If you haven’t heard the news already, the Queen of Pop Madonna has a new movie out and it sucks.

Hard.

According to some critics who saw the movie at the Venice Film Festival recently, Madonna’s W.E. is a real waste of time, effort and energy. It’s that bad.

And as surprising as this may sound to some, this is not the singer’s first foray into filmmaking. She has actually done this “mistake” before.

Madonna at the premiere of W.E.

In 2008, her directorial debut Filth And Wisdom premiered at the Berlin Film Festival to terrible reviews. No surprise there.

The Guardian’s movie critic Peter Bradshaw wrote of Filth And Wisdom: “Well, it had to happen. Madonna has been a terrible actor in many, many films and now – fiercely aspirational as ever – she has graduated to being a terrible director.” And he was being nice.

The movie, about a Ukrainian immigrant who supports his dream of being a rockstar by moonlighting as a cross-dressing dominatrix, only had a limited release (thankfully) in the United States.

Unfortunately for Madonna (and ardent cinemagoer), many critics claim that her second directorial effort is equally as bad, if not worse, as her first movie. Ouch!

W.E. is Madonna’s take on the story of Wallis Simpson – the American socialite for whom King Edward VIII abdicated the British throne prior to the Second World War. We have seen the other side of the story (not all, just some of it) in last year’s The King’s Speech. Heard of that movie? Well, that one won a couple of Oscar awards. Its director, Tom Hooper, even bagged a Best Director Oscar. No biggie.

Well, if Madonna had aspired to win any kind of award for this movie, we fear that the only one she could be in the running for is a Razzie (the award that “celebrates” the worst in film).

As to why she was interested in the project, Madonna said in a press conference that she was totally enamoured by King Edward VIII’s gesture.

* Material Girl *

“I was completely and utterly swept up the reason that this man King Edward VIII would give up his throne for the woman he loves. Why he would relinquish his great position of power for love? I wanted to get to the bottom of it, I wanted to investigate I wanted to find out why. That was my original attraction.”

Oh, if only she didn’t bother to find out. And to make matters worse, her two ex-husbands had pushed her to explore her curiousity and passion for this particular subject.

“I am and was attracted to very creative people which is why I married Sean Penn and Guy Ritchie, two very talented directors. They both encouraged me as a director and as a creative person to do what I did, and they were both very supportive,” she was quoted as saying.

Now that we know who to “blame”, let’s hope that they would not encourage her to pursue her (not-going-to-happen-in-a-big-way) directorial career by stating “third time’s the charm.”

While on the subject of being behind-the-scenes, Madonna is not the only singer/actress who has been trying her hand at directing movies.

Academy Award winner (and the sexiest humanitarian and mother in the world, IMHO) Angelina Jolie has also worn the director’s hat before.

*Mother, humanitarian, actress, (kinda) Mrs. Brad Pitt, gorgeous *

The actress is set to release her feature directorial debut In The Land Of Blood And Honey at the end of this year. The movie is set against the backdrop of the 1990s Bosnian Civil War and the actress has said that she “wanted to tell a story of how human relationships and behavior are deeply affected by living inside a war”.

Hopefully, the pouty-lipped actress tells the story well and doesn’t embarrass herself and her fans in the process.

While Angelina’s fate as a director is still yet to be determined, her “rival” Jennifer Aniston has fared pretty well in this department.

Jennifer co-directed Room 10, which is a film based on a true story by Glamour magazine reader Colleen Goldrick. The film was made for the magazine’s Short Film Series in 2006.

Jennifer worked with her friend Andrea Buchanan to tell the story of nurse Frannie (played by Robin Wright), who, while in a difficult time in her her marriage and life, encounters interesting patients at the hospital she works.

The short film received good reviews and Jennifer is now in the middle of directing Five – an anthology of five short films exploring the impact of breast cancer on people’s lives.

* Not a bad director, this gal *

Besides Jennifer, other female actresses like Drew Barrymore and Jodie Foster have also successfully crossed over to the directorial side and have proven that they don’t actually suck at it.

Erm, maybe that cannot be honestly said for Jodie’s recent flick The Beaver with Mel Gibson. Like its title (and Mel’s terrible attitude), the movie, too, was unfortunately horrible.

Sharm says: Oh well, everyone is allowed their one mistake. Well, except in Madonna’s case, it’s two.