Last week I asked folks about the worst movie of 2013. Which made me curious what folks think is the worst movie of all time.
I think my vote would go to Schindler’s List. Slick, oleaginous, self-satisfied Spielberg tripe about the Holocaust. Bleah.
Let me know what you’d pick in the comments.
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?
I’m not sure what I expected when I rented the 2013 Evil Dead re-make. Maybe I was hoping for a few scares, or at least a few laughs. Or maybe I’m just another aging nerd wallowing in nostalgia.
The original Evil Dead (1981) is often described as a cult classic, and it launched the careers of filmmaker Sam Raimi and B-movie star Bruce Campbell. Like most horror films of that era, Evil Dead was exploitative popcorn fare that was often more funny than scary. In fact, the Evil Dead franchise morphed into a deliberate horror/comedy in the second film and an action/comedy by the third film. If the original Evil Dead is remembered fondly, it’s a fondness for its excesses and failures. It was ultra-violent even by the standards of the time, but the filmmakers lacked the skill and resources to make the gore look believable. Instead, viewers were treated to buckets of obviously fake blood and corpses made of play-doh. To describe the characters as one-dimensional would be generous, and the acting was sub-par even by the low standards of the slasher genre. And, of course there was the infamous tree rape scene. It was gratuitous and sleazy (Raimi later stated he regretted including it), but it was hardly out of place in a film that was clearly pandering to the base instincts of its (presumably) teenaged audience.
Put simply, the original Evil Dead was an amateurish horror film produced for bored teenagers looking for a few cheap thrills. It was a surprising success and seems to have entertained its core audience back in ’81. In a sane world, that would have been good enough, and no one would have remembered Evil Dead except for a handful of horror buffs. But we don’t live in a sane world. We live in a world where Hollywood keeps producing expensive movies based on 70 year old characters from children’s comics. We live in a world where a movie franchise based on a line of children’s toys is one of the biggest hits of the past decade. We live in a world where the nerd is king and every piece of pop culture detritus must be re-packaged and re-sold (often to the exact same people who bought the first copy).
And so we get an Evil Dead re-make. By a few superficial measures, it’s superior to the original. The budget is obviously much larger, so the filmmakers didn’t have to cut any corners. It has the slick look of a major Hollywood production. The new cast are marginally better actors than the originals (and better looking, too). And the gore is far, far more realistic. The special make-up effects crew earned their paycheck.
And yet the film still feels like a pale imitation. Perhaps that’s unavoidable with most remakes, but I think it has more to do with the obsessive reverence for the original. Rather than simply make a new movie with some of the same ideas, the filmmakers went through a checklist of every big moment from the Evil Dead franchise and crammed them all into one movie. There’s the signature Evil Dead camera which chases the characters through the woods. There’s violence with a chainsaw. The heroine loses a hand because the original hero lost a hand in Evil Dead 2. Bruce Campbell appears and says “groovy.” Even the freakin’ car from the first movie, an Oldsmobile Delta 88, has its own cameo. And there’s a tree rape scene. It’s significantly toned down from the original, and yet it feels more gratuitous because its purpose isn’t even to titillate so much as to remind older viewers of the same scene in the original. Or to put it another way, the nostalgia is the titillation.
The sad thing is that nostalgia is about the only thing that the Evil Dead remake does well. On the few occasions when the filmmakers deviate from the source material, they fail badly. The remake spends far more time trying to get its audience to care about the characters, all for nothing because the characters are just as paper-thin as the originals. And the reason you go to a movie called Evil Dead is to see some violence inflicted on annoying people, not learn about their tragic mommy issues. Also, switching the gender of the hero might have been a great idea if executed well, but lead actress Jane Levy just doesn’t have the chops to carry the story. Bruce Campbell is not a great actor, but he had a goofy charisma which was, more often than not, the best thing about the Evil Dead franchise. Perhaps Levy will have that sort of appeal one day, but in 2013 she’s indistinguishable from every other starlet.
To sum up: not scary, not funny, not memorable on its own merits, and altogether a complete waste of time.
Les Miserables
Directed by Tom Hooper
I read Les Miserables during a study abroad program in Paris, but I had never seen the musical before watching the 2012 film a few weeks ago. The experience was an interesting one, mostly because I would have never believed Victor Hugo’s novel to be ideal for adaptation, and especially not into a musical. There are countless asides, mini-treatises, and lengthy tangents, like the chapter devoted to the Battle of Waterloo. The musical throws all of that out and focuses on the plot and the central characters.
