Worst Films of 2016

I know I have been neglecting this blog big time, but I do want to keep up with my annual Best (and Worst) lists, in case I ever want to revive using this on a regular basis. For now, here are the five worst movies I saw this year, so you know what to stay away from at the Redbox or on Netflix (spoiler alert - it's horror and comedy!)!

05. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (D) - With people like Anna Kendrick, Adam Devine, and Aubrey Plaza involved, this story about a pair of douchey brothers who try to find nice girls to take to their sister's destination wedding, and instead end up with a pair of gold digging party animals is a huge waste of talent. I could see why someone like Kendrick would want to play a role like this - it seems super fun, I'm sure. And I'm sure it was a lot of fun to film in Hawaii. But mostly this is unfunny and a wasted opportunity.

04. Ride Along 2 (D) - As long as a movie makes money, it will get an unnecessary sequel. Ride Along was a big, surprising hit. It was also kind of funny and charming. The sequel - which still stars king of the box office Kevin Hart and king of my heart Ice Cube - is neither of those things. If you want to make a sequel to a hit, at least don't rush it along so it makes more money. At least take your time and make sure there is a solid, funny script attached before you put out something that isn't even mediocre.

03. Dirty Grandpa (D) - I saw a surprising number of bad comedies this year, but Dirty Grandpa was the worst of the worst. Sure, it was fun to watch Robert DeNiro sing karaoke to N.W.A., but that's about the only thing good about it. I'm not sure what kind of actor Zac Efron wants to be at this point. I thought he was making some interesting decisions there for a while and I thought he might have the chops to become a solid, interesting actor. But now it seems like he just wants the easy pay day to star in a bunch of unfunny comedies.

02. 31 (D-) - I wish someone would tell Rob Zombie to stop. I thought I would give him one more chance after Lords of Salem, i.e. the single worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life. And this movie has a decent idea - a bunch of carnies in the 1970's find themselves locked inside a murder compound where they must survive the night and a bunch of chainsaw wielding clowns. Maybe in the hands of a better writer, it would have been a decent Purge-meets-It sort of mash up. But Zombie insists on writing and directing everything. He's not a terrible director (in fact, there were flashes of genius in House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects), but maybe he needs to stop writing his own material. The only thing that saves this from getting an F and being the worst movie of the year is a pretty impressive, balls to the wall performance by Richard Brake as Doomhead, the most sociopathic, monologue spouting, sinister maniac of the clowns.

01. The Forest (F) - And unfortunately, this is the worst of the worst. There is no great performance to save this monstrosity. It is just an unscary, badly written, poorly directed, boring movie with a bunch of boring performances. Stay far away. Unless you need to take a nap.


I want to try to see a few more movies before I release my best of the year, but those lists should be coming around the 9th of January, give or take a day or two.

Worst Films of 2013

Instead of a Friday Top Five, how about a top ten? As in, the ten worst films I've seen this year.

10. Spring Breakers - This has been popping up on people's Best of the Year lists, and I have to admit that I don't understand why. Sure, I get it. Hot girls in bikinis, video game violence, absurdest humor, James Franco playing a rapper / singing Britney Spears songs. It sounds like it should be some sort of cult masterpiece. However, in my opinion, it just tries way too hard. These Disney girls (Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez) are trying to convince us that they are breaking from their good girl images, trying to be bad girls. But they are so obviously just pretending and absolutely nothing that happens in this movie is realistic in any remote way.

09. Kick Ass 2 - Where the original Kick Ass did everything right, this unnecessary sequel does everything wrong. The first film was memorable because it was charming and witty and fun, three things that this sequel most certainly is not. Hit Girl isn't really effective anymore. Sure, she was adorable as a potty mouthed little kid kicking ass. Now she's just another angst-filled teenage girl. It's simply an embarrassment to the first film. It's better to pretend it never happened at all.

