Sunday, January 22, 2012

THE WORST 10 MOVIES OF 2011

Sitting through these movies was akin to torture. We've got one critically acclaimed arthouse film, three DOA Sundance movies, three big-budget bombs, 2 VOD premieres and a studio "comedy." Each one is to be avoided at all costs.

10. MELANCHOLIA – A pretty yet pretentious, not to mention pointless exercise in sheer boredom from agent provocateur Lars von Trier. I have more respect for The Tree of Life! At least that was about something... I think.

9. THE DETAILS – I loved Jacob Aaron Estes’ Mean Creek, but The Details was just a complete mess. Horrible voiceover, hammy acting & a terrible script. It features Laura Linney giving Tobey Maguire a blowjob, which is probably why it has been sitting on a shelf for a year. Seriously, who wants to pay to see that?

8. I MELT WITH YOU – This movie made me wish I’d signed a suicide pact with my own high school friends. Pellington's gotta take this shit back to film school and work out his issues.

7. THE SON OF NO ONE – Didn’t see the re-edited version that was cobbled together after its disastrous Sundance screening, but can't imagined it improved much. Just a goofy, self-serious story featuring some solid actors giving embarrassing performances. C'mon, Pacino! You're better than this!

6. GREEN LANTERN – What the fuck happened here? The first 30 minutes were a total joke. Second straight year a Ryan Reynolds movie has made my Worst 10 list. Amateur VFX, a ridiculous plot, a silly villain and a bland love interest hobble this superhero pic. Thank God auds steered clear of this turd and spared us all a sequel... for now.

5. COWBOYS & ALIENS – Popcorn garbage for the masses. How much more boring can Daniel Craig get outside of the Bond franchise. Harrison Ford can’t possibly chew more scenery. The story was insulting. Something about aliens needing gold. Who comes up with this shit? A big-budget slog to sit through. Speaking of those...

4. BATTLE: LOS ANGELES – Was so excited to see this movie due to a great trailer, but it was just loud, action nonsense that I’ve seen a million times before. It took no risks and did nothing to differentiate itself. Director Jonathan Liebesman let me down here, as did the one-note Aaron Eckhart, who is so much better than this B-movie material.

3. TRESPASS – Joel Schumacher has made a lot of great movies, and it's sad to see what has become of his once-promising career. How do you waste not one, but TWO Oscar winners in Nicolas Cage and Nicole Kidman? This was a generic, by-the-numbers thriller that debuted on VOD for a reason: it sucked.

2. THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE II: FULL SEQUENCE – Talk about a dude out of ideas. While I liked the premise in theory, Tom Six just kept throwing more shit (literally) at the screen to see what would stick, and ultimately, none of it did. This is lowest common denominator filmmaking and fairly offensive, which is not a word I throw around lightly. Just utter garbage.

1. YOUR HIGHNESS – A crass, stupid, schlocky, laugh-free movie. Shocking how so many funny people can work together to create something so lame and out of touch. This was staggeringly awful, but I KNEW it would be going into it, so I have only myself (and Universal) to blame. What has happened to the David Gordon Green we all knew and loved? He needs to leave comedies behind him and focus on making Brad Land's hazing memoir Goat... or anything that's worth his time.

1 comment:

edgeoftheframe said...

Thank you for ranking "Battle: Los Angeles" on your worst films list. I was in the same boat after the trailer. The speech that Aaron Eckhart gives near the end is so laughable, I wanted to leave right then.

Horrible filmmaking.