan base and success that they have so richly deserved, as with Joe Vs. The Volcano & The Rocketeer. Alternately, they preserve failure and the bizarre cinematic decisions that lead to those failures for all time, as is the case with films like Mame and Pennies from Heaven.

Honestly, if you want consider yourself a big fan of film, I'd definitely consider this book worth reading.

[Lou · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seems like this could have been a little too much to read in one go, since they were originally intended to be read one at a time on the AV Club, but Rabin groups them smartly and writes with a different approach for each, so it doesn't get repetitive. It's also interesting to look through somethings considered failures for one reason (with movies, the box office) and re-considering if there's something to take away- he re-rates each a secret success, a failure or fiasco, of which the failure seems to be the worst rating- at least the fiascos are entertainingly confounding and have some sort of takeaway.. Also glad Rabin steers clear of movies like Showgirls, which have clearly found their audience.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

It turns out it's not that much more pleasant to read about someone else watching bad movies than it is to watch bad movies yourself. Which is why the Mystery Science Theater model is more effective for me: I get to combine the experiences.

[Jake · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book. Nathan Rabin, a braver soul than I, does a great job picking apart movies that flopped and why they did. I laughed to tears at some of the better ones. I'll have to pick up his pop culture memoir at some point.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you've ever read a "My Year of Flops" column on The Onion's AV Club, you know what to expect from this. I like Nathan Rabin's style, and his self-deprecating humor. Some of the essays are rollicking, others are pensive, most are excellent.

[Marjanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was ok. I have not seen a majority of the movies reviewed here, and, essentially, this increased my list of movies not worth my time. The author is funny at times, but not really enough. I kind of felt like I was dragging through this. Meh.

[Len or Len · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoy Nathan Rabin's writing style and would recommend this to any cinephile. I particularly enjoyed his takes on "Joe vs. the Volcano" and "The Cable Guy" (maybe because I agree with him). Rabin writes for the Onion.