The end result is a mixed bag. Part of me is happy that I didn’t have to sit through the musical riff of Victor Hugo describing the sewers of Paris. On the other hand, removing all those asides made the musical feel less rooted, less historical, and above all less French. The novel is about Fantine and Marius and Jean Valjean obviously, but it’s also about French history, geography, revolutions, Catholicism, and Hugo’s efforts to bind it all together. The musical is draped in the tricolor, and the religious and revolutionary themes are still there, but they felt cursory and disconnected in comparison to the book. And when there’s nothing to distract you from the main plot, it’s hard to ignore the many contrivances, or Hugo’s less than progressive attitude towards women.
This particular version of Les Miserables has its own share of problems. Director Tom Hooper was way too fond of close-ups, the editing was a mess during the group songs, and the actors were hit or miss in their musical performances. But for all my complaints, I found it to be a reasonably enjoyable way to fill some time. It helped that I saw it with someone who’s very enthusiastic about the musical, and I’ll admit that several of the songs are catchy. And since I’ve never seen (and still haven’t seen) the musical, my expectations were about as low as can be.
What follows are my thoughts on the singer/actors:
Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean: I always imagined Jean Valjean as a big, stocky man, so Hugh Jackman would not have been my first choice for the role. But he’s a decent singer (if a bit too much warbling), and his acting performance was solid. And I’ll admit there’s something inherently awesome in seeing Wolverine in a musical.
Anne Hathaway as Fantine: Hathaway received a lot of praise (and an Oscar) for her performance. As much as I would like to be the contrarian, most of the praise is deserved. As Fantine, Hathaway had one of the most demanding songs, “I Dreamed a Dream.” It requires a powerful voice, and Hathaway’s version is rather weak when you listen to it as a single. Having now heard several other singers tackle it (including Susan Boyle), I wouldn’t rank Hathaway anywhere near the top. But within the context of the film, her version is excellent. The song occurs right after Fantine’s first night as a prostitute. Hathaway’s voice breaks, she fails to hit the right notes, yet the song feels perfect in the moment. A more polished, “ready for the album” version would have actually been strange and discordant. So by emphasizing Fantine’s despair and downplaying the show-stopper nature of “I Dreamed a Dream,” Hathaway actually made the most of her singing limitations.
Russell Crowe as Inspector Javert: Crowe had the same problem as Anne Hathaway. He has a VERY limited range as a singer but his role includes the song “Stars,” which requires a broad range and a booming voice. And Crowe just blows it. You can tell he’s trying his hardest, but he’s horribly outmatched by the song and what’s required of him. Crowe’s not much better in the rest of the movie, but at least he only has to “sing-talk” his lines. Tom Hooper probably cast Crowe because he’s a big star and headlines a rock band called The Ordinary Fear of God. After listening to a few of their singles (each one more horrible than the last), I’m left with only one conclusion: Hooper must be a fan of actors with vanity bands. Maybe his next movie will have Keanu Reeves. Or Kevin Bacon!
Amanda Seyfried as Cossette: Cossette is a thankless role. She has nothing to do and is barely even in the movie. The men in her life obsess over her, but the audience is never given any reason to care. I’d feel sorry for Seyfried, but she doesn’t help matters. Seyfried seems to think that she can make up for the paucity in her role by singing every line at the highest register, so we’ll remember the character after our ears stop ringing. She butchers her duet with Marius (Eddie Redmayne) and is generally unpleasant to hear.
Samantha Barks as Eponine: Pretty much steals the show. She’s one of the best singers in the cast and completely nails her big number, “On My Own.” To be fair, Barks is a ringer, having already played Eponine on the stage. And Eponine is among the most complex and sympathetic characters in Les Miserables, despite being a side character who gets passed over for the irresistible Cossette. But there is an odd problem with the casting. Victor Hugo described Eponine as gaunt and boyish, a product of poverty and malnutrition. It’s easy to understand why Marius would be oblivious to her affections. But Samantha Barks isn’t gaunt; she’s a knockout. And that means it’s hard to believe that Marius, or any straight man with working eyes, would be indifferent to her flirting. Suspension of disbelief only goes so far.
Sacha Baron Cohen as M. Thenardier: I understand why Sacha Baron Cohen was cast. He’s goofy looking, and the Thenardiers are the comic relief. What I don’t get is why Sacha Baron Cohen has a mock-French accent in the first half of the movie and a bad Cockney accent in the second half. I’ve been told that some stage versions of Thenardier use the mock-French accent, so maybe Cohen is simply following the example set by other performers. But it isn’t funny, partly because it doesn’t make sense that only one character sounds vaguely French while everyone else speaks with an English accent. Or maybe I don’t think it’s funny because I don’t think Sacha Baron Cohen is particularly funny.
