You know, the truth is, I actually like romantic comedies. I am man enough to admit that. We all would love to live in a world of love and friendship and gentle laughter. Why not? You think I want it to be all The Hurt Locker all the time? No way! That movie was great, but it was basically a two hour long prescription for Xanax. The problem with romantic comedies, though, is that they are tied with action movie as the genre that Hollywood feels most comfortable phoning in. And when a romantic comedy is lazy and bad, it rewrites the definition of lazy and bad. And when you look up the definition of lazy and bad on your Franklin Portable Electronic Dictionary, there is a streaming video of Serendipity.
Continue reading The Hunt For The Worst Movie Of All Time: Serendipity...
Posted by Gabe at 5:50 PM in
Tags: Bridget Moynahan | Eugene Levy | Jeremy Piven | John Cusack | Kate Beckinsale | Molly Shannon | Serendipity
latest by zombiebaby
This week's nominee, Domino, is loosely based on the life of an actual human being named Domino Harvey (sure, very real name, yes), who was the daughter of an Oscar-nominated actor named Laurence Harvey. Domino shunned (SHUNNED!) her wealthy Hollywood background to become a bounty hunter in South Central, Los Angeles. Fair enough. That is a perfectly reasonable idea for a movie, I guess. They've certainly made movies about worse subjects. Although they have rarely made worse movies. Tragically, she died before the movie was released of a methamphetamine overdose. The only silver lining to her death is that she never had to actually see this thing. Unless they have movie theaters in heaven, but we can't know that for sure, and one would hope that the angel manager would make better decisions about what to screen. "Where am I, a movie theater in hell?" That is what an angel would ask if they showed this movie in heaven. What I'm trying to say is: YIKES.
Continue reading The Hunt For The Worst Movie Of All Time: Domino...
Posted by Gabe at 5:45 PM in
Tags: Brian Austin Green | Christopher Walken | Domino | Ian Ziering | Keira Knightly | Lucy Liu | M'onique | Mickey Rourke
latest by Bethany
This week's movie, City of Angels is an American remake of Wings of Desire, a German movie by director Wim Wenders. Wings of Desire is great. City of Angels is not. It's weird how you can take a subtle, black and white art film from Europe that unobtrusively examines the meaning of life and the value of love, put Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan in it, make it a cheesy "chick flick", give it a Goo Goo Dolls soundtrack, and for some reason it doesn't hold up. All the pieces were there, you know? Weird. A rare miss, Hollywood Remakes Department.
Admittedly, though, it has been a really long time since I actually saw Wings of Desire, and I am almost positive that some of the things that are hilarious in City of Angels come directly from the original. But for the sake of this argument, I am treating City of Angels as if it is an entirely original production, so keep your comparative cinema notes for your graduate seminar on the semiotics of post-Weimar neorealism, or whatever.
Besides, it really doesn't matter. This movie sucks so badly, there is not much Wings of Desire could do to defend it.
Continue reading The Hunt For The Worst Movie Of All Time: City Of Angels...
Posted by Gabe at 5:45 PM in
Tags: City Of Angels | Goo Goo Dolls | Meg Ryan | Nicolas Cage | Wim Wenders
latest by aannnnaa
I'm probably not the original intended audience for The Notebook. I know that. But who is the intended audience for The Notebook? Is it jerks? It must be jerks. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with liking The Notebook, but there's kind of something wrong with liking The Notebook, you know? I mean, this movie is actual garbage. It doesn't pluck at your heartstrings so much as it barfs on your diarrhea-strings. It would be one thing if The Notebook was a made-for-Lifetime movie, which it basically is, I guess, but also it is not. It is a movie that was in movie theaters, and that was an actual cultural event at a certain point in our collective history. Whoops on us! In the future, when the planet is covered in water, and we are sitting on our hover-porches with our future grandkids, we are going to have to explain a few things: our selfish abuse of the environment, Ke$ha, and why anyone ever thought The Notebook was even remotely watchable, much less actually romantic. Three EQUALLY DIFFICULT subjects.
Continue reading The Hunt For The Worst Movie Of All Time: The Notebook...
