I guess I should be thankful I only listed 8 movies I found to be the worst of 2010 versus the usual 10 or more. Hollywood needs to start paying me to sit through this stuff instead of my paying them.
“Burlesque”: The story of a small-town Iowa farm girl (Christina Aguilera) hoping to make it on her own in Los Angeles as a singer has all the ingredients of what made the sexy “Flashdance” (1983) a successful box office hit, and the controversial NC-17 rated “Showgirls” (1995) into a cult movie. The problem with “Burlesque”, which also stars Cher as the owner of an L.A. adult nightclub is it lacks any sex appeal or sleaze, much less a memorable Oscar winning song. Don’t be fooled by the film’s recent Golden Globe nomination for Best Musical or Comedy. All the characters and situations are predictable clichés from better movies like “Flashdance” and “Showgirls”, which while not four-star flicks, they were still entertaining in their own way. I own “Flashdance” and although I loathed “Showgirls”, I still put it in the category of “Bad Movies I Love to Hate.” There is no denying Christina Aguilera and Cher have great singing voices. They deserve a movie musical worthy of that talent. The only reason to see “Burlesque” would be if Aguilera’s character got into a catfight with the strip joint’s self-absorbed diva played by Kristen Bell. Oh, how my mind wondered as to who might win if such a scene happened the way sci-fi geeks debate who would emerge victorious if Darth Vader and Darth Maul fought one another in a lightsaber duel, or if the Imperial Empire from the Star Wars movies can kick the Federation’s ass from the Star Trek series. That catfight in “Burlesque” never comes. The film, much like its title is a rip-off to get people in to see something where one is promised a lot of skin only to find out this was nothing more than just a big tease.
“Kick-Ass”: I don’t mind mindless cartoonish violence. The trouble with “Kick-Ass”, in which a nerdy high school kid named Dave (Aaron Johnson) gets inspired to become a superhero crimefighter named “Kick-Ass” because of the comic books he avidly reads, is that fantasy and reality don’t mix. Kick-Ass’ sudden popularity gives a widowed father and former police officer code named “Big Daddy” (Nicolas Cage) along with his 11-year-old daughter, code named “Hit Girl” (Chloe Grace Moritz), to become superheroes themselves as a means to settle a vendetta they have against a local mobster (Mark Strong). The film boasts less than a handful of humorous scenes with mock references to Batman and Superman as Dave’s friends, who have no idea he is “Kick-Ass”, asking themselves if Kick-Ass and another overnight superhero sensation named Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) were in a fight, who would win. It’s like listening to die-hard Star Wars geeks ask each other if Darth Vader went up against Darth Maul, who would be victorious, or to be more precise, Batman versus Superman. Unfortunately, every memorable sequence like that is quickly ruined by unsettlingly violent sequences as when Hit Girl delivers her own brand of vigilante justice to the bad guys, all of whom eventually lie dead on the floor. There is something wrong when we see high school kids, in particular, an 11-year-old girl, acting out the same kind of blood thirsty violence that adult characters in movies do, like as though seeing someone crushed to death inside a trash compactor will have no effect on someone that young. I suppose I should be thankful that characters like Kick-Ass and Hit Girl killed off only the ones who had it coming to them. Their desire to become superheroes came from the comic books, if not from Big Daddy. At least they weren’t playing Doom and watching “Natural Born Killers” (1994) like the two young killers did as inspiration to murder fellow classmates at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado back in 1999 for no good reason.
“The Last Airbender”: Director M. Night Shyamalan’s fantasy based on the animated Nickelodeon cartoon series I have not seen is bad on so many levels I have no idea where to begin. I’d have to refer to the notes I should have taken while watching the film. I took none and I don’t know if it was because I was so taken aback by how bad this $150 million budgeted travesty was that I forgot. The film doesn’t even have the nerve to be a fun bad movie; one where you can at least get a few laughs while watching it. Even the special effects by the technological gurus at George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic who handled the Star Wars movies (1977-2005) are a visual eye sore and that’s without the cheap 3D sunglasses. Fans, mostly kids of the Nickelodeon television show will be quick to embrace the big screen version, if for no other reason that the film is in 3D and focuses on the story of a young boy named Aang (Noah Ringer) who is to quote the Star Wars prequels, “The Chosen One” who can bring the Water, Air and Earth Nations together to stop the Fire Nation (hint-their ships run on pyrotechnics and dark smoke) from world domination with the help of his mind bending skills and I assume his karate or judo expertise. I am not sure kids will feel the same way about the film as they get older. Ever since Shyamalan surprised audiences with the supernatural thriller, “The Sixth Sense” (1999), his greatest weakness has been how his supernatural/science fiction/horror movies always end with an unexpected twist. They are like eating a box of Cracker Jacks with a surprise inside. “The Last Airbender” offers no surprising twists near the end other than revealing once the end credits have rolled that Shyamalan made a bad movie.
