Last night, the 84th Academy Awards honored the best in film, but it’s often the worst movies that we find the most entertaining. And our favorite type of terrible movie? Pretty much any flick a pop star graces with their presence. Sure, there are exceptions — like Justin Timberlake shining in 2010′s The Social Network, or Cher winning an Oscar for her work in 1987′s Moonstruck — but even if we love the performer, we don’t always love the films they star in. We’ve picked the Top 13 bad movies featuring fourteen pop stars who really should have been picker when choosing projects. (And to prove just how awful these movies are, we’ve arranged them by their Rotten Tomatoes score.)

Kelly Rowland in Freddy Vs. Jason, 2003. Rotten Tomatoes: 41%
Well, if you’re going to appear in a bad movie, you might as well make it a horror film, particularly one that combines two classic franchises together.

Christina Aguilera and Cher in Burlesque, 2010. Rotten Tomatoes: 36%
Two abysmal pop star performances for the price of one!

Katy Perry (as the voice of Smurfette) in The Smurfs, 2011. Rotten Tomatoes: 23%
Since this is a voiceover performance only, we’re spared the sight of Katy facepalming throughout this film.

Beyonce in Obsessed, 2009. Rotten Tomatoes: 20%
We’d rather see a Foxy Cleopatra spin-off than sit through this once.

Miley Cyrus in The Last Song, 2010. Rotten Tomatoes: 19%
Prepare for LOL to sink even lower than Miley’s wannabe tearjerker.

Justin Timberlake in The Love Guru, 2008. Rotten Tomatoes: 18%
JT is so charming, he can walk away from this Mike Myers dreck and still remain loveable.

Taylor Swift in Valentine’s Day, 2010. Rotten Tomatoes: 18%
The only evidence we need that Swift should have never been in contention for the role of Eponine in Les Miserables.

Snoop Dogg in Soul Plane, 2004. Rotten Tomatoes: 18%
We can’t really blame Snoop for this unfunny comedy, since he think he was basically typecast to play himself.

Britney Spears in Crossroads, 2002. Rotten Tomatoes: 14%
She’s not a girl, not yet a woman, and definitely not an actress.

Kelly Clarkson in From Justin to Kelly, 2003. Rotten Tomatoes: 8%
At least Kelly had the good sense to never try this again. (And to her credit, she never wanted to – it was in her contract with Idol that she star a film.)

Mariah Carey in Glitter, 2001. Rotten Tomatoes: 7%
Mariah’s subtle, understated performance in Precious absolves all (well, most) of her sins from this amazingly awful film.

Jennifer Lopez in Gigli, 2003. Rotten Tomatoes Score: 7%.
Gigli, unsurprisingly, is her lowest-scoring film, though it had serious competition from the other movies in J.Lo’s canon: The Back-Up Plan (19%), Maid In Manhattan (39%), Angel Eyes (33%), Enough (22%), The Wedding Planner (17%), Jack (17%) and Monster In Law (16%).

Madonna in Swept Away, 2002. Rotten Tomatoes: 5%
Well, this could have been good, theoretically. The film is a remake from the well-reviewed 1974 version of the same name, directed by Italian filmmaker Lina Wertmüller (who, by the way, would become the first woman nominated for a Best Director Oscar). But proving that a couple should never work together, Madge paired up with her then-hubby Guy Ritchie for this mind-numbingly dumb modern take on a story featuring Madonna playing an arrogant, spoiled rich woman who soon turns obediently subservient to a man. Who wants to see Madonna play either of those things for 90 minutes?

What terrible movies starring pop stars did we leave off this list? Tell us below!

Nominations for the Academy Awards are announced tomorrow, and we can’t help but wonder what five tracks will be in the running for Best Original Song. It’s been an oddly good year for music in movies—relatively speaking, anyway—and while there’s no reason to have faith that the Academy will make anything other than a tacky choice for the winner, there might be some surprises in the nominations. The Golden Globes nominated songs from Wall-E, Gran Torino, Cadillac Records, Bolt, and The Wrestler, ultimately going with Bruce Springsteen’s song from the latter for the win. But maybe something else will sneak in? Something from High School Musical 3, perhaps? A list of the most intriguing contenders is after the jump.

