2011: The Worst Films of the Year

I've pretty much exhausted what 2011 has to offer and with a viewing of Steven Spielberg's "War Horse" some time this weekend, that will make it 113 films seen this year - some bad, some good, but as we all know, mostly bad. 

However, out of those mostly bad films I sat through this year, these ten were surely the worst. So before I get to the good stuff (Top 10 list coming later this weekend), here are the ten turds of 2011:

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#10
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"IN TIME"
Directed by Andrew Niccol
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Aside from its impeccable timeliness (no pun intended, I assure you), Andrew Niccol's "In Time", a sci-fi Occupy Wall Street allegory in which money is currency and two outlaws rob from greedy corporations who fund their immortality and give to the poor who literally live second-to-second, was one haphazard treatment of an admittedly promising conceit.
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The production design is stale, the performances are stiff and pretty soon the film devolves into a bunch of clean-cut 25 year-olds running and staring at their wrists. 
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#9
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"COLOMBIANA"
Directed by Olivier Megaton
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Revenge thrillers would appear to be an easy commodity to produce reasonably well, especially when you're Luc Besson ("Leon", "La Femme Nikita") but "Colombiana", the writer/director/producer's latest thriller with a slinky, female assassin, doesn't even produce guilty thrills, it's too sullen for that.
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#8
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"JUST GO WITH IT"
Directed by Dennis Dugan
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Not sure if Brooklyn Decker could look any better, but her film debut in this misguided romantic triangle couldn't have been in service of a more toxic affair. The fact that Sandler expects us to buy that his character would send both she and Jennifer Aniston into a fit of jealous hijinks is perhaps the best joke in the film. 
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#7
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"HORRIBLE BOSSES"
Directed by Seth Gordon
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Mean-spirited, misogynistic and terribly one-note, "Horrible Bosses" brought significant pedigree with its mix of young up-and-comers and wily veterans, yet the result - a series of misadventures surrounding the proposed deaths of their workplace bullies - was a shrill shreik of nonsense. 
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#6
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"THE ROOMMATE"
Directed by Christian E. Christiansen
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I don't know what was more humorous, the film's curious, derivative interpretation of what appear to be thrills or its otherworldly portrait of freshmen supposedly in art school. Either way, this laughable CW version of "Single White Female" takes a shoddily riveting 90's thriller and not only makes it arid and dim, it makes it worst of all, dull.
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#5
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"KABOOM"
Directed by Greg Araki
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Among the many films this year which either potently or haltingly set their principle story against the backdrop of the impending apocalypse, Greg Araki's "Kaboom" was the most uselessly realized. A poxy science-fiction mystery set in the middle of a sexual revolution amongst college students, the film is as ineptly executed as it was conceived.
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#4
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"WATER FOR ELEPHANTS"
Directed by Francis Lawrence
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Sara Gruen's bestseller took to the screen earlier this year in Francis Lawrence's glossy, passionless adaptation, a circus melodrama that's so baselessly unromantic and prosaic that it exposes Gruen's novel as the animal activist propaganda that it is. 
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#3
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"THE CONSPIRATOR"
Directed by Robert Redford
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Fatally rudimentary, Robert Redford's historical drama "The Conspirator" has a dusty, musty odor that permeates both visually and dramatically, nestling this Civil War-era tale of injustice surrounding the assassination of President Lincoln somewhere between old-hat and a corpse. 
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#2
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"REAL STEEL"
Directed by Shawn Levy
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Although Shawn Levy's blue-eyed cheek-pinch of a film attempts to make clever juxtapositions between human and machine, I always found its conceit - a sentimental father-son drama set in the world of robot boxing - rather bizarre (a feat the film's inconsistent futureworld does little to squelch). That being said, the biggest transgression against the film is its blubbery, overpowering sentimentality. "I want you to fight for me. That's all I ever wanted." Oh boy.  
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#1
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"BATTLE: LOS ANGELES"
Directed by Jonathan Liebesman
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 There wasn't a tougher sit this year than Jonathan Liebesman's soldiers-in-distress alien invasion actioner "Battle: Los Angeles". Derivative grunts-in-the-trenches action scenes are one thing, but the film's atrocious emphasis on characterization and its loutish emotional confrontations are truly unforgivable.