08. Gangster Squad - Here's the only way I can explain how this movie got this crazy gifted cast: Sean Penn reads the first few pages of the script where he sees he's going to play an old school bad ass gangster and agrees. Then Josh Brolin thinks, "Well, if Sean Penn is going it." And Ryan Gosling thinks, "If Sean Penn and Josh Brolin are doing it." And Emma Stone thinks, "Well, if Sean..." You get my drift. I couldn't possibly imagine how a movie with such a stellar cast could be so bad, but somehow it is. Somehow it's so much worse than you can even imagine.

07. Man of Steel - I just about hated everything about this movie (save for Amy Adams), which doesn't even matter because it made all of the money. It's just that there are no characters that you care about. There's no humanity. This movie doesn't even have a sense of humor. One character cracks one joke at the end of the film and it feels so out of place that it's eye-roll inducing. If the great Michael Shannon can't even save things as an over the top super villain, then what chance do we really have?

06. Only God Forgives - The most disappointing movie of the year, in the sense that it sure as hell looks the nicest. It's got great cinematography and a great style. Too bad the movie consists mostly of people sitting in chairs, looking moody and Kristen Scott Thomas having absolutely horrid dinner conversation with his son's hooker girlfriend. Everyone keeps saying how great of a year 2013 was for movies. And I totally disagree. When Ryan Gosling is in two of the ten worst, you know you've got a problem.

05. Mama - Honestly, this was one of the first movies I saw this year, and I am finding it really hard to remember much about it at this point. I do remember that I hated every second of it. That I wondered why Jessica Chastain (who has made flawless acting decisions since breaking out) would even get herself caught up in this mess. And I also remember that the end was so ridiculous that I almost walked out of the theater.

04. Movie 43 - I'm assuming this movie was made for people with the sense of humor of a 12 year old boy because they are the only people I can think of who would find these jokes funny. Yes, menstruation is HILARIOUS. Somehow, the makers of this film (a collection of short films, each grosser than the one before it) managed to get the likes of Kate Winslet, Halle Berry, Emma Stone, Greg Kinnear, Dennis Quad, Hugh Jackman, etc. to sign up for this movie. It's all a great big waste of talent and time.

03. The Last Exorcism Part II - I actually really liked the first one, which was clever and interesting. The sequel is just a paint by number horror movie that is silly and not scary. I like to pretend it never happened, so we'll just move on, okay?

02. Magic, Magic - I rented this for Juno Temple, who I adore. I think she is a super talented actress and I'm always excited when I find out she is starring in a movie. It also features Michael Cera (who gives the single most terrible performance of the entire year) and Emily Browning. It's supposed to be about some sort of mystical and ancient discoveries. It's really just a bunch of young actors sitting around and talking about nonsense, and acting weird for two hours. I kept waiting for something to happen. Nothing ever does.

01. The Lords of Salem - Aren't directors supposed to get better with time? Because Rob Zombie is getting worse with every movie he makes. There was a time (back in his House of 1000 Corpses / The Devil's Rejects) days when I trusted him to make great horror movies. Then he churned out two horrible Halloween remakes. Then he made this, which is, honestly, the worst movie I have ever seen in my ENTIRE LIFE. And I've seen a lot of movies. It stars Sherri Moon (surprise!) and it takes place in Salem, Mass. You're thinking witch trials, right? You're thinking Sherri Moon traipsing around in a sexy witch outfit casting spells on people? That would have been way better than what the movie actually is which is a trippy, Rosemary's Baby wannabe movie about a heavy metal band who turn the women of Salem into zombie-esque killers. Or something. Just know that it's bad. Real, real bad.

Oblivion / The Lords of Salem

I'm not going to sit here and try to convince anyone that Oblivion is some sort of revolutionary movie going experience. However, on Saturday, I did a double feature, and compared to the movie that I saw after, it made Oblivion look like The Godfather.