Eddie Redmayne as Marius: quite good in his performance. The character of Marius annoys the hell out of me, but Redmayne does a great job and is a fantastic singer.
Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2
Director – Bill Condon
Starring – Rob Pattinson
Kristen Stewart
Taylor Lautner
Michael Sheen
Dakota Fanning
I should start this post by noting that, prior to Breaking Dawn Part 2, I had never seen a Twilight movie or read any of the books. What little I know about Twilight comes from a handful of online articles, blogs, and pestering my girlfriend with questions about who everyone is what the hell they’re doing. But despite my ignorance, or maybe because of it, I enjoyed the hell out of this movie.
Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2 is, of course, the last movie in the incredibly popular Twilight series. I doubt a synopsis is necessary since everyone reading this blog probably knows more about Twilight than I ever will. So I’ll briefly note that the movie resolved the cliffhanger at the end of Breaking Dawn Part 1 (Bella Swan survived childbirth and is now a vampire, she and Edward Cullen had a baby daughter named Renesmee) and it ended with the Volturi (the bad vampires) agreeing to leave the Cullens alone. Everyone lived happily ever after, or at least until Stephanie Meyer needs more money.
If I judged the film according to the usual measures used by movie reviewers I would have to give it a negative review. I’ll concede that some of my confusion with the plot may be due to my lack of background knowledge, but characters behaved in ways that are inexplicable under any circumstances. For example, if vampires can run across continents at super-speed, why do the Cullens drive everywhere? Why does Bella drive her damn Volvo all the way to Seattle to meet Bunk from “The Wire” when that conversation could have been handled over the phone? And why does Edward just seem to resign himself to the idea that Jacob will be banging his daughter in the near future (and I get the whole imprinting thing, maybe it works in the books, but it’s damn creepy on the screen)? Doesn’t Edward hate Jacob, and if so why does he let the guy hang around his house?
The long middle section of the film was a ripoff of the sequence in “Seven Samurai” where the hero assembled a team of badasses. There’s nothing wrong with ripping off Kurosawa, but there’s not much of a payoff. The collection of badasses actually don’t get much to do and half of them don’t even have speaking roles. The only amusing thing about them was the film’s shameless reliance on ethnic stereotypes. The Amazonian vampire women were particularly ridiculous. I assume they were suppose to come from a primitive tribe in the jungle, but the filmmakers defined “primitive” to mean dressed like rejects from a mid-80’s music video. I started humming “Hungry Like the Wolf” whenever they were on screen.
And the acting by the leads was atrocious. Kristen Stewart and Rob Pattinson are not novices: they’ve acted in four previous Twilight movies and plenty of other films on the side. So I was floored by just how bad they were. Pattinson fluctuated between looking bored and looking constipated. Stewart wasn’t much better, and she delivered nearly every line without conviction or emotional tone. And her narration was even worse! She was so disinterested in her lines she might as well have been reading an instruction manual for assembling furniture. And their romantic chemistry was about as exciting as watching someone assemble furniture.
The special effects looked second-rate too. I could go on and on about the werewolves, but the worse example of CGI was the digital face layered on the baby. It was so fake and poorly done that she looked like a monster. Baby Renesmee was far creepier than any of the vampires or werewolves.
so Breaking Dawn Part 2 is a bad movie in most respects, though that hardly matters to most Twihards. And to be honest, I enjoyed the movie far more than I thought I would. In fact, I’m pretty sure I enjoyed it more than my girlfriend did, and she’s read every book. Some of the entertainment value comes from the badness itself, which turned serious scenes into unintentionally hilarious moments. My favorite example was when Jacob decided to reveal his werewolf nature to Bella’s father, Charlie.* Rather than explain what he’s about to do, thereby giving Charlie some mental preparation, Jacob started stripping in front of Charlie while saying (something along the lines of) “The world is not what you think it is!” And poor Charlie reacted as if he was about to have a gay surprise in the woods. I’m not sure if the scene is in the book, if it is perhaps it’s less homoerotic on the page, but on the screen it was a laugh-out-loud moment.
But I have to give the filmmakers some credit, as there are plenty of scenes in the film that could only have been intended as comedy. There is no other explanation for Bella’s response when she learned that Jacob had given her daughter the nickname Nessie. I refuse to believe that the line “You nicknamed my daughter after the Loch Ness Monster!” was intended as anything other than comedy gold. Intentionality aside, that scene should be stored in the AFI vault because that is the greatest line in film history. Michael Sheen’s reaction when he first met Renesmee was almost as fantastic, particularly when he unleashed this incredible sound that resembled a girlish squeal mixed with a giggle. It was probably an improvised moment, but kudos to the filmmakers for leaving it in.
