Love Story (One of the most poorly written films I've ever had the misfortune of seeing. The acting is adequate I suppose given the script and overall the movie is re-watchable for laughing and cringing worthiness.)
The Ladykillers (Coen Brothers' Remake) (I hate the Coen Brothers almost on principle, but they pushed my limits to the extreme by revamping a charmingly dark old comedy that in no way, shape, or form needed to be redone. Tom Hanks' obnoxious mugging craps all over Alec Guinness' classic performance in the original film.)
Lost (A show that had shit-tons of promise and had a decent first season or two went down the crapper as its writers pissed away more and more potential by over-complicating the already needlessly overdone plots and subplots. They claim everything that happened over the course of the series had been planned way beforehand, but I really don't buy that for a minute. Look to Battlestar Galactica for a show that made good use of complex characters and a labyrinthine plot that actually fits together.)
Antichrist (I loathe Lars Von Trier fervently. And this sorry excuse for a so-called art-house horror film is really just a torture porn flick done up all pretty with several thousand moronic symbols and metaphors and with nowhere to go by the end of the film.)
Pearl Harbor (Michael Bay isn't James Cameron, but that's only the second problem with this film. It wants to be Titanic. Really really badly. But the main issue is that what makes Titanic at least enjoyable in a melodramatic, cinematic event kind of way is that it combines a relatively well-done romance with a tragic and well-staged historical event. Pearl Harbor is one hour of story and relationship set up, then another solid hour of ceaseless action, and a third hour of the tragic ending. It doesn't flow naturally. The romance takes a backstage during the battle scenes and so we stop caring about what's happening. Yes, the action is well-done, but there's way too much of it and there are awkwardly done moments that feel like nothing but exploitative bits of random real people being killed in the attack. There's an uncomfortable feeling to seeing extras pretending to be individuals from an historical event who then die without any set up in the story. Who was that man that was just burned alive in that explosion? I don't know, some poor guy who was probably just a name in a history book listing all of the people who died at Pearl Harbor. The tone of the action scenes are the same as any other Michael Bay movie- a bunch of random things and people being destroyed and not much else. Is this supposed to be...entertaining? Because it's not. It's really not. Oh, also the romantic parts of the script are really really awfully written. Like Love Story awful.
William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (Um, why is it modern? What is it actually saying about contemporary culture? Romeo and Juliet isn't about the gangs/families, it's about the romance set within the framework of an ironic situation. The gangs/families are the backdrop that form one element, one theme of the entire story. That's not enough to justify the update of the story. Julie Taymor's Titus is about violence and so she comments upon that by having this gigantic clash of violent historical events and current cultural norms that depict violence in a positive light. Titus the play is about violence as well, it is its primary subject and theme, the story is more or less irrelevant. Understand the work you're adapting before you make the actual film.)
Dogville (Von Trier again. This time he's being anti-American. Because...America sucks? I guess? I really have no idea, it's three hours on a stage with SYMBOLISM GALORE. Yeah, he's kind of an annoying dick.)
Fantastic Mr. Fox (I hate Wes Anderson too. I especially hate him for making a Roald Dahl story into a pop-culture reference spewing, daddy issue movie. "But it has such quirky animation." It's original because Wes Anderson is...quirky. Gag me.)
Eragon (Words cannot describe how incompetent this movie is. So I won't use words to describe how incompetent this movie is.)
The Spirit (This is probably one of the most confusing movies I've ever seen. More so because it has no idea what tone to take. Is it...funny? Gross? Exciting? Also, I almost never comment on the costume designs of films mainly b/c I have yet to really come across something that seemed so radically wrong in terms of what a character is wearing, but goddamn this movie comes close to having the most moronically overdone and bizarre costumes I've ever seen.)
No Country For Old Men (There are three good things about this movie. And they are sitting on the poster, right down there- Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin. That's it. Everything else about this film is so overwrought and so...boring, for lack of a better word. It just aimlessly floats about having things happen pretty much at random. Shouldn't crime films be in some way, how do I put this, NOT COMA INDUCING? It's fine if you wanna be serious, but good lord, this movie is vague about everything. I don't know what's happening to who or why and I don't care. Also- talking about dreams don't make your movies any more cerebral or meaningful.)
Glee (Ew.)
And from here on out it's the countdown (they just keep getting worse as you go on in my opinion)-
The Bottom Eleven-
11. Passchendaele (It's the Canadian attempt at Saving Private Ryan. Enough said.)
10. Mambo Italiano (Gay + Italian = Wacky Hijinks according to this movie.)
9. Black Moon (Louis Malle is not an experimental filmmaker. And here's the proof why.)
8. Kick-Ass (Hit-Girl is the most offensive character in a movie I've ever seen. And not strictly because of what she says or actions she takes, but pretty much simply by virtue of existing in the manner in which she does.)
7. Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (Johnny Depp's cameo is the one saving grace.)
6. Halloween: Resurrection (Trick or treat, mother fucker, indeed, Mr. Rhymes.)
5. Get Your Stuff (I cannot decipher on any level what this title has to do with the plot of the film. If I, of all people, cannot begin to understand why your film is called what it is, especially when it's a gay indie romantic comedy, it doesn't bode well for the rest of your movie.)
4. Battle: Los Angeles (This makes Transformers: Dark of the Moon look like a low-key dramatic character study by comparison. I mean NO ONE is human in this. They're just soldiers. Who fight aliens. And fight. And fight. And fight. Until the movie just kind of stops. And that's it.)
3. Raising Arizona (It's loud. It's obnoxious. It's idiotic beyond belief. It's Nicolas Cage in a Coen Brothers' film.)
2. Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (Pretty much breaks every single rule of documentary filmmaking. And I do mean- EVERY. SINGLE. RULE. How hard is it to film reality? Please explain this to me in detail, Ben Stein, and do so in your monotonous droning voice that was mildly amusing for about five seconds.)
1. Cruising (A well-made, well-directed, well-acted piece of extraordinarily grotesque and disturbing homophobia that pretty much defined several decades worth of hate and brutality against gays in the span of about two hours. I have never felt so much visceral and violent vitriol towards one video. Alliteration, our word of the day! But yeah, the ONLY other time I've felt nauseous during a movie was when I saw Cloverfield in theaters. So, congratulations, Cruising, you successfully made me feel ill by virtue of your story alone. That's a first for me!)
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