TEASER... Sunday night, join me online on Twitter @davedollar and here on the blog for the Golden Globe Running Diary
TEASER... American Idol starts next week... we skipped last year #BecauseMinaj and #BecauseMariah, but with Harry Connick, Jr, the returning J-Lo and the returning keith urban (and no Randy the Dawg), I'll be back giving you an episode-by-episode recap!
Bookmark this site so you dont miss anything I have to say, cause let's face it, while what I have to say really isn't that important, its mildly entertaining somewhat. And sort of. Maybe? Yeah!
Ok... onto The Movies!!
And due to blogger being stupid, no pictures for you, unfortunately...
My goal for 2013 was to watch 100 films that I had never seen before. Theatrical releases, with very little exception (otherwise I could plant myself in front of Lifetime Movie Channel and watch 6 movies in a row about women empowerment all starring Judith Light or Valerie Harper, sometimes both...)
Now, not all of these movies were released in 2013... in fact, most of them weren't, but I wanted to give you my list of movies for my own archival purposes, but also for that "here's what I thought, in case you wanted to know if it was good or not" purposes...
So over the next few days, I'm going to give you the entire list... later this week, you'll get the best films I watched in 2013, both movies from 2013 and movies released pre-2013... and also, the movies "in the middle", not the best, nor the worst, but some that deserve attention.
But today, let's kick off our 2013 Movie Watching Recap with the ten worst films I watched in 2013:
DISHONORABLE MENTIONS
Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)... This isn't a bad movie, not all. In fact, its quirky, its decent, its amusing here and there... so why is it here? Because this movie got a boat load of attention in late 2011, for the '12 Oscar season, on how great it was, and how great the lead, young Quvenzhane Wallis was, and on and on. This films is decent, but nowhere near worth the hype. I have my theories that most people didn't love it as much as they say they did, they felt compelled to sing its praises for political reasons... you get me. Review here.
Madea's Witness Protection (2012)... Yes. This is as bad as you think it would be. Worse, even. My first Tyler Perry movie, and it might be my last. We can only hope.
And here is THE BOTTOM TEN...
10... Blitz (2011)... Jason Statham in a mess of a film about a tough cop (is there any other kind when its Statham in the role?) chasing a serial killer who targets police officers and it doesn't matter. Hard to understand because of the thick British accents, hard to care because of the loose plot.
9... Red Dawn (2012)... Being a fan of the guilty pleasure that is the original Red Dawn, this one doesn't even come close. Trade the Russians with the North Koreans as your enemies, that's fair enough, but Chris Hemsworth, Isabel Lucas, Josh Hutcherson and Adrianne Palicki are poor imitations of Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson and Jennifer Grey.
8... Spring Breakers (2013)... This movie is terrible. The best thing about it is James Franco, who dives into his role as a sleazeball pimp-type dude named Alien. The only other sorta good thing about is Selena Gomez, who disappears halfway through the film. Oh, and wrestler Jeff Jarrett makes an appearance as a youth pastor.
7... Meatballs Part II (1984)... What a travesty... one of the characters is an alien, and not the character Alien from the above "Spring Breakers". No, an actual alien, with eyes that glow. Which is a dude in a clunky costume. Don't even ask me why I saw this... I was probably holding a sleeping baby with a remote across the room.
6.. Piranha 3DD (2012)... So the fun in the first film, "Piranha 3D" was that it was so random, so ridiculous and such a great bad film (Elisabeth Shue helps) Its like, everything they did to make the first one fun they purposely made sure not to do in this one. The cast--Ving Rhames, Hasselhoff, David Koechner, Chris Lloyd--is totally wasted in this piece of crap. Here's all I could say about it in my online review: Run. Run from this movie. If someone holds a gun to your head, then take the bullet and hope for the best. Just sayin'.
5... Hansel & Gretel: Vampire Hunters (2013)... I enjoy Jeremy Renner, especially in The Avengers and most recently, in American Hustle, and I like Gemma Arterton, former Bond girl. I also am a fan of Famke Janssen, cause she's a looker, and played Jean Grey in the X-Men films. Toss them together in this, and you get a pile of poop. Its awful. Big budgeted, bloated, stupid and awful.
