I write a column called Eric’s Bad Movies every week at Film.com. The premise is that I watch a bad movie and then make fun of it. It’s not very complicated. But finding bad movies to write about can be tricky. That’s where you come in!

It’s time once again to ask you fine people for suggestions. These are very, very useful to me. Of the 179 (!) EBM columns I’ve done so far, easily 30 percent were films I’d never heard of until readers suggested them. So keep up the good work! In fact, WORK HARDER!

Here are the basic criteria to be eligible for Eric’s Bad Movies:

- The more well-known it is, the better. Movies that played in theaters and were backed by Hollywood studios and had stars in them are ideal. I’ve relaxed the rule against straight-to-video releases, but I still prefer movies that people have heard of.

- Comedies are extremely hard to make fun of because they already don’t take themselves seriously, so I tend to avoid those. Focus on action movies, dramas, and the like. That being said, if the comedy has some kind of “hook” — a supernatural element, an animal co-star, etc. — it’s easier to get a handle on.

- It needs to be something whose badness is generally agreed upon, as opposed to something that YOU happen to hate but that is otherwise fairly well regarded. Remember, I need to think it’s bad, too.

- I’m avoiding movies that I reviewed in the normal movie-critic fashion when they came out in theaters. I’ve been reviewing movies since 1999, so in general, you can skip anything released since then.

After the jump, the list of what I’ve covered so far. Then it’s up to you to post suggestions in the comments. Thanks!

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Here is a pile of links to some of my one-off movie columns from this year that you might find “funny” or “interesting” or “not very long.” Except as noted, all of these were for Film.com, where my editor, Laremy, is nearly always responsible for coming up with the great topic.

Jan. 10: Predicting the Marketing Slogans of 2011.
Feb. 9: Logical Problems Presented by “Just Go with It.”
March 2: The 10 Commandments for Getting a Film into Sundance.
April 17: Why the “Don’t Think About It!” Argument Is Dumb.
June 22: Unsettling Questions Raised by the Alternate Reality in “Cars.”
July 13: A Long Column About the Length of Movies.
July 27: The Pitch Meeting for “The Smurfs.”
Aug. 30: A Fake Report from Our Fake Set Visit.
Sept. 7: The Pitch Meeting for “I Don’t Know How She Does It.”
Oct. 7: A Proper Gentleman from 19th Century England Reacts to Seeing “Human Centipede 2.” [Movies.com]
Oct. 10: Things Nicolas Cage Could Do That Would Theoretically Still Shock Us.
Oct. 18: The Timeline for Winning Best Picture.
Nov. 1: The Pitch Meeting for “New Year’s Eve.”
Nov. 9: Logical Problems with a Horse That Goes to War.
Dec. 20: The Next 35 “Alvin and the Chipmunks” Sequel Titles.

It is time once again to solicit suggestions for Eric’s Bad Movies! This is a weekly column that I write for Film.com, in case you didn’t know, and I rely upon you, the readers, to point me in the direction of terrible movies that deserve mockery. Truly, I do! A sizable chunk of the 144 movies I’ve covered so far were ones I hadn’t heard of or never would have thought of on my own.

Basically, here’s what I’m looking for in a Bad Movie:

- The more well-known it is, the better. I’m avoiding straight-to-video releases and TV movies. Movies that played in theaters and were backed by Hollywood studios and had stars in them are ideal.

- Comedies are extremely hard to make fun of because they already don’t take themselves seriously, so I tend to avoid those. Focus on action movies, dramas, and the like.

- It needs to be something whose badness is generally agreed upon, as opposed to something that YOU happen to hate but that is otherwise fairly well regarded. Remember, I need to think it’s bad, too. Don’t waste my time with movies that I think are OK!

- I don’t want to do movies that I reviewed in the normal movie-critic fashion when they came out in theaters. I’ve been reviewing movies since 1999, so in general, you can skip anything released since then.

After the jump, the list of what I’ve covered so far. Then it’s up to you to post suggestions in the comments. Thanks!

