So I was just thinking about this and, though I do really hate Her, and though I saw plenty of other crappy movies too, I’m pretty sure that Olympus Has Fallen is the worst movie I saw in 2013.
For that matter, Olympus Has Fallen is I think one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, period. Not worse than Schindler’s List, but possibly worse than Amistad. Having trouble thinking of other competition that isn’t Spielberg, but I think that’s just because I saw Amistad and Lincoln back to back and it scarred me.
Anyway what about you folks? What was the worst movie of 2013?
Blue Jasmine by a country mile.
That’s the Woody Allen thing, right? I didn’t see that, thank god.
It’s really bad. And Cate Blanchett is terrible in it. After she wins the oscar i might even write you a contrarian take on it.
Without taking a minute to review everything I saw last year, which is admittedly not all that much, I’ll go with”Elysium”. Everything it could possibly make dumb, it made dumb. Everything. Was there any reason to see it at all? None.
I don’t even think I knew Elysium existed; it’s some sort of dystopia it looks like?
NO, Noah, Elysium is a SPACE station. EARTH is the dystopia. To be fair, it didn’t exist, much. There were several similarly-themed science fiction movies. Oblivion was probably the best-known, since it starred Tom Cruise (and it was pretty decent, though forgettable). Pacific Rim was my favorite, and it was a total surprise – I don’t think I even saw trailers for it.
I didn’t see as many movies this year as I usually do, but out of what I saw, the worst was either “Ender’s Game” or “Iron Man 3.”
I just saw “Man of Steel” a few days ago. It was not good, but it was nowhere near as bad as the others I mentioned.
I saw very few movie in the theatre or newly released movies on DVD/streaming.
Iron Man 3 or Man of Steel might be the worst among what I saw – but my real contrarian opinion is that Gravity was wildly overrated – it was definitely my least favorite of actual movie-viewing experiences of the year.
I saw the Wolverine, recently. It was pretty damn bad, not even ninjas could save it. Worse than Iron Man 3 or Man of Steel.
Though I suspect After Earth will win all the rassies this year.
My wife and son are actually watching Iron Man 3 even as I type. They seem to be enjoying it….
I watched Stories We Tell and Upstream Color this past week, two movies that seemed to have generally positive critical response, but I thought they were both navel-gazing slogs.
For what it is I thought Iron Man 3 was fine. Kingsley was pretty funny.
Some votes on Facebook for Frances Haa and White House Down….
Mine was Frances Ha until I saw Her. But Her has a sort of nasty unintended brilliance to it that makes me conflicted. So I guess I’ll have to go with Frances Ha.
Right; Her’s kind of too smart to be utterly awful in every way, even if it is evil.
Oh yeah…”Ender’s Game” stank. So self-pleased and serious – and so handy in its resolution of moral issues. He didn’t know it was real!
Now You See Me
I see everyone here was enlightened enough to not see Wolf of Wall Street.
Nobody voting for American Hustle? I know it’s supposed to be great, but it looks kind of awful.
Um…haven’t you seen any of these movies?
I haven’t seen many of them! My movie going is really sporadic; I tend to see stuff for work, but not a whole lot otherwise.
I’m that weird pop culture critic who isn’t actually super interested in keeping up with pop culture.
Sometimes I make myself “catch up” a little, but not with movies. Movies I keep up with as much as I need to – though I might have to see “Fight Club” some day. Might. Some day.
Just looking back through what else I’ve seen; Homefront was okay; the Conjuring was awful, but not as bad as Olympus Has Fallen; the Network and Muscle Shoals were two good docs (the Network was very good); Married and Counting was a decent doc; Star Trek sucked, but again not as bad as OHF; Great Gatsby was lousy, but again, etc.; The Host; Ginger & Rosa; doc It’s a Girl; doc Hitler’s Children, which was very good; Side Effect was crap; When I Walk and Nuclear Nation were both good docs; The Caucus was eh, More Than Honey was great. I probably saw a couple more in there? So around 20 films all together.
May be seeing more this year since I’m starting to write more for the dissolve. Again probably won’t be the major releases though; I’m not a big enough deal to get assigned those.
Star Trek really did suck – O hai, Spock Old! You’re on the bridge now!
I thought The Conjuring was okay, actually. Decent. I didn’t see any of the others.
American Hustle has been grossly overhyped but it’s not the worst movie of the year. It’s just totally inconsequential. Noah would probably get a brain haemorrhage if he watched Wolf of Wall Street.
