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The Village (2004)
The Cameo: M. Night Shyamalan shows up during the film’s big reveal, reading a newspaper in what’s revealed to be present-day America.
Why It's Bad: Coming as part of a hugely infuriating “twist”, it’s the bitter icing on an extremely unsatisfactory cake.
Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
The Cameo: John Barrowman arrives in a tiny role as a CIA chief, delivering a couple of lines before disappearing again.
Why It's Bad: Barrowman himself isn’t so bad, but given his wildly OTT persona, its distracting to have him appear here in such a throwaway role. Odd.
Django Unchained (2012)
The Cameo: Quentin Tarantino shows off his best Australian accent, which frankly, isn't very good.
Why It's Bad: Not only is the accent wonky, the whole scene seems an incongruous distraction after the dramatic high point of the Candieland shootout.
The Exorcist 3 (1990)
The Cameo: A bizarre appearance by NBA Hall of Famer Patrick Ewing, seen here playing the Angel of Death.
Why It's Bad: Random sports cameos are bad enough at the best of times, but in a horror movie? Not for us.
Goal! (2005)
The Cameo: Alan "personality" Shearer looms over Kuno Becker in the Newcastle gym, mangling his single line of dialogue and then making a cringe-worthy "what's he like" expression at the camera. Awful.
Why It's Bad: As anyone who's ever sat through Shearer's monotonous MOTD droning can attest, he's not much of a performer.
Dogma (1999)
The Cameo: Alanis Morrissette arrives to deliver the baffling climax to Dogma , playing none other than God, er, Herself.
Why It's Bad: The ending feels like the punchline to a mid-par SNL sketch, rather than a satisfactory payoff to a feature film.
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)
The Cameo: Charlie Sheen briefly reprises his role as Bud Fox, who swaps a few zingers with Gordon Gekko before beating a hasty retreat, stage left.
Why It's Bad: It's troubling to see Charlie Sheen somehow looking older than Michael Douglas.
In fact, the whole thing just feels a bit sad…
Fat Slags (2004)
The Cameo: Geri Halliwell gets in on the act in this woeful Britcom based on the popular Viz characters.
Why It's Bad: Given that Halliwell's career was already on the skids by this point, stuffing her face and appearing in a fat-suit seems all the more demeaning.
Twilight (2008)
The Cameo: Series author Stephenie Meyer can’t resist getting her mug on screen, appearing here as the cashier at a local diner.
Why It's Bad: The cameo wouldn’t be so bad if the camera didn’t linger on Meyer for quite so long.
She may as well be sitting next to a light-up sign marked “AUTHOR CAMEO!”
Casino Royale (2006)
The Cameo: Richard Branson takes advantage of all the money ploughed in by Virgin, by sticking himself in the actual film. He's usually so shy and retiring too…
Why It's Bad: Popping up in every single Virgin ad is one thing, but crowbarring his way into a Bond film quite another.