(If you’ve suggested a film in the past and I haven’t used it, you don’t need to suggest it again, I promise. Either I’ve considered it and rejected it, or it’s on my to-do list.)

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The organizations that keep me most gainfully employed are Film.com and Cinematical. The editors I work with — Laremy Legel at the former, Erik Davis and Scott Weinberg at the latter — are a writer’s dream: supportive, professional, laid-back, and easily amused. I consider them friends in real life, too, and I always enjoy hanging out with them in person at film festivals. Sometimes they pretend to fight over me, which is nice.

My arrangement at Film.com has me writing four articles a week: “Eric’s Bad Movies,” “What’s the Big Deal?,” a review, and a miscellaneous other movie-related feature. We usually try to make those “other” pieces funny. Below is a list of the ones from 2010 that I like. In every instance, the idea for the column was Laremy’s. This is great, because I’m terrible at coming up with premises, and once someone tells you, “Explaining ‘Machete’ to Aliens Who Have Just Arrived from Outer Space,” half the work is done for you.

My Film.com highlights from 2010
(My author page at Film.com)

2/9: What to Expect from a George Lucas Musical
3/3: Circumstances Under Which I Would Willingly Watch ‘Little Fockers’
3/17: Pitch Meeting: ‘The Bounty Hunter’
4/19: ‘Furry Vengeance’ and ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’: How to Tell the Difference
6/1: Pitch Meeting: ‘Killers’
6/2: Imagining ‘Marmaduke’ As an R-Rated Horror Film
6/21: Pitch Meeting: ‘Grown-Ups’
6/28: Our Idea for a Smurfs vs. Garfield vs. Marmaduke Film
8/4: And Now We Imagine a Meeting Between Nicolas Cage and His Agent

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Thank you all for your suggestions for “Eric’s Bad Movies” a few weeks ago, and feel free to continue contributing ideas by posting comments in that thread. Now I come to you again seeking suggestions for my other Film.com column, “What’s the Big Deal?”

The criteria are completely different for this column. The idea behind “What’s the Big Deal?” is that there are many films the average person has heard of that are supposed to be “classics,” but that maybe the average person hasn’t seen. And sometimes you’ll watch one of those movies, expecting a classic, and when it’s over you think, “Well, that was OK. But what’s the big deal?” This column is meant to lay out what the big deal is.

My experience has been that if I plop down and watch some “classic” film for the first time, without any advance preparation, often I’ll come away underwhelmed. There’s a good reason for this. A movie from, say, 1960 wasn’t made for me. It was made for people in 1960. I don’t have the same frame of reference that the film’s intended audience would have had. So then I’ll read what other people have written about the movie and I’ll realize, oh, it was the first film to do this, or a good example of that, or it came out while this trend was popular, or while this topic was in the news, or whatever. Once I have some context, it increases my enjoyment of, and my appreciation for, the film.

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It is time once again for you to tell me the names of movies that I should cover in “Eric’s Bad Movies” at Film.com. Whenever I think I have run out of good (i.e., bad) options, I issue a request like this and you people come through with films I never would have discovered on my own.

The guidelines are below, along with a list of what I’ve already covered. I’m also posting a list of movies that, while probably suitable for the column, are off the table because they’re not available from Netflix. (I’m not gonna buy an out-of-print DVD from Amazon, or watch something on Hulu, or track down a VHS copy. I’m just not.)

Post your recommendations in the comments, or send me an e-mail or a tweet. As always, thank you for your suggestions! And thank you especially for the suggestions that follow the guidelines!

UPDATE: “The Room” is on my radar. Stop saying “The Room.”

Guidelines for Eric’s Bad Movies

1. It needs to be really bad. Films that are merely mediocre are a waste of time.

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“Toy Story 3″ is easily the best movie of the year so far. That isn’t saying much, given what a mediocre year it’s been, but still. Even in a good year it would have to be in the top 10. I look forward to everyone seeing it so that we can talk about certain scenes and say, “HOLY COW, CAN YOU BELIEVE THEY ACTUALLY TRIED THAT?? AND PULLED IT OFF??,” and probably weep a little.

