December 26, 2002

THE TEN WORST FILMS OF 2002

Okay… I promised my annual “Ten Films That I Just Don’t Get” list today.  But there aren’t ten films this year that I just didn’t get.  There are box office successes, like Signs, whose success doesn’t thrill me… but I understand what made audiences respond.  And there are box office failures, like Solaris, that drive me nuts… but I understand what caused audiences to stay away in droves. 

Even the five that I put on my working list for “didn’t get,” I got.  My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a loving, schmaltzy, old fashioned piece that really works the same street as Maid In Manhattan or Sweet Home Alabama, but allowed people to connect with it as their own find.  Remember, the very fact that the experience was different is the difference between pleasant and phenomenon. I would contend that a 2500 screen release of MBFGW would generate between $15 million and $30 million before the film disappeared to the Blockbuster shelves.  People are still going to “Tony & Tina’s Wedding” performances all over the country.  Everyone’s in on the joke.  But people still enjoy something sweet and different.

There no real surprise with Tadpole… other than the media treating this film like it was something more than the badly shot, badly structured, beautifully acted mess that it is.  Audiences figured it out and stayed away… far away.  Miramax didn’t cover P&A with the gross of under $3 million, much less the alleged $5 million paid for the film at Sundance. 

Austin Powers in Goldmember was, to me, like listening to the same joke for the 20^th time, only this time, the comedian farts before every punchline to make it seem fresh.  All I got was the stench.  But it made people laugh in a Farrelly-free summer, even if they wouldn’t give the far superior About A Boy or Undercover Brother a fighting chance.  I don’t like it, but…

Blood Work was painful for me to watch.  The idea was classic Clint.  But the execution was just plain awful.  What I don’t understand is why so many critics gave it a pass.  I don’t think they were all beholden to Eastwood.  But they must have seen some version of the film that I did not… the one where Wanda de Jesus can act and Paul Rodriguez wasn’t embarrassing himself the way Hal Holbrook might have in Dirty Harry if he didn’t know how to act above the material. 

Anyway…. on to the really bad stuff…

THE WORST FILMS OF 2002

One more delay… there are 16 films that I think had a legitimate shot of making this list that I did not see.  I’d apologize, but I am too busy thanking my lucky stars.  The list is:

Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights
The Adventures of Pluto Nash
Big Trouble
The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course
Death to Smoochy
Dragonfly
fear dot com
Formula 51
Life, or Something Like It
The Master of Disguise
Pinocchio
Serving Sara
Showtime
Swimfan
Trapped
Waking Up in Reno

You envy me now, don’t you?

Not so fast. 

I’m taking four terrible films right off the top of the list because I have to admit that I am curious about seeing them again… even if I know that I will still hate them.  Those four atrocities are Simone, XXX, Red Dragon and The Rules of Attraction.  When they turn up on my TV, I will watch the crashing vehicles, somehow mesmerized, if only to watch Pacino, Diesel, Emily Watson and the guy who plays the gay guy who was at the screening I was at with a really hot girlfriend (who also happens to give an exceptionally good performance).

I have another 23 on the list that I never, ever want to see again and will avoid assiduously when they do arrive on cable.  Every one of these films hurt me deeply.  And yet, I feel compelled by the Critics Code to have an actual Bottom 10.  So, here are the hard-pressed-to-not-be-as-bad-as-the-others runners-up:

THE FOUR FEATHERS – One of the great disappointments of any year.   Coming off of Elizabeth, a glorious filmic romp, Shekar Kapur delivered three actors who looked lost, a great performance by Djimon Hounsou that was cut into tertiary status and a movie about honor… the honor of killing blacks and arabs.  A disaster from conception to execution.

HARVARD MAN – Why does a man who is so obviously intelligent and engaging, James Toback, keep making the same movie about horny self-aggrandizing 20somethings over and over and over again?  I don’t know.  But this movie was so bad that I didn’t even have a chance to see it on a big screen, thus saving it from the big list.  The central story is the one Toback most botched in Black & White.  This time, it makes even less sense.  Sarah Michelle Gellar is supposed to be tough and edgy, but while Toback has helped create on-screen sexual identities for Heather Graham and Bijou Phillips, Gellar’s on-screen sex is badly simulated and has so little passion or rhythm, you wonder whether she and Freddie Prinze, Jr. have ever done it.  Worse, you wonder whether this is how they do it.  Zounds!

