20. Shadowboxer

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrsbEEt2BIM&w=584&h=390]

Director Lee Daniels has a gift for making feverish trash, but at his best, in the case of Precious, it works for him. Nothing in Shadowboxer works, yet every bit of it is as ambitious as Daniels’ finest work. The movie’s problems begin with Cuba Gooding Jr., who Daniels casts as an irresistible ladies man and a part-time assassin. Gooding Jr. has dirty, full-frontal laden sex with Helen Mirren, a fellow assassin who acts alternatively as his lover, mother and savior figure, while battling cancer. Because, yes, this movie has a cancer subplot.

It also features a romance between Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Monique, in what might be the most unlikely pairing in movie history. It’s like seeing Lady Gaga make out with Gene Hackman.

Also check out: Lee Daniels’ The Paperboy, every bit as deliciously bad as Shadowboxer.