The Decade List: (Some of) The Worst Films (2005)

Every year, the list seems to be getting longer. The sentimental issue with 2005 was that a list of the Worst Films of 2005 was my very third blog post ever on here, so unlike the previous years, I've written quite a few venomous words about the films below (I was pretty hostile when I started writing this blog). So for both your and my pleasure, I've selected some really mean and/or smart-ass "pull quotes" from what I had to say about these, the worst films I saw from 2005.

On The 40-Year-Old Virgin: "The 40-Year-Old Virgin is essentially a bunch of laughless sketch appendages (the worst involving foul-mouthed Eastern Indian coworkers), branching from a thin backbone of a lifeless romance." On Amnesia: The James Brighton Enigma: "Amnesia ends up being an idea film with nothing to say and Langlois a lousy psychological researcher who’s happy enough to just to ask the questions instead of looking for the answers." On Dirty Love: "That this film presumes we’re going to care about a woman who flops around a supermarket looking for tampons to stop her Shining-size bloodbath of a menstrual flow is not only dead-wrong, but also rather insulting."

On Fratricide: "There’s grittiness and then there’s absurdity, and Arslan can’t figure out the difference." On Happy Endings: "Happy Endings’ mix of nastiness and earnestness is like water and electricity… when you’re in the bathtub." On Hard Candy: "Hard Candy is one of those films you could see someone handing into their teacher as a genre assignment. Everything is "fine" about the film, if you consider "fine" to be hitting all the points of a job or assignment. Or if "fine" simply means passionless."

On Havoc: I quoted my friend Mike on this one: "About as sharp and edgy as an oval-shaped blanket full of kittens." On Lower City: "Merely a collection of reminders of better films." On Me and You and Everyone We Know: "Weaving a bunch of quirky moments (involving setting hands on fire, a cuuuuuuuute little boy wanting to shit in a woman’s ass, a goldfish in peril, and tag-team fellatio from a duo of sassy teen girls, among other things) into a sloppy motion picture, Ms. July created the “indie” groan of the year."

On Monster-in-Law: "Setting women back nearly fifty years with this one, Jane Fonda returns to the screen, opposite the sweet-as-pie, stripped-of-race Jennifer Lopez. It’d be one thing for this film to just be unfunny… but it’s a two-hour-long cat fight, turning women into caddy, selfish, backstabbing cunts." On Pretty Persuasion: "Siega has accomplished the feat of making his film the only thing more despicable than [teen edge queen Evan Rachel Wood's protagonist]." On The Puffy Chair: "Do I really want to choose to join in on the roadtrip when I hate the people I'm traveling with... and don't really care where we're going?"

On Sorry, Haters: "Allow me to introduce you to the 9/11 exploitation film." On Transamerica: "The tolerance that Tucker does expect from us is even more offensive than a sweet "trannies are people too." He expects us to continue with his annoyingly familiar film because of Felicity Huffman." On Walk the Line: "When Johnny Cash (Joaquin Phoenix) proposes marriage to the love of his life June Carter (Reese Witherspoon), he asks her to come up with a fresh answer. Strange, we as an audience were asking the same thing out of this film."

- The 40-Year-Old Virgin - d. Judd Apatow - USA
- Amnesia: The James Brighton Enigma [Amnésie: L'énigme James Brighton] - d. Denis Langlois - Canada
- Antibodies [Antikörper] - d. Christian Alvart - Germany
- The Aristocrats - d. Paul Provenza - USA
- Backstage - d. Emmanuelle Bercot - France
- The Cabin Movie - d. Dylan Akio Smith - Canada
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - d. Tim Burton - USA/UK
- The Civilization of Maxwell Bright - d. David Beaird - USA
- Diary of a Mad Black Woman - d. Tyler Perry - USA
- Dirty Love - d. John Mallory Asher - USA
- Don't Tell [La bestia nel cuore] - d. Cristina Comencini - Italy/France/UK/Spain
- Eighteen - d. Richard Bell - Canada
- Evil [To kako] - d. Yorgos Noussias - Greece
- FAQs - d. Everett Lewis - USA
- Feed - d. Brett Leonard - Australia
- Fratricide [Brudermord] - d. Yilmaz Arslan - Germany/Luxembourg/France
- Happy Endings - d. Don Roos - USA
- Hard Candy - d. David Slade - USA
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - d. Garth Jennings - UK/USA
- Havoc - d. Barbara Kopple - USA/Germany
- King's Ransom - d. Jeff Byrd - USA
- Lemming - d. Dominik Moll - France
- The Longest Yard - d. Peter Segal - USA
- Lower City [Cidade Baixa] - d. Sérgio Machado - Brazil
- Madagascar - d. Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath - USA
- Manuale d'amore [Manual of Love] - d. Giovanni Veronesi - Italy
- Me and You and Everyone We Know - d. Miranda July - USA
- Monster-in-Law - d. Robert Luketic - USA/Germany
- The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green - d. George Bamber - USA
- Mr. & Mrs. Smith - d. Doug Liman - USA
- Nanny McPhee - d. Kirk Jones - UK/USA/France
- Pervert! - d. Jonathan Yudis - USA
- Pretty Persuasion - d. Marcos Siega - USA
- The Producers - d. Susan Stroman - USA
- The Puffy Chair - d. Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass - USA
- Queens [Reinas] - d. Manuel Gómez Pereira - Spain
- Remedy - d. Christian Maelen - USA
- Robots - d. Chris Wedge, Carlos Saldanha - USA
- Sorry, Haters - d. Jeff Stanzler - USA
- Stoned - d. Stephen Woolley - UK
- Transamerica - d. Duncan Tucker - USA
- Walk the Line - d. James Mangold - USA/Germany
- The Wedding Date - d. Clare Kilner - USA
- Where the Truth Lies - d. Atom Egoyan - Canada/UK
- Witches of the Caribbean - d. David DeCoteau - USA
- Zerophilia - d. Martin Curland - USA

