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December 26, 2002
THE TEN WORST FILMS OF 2002
10. THE 25TH HOUR – I didn’t know that Spike could make a movie that tried so hard and meant so little. The 9/11 allusions are a scam. There is no connection between this drug dealer’s freedom and America’s freedom. Every character, no matter how good the actor, is a caricature. Well, except for Brian Cox who, like Chris Cooper, isn’t capable of doing a caricature by mistake. Spike’s experimental efforts, like Girl 6 and Bamboozled, may have been messes, but there was a real vision struggling to get out. Here, we get all style, no substance. I don’t often show disrespect to a movie during a screening, but derisive laughter was the order of the night when this movie screened. Sad, but true.
9. TWO WEEKS NOTICE – I am a Sandra Bullock believer. And I believe that she has a gentle, generous heart. Why? Because both times she has gotten into hands-on producing, she has let writers direct for the first time and both times, they have not taken care of their star nearly as well as she’s taken care of them. The first time out, Gunshy, was a disaster, but Bullock was only a co-star in a film that starred two good actors who couldn’t open a movie if they threw a baby off a balcony the day before, Liam Neeson and Oliver Platt. This time, Sandra is front and center, along with Hugh Grant. But it’s actually a bigger mess. The script is leaner and cleaner, but it needed pruning. Note to Sandy: America’s Sweetheart + On-screen Diarrhea = Death. Worse, Mr. Lawrence has no directing skills to speak of. The most shocking thing is that Laszlo Kovacs, who has done beautiful movie star work, actually manages to make Ms. Bullock look like she’s had bad facial surgery in scene after scene. Agony.
8. STORYTELLING – You think you are missing something by missing 20 minutes of Gangs of New York? If Storytelling had any shot at depth, it must have been left on the cutting room floor with the never seen third of the film featuring James Van Der Beek as an aggressive gay character. As though Todd Solondz wanted to take a literal step backwards from his masterful Happiness, Storytelling jerks the audience off for 87 minutes and never allows it relief. Selma Blair’s section is supposed to shock, but seems oddly tame. And Paul Giamatti is stuck doing a tribute to Solondz straight out of the worst of Woody Allen. Worst sin possible… trying to shock and boring instead.
7. BAD COMPANY – The negative of this film should be weighted and thrown into the part of the ocean too deep for even Jim Cameron to go look for it. I don’t want to think of Chris Rock, Anthony Hopkins or Jerry Bruckheimer this way. Yes, this is a film so bad that it seriously breeches even Jerry Bruckheimer’s intensively commercial standards. If only Joel Schumacher could have gotten Chris Rock to wear a codpiece and three-piece suits with nipples.
6. HIGH CRIMES – Ashley Judd has become the queen of Movie Of The Week films that actually draw a crowd. But this time out, the audience was in danger and the movie was the stalker. Three strong actors slumming…. a storyline rehashed so often that even WWII G.I.s wouldn’t eat it on toast…. and the latest waste of Amanda Peet’s talents – there have been so many. Like watching a train smash into a car full of crippled clowns in slow motion.
5. SWEPT AWAY – What more is there to say about this laugh riot? To misquote Adam Ant, “Can’t Act, Can’t Sing, What Can Ya Do?” I’m not much on subtle innuendo, but the casting on this film was one of the biggest misreads in movie history. The beauty of Lina Wertmuller’s film is that the characters are so real and so unsure of their footing. Madonna’s doing the high camp version of Bette Midler playing the character in a Greenwich Village cabaret… which is to say (for those of you who don’t speak homosexual) that the only way she could have gone further over the top was to have pulled a penis out of her g-string in the third act. Meanwhile, Gianinni The Second is much more pretty than his father and his arrogance is not sweet revenge, but almost as whinny and ugly as Madonna’s. And the film exposes Guy Ritchie, like Felix without his magic bag, incapable of shooting a “regular” movie. The only question at the end of this film is, will Madonna destroy yet another director’s reputation forever?
4. BIG BAD LOVE – You hate to beat up on a little movie, but if this movie was my challenge on the Film Critic special edition of Fear Factor, I’d be right out. Arliss Howard is one of my favorite actors and I’ve loved Debra Winger ever since Thank God It’s Friday (talk about finding the diamond in the doo doo), but I really couldn’t brave this film again. It’s based on a book of clever poetry of the south, but every effort to charm struck me was like going to see a new singer-aspirant girlfriend perform at a small club and realizing that she never hit a note in her life. You wish you could convince yourself that it was a brave piece of stylishness, but after a while, each note reminds you of the sex you’re never going to have again.
3. AMY'S ORGASM – Speaking of sex…. this film is the ultimate birth control. You won’t want to bring a child in a world where a movie this bad can find an audience of any size. A film about feminism that is more sexist than anything any male would dare attempt, A.O. is one of those movies where the writer/director/star spends a good deal of time explaining to you how beautiful and desirable she is. News flash: If you need to put it in the dialogue, you’re not beautiful and desirable enough to get away with it without getting an unwanted laugh. Finally, a reason to bring back Mystery Science Theater 3000.
2. DEUCES WILD - “Before gangs had guns... they fought with guts.” And they had plenty of access to mine, as watching this film made me want to puke them out onto the movie theater floor. This film had me rolling like a great comedy. Every few seconds, I found myself slapping my head in disbelief of how bad it really was. But it wasn’t bad/funny like Amy’s Orgasm. Everyone was taking everything so seriously. When you’re a Jet, at least you get to dance. Rarely has so much talent been so wasted so completely.
1. HOLLYWOOD ENDING – What could be more sad than Woody Allen missing the mark as badly as the characters on screen? I will remain hopeful about the next one. But Hollywood Ending was the first time I allowed myself to consider that Allen may have actually lost a step. Debra Messing was glorious and some of the other performances were good, but the script was a mess and the characters were so past real that they gave nothing back. The only thing hysterical about this film was the blindness of Allen’s character.
E ME: What are your worsts of 2002?
