Cinematic Lumps of Coal: 15 Worst of '15
Tuesday, December 22, 2015 at 1:40PM They've been naughty. So we shan't be nice. Rather than choosing the 15 worst movies (we skip a lot of stuff that looks atrocious), here are 15 matters of annoyance within the movies of 2015, whether the movies were decent or terrible. Vague/light spoilers ahead.
15 Lumps of Coal From '15
Links go to past articles about the film or reviews if they exist
15 Grab Bag of Undelights
Afew I couldn't fit in below: Chris Hemsworth's wandering accent in In The Heart of The Sea often within the same scene. Is this First Mate Australian, British, or from the Bronx?; The way Mother Malkin's (Julianne Moore) red hair stays that way when she shifts into dragon form in The Seventh Son. That was cute with Madame Mim in The Sword in the Stone but in "realistic" cgi not so much; and, the perpetual agony of trailers that take you from the beginning to the end of a movie (Room and The Revenant are the latest victims) spoiling every story beat.
14 Longwindedness
In nearly great movies (Clouds of Sils Maria 124 min), good movies (Saint Laurent 150 min.), divisive movies (I'm still making up my mind about The Revenant okay? 156 min), and arthouse curiousities (Arabian Nights, Vol II 131 min., Love 135 min.) alike the tendency in contemporary cinema is to let the camera linger here and there and everywhere and also to include entire sections that add nothing particularly new to the plot or our understanding of character or theme if narrative isn't the movie's main thrust. Don't misunderstand: a good lingering camera can be among the greatest of things but if you're running over 90 minutes please justify it with new information. Shave 10 minutes (or a lot more in some cases) off any of these movies and they're instantly improved.
13 Hysterical Machismo
In The Hateful Eight we learn in an endless monologue that nothing is more debasing than homosexual acts. In The Revenant put-upon Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio suffering for his art again. Dude, make a comedy next for f***'s sake) endures all manner of brutality and injustice at the hands of Mother Nature and Man... and Judy. But the loudest angriest wailing from his chapped mouth happens in the moment when his enemy suggests that his son is less than manly. Oy!
Speaking of hysterical machismo... check various reactions to the film, like so...
“Note to movie pussies: #TheRevenant is not for you.” Peter Travers throws the gauntlet on Leo DiCaprio’s Western https://t.co/V3msPx4PYy
— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) December 22, 2015
CHARMING!
12 Remakes as Reboots
First there were remakes. Then came reboots which were remakes but only of origin stories of serialized characters. ("Who wouldn't want to start over rather than having new adventures?" he asked sarcastically.) The new trend is the reboot as non-literal remake which is slightly less annoying but not by much. In these new pictures -- step to the front of the line Terminator Genysis, Jurassic World and yes you Star Wars: The Force Awakens (though you're super cute so we forgive you) -- Hollywood is no longer pretending that past movies didn't exist. But they're retelling them anyway, sometimes with extremely little variation, and passing it off as new. Brand Names = Renewable Hollywood Energy Sources. As much as I loved The Force Awakens the plot is a shameless Star Wars remake. Let's hope further episodes actually tell new stories.
11 Paul Giamatti as Kryptonite for Musicians
It was bad enough the first time casting directors did this to us on the ill fated musical Rock of Ages. So they did it twice again this year in Straight Outta Compton and Love and Mercy? Casting directors and Paul Giamatti and Paul Giamatti's Management are on notice. Next time a movie calls for a weasel narcissist who spells big trouble for a famous musican -- MOVE ALONG. Once was enough. Three times is asking for the world's scorn.
10 Shaky Cam. Use Sparingly If At All
It's been used so much over the past 20 years that we're all but begging filmmakers to stop. Especially if they're filming musical sequences. The Last Five Years undid itself with handheld nonsense while the stars were already being jostled about (in cars and on bikes) whilst singing... for extra movement sickness. Trust the material and stop fussing!
09 You're Missing Half the Species, Idiots!
The gender imbalance in American cinema both in front of and behind the camera has been under constant attack this year. And Good News: 40% of the year's top 20 highest grossers (Inside Out, Cinderella, The Force Awakens, Mad Max Fury Road, Mockingjay Part 2, Pitch Perfect 2, Home, Fifty Shades of Grey) have a woman in the leading role. So how are we still getting crap like this which sends the wrong message to both boys and girls.
