The Decade List: (Some of) The Worst Films (2005)

Every year, the list seems to be getting longer. The sentimental issue with 2005 was that a list of the Worst Films of 2005 was my very third blog post ever on here, so unlike the previous years, I've written quite a few venomous words about the films below (I was pretty hostile when I started writing this blog). So for both your and my pleasure, I've selected some really mean and/or smart-ass "pull quotes" from what I had to say about these, the worst films I saw from 2005.

On The 40-Year-Old Virgin: "The 40-Year-Old Virgin is essentially a bunch of laughless sketch appendages (the worst involving foul-mouthed Eastern Indian coworkers), branching from a thin backbone of a lifeless romance." On Amnesia: The James Brighton Enigma: "Amnesia ends up being an idea film with nothing to say and Langlois a lousy psychological researcher who’s happy enough to just to ask the questions instead of looking for the answers." On Dirty Love: "That this film presumes we’re going to care about a woman who flops around a supermarket looking for tampons to stop her Shining-size bloodbath of a menstrual flow is not only dead-wrong, but also rather insulting."

On Fratricide: "There’s grittiness and then there’s absurdity, and Arslan can’t figure out the difference." On Happy Endings: "Happy Endings’ mix of nastiness and earnestness is like water and electricity… when you’re in the bathtub." On Hard Candy: "Hard Candy is one of those films you could see someone handing into their teacher as a genre assignment. Everything is "fine" about the film, if you consider "fine" to be hitting all the points of a job or assignment. Or if "fine" simply means passionless."

On Havoc: I quoted my friend Mike on this one: "About as sharp and edgy as an oval-shaped blanket full of kittens." On Lower City: "Merely a collection of reminders of better films." On Me and You and Everyone We Know: "Weaving a bunch of quirky moments (involving setting hands on fire, a cuuuuuuuute little boy wanting to shit in a woman’s ass, a goldfish in peril, and tag-team fellatio from a duo of sassy teen girls, among other things) into a sloppy motion picture, Ms. July created the “indie” groan of the year."

On Monster-in-Law: "Setting women back nearly fifty years with this one, Jane Fonda returns to the screen, opposite the sweet-as-pie, stripped-of-race Jennifer Lopez. It’d be one thing for this film to just be unfunny… but it’s a two-hour-long cat fight, turning women into caddy, selfish, backstabbing cunts." On Pretty Persuasion: "Siega has accomplished the feat of making his film the only thing more despicable than [teen edge queen Evan Rachel Wood's protagonist]." On The Puffy Chair: "Do I really want to choose to join in on the roadtrip when I hate the people I'm traveling with... and don't really care where we're going?"

On Sorry, Haters: "Allow me to introduce you to the 9/11 exploitation film." On Transamerica: "The tolerance that Tucker does expect from us is even more offensive than a sweet "trannies are people too." He expects us to continue with his annoyingly familiar film because of Felicity Huffman." On Walk the Line: "When Johnny Cash (Joaquin Phoenix) proposes marriage to the love of his life June Carter (Reese Witherspoon), he asks her to come up with a fresh answer. Strange, we as an audience were asking the same thing out of this film."