The battle scene was surprisingly cool as well. The entire battle was a dream sequence/possible future that never occurred, and everyone who died in the battle was still alive at the end of the movie (except for Maggie Grace). It was gratuitous violence that added nothing to the plot and shamelessly pandered to the worst instincts of the audience. And I’m okay with that. After sitting through more than an hour of what passes for acting in this movie, a sudden burst of psycho violence was a welcome change of pace. And how can I hate a movie with such a high character-to-decapitation ratio? Dakota Fanning had her head bitten off by a giant dog! Alice kicked insane amounts of ass and that one Volturi got half his head ripped off starting from the cheeks (I don’t remember his name, but he’s the one who yelled “Artifice!” which was the second greatest/craziest line in the movie). Even Bella and Edward were awesome when they tag teamed Aro. Though as much as I enjoyed the battle, I have to admit that the level of violence was shocking for a PG-13 movie. Apparently, if there’s no blood spurt then on-screen decapitations are perfectly appropriate as tween entertainment. As for the lack of pumping blood, is that from the novels or is it an innovation by the filmmakers?
Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2 is either the greatest bad movie of 2012 or just a shitty movie with 3 or 4 brilliant moments. I’m tempted to watch the earlier films just to see if they’re equally terrible/awesome, though I’ve been warned that they’re not as fun. Or maybe I should just swallow my pride and read the damn novels. What say you commenters, are they worth it?
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* This was the moment when I decided that I was with Team Edward. Edward may be dull as dirt, but Jacob is an obnoxious meddler. And the pedophile vibe doesn’t exactly help matters.
Note by Noah: Eric posted a brief review of Dark Knight and other recent superhero films in comments. It seemed a shame to let his thoughts languish at the bottom of an old threat, so I’m highlighting them here.
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I liked DKR way more than the previous two Nolan Batman movies. It does seem pretty conservative in some ways…though…as it turns out…the “Bad Guys” are not really 99%’ers at all and are just manipulating political unrest and class division to take revenge. In some ways this is a copout (just another madman/madwoman bent on revenge or world domination), but in other ways it mitigates the conservatism of the film (which initially seems to take the side of the rich/status quo vs. the “crazy” poor and downtrodden). In some ways, one could read the film to suggest that it’s the mistreatment of the poor and mishandling of the economy that “primes” that (large) section of society to be manipulated by “evil.” That is, there is some suggestion that if we had a more egalitarian society, revolution/anarchy wouldn’t be necessary (or on the verge of happening). (Just as criticizing the results of the French Revolution in the short term doesn’t necessarily mean one is in favor of the ancien regime). For all those reasons, it’s an interesting film, that (to me, anyway) made more sense plot-wise than Batman Begins or Dark Knight…and had enough fun mindless superheroing and explosions to make it enjoyable. Anne Hathaway was also surprisingly good as Catwoman.
I also liked the new Spider-Man movie quite a bit. That one had almost no ambitions that I could see… I liked the return to Gwen Stacy, though, since I read about her in Ben’s book. Both DKR and ASM were better than Avengers, to my mind (which really made almost no logical sense…never mind the ideology).
Also…the fact that Bruce Wayne loses all of his money is meant to make him a more ambiguous figure (not clearly on the side of the rich). Instead he ends up in the same place as Bane—stripped of everything…at the bottom of a well…etc. I don’t think this really works to make Batman a “working-class hero” (it’s something to be, I here)… but that’s clearly the intent…and it adds an extra layer to any kind of ideological reading. To some degree, I agree that “it’s a mess”—but at least it’s an interesting mess…which is more than can be said for something like Avengers…which is both a mess…and completely mindless.
This first ran in the Chicago Reader a ways back.
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Superpowers create more problems than they solve, and we’d probably be better off without them. That’s at least one message of the 80s comic book Watchmen—especially if we understand that writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons were thinking about geopolitical superpowers as much as masked guys in tights. The original 12-issue series, published in 1986 and ’87, takes place in an alternate universe where superheroes walk the U.S. of A. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein have been killed by a vigilante called the Comedian, and as a result Richard Nixon is serving out his fifth term as president. Thanks to the superhero Dr. Manhattan, who can transmute elements, grow 50 feet high, and wander around buck naked (after all, who’s going to stop him?), the U.S. has won the Vietnam war and holds a decisive advantage over the Soviet Union. America is the world’s undisputed dominant power—which, to the two British creators, seems like a decidedly mixed blessing.