“Barking at the Moon” from Bolt (Jenny Lewis)
“I Thought I Lost You” from Bolt (Miley Cyrus and John Travolta)
“Once in a Lifetime” from Cadillac Records (Beyoncé)
“The Call” from The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Regina Spektor)
“Dracula’s Lament” from Forgetting Sarah Marshall (Jason Segel)
“Gran Torino” from Gran Torino (Clint Eastwood)
“Rock Me Sexy Jesus” from Hamlet 2 (The Ralph Sall Experience) [This would be my pick, BTW. -MB]
“Now or Never” from High School Musical 3: Senior Year
“The Traveling Song” from Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (will.i.am)
“The Story” from My Blueberry Nights (Norah Jones)
“In Rodanthe” from Nights in Rodanthe (Emmylou Harris)
“Another Way to Die” from Quantum of Solace (Jack White and Alicia Keys)
“Up to Our Nex” from Rachel Getting Married (Robyn Hitchock)
“O Saya” from Slumdog Millionaire (M.I.A. and A.R. Rahman)
“Little Person” from Synecdoche, New York (Jon Brion)
“Right to Dream” from Tennessee (Mariah Carey and Willie Nelson)
“Down to Earth” from WALL-E (Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman)
“The Wrestler” from The Wrestler (Bruce Springsteen)
“Sweet Ballad” from Yes Man (Munchausen By Proxy: Zooey Deschanel and Von Iva)

Academy Unveils List Of 49 Songs [The Playlist]

Entertainment Weekly‘s blog has an interview with Ed Harris and a stream of his song “You’ll Never Leave My Heart,” which will run over the closing credits of the Harris-directed, Viggo Mortensen-starring oater Appaloosa. I like Westerns, and I like Ed Harris. And as a future bald man (it’s going quick, people!), I’m hoping that my baldness trends more towards that sported by the virile Ed Harris than the type atop the head of the homunculus Wallace Shawn.

“Heart,” which Harris co-wrote with Jeff Beal, is Harris’ first foray into incorporating singing into his acting, and his first-timer status shows a bit; I didn’t notice any major pitch problems, but his voice isn’t exactly brimming with character. He could have turned up the Gruff-o-meter about 20% and really taken it to the next level. The song itself kind of reminds me of the annoying Firefly theme song, which is not a good thing. I’ll give the man a pass, though, because it is his first time out… and doing so will probably give me good bald-guy karma.

Ed Harris, “You’ll Never Leave My Heart” [Stream]
Ed Harris sings (and talks about singing) over the ‘Appaloosa’ closing credits! [EW]

Variety launched a package called Music for Screens yesterday, and it’s full of pieces that are apparently designed to appeal to people who like music, but prefer it in 45-second clips–you know, when it airs during movie trailers or crucial scenes on Gossip Girl. I was particularly interested in the trade pub’s look at people who compose music for movie trailers.

In today’s movie business, the movie trailer carries almost as much importance and buzz as the movie it precedes, and like any good film, its musical score — often different from the eventual score — has to be just as dynamic and uplifting.

This is where Yoav Goren and the company he co-founded with Jeffrey Fayman, Immediate Music, come into play, composing and compiling a soundtrack that will accentuate a film’s appeal without ever appearing in the actual movie. The oufit, which has recently moved to a 3,000-square-foot facility in Santa Monica that includes two additional state-of-the-art production studios, often works on a scale that befits full-blown scoring.

“When we are putting these trailers together, we are (often) using big orchestral, choir music into our pieces that end up costing a lot of time and money,” says Goren, who with Fayman earned an Emmy last year for their music for the 20th Olympic Winter Games.

Goren describes his projects as “two-minute advertisement vehicles” and explains that original trailer music is important because most movie scores don’t fit that advertising mold.

As a known trailer enthusiast, I couldn’t agree more about the importance of the soundtrack, but I don’t quite buy that trailers need their own composers. Everyone knows that all you have to do to make a trailer effective is throw a little money at Sigur Rós, and you’ll automatically have the most epic piece of advertising that money can buy. Just look how well it worked for Disneynature’s Earth trailer:

Some enterprising individual should try out Sigur Rós on movies like Daddy Day Camp and Delta Farce, just to see if it could lend them some gravitas.

Movie trailer music a key promo tool [Variety]

Recently, a friend invited me over to watch a movie I’d heard a little about but had never seen: The Forbidden Zone (1980), a movie starring Hervé Villechaize and made by the Elfman family. Richard directed and wrote, Marie-Pascale plays Susan B. “Frenchy” Hercules (that’s what IMDB says), and Danny portrays Satan and provides music with his group, then known as the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo. As an early Danny Elfman soundtrack, the movie would be fascinating enough, but The Forbidden Zone is an eerie attempt to recreate an especially outré Max Fleischer cartoon, albeit one featuring an actress whose entire performance is done wearing only big white grandma underwear. It is one of the most consistently omg-wtf-lol things you will ever see in your life. After the jump, some YouTubed evidence (which, as the above description should let on, is not necessarily safe for work):

For example, try “The Alphabet Song”:

Educational! Of course, no one in this movie really learned how to act, though that hardly gets in the way most of the time. How could it, when you have things like this batshit version of “Minnie the Moocher”:

Sadly, the film’s most magical moment–a stirring tribute in song to the La Brea Tar Pits–is not currently on YouTube. As my friend said after returning from the john and her guests insisted upon rewinding the sequence so she could see it, “I went to the bathroom during THIS??!?”

