The worst film in the world

Have you ever come across a film, cartoon or TV series that is so bad, it's hilarious? You know what I mean - the ones where the stunts and special effects are so bad, and the script is so cliché, and the actors so awful that even though it's supposed to be a horror movie, you're in stitches after the first fifteen minutes. An example would be anything starring Chuck Norris. This is one of the reasons He is so great.

There is a word to describe these in French: "nanard". The word comes from the French name Bernard, which was considered by my parents' generation to be a loser name, like Gerald or Gaylord, or many other English names beginning with G. Today, French youth considers Kevin to be the new loser name, although it seems to be more specific: a "Kevin" is a spotty 14-yr-old World of Warcraft addict who thinks he can play without reading the rules and then wonders why he's banned from the server...

I may only know this because I am a geek.

Anyway, today Nans' friend Julien came to see us, and Julien hadn't yet discovered the concept of a nanard, so of course Nans decided to show him. Where Rachel just barely escaped this, Julien got a thorough drilling. Nans began by going directly to www.nanarland.com, a French site listing the "best worst films ever", and starting out with Rambo, where everything he touches explodes when he throws it, and a few Chuck Norris videos - I don't know what his scripts are like in English, but they're hilariously crap in French.

Then, once Julien had understood quite completely what a nanard was (and was entering a state of nervous hysteria), we watched what has got to be the very worst film in the world. A film so nanardesque that it has its own mini-site within nanarland.com. We'd seen the extracts. We'd found the full video on Google with badly-translated English subs. We had been putting it off, afraid of what it might do to us. And we watched it. While eating pancakes.

Turkish Star Wars.

By the end of the film, we weren't even laughing much any more. We had attained a sort of plateau that left us blasé before such mediocrity, even when it was funny. And once the film had ended, we didn't want to see any more. No more. Put something good on instead. Brainfood now please.

So after that we chatted for a while, reliving some of the best worst moments of the film, and then Julien kindly helped us with our CVs (a LOT, he's a life-saver), and told us about his studies a bit, and then we showed him The Guild, a very good series downloadable from X-Box Live about a group of WoW addicts.

For a while we managed to forget, sort of. But not for long. Tonight, I know, I will have nightmares about Turkish Star Wars. I will see Cüneyt Arkin karate-chop the red wookie's teddybear arm off and shove it round its throat again and again, and this time the stuffing will come out in fluffy white clumps. I will hear the theme tune of Indiana Jones played as the hero ties papier-mâché rocks to his ankles and jumps on a trampoline with them. And I will wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, my heart racing, shaking with nervous laughter.

Be warned. Turkish Star Wars is not recommended for people with good taste.