Bad Movie

It's the age-old question: Genetics or environment?Are certain actors by some defect of birth destined to appear in ungodly strings of awful films, or do they plummet to the depths of career degradation once they find themselves firmly entrenched in Hollywood?It's a pertinent question, as this summer is shaping up as one of the worst, aesthetically speaking, in recent memory. Films have opened big, but audiences all but disappear after a couple of weekends.Way too many actors seem to be making careers out of churning out assembly-line-processed, sorry movies.

Finally, here's proof an animated film doesn't have to be Disney to be good."Anastasia," the new feature-length animation from 20th Century Fox about a princess whose destiny finds her, is every bit as good as most of its Disney predecessors and better than many. Filled with sparkling animation and appealing characters, it's a film that should keep the kids happy and their parents entertained -- even as it leaves historians with their mouths agape.The story opens in the waning days of Czarist Russia, as young Anastasia (voiced by Kirsten Dunst)

It was bound to happen: Just as "The Silence of the Lambs" spawned a spate of sadistic thrillers based on increasingly bizarre methods of torturing women, the surprise success of last summer's "The Sixth Sense" has spurred all manner of occult hair-raisers with a spookily gifted child. If "Bless the Child" is any indication, this isn't going to be pretty. Kim Basinger plays a harried psychiatric nurse living a modest existence in New York (stop laughing) when her junkie sister shows up one night with an infant daughter.

Superstar" is sweet, a little bit poignant and, in its own slapdash way, even endearing.What it is not is funny.But then, isn't that what we've come to expect from films based on characters from "Saturday Night Live"? When Chris Rock, at last week's big bash celebrating the show's 25th season, noted that the talent assembled there was responsible for some of the worst movies ever made, he wasn't exaggerating."Superstar" brings repressed Catholic schoolgirl Mary Katherine Gallagher (Molly Shannon)

If ever a project seemed utterly unguided by a compass, it's "North," the dreary new film from Rob Reiner.What can have possessed the savvy pro behind "A Few Good Men," "When Harry Met Sally . . . " and "The Princess Bride" to unleash such an ingot of leaden whimsy, such a dense, witless potato latke of a movie? It's "When Zero Met Nothingness . . . "Derived from a slight novel by Alan Zweibel (who co-wrote the script, doubtlessly to preserve his profound pensees), it's a film in which nothing works.

He hasn't been seen much on TV since he was orbiting the Earth with a bunch of wise-guy robots, doomed to watching bad movies. But Joel Hodgson, who made an art form of razzing movies on the cult-favorite TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000 for five of its seven seasons, will be back in January - and on network TV to boot. He and his brother Jim Hodgson have been hired for the new Jimmy Kimmel late-night talk show, set to have its premiere on ABC after Nightline next month. "I think my role is writer/producer," Hodgson says from Los Angeles.

Bad ideas seem to skip generations when it comes to making holiday movies. Today's hectic farce-spectacle Fred Claus replicates the key mistake of the 1985 dud, Santa Claus: The Movie. With the potential of Santa's wonderworks at their disposal, all the filmmakers come up with for a plot is the peril of measuring toyshop productivity. In Fred Claus, the villain is Kevin Spacey's efficiency expert, who threatens to shut Santa's operation down if he can't meet children's increasing demands.

Maybe they'll finally get off that dang spaceship and see a good movie for a change.It's the least that should happen to Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo and their human partners (first Joel Hodgson, then Mike Nelson), those caustically quipping authorities on bad films who have spent the past 10 seasons trapped aboard the Satellite of Love, forced to watch some of the worst movies ever made.In what appears to be a mercy killing for them, but a minor tragedy for the rest of us, their decade-long run as the centerpieces of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" ends Sunday on cable's Sci-Fi channel.

Watching bad movies just hasn't been any fun since they left. You tried talking to yourself. You brushed up on your pop culture references and exchanged witty criticisms of '50s monster movies with the mirror. But you didn't have theater seats to sit in. Your obnoxiousness was feigned and halfhearted. And, frankly, your toaster oven just couldn't cut it as a friendly robot companion.Thank goodness "Mystery Science Theater 3000" is back on the air.The hippest slice of geek heaven on television, "MST3K" has finally come to roost with the fans who can appreciate it most.

Two years after completing production, the Eddie Murphy comedy The Adventures of Pluto Nash finally arrived in theaters. The Castle Rock film, in which Murphy plays a nightclub owner on the moon battling the Mafia for control of his establishment, has had a troubled production that included re-shoots; it reportedly cost about $100 million. Critics weren't invited to see the movie before it opened - usually an indication of trouble. Along with his huge hits, Murphy has had some bona fide stinkers over the years.