4... The Paperboy (2012)... The most wasted cast of the year... and I dont mean high on weed (though with Matthew McConaughey here, it might be), but rather great talents making a terrible, weird film... John Cusack is horrendous, Zac Efron should hate himself for this, and Nicole Kidman--who's performance is strangely amazing, yet you hate her too in this... Kidman's character, Charlotte, pees on Efron's character Jack. That's all you need.
3... 2012: Ice Age (2011)... On The Deucecast, we challenged each other to watch certain films... and after giving my co-host, Mikey, some great films to experience (like this one! and this one!), he saddled me with this utter piece sadness.
2... Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011)... Ya know, the first "Ghost Rider" wasn't all bad. It was cheesy and silly, but had its moments. But Nic Cage is just off the rails lately, as this one equals the pile of dog snot that is "Drive Angry". Might've been the same movie. For the full review, click here.
1... LOL (2012)... In 2002, right as Britney Spears was doing that "not a girl, not yet a woman, BritBrit released "Crossroads". A young Justin Long and a young Zoe Saldana starred along a popular, still with Timberlake, sweet, quasi-innocent Britney, and the movie was... well, it wasn't good. It had its moments, and I can see this being a guilty pleasure...
...I sort of expected this to movie to be Miley Cyrus' version of "Crossroads". Oh nay. Oh nay nay. A long haired Miley plays "Lola"... Lola... LOL... get it? Eh? Eh! and Demi Moore is her mom... and everything is bad about this movie. The plot is terrible. The acting is terrible. The characters are stupid, and you want everyone to get set on fire by Ghost Rider (which might've made both of these films a little better). Stay away. There is not even a slightly amusing second of this movie. Worst movie I saw all year long.
At least the makers of Piranha 3DD knew they were making a steaming pile of ostrich stool. The people who made LOL actually tried, which makes it worse because they failed so miserably.
So there's the worst of the lot, the worst movies I saw in all of 2013... but we still have 100+ more movies to mention... up next, the "middle movies", the ones that fall somewhere between the best and the worst... and then, the Top Ten Movies Released in 2013, and the Top Ten Movies Released Before 2013.... so keep checking back this week!
(6094 words written... 13,906 words until the goal of 20,000 in January... #500Words #20KinJan)
Showing posts with label John Cusack. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Cusack. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 08, 2014
Sunday, November 15, 2009
The End of the World. Again.
I am imagining this conversation taking place, somewhere in Hollywood, maybe 2007 or so...
Hollywood Director Roland Emmerich: Yas, yas, I need to uh... come up weeth a new movie. I vant to to deestroy the planeet agayn...
Assistant: Um, what about aliens?
Emmerich: Nah, nah, I did that already.
Another assistant: Oh, I got it, what about global warming? That's a hot topic?
Emmerich: Is good topic. Global warming. Yas, yas, we could do movie with George Bush and hurricane machine and he causes global warming. But I did global warming movie already.
Another assistant: What about a big lizard who comes and destroys the country?
Emmerich: Is called Godzilla, and I did Godzilla. I make'ah Matthew Broderick into action star.
Yet Another Assistant: Oh, how about... cavemen? That Geico Caveman has been around for like, ten years and...
Emmerich (cutting him off with a wave): Nah, nah, no more cavemen! I deed cavemen!
The First Assistant: Wait... Mr. Emmerich... what about... the Mayan prediction that the world will come to an end?
Emmerich: Mayan... prediction... world end? Hmm... tell me more, First Assistant...
The First Assistant: It says that in the Mayan civilization, they created the Mayan calendar, and in that calendar, it predicts that due to alignment in the planets that happens only once in ever 400,000 years, our planet will be destroyed.
Emmerich (rubbing chin): Hmmm... what if sun put forth solar flares that boil the planet meedle? I like it...
