Tookey's Turkeys

Book excerpt: Tookey’s Turkeys identifies the worst 144 movies of the last 25 years. Christopher Tookey has seen at least 10,000 films. For eight years, he was TV and then film critic for theSunday Telegraph. For twenty years, he was sole film critic for the Daily Mail and the world’s most popular internet newspaper, Mail Online. In 2013, he won the award Arts Reviewer of the Year from the London Press Club. This is a book about 144 of Christopher’s least favourite movies. In his opinion, the movies we hate tell us as much about present-day culture as our favourites. All offer insights into the mindset of those who made or commissioned them. Virtually all make us aware of things we might rather not know about our “culture” and “values”, or lack thereof. Technically, movies are more advanced than ever before; yet, paradoxically, seldom have so many wrongheaded movies been made. And never have they plumbed the depths of ineptitude, depravity and risibility that they have over the last 25 years. The choice of films Christopher has disliked over the past two and a half decades may be controversial. Some movies he finds ridiculous have achieved critical acclaim. A few have won Oscars. But the fact that The Da Vinci Code, The Hangover II and Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith are among the most commercially successful movies of all time should not disguise the fact that they are also, in his opinion, bloody awful. Tookey’s Turkeys will appeal greatly to the general reader and in particular to all film fans, including those who have followed Christopher’s reviews over the years. In a companion volume, Tookey’s Talkies, Christopher has written about the best 144 films that he has seen over the same period. Featured in The Bookseller, March 2015 Non-Fiction picks, Film, TV & the Performing Arts.