“The Lovely Bones”: Every notable filmmaker makes a dud now and then. Steven Spielberg had “1941” (1979). Francis Ford Coppola had “One from the Heart” (1982). George Lucas had “Howard the Duck” (1986) and depending on who one talks to, the Star Wars prequels (1999-2005). Now Oscar winning director Peter Jackson, best known for the epic The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003) and the faithful but extra-long “King Kong” (2005) delivers this depressingly morbid story about a young girl (Saorise Ronan) who is murdered by the child molester (Stanley Tucci) across the street. The film is told from the dead girl’s point of view in her own version of Heaven, or Purgatory depending on your religious beliefs about the afterlife as she observes her grieving family’s attempt to cope with her untimely passing. Fans of author Alice Sebold’s 2002 book, on which the film is based, criticized how the dead girl’s murder was not done in more graphic detail. On that level I was thankful. I can also understand the reason Jackson chose this as his next project was, he thought he could incorporate fantasy type sequences creating a beautiful world for the dead girl to roam through. The trouble is once you take out those fantasy sequences, all that’s left is the kind of sad child abduction story we see told too often on the evening news. A child is abducted and murdered. Family members are left to grieve. Police have few leads, and the killer gets his eventual just deserts.
“MacGruber”: Here is an example of the kind of gutter bathroom humor you will find in MacGruber. In one scene, to distract the bad guys, ex-Green Beret, Navy Seal, Army Ranger MacGruber (Will Forte) strips naked and does a little dance with a stick of celery sticking out his ass. In the next scene once the bad guys have been taken out, MacGruber, this time back in civilian clothes, chomps down on that same stick of celery, which his partner and love interest Vicki St. Elmo (Kristen Wiig) calls gross. “Relax, I washed it,” MacGruber says as he takes another bite of what was sticking up his rear end minutes before. The villain who MacGruber is assigned to take out is called Dieter Von Cunth, played by a surprisingly pudgy Val Kilmer (“The Doors”-1991) who has plans to wipe out the entire United States government with a missile when the president makes his speech before congress. Given the film’s below the waist bathroom humor, I suspect there is only one reason why Kilmer’s character is called “Cunth.” It’s so MacGruber can utter the same word numerous times but without the “h” at the end, which I won’t say here except to say it’s a word men and women don’t like being called. MacGruber only appeals to two kinds of viewers. The first are those adults, who as kids, failed to graduate kindergarten and bribed teachers to pass them through grade school. To this day, they still find such scenes like the ones I am about to describe here laugh out loud funny as seeing the hero urinate on the villain’s burning corpse near the end, for example. Or seeing MacGruber have sex with the ghost of his dead wife (Maya Rudolph) at a cemetery, asking someone to either suck his you know what or say to someone how honored they’d be if they were asked to suck someone else’s you know what, and drawing pictures of taking a dump on someone they don’t like. I think the only reason the film had no fart jokes in it is because it was already done plenty of times in a “South Park” or “Family Guy” episode. The second group, and there must be a very small, miniscule group of people out there given the film’s box office take of just $4 million opening weekend at number 6 (not good for a debut), appeals only to those familiar with Forte’s character on “Saturday Night Live.” There is only one person to blame for this latest grossly unfunny, unnecessary SNL turned movie idea’s box office failure and that lies solely on the shoulders of Forte, who also wrote the screenplay. As his character says when taken off the case by his superior officer (Powers Boothe), “I have only myself to blame.”
