The Hunt For The Worst Movie Of All Time: In The Land Of The Women
After watching Death Sentence, a terrible movie starring Kevin Bacon as a father in search of vigilante justice directed by Saw's James Wan, Gabe embarked on The Hunt For The Worst Movie of All Time. This is his sad journey.
If you are a sassy and sarcastic young man in an American sitcom who represents the sitcom writer's desire that a nerdy Jewish teenager can somehow be the desirable romantic hero in this world, then eventually you will get a movie of your own. For a few months, people will talk about how you are making the leap from television to films, except that for the most part you aren't making the leap from television to films. You are getting one film, and then it will either be back to television, or maybe back to the pool at your mansion. But certainly not back to being in movies all the time. This fall, Gossip Girl's own Penn Badgley got his movie, a remake of cult horror classic, The Stepfather. Videogum's Topher Grace, of course, starred in 2004's In Good Company. And in 2007, The O.C.'s Adam Brody starred in this week's Hunt nominee, In the Land of the Women.
Let's just say, there might be a reason that these guys are only getting one movie!
In the Land of the Women opens in a diner, where Adam Brody is getting dumped by his famous actress girlfriend. It's basically like the beginning of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, except with a tiny bit less penis. Some, but less. Adam Brody goes home, or to his mom's house? Either he lives with his mom, or after the break-up he goes straight to his mom. Either way it is a little strange. In any event, she tells him that she is worried about his grandmother, who is living all alone in her house in Michigan, and that she is probably going to go out and visit her soon. But Adam Brody decides that he should go to Michigan, because it is just what he needs to get over the break-up and to get out of LA for awhile and do some of the writing he's REALLY been wanting to do whenever he gets free-time from his job writing scripts for soft core pornography. Oh boy, here we go.
So, Adam Brody goes to Michigan. Incidentally, this is the last time we will ever see or hear from his mom for the rest of the movie. I guess she was not that worried about the grandmother. Anyway, in Michigan, Adam Brody's grandmother lives across the street from Meg Ryan's family. On the same day that he arrives, Meg Ryan has found a lump on her breast, and makes an appointment to get a mamogram. But she doesn't know how to tell her daughter, Kristen Stewart. Because Kristen Stewart is a teenager, and you know how they can be. Meg Ryan does tell her, though, and Kristen Stewart goes upstairs and...runs her hands under the sink? Anyway, that night, Adam Brody takes out the garbage and it spills all over the street. Kristen Stewart sees him from her perch on the roof (classic teenager) where she is secretly smoking cigarettes (double classic teenager). She laughs, and he looks up, and she hides. Then Meg Ryan walks up with her dog, and welcomes him to the neighborhood and OH MY GOD, ARE THEY KIND OF FLIRTING WITH EACH OTHER?
OK, so, 15 minutes into this movie, and we are already getting MAJOR red flags.
Meg Ryan goes inside, and just then a bunch of cars full of teenagers pull up. Now Adam Brody meets Kristen Stewart for the first time, and promises not to tell Meg Ryan about her smoking if she will give him a cigarette. WORST LOVE TRIANGLE EVER. The next morning, Meg Ryan comes over with a plate of Fig Newtons. You know how middle-aged mothers in the midst of a breast cancer scare are always going extra out of their way to welcome 20-something erotica writers to the neighborhood. They decide to go for a walk. OF COURSE THEY DO. At the end of the walk, after they've become soulmates, Adam Brody asks if they can do it again sometime. OF COURSE HE DOES. When she gets home, Meg Ryan tells Kristen Stewart to ask Adam Brody out on a date. WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!
Basically, Adam Brody kind of tells Meg Ryan that he loves her, or something? I know that he definitely kisses her in the rain. That is for sure, and that is for terrible.
But then Kristen Stewart also likes him. And then Meg Ryan gets jealous and angry and tells Adam Brody to stay away from her daughter, and also to stay away from her. Meanwhile, she is diagnosed with cancer. Then she shaves her head.
Adam Brody's ex-girlfriend calls him and says that she misses him. DID ADAM BRODY WRITE THIS FUCKING MOVIE HIMSELF? I don't even understand why anyone likes him. He's mostly a jerk to everyone and very very full of himself. You can all do better, ladies, even you, plastic duck-faced Meg Ryan with breast cancer. When Meg Ryan is in the hospital, Adam Brody writes her a love letter, because she never got a love letter before. It's all about how he hopes she can go back to the Met some day, because at the grocery store she told him that she loved going to the Met one time. He also tells her to take her daughter, which is supposed to be thoughtful or something but is actually gross, because he basically fucked both of them. Basically. Meanwhile, Kristen Stewart pulls a VERY dangerous u-turn in the middle of the street and drives to the mall, which is closed, but she gets in anyway, and she goes to find the love that has always been staring her right in the face she just never realized it. That love is closing up at the Orange Julius. Finally, Adam Brody's grandmother dies, and he goes back to Los Angeles, and as soon as he gets back, he goes to the cafe from the beginning, and the hot waitress (Ginnifer Goodwin) immediately falls in love with him. Oh phew! I was worried that not everyone in the whole world would be in love with him for two seconds.