I liked Gatsby.
thinking on it more, I am sticking with Gravity as the movie that is supposed to be good, but is obviously terrible overwrought bullshit, and I am amazed people like it.
American Hustle is bizarre mixture of two genres I don’t like– con films and buddy films (it’s a romance structured almost exactly like a buddy film.) I thought the love triangle was going to have more bite, so I was disappointed– also, the ending is blah. It has a few great moments, and solid performing. It rides the femme fatale thing a little too hard, and while it sometimes uses class struggle for emotional mileage, it employs them mostly for laughs.
Finding a worst is actually is hard! I don’t think I was deeply offended by any movie I saw in 2013, although some were less memorable than others.
Elysium and Blue Jasmine left me with nothing.
Frances Ha– I thought this was one of 2013’s best. While it’s begging for ridicule, (a zeitgeist film, a post-college film, an NYC film,) it’s not as far gone as Girls or upcoming Liberal Arts, which are much juicier targets for that kind of hate-relish. Unless you’re constantly on the lookout for more Girls-like things to ridicule, I think it’s an unrewarding way to look at a film that has a lot more to it.
But these are my biases too– I like coming-of-age stories, I like New York City, I can enjoy Bowie’s Modern Love as a soundtrack for a 27 year old running in the streets without laughing at how stupid that is… The stupidity, and awkwardness, and the joy of it is what made the movie so uncomfortable but rewarding for me. I like personal stories, and in the grander scheme of things, I think Frances Ha’s brief spells of indulgence are a worthy tradeoff for its honesty.
The Hobbit 2, easily. Not only a 3-hour bore of tedious action scenes and drama with no sense of pacing, but a far more cynical franchise cash-grab than any of this year’s, next year’s, or the year after that’s worst superhero flicks or other big-budget smash o’ ramas (well, part 3 could be worse…). A movie which just keeps grinding every. last. scene. on and on. I struggled while watching this–in a theater full of people who also reacted to nothing which was happening on the screen for all but the last minute of runtime–to figure out who could find this appealing. Too dumb to do anything for those Tolkien fans who actually enjoy all the extraneous history and diversions of the Middle-Earth books, too monotonous and lacking in identifiable characters for anyone up for a good adventure movie, and…just empty of anything thoughtful or emotional to say.
all movies are shit
Oh thank god somebody else got in before me to say: The Hobbit 2. Just so many bad decisions went into that movie. I saw it in the extra-shitty 48 FPS version, precisely because I wanted to see for myself if that tech looked as terrible as everyone says and, ye cats, I was not disappointed. It looked cheap and awful from start to finish; some bits felt like I was watching an episode of Doctor Who; other bits felt like Blackadder (and that was before Stephen Fucking Fry showed up).
That technology — no exaggeration, I really just cannot conceive of Peter Jackson and (cinematographer) Andrew Lesnie sitting down and watching their film and thinking “yeah, yeah, this looks awesome in 48 FPS!” These guys do this for a living, how could they not see how terrible it looks? In conclusion, high frame rates 4 EVA!
Agree with Suat on American Hustle — wait five or six years, Noah, until you’ve forgotten the hype, and you might enjoy it well enough. Watch it now, though, and you’ll just feel the need to backlash.
Disagree with Osvaldo on Gravity — what size screen did you see it on? I saw it 3D Imax (in fact, at the World’s Biggest Screen here in Sydney) and it was amazing. Just ignore the script — like when Clooney REDACTED, or Bullock calls REDACTED or the backstory that REDACTED, yeah, that’s some dopey nonsense.
And, Isaac, what do you expect, man? You go see a Woody Allen movie starring Cate Blanchett, you get exactly what you deserve.
(Actually, though, my worst movie of 2013 I saw at a repertory cinema — John Cassavetes’ Husbands. Halfway through the screening, we lost the sound reel for at least ten minutes; I can’t have been the only one who enjoyed the film a whole lot more for those ten minutes.)
I hated the Hobbit part 2 almost as much as I hated 300 so that has to be my pick.
Based on this thread my taste is diametrically opposed to Kailyn’s.
Is this that Utilitarian consensus always hear about?
I take it back, actually. I fucking hate Woody Allen so I would probably feel the same about Blue Jasmine if I bothered to see it
Owen, you liked Elysium?
I did not see it
Ah, so just diametrically opposed on Frances Ha then. I could see it being a love it or hate it kind of deal.
Yeah I look a little silly, but I suspect I will love Wolf of Wall Street and our mutual friend who knows me very well and movies very well said that it is my kind of picture.