Thoughts on "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" (2011)

Without question, David Fincher's "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is a much more accomplished, taut and ornamented adaptation of Steig Larsson's runaway bestseller than that wretched Swedish-language adaptation of a few years ago. 
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Anyone claiming differently is either someone I don't like or cinematically inept. Fincher's film is carefully composed, meticulously arranged and accented, and the performances around the horn (including that of the film's composers, the impeccable duo of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross) are significant improvements. 
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The only question that arises is whether masterful compositions and flawless filmmaking can completely mask what a terribly ugly, boilerplate novel Larsson's "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is, creating a fascinating disconnect, disparity between construct and material. 
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Boorishly violent and clumsily plotted, even Fincher can't hide the fact that the climax of the novel's bass-line murder mystery (or hell, the majority of the second-half of the film) feels like, at times, a CBS procedural. 
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Yet, like the true filmmaker that he is, Fincher turns this second or third-rate boilerplate stuff into something that is (although flawed) undoubtedly a work of his own. From the opening credits (which frankly, probably belonged in another film) it's clear that this is his show to run, and run with it he does - at least as far as he could go. [B-]

Thoughts on "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" (2011)

The production design on Guy Ritchie's "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows", from the costume department to the art direction to Hans Zimmer's now-familiar score is, I must say, first-rate stuff - eye-popping, transportive, even soothing in its period detail, the sawdust in the air, the splintering of wood, the slush of mud in the street, etc.
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But beyond the film's rapturous facade, its welcoming, grimy-yet-lovely recreations, is the sneaking, inevitable feeling of weariness. Weariness in the film's aimless set-pieces, its over-plotting, its bloated runtime, its mumbling, shuffling gape from scene-to-scene, from clue-to-clue. 
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And in some way I almost respect and acknowledge Ritchie and his team for keeping the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle formula of slow clue accumulation followed by after-the-fact exposition and a climactic resolution, discovery and explanation of these facts, but after two films, the only resounding feeling to be gained from these middling, half-curious action-mystery hybrids is one of faint exhaustion. 
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I'm partly blaming the film's writers, who fail to justify their unruly length and roundabout storytelling and partly blaming Ritchie, who, although bizarrely flexing his slow-motion, camera-mount muscles during a second-half treeline escape, fails to wring tension or humor out of scenes that should otherwise bring nothing but. [C+]

Thoughts on "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol" (2011)

Brad Bird's "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol" is such a feat of high-tech globe-trotting spy-movie extravagance that it takes nearly the majority of the film's running time to reveal itself as a frivolous, hoary nuclear arms showdown. (Among the film's drawbacks, convolution is certainly not among them.) 
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Not that most - included myself - are complaining, because the kind of propulsive, glossy, high-wire stuff that this film is selling is delivered with minimum pretense and maximum exuberance. Trust me, one glance at a decidedly spry 49 year-old Tom Cruise clinging to the side of the Burj Khalifa (a 160-story skyscraper in Dubai) and frankly, you'll be willing to forgive its shortcomings.
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And this level of exemplary agility - the jaw-dropping stunt-work and the nerve and frequency of which it's on display - is more admirable and more intoxicating than anything seen this year in cinema's girth of mega-budgeted live-action behemoths. In fact, the first 90 minutes of the film work so well that you can almost overlook the rote, perfunctory and borderline-satirical action-climax that proceeds them. 
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But Cruise, whose wattage as a significant on-screen draw seems dimmer (at least in this country) with each passing day, nevertheless proves (in a way far more convincing than last summer's flimsy "Knight and Day") that when it comes to these kinds of physical, charismatic, suave action roles, nobody does it better - cue Carly Simon. [B]

Thoughts on "Shame" (2011)

I'm not entirely sold on Steve McQueen's "Shame", but this immaculately cold and detached portrait of a Manhattan sex addict is a real work of art. Every frame of this film appears calculated and carefully composed, as if every second was a still photograph hanging in a gallery, each contributing to a collective theme. 
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I'm not sure that McQueen isn't exaggerating considerably at times here (especially in the opening and closing scenes), but overall, the film paints an emotionally convincing portrait, not only of sex addiction, but of any unspecified addictive behavior - the need to be alone, the feeling of being trapped, cutting off ties with loved ones, the inability to communicate, etc. 
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Michael Fassbender, who can literally do no wrong at this point, is predictably sensational (as is his co-star Carey Mulligan), who along with McQueen, create moments of staggering clarity, which makes a few keys missteps all the more tougher to swallow. [B+]

The Playlist's Best Scores of 2011

I look forward to this list every year. The Playlist, a movie blog with a deceiving background as a music-in-movies specialty, released their list of the best scores/soundtracks of the year. Some are quite unsurprising ("Drive", "Attack the Block"), while others are delightful, less-than-expected inclusions.
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I personally don't think it gets much better than Cliff Martinez's stunning work on "Contagion", and kudos to Steven Soderbergh for allowing his pulsating, monotone electronic work provide the backbone to his chilling disease control procedural. 
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And I love the inclusion of Alex Turner's (of the Arctic Monkeys) work on "Submarine". Lovely acoustic tunes. 