Avengers set - no Black Widow Guardians set - no Gamora Star Wars - no Rey. She's THE MAIN CHARACTER. #WheresRey pic.twitter.com/TvYUeiA49o
— Jamie Ford (@JamieFord) November 12, 2015
08 The Intervention Scene in Trainwreck
Who approved this? Did anyone think it was funny? Is there any way to recall all DVDs and BluRays and delete it?
07 Cutesy Framing Devices
Both Tomorrowland and The Walk have good moments but they both begin disastrously, immediately testing patience with presentational "storytelling" devices that grate. Stop telling us that you're telling the story (it's understood) and just tell it.
06 White-Washing and De-Gaying and The Like
Vulture already cast a welcome light on the habit of films to make LGBT stories about straight people. No need to reiterate that so we'll move on to other tricky business. The rapid progress in trans awareness and politics is very good news for the world but it presents a problem to filmmakers. New films on the topic (like The Danish Girl and The New Girlfriend) can feel instantly dated, all too safe, and inauthentic. The shifting terrain is even harder to cross without stumbling once you consider that these films are premiering in the same market place as better entertainment starring actual trans people or written and directed by people with actual LGBT experience (Amazon's Transparent, Netflix's Sense8, and Sean Baker's Tangerine).
We're avoided throwing more bricks at Stonewall. Too easy of a target. But making a young white suburban man the catalyst and hero of a story that really belongs to impoverished LGBT people and people of color was just gross.
05 Have Concept. Will Movie
A concept itself is not enough. In theory Hot Pursuit and Chocolate City and Love and many more could have been good movies. But execution is even more important. (A minor variation: Have Too Many Concepts. Will Movie -- we're looking at you Jupiter Ascending. Sometimes editing your ideas is a good thing. Like for instance, why is this post so long? Apologies!)
04 "HAM!"
The new meeting of 'Over Actors R Us' is in session. Attending this year are Dame Helen Mirren cupping her hair and sassing (Woman in Gold, Trumbo), Sir Patrick Stewart going full fey (Match), Eddie Redmayne madly blushing and villainous vamping (The Danish Girl and Jupiter Ascending), and Mark Ruffalo 1½ times too much on average (Infinitely Polar Bear and even Spotlight at little bit). You are not on stage. The camera sees every flicker of your face so stop playing to the back row!
Disclaimer: We considered including Bryan Cranston (Trumbo), a likely Best Actor nominee, but in his cartoonish Dalton Trumbo's defense, this tendency to be a "character" and say each line 'like it was carved in stone' is called out within the movie so larger than life Dalton Trumbo was. Cranston plays accordingly.
03 Girl Sacrifice!
Women in movies have it rough. So often they're there to stroke their man's arm and be "supportive" inbetween the important scenes (this year's PERFECT example is Katie Holmes in Woman in Gold... literally her whole part is stroking/hugging/supporting inbetween real scenes). The manic pixie dream girl trope has been annoying for years but at least that archetype gave (young) actresses something "fun" to do. Me and Earl denies and the Dying Girl even that typical vivaciousness. Rachel (well played by Olivia Cooke -- it's not her fault) is just a ghostly sacrifical lamb to help the "Me" grow up while humanizing "Earl" so that his "titties" vocabulary doesn't paint him as a misogynist. [An opposing positive review]
02 Quentin Tarantino & The Hateful Eight
Casual observation of various directorial careers suggest that filmmakers forsake brevity and indulge in repetition more adamantly the more famous they become. Coincidence? No! Examples are abundant if you wanna go there. Quentin Tarantino's first feature Reservoir Dogs (1992) which debuted at Sundance was 99 minutes long. It was absolutely crackling with tension as it dumped its memorably motormouthed criminals into an ever tightening vice of violence until the bloody end.
Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight, his second sadistic civil war era western in a row, is 187 minutes long and attempts that same downward spiral into mayhem. But the crackling tension is absent for about, oh, 140 of those 187 minutes. Quentin is in no hurry to take us to the bloody meal despite not providing his usual gift of rude wit and indelible characterizations as appetizers. There are whole sequences where you just watch horses or people trudging through snow for lengthy shots. Each introduction of characters involves long 'should I or shouldn't I trust you?' conversations. If you've ever watched a Tarantino movie or any movie with a bunch of people trapped in the same space for that matter, you know the answer is a resounding "no". There is a joke about a faulty door which is good for one chuckle that is repeated five or six times (?) where you watch the characters do the same exasperated thing each time. By the time you've reached the intermission virtually nothing has happened other than introducing most of the characters. Maddening. Hateful even you might say! Setting the stage is what you do in the first reel of a movie, not for the first 99 minutes before you take us to the actual story. Any number of great films, even leisurely paced ones, will provide wondrous examples of how much story detail you can pack into a scene and even within a single shot. The Hateful Eight might have worked if it was 99 minutes long but at 187 it is fully intolerable.
It's clobbering time!01 Everything about Fantastic Four
When word arrived that Fantastic Four was awful I thought "Sure, troubled production. But it can't be that bad!' But then I saw it, slackjawed. How on earth did this film make it to release in this shape? How was it even possible to make a film that was even worse than the first two embarassing Fantastic Four films? The 2015 version does everything wrong starting with the remake as reboot (see #12 above) when the FF's origin story, never their strength, was barely compelling enough for one feature film. It turns good actors into wooden duds (Miles Teller, Michael B Jordan) and covers up the faces of two of our most underappreciated talents (Jamie Bell and Toby Kebbell) so that they're essentially not even in the movie for long enough to matter. The pacing is leaden turning its sensible 100 minute running time into an endurance test. Most shockingly, considering financial investments and typical studio practices, the visual fx are shoddy and there is virtually no action. Okay, okay. Technically speaking there are two (?) action scenes. Both are so incoherent and perfunctory that they are closer to brief vfx test reels than "setpieces" in the usual movie sense. It was our only "F" of the year; the grade was no alliterative pun.
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Reader Comments (50)
Leo did a comedy only two years ago, in which he gave the best performance of his career and was nominated for an Oscar for it, so he actually listened to your prayers post-Shutter Island/Inception.
"Mark Ruffalo 1½ times too much on average (Infinitely Polar Bear and even Spotlight at little bit)."
...not just a little bit. I normally love Ruffalo, but that Spotlight performance took me out of the entire movie every time he was onscreen.
Do I have to see The Hateful Eight, Mr. Rogers?
On #14: Longwindedness:
Honestly, good luck convincing people to pay $15 to go see a movie that's 82 minutes long. When movies are as expensive as they are, the idea of getting your money's worth becomes more of a thing (at least in time). But then on the other hand $15 for a 187m snooze fest of an unedited Tarantino film, please kill me now.
@Suzanne - agreed. Ruffalo is PAINFUL in Spotlight and distracts from Keaton/Schreiber who are doing great work. Even McAdams at least knows what movie she's in.
I didn't hate Ruffalo's work in Spotlight, but I think that the film is a mediocrity anyway (only Schreiber suggests what it could have been).
I'm super intrigued, Rahul, to hear your comment. Gravity was only 91 minutes long and it was a clear hit. I don't agree with Nathaniel re: film length unless he's talking about comedy. I find his aversion to long movies rather endearing, though. And Tarantino definitely errs on the side of bloat.
Paul Giamatti portraying a human being in general just doesn't work. I need him to go back to playing the villain in wholesome-teen movies.
Meantime I don't think I could be any less excited about seeing The Hateful Eight. In fact I might even wait for VOD.
I'm also dreading The Revenant based on everything I hear about its dialogue. I'll have to see it though. If only for Lubezki.
Oh - can I stand up for shakycam just for a minute? I agree that it's routinely misused by hacks but it's often a foundational aspect of some of the most beautiful and/or evocative films each year.
Also, while overlength is an issue in mainstream cinema (I don't mean 'mainstream' in a negative sense at all) - eg. Spectre, Trainwreck, Bridge of Spies, Magic Mike XXL etc etc. Sometimes a 'generous' running time helps me really get lost in a film. eg. the length and pacing felt perfect for both Arabian Nights 1 and 2, and I also felt the length benefited Norte the End of History last year.