Unless I have a huge surprise in store for me, someday, when I choose to see Wolf, I would have to say that yes, Owen’s and my taste are diametrically opposed in the grander scheme of things.
I kind of like the idea of people guessing which movie they would hate if they’d seen it. We could go further even and start inventing movies we would hate if they existed….
Berlatsky that’s the sort of comments section that gets you into internet trouble
I don’t know. I think Wolf of Wall Street already is better than whatever I’d come up with. Not only is it a con film, and a buddy film, but it wallows self-aggrandizingly, indulgently, in the crimes it’s ‘supposedly’ exposing and denouncing. Further reading: “We saw Wolf of Wall Street with a Bunch of Wall Street Dudes and it was Disturbing.”
I just saw American Hustle and had a blast. It’s learned a few tricks from Goodfellas about giving velocity to a talky, complicated plot, the 70s period detail flashed me back to infancy, and I’d happily watch most of the cast make sandwiches for two hours, so there ya go. Jones, One of the Jones Boys is probably correct that habitual contrarian cranks will need to see it outside of the hype frenzy to enjoy it.
I thought the love triangle was fascinating because (mild spoiler) it’s never clear (at least to me) if Amy Adams is Torn Between Two Lovers or is playing one while putting her True Love on notice. That crafty ambiguity, and (another spoiler) Patrick Batman’s (sorry can’t remember real name) growing remorse about bringing down a good leader gives this caper comedy a real emotional undertow.
In short, it’s everything Argo was cracked up to be.
I’ll probably love Wolf of Wall Street because I love movies that tell me I’m right to hate and fear the people I hate and fear.
While I agree “Olympus has Fallen” was pretty bad, it’s rival POTUS-has-been-compromised counterpart, “White House Down,” was far worse. In addition to being a stinker of a film, WHD was a contrived liberal wet-dream — so much so that I knew who the ultimate villain was going to be 10 minutes into the movie. Hint: He wasn’t a Democrat.
“Hint: He wasn’t a Democrat.”
Was he a Naderite?
Every movie was tripe … the human beings who made them were aesthetic pygmies … the cinemas I saw them in were designed by degraded Eloi … the whole planet is a waste of space.
Cheerful as always, Mahendra!
Only 200 shopping days till Hate Week :)
“I can enjoy Bowie’s Modern Love as a soundtrack for a 27 year old running in the streets without laughing at how stupid that is… The stupidity, and awkwardness, and the joy of it is what made the movie so uncomfortable but rewarding for me. I like personal stories, and in the grander scheme of things, I think Frances Ha’s brief spells of indulgence are a worthy tradeoff for its honesty”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2347569/board/thread/214675358
Huh, I thought that was the best part of the movie, and I bought “Modern Love” on iTunes the day after seeing it. Maybe I’d like Mauvais Sang.
Wolf of Wall Street >>> American Hustle, if only for its refreshing “investors are just salespeople with access to more money” line. Maybe I’m getting old, but I preferred the clear moralizing in that movie to the sense in American Hustle that if you actually liked the con men protagonists, it was because you yourself had been conned (good acting though). I wouldn’t call either the worst movie of the year though.
I liked most of the movies I saw in theaters this year, but:
Hobit 2 was a bad movie but a decent three-hour television miniseries that just happened to be screening in theaters. Not a totally unenjoyable way to waste three hours of your life.
Warm Bodies, that zombie movie that came on Valentine’s Day last year, was the technically worst movie I watched in theaters in 2013. I kind of liked the zombie = depressed person conceit, though. (Although the movie wasn’t consistent in the way it treated this theme, and made the mistake of simultaneously caring too much about the plot and having plot holes).
Don Juan fell kind of flat to me: characters were too one-dimensional, the movie’s moral lesson was too pat, there was too much patting-on-the-back of the Baby Boomer demographic, and the movie as a whole felt too ripped-from-the-headlines to make much of an impact. But props for tackling the difficult theme of porn addiction.
Benecio del Toro’s monster movie was the movie I had the highest hopes for, and so was disappointed the most by.
On the other hand, Osvaldo Oyola is wrong about Gravity. That movie was gr8 in 3D, really beautiful stuff about the fragile line between life and death. And videogames. I was going to write about it for HU, actually…
The Great and Powerful Oz was worse than any movie mentioned above, I’m probably just the only person dumb enough here to end up in a theatre watching it.
It pulled off the perfect quadfecta of offensive, dull, incoherent, and ugly.