It would be one thing if this movie was just insufferable, which it is, but it's insulting how little sense any of it makes. Like, nothing is ever resolved, or explained, or even examined. And it's not because this is such a good depiction of life's inherent sloppiness and the lack of meaningful resolution in the real world. That's not the problem here. If this was that kind of movie, then it wouldn't have a scene like this:
You know how it is, when you are remembering too hard and then you RUN FACE FIRST INTO A TREE on someone's FRONT LAWN. Ugh. At one point, Meg Ryan tells Adam Brody about how her husband is having an affair. The end. Like, the husband is never confronted, he never apologizes, there are no real consequences, we're never told whether or not he is going to keep having an affair. You would think they'd have time to resolve this storyline since every single scene is an IMPORTANT AND SERIOUS conversation.
Another great part is when Meg Ryan finds out that she has breast cancer, and her and her husband split up to tell their two daughters the news separately, which is already awful parenting, but then we never even see the dad talking to Kristen Stewart about it, and we never see Kristen Stewart react to the news at all. It's just Meg Ryan talking to her youngest daughter over ice cream, and then cut to the next day, Kristen Stewart making her Kristen Stewart face.
Boy, she is really taking her mom's breast cancer, which her mom didn't even have the heart to tell her about in person, in stride! You have to assume there was a scene of Kristen Stewart hearing the news, though, right? Which is about the point in the movie when you really start to get the sense that half of In the Land of the Women was probably cut due to being awful. They only saved the best parts for us. Thanks!
It's one thing to pack your movie full of cliches (frustrated artist, kissing in the rain, mother-daughter love triangle [JK], acerbic grandma who teaches Adam Brody about family) but they don't even do the cliched work of establishing their cliches!
Of course, the movie isn't JUST cliches. It is also unnecessary quirky moments shoe-horned in to try and give the movie the kind of lovable character that it completely lacks.
There is a clown taking balloons out of the trunk of his car for no reason! Who doesn't love a raccoon trying to get in a window? HUH?
Although, in retrospect, I guess I do understand why every single woman in the world is completely in love with Adam Brody despite the fact that he has total marble-mouth and is so smug and mean to everyone, including his aging grandmother, a confused teenage girl, and a woman recently diagnosed with cancer. It's because he's such a good writer!
What an awful movie. In the land of the top 5 worst movies, easily.
Next week: Closer. As always, please leave your suggestions in the comments or in an email. And if you haven't done so already, please consult the Official Rules.
Posted by Gabe at 5:42 PM in The Hunt For The Worst Movie Of All Time
Tags: Adam Brody | In The Land Of The Women | Kristen Stewart | Meg Ryan
i just figured out that adam brody is not the brody from the hills. i consider the fact that i am so unconnected to either of the aforementioned brody's a major coup.
Score = 9
Awful is a thing that this movie is.
Score = 4
I watched 20 minutes of this, Meg Ryan's lips nauseated me so much that I could no longer control my gall bladder and was sick on myself with liver-juice.
Braveheart, Gabe. Please. For my pasty ginger nation.
Score = 20
BRAVEHEART, YES. It's the Last Kiss of Scottish-themed movies, basically!
Score = 1
I was going to ask you what Braveheart has to do with The Last King of Scotland, but then I suddenly learned how to read.
Score = 14
Braveheart is a clear nominee for WMOAT. Let's make it happen!
Score = 0
Oh yes please. Braveheart should definitely be nominated. I know my entire generation seems to love it, but I am convinced that is just because it was the first rated R movie their dad let them watch.
Score = 0
I once had a huge celeb crush on Adam Brody (Or Seth Cohen, probably) So I was really happy that he was in a movie! But this movie made no sense... I even watched it twice!
Score = 6
I had a weird crush on Seth Cohen also, but I think it was really just my way of exercising some self-loathing for the fact that when I was myself a teenager, I found insufferably nerdy, smug, socially retarded boys flat-out irresistible.