Remember Stan Bush, the man responsible for The Transformers: The Movie‘s ra-ra anthem “The Touch”? An update just landed in our inbox:

Stan Bush Album, In This Life, Available Tuesday, July 3

Stan to perform at Transformers convention BotCon 2007

LOS ANGELES, CA (June 28, 2007)–The new Stan Bush album, In This Life, is scheduled for release on Tuesday, July 3. Praised as a world-class rock singer, Stan Bush is best known for his song “The Touch” featured in the “Transformers” movie. Stan includes “The Touch” as a bonus track on his U.S. release, as well as “Til All Are One”, the theme song for the Transformers convention (BotCon) being held June 28 – July 1. Stan will be a featured performer at the convention.

Stan’s new album In This Life is his 10th studio release and includes songs that have kept to the heart of his style, but at the same time express a contemporary vibe. Produced by Holger Fath, the album is one of his best ever with a few ballads, powerful anthems, and some mid-paced melodic rockers throughout.

Ballads, anthems and mid-paced melodic rockers? Our interest levels are sensing some contemporary vibes!

Over the weekend, one of your Idolators finally saw 28 Weeks Later–a.k.a. Begbie Goes Bananas–which was much better than we could have possibly ever imagined, and which featured a appropriately brooding post-rock score from John Murphy. Alas, a proper soundtrack has yet to be released, so we had to reach back to the 2003 original for this main title theme, which might be the best zombie-movie song since the mall Muzak in the original Dawn Of The Dead:

John Murphy – In The House/In A Heartbeat [MP3, link expired]

When was the moment you realized that you were a true nerd? We don’t mean “nerd” in that semi-endearing Ben Gibbard kind of way–we mean in that lame, “I have very strong opinions about V: The Final Battle, and by the way, Dagobah is a system” sort of way. Could it possibly have been that moment in Boogie Nights when Mark Wahlberg and John C. Reilly are recording a terrible, terrible ’80s-rock anthem in the studio, and you stood up and went, “What the? That’s Stan Bush’s ‘The Touch,’ which originally appeared in 1986′s The Transformers: The Movie!“? Because that might have happened with one of your Idolators. Maybe. Probably. And speaking of Mr. Bush, he’s clearly busy writing his own Wiki entry, which explains this sad little closing sentence:

Presently Stan Bush is submitting a song to the producers of the live action Transformers movie in hopes that it will be included in the movie soundtrack.

C’mon, Michael Bay! You got the power!

Stan Bush – The Touch [MP3, link expired; via á la discotheque]

Over the weekend, one of your Idolators happened to catch The Fountain, Darren Aronofsky’s 2006 film about…well, we’re not exactly sure. Time-travel? Man’s futile quest to achieve immortality? The future of bathrobes? One thing we know for certain is that the soundtrack–composed by former Pop Will Eat Itself member Clint Mansell, and featuring Mogwai and the Kronos Quartet–is the sort of orchestral space-rock for which many an apple bong was carved:

Clint Mansell feat. Kronos Quartet and Mogwai – Tree Of Life [MP3, link expired]
Clint Mansell feat. Kronos Quartet and Mogwai – Stay With Me [MP3, link expired]

Can you believe it’s been almost ten years since we all started making fun of Fred Durst? He was the gimp that kept on giving: There was the late-’80s demo tape, the sex tape, and, most offensive of all, the video for “Behind Blue Eyes.” So when we heard he was making a movie, we immediately laughed it off, thinking that it would be yet another entry in Durst’s embarrassing CV. But now, less than a week after The Education Of Charlie Banks premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, we have to ask: Could this movie actually not be terrible, after all?