"Shame" on Me

Seeing Steve McQueen's "Shame" tomorrow afternoon (thank you, NFL, for scheduling no games of consequence until Sunday night...), so certainly looking forward to that. With school pretty much wrapped up, it's time to play catch-up, so I'll be checking out stuff like "Beginners", "The Future", "Another Earth" and some other titles I missed this summer.
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Speaking of which, for some reason, I caught up with "Sarah's Key" and was honestly not very surprised to find it a doughy history lesson that finds false uplift through tragedy by framing story around pregnant, glum Kristin Scott-Thomas. Even she can't survive its obvious shortcomings, most of which, I presume, can be traced back to Tatiana de Rosnay's 2006 bestseller. 

Boyega for "Attack the Block"

For me, there's no more enduring performance this year than John Boyega's in "Attack the Block," Joe Cornish's slick, propulsive small-scale action-comedy hybrid which rose through the ranks of genre festivals to become one of the more noteworthy debuts of the year. 
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Boyega plays Moses, the leader of a young, petty street gang in an urban UK neighborhood, who rises above his more comically-styled homeboys to become the center of a film that subversively turns into more of a "Die Hard" action film than a "Shaun of the Dead" level satire. 
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And if you ask me, a good portion of the credit needs to go to Boyega, whose transformation from expressionless, hesitant slum rat to exterminating hallway-dashing hero provides the backbone for the film, which poignantly ends with his much-deserved final-reel appreciation. 

"Win Win" Catch-up

Tom McCarthy's "Win Win", which I just caught up with last week, is a truthful, affectionate family drama, one that's easy to snuggle up to and sympathize with, while still staying true to its self and never compromising its characters in a way that makes them dismissible. 
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With this film, McCarthy has further proven to be a practiced hand at portraying these kinds of honest, moving character dramas centered around unexpected relationships. His previous film, 2008's "The Visitor," had a pervasively solemn expression in examining the unlikely (and ultimately tragic) encounter between a lonely middle-aged professor and an illegal immigrant, while "Win Win" sees a seemingly honest rural Midwest family take in a teenager, which temporarily, at least, changes their lives for the better. 
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Alex Shaffer, playing the young, reserved Kyle who rediscovers his love for wrestling under his new temporary family, delivers the prize performance of the lot, his blonde mop and monotone delivery masking a subtle vulnerability and always present longing for dependency and support. On the whole, the film may be slightly too calculated, slightly too transparent to prove a knockout, yet its earnestness and its performances are nearly irresistible. [B]

The "Hugo" Debate

On the topic of Martin Scorsese's "Hugo," I consider myself - from the moment I left the theater until now - a fan. I love that this film (which is obviously breathtaking to witness and a strong counter-argument for the tasteful implementation of 3D) is such a strange detour for one of America's greatest enduring cinema icons, yet once you take it in, it feels like the product of no one else. 
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It's a film that, akin to many of Scorsese's works, is oddly structured (it begins as one thing, ends as another and has no problem taking its time to get there) and in the context of "children's adventure" films, seems to be rather anti-adventurous. 
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It's a warm, sweet tale about coming to terms with the past and moving on while recognizing our history. A considerable and active presence in film restoration and preservation today, Scorsese's own ideals and beliefs begin to bleed through with each passing frame (his technical prowess on display much sooner) until his influence, his persona, literally appears before you.
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That being said, I never considered the film to be something of a masterwork, and I squint my eyes and furrow my brow every time I hear it. I think it's certainly one of the more interesting works of the year - the reclamation of art and movie-making in the guise of a children's film - but my appreciation of it is just that, an appreciation. 
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I can't really argue with anybody pointing out its flaws or its inflated running-time, or the fact that Scorsese's passion feels more intense than the characters, yet I never felt lost or misled or fatigued by "Hugo", rather, I felt it gloriously wondrous to slip into and admire, yet too easy to slip out of. 

Lars and the Bleak Girl: "Melancholia" (2011)