- The 40-Year-Old Virgin - d. Judd Apatow - USA
- Amnesia: The James Brighton Enigma [Amnésie: L'énigme James Brighton] - d. Denis Langlois - Canada
- Antibodies [Antikörper] - d. Christian Alvart - Germany
- The Aristocrats - d. Paul Provenza - USA
- Backstage - d. Emmanuelle Bercot - France
- The Cabin Movie - d. Dylan Akio Smith - Canada
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - d. Tim Burton - USA/UK
- The Civilization of Maxwell Bright - d. David Beaird - USA
- Diary of a Mad Black Woman - d. Tyler Perry - USA
- Dirty Love - d. John Mallory Asher - USA
- Don't Tell [La bestia nel cuore] - d. Cristina Comencini - Italy/France/UK/Spain
- Eighteen - d. Richard Bell - Canada
- Evil [To kako] - d. Yorgos Noussias - Greece
- Feed - d. Brett Leonard - Australia
- Fratricide [Brudermord] - d. Yilmaz Arslan - Germany/Luxembourg/France
- Happy Endings - d. Don Roos - USA
- Hard Candy - d. David Slade - USA
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - d. Garth Jennings - UK/USA
- Havoc - d. Barbara Kopple - USA/Germany
- King's Ransom - d. Jeff Byrd - USA
- Lemming - d. Dominik Moll - France
- The Longest Yard - d. Peter Segal - USA
- Lower City [Cidade Baixa] - d. Sérgio Machado - Brazil
- Madagascar - d. Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath - USA
- Manuale d'amore [Manual of Love] - d. Giovanni Veronesi - Italy
- Me and You and Everyone We Know - d. Miranda July - USA
- Monster-in-Law - d. Robert Luketic - USA/Germany
- The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green - d. George Bamber - USA
- Mr. & Mrs. Smith - d. Doug Liman - USA
- Nanny McPhee - d. Kirk Jones - UK/USA/France
- Pervert! - d. Jonathan Yudis - USA
- Pretty Persuasion - d. Marcos Siega - USA
- The Producers - d. Susan Stroman - USA
- The Puffy Chair - d. Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass - USA
- Queens [Reinas] - d. Manuel Gómez Pereira - Spain
- Remedy - d. Christian Maelen - USA
- Robots - d. Chris Wedge, Carlos Saldanha - USA
- Sorry, Haters - d. Jeff Stanzler - USA
- Stoned - d. Stephen Woolley - UK
- Transamerica - d. Duncan Tucker - USA
- Walk the Line - d. James Mangold - USA/Germany
- The Wedding Date - d. Clare Kilner - USA
- Where the Truth Lies - d. Atom Egoyan - Canada/UK
- Witches of the Caribbean - d. David DeCoteau - USA
- Zerophilia - d. Martin Curland - USA

Bastards of Young

Adventureland - dir. Greg Mottola - 2009 - USA - Miramax

There's something strangely admirable about the way Judd Apatow comedies (or Apatow-esque in the case of Adventureland) handle earnestness. All of the films that fall under this umbrella go exactly where you expect them to, and while some work better than others, their sincerity nearly permits a forgiveness that most dude-centered comedies are never granted. This isn't to say that Adventureland or any of its not-so-distant cousins are good films, but it's hard to really dislike them. In Adventureland, college grad James (Jesse Eisenberg, doing his best Michael Cera) finds himself back in Pittsgburgh, taking a job at a local theme park after his European vacation is canceled due to lack of funds.

Every review I've read has felt the need to mention (warn?) that Adventureland isn't the uproarious, zany comedy Mottola's Superbad was, but those moments are still present, albeit in diluted form. Mottola doesn't seem confident enough to part with the sort of juvenile, "this is the part that is going to make people laugh" comedy, all of which is reserved for the characters of James' childhood friend Tommy (Matt Bush) and the managers of the theme park (Bill Hader and Kristin Wiig). None of these bits work, though I can't say I've ever found any of these sorts of films remotely funny. Mottola's inability to fully return to the humor of The Daytrippers without going by way of Superbad isn't the only foul.

Enter Em (Kristin Stewart), the hip, attractive coworker who James will inevitably fall for. While Mottola unfortunately reduces a lot of the characters (including James) to clichés, he makes an ill-fated attempt not to do that with Em. She's sexy, mysterious, more spontaneous than the protagonist, has a dead mother and an amazing record collection. After their initial bonding, the camera moves for the first time away from James and follows Em to her rendez-vous with "a friend." You see, Em's assumed the position of "the other woman" to the unhappily married Mike (Ryan Reynolds). Like most of what happens in Adventureland, you know the story well by now. However, with the shift in perspective also comes the first change in tone, and this is not only a poor transition but crude disclosure of the director's disapproval of Em's actions. As she pulls away from James' house, the airiness of the rest of the film gives way to a sense of trepidation as she pulls into the bar, almost as if the secret she's harboring were of a more horrific ilk than just an affair with a married man. Though it may be subconscious on Mottola's part, this action condescends Em, as well as Stewart who otherwise gives an effective performance.