Rahul, I can pay $6 for a Sunday matinee showing, in which case I'd rather a film be brief if it has nothing worthwhile to keep me in my seat for nearly three hours.
I'm typically neither here nor there with Ruffalo, but he did appear to be working much harder than necessary in Spotlight for a result I'm not sure was intended.
A lot of what Giamatti does nowadays seems to be misjudged. It was clear that he thought San Andreas was an arthouse gem.
Paul Outlaw what's your beef with Tarantino?
The Hateful Eight is the best movie he's made since Death Proof.
(Screw the Death Proof deniers)
About the gay blowjob being degrading---it would be if you're not gay
nor want to give a blowjob to someone you're not genuinely sexually
interested in. You complain about outrage culture but you're just
as sensitive as the rest of them.
/3rtful: un/intentionally homophobic, racist, relentlessly derivative and eternally overrated.
Ham is more prevelant with Streep in the woeful for me RATF,I saw all her bag of tricks and none of it worked.
Redmayne almost coins a new type of mannered.was he watching drag race for tips.
Death to the unwarranted long movies. I would pay a surcharge just to see 2 hour bloated movies edited down to be much better 90 minute movies. Grandma this year was 82 minutes and it couldn't have been more worthy my money.
Everything about this post has me tickled. I'm so excited for your H8FUL review now.
Steven Spielberg had absolutely wonderful things to say about Melissa Mathison in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that's currently posted on ew's website. He praised her for knowing how to write for and about children, something very difficult to do. He said her scripts always required the least revision. He clearly loved to work with her.
It was so great to read about one of the most influential males in Hollywood praising a female screenwriter, because I feel like I read way too many articles this year about male Hollywood power players neglecting/dismissing the female species.
Over Acting is the bane of cinema today, there are many performances that qualify. I think this disease is spreading because the only performances that get awards are ones with BIG DRAMA moments. Everyone thinks they are Daniel Day Lewis and promptly chew the scenery for all they are worth. And let's face it they get rewarded with nominations and wins.
Tarantino is an over indulged egotist who hasn't made a good film since Jackie Brown. But the Oscars still nominate him for best screenplay so it's difficult for him to understand that he needs and editor or maybe a co-writer. He's not the only one, Terence Malick,Christopher Nolan, and Martin Scorcese are examples of over-indulged directors as well.
I will just add that I agree with the rest of the list as well. If only we could legislate these improvements into action.
$15 is a lot of money to me and it's hard to justify spending that kind of a money on a 78m indie movie about white people problems. At least Gravity was like an amusement park ride.
Also #16 Cinematic Lump of Coal: The 11th Best Picture BFCA nominee (smh) is Star Wars, which I love but only in one category why not reopen all voting then?
LadyEdith, preach! ITA. It's this current mentality that lost Bruce Dern the Oscar several years ago. And it's possible that Charlotte Rampling and even moreso with Tom Courtenay that AMPAS will snub them this year because they are offering subtlety, not grandstanding. If Eddie Redmayne wins another Oscar I will be ill.
LadyEdith, I agree to a large extent. If it's not the whisper/yell school, then it's the overly affected/mannered school. Half of the time folks do so much that I can't tell if it's on purpose or that they don't know any better.
"Don't misunderstand: a good lingering camera can be among the greatest of things but if you're running over 90 minutes please justify it with new information."
Arguably, if you're giving new information, you're not lingering. I often feel like movies are respites from a world and a media sphere that bombard us with information (and faux-information). So in the hands of the right people, I think stillness and contemplation of what's already there are exactly what the doctor ordered. But I agree that when movies like Trainwreck go on forever to little avail, it can give the whole notion a bad name. For my money, though, Spy was a much worse offender. And Grandma at 82 minutes could easily have been 40. But now I'm playing dirty. :)
P.S. Since you felt this way about Arabian Nights, Vol. 2, it is essential that you avoid Vol. 3. I'm genuinely worried it might kill you, and even though I loved it, I couldn't blame you.
You forgot "category fraud". But this plague attacks every year
Modern movies are too long- self indulgent directors ruin their own films because they don't know when to cut.
$15? I don't know where you live, but I can't imagine why you would need to be paying that much money. Many theaters have first showings at $6 or less.
