My 10 Worst Films of 2011

Whoops, I had actually forgotten I was writing this but this is the last of my 2011 wrapup pieces, promise. I think it’s a common misnomer that critics enjoy trashing bad movies. It can be painful to sit through a bad film so - with the exception of “Season of the Witch” which I saw during a Nic Cage-a-thon - it’s not something I would subject myself to intentionally. I skip most things that seem like a complete waste of time so you wont find “Jack & Jill” or “Chipwrecked” or “The Zookeeper” on my list because I haven’t seen them and have no plans to. Below are the films that, despite their best intentions, just did not work for me in 2011.

1. This Must Be The Place (Paolo Sorrentino)
A complete disaster. Sorrentino’s last film “Il Divo” was a crazy rock ‘n roll mashup of Fellini and Scorsese. I was excited for his follow-up, an English language film starring Sean Penn as a Robert Smith-type aging rock star who goes on a road trip across America to find an ex-Nazi war criminal who imprisoned his father. At the time I thought, “this is so crazy it just might work!” but now I know that it’s the synopsis for one of the worst movies of all time. This makes it’s U.S. premiere at Sundance in a few days so consider this a warning.

2. Cars 2 (John Lasseter, Brad Lewis)
Painful. This film is everything Pixar had previously stood against - cash grab sequels, cheap pop culture gags, nonstop action in place of character development - which makes it like a knife in the back from your best friend. It’s all the more upsetting to see Pixar head and co-director Lasseter continuing to defend the film instead of just admitting he made a mistake. Critics don’t have it out for you, John. We’re just not going to tell you that you’ve made a great film unless it’s true.

3. Sucker Punch (Zach Snyder)
A confession that may get me kicked out of the movie nerd community: I actually like Zach Snyder! At the very least he’s one of the most distinctive genre filmmakers working today and I have a soft spot for his “Dawn Of The Dead” remake, “300” and (most of) “Watchmen.” But “Sucker Punch” is a different story all together. Poorly written, ugly, and uninvolving, Snyder is totally lost and mostly incompetent without existing source material to guide him. There are no stakes, no consequences and nothing invested. It’s worse than bad, it’s boring.

4. The Green Lantern (Martin Campbell)
Marvel has had a real resurgence in the last decade but I’ve always been a DC kid at heart. So it’s unfortunate that both DC and Warner Bros. (who’ve done such a great job with the Batman franchise) had a bomb this big on their hands. It was definitely risky material: a cocky lead character, an otherworldly setting and yet another clunky love story but somehow Marvel made all those obstacles work with “Thor.” But “Green Lantern,” with its cartoonish CG, bad acting and an overstuffed plot was not so lucky.

5. I Saw The Devil (Jee-woon Kim)
I’d heard quite a bit of good buzz about this Korean revenge thriller before I went to see it this time last year. But my hopes dissapated almost instantly as I watched this relentlessly stupid film. As I said in my review, imagine the (perfect) ending of “Se7en” stretched out for 2 1/2 hours and you’re somewhere close to the tedium of “I Saw The Devil.” I’m convinced that people assume that because they’re reading subtitles the film is somehow smarter than it is because if this had been made in English it would have been laughed out of theatres.

6. Season of the Witch (Dominic Sena)
Okay, this is cheating a bit since I knew this would be horrible. January release? Silly action/horror plot about hunting down witches? Check. Nic Cage? Check. Yes, this was going to be bad. But unfortunately it was - with the exception of Stephen Graham’s hilarious New Yawk accent - pretty blandly bad. Cage was very subdued here which is not why you go to see a bad Nic Cage film. Thankfully “Drive Angry 3D” a month later was pretty awesome.

7. Scream 4 (Wes Craven)
I loved the “Scream” films when they were released. The first one still stands up as a genre classic even if the sequels are a product of diminishing returns. But this was something else entirely. Original cast members are dragged back and given nothing to do while the new castmembers are an even greater waste of space. I found myself squirming through the film, not because of the violence, but because I felt bad for everyone involved.

