Worst Films of 2011

  

Sometimes I wonder why I see so many movies because I expose myself  to an awful rooker full of shit. The truth is, I'm addicted, I'm addicted to possibility. To potential. 

Is there such a thing as a degenerate optimist? I guess there is, because that's clearly what I am. Shit, I'm a filmmaker, aren't I? Few things require more psychotic optimism than movie making.  

Like a village idiot, I attend every movie with high hopes, good intentions, and an open mind. I'm not lying about that. Why else would I dare see Tom Hanks in Larry Crowne if I didn't think it would be good? Despite the awful poster (Hanks looking like a dick on a Vespa with Julia Roberts!), I still rolled the dice on that turd.

Anyway, I rolled the dice on Uncle Boonmee, too, and that's got a very cool poster.

It's on top of my Worst of 2011 list because it was an interminable bore. It got praised by professional critics and ended up on some 'Best' lists. Well, it ended up right here on a different list. Seriously, if this film had been in English instead of Thai, it would have been crucified for the steaming turd it is. 

 

Mickey Rourke's career is in a second major decline. The guy's talented, so why can't he recognize a stinker when he reads it? Or did he even bother to read it? Nothing in this script would have signaled greatness.   

 

Vile garbage. Just plain evil. I rest my case.

 

Pretty and lifeless. Like a Supermodel.

 

Get off the fuckin Vespa, Hanks, and give Roberts the heave-ho. She's no good for you! You've done good work in the past, but to depart 2011 with this and the cliche-ridden, horrendous Extremely Close and Incredibly Loud under your belt is a crying shame.

 

What a stinking crock of celluloid pus. Spending more than a hundred bucks on swill like this was as immoral as it gets. Think of the kids whose senses have been incinerated by this. 

 

Good intentions and big checks can't pump life into a rotten, confused script. Watching this was like watching Hollywood burn. 

 

An earlier attempt to do the 'Dylan Dog' property was the beautiful and horrific Dellamorte Dellamore (directed by Michele Soavi). Did nobody take a look at that first? Obviously not.

This take on the character was as poetic as a prostate exam, as interesting as Barbara Bush's vagina, and as disturbing as Count Chocula.   

 

Lots of money and nostalgia thrown at a script containing no logic whatsoever.  Awful because a smart rewrite would have repaired its flaws. I wrote about this shit at length in a previous blog.

 

Human Centipede 2 is on this list because it's tedious, not because it's disturbing. 

A triumph of smart marketing and a poster child for amateurishness disguised as meaningful chiaroscuro.

 

Truly, truly awful and boring black comedy with no laughs and confused intentions.

The more recent Young Adult, with the luscious and talented Charlize Theron, succeeded completely at what this stinker failed to do.

Films I'm Looking Forward To in 2012:

Himizu

The Theatre Bizarre

Motorway

Du Zhan

Last Stand

Bullet To The Head

Only God Forgives 

Stoker

Savages

Django Unchained

6000 Seconds of Silliness for 10 Billion Cents

 Tarsem, please stick with commercials, mate. You're a very decent teller of the thirty second story with a product at its center. Unfortunately, you're all at sea when you have six thousand seconds to fill with something other than product -- at least, we expect something other than product. Is that unreasonable of us?

I must confess that I find anything to do with Greek Mythology terribly silly. It reads OK in books, but when you portray absolutes like gods of this and gods of that on the silver screen, it's dull and stupid. Greek Mythology makes for good, symbolic story fodder, but it's non-intimate essence makes for godawful fucking drama.

The gods in Tarsem's Immortals do what gods usually do: They look down on things from an elevated position of authority and smugness. These bored pseudo-Bohemians throw comments about, bicker amongst themselves, and create rules that suit themselves. We don't care really. They can suck their own dicks. We're as bored as they are.

 
As he did in The Fall, Tarsem focuses 99% of his energy on the visuals and 1% on characters who wouldn't need such visuals if they were interesting. The entire film takes place on sets against green screens and it looks like it. The skies are impossibly beautiful, the ocean is impossibly perfect, and the rocky escarpments are too polished to be real. As for the people... it's a stretch to call them that.

The story involves a quest for a bow that fires an arrow made of lightning. Mickey Rourke, looking fat and pleased with his paycheck, plays the bad guy.   He sports a scar and kills his help when he feels like it, or when the writers need to wake the audience.  Henry Cavill, who plays Superman in the upcoming "reboot" (fuck, I hate that word!), is Theseus, the hero given the job of locating the bow and arrow by Zeus. Along the way, Theseus beds a pretty virgin (pictured below) with a great, art-directed ass, and has trite ego clashes with Stephen Dorf, who's totally underutilized.

Although the action isn't non-stop, the non-action involves a lot people standing near cliffs spouting utter shit about life, liberty, immortality, and future outcomes they know nothing about. There's not a human being to be found. Ex-Elephant Man John Hurt shows up now and then to fireside chat with Theseus because Theseus has no friends. Like everybody else, Hurt's wise old codger talks a brand of of goop that's stultifying.

When the action comes, it's as bloody as CG can be and confusing to watch. Hundreds of thousands of CG-spawned soldiers attack a hole in a wall and exchange steel blows in a corridor with a low ceiling. The outcome is predictable.

This cost more than a hundred million dollars. Couldn't 5% of that be spent on a decent script?

Pompous and boring: That's what you get for your ten billion cents when you embrace the silliness of Greek Mythology.