“A Nightmare on Elm Street”: There is only one reason why this most unnecessary remake of Wes Craven’s 1984 horror classic grossed over $32 million opening weekend making it number one at the box office. The answer has to do with Jackie Earle Haley, last seen as the faceless anti-hero Rorschach in last Spring’s anti-hero epic, “Watchmen” (2009). Here Haley now dons the black and red striped sweater, hat, and four bladed metallic hand as a supernatural child serial murderer who haunts the dreams of high school teenagers on Elm Street. I know in the minds of horror geeks, were it not for the desire to see Haley as Freddy Krueger in a role first made famous by Robert Englund back in over a handful of follow-ups the past two decades, there would be no reason to see this retread of “A Nightmare on Elm Street.” When will horror want-to-be movie makers learn the reason films like Craven’s original Nightmare was so effective in a fun, creepy way, and even suspenseful, was because they were made on very low budgets. The original was by no means a classic but the idea was clever in a grotesque way. This latest Elm Street reincarnation is a nightmare and not the kind where you are scared to go to sleep. It’s the kind where you are so bored watching what’s on screen, you are fighting to stay awake. There is no jump out of your seat surprises like in the predecessor as Freddy terrorizes his victims with his metallic four clawed hand wherever and whenever they are sleeping from classrooms and basements to bathrooms and bedrooms. For horror buffs younger than twenty with little or no knowledge that there was an original “A Nightmare on Elm Street” decades before, they will be more than happy to accept Haley as their Freddy Krueger. For us old folks like me who tire of Hollywood revamping the old stuff, there is only ONE Freddy Kruger, and he was the nightmarish ghoul Robert Englund played. This redo makes me want to say, “Goodnight Freddy and good riddance.”
“Piranha 3D”: “There’s a sucker born every minute,” according to P.T. Barnum. I was one of those who fell for the “Piranha 3D” trailer though my interest in seeing it was not necessarily the curiosity factor to see how the remake would be turned into a bloodbath. My curiosity stemmed from the casting of Richard Dreyfuss (in a cameo echoing his other character in “Jaws” (1975) as he sings “Show me the way to go home” before becoming lunch meat. Also featured was Academy Award nominee Elisabeth Shue (what was the last movie she did?) as a local sheriff, Ving Rhames, Jerry O’Connell, and Christopher Lloyd. For the first half hour, “Piranha 3D” offered some promise that this might not be so much a remake as it may be a fun homage to Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws.” Instead of a great white shark bringing about financial ruin for a beachfront town, it’s a slew of prehistoric fish. Then the piranha strike and the remaining hour is dedicated to devising lots of gruesome ways for young spring break vacationers to become members of a food chain. This might be entertaining for horror enthusiasts who crave nothing more. That’s not what the original 1978 version, which was done on a very low budget, offered. The predecessor, much like a lot of effective horror cult movies of the past did, proved filmmakers can make viewers uneasy without a huge budget. Even more of a joke was the 3D where the sunglasses provided were even cheaper than the black plastic ones moviegoers get when they see movies in 3D on Imax. I could not tell what the fish were biting and the only real good laugh, which could be seen as a clever piece of shock value is when one of the piranha bites off Jerry O’Connell’s penis and spits it out. I felt a lot like that piranha did. Just days before I ate a Chicago Italian sausage sandwich where the meat was “hard” and burnt and I too, felt like spitting it out.
“Skyline”: I am starting to wonder if filmmakers are not so much interested in wowing audiences with a great story and characters as they are in love with today’s computer software technology they can use to make movies. According to IMDB trivia there was no screenplay for “Skyline” written yet when the clever trailer appeared late last year, which showed a clip of former CBS news anchor Dan Rather talking about aliens visiting from outer space. “Skyline” is just one big alien invasion monster movie where nothing makes any sense and where the hope of humanity rests on a small group of rich condo residents and partygoers whose brains and spinal cords eventually become alien food. This movie has everything in terms of visuals except intelligence, which explains why those monsters from outer space needed those human brains.
Close But No Cigar Movies – Films that weren’t necessarily the worst and “almost” succeeded in winning me over but failed in the end: “The A-Team”, “After.Life”, “Case 39”, “The Crazies”, “Date Night”, “Edge of Darkness”, “The Expendables”, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows: Part 1”, “Hereafter”, “Jonah Hex”, “The Last Exorcism”, “Legion”, “The Losers”, “Machete”, “The Next Three Days”, “The Other Guys”, “Paranormal Activity 2”, “Predators”, “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time”, “Red”, “Repo Men”, “Robin Hood”, “The Runaways”, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”.
©12/25/10
Close But No Cigar Movies – Films that weren’t necessarily the worst and “almost” succeeded in winning me over but failed in the end: “The A-Team”, “After.Life”, “Case 39”, “The Crazies”, “Date Night”, “Edge of Darkness”, “The Expendables”, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows: Part 1”, “Hereafter”, “Jonah Hex”, “The Last Exorcism”, “Legion”, “The Losers”, “Machete”, “The Next Three Days”, “The Other Guys”, “Paranormal Activity 2”, “Predators”, “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time”, “Red”, “Repo Men”, “Robin Hood”, “The Runaways”, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”.
©12/25/10