Score = 3
This movie made me convinced that Adam Brody hates me, and wanted to stab my love for Seth Cohen in the eye. All I ever wanted was to love a fictional character on a teen drama, Adam Brody! Why do you hate love?
Score = 11
Just to show off, I am going to post the 15 word movie review I wrote when I first saw this movie on DVD back in the day: (with bonus totally dated Heroes reference!)
This movie was so awful I want the Haitian to erase my memories of it.
Score = 10
Referencing your avatar would have worked just as well.
Lacuna, inc. ftw.
Score = 9
Adam Brody's writing career in this movie gives me hope for all my dreams of having a fake career. 1) Writing porn scripts? Is a thing? All right! 2) Staring at a computer periodically and moaning about your high school novel you never explain and yet everyone thinks sounds interesting, on account of how your shitty high school experience must have been very different from everyone else's shitty one = success? 3) GINNIFER GOODWIN. I can do this too!
I'm kind of sorry I lobbied so long to get you to watch this, Gabe, but I know you'll bounce back eventually.
Score = 11
I finally registered just to nominate eXistenZ, which if it isn't the wmoat definitely has one of the worst titles of all time. And that gross fish gun. Icky.
Score = 0
That's a pretty great movie.
Score = 1
Man, this eXtistenZ hatred is out of control. That movie is awesome, and along with Running Scared, comprises fifty percent of my DVD collection.
Score = 4
Closer is an absolute masterpiece. Incredible script, every performance a career highlight. I'm totally stumped as to why anyone would consider it one of the WMOAT. I'm very curious to see Mr. Gabe's review.
Score = 0
Trust me, you can take the piss out of anything, regardless of quality.
"The whole movie is based on a friggin' sled! Add to the fact that a reporter spends the whole movie investigating (what, no kittens stuck in any trees that week?) the last word that no one was in the room to hear. Bullshit."
More on topic, I was called Adam Brody for the first semester of college. The O.C. years were a good time to a sarcastic Jew. Swimming in Meg Ryan quality poon.
Score = 25
"The reviewer conspicuously avoids the word 'I', and is presumably addressing Gabe or Mark Twain, when opening with the claim that 'you' can take the piss out of anything. The reason for this wording becomes clear in the actual review, which boils down to 'OMG it was about a sled LOL oh look kittens.' Ironically, the one-word conclusion seems to sum up the review more than the reviewed. In the reviewers defense however, the piece is longer than 140 characters, which is not likely a literary style the reviewer is familiar with."
Heh, I guess you're right. Btw this is not my opinion, it was dictated to me by my talking puppet, "Sarcastic Jerk".
Score = 0
Closer has a very stagey feel because it's an adaptation of a play maybe? I agree with you, though. I have a hard time seeing why anyone would consider that the worst movie of all time. Even my friend who hates Julia Roberts cites that as her one interesting role. That's objective proof of its goodness.
Score = 4
Personally, I didn't think Closer was that bad. We really need to use the WMOAT feature for good, like for finding the absolute Worst Move of All Time, not the White Peoples' Problems Movie That Is At Worst A Bit Melodramatic. I mean, c'mon, we haven't even done ENVY yet! ENVY is a horrible, HORRIBLE movie! Far and away the worst "comedy" I've ever seen. Totally unfunny shitfest (it's about po-, okay you get it).
Score = 13
Closer was bad. But Envy was much worse. I second your nom for Envy.
Score = 2
Your commitment to nominating ENVY doesn't cease to amaze.
Score = 0
ENVY was awful awful but the HeartBreak Kid (2007) was rage inducingly bad.
Score = 1
Are you trying to seduce me Mrs. Meg Ryan
Score = 6
I nominate Powder Blue. I love Forest Whitaker, and Jessica Biel is attractive and a stripper, to which I am also partial, but so bad.
Score = 3
Unfortunately, that was a straight-to-DVD release and is therefore exempt.
Score = 4
I want to put Adam Brody's pants in my pants. (That is how sex works, right?)
Score = 36
I'm saying this on behalf of a lot of monsters. Come to chat, we all love you (and everyone knows you put your hand in each others pockets to have intercourse).
Score = 2
secret chat was made secret again. i experienced some premature ejection. it was fun while it lasted.
Score = 0
that chat program disagrees with some people's computers. it happens to a lot of people. it's still there, silly face.
Score = 2
Awww! Do people hang out in there all the time, or mostly during the workday? I can sneak on here during work hours now and then, but I cannot stay and chat during work hours because other people have a clear view of my computer. We all respect each other's need to goof off in between 20 minute bursts of work, but I cannot have 20 minute bursts of Gumchat (most days).
