Or, "Try Harder Next Time You Talented So & Sos!"
Our Worst of the Year feature "Cinematic Shame" has shrunk in size. This is not because movies are better. This is because your host (Nathaniel R) has somehow become less jaded and more appreciative of the cinema over the years. In fact, he often can be seen crinkling his brow when faced with reminders that a lot of people who write about the movies don't like very many of them. Even more casually evident: lots of people who write about awards season don't like awards season. (A solemn promise to the disgruntled: there are plenty of other topics worth writing about - pitch those to your editor and TRUST that this topic will be amply covered, and all over the place, in your absence!)
But let's not distract ourselves.
In the lists that follow as we gently spank famous people on their virtual bottoms we remember that they can turn right around the following year and wow us, thereby humbling us for doubting them. History is full of examples. We all have our "off" years or... um...decades.
Uncomfortable segueway to Tim Burton... [*cough*]
But look how cute this Big Eyes sketch he drew is! [Tomato stained lists are after the jump]
W Magazine published that sketch to coincide with his latest movie. I can't exaggerate and place Big Eyes under a "worst of the year" (save for perhaps its third act slapstick courtroom comedy which is...yikes!) but I really wanted it to be an Ed Wood style comeback. At the very least it was a nice change to see a Burton movie without Depp & Bonham Carter in it. Helena and Tim have officiallly split up. Which is probably very sad for them after 13 plus years together but sometimes it's better to just rip the bandage off, Tim. Dump Depp while you're at it, too, Tim. Start seeing new people!
RECURRENT PET PEEVES O' THE YEAR
Oscar Inequalities. You've heard me bitch about the Makeup & Hairstyling shortlist only being allowed 3 nominees while other categories that are less important get 5 but you may have missed this one: Did you know that documentaries have to play in both New York and Los Angeles in a regular theatrical engagement to qualify for a nomination but regular movies only have to play one week in L.A.?
Indulgent Running Times. It's not just the final films in trilogies which become the final two films in quadrologies that are having this problem. Frankly, it's easy to understand the padded running time bloat on the franchises in that there are billion more dollars to make from your complacent gullible audience who don't tend to give up on franchises once they're hooked. But why do one-shot movies allow the bloat? Longer running times mean less shows per day and often a longer running time also means your film is less taut and thus less exciting and more tiresome which doesn't bode well for word of mouth which actually sells tickets. For every Ida (82 minutes) and Obvious Child (84 minutes), smart movies that would eat no fat, the bulk of movies will eat no lean. Take the case of Whiplash. That's a good movie overall with killer editing (good job Tom Cross) which makes it feel a lot tighter than it is since it's got about 90 minutes of material but a 107 minute running time. Maleficent is another example. True, it flies in at only 97 minutes but, like its parent movie Sleeping Beauty, this petulant child has only 75 minutes of material. So...
"Do we have enough scenes where Malificent lurks in a corner watching Aurora? Maybe add another dozen." - Malificent script notes
— Michael Cusumano (@SeriousFilm) December 9, 2014
Also way too long for what the movie actually offers: where to even start? Lots of 'em and everything from arthouse minimalism (Abuse of Weakness, 105 min.), auteurist provocation (Nymphomaniac, 240 min of which about 70 are intriguing) to auteurist comedies (Inherent Vice, 148 min.) to biopics (Mr Turner, 150 min.) to otherwise sharp and punchy greats (Force Majeure, 118 min.) to silly comedies (22 Jump Street, 111 min.)
DISCLAIMER: This film bitch is not relentlessly impatient and does not always think "too long!". Two examples: Boyhood deserves all of its 165 minutes and Gone Girl's 149 also feel relatively earned since there are so many rug-pullings, rethinks, and clear chapters. There are even rare beasts that really do need to be longer: Snowpiercer (126) and Into the Woods (124) both feel rushed and truncated and though I didn't see this mash-up iteration it's hard to imagine that The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them (123) would be even half as resonant as watching The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him (89) & The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her (100) back-to-back as I was able to last year in Toronto.
FIVE LEAST FAVORITE MOVIES I SAW THIS YEAR
(Alpha Order). Note: I skip *most* of the things that I think will be terrible because I am self-employed. For example: I did not subject myself to The Amazing Spider-Man 2 because the last one was so terrible and even more terrible was the months afterwards in which people tried to pretend it was good. Couldn't get caught in that web (sorry) again.
I Am Happiness On Earth
Mexican director Julián Hernández's latest is an explicit drama about a gay filmmaker and his relationship to his latest sexual conquest(s) while he makes a movie. Think Almodóvar's Law of Desire for basic plot framework but then subtract the personality of the characters, the quirky humor, the flamboyant style, and nearly all of the dramatic tension. The affair(s) is intercut with a tedious plot free bisexual threesome. Look, I like looking at beautiful naked bodies as much as anyone but I need something more, too. I've tried with this filmmaker before (Broken Sky and Raging Sun Raging Sky) and I'm aware that like most unapologetically inaccessible and very sober experimental filmmakers, Hernández has his ardent fans. Three strikes and you're out, though, so I'll just sadly admit that he's not for me. "Sadly," because the cinema needs less timid queer voices so I wish I could respond.