HOW TO KILL YOUR NEIGHBOR'S DOG – This was a buzz movie at Toronto in 2001.  So, I made a point of seeing it.  And I was shocked that anyone thought it was worth releasing.  But then again, I felt the same way about The Weight of Water.  (Did that ever actually get a release?)  It went to cable and was quickly forgotten.  And as bad as Kenneth Branagh was in this film, he was great in the new Potter movie, playing a vain fop.  ‘Nuff said.

K-19: THE WIDOWMAKER – Did I just mention The Weight of Water?  Poor Kathryn Bigelow. So much talent with images and such a ham-fisted screw-up when it comes to storytelling.  She’s made some of the best-looking disasters in the history of film.  Take a look at Strange Days or Point Break and try not to enjoy what your eyeballs are catching.  But don’t think about the story.  Much like The Four Feathers, when you make a movie with a self-redeeming character, you’d better be smarter than your audience.  Forget the terrible erratic accents.  A movie that tries to tell you that Harrison Ford is a bad guy for not wanting his crew drunk on duty is a bed, bad movie.  Pretty though.

REIGN OF FIRE – Imagine the big finale in Titanic.  Now imagine it with only 20 passengers.  That’s Reign of Fire. It’s a dragons-take-over-the-world with an amazing CG dragon… not dragons, dragon.  There are two interesting movies in this movie.  There is the gritty, humans-underground for years movie and there is the final-battle-with-machines-versus-dragons movie.  (Or as Donald Kaufman might say, “technology versus horse.”)   We get too little of either to be worth the effort.

ROLLERBALL – How do you take a thin movie, flesh it out and end up with an even thinner movie?  John McTiernan found a way!  He really missed the central reality… Rollerball is not beloved because of the action.  It’s the characters.  And as much as I like Chris Klein, he is not James Caan.  Never will be.  He’s a very different actor.  Someone needs to get Rebecca Romijn-Stamos into a comedy because she isn’t a dramatic actress, period. Exclamation point.   And Jean Reno does his best imitation of Robert DeNiro walking through a role.   So bland it’s not even fun to hate.

SUPER TROOPERS – Just dumb.  Dumb, dumb, dumb.  One great gag in the entire movie.  That’s it.  Give me Freddy Got Fingered.  At least it REALLY sucked!

THE TIME MACHINE – Nothing like an actor you like in a film with a premise that could be interesting that just sits there like a big smelly turd waiting to be flushed.  Is it over?  Is it over?  Is it over?  What’s with those houses on the side of a mountain?  Are they nuts?  Is it over?  Is it over?  Guy Pearce kept looking for a tattoo that could help him out, but no luck.

TREASURE PLANET – I kind of like Titan A.E.  It was a movie that had no real age group targeted, aiming for everyone and hitting no one.  So what does Disney do when they have pretty much the same movie in the shoot?  Nothing, apparently.  Treasure Planet has a lot of pretty colors, but no story, no logic, no memorable characters and no reason to watch.  But otherwise…

THE TUXEDO – The script pretty much worked.  Jackie Chan played Jackie Chan.  And Jennifer Love Hewitt looks great in tight clothes.  What could go wrong?  Well, you could direct the film wearing a blindfold.  You could play Hewitt against type for a while, then go sexy for while, then go back to nerdy, then sexy and finally, cop out at the end because you realize that no one really believes that Hewitt and Chan would actually engage in sexual intercourse under any circumstances.  It could have been a contender.

NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VAN WILDER – Ryan Reynolds is great.  Everything else in this film, including the dialogue Reynolds is stuck with, stinks on ice.  “Wouldn’t it be funny of the dog had really, really big testicles?”  A laugh riot!  “You know what I think would be funny?  Making the bad guys eat éclairs filled with dog semen!”  HA!!!!  “And how bout an original turn… they like the taste… and one finds it familiar!”  Genius.  If only they had put a priest in the scene!  Then they would have had a classic. 

WINDTALKERS – John Woo is great.  But he makes personal stories with wild canvases.  By trying a way movie, he loses the personality and has nothing by hyperactive violence.  And then there is the major story problem… a movie about Indians using their language code who only use the code once in the entire film!  When the heat is on, they just scream English, no code at all, into their radios.  Sigh..

PAGE TWO:  “And The Worst Ten Of 2002 Are….”