The Worst of 2012

SPOILERS (probably)

10. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World - This is mostly a harmless little movie. For much of the running time, the biggest thing going against it is that stars Steve Carrell and Keira Knightley have zero chemistry. And then the end happens. Carrell puts Knightley on a plane to send her to her family before the world ends. I thought, "Aw, what a sweet ending to a mediocre movie." Then the damn girl comes back and ruins it! I'm just anti-happily ever after, even during the apocalypse.

09. The Raven - What could possibly go wrong with John Cusack playing Edgar Allen Poe, you ask? Well, the answer is everything. The concept is the only interesting thing about the whole thing - a serial killer copying the work of Poe. The acting is all around terrible and Cusack, who I genuinely love, brings nothing to the role. It's just one long boring disaster of a movie.

08. Wanderlust - I get that this is the movie where Jennifer Aniston met Justin Theroux and they fell in love and lived happily ever after and all of that. So at least something good came out of the whole thing, because the movie most certainly is not good. It's just not funny, mostly awkward and and just plain predictable.

07. The Grey - Here's another case of the ending ruining a perfectly fine film. The Grey was actually a pretty interesting character piece. Except you saw the trailer a thousand times so you are waiting with bated breath for the big showdown where bad ass Liam Neeson kicks some wolf ass. Well, that never really happens. They size each other up and then... blank screen. The end. And while I normally love ambiguous endings, I wanted to see bad ass Liam Neeson kick some wolf ass.

06. Les Miserables - Believe me, I wanted to put this much closer to number 1. The rage I still feel after seeing this movie (weeks later!) surprises me. I can't remember the last time I had such a strong reaction to a movie. Samantha Barks and Anne Hathaway are the only reason this isn't number 1 or 2. Other than them, this is a dreadful, awful, boring opulent movie with random close ups for NO REASON and 3 hours of non stop singing songs that all sound EXACTLY THE SAME. I just need to think of the one bright spot in the whole movie - Barks singing On My Own in the rain - to calm down my rageful feelings.

05. Sinister - The scariest thing about Sinister is the Super 8 found footage, which is genuinely creepy. Other than that, Sinister suffers from what every mainstream horror movie suffers from - having to dumb down the movie and the scares so that the scardey cats who go to horror movies can be scared while those of us who were raised on horror movies roll our eyes at the lame "scares."

04. Ted - I know, I know. Everyone absolutely loved this movie. They thought it was the funniest thing of the year. I wasn't so impressed. I think I might have laughed once, maybe twice. This might be the most pretentious thing I've ever said - but the movie was just so low brow. I prefer my humor a lot darker than the stoner lite comedy presented here. Also, Seth MacFarlane annoys me, so there's that.

03. The Devil Inside - This movie made a ridiculous amount of money at the box office, but here's another one I just don't get. I can usually sit through any horror movie because most of the time they are so bad they are good. But The Devil Inside is just bad. Bad acting. Bad script. Bad plot. Bad everything!

02. Gone - To be honest, this movie was so bad that I did my best to shut it out and I don't even really remember all that much about it. I remember thinking that Amanda Seyfried is a bad, bad actress. But it probably had more to do with the terrible script than it did with her abilities. When it's so bad, you blocked it out, you know it's one of the worst of the year.

01. Damsels in Distress - And then there's this. I love Greta Gerwig so much that I really tried to get into this movie. But it's just so unwatchable. It wants to be Heathers, it wants to be the sort of movie that defines a generation but instead it's a terrible movie with dialogue that no real person would ever say. This movie is so bad that it is literally unwatchable. Seriously, don't even try.

Wednesday - moving on to much nicer things... Top Ten Ensembles & Directors!