Tarantino's a glorified B-movie filmmaker that makes long, self-indulgent films populated with needlessly long scenes filled with masturbatory dialogue. I know people enjoy his movies for the dialogue, but they always take me out of the film as no one in the real world (or even in the "movie world") talks like that.
I'll still watch The Hateful Eight, and I hope I enjoy it more than you did.
Yeah Leo was JUST in a comedy (Wolf of Wall Street) and was terrific in it at that.
You could also argue his previous two performances were somewhat comedic/over-the-top in nature (Great Gatsby & Django Unchained) even if the films surrounding them were not.
Some actors really need to stick in Drama if they know what is best for them (ahem... Nicole Kidman) but Leo shines bright when he lets loose a bit.
From his latest performances, he actually has been varying it quite a bit recently performance-wise but I guess you can't make everyone happy :). If he starred in a Judd Appatow film I'd bet you'd be equally unpleased.
The Revenant --> Serious Drama/Action performance
TWOWS --> Very Fun Comedy/Drama performance (SECOND BEST)
The Great Gatsby --> Haven't seen but by his dancing gifs, comedic?
Django Unchained --> Over-the-top playful villain
J. Edgar --> Very serious biopic drama performance
Inception --> Very serious thriller/drama performance
Shutter Island --> Very serious horror/drama/thriller performance
Revolutionary Road --> Very serious drama/romance performance (THIRD BEST)
Body of Lies --> Serious drama/action/thriller
Blood of Diamond --> Fun/Serious action drama thriller
The Departed --> Serious thriller/action (BEST)
@Jonathan most (real) cities in America are at least $12 for a movie. I'm in DC now and when I was in NYC it was over $15. IMAX 3D is well over $20. And matinees don't work when you have a job and they don't offer them on weekends. Not to mention a "matinee" ticket is also over $10.
MDA: I don't think that was always the case. By the time of Kill Bill Vol 2.? Yeah, the dialogue was getting almost unbearably florid and self-important that's only really saved by great execution OF it. (That Superman speech is wrong, even kind of for the Silver Age.) Also, missing completely obvious and smarter responses. Best example from Vol. 2?: The Bride asks "are you calling me a superhero?" Bill says, "No", and moves on. Better response: "You lived through being buried six feet under. What do you think?"
Anonny -- The Great Gatsby is not a comedy. It's a romantic drama. and there's nothing "fun" about his Blood Diamond role. so the only comedies are Wolf of Wall Street (yes, he was terrific in that) and Django -- which i guess i didn't think of as a comedy since it wasn't very funny.
Nicole Kidman is HILARIOUS in Far & Away, easily one of the funniest performances on film.
Not to mention To Die For.
Running times must be second only to category fraud among your pet peeves.
Where are these theater for $6.00 or less? And can theaters do something about the phones? People don't seem to care - I don't want to pay $20.00 dollars to see you text or worse! "The Great Gatsby" was not a comedy- it had some funny bits not too mention the fact that Leo had better chemistry with Toby McGuire than with his Daisy- perhaps they should have called "Brokeback Gatsby"
Jaragon -- right? It's over $15 here in NYC (and it goes up like twice a year) and for the rare theaters that provide matinees, those are usually $8 or $9 and only for shows before Noon.
Wholeheartedly agree about the Trainwreck intervention scene. I literally turned the movie off after that scene. Actually, I think I turned it of during the scene right after that where the kid asks Amy why she and her boyfriend aren't still together and she was like oh my God epiphany. But it was the intervention scene that primed me.
Yeah, I guess if you live downtown in a major city you might be stuck with those prices. But in the suburbs there are great $6 options. :)
Thanks for sparing me from both "The Hateful Eight" and " The Revenant"
#14 - Agreed for the most part, but then some films that people may call longwinded can be entirely up my alley. The most recent example would probably be last year's Palme d'Or winner WINTER SLEEP. I was enraptured, but most would find it a chore.
#13 - I remember finding that Revenant scene a bit of an eyeroll in the context of the whole film. Of course there was that sort of bit in that film. Of course.
#12 - Cosign.
#11 - Paul Giamatti in general.