First things first, Oblivion takes place well into the future after America defeated an alien race hell bent on wiping the planet of our resources. As Tom Cruise's Jack says in narration, we won the war but lost the planet. So, now planet Earth is pretty much a wasteland and all of the human race lives on Titan, one of Saturn's moons. Everyone except Jack and his partner Victoria, that is. Victoria mans the control tower (and talks to Melissa Leo's Sally who is on a space station named Tet) while Jack zips around on a dandy little space ship and mostly fixes drones who fight off the savages still on the planet during the night. Eventually, Jack learns that he and Victoria are not alone and instead the group of savages are actually human and led by Morgan Freeman.

So, plot wise, Oblivion is mediocre. I actually enjoyed the film a lot more until the plot began to thicken and thicken. It sort of felt like the filmmakers just wanted to get in every single sci fi cliche that they possibly could. And the movie really didn't need all of that, because what works for the movie - and it works well - are the breathtaking special effects and the high octane action scenes. I sort of feel about this movie the way I felt about Wanted a few years ago (also co-starring Morgan Freeman!!) - the less plot, the better. The plot in that movie just got in the way of Angelina Jolie throwing cars at buses. And while there's nothing quite that awesome in Oblivion, it still is a pretty decent popcorn movie.

And compared to the movie I saw immediately afterwards, well, damn...

Because next came The Lords of Salem. Here is a sort of diagram about the trajectory of Rob Zombie's directing career:

House of 1000 Corpses - Awesome!!!
The Devil's Rejects - Damn Good!
Halloween - Bad
Halloween 2 - Worse
The Lords of Salem - QUITE POSSIBLY THE WORST MOVIE I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE

Directors careers are supposed to go opposite. You are supposed to get your shitty movies out of the way first. I mean, geez, David Fincher's first movie was Alien 3 and now he's a goddamn rock star. But, no, Rob Zombie went in the wrong direction real quick. And it's a shame because there were moments in his first two films that really showed that he actually has potential.

But I digress. The Lords of Salem is actually the worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life. It's so bad that the city of Salem should probably ask to have its name removed from the title. In fact, the only thing I didn't hate about the movie was the fact that it was shot in Salem and I enjoyed noticing places that I had been. The plot of the movie follows Sherri Moon Zombie's Heidi who works the night shift at a radio station and gets a special delivery of a crappy album by a band called The Lords which turns the women of Salem into homicidal maniacs. Of course, Zombie tries to tie all of this to the Salem witch trials. Of course, the movie is offensive, disgusting, ridiculous, and above all, stupid. I almost think that maybe he was just messing with us. Maybe he wanted to see just how bad of a movie he could make? I don't know. I guess he was going for a Rosemary's Baby kind of vibe but, if so, he failed miserably. The Lords of Salem have absolutely no redeeming qualities and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone - not even my worst enemy (i.e. that bitch Amanda Clark).