I am super intrigued, though! I will make an effort to show up, even if I am tardy to the party.
Score = 1
This was a shit movie. Also, so many random things happen:
Adam Brody's never having been punched in the face is a symbol for how atypical and incomplete his life's been?
Kristen Stewart and her mother, Meg Ryan, don't get along because of a game of doctor KS played in like 2nd grade? So that's why she's indifferent to her mom's cancer?
Two dudes meet in a mall bathroom? And then they're tag team fighters at a party?
And what was up with that younger sister?
Bad bad movie. But the grandmother was amusing.
Score = 6
He was really edited into that tree hard.
Score = 13
I love how he bounces like ten feet after hitting it. Even fucking cartoon physics are more realistic than that.
Score = 4
I need a gif of him running into the tree for my profile. It would work just as well. Hey Adam, run much(LOL)?? And what was up with that song? Probably the best song for running.
Score = 4
So it's like Twilight, except instead of vampires and werewolves trying to jump some girls bones, it's a MIALF (A is for allegedly) and her daughter.
Score = 3
It's partially Adam Brody's doing that I even had a girlfriend in high-school. But then she spent the majority of our relationship projecting him onto me, and trying to mold me into Seth Cohen. It was terrifying.
So there's still unfinished business between Mr. Brody and I. I doubt I could handle this film without spraying blood all over the walls.
Score = 7
This review reminded me of the Worst Movie: Rush Hour 3. I was sick and it was on HBO, and then I couldn't look away, so leave me alone. No matter what you think of Brett Ratner, Jackie Chan, Chris Tucker, Roman Polanski, or the Rush Hour saga, this thing has to be seen to be believed. Things just happen and then are never referenced again. There are at least TWO instances where in the streets of Paris, France (a very big city, I'm told) other characters from the film just walk up to Chris and Jackie and tell them what they need to know. Absolutely The Worst.
Score = 9
YEAH! I second that nomination, Rush Hour 3 is completely horrific.
Score = 1
I third it. I'd love to read Gabe's take on the taxi driver's embrace of murder, and the film's celebration of it. I believe there is dancing.
Score = 1
I am so happy that closer is being done next week; that movie is sooooo awful.
Explain to me what kind of a man would leave Natalie Portman and then put himself through the torture of having to look at Julia Roberts' face everyday.
Score = -7
For some reason I assumed this was going to happen:
or this:
But now I don't think I'll rent it.
Score = 19
the spirit is willing, but the flesh is spongy and bruised.
Score = 4
Ugh, I remember my ex making me watch this...one in a string of terrible movies she tried to make me watch over the course of 2 years.
I should have seen the signs from this!
Score = 2
I gave up trying to make sense of this movie and instead just enjoyed the clip where he runs into a tree. That was funny.
Score = 1
Ok. I like the movie I'm about to nominate, but am aware that it is truly, truly awful. After much deliberation, I nominate Music from Another Room.
Just watch the trailer... and you will understand.
Score = 4
sweet lord yes. YES.
Score = 0
Oh my god, so many favorite parts in that trailer. If I had to narrow it to one, it would be the narrator letting this gem fly "And life is what happens in between." Somebody get me some netflix asap.
Score = 0
idk becca...
that trailer had some hefty one liners; i seen you staring at me from across the room - i'm blind -well that explains it. OR i want to have dozens and dozens of children with you - lets hope they look like the mother.
plus jennifer tilly and the chick from the goonies are in it- i'd say this is an easy case dismissed
Score = 0
Jesus Christ
Score = 1
There once was a teddy bear named...Pandy.
Pandy had thought he was in the perfect relationship.Then one day, the child he belonged to tossed him out into the street. He had been replaced.
(A Short Story) By: Colin Farrell
Score = 6
I have not seen this movie, but I assume when the raccoon tries to get in he freaks out and grabs a baseball bat or rowboat oar and beats it dead while screaming. Because raccoons in daylight have rabies and want to kill you. Science fact.
Score = 6
So he was running to Huey Lewis and the News ironically right?
Score = 4
In Good Company was a very good movie, and I'm NOT just saying that because I'm trying to stay in this Topher Grace thing and I'm not sure how far to go.
I also believe I would have liked "Source Code," a movie in pre-production that was to star Topher Grace before he was replaced this week by Jake Gyllenhaal. And that's what's up with Topher Grace.
Score = 7
I also liked In Good Company, even though it was definitely uneven. I'm getting the sense that I'm the only one keeping up with What's Up with Topher Grace for the information. :/
Score = 2
I would like to nominate Norbit.