#10 - I'm wondering whether I just notice it less these days? Although I will say this about THE REVENANT (a film I did not like), at least Lubezki's camera was fluid, even in action. It was gorgeous and no shaky theatrics for faux tension needed.
#9 - Obviously.
#8 - What even was that? Awful.
#7 - I didn't see TOMORROWLAND, but yikes... the first 20 minutes of THE WALK were embarrassing. It thankfully got better, but whenever he'd pop back up on top of the Statue of Liberty it got silly again. Also, as an aside, for as great as the visual effects were in the walk sequence, other times they were bad. The scene where he falls into the lake was appalling vfx. Why not just drop an actor into actual real water? Sheesh.
#6 - A movie like THE DANISH GIRL would have worked better back when Nicole Kidman was trying to get it made. Nowadays it just looks a bit noodly.
#5 - And many more.
#4 - Oh gawd, yes. Quite a popular get together this year.
#3 - This sort of role has always and will always be with us, sadly.
#2 - Haven't seen, but can't say I am excited to.
#1 - Never saw it. Didn't even appeal as a "so bad it's funny" contender.
All sharp observations. But that scene in Trainwreck is such a bummer. Easily brings a film I otherwise adored down a letter grade at least.
Thanks for the comments on Paul Giametti. And LadyEdith, testify. M. Scorcese, a once-great director, has descended to Tarantinoesque levels of self-indulgence and over-length.
Gatsby wasn't a comedy but that was the most RELAXED I've seen Leo's acting since Catch Me if You Can. More of THAT Leo, please.
Leo was pure movie star in "Catch Me As You Can" should do that again.
Re: $6 movie tickets -- I live in Baltimore and can take a bus to one of the theaters just outside of the city limits to see a Sunday matinee for that price.
Speaking of Trainwreck, I found the movie mostly dull an un-funny. When Tilda Swinton wasn't on the screen, I wasn't interested.
Between the Hateful Eight and Django, I'm thinking that Tarantino absolutely needed Sally Menke. Her absence is notable, and perhaps she was the reason for a lot of his films' successes. It just sounds like no one is ever telling Quentin "no."
I still haven't seen Spotlight, but is Ruffalo full on The Normal Heart mode in it? I'm not interested in that again.
The accents in In The Heart Of The Sea were a constant delight. Every character had at least two!
Here in Chicago, one of the AMC theaters downtown has $6.50 matinees before noon on the weekends. And two theaters on the North Side have $5/6 matinees.
I usually like ( not love ) Ruffalo… but Spotlight was not a good place for him… I actually did not care for the movie.. I found it cold and unemotional… just an OK movie…. I think the subject matter was very important .. and needed more about the boys.
My wife went out of her way to mention how weird and twitchy she found Ruffalo to be in Spotlight. He got better as the movie went on, but still...not a great start.
Longwindedness is a film pet peeve of mine. Hell, Anomalisa is only 90 minutes, and last year's Obvious Child was a crisp 84 minutes. This same applies to TV. Breaking Bad had no fat in any minute of their last three seasons, while Sons of Anarchy fit 5 minutes of story into a 100 minute episode.
Totally agree with Nick re: Arabian Nights Volume 3. If you think static camera shots in Volume 2 were annoying, Volume 3's The Tale of the Chaffinches would do you in. Picture: birds tweeting while you look at some weeds just outside an airport.
Ryan -- i would not say Ruffalo is full Normal Heart in this. I think he was good in Spotlight. He just overdid one key scene. I think Keaton is the clear MVP of that movie. i hope Keaton is oscar nominated (even though it doesn't look like he will be)
There is no place in my damn world where I can see a first-run movie for $6. Maybe a tenth-run movie, or a WalMart value bin dump. Other than that, no sir.
I don't mind long movies, and I think Tarantino has more than proven himself to justify some indulgences on running time. A first-run adult ticket is now $11, so a <90 min run for that? It better be the best thing ever for my dollar value. Otherwise, give me something to chew on for at least two hours. Hopefully it's worthwhile. And if it's not, you know I have no problems whatsoever saying it's some horseshit.
What I'm really dreading now is both "The Danish Girl" and "The Revenant," and that's 2/5 of the damn lead actor roster. UGH! I needs my "Carol" to drop in my area real soon, gawd!