The Second Assistant: Uh... but Mr. Emmerich... this "end-of-world" theory is really a Western idea, not a Mayan one. Mayans insist that the world will not end in 2012. The Mayans had a talent for astronomy, and enthusiasts have found a series of astronomical alignments they say coincide in 2012, including one that happens roughly only once every 25,800 years. Once every 25,800 years, the sun lines up with the center of our Milky Way galaxy on a winter solstice, the sun's lowest point in the horizon. The next time that will happen is on December 21, 2012; which happens to be the same day the Mayan calender expires. In addition to the Mayan calendar, the modern doomsday myth is bolstered several ostensibly scientific reasons for a disaster. Examples include a pole shift, the "return" of Planet X or the Sun's sinister counterpart Nemesis, a galactic, planetary, or other celestial alignment, global warming, global cooling, a massive solar flare, a new ice age, and so on. None of these have any basis in respected science. For example, the "galactic alignment" between the sun, Earth, and galactic center happens every December. The best alignment was reached in the 1990s and was accompanied by its own set of doomsday theories. Alignments since then have been increasingly poor.
Emmerich (waving him off): Man made global warming have no science to back it up either, but audience make me millions from my movie. I like this Mayan movie. We make!
And thus, "2012" was born.
The Lovely Steph Leann and I returned from our weekend-like excursion to Pensacola on Friday evening, ran some errands, unloaded our laundry and watched about 45 minutes of a Dateline NBC special, then The Lovely Steph Leann expressed her interest in going to see a movie. Sometimes there are movies she/we want to see, and other times, she/we just want to get out of the house and see a movie. Never mind was had seen "Couples Retreat" the night before (quite a funny movie, by the way), we wanted to just get out a see a flick.
We went through the list of movies, including "Paranormal Activity" (The Lovely Steph Leann: No. I want to sleep tonight")... "Law Abiding Citizen" (Me: I want to see that and... crap! It starts in 20. We'll never make it)... "Men Who Stare At Goats" (Me: I have heard that's a terrible film)... "A Christmas Carol" (The Lovely Steph Leann: Not in the mood for that one)... and finally, "2012". She piped up and said, "Ooh.. what about that?" I was undecided, because I knew what it would be... but it did have John Cusack in it. So, after doing one of those twenty second decisional debates in my head, I said, "Alright, let's do it! Should be fun watching the world fall apart!"
The movie starts at 10:15p, and clocks in--before previews--at about 2 hours and 38 minutes. This means we will be out late late.
Essentially, it starts in the year 2009, with a scientist in Bangladesh who discovers that in just a few years, the sun will heat up the Earth's core, the Earth's surface will become unstable from the heat and the Earth's plates will shift. And of course, everything will be destroyed.
Unlike most other disaster movies, the President actually believes the American scientist, Chiwetel Ejiofor (he plays Dr. Adrian Helmsey here, but he was Denzel's homeboy in the New Dave100 film, "Inside Man"), and he and his Chief of Staff (Oliver Platt) begin to deal with this global crisis... and they don't want the news to get out. We see a montage of 2009, 2010 and 2011 and into 2012 as countries start to build something fancy to save part of the human race. John Cusack is writer Jackson Curtis, who faces the danger along with his kids, his estranged wife and her new boyfriend--usually the "new man" is played as a jerkface, but here, he's refreshingly portrayed as a nice guy. Oh, and somewhere in here, Woody Harrelson is a crazy mountain guy named Charlie who "saw it all coming, but no one believed me!"
In other disaster movies, the tidal wave wipes out the countryside, or the bomb blows up an entire city, or Michael Moore does another movie, or any other number of disasters, it all hapens in one scene, and the survivors deal with the aftermath. In "2012", the disasters happen one after the other all the way through the movie.
Are there problems with this movie? Absolutely. In one scene, a guy is flying an old airplane, relying on his instrument panels to help him see through the smoke and fog--but if the Earth's surface plates are shifting to the point where the North and South poles are going to be relocated, surely those instrument panels are going to be shot to poo. The sheer practicality of most of this movie is out the window, all common sense given way to lots of special effects of volcanos and California falling off into the ocean and lots of near-misses... there are at least a dozen times when Jackon Curtis and/or his family narrowly escapes flames or smoke or falling buildings or an old RV falling into a pit or hot molten lava or tremors and everything else.