Jersey Boys
Is there a top ten list out there with this Clint Eastwood film on it or did American Sniper save all the Eastwood apologists from having to go there? This musical biopic is too dull to be a catastrophe but in a way it has great value as a crystalline portrait of miscasting: Clint lifts the Broadway cast who, like Rent in its day, are now far too old for their roles (seeing 30 and 40somethings playing teenagers is only fun when its a comedy like Grease) and relative inexperience on camera can be a disaster when paired with one take / that'll do lightning fast filming method. But the greatest miscasting is in the director's chair. Eastwood's dour nearly black and white sensibility, unaltered for this colorful jukebox musical, proves an awful fit. (Review)
The Judge
Oy! There are so many things wrong it's hard to catalogue them all so we'll just name a few: rusty or ill-advised performances from a whole bevvy of famous faces who should know better; The cheap TV movie look; the weird shot choices and editing (oh, that person is also in the room? You might have gone with some establishing shots); The unwieldy plot as greedy receptacle of clichés, all of 'em!; Fake stormy weather to illustrate figurative stormy weather (no really); Family drama scenes so hoary you need a vacuum cleaner to clear the cobwebs; and one of the most offensive "jokes" you'll ever see in a movie when a little girl mimics the come-hither look of an 19 year old earlier in the film to her father, sucking on her hair. Get it? Incest! HAHA. Hilarious!
This, dear reader, is the worst movie I saw all year. Should it win a Supporting Actor nomination this year, my condolences to all my fellow Oscar completists.
What else? Let's wrap this up: I'll already said what I had to say about Woody Allen's Magic in the Moonlight here and War Story, a vague listless drama about Catherine Keener as a photojournalist, here. Just missing this list is That Awkward Moment. It's not raucuously funny in the way it's bawdy "cheeto dick" and "peeing horizontal" jokes intend and it's hard to buy into its predictable romantic arcs but it's goofy stupidity is just enough to save it. At least it doesn't take itself seriously.
FIVE PERFORMANCES THAT... WELL... UH...
All of these actors have been marvelous in other things and even within some moments from these star turns. But what was going on here? Perhaps you can shed some light in the comments. This list is dedicated to Brie Larson in The Gambler, not because she belongs here but because her part was utterly superfluous and impossible to emotionally justify and could have been played by a cardboard cutout of a pretty college student. So why waste the time of one of the best actresses of her generation? Here's hoping the paycheck was good.
Emma Stone in Magic in the Moonlight
Her charm deserts her in the role where she's arguably needed it most. It's confusing that an actress this comically gifted (see Easy A for A grade work) wouldn't be able to wring laughs - especially with the kind of gestural comedy she's going for in this "clairvoyant" role.
Christoph Waltz in Big Eyes
Retract his last Oscar bad with an unfailingly over-the-top take on a con artist salesman who gets lucky when he marries the gifted Margaret Keane. In act one when you're supposed to fall under his spell, he plays up the oily 'you shouldn't trust him!' charm, in act two when things are going sour for the couple, he goes more one note when Adams tries to deepen in, and in act three he's just comic grandstanding because what else is there left for him to do in this incredibly weird true story.
Johnny Depp in Into the Woods
When was the last time Depp gave a world class performance that transcended his inner and outer weirdo? It has to be Pirates of the Caribbean, right, 11 long years ago. (Sigh). Since then, rapidly diminishing returns. He's Into the Woods largest character misstep and they even let him ruin the otherwise wonderful costuming by Colleen Atwood with this Tex Avery zoot suit suggestion
Shailene Woodley in The Fault in Our Stars
Nitpicking! She's quite good in the important moments but it's the baseline that's a problem. Surely someone involved in the production could have reminded her that her character has a terminal illness and hauls around her oxygen tank everywhere she goes so she might have played some lines short of breath or more raggedly exhausted than others?
Neil Patrick Harris in Gone Girl
It's not quite Tucci level moustache-twirling i'm-a-sicko Lovely Bones overkill but it's close.
And a few final 'lumps of coal' and then we only celebrate with happy thoughts for the rest of the Year in Review
Petition to change Christmas 'Lump of Coal' tradition to black gelatinous protein food product. #MerryDystopia pic.twitter.com/zKwhgKdrPt
— Nathaniel Rogers (@nathanielr) December 24, 2014
And I give one of those disgusting protein meals to...
The Weinsteins & Co - for mistreating The Immigrant with no Oscar campaign and cutting off Snowpiercer's box office for a weird VOD decision when it totally could have built steam and been billed as more of an action movie.
Bryan Singer & Co - for continuing to ignore the fact that the X-Men franchise became as popular as they are in comic form because of their widescreen fantastic ensemble or characters and unmistakable diversity in their ranks (ethnic, geographic, religion, you name it) and yet the movies stubbornly refuse to look away from only four white mostly male characters: Wolverine/Magneto/Professor X/Mystique. Okay Mystique is blue. Whatever. None of those characters, not coincidentally, are half as crucial to the classic arc in the comic books that X-Men Days of Future Past is based on.
Tiny Distributors - for always believing that November and December are great options for them. Everything gets buried during the holidays if it's not star driven, for the masses, or has a suitable sized promotional Oscar budget. Why on earth did the following films wait as long as they did to open: Zero Motivation (waited several months after Tribeca buzz), Pioneer (waited well over a year after its festival debut), Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks, Song of the Sea, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, The Babadook (waiting til after Halloween to premiere? Inexplicable), etcetera
Oscar Pundits, Professional and Amateur Alike - for calling things locks before anybody has seen them. I'm actually feeling bad for Angelina Jolie (the woman who has everything) as a result. And for continual "this changes everything!" hysterics no matter how little the new screening or press release changes anything.
AND THAT'S ENOUGH VENTING. From me. How about you? Pass out a few lumps of coal before and concentrate on the positive leading up to the whole new year.