Man Overboard - Stardust (2007)
Props to big, bad Bobby De Niro for packing the cojones to mock his machismo at 64. He gives it up gamely, too: like helmer Matthew Vaughn said, “I don’t think De Niro has much reservations about anything.”
But did Bob’s first feather-boa’d, Offenbach-lovin’ opera dame have to be quite so cabaret? A cringe-quaking relic from a lost age of stereotypes. De Niro creaking like an old ship? That’s just sad.
Bottoms Up - La Grande Bouffe (1973)
"You've picked the most disgusting way to die!" rants Marcello Mastroianni, reneging on a group 'suicide by eating' pact. He's immediately proved right as an overloaded bog malfunctions, showering him with glistening turd-water.
"Horrors! A tidal wave!" he shrieks, as his mates' guffaws mask a darkly comic coup-de-grace: Mastroianni kills himself shortly afterwards.
Computer Surfing - Die Another Day (2002)
Already suffering from franchise bloat, Day’s wretched nadir comes when Bond hushes fans by making his escape surfing a tidal wave formed by a splintering glacier.
Besides being astoundingly moronic, the paleozoic-era effects were barely fit for a hack-job videogame. A humiliating misfire that ended the Brosnan era and sent 007 back to basics.
Children Of The Damned - City Of God (2002)
In the favela masterpiece’s most upsetting scene, a distressed kid is inducted into gangsta death-culture by being forced to shoot another sobbing urchin in the foot.
All the more horrifying because you know Fernando Meirelles’ prepubescent sprites were real boyz from the hood: the anguish on their faces isn’t acting.
Monkey Tragic - Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull (2008)
Separated from his whip-cracking dad during a jungle car-chase, Shia LaBeouf’s Mutt does exactly what any self-respecting ’50s teen would do to catch up: swing through the trees like Tarzan.
And why should he do it alone when there’s a troop of chattering CG monkeys to gleefully join in, rather than throw shit at him like any real (movie-loving) simian would? Rubbish.
Octo-Pie - Oldboy (2003)
Live octopus for dinner? The behind-the-scenes featurette suggests some cunning trick, but it's all real. "Does it stick?" says appropriately named star Choi Min-sik, looking worriedly at the writhing cephalopod hugging his fist.
At one point they cut due to excessive gagging, and director Park Chan-wook very nearly sympathy-spews. Maybe they'll do him an omelette...
Days Of Chunder - Stand By Me (1986)
The 'complete and total barf-a-rama' ensuing from a sabotaged pie-eating contest is epic in scale and vivid in hue. Last summer, the location town of Brownsville held a 20-year reunion.
"We had to spit a mixture of blueberries and cottage cheese," one of the attending extras recalled of the shoot. Emetophobe hell.
Man Bites Cheek - Cape Fear (1991)
Illeana Douglas’s perky legal clerk numbers among the few likeable characters in Scorsese’s high-grade horror. So when she succumbs to Max Cady's (Robert De Niro) primal charm, the tension bites...
Then the tattooed love devil bites a hole in her face. Marty called it the grim truth of “aggravated sexual battery”.
