And The Worst Ten..,
Continuing the theme of absolute mediocrity in 2005, I don’t have a very big list of truly terrible movies this year. As much as I hate some of these movies, I don’t even feel terribly excited about denouncing them.
But I will…
April 19, 2024
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
So does this mean Son of the Mask is the bad movie you cryptically wrote about a couple months ago? I wouldn’t think so.
Even though Stay had a pretty weak and annoying story, at least it did have some interesting visuals.
What was so ‘quite bad’ about Oliver Twist? I thought it, Elizabethtown, and Wolf Creek were all more mediocre than bad.
The Worst List could go on for pages at a time this year. So many bad movies.
I found this line hilarious:
9. Rent – Never before has a film’s title so clearly suggested the format in which you should consider seeing it.
The “Rentites” will now stalk you.
Ok, we’ve waited long enough.
What’s the bad movie Dave?
I’m glad I didn’t see many on this list. The rise in ticket prices actually makes me a little more selective now.
I flipped on Son of the Mask last week on cable. Left it on for maybe a minute.
Almost killed myself.
Fortunately I didn’t see most of those movies.
My bottom five:
5. Domino
4. Stay
3. The Fog
2. White Noise
1. Bewitched
Can’t really disagree with any of those Worst films. From anyone here.
Didn’t see Stay or Bewitched, but Domino, The Fog and White Noise definitely all belong on worst of the year lists.
pretty good list Dave and concur with all except MOAG– it’s a BIG DISAPPOINTMENT, but surely it is not a worse movie than White Noise or Domino?
I’d swap in WN, Domino or Elizabethtown for MOAG.
At least MOAG looked pretty and didn;t have that mealy-mouthed slug Orlando B in it as a leading man!
The thing about this year was that it was very easy to tell what was crap for the most part. There was a Memoirs of a Geisha here and there, but mostly, if you saw something like Son of the Mask, you have no one to blame but yourself. So, I thankfully avoided most of the worst movies. If I had to say the worst one I saw, I’d say Appleseed. A movie that changed what it was about every five minutes, and didn’t make me give a damn about any of it. The bad early nineties direct-to-video synth score didn’t help either. Even with all that, though, it’s still not Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever bad or Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle bad.
The biggest disappointment of the year?
Elizabethtown.
Pretty bad year for CG animation (Robots, Madagascar). Chicken Little and Hoodwinked weren’t even close to Pixar quality either. But 2006 will be even more fun…we’ll have 10 CG animations!
Others on my worst list:
Robots
The Devil’s Rejects
Saw II
November
A Sound of Thunder
Supercross
Chumscrubber
Undead
It has been a year with quite a few really quite good movies but not many that jump out.
My bottom 5 would probably be
Elektra
The Ring Two
Oldboy
Hostage
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
But while we’re in a state of mourning for 2005, can we have a big giant funeral for foreign films? Only 12 grossed more than $1mil this year. And of those only five above $2mil, two above $5mil and only one managed to reach over $10mil (Kung Fu Hustle). How incredibly sad. Not the content, i’m sure there’s some absolute gems in there (I didn’t like KFH incidentally) but my god…
(thanks Nat over at Film Experience for those #s)
The Ring Two and Elektra are excellent choices.
How about Hide and Seek? No one should give that piece of shit a pass.
And Hostage may’ve had a shitty script, but an obviously talented director. And a good Desplat score.
Why the hate for Ring Two? I didn’t think it was great, but I definitely found it entertaining.
Camel, you are right. That’s where the year’s REAL slump has been.
The Ring certainly wasn’t the worst of the year. That’s going a little overboard. With the many excellent choices you have for a worst list?
The Ring Two was just so… blah. When judging a horror movie, if I can’t find one remotely scary moment then I can’t say I found it at all entertaining. I can barely even remember much about it, except for than bonkers deer sequence. I wasn’t much of a fan of the original American Ring (love the Japanese original, hate those sequels too) but the best part of that one was Samara yet they decided to get rid of her from the sequel? that was silly.
Hostage did indeed have a great Desplat score, and it looked fine and, ooh, the OPENING CREDITS were great, but my god… it was SO overdone. The action was needlessly gruesome at times, Ben Foster gives an embarassing performance (the worst of the year in my books. Then J.Alba in F4), it’s too long and it was just plain boring. Nothing particularly original in there. The original premise was good but never really developed, for me that is.
I can’t wait for this year’s crop of films though (it’s 2:52pm on Sunday here). Not only do we have new films by David Lynch but also Pedro Almodovar – my two favourite directors.
Oh, and JBM – i skipped Hide & Seek. I try not to seek out Dakota Fanning movies at the best of times, least of all with slumming Robert DeNiro by his side.
I really don’t understand why Oliver Twist has taken so much heat from the critics. I thought it was a wonderful take on the story with some really great visuals and a cast of characters that made it fun to watch. Another film that undeservedly took a drubbing this year was Yes — a high-class thinker of an art house film that by encouraging an intellectual examination it also disgusted the hoity toity critics.
Domino was brilliant, what is wrong with everyone?
Oldboy on a ten worst list?
Hostage was a fun, stylish action movie…nothing that re-invents the wheel or anything but a great guys movie with balls and panache…check out on dvd THE NEST, which is a terrificly done low budget action flick that Florent Siri (dir of Hostage) did a few years ago. I heard he might be doing Die Hard 4.
Oliver Twist is what I thought was impossible… a dead boring Roman Polanski movie.
Is it a bad omen that 2006 will start with an Uwe Boll film opening less than a week in?
I think the exact same thing happened with 2005, didn’t it? Alone In The Dark – starring Tara Reid as a brain doctor.
Oh, and cullen, yes – Oldboy on a worst list. It was so bad. It was just really boring for about 2 thirds but then it just kept getting worse and then the scene where he cuts his own tongue out and we realise he’s been having sex with his daughter just sank it faster than… well, something fast. Awful movie. Wasn’t even done with any visual flair either except for some nifty editing trick. Blah.
Well, that still took four weeks (January 28th was AitD’s release date). This is the first Friday of the New Year!
Oh by the way, nice MAJOR SPOILER of Oldboy! Good thing a friend of mine already ran in with a copy, shouting, “YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS!” soem time ago, or I’d be pissed. And YES, I will be an asshole about this. You know better.
I thought Oldboy was pretty damn good myself. The brutal one-take fight scene is probably the most impressive thing I’ve seen all year. Better than Kill Bill Vol. 1’s “Let’s over-edit it to make it look like Uma Thurman’s having a fight with 50 people, and if people complain that it makes the scene boring, we’ll throw up the homage defense, and since it’s ‘cool,’ hundreds of fanboys will jump in line to make fun of them.”
Polanski had to have made that movie for money.
lol, oops. Whatever. That movie has been out for nearly a year.
I’d love to see an American remake though (they are doing one) because there is no way they would allow someone like Nicolas Cage to have sex with his daughter.
Terence D just gave me my cue.
Rrrrrrrrrring! Rrrrrrrrring!
SPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!
(beeeeeep)