Then there’s “Jonah Hex” (review at Film.com), which is lame.

In limited release is the terrific “Cyrus” (review at Cinematical), starring John C. Reilly as a man at odds with his girlfriend’s weird son (played by Jonah Hill). There’s also “Trash Humpers” (review at Cinematical), which I’m not even sure is actually a movie.

At Film.com, “Eric’s Bad Movies” is about Steven Seagal’s “Under Siege 2: Electric Boogaloo.” Funny thing about that. I originally planned to do “Wild Wild West,” on account of it seemed a perfect fit with “Jonah Hex.” But when I sat down to watch it last weekend, I discovered it wasn’t particularly bad. I wouldn’t call it “good,” sure, but 45 minutes into I had laughed at a few of the gags, I was generally interested in the silly story, and I liked Kenneth Branagh’s insane Confederate no-legged villain. I finally had to turn it off and choose something else. When it comes to “Eric’s Bad Movies,” I don’t have time for movies that are merely so-so!

It’s a shame, too, because it would have been really, really perfect in conjunction with “Jonah Hex.” They have about a dozen major things in common.

But “Under Siege 2″ also meshes with “Jonah Hex”! In both cases, the villain faked his own death and then reappears on a train, and subsequently has a plan to destroy Washington D.C. with a weapon of mass destruction that doesn’t actually exist in the relevant time period. Serendipity!

“What’s the Big Deal?” is about “The Graduate,” that movie with the cougar lady who makes sexytimes with Dustin Hoffman, if you can imagine.

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I don’t know what it’s like where you live, but it’s very 1984 here. In fact, I discussed this very thing in an article for Cinematical, and then recycled some of the jokes for “Movie B.S. with Bayer and Snider” today, because I’m hip on recycling, even though it’s only 1984.

First there’s the remake of “The Karate Kid” (review at Film.com), which is actually pretty decent, regardless of how offended the nerds may have been by the very idea of remaking it. Then there’s the big-screen version of “The A-Team” (review at Cinematical), a TV show that hit its peak popularity in 1984. The movie is meh. Needed more fool-pitying, in my opinion.

I also got around to reviewing “Killers” (at Film.com), from last week, and wrote a thing for Cinematical about “Splice” and the nature of spoilers. (No spoilers in the article, of course.)

Columns! “Eric’s Bad Movies” at Film.com addressed “Virus,” a sci-fi horror thing from 1999. “What’s the Big Deal?” at Film.com has “Breathless,” the fancy-pants French movie from 1960. And “Cinemaligion” at Cinematical has Kevin Smith’s “Dogma,” from 1999. Hmm. I guess it’s very 1999 up in here, too.

Subscribe to “In the Dark,” a weekly e-mail with the latest movie reviews, DVD releases, and other pertinent info.

Listen to “Movie B.S. with Bayer and Snider,” a weekly Internet radio show featuring Jeff Bayer and Eric D. Snider, at PDX.fm. It’s live at 11 a.m. (Pacific) every Friday, then downloadable as a podcast.

There are four new wide releases this weekend, none of which are going to make any money, and the summer is going to get sadder and sadder for the people in Hollywood whose jobs depend on making people go to the movies.

“Get Him to the Greek” is a fairly solid R-rated comedy from the director of “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” focusing on the hedonistic rock star character from that movie. It’s a spin-off! Like on TV! It’s OK, not great.

“Splice,” which played at Sundance, is a squirmy, giddy, insane suspense-horror-dark-comedy thingee in which Adrian Brody and Sarah Polley are scientists who make a creature. Terrible things ensue. Most of the reviews have been positive, but those who don’t like it really, really don’t like it.