Score = 3
Also isn't this movie's title so stupid? Like is this movie going to make a statement about how women are and its going to let you know that by its title? huh? and if this really were the Land of Women (normal women) they probably wouldn't fall for Adam Brody no matter how many times he smirked and ran into their trees. more like In the Land of Bad Movie Titles.
Score = 4
"How on Earth did I land up IN THE LAND OF WOMEN??"
- Seth Brody
Score = 14
I loved Closer but know a hell of a lot of people who hated - didn’t think the characters were realistic or something. It will be good to hear it get shredded by Gabe. I enjoy reading the savagings of movies I have seen, even if they are ones I like.
In the land of women I think I watched for 10 minutes or something. Glad I stopped there.
Anyways LOVE GURU - please!
Score = 1
I gotta nominate Broken Arrow. It's fucking horrible.
Score = 0
Tempo (2003) starring melanie griffin and hugh dancy is the worst movie i've seen in my life. but i think it was one of those straight to video deals.
but Evening (2007) is really bad as well. there are like 45 main characters and no reason to care about any of them! and claire danes is an absolute failure at her job.
Score = 1
Maybe I don't know my "soft-core" pornography that well, but how much "writing" is really involved in it?
Score = 0
I once applied for a "copywriting" job with a porn company in Vegas. I thought I'd be writing scripts, but it turns out the job was for writing the copy on the box.
Really bummed I didn't get that job.
Score = -1
"Videogum's Topher Grace" HA!
Score = 10
Daredevil is also an excellent choice for the worst movie of all time.
Score = 1
what are the bottom five movies?
Score = 0
Elizabethtown, Death Sentence, Crash, August Rush, and this.
Score = 1
Dying Young
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz1N-GlT2sc
Score = 0
Can't we quit using that gif, pretty please? : ) I know we use it in a mocking way, but the terribleness of it bleeds through the mockery and into my eyes every time.
Score = 2
Which place is Dreamcatcher? Number 6?
Score = 0
I'm going to nominate The Island of Dr. Moreau, with Marlon Brando, Val Kilmer, and Fairuza Balk for WMoAT. It's the only movie I've ever walked out of, and I was like 16 years old. You have to recap it, Gabe, so I can finally find out how it ended.
Score = 6
This is for sure a candidate for TWMOAT. THE ANIMAL PEOPLE??
Score = 1
Running With Scissors is pretty god awful.
Score = 2
Can we do The Happening?? That movie was the 1st time I've ever asked for my money back...and they actually refunded me.
Score = 4
It at least has to be nominated for worst trailer of all time, since they reference the name 2 seconds before it appears on screen.
Score = 1
Remember that Kevin Smith movie Chasing Amy? No? It is terrible. I nominate it for The Hunt.
Score = -1
I don't know....what your problem is with Brody's character's...writing...
Score = 1
Closer next week? Oh the humanity!!
Note to self: rewatch it to gather evidence on why it's not a bad movie, let along the worst of all time.
Score = 1
ERASERHEAD
THE COOLER
THERE WILL BE BLOOD
anything by KEVIN SMITH
Score = -3
Didn't realise there was hate for There Will Be Blood out there.
Love Eraserhead too. And enjoyed all the Kevin Smith movies as a kid.
Guess I shouldn't ask you out to the movies.
Score = 2
Personally I find it more interesting to see Videogum rip into movies that some people actually enjoy rather than slam movies that we can all agree are universally awful. But perhaps that isn't really the point of this feature.
The movies that you like all suck, I guess :)
Score = 0
Wanna go to the movies?
Score = 1
Monkeybone featuring Brendan Fraiser and a stop-motion animated monkey (accurately voiced by John Turturro). It is so bad. So, so bad.
Score = 2
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
Score = 1
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
Score = 1
Gabe, please, it has to be The Reader, it hits every possible TWMOAT box. It's offensive to your sensibilities and offensive to your eyes (like a tripping and falling eyes first into mound of thumbtacks, which is quite an accomplishment given that there is so much frontal nudity in the movie, generally an esthetically pleasing phenomenon). You may as well just crown it now.
Score = 0
YOU NEED NEED NEED TO WATCH "BECAUSE I SAID SO" WITH MANDY MOORE AND DIANE KEATON. It is, without a doubt, THE ABSOLUTE WORST MOVIE OF ALL TIME. I say this as a film major, as a member of the target demographic for this movie, and as someone who paid to see it in a theater.
I also strongly agree with the movie's assertion that i will not be happy and/or complete, nor will my mother love me, until i fall in love and get married.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUE8gHEPJ_I
Score = 0