This is carried over to Lisa P (Margarita Levieva), the theme park's resident hottie. Once her slow-motion entrance into the film has passed, she's treated to the same conflicting characterization as Em. On one hand, she's blessed with more depth than her Nick & Norah counterpart Tris, but Mottola can't resist placing her in opposition to Em, to whom she's never allowed to live up to. Lisa P dances with her best friend Kelly (Kimisha Renee Davis) to Shannon's "Let the Music Play;" Em drives around in her car listening to Hüsker Dü's "Don't Want to Know If You Are Lonely." Lisa P doesn't respond to James' mention of his Charles Dickens aspirations; Em seems charmed by it. Lisa P gossips; Em keeps secrets. And so on. Mottola seems as clueless when it comes to women as James does, which shouldn't be a surprise as the film is semi-autobiographical.

Despite all this, Adventureland suffices on its own sincerity. For all the fantastic music featured in the film (The Replacements, Big Star, Lou Reed and Yo La Tengo, who provides the score), it isn't holier-than-thou or even obnoxiously showy, though I can't help but wish directors would move away from the diegetic use of music giving way to non-diegetic montage cues, which is even more irritating in Nick & Norah. While every attempt to improve upon the run-of-the-mill coming-of-age tale flounders, Adventureland's less ambitious pursuits happen to work, which isn't something that can be said about most Hollywood romantic comedies. But a Richard Linklater film this ain't.

List #4: Questionable Praise

What’s perhaps more indicative of a person’s best of or worst of any given year is where they feel the general public has been mistaken. Certainly, frat boys and soccer moms galore will scoff at my pick of 300 for the worst film of the year (if you need proof, I believe Maxim magazine named it the best film of the year… that says it all). There are a number of critical bandwagons that always end up puzzling me, even if it doesn’t outright offend my sensibilities. Sean Penn’s Into the Wild was easily the most over-bloated junk of the year (hence it’s placement on my worst of the year list), but it was hardly the sole offender of a clusterfuck of a year where the only real agreement seems to have been that Cannes had a pretty phenomenal crop of films this year (No Country for Old Men, Zodiac, 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Persepolis, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly to name a few). Here’s nine films (consider Into the Wild your tenth) that perplexed this reviewer as to their wild critical praise.

I’m Not There – dir. Todd Haynes – USA

I’ve been a long-time fan of Haynes ever since I got my hands on an edited VHS copy of his Poison. Haynes never really seemed to adhere to what most people would expect of him; after all, what would you have really expected him to follow Poison with anyways? There’s no doubt in my mind that he’ll never top the brilliance of Safe, but even with his haughty ambition in I’m Not There, I think I wanted something more than I got. Haynes has always been a visual director, though I wouldn’t say his films are necessarily from the same spectrum. Yet… I’m Not There feels like his best attempt to throw everything and the fucking kitchen sink into something that’s, well, a mess (purposeful or not, it’s still annoyingly untidy). You have Nicolas Roeg’s Performance, 8½, Don’t Look Back (naturally), and even Haynes’ own Velvet Goldmine. And what do you do with all that? I’m afraid I’m going to have to toss it back. I don’t usually like to spit upon others’ interpretations of films (unless, of course, you thought Into the Wild was painted with the stroke of God), but I think most of the praise for I’m Not There comes from looking really hard and trying to find something that’s really not there (no pun intended). Certainly, though, if you rummaged through someone’s messy house you’d likely find a stray twenty-dollar bill or maybe a great vinyl somewhere within the wreckage. I just don’t see why you’d want to find out.

