4. Robert Altman - Popeye (1980)
Robert Altman was the genius behind
Nashville, M.A.S.H., Gosford Park, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, movies so good that they've even got their own classification - Altman-esque. And you know as well as I do that you don't get an esque after your name unless you're really, really great. So whereas Robert Altman has undoubtedly made some of the greatest American movies in history (as well as a few well-intended misfires), he also left his sanity on his bedside cabinet one morning. That would be the morning he signed on to direct
Popeye. Yes:
Popeye.
Popeye seems to have been forgotten somewhat - along with most of the movies on this list - because it's simply not very good. But as a window into what we can only assume was Robert Altman's damaged brain back in the year 1986, it's a real curiosity. Starring Robin Williams in his first major film role, this is one of the weirdest, movies ever made period -
bad, certainly, but not without a deluded kind of merit. It rambles in classic Altman style, of course, so you know it's him, but my God what a strange and demented film for the man to have made.