Of course, the cold war ended for real four years after the series concluded. We now know, more or less, what a world dominated by the U.S. looks like. Yet even after two decades, Watchmen doesn’t seem quaint or outdated; on the contrary, it seems more prescient with each passing year. In the comic, American dominance leads to paranoia. At home, fear of masked vigilantes has fueled McCarthyite rioting and forced most superheroes into retirement. Overseas, a cornered USSR walks the world up to the edge of nuclear holocaust.
The story focuses on six superheroes, one of whom—the Comedian—has been murdered. These characters are hardly laudatory examples of unfettered American power. For the most part they don’t like each other, and they certainly don’t work together. The Comedian was an amoral thug who reveled in his own brutality. Rorschach is a neofascist, homophobic nutcase who uses black-and-white morality to justify his extreme violence. Dr. Manhattan is so powerful that he’s become detached from humanity, alternating terror and beneficence with a chillingly casual disinterest. The wealthy philanthropist Adrian Veidt, aka superhero Ozymandias, is a liberal one-worlder whose compassion is so aggressive it’s indistinguishable from ruthlessness: his crazed plot to save the world involves killing half the people in New York City. For him and all the other heroes, saving the world is less about helping others than about indulging their own messianic delusions, sexual hang-ups, and self-aggrandizement. As the U.S. has demonstrated for the past eight years or so, when you add moral grandstanding to great power you get not great responsibility but a huge fucking mess.
Given the continuing relevance of Watchmen, I had some hope that the movie adaptation would serve as a corrective to the supposedly tough-minded but in fact mushily sentimental The Dark Knight. Alas, Watchmen the movie is itself nothing but sentiment. The pointed message of the comic is buried under a ritualized nostalgia for the source material. Director Zack Snyder tiptoes through the story with a deadening reverence, faithfully reproducing this bit of dialogue from Moore (“The superman is real—and he is American!”) or that bit of imagery from Gibbons (the Comedian crashing backward through a window amid a spray of shattered glass) but never pausing to develop a vision of his own. The result is oddly hollow and disjointed; the actors move like sleepwalkers from one overdetermined tableau to another.
One of the most telling characters is Rorschach. In the comic he’s repulsive and ludicrous—a tiny man with lifts in his shoes, he suffers from major sexual problems, and his disguise is a street person whose placard reads “The end is nigh.” The backstory makes him both more likable and less admirable; the moment in the comic when he threatens his landlady is uncomfortable, but the next panel, where he spares her because of her child, who reminds him of himself as a boy, is extremely poignant. Snyder alludes to some of this—we glimpse Rorschach in civvies, wandering around with his sign—but it never coheres. Viewers new to the story might not even realize this nutty doomsayer is the vigilante’s alter ego. All we’re left with is another cool-as-shit dark hero, kicking ass in glossy martial-arts sequences, doing the dirty work of justice.
Certainly Moore thought his vigilantes were cool as shit, but he was also ambivalent about their morals and the implications of their might. By contrast, Snyder issues a few bland caveats, but his veneration of the source material ultimately bleeds over into thoughtless justification of the heroes. This accounts for the main plot change. In the comic, Ozymandias unites the world by destroying New York City and making the catastrophe look like an alien invasion. But in the movie, Ozymandias (Matthew Goode) unites the world by fingering Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup) as the one who destroyed several American cities. The horrific spectacle of New York under attack—which, obviously, now has an eerie resonance—is rather cravenly skirted. And as in The Dark Knight, a superhero scapegoats himself to unite a sinful humanity. The super-Christ exists, and he’s American!
Snyder tips the story to validate the superheroes in other ways too. Moore was careful to include a number of civilians in the comic, most prominently a cranky white news vendor and a young black comics reader. In the movie, these two characters die in each other’s arms as they did on the page, but that’s the first and the last you see of them. They’re cannon fodder for the special effects, not characters you care about. As a result Watchmen focuses on the choices and sacrifices of the superpowered—the superman’s burden, if you will—rather than what those choices mean for everybody else.
Toward the end of the story, the philanthropist Veidt claims he’s made himself feel the death of everyone he’s murdered while trying to build a new utopia. In the comic, Moore forces the reader to experience these deaths and wonder if they’re justified by the possibility of world peace. When you take that question seriously, others come up as well. What makes Veidt so certain the human race is going to destroy itself? What right does he have to play God? Veidt sneers at Rorschach for his “schoolboy heroics,” but in the comic there isn’t much daylight between Rorschach’s fascist vigilante justice and Veidt’s evangelistic UN peacemaking. Both impulses fuel our heroic American fantasies, at home and abroad. As long as that holds true, Watchmen can’t be a simple exercise in 80s nostalgia, no matter how hard Zack Snyder tries to turn it into one.