In what could be perceived as the conclusion (or perhaps bridge) to Danish provocateur Lars von Trier's recent explorations of guilt and depression - beginning with 2009's much ballyhooed horror film "Antichrist" - the director's latest film, the apocalyptically beautiful "Melancholia" is as relatively restrained as a film about the end of the world (and coming from the self-proclaimed "greatest director in the world") could be.
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Which isn't to say that fans of the lurid extremes of "Antichrist" won't have anything to feast their eyes on here (in fact, they don't even have to wait past the title card as they're witness to a  balletic slow-motion prologue set to Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde" that perhaps outdoes anything the fearless von Trier has attempted before), but the kind of film that "Melancholia" is - a doleful, numbing meditation on recessive despondency, allegorically linked to the end of the world - will likely provoke less revulsion and more quizzical agitation. Unless, that is, you're like me, in which case the film will play like a cosmic revelation.
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Split into two parts separated by inter-titles (each a name of the two sisters), the first introduces Justine (played brilliantly by a morose-then-despondent Kirsten Dunst) a bride on her way to her own wedding reception, which quickly snowballs into a disaster, full of bluntly cynical dinner speeches, a bickering father-of-the-groom and, most importantly, a terribly disinterested bride. 
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Part two (easily the more bleakly entertaining and satisfyingly resolute of the two) is titled "Claire," the comparatively chipper of the two sisters (played by Charlotte Gainsbourgh) who frantically, obsessively, fears that the fictional planet (metaphorically called "Melancholia"), scientifically expected to merely pass by the Earth rather than collide with it, is nevertheless about to demolish all life on Earth. 
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Von Trier was initially interested in the concept of clinically depressive people behaving normally in a time of crisis, and Dunst's fixed detachment, her deadpan death wish throughout the second half serves as his portal into this morbid curiosity. 
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Of course, even the most ignorant of viewers could suspect the film's conclusion - a sonic wave of deep bass and Wagner strings that flood the auditorium in an example of a film that still justifies the trip to the theatre - an all too rare example, perhaps. [A]

Reviews at Home: "Conan" (2011), "Cedar Rapids" (2011) and "The Roommate" (2011)

In-between spare moments where I'm not thinking about Lars von Trier's "Melancholia" (more on that later, by the way), I've managed to sit down to watch all manner of (mostly) terrible films at home, plus a few that weren't too painful and some that were quite good, honestly.
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Top of mind, Marcus Nispel's "Conan the Barbarian" is an over-lit, over-blown spectacle that (in what is becoming an all too common trend) eschews comparisons to the original film by proclaiming literary conception as its source of inspiration, a silly double standard considering the likelihood of a retake slim without the existence of John Milius' 1982 camp classic starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in his breakthrough role. 
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Nispel's vision is far too crass and vulgar, his landscapes too digitized, washed with orange-blue skies and shiny seaside ports, and yet after its bloodthirsty, distasteful first half, the film pants through its midsection and then collapses from exhaustion. It's a primal scream towards the sky that falls on deaf ears. That Rachel Nichols sure is fetching, though. [C-]
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Although it stars Ed Helms ("The Hangover") and isn't afraid to drop a dirty joke or two or three, Miguel Arteta's "Cedar Rapids" is as much a Frank Capra film as it as a lewd, R-rated middle-aged comedy. 
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Like "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" or "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", the film is about an idealistic small-town man who travels to the big city (Cedar Rapids, Iowa isn't exactly New York or D.C., I'll admit) where his ideals and beliefs are tested by obscenities and corruption. 
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Arteta directed last year's "Youth in Revolt," a rather unsuccessful-yet-curious coming-of-age Michael Cera comedy, and while that film felt too familiar in certain respects and rather flimsy, it did take chances and felt sporadically unique. "Cedar Rapids" is a more refined, mature slice of comedy, one that will likely be appreciated by classic film buffs for its moralistic center and by bawdy comedy fans for its fearless sense of humor. [B-]
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For some reason (okay, because it's on Starz every other hour) I watched Christian E. Christiansen's "The Roommate", a riotous, deathly ineffective horror-thriller that can't even wake up its actors, much less the audience. 
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Familiar with the film's obvious influence, 1992's similarly schlocky, yet far more perturbed "Single White Female," I had a vague curiosity in this dorm room update, which is amazingly quite worse than even the most pessimistic could expect. 
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Whether its the film's comatose, emaciated leads (I mean that both figuratively and literally) Minka Kelly and Leighton Meester, the director's dull, thrilless hands or its unintentionally uproarious vision of freshmen in art school, "The Roommate" is a stolid, plodding amber-tinted bore. [D]

Thoughts on "The Muppets", "My Week with Marilyn"

"The Muppets" is simply a joyous reunion tour, a get-the-gang-back-together send-off like no other, and I say this as someone with almost no prior exposure to the original TV show and subsequent movie spin-offs throughout the 80 and 90's. 
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Jason Segel, who stars in and co-writes along with Nicolas Stoller, brings his doughy sarcasm both behind and in-front of the camera, managing to make the film both earnestly nostalgic and blithefully self-aware - it's hilarious, it's catchy and it's irresistibly endearing. [B]
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Contrary to what you may believe, "My Week with Marilyn" is not a sequel to "Me and Orson Welles", although the two are nigh copies of one another, both middling, compelling-but-slim reenactments that will titillate classic film enthusiasts and the non-educated alike, at least for their meager durations. 
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Like Christian McKay's Orson Welles personification, Michelle Williams bravely inhabits the title role here of Ms. Monroe, capturing her playful, voluptuous sexuality and her frightfully flimsy self-image, yet the film is so positively scant of any everlasting substance, that it practically wilts as you walk out of the theater. [C]