1. Francis Ford Coppola - Jack (1996)
When I first found out that Francis Ford Coppola has directed that movie
Jack with Robin Williams playing the retarded grown-up boy or whatever was supposed to be happening in that movie, I came to one conclusion: there had to be another Francis Ford Coppola. A Francis Ford Coppola chose their projects like a mental patient might, presumably by placing a bunch of scripts around his office and defecating on one of them at random. Alas, I couldn't have been more wrong. It was
the Francis Ford Coppola (yes, of
Godfather fame) who helmed
Jack. Okay, so we all know that something happened to genius Coppola after he'd made
Apocalypse Now, given that it probably sent him permanently insane, what with its hellish production process and the fact that he threatened to shoot his own brains out when the really hit the fan and everything was going wrong. So although he made some mediocre movies throughout the '80s, presumably suffering from post-traumatic stress having to look at a semi-nude Marlon Brando for weeks on end, nothing could have prepared a Coppola fan for
Jack. If you've never seen
Jack, you're in luck: it stars Robin Williams as a child who looks like Robin Williams, one of those comedy movies in the vein of
Big that tries to get laughs about people of different ages in the wrong bodies. But whereas
Big is a mostly good movie,
Jack is not.
Jack is the proof that Coppola had resigned himself to ever making another film that seemed like "hard work." Given how unfunny and inherently depressing this movie is, though, we can only assume that Coppola had finally cracked for good given the negative receptive for the
The Godfather Part III and this is what his broken brains came up with.
Like this article? Which movies of temporary director insanity have we missed? Let us know in the comments section below.