'Twas Here My Summer Exploded

Summertime! Or, as Prince of Freshland Willard Smith once put it, summersummersummertime! All of its joys (such as the sunshine, the wasps, the ever-present sheen of sticky sweat) pale into insignificance next to my favourite thing in the world ever; the summer movie season. As usual, the anticipation is bound to be much more nourishing than the actual movies themselves, though last year saw an unprecedented bumper crop of excellent popcorn entertainment which should, technically, raise my excitement to even greater levels, what with the summer movie season finally offering brainfood as well as robot wars. Sadly, that 2009 highwater mark and the recent writer's strike means I'm less excited about this year's line-up. Sure, I'll see a fair few, but there's only one or two I'm goggle-eyed with obnoxious enthusiasm over. My face is sad.

Those who know me have a pretty good idea which movies have me froth-mouthed, but I'll save that for now, because I'm more interested in what you, the readers of this blog, are most excited about. Just like last year, I want to see what is getting this small cross-section of people most pumped. Sadly, due to RL complications, I forgot to do this earlier, and have therefore included a film that has already been released (The Further Adventures of Logan T. Loganstein And His Whirring Claws Of Kill), but perhaps, if you've already seen it, you enjoyed it so much you can't wait to see it again! I gather it's depressingly bad hella-exciting. Anyway, here's the list.

• Terminator Franchise: Salvage Operation


• I’d Rather Be Dragged To Hell Than Watch Spider-Man 3 Again


• JJ Abrams Risks Death by Unwashed Nerd Rage-On


• Transmogrifiers 2: Return of the Awesome


• The Curious Case of Wolverine Wutton


• Angels, Demons, and Probably Ewan McGregor’s Schlong


• Another Worthless Woody Allen Movie


• The Unnecessary Remaking of Pelham 123


• (500) Days of Self-Conscious Indie Movie Quirk


• The Time-Travelling Bana


• Harry Potter and the Thing in the Place with the Whatsit


• Demetri Martin + Ang Lee + Hippies = WTF?


• District 9 (AKA Neill Blomkamp Rocks Your Face Off)


• Hott Sam Rockwell’s Lunar Oscar Bid


• Pixar’s Whassup, Bitches?


• Depp and Bale in: Untouchablesque


• Sacha Baron Cohen and the Inevitable Lawsuits


• G.I. Joe: The Struggle to Give a Shit


• Quentin Tarantino and the Broken Spellcheck


• Final Destination: Rube Goldberg’s Revenge


• Judd Apatow’s Self-Loathing People (feat. The RZA!)

Seriously! The RZA is in the next Judd Apatow movie! I can't wait, though I'd much rather see a full-length Bobby Digital film than some navel-gazing James L. Brooks homage, no matter how good it is. Anyway, the poll will be up in a sec, and will be around for approximately numerous weeks.

Bastards of Young

Adventureland - dir. Greg Mottola - 2009 - USA - Miramax

There's something strangely admirable about the way Judd Apatow comedies (or Apatow-esque in the case of Adventureland) handle earnestness. All of the films that fall under this umbrella go exactly where you expect them to, and while some work better than others, their sincerity nearly permits a forgiveness that most dude-centered comedies are never granted. This isn't to say that Adventureland or any of its not-so-distant cousins are good films, but it's hard to really dislike them. In Adventureland, college grad James (Jesse Eisenberg, doing his best Michael Cera) finds himself back in Pittsgburgh, taking a job at a local theme park after his European vacation is canceled due to lack of funds.

Every review I've read has felt the need to mention (warn?) that Adventureland isn't the uproarious, zany comedy Mottola's Superbad was, but those moments are still present, albeit in diluted form. Mottola doesn't seem confident enough to part with the sort of juvenile, "this is the part that is going to make people laugh" comedy, all of which is reserved for the characters of James' childhood friend Tommy (Matt Bush) and the managers of the theme park (Bill Hader and Kristin Wiig). None of these bits work, though I can't say I've ever found any of these sorts of films remotely funny. Mottola's inability to fully return to the humor of The Daytrippers without going by way of Superbad isn't the only foul.