Bottom line is... I enjoyed this movie more than I thought I would. I hated "The Day After Tomorrow", as I thought it was preachy and stupid and just poorly done... and really so serious, with a "hey, wake up, we'd better do something about this!" message about it...
(Don't believe me? Says the film's IMDB Page... "The Coming Global Superstorm", a non-fiction novel by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber, was used for reference... In keeping with the movie's ecological theme, Emmerich paid $200,000 from his own pocket to make the production "carbon-neutral" - the first of its kind in Hollywood - all carbon dioxide emitted by the production was offset by the planting of trees, and investments in renewable energy.")
"2012" isn't an Academy Award possibility by any stretch... but... its fun. Its a popcorn film. Though "Day After Tomorrow" has Emmy Rossum, a much hotter ingenue compared to Amanda Peet in "2012", I'm old enough to be a John Cusack guy over Tomorrow's Jake Gyllenhaal (though I do love me some Maggie).
Want something meaningful and thought provoking? Run from "2012". Want something silly, better than "Transformers 2: Revenge of the Wallet-Raiders" that you can much popcorn, eat Twizzlers and enjoy the North Pole relocating to Wisconsin? "2012" might just be the movie for you.
Hollywood Director Roland Emmerich: Yas, yas, I need to uh... come up weeth a new movie. I vant to to deestroy the planeet agayn...
Assistant: Um, what about aliens?
Emmerich: Nah, nah, I did that already.
Another assistant: Oh, I got it, what about global warming? That's a hot topic?
Emmerich: Is good topic. Global warming. Yas, yas, we could do movie with George Bush and hurricane machine and he causes global warming. But I did global warming movie already.
Another assistant: What about a big lizard who comes and destroys the country?
Emmerich: Is called Godzilla, and I did Godzilla. I make'ah Matthew Broderick into action star.
Yet Another Assistant: Oh, how about... cavemen? That Geico Caveman has been around for like, ten years and...
Emmerich (cutting him off with a wave): Nah, nah, no more cavemen! I deed cavemen!
The First Assistant: Wait... Mr. Emmerich... what about... the Mayan prediction that the world will come to an end?
Emmerich: Mayan... prediction... world end? Hmm... tell me more, First Assistant...
The First Assistant: It says that in the Mayan civilization, they created the Mayan calendar, and in that calendar, it predicts that due to alignment in the planets that happens only once in ever 400,000 years, our planet will be destroyed.
Emmerich (rubbing chin): Hmmm... what if sun put forth solar flares that boil the planet meedle? I like it...
The Second Assistant: Uh... but Mr. Emmerich... this "end-of-world" theory is really a Western idea, not a Mayan one. Mayans insist that the world will not end in 2012. The Mayans had a talent for astronomy, and enthusiasts have found a series of astronomical alignments they say coincide in 2012, including one that happens roughly only once every 25,800 years. Once every 25,800 years, the sun lines up with the center of our Milky Way galaxy on a winter solstice, the sun's lowest point in the horizon. The next time that will happen is on December 21, 2012; which happens to be the same day the Mayan calender expires. In addition to the Mayan calendar, the modern doomsday myth is bolstered several ostensibly scientific reasons for a disaster. Examples include a pole shift, the "return" of Planet X or the Sun's sinister counterpart Nemesis, a galactic, planetary, or other celestial alignment, global warming, global cooling, a massive solar flare, a new ice age, and so on. None of these have any basis in respected science. For example, the "galactic alignment" between the sun, Earth, and galactic center happens every December. The best alignment was reached in the 1990s and was accompanied by its own set of doomsday theories. Alignments since then have been increasingly poor.
Emmerich (waving him off): Man made global warming have no science to back it up either, but audience make me millions from my movie. I like this Mayan movie. We make!
And thus, "2012" was born.