Posted by Gabe at 5:45 PM in
Tags: Gena Rowlands | James Garner | Kevin Connolly | Nicholas Sparks | Nick Cassavetes | Rachel McAdams | Ryan Gosling | The Notebook
latest by JessieMetropolis
As Christopher Wallace said, mo years, mo problems. I'm almost positive that is how it goes. It is now 2010, but here we stand, forever at the precipice of an enormous crossroads. With every step we take forward in the bad movie canon, we slide three steps backwards, or something. My point is that it feels like we are standing still, but we are not standing still. Maybe. It's entirely possible that we are standing still, now that I think about it. But we must at least pretend that there is forward momentum, or we will die. I think. I'm not really sure how life or death works. Jeez, I need a VACATION just to get over my VACATION.
This week's nominee in the Hunt for the Worst Movie of All Time is an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie called The 6th Day, and this year marks its 10th Anniversary. Congratulations, The 6th Day, you have been awful for a very long time!
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Posted by Gabe at 5:45 PM in
Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger | Michael Rappaport | The 6th Day
latest by Cooperman
The novel Blindness, by Jose Saramago, was published in Portuguese in 1995 and translated into English in 1997. Saramago was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature one year later, in 1998, in no small part due to the success (and the quality) of Blindness. The book is really great, and you should read it. It's a combination of William Golding's Lord of the Flies, Albert Camus's The Plague, and Cormac McCarthy's The Road. All three of those are great books, it's weird that no one ever talks about how good they are! On that note: you know how people always say that the book is better than the movie? That is almost always the case, but it is definitely the case with dystopian existentialist parables. And it is super true of this dystopian existentialist parable!
"I wish I was blind" is what I kept thinking during this movie! No it's not. Please, Lord in Heaven, do not make me blind because of my cheap throwaway joke. I love seeing, it's my total favorite. But also, Lord in Heaven, this movie!
Continue reading The Hunt For The Worst Movie Of All Time: Blindness...
Posted by Gabe at 5:45 PM in
Tags: Blindness | Danny Glover | Gael Garcia Bernal | Jose Saramago | Julianne Moore | Mark Ruffalo
latest by inko8
I know that I have said this before, but I will say it again now, and probably again another time in the future, and probably again after that, all the way until the year 2012, but considering how much time, money, and human effort it takes to make movies, sometimes I am just baffled (BAFFLED!) that these things exist. Like, dozens of people and millions of dollars were involved in the creation of this week's entry, Hope Floats, and at no point (apparently) did anyone stop to say "Hey, maybe we should NOT do this." How is that possible? The documentary Idiocracy is about events that do not take place for many many years. I feel like Kevin Kline in his hit movie Dave in the scene where he sits in a White House conference room and solves all of America's problems by cutting out the bullshit. "You've got to be kidding me, Hollywood." That is something I would say if I was the Dave of Hollywood.
Until then, here is what I have to say about Hope Floats:
Continue reading The Hunt For The Worst Movie Of All Time: Hope Floats...
Posted by Gabe at 5:45 PM in
Tags: Forest Whitaker | Gena Rowlands | Harry Connick Jr. | Hope Floats | Sandra Bullock
latest by Darrenms
Nothing ends. The cycle continues. And the circle is unbroken. So here we stand, once more at the precipice of an enormous crossroads, looking down the ash-covered highway, our hands gripping tightly to the cold push-bar of our shopping cart, wondering if there even is a coast. What round is this anyway? It is no longer possible to tell. The numbers stretch out like the blood-stained path of history. We simply walk down it, because there is nothing else to do. "Do we carry the fire?" the boy asks. "Shut up," the man says. "Just shut up."
Last time I was chastised for complaining about this self-imposed, Saw-like "game" (as if I could even cut my own foot off if I wanted to. What good would that do? Now I have to watch Hope Floats with one foot? No thanks). Well, chastise THIS! Don't you think I'd rather be out there watching Fantastic Mr. Fox all day long? I love joy and wonder just as much as the next 57-year-old adult man. But here I am, curled up in the corner, making New Rules about how many Nicolas Cage movies can be allowed into the Hunt at any given time, for safety reasons (I don't know what's wrong, doctor, my eyes are just all, like, poked out or something, as if someone jabbed a knife into them a bunch of times).
In any case, the new round of nominees is after the jump.
Continue reading The Hunt For The Worst Movie Of All Time: You Will Miss Me When I Burn...
Posted by Gabe at 5:45 PM in
latest by caringiscool