Enter Em (Kristin Stewart), the hip, attractive coworker who James will inevitably fall for. While Mottola unfortunately reduces a lot of the characters (including James) to clichés, he makes an ill-fated attempt not to do that with Em. She's sexy, mysterious, more spontaneous than the protagonist, has a dead mother and an amazing record collection. After their initial bonding, the camera moves for the first time away from James and follows Em to her rendez-vous with "a friend." You see, Em's assumed the position of "the other woman" to the unhappily married Mike (Ryan Reynolds). Like most of what happens in Adventureland, you know the story well by now. However, with the shift in perspective also comes the first change in tone, and this is not only a poor transition but crude disclosure of the director's disapproval of Em's actions. As she pulls away from James' house, the airiness of the rest of the film gives way to a sense of trepidation as she pulls into the bar, almost as if the secret she's harboring were of a more horrific ilk than just an affair with a married man. Though it may be subconscious on Mottola's part, this action condescends Em, as well as Stewart who otherwise gives an effective performance.

This is carried over to Lisa P (Margarita Levieva), the theme park's resident hottie. Once her slow-motion entrance into the film has passed, she's treated to the same conflicting characterization as Em. On one hand, she's blessed with more depth than her Nick & Norah counterpart Tris, but Mottola can't resist placing her in opposition to Em, to whom she's never allowed to live up to. Lisa P dances with her best friend Kelly (Kimisha Renee Davis) to Shannon's "Let the Music Play;" Em drives around in her car listening to Hüsker Dü's "Don't Want to Know If You Are Lonely." Lisa P doesn't respond to James' mention of his Charles Dickens aspirations; Em seems charmed by it. Lisa P gossips; Em keeps secrets. And so on. Mottola seems as clueless when it comes to women as James does, which shouldn't be a surprise as the film is semi-autobiographical.

Despite all this, Adventureland suffices on its own sincerity. For all the fantastic music featured in the film (The Replacements, Big Star, Lou Reed and Yo La Tengo, who provides the score), it isn't holier-than-thou or even obnoxiously showy, though I can't help but wish directors would move away from the diegetic use of music giving way to non-diegetic montage cues, which is even more irritating in Nick & Norah. While every attempt to improve upon the run-of-the-mill coming-of-age tale flounders, Adventureland's less ambitious pursuits happen to work, which isn't something that can be said about most Hollywood romantic comedies. But a Richard Linklater film this ain't.

A Lot Of People Come To Me And They Say, "Hey..."

"...Admiral, I need to know, and I need to know now. What is perfection? Is it the innocent smile of a happy child? Is it the excited gleam in a lover's eye? Is it the sun rising over the fog-shrouded city of Macchu Picchu?" And now I can answer, with 100% confidence, "No. It's Seth Rogen leaping onto Gary Cole like a spider monkey at the 2:09 point in this trailer for Pineapple Express."



You're welcome. I know, I know, that trailer's been around for ages, and the majority of humanity has already seen it, but I just watched it for the thousandth time this year and I had to link to it, just to become yet another cog in the hype machine. It's in my blogging contract that I use up a day a week lazily sticking a movie on the blog. Failure to comply means having to review all four seasons of Desperate Housewives, which ain't happening while I've got a say in the matter. Posting a trailer as beautifully constructed as that makes up for being a studio-fellating shill/whore hybrid.

Rogen and co-screenwriter Evan Goldberg performed a bit of miracle writing with their first collaboration Superbad, a movie that escalated perfectly from an inauspicious beginning to a full-on meltdown of comic payoffs that had been set up with such elegance that the blood, sweat, and tears they had shed to polish the script were all but invisible. So, great writer and likeable actor, but I never realised what a great physical presence Rogen has. Like a flying bear, he sells that moment perfectly. I think I snapped three ribs laughing when I first saw it.


Apatow gets a lot of flack for what is seen to be misogyny, and I'll agree Superbad had some dodgy moments (Canyon is also in two minds about it), but even taking that into account it only narrowly missed my 2007 top ten list. That escalation of comedic intensity, and the confidence with which the movie flirted with audience estrangement, really impressed me. From what has been said about Pineapple Express, it seems like Rogen, Goldberg, and director David Gordon Green have added violence to the mix, which could be a brave step too far, but advance reports are very promising.

Besides, that trailer is so good it not only makes me forget James Franco's phoned-in Spider-Man 3 performance (which I don't entirely blame him for, but still), and it not only circumvents my general (ironic) apathy toward stoner comedies, it even makes me want to track down that M.I.A. song despite my hatred for her first album being so strong that I considered selling my ears just so I wouldn't risk accidentally hearing it again.


Fly, cuddly bear-man, fly!