And hey, two of Hollywood’s Shameful Secrets®! It’s been a while! “Marmaduke,” based on the comic strip that no one has ever cared about, has Owen Wilson as the voice of the dog, who doesn’t talk in the comic strip, but who cares? “Killers” is about Katherine Heigl finding out her perfect husband, Ashton Kutcher, is a professional hitman who’s now being targeted himself. “Marmaduke” actually screened for press in a few major cities, but “Killers” was kept under lock and key until today. Review to come. In the meantime, at Film.com, I imagined an R-rated “Marmaduke” and speculated on the pitch meeting for “Killers.”

For “Eric’s Bad Movies” at Film.com, I hit “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” which is alarmingly similar in theme to “Splice,” although “Splice,” sadly, does not contain an obese Marlon Brando being followed by a tiny doppelgänger.

“What’s the Big Deal?” focused on “12 Angry Men,” from 1957. In the process of writing that column, I got to wondering how many directors have been nominated for Best Director Oscars for their first films, like Sidney Lumet was for “12 Angry Men.” So I compiled a list and wrote it up at Cinematical. Trivia is fun!

Subscribe to “In the Dark,” a weekly e-mail with the latest movie reviews, DVD releases, and other pertinent info.

Listen to “Movie B.S. with Bayer and Snider,” a weekly Internet radio show featuring Jeff Bayer and Eric D. Snider, at PDX.fm. It’s live at 11 a.m. (Pacific) every Friday, then downloadable as a podcast.

So there’s “Sex and the City 2″ (review at Cinematical). That happened. It’s 2 1/2 hours long, which is just uncalled for, and even shallower and more superficial than before.

In slightly better news, “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” (review at Film.com) is a modestly entertaining adventure movie, along the lines of “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “The Mummy,” though not as good. It’s a C+ movie: don’t see it on purpose, but don’t actively avoid it either.

In “Eric’s Bad Movies” at Film.com, I covered “Exorcist II: The Heretic,” notorious for being one of the worst sequels to a good movie in all of Christendom. Some friends of mine that I hadn’t seen in a while said they wanted to hang out and watch a Bad Movie with me, so I obliged with this. I don’t know why they wanted to do that, but I bet they won’t make the same mistake again. One of them took the easy way out by falling asleep, like a coward.

Speaking of devil women, I addressed “All About Eve” in “What’s the Big Deal?” at Film.com, a really funny and sharp comedy from 1950. Bette Davis, whose face always looked like it was melting, is fantasgreat.

At Cinematical, my “Cinemaligion” column is about “Contact,” from 1997. This installment is a little looser than some of the previous ones. It might even have funny parts, kind of, under certain loose definitions of “funny.”

Also at Cinematical this week, I talked about why “MacGruber” tanked at the box office.

And at Film.com, I suggested four product ideas better than the Bella Swan “Twilight” engagement ring, which is a real thing that you can buy. I actually suggested five products, but one was deemed a little too harsh for Film.com. EricDSnider.com isn’t nearly as discerning, though, so here it is:

Baby Sucks-a-Lot, the Vampire Doll. Given the current limitations of biology, it is unlikely that you will ever be impregnated with a vampiric fetus and enjoy the experience of carrying it to term, letting it chew its way out of you, and so forth. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have a vampire baby, at least for pretendsies! Baby Sucks-a-Lot looks like a regular baby doll, except with fangs and sparkly vampire skin. Attach the fangs to the Baby Sucks-a-Lot Blood Bottle (sold separately) and watch her drink the precious fluid down, down, down! All babies slowly leech the life out of their parents, but Baby Sucks-a-Lot does it like a real vampire would: adorably! (Warning: Do not breastfeed Baby Sucks-a-Lot.)

What?

Subscribe to “In the Dark,” a weekly e-mail with the latest movie reviews, DVD releases, and other pertinent info.

Listen to “Movie B.S. with Bayer and Snider,” a weekly Internet radio show featuring Jeff Bayer and Eric D. Snider, at PDX.fm. It’s live at 11 a.m. (Pacific) every Friday, then downloadable as a podcast.