Team America: World Police (2004)

Sex is funny. We know this. Everyone who's ever done it knows this. Everyone who's ever said something really fucking stupid while they were fucking and then burst out laughing afterwards knows this. Movies, however? Not so well clued in. And the worst of them, and the ones that fall flattest on their faces, are the ones that box out completely even the tiniest possibility of humour. Sharon Stone and Billy Baldwin, ramming themselves repeatedly and energetically against a concrete pillar in Sliver is one of them (they're physiologically nowhere near coitus – unless his penis is penetrating her, through her black dress, somewhere above the fifth lumbar vertebrae). Most of Basic Instinct is another ("Have you ever fucked on cocaine, Nick?" No, it's mostly ale and kebabs, Shazzer), and all of Showgirls (1995). And no, contrary to received critical wisdom, Showgirls was never meant to be funny, camp or kitsch. Director Paul Verhoeven has always claimed it was intended to be, and still is, a "beautifully shot, and elegant" movie.