Grades: Oblivion - C+; The Lords of Salem - F

Halloween, The Nanny Diaries, Summer Movie Wrap-Up, September Preview

Halloween - As far as I'm concerned, there are four perfect horror movies. I use the word 'horror' to mean both slashers and psychological horror films. Anyway, those four movies are (in no particular order): The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Rosemary's Baby, The Shining and, of course, Halloween. When I heard they were remaking Halloween, I was aprehensive at best. I mean, remake HALLOWEEN?!?! But then I heard that Rob Zombie was doing it. If I trust anyone to make a horror movie these days, it's Rob Zombie. After all, his films House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil Rejects are quite simply the best horror movies since the Scream trilogy. But, still, remake HALLOWEEN!?!?! I don't even think I was this upset about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake. Anyway, I thought I would be terribly disappointed or terribly impressed. And I was right. First of all, let us discuss my number one pet peeve with modern horror movies (remakes and 'original' ideas (keep in mind I'm using the word original very, very loosely)). The villain does not have to be a 6'10", 300 pound NFL linebacker / pro-wrestler / Amazon warrior to be scary. The thing that makes Michael Myers and Leatherface and even Freddy and Jason scary is the fact that they are just plain crazy evil. It's not that they are super fast and super big and super scary. Now, what was so great about the original Halloween? Well, we are introduced to a little kid who, for no apparent reason, stabs his sister to death. We are given the impression that he's a normal kid from a normal family in a middle class suburban neighborhood. There is no motive, no warning, nothing. The kid just snaps. Nothing motivates this kid to kill. Michael Myers is pure evil. And it's terrifying. The kid never talks again. He spends fifteen years in a little cell, staring at walls, giving no sign of remorse or anger or hatred. He just sits and the only thing left inside him is the evil. (When he escapes, he goes after the only remaining member of his family. Why? We have no fricking idea. And it's terrifying.) While at the psychiatric ward, Michael meets Dr. Loomis, a man who spends his entire life trying to understand Michael. After years and years and years, he comes to the simple conclusion that there is nothing inside Michael but evil. This absolutley shatters his world. His ambition to help people and understand them and find humanity is destroyed. He becomes obssesed with Michael (and doesn't try to cash in by writing a fucking book). Anyway, few movies have captured the feelings of evil, fear, doubt, hopelessness and isolation so well. I don't think Rob Zombie understands any of this. People say: "Keep in mind, this isn't John Carpenter, it's Rob Zombie." I know. Believe me, I know. And I like Rob Zombie a lot (he's no John Carpenter, but who is really?). I knew the movie would be vulgar and violent and filled with sex and loud music and lots of blood and gore and everything else you associate with Rob Zombie. I was prepared for it. I just wasn't prepared to leave the theatre feeling so simply disappointed. Let's take one of the classic horror movies ever and just make a simple little story about an angst ridden kid from a white-trash family who has a stripper for a mother, an abusive and alcoholic stepfather and is bullied at school. Am I surprised that this kid would kill his sister (whole family, whatever)? Not at all. And it doesn't scare me in the least. Then there's the Loomis character. This is what I was most worried about. Who would play Dr. Loomis? No one can come close to the late, great Donald Pleasance. I love Malcolm McDowell and I think he does his best with what he has to work with here. The performance itself is very well done and he's trying to do his best to make Pleasance proud. It's not entirely his fault that his character was turned into a money hungry doctor who authors a book and uses the story of Michael as a cash-cow. Loomis never would have had sympathy for Michael. Their relationship was one of hatred and hopelessness. What I should have worried about more was the casting of Laurie Strode. If Jamie Lee Curtis ever meets Taylor Scout-Compton in a dark alley, I'm pretty sure she'll kick her scrawny little ass. Jamie Lee is the one and only scream queen. Scout-Compton's sorry excuse for acting involves squealing the entire time and turning Laurie into some immature, horny teenager. Laurie was innocent and sweet and you wanted her to make it out alive. I wish Michael would have killed this annoying version of Laurie. It's hard to believe a movie that involves so many cool people (McDowell, Bill Moseley, Danny Trejo, Sheri Moon Zombie, Brad Dourif, Halloween 4 and 5 alum Danielle Harris) could be so disappointing. There are a few interesting things about the movie (little eleven year old Michael murders a nurse with a fork). I also liked the idea that Michael was the main character and not Laurie. Still, by giving us a lame backstory and a 7 foot superhuman monster, this remake takes away all the frights, all the mystery, all the suspense. There's really nothing terrifying about this movie at all.
Grade: D

The Nanny Diaries - This movie is forgettable at best since I saw it two days ago and can barely remember what it's about. Still, it's cute at times (who knew I would like this movie slightly better than Halloween, seriously). Anyway, it stars the too-gorgeous-for-this-movie Scarlett Johansson as a recent college graduate who doesn't know what she wants to do with her life. Does she want to follow her dream and study anthropology or does she want to give into the beast and work in the corporate world? Well, she decides to put everything on hold and become a nanny for rich New York City upper East Side Family. Dad (Paul Giamatti) is a workaholic with a likelihood for pre-marital flings. Mom (Laura Linney) is too busy for her son Grayer. Not busy with work, busy with shopping and spas and planning benefits for kids who are not her own. I've heard the book is witty and provacative. I haven't read it but if that's true, then the movie is a watered down version. There's a sort of whimsical quality to the film (the flying red umbrella... seriously?) that just didn't work at all. If the film was a little more cutting and dark then it would have been a whole lot better. Meanwhile, Scarlet's Annie is in love with the Harvard Hottie (Chris Evans) upstairs but she can't date him because her employers don't approve of dating and she thinks he'd be slumming by dating her (seriously, Scarlett? Fuck you). Anyway, Annie really wants to quit the job but finds herself actually caring about the little brat so she sticks it out for a time for him. Blah, blah, blah. Boring? Yes. The movie was cute... but, from what I've heard about the book, I'm pretty sure that's not what they were going for. The movie can most accurately be described as a wasted opportunity. There's so much talent here. What went wrong? It's more Lifetime movie of the week than anything. And I'm sure I'll completely forget about it in a few weeks.
Grade: D+

