Ten 2010 films that were a waste of time
Bottom of the barrel: Hot Tub Time Machine
Before we get to the good stuff next week, when I announce my best films of the year list, here are the 10 films that either disappointed me, were flat out awful or that frustrated me because they could have been better. In my thirty-plus years of reviewing films, I’ve found that I now tend to avoid cinematic disasters when I see them coming. Therefore, this list features movies that I went into with some expectations of at least mild entertainment and walked away with coal in my cinematic stocking.
Here they are, going from bad to worst:
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
As great as The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, the third film in Millennium series, brings the story to a close with a thud. It is a dull summation of the more compelling backstory from the first two films.
There were several bad potential tent pole movies this summer, with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time being the worst of the bunch. With a based-on-a-video-game premise and first-time action hero, Jake Gyllenhaal, in the title role, it was totally forgettable.
There is a classic cliché about Hollywood filmmaking: “If you want to send a message, use Western Union.” In Green Zone, a movie about the politics that led to the continuing war in Iraq, the filmmakers took some facts and created a tedious fictional version of those facts.
We loved it when Gerald Butler and Jennifer Aniston were in town making The Bounty Hunter, but please, next time you use Atlantic City on film, please make it a better movie than this train wreck of a romantic comedy/action flick hybrid. Too many movies these days have crappy dialogue, bad photography and stories that have little connection to the way real people act and talk.
In The Other Guys, is it is supposed to be funny that a pair of over-the-top macho cops leap to their death because they are too stupid to realize it will kill them? Is it funny that Will Ferrell plays a desk jockey nerd that gorgeous women find irresistible for no discernable reason? Is it funny that Mark Wahlberg wants to be a macho cop but is stuck with Ferrell’s desk jockey because he was demoted when he shot Derek Jeter? OK, the last one was funny. Otherwise, The Other Guys left me as cold as director Adam McKay’s other movies like Stepbrothers and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.
We’ve been patient with M. Night Shyamalan. After he gave us The Sixth Sense, we expected great things from him. Not anymore. The Last Airbender it is a dull fantasy film. The special effects are far from special, the acting is atrocious and the story has all the complexity of a fifth-grade English paper.
The ladies’ adventures in Abu Dhabi for Sex and the City 2 were less than enchanting. When the best scene in a movie features Liza Minnelli singing “Single Ladies” at a gay wedding, you know the concept has lost its sparkle.
"If you still want to see this movie, I have obviously not done my job."
There is no movie review this week because, frankly, the choices went from re-releases (Titanic 3D) to unappetizing sequels (American Reunion) to recycled ideas (Mirror Mirror). Go ahead and tell me it is my job to go see crap movies so I can tell my readers they are crap movies. Point taken.
With St. Patrick’s Day coming up this weekend, I’ve put together a list of my favorite movies with an Irish theme or locale. This list includes dramas, comedies, a drama with music, a movie with Sean Connery singing and, of course, the most popular Irish-themed movie in American film history.
While there are the usual stone cold lock Oscar nominees this year, the current award season has divided up the booty just enough to make this an intriguing and challenging year for Oscar prognosticators.
Here, in no particular order are 11 AC Weekly feature stories we are proud of from 2011.
As a movie junkie, I enjoy giving and receiving movie gifts at the holidays so I’m always on the lookout for movies that are either finally being released on DVD format, or classics that are available in Blu-ray for the first time. Here are some titles and collections that have caught my attention as excellent movie gifts.
This time around, we've assembled our top 10 lists of the best and worst that holiday-themed movies have to offer.
This look at the most anticipated movies of the spring and summer season isn’t all about the Benjamins, it’s about movies that provide summer fun. Here are 10 movies that look like they are worth our collective anticipation.
his year’s Oscar showdown is old school — represented by the classic Oscar style of The King’s Speech — and the new school sensibilities of The Social Network. The Social Network earned a ton of critics’ awards, but ...
The Academy Award nominations went pretty much as predicted. The only shocking development was that Christopher Nolan’s film Inception was nominated for best picture, but he did not receive a nomination for directing.
This is the year when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is trying to appeal to a wider audience by opening up the Best Picture nominations to a field of 10, rather than five. Freefall ratings for the Oscar telecast dictated the change and perhaps the chance that Avatar will win will indeed pump up the ratings. Here is my annual Oscar predictions in the form of a racetrack tout sheet
It is catch-up time this week after I presented my favorite flicks of the year and of the decade. One of the best films on my favorites list was Oscar frontrunner Up in the Air.
No matter what film genre they decide to explore, Joel and Ethan Coen manage to put their own unique stamp on it, even when they are as faithful to the original as they are with their remake of the western True Grit.
After ranking the worst movies of the year in last week’s column, it is time for the more pleasant task of naming my favorite movies of 2010. It was a decent year for movies, not vintage, but solid, and here are my favorites in alphabetical order: The Ghost Writer Roman Polanski’s film is a quietly effective thriller devoted to the theme of political maneuvering during wartime. It delivers a message about men in power whose secret policies are carried out not just to protect innocent citizens, but also to keep the power-hungry politicians in power. The Girl Who Played with Fire The second in a trio in of films based on the globally popular and bestselling Millennium Trilogy novels by the late Swedish author Stieg Larsson, it is not as compelling as the first film...
Here are my annual Oscar nomination predictions in the form of a racetrack tout sheet. These are my odds not the Vegas line. The nominations will be announced Tuesday, Jan. 25, at 8:30am on the morning news programs, and the Academy Awards will be presented on Sunday, Feb. 27, 8pm on ABC, hosted by James Franco and Anne Hathaway.
Boardwalk Empire has brought renewed interest in Atlantic City and has inspired numerous 1920s era events in the region. However, there is another movie that is partially set in Atlantic City that is bringing a different notoriety to our town.
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