Our first clue that something was amiss was when Banks won an award at Tribeca; it was for best “Made In NY” feature, but still. Then, we started hearing some “You know what? It ain’t so bad” chatter from trusted friends. And then there was yesterday’s Variety review:

A bright but awkward college student learns to confront his fears and do the right thing in “The Education of Charlie Banks,” a solid American indie that falls just short of earning top marks. New York-set, seriocomic coming-of-ager marks the feature-film helming bow of Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst, whose notoriety, plus strong performances by rising names Jesse Eisenberg (“The Squid and the Whale”) and Eva Amurri (“Saved!”), should make this a popular fest item before graduating to niche theatrical and/or ancillary…

Rocker Durst, whose previous helming experience was in musicvids, proves surprisingly adept at character-driven storytelling

Granted, “surprisingly adept” may sound like faint praise, but Variety reviews are less about artistry and more about potential box-office success, so this write-up actually bodes well for Durst (who, judging by this picture, is starting to look more and more like a beefier Michael Stipe). We don’t want to comment on movies we haven’t seen yet (we only do that for music), so if you happened to catch a screening, drop us a line and let us know.

Reviews – The Education Of Charlie Durst [Variety.com]

A few months after crooning alongside Hugh Grant in Music & Lyrics, Drew Barrymore now has a single of her own: “Cold Hard Truth,” a just-released song from the long-delayed soundtrack to Lucky You (easily the Chinese Democracy of Curtis Hanson gambling dramas). Barrymore plays a struggling singer in the movie, and her performance here isn’t too bad; you can hear a little bit of Aimee Mann, and a whole lot of vocal coaching:

Drew Barrymore – Cold Hard Truth [MP3, link expired]

One of the many pleasures of Hot Fuzz–and there are many, though the movie doesn’t have quite as many smartly executed comic call-backs as Shaun Of The Dead–is in the inclusion of “Slipper Rock 70s,” the great glam-pop instrumental from long-running British outfit Stavely Makepeace (more info on the band here). We first encountered the band on the seminal Velvet Tinmine comp from a few years ago, and we’re guessing the Fuzz cameo will fatten the group’s royalty checks even more:

Stavely Makepeace – Slippery Rock 70s [MP3, link expired]

Sure, everyone’s talking about the “cool” new record releases this week–your Modest Mouses, your Ted Leos, etc. But there’s one album that everyone’s forgetting about, and it may prove to be the most important of the year: The soundtrack for the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. And why does this under-the-radar release deserve more attention? Because if the history has taught us just one thing–and it probably has–it’s that every rapper, singer, and breakdancer associated with the Turtles franchise is forever doomed.

The first Turtles soundtrack–released in 1990–was a best-seller, with a lead-off track by M.C. Hammer; six years later, Hammer would declare bankruptcy, and none of the other musicians on the album (including Spunkadelic and “Turtle Power” providers Partners In Kryme) would ever be heard from again. The artists associated with 1991′s The Secret Of The Ooze hardly fared any better: Vanilla Ice wrote and performed “Ninja Rap” for the movie, which was released just as accusations about his falsified background sank his recording career; fellow soundtrack stars Magnificent Vii and Tribal House would be out of the public spotlight by the time of 1993′s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III. That last installment featured two versions of “Tarzan Boy” by Baltimora, who died just two years later. Coincidence?

The Turtles trouble raises several questions regarding the unlucky souls who contributed to the most recent movie: Will Cute Is What We Aim For’s “Rip It Up” prove to be the “Ninja Rap” of 2007? Can Cobra Starship avoid the fate of Ya Kid K? And, most importantly, shoud we expect that doof-a-doof from Gym Class Heroes on season thirteen of The Surreal Life?

At a screening during yesterday’s ShoWest convention–it’s the movie-industry’s yearly hypefest, with more trumped-up awards than the AMAs–audience members got to see a few minutes of U2 3D, the 90-minute concert film that was shot last year in South America. Its producers claim that the movie is the first to be shot and exhibited entirely in 3-D, and they promise that Adam Clayton’s never-changing smirk will be in your lap the whole time. But U2 3D poses a problem for die-hard audiophiles:

Ironically, the quality of the 3-D picture in “U2 3D” may reveal a whole new set of challenges for cinema owners, warned sound maven Michael Leader, prexy of Leader Cinema. “Cinema sound systems are not up to what we just experienced,” Leader told Daily Variety after the “U2 3D” preview.

He said that current theater sound systems don’t even play back all of what’s on typical movie soundtracks, especially in the bass, and don’t have anything close to the dynamic range needed to properly play rock-concert films. “You need a Formula One racing engine in your sound system to do this,” Leader said.

Pumping up the volume on the bass would also exacerbate problems with sound leaking between theaters in multiplexes, he said.

All M/A/R/R/S jokes aside, better sound systems could be a boon to the music industry, which for the last few years has been making some on-the-side cash by exhibiting concerts from the likes of Prince, Green Day, and Bon Jovi; if more movie theaters decide to upgrade, then there will be plenty of screens available to exhibit Rod Stewart and his latest assortment of jukebox warbles.