Summer Movie Wrap Up (from Memorial Day to Labor Day, from best to worst...)
Bug - A
Superbad - A-
Sicko - B+
Live Free or Die Hard - B+
Hot Rod - B+
Hairspray - B
Evening - B
Stardust - B
Broken English - B-
No Reservations - B-
Hostel: Part II - B-
1408 - C+
Knocked Up - C+
Becoming Jane - C-
The Nanny Diaries - D+
A Mighty Heart - D+
Ocean's 13 - D+
Spiderman 3 - D+
Halloween - D
Transformers - D
Mr. Brooks - D
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer - D-
Evan Almighty - D-
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End - F
Captivity - F

September Movie Preview
September 7 - I'm pretty excited to see 3:10 to Yuma. I know it's a Western and I hate Westerns but Ben Foster, Christian Bale and Peter Fonda can't do wrong, right? Well, that's debateable, I guess but it's getting solid reviews and so I'm pretty excited. I am not, however, excited for Shoot 'Em Up. Are Clive Owen and Paul Giamatti serious? It looks like the worst kind of action movie. Then there's The Brothers Solomon. You all know that I wish Will Arnett was my boyfriend. I'll see it and I don't really care if it's stupid. Finally there is The Hunting Party. It stars Richard Gere and Terrence Howard and it reminds me of this dream I had one time (except my dream wasn't really about a television crew in a war torn area).

September 14 - I am shaking in anticipation for Across the Universe. Sure it doesn't go wide until the 21st but this could be the best movie of the year. Or a huge mess. We'll see. Then there's In the Valley of Elah. Who suggested that Paul Haggis name his movie that? It sounds awful but is pretty Oscar baity. As the follow up to Crash, there will be a lot of eyes on this movie about trying to find out what really happened to a soldier who disappeared from Iraq. It stars Oscar winners Tommy Lee Jones, Susan Sarandon and Charlize Theron. Jodie Foster also tries to prove that she's not really a serious actress and is a kick-ass action star instead with the revenge flick The Brave One. Could be interesting, actually.

September 21 - My movie star boyfriend Sean Penn takes a detour into director town with a star studded cast (William Hurt and Catherine Keener... it was like this dream I had). The trailer looks great. With a stellar cast, how could it possibly disappoint? Then there's the Oscar hopeful Good Luck Chuck. Dane Cook and Jessica Alba are definitely on my short list. Resident Evil: Extinction may only be the third but it feels like the 30th. Sydney White stars Amanda Bynes so all the little girls will show up, for sure. The Jane Austen Book Club stars Hugh Dancy, so I'll show up, for sure. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford may be the coolest title for a movie ever and I may go just to see Casey Affleck kill Brad Pitt (it's like this dream I had...).

September 28 - The trailer for Feast of Love has been before pretty much every movie I've seen in the last two months. It looks... cute. That blonde haired boy may be my temporary movie star boyfriend (at least until James McAvoy makes his triumphant return to the screen in Atonement in December). The Kingdom stars a bunch of actors who annoy me but everyone else loves. I might pass. Lust, Caution opens in limited release. It is directed by Ang Lee and got an NC-17 rating. I won't pass.

September 29 - The Darjeeling Limited opens in New York City only. That means it won't come to Pennsylvania until, like, November. Dammit!