The Savages – dir. Tamara Jenkins – USA

I always find the need to defend myself when I refer to something as “boring.” My definition of “boring” probably doesn’t mirror the general consensus; to go back to Haynes, I don’t think Safe is boring in the least (though I’m sure many would beg to differ). The Savages bored me to sobbing tears. It was the sort of boredom that would make most equate to watching paint dry. I’m serious. Laura Linney’s character, when discussing her as-of-yet-unwritten play, constantly begrudges her brother (Philip Seymour Hoffman), making sure he doesn’t think it’s terribly bourgeouis, and I can’t help but wonder if it wasn’t Jenkins voice coming out on the screen, shaken and uncertain as to whether anyone could muster up an ounce of caring for what might as well have been a pipe slowly rusting. Yeah, sure, the film was smart, unsentimental (thank God), and well-acted, but none of that added up to something I’d want to sit through again.

Margot at the Wedding – dir. Noah Baumbach – USA

What bothers me most about Margot at the Wedding was what preceded Baumbach on his way to another bitter tale of intellectual malaise. The Squid and the Whale was just wonderful. Absolutely fantastic, and yet it was one of those movies a friend of mine described as a film everyone raved about for the two weeks it was in theatres only to forget about it shortly afterward. And, yeah, that’s probably true. So with Margot, Baumbach needed something that would stick, not something that felt like a day-old coffee pot version of something he’d already made. I’ll watch Jennifer Jason Leigh in fucking anything, so when even her presence fails to hit me in the right spots, my alarm signal goes off. Margot is stale, familiar, and, worst of all, wholly forgettable. Like she does in To Die For and The Others, Nicole Kidman always makes for a great cunt, all tightly-wound with Botox, tin-lipped and viper-tongued. Most of Margot’s detractors complained that no one in the film was likeable, but it was precisely the opposite case for me. No one in Margot at the Wedding was nearly as dislikable as I would deem necessary to hold interest further than the first explosion of words between its snake-y characters.

I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone – dir. Tsai Ming-liang – Taiwan/Malaysia/China/France

I’ve never known anyone to casually like the work of Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang (or his compatriot Hou Hsiao-hsien, for that matter), as their films seem geared toward the most avid of international film aficionados. There’s nothing in the realms of accessible to their agonizing long-shots of, usually, nothing, and that was just splendid… for a time. With I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone, Tsai has continued this streak, painfully. What seemed like radiance and freshness in What Time Is It There? or Vive l’amour has grown tiresome. He doesn’t really break any new ground with his latest, and for once, I’ll stand by you, the MTV generation, and concur, “this shit is fucking tedious.”

Superbad – dir. Greg Motolla – USA

I’m one of those jerks that usually make for a bad person to ask about films. I’d decided, before seeing either, that I would hate Knocked Up and love Superbad for purely superficial reasons. Firstly, I laughed a grand total of once during Judd Apatow’s sketch comedy-cum-romantic yarn The 40-Year Old Virgin (and I saw that grueling two hour “unrated” version). I also don’t follow the notion that his beloved, cancelled TV series Freaks and Geeks was anything special. With Superbad, the crudeness seemed without Apatow’s signature schmaltz, without that thin message of acceptance that makes me run for the eject button on my DVD player. And it had that Michael Cera in it expanding his life past the criminally-axed Arrested Development where he proved to have the best comic timing of the whole bunch. Unfortunately, my expectations got the better of me, and I ended up sheepishly enjoying Knocked Up and just-about loathing Superbad. I don’t do zany, and I don’t do antics. And for every minute of awkward teenage dialogue about cocks and Orson Welles, there was another nine of zany antics. Superbad is a comedy of errors, and to throw a zing at ya, I made an “error” watching this crap. Yeah, see, that joke was about as funny as most of what I witnessed in Superbad.