The Lovely Steph Leann and I returned from our weekend-like excursion to Pensacola on Friday evening, ran some errands, unloaded our laundry and watched about 45 minutes of a Dateline NBC special, then The Lovely Steph Leann expressed her interest in going to see a movie. Sometimes there are movies she/we want to see, and other times, she/we just want to get out of the house and see a movie. Never mind was had seen "Couples Retreat" the night before (quite a funny movie, by the way), we wanted to just get out a see a flick.
We went through the list of movies, including "Paranormal Activity" (The Lovely Steph Leann: No. I want to sleep tonight")... "Law Abiding Citizen" (Me: I want to see that and... crap! It starts in 20. We'll never make it)... "Men Who Stare At Goats" (Me: I have heard that's a terrible film)... "A Christmas Carol" (The Lovely Steph Leann: Not in the mood for that one)... and finally, "2012". She piped up and said, "Ooh.. what about that?" I was undecided, because I knew what it would be... but it did have John Cusack in it. So, after doing one of those twenty second decisional debates in my head, I said, "Alright, let's do it! Should be fun watching the world fall apart!"
The movie starts at 10:15p, and clocks in--before previews--at about 2 hours and 38 minutes. This means we will be out late late.
Essentially, it starts in the year 2009, with a scientist in Bangladesh who discovers that in just a few years, the sun will heat up the Earth's core, the Earth's surface will become unstable from the heat and the Earth's plates will shift. And of course, everything will be destroyed.
Unlike most other disaster movies, the President actually believes the American scientist, Chiwetel Ejiofor (he plays Dr. Adrian Helmsey here, but he was Denzel's homeboy in the New Dave100 film, "Inside Man"), and he and his Chief of Staff (Oliver Platt) begin to deal with this global crisis... and they don't want the news to get out. We see a montage of 2009, 2010 and 2011 and into 2012 as countries start to build something fancy to save part of the human race. John Cusack is writer Jackson Curtis, who faces the danger along with his kids, his estranged wife and her new boyfriend--usually the "new man" is played as a jerkface, but here, he's refreshingly portrayed as a nice guy. Oh, and somewhere in here, Woody Harrelson is a crazy mountain guy named Charlie who "saw it all coming, but no one believed me!"
In other disaster movies, the tidal wave wipes out the countryside, or the bomb blows up an entire city, or Michael Moore does another movie, or any other number of disasters, it all hapens in one scene, and the survivors deal with the aftermath. In "2012", the disasters happen one after the other all the way through the movie.
Are there problems with this movie? Absolutely. In one scene, a guy is flying an old airplane, relying on his instrument panels to help him see through the smoke and fog--but if the Earth's surface plates are shifting to the point where the North and South poles are going to be relocated, surely those instrument panels are going to be shot to poo. The sheer practicality of most of this movie is out the window, all common sense given way to lots of special effects of volcanos and California falling off into the ocean and lots of near-misses... there are at least a dozen times when Jackon Curtis and/or his family narrowly escapes flames or smoke or falling buildings or an old RV falling into a pit or hot molten lava or tremors and everything else.
Bottom line is... I enjoyed this movie more than I thought I would. I hated "The Day After Tomorrow", as I thought it was preachy and stupid and just poorly done... and really so serious, with a "hey, wake up, we'd better do something about this!" message about it...
(Don't believe me? Says the film's IMDB Page... "The Coming Global Superstorm", a non-fiction novel by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber, was used for reference... In keeping with the movie's ecological theme, Emmerich paid $200,000 from his own pocket to make the production "carbon-neutral" - the first of its kind in Hollywood - all carbon dioxide emitted by the production was offset by the planting of trees, and investments in renewable energy.")
"2012" isn't an Academy Award possibility by any stretch... but... its fun. Its a popcorn film. Though "Day After Tomorrow" has Emmy Rossum, a much hotter ingenue compared to Amanda Peet in "2012", I'm old enough to be a John Cusack guy over Tomorrow's Jake Gyllenhaal (though I do love me some Maggie).
Want something meaningful and thought provoking? Run from "2012". Want something silly, better than "Transformers 2: Revenge of the Wallet-Raiders" that you can much popcorn, eat Twizzlers and enjoy the North Pole relocating to Wisconsin? "2012" might just be the movie for you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)