ShoWest gets peek at ‘U2′ [Variety]

Yesterday, we featured a King Crimson track from the fantastic Children Of Men soundtrack, and because the movie clearly has a lot of fans–and because today has so few news items–we’re going to follow it up with John Lennon’s “Bring On The Lucie (Freda Peeple),” which is featured when [redacted] goes [redacted], a moment that made us [redacted]

John Lennon – Bring On The Lucie (Freda Peeple) [MP3, link expired]

That’s right: Prince’s little purple telephone didn’t ring this morning, as his Golden Globe-winning song from Happy Feet wasn’t nominated for an Oscar.

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We wouldn’t be so cruel as to give away any of the surprises in Children Of Men–we’ll leave that to the dickards at New York magazine, who revealed one of the movie’s plot twists without warning a few issues ago.* But we do want to highlight the movie’s excellent soundtrack, including that one great moment where [character redacted] is seen [verb redcated] while in the [location redacted], all set to King Crimson’s “The Court Of The Crimson King”:

King Crimson – The Court Of The Crimson King [MP3, link expired]

* Seriously! So dickardly! Would a spoiler warning have been too “lowbrow/despicable”?

The above glimpse of hell is from the Z-movie The Apple, a 1980 flick that’s part musical, part vision of the future, part morality tale, and all crazy; it centers around a songwriting couple who, after winning the 1994 edition of a Eurovision-like contest, get sucked into a record deal more devilish than anything Steve Albini ever dreamed up. The Apple was reissued on DVD last year, and if you haven’t seen it, we’d recommend you do so–from the suspiciously airport-esque “future” exteriors to the stickers everyone’s wearing on their faces, this movie is a riot all the way through. Not to mention that the song below, which comes from The Apple‘s out-of-print soundtrack, is accompanied by a cheap-glitter visual that makes us wonder if the film’s masterminds inadvertently invented electroclash.

Mary Hylan – Speed [MP3, link expired]
The Apple [IMDB]

As with just about everything Michael Bay touches–The Island, Bad Boys II, Michael Bay–we have big doubts about the Transformers movie. But the trailer’s fleeting wardrobe reference to the Strokes gives us hope that at least the movie won’t end with Aerosmith singing some drippy closing-credits anthem called “I Was Colder Than A Robot (But Now My Engine Runs Hot With Love).”

Transformers trailer [Egotastic!]

When Chris Cornell released his sink-like-a-stone theme song for the new James Bond movie this week, it proved what we’ve been saying for years: Duran Duran, we never know how good we had it with you. Ever since the early ’80s, the 007 franchise has been trotting out one unmemorable opening-credits number after another, prompting us to compile this YouTube-assisted list of the most egregious offenders. It will leave you shaken, stirred, and pining for the glory days of Shirley Bassey.

5. Chris Cornell, “You Know My Name” (Casino Royale, 2006)
The Audioslave frontman with the ever-disappearing beard is the 4,235th singer to incorporate the Bond theme into a pop song, a method that never ever, works. The only memorable part of this song is the opening riffs, and that’s because they sound suspiciously like Yes’ “Owner Of A Lonely Heart.”

4. a-ha, “The Living Daylights” (The Living Daylights, 1987)
Not a terrible song, mind you, but one that was clearly around for years until a-ha realized that they could simply slap on the irrelevant title and sell it to Albert Broccoli (a realization that was no doubt accompanied by an actual exclamation of “A ha!”). Also noteworthy for its emasculatingly dinky stand-up keyboard, which was later sold to Killers lead singer Brandon Flowers.

3. Garbage, “The World Is Not Enough” (The World Is Not Enough, 1999)
Fun fact: No one has ever listened to this song. Except when it was called “The Way We Were.”

2. Rita Coolidge, “All Time High” (Octopussy, 1983)
Clearly, the producers were so desperate to re-create the success of “Nobody Does It Better”; how else to explain why they hired someone who looked like Carly Simon? Alas, it didn’t work: From the AM-lite horn intro to the turgid “(we’re) doing so much more/that falling in love” lyric, “All Time High” is the very definition of “passable.” It may as well have been used in a Country Crock ad.

1. Tina Turner, “Goldeneye” (Goldeneye, 1995)
Granted, there are worse entries in the Bond-movie canon, but how many of them were written by Bono and the Edge? How many of them were backed by a tinny, Legend Of Zelda-like horn section? And how many of them forced Turner to deliver lines like “It’s a gold and honey trap/that I’ve got for you tonight”?