This Is England – dir. Shane Meadows – UK

If I had one word of advice for filmmakers working today, I’d say, “lay off the cheap sentimental bullshit.” And I’d say it just like that. This Is England (what a stupid title) is director Meadows’ recounting of his youth during the early stages of the Thatcher regime, and, yet, hindsight for him is less 20/20, more a lousy sermon. I always want to go back to a quote from Bernardo Bertolucci where he criticized the youth of today for not rebelling against the forces that be like his generation did in the 60s (his own auto-fellatio can be seen in The Dreamers). Let’s face it, budding filmmakers, cinema hasn’t changed anything in this world in a long time. And it ain’t going to anytime soon. Therefore, you don’t need to be vomiting up lessons and messages to your potential audience (unless that lesson happens to be that lessons don’t do a damn thing… subversive, eh?). This Is England isn’t a complete waste and probably isn’t even one of the great offenders of 2007, but for garnering an impeccable 86/100 rating on Metacritic (a slightly better version of Rotten Tomatoes), I could have used my history lesson away from the pulpit.

Gone Baby Gone – dir. Ben Affleck – USA

I guess what confuses me most is whether critics actually liked this one or were just surprised that Ben Affleck happens to be a better director than he is an actor, because Gone Baby Gone isn’t phenomenal by any stretch. One of its main detractors, as I discussed in my review for it, was that Affleck chose to cast two primary cast members from the television show The Wire (Amy Ryan and Michael K. Williams), which may very well be the finest thing to grace television screens… ever. Affleck didn’t need the comparisons; in fact, I can hardly muster up any interest in any films crime-related any more after my eyes have officially been opened by the uncompromising brilliance of The Wire. Gone Baby Gone suffers from the Pumpkin syndrome: a film that ends with a bang, almost forgiving the missteps taken throughout the rest of its running time. Almost.

The Simpsons Movie – dir. David Silverman – USA

I haven’t watched anything from the latest seasons of The Simpsons, but general consensus is that, without most of their original writers, the show blows. Like Seinfeld though, when The Simpsons officially signs off the air, it will always be remembered for its high points instead of its low ones. Therefore, it won’t be remembered for The Simpsons Movie, an eighty-seven-minute expansion of what would have been a mediocre episode (despite the return of many of the series’ creators) in the first place. About a third of The Simpsons Movie is hysterical, but you’d really have to rack my brain to recall any of those moments (and I just saw it two weeks ago). Instead we’re left with a missed opportunity, the first (and supposedly last) foray of America’s favorite animated family onto the big screen.

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead – dir. Sidney Lumet – USA

In my review of Sidney Lumet’s latest, I said something along the lines of “if Lumet chose to retire now, he’d retire on the high note he’d failed to achieve in the past twenty years of his career.” What I said was true; Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is probably better than all of the films he’s made since the 90s put together. However, you have to consider that adding Critical Care, Gloria and Find Me Guilty together would result in something slightly better than the last Jennifer Lopez movie. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is one of those films that’s just “fine.” It’s well-acted by PSH, Marisa Tomei, and even Ethan Hawke (I think Albert Finney is kinda hammy here), and I love the kaleidoscopic structure of Lumet’s modern tragedy. And, yet, I still can’t muster up any real excitement for the film. Maybe it’s my loss here, but its universal praise strikes me the same way Gone Baby Gone’s does. Here’s a film no one expected to be good, it ended up being pretty decent, and the praise flew in. See Match Point for another example of a once-great filmmaker who’d been stuck making mediocre films for years, only to come back with something comparatively better with accolades to follow.

Enough!

I'm sure I'm not the only one, but, may I ask, is anyone else irritated by the overwhelming pairing of hot chick and dorky guy? It didn't phase me much with Knocked Up, but apparently NBC's entire fall line up is comprised of this contrived situation... and it's not just there. I could rail off a list of shitty examples of this, including the lighter-and-more-forgettable-than-air French comedy The Valet, an entire reality program where dorky guys are paired with beauty queens, a comedy where the hot chick is replaced by a hot guy like Adam & Steve, and even in the real world (or Hollywood, which really doesn't count) there's people like Christina Aguilera and her dweeby Heeb husband. I guess this sort of pairing has been going on for a long time, but I think we should all be scared: the dorks are officially ruling the world.