8. Circumstance (Maryam Keshavarz)
The first and worst film I saw at Sundance last year, this Iranian drama actually took home the Audience Award at the fest. Though I suspect that had more to do with the films sympathetic backstory (the filmmakers had to escape Iran to make the film) than the film itself, where story threads disappear, slo-mo happens all too frequently and the film really just runs out of steam. “Circumstance” was marketed as some kind of steamy lesbian drama which, probably would have been more interesting.

9. The Hangover: Part 2 (Todd Phillips)
Take the first film, Find And Replace “Vegas” with “Thailand” and Delete all the jokes. (Sorry Zach.)

10. Twixt (Francis Ford Coppola)
I was at the world premiere at TIFF and did my best to be fair in my review of the film because I do like everyone involved but it was an extremely amateurish production. How the same filmmaker who made “The Godfather,” “Apocalypse Now” and even “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” was responsible for this I will never know.

Dishonorable Mention: Fright Night, The Sitter, Take This Waltz, Detachment, Hobo With A Shotgun.

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My TIFF ‘11 Wrap-Up

Since I began this year with my first trip to Sundance I figured it would be only right to settle into Fall with my first trip to the Toronto International Film Festival. Unlike Sundance which is almost entirely unknown quantities, many of the films that premiere at TIFF have big marketing campaigns, movie stars and are just hoping to pickup some extra buzz here on the long road to the Oscars. Granted you can go off the beaten path if you want to as there are hundreds of films here from all around the world, many of which without US distribution, so there are always chances for a real discovery. I managed to see 10 films during my 4 days at the festival and have ranked them here from most to least favorite.

1. Shame (dir: Steve McQueen) Michael Fassbender (Magneto from “X-Men: First Class”) stars as Brandon, a 30-something sex addict in Manhattan in this powerful, dramatic, sure to be controversial character portrait. Read My Full Review

2. Friends With Kids (dir: Jennifer Westfeldt) Writer/director Westfeldt reunites half the cast of “Bridesmaids” (Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Chris O’Dowd) along with Adam Scott and Megan Fox for this hilarious comedy about two 30-something friends who decide to have a baby. Read My Full Review

3. Moneyball (dir: Bennett Miller) Brad Pitt & Jonah Hill make a great comic team in this solidly entertaining behind-the-scenes baseball movie perfectly geared towards awards season. Read My Full Review

4. The Ides Of March (dir: George Clooney) This behind-the-scenes look at a political campaign is a perfect popcorn movie for adults with a terrific ensemble cast including Ryan Gosling, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Evan Rachel Wood, Marissa Tomei and director Clooney. Read My Full Review

5. The Descendants (dir: Alexander Payne) Payne is back with his first film in 7 years, a Hawaiian-set dramedy about a land baron (George Clooney) who must reconnect with his daughters after his wife suffers a boating accident. Read My Full Review

6. 360 (dir: Fernando Meirelles) “City Of God” director Meirelles directs this series of interweaving vignettes which take a look at lust and love all across the world, starring an international cast led by Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, Anthony Hopkins and Ben Foster. Read My Full Review

7. Restless (dir: Gus Van Sant) “Alice In Wonderland” actress Mia Wasikowska charms in this so-so emo romance which looks to merge the dark comedy of “Harold & Maude” with the tragedy of “Love Story.” Read My Full Review

8. The Skin I Live In (dir: Pedro Almodóvar) Antonio Banderas reunites with his mentor/director Almodóvar after 20 years in this dark, twisted tale of a plastic surgeon out for revenge. Read My Full Review

9. Take This Waltz (dir: Sarah Polley) The normally fantastic Michelle Williams is forced to play a caricature of a philanderer married to Seth Rogen’s honorable husband in this narratively challenged misfire. Read My Full Review

10. Twixt (dir: Francis Ford Coppola) Once masterful director hits rock bottom with this well meaning but completely amateur ghost story starring Val Kilmer as a second rate horror novelist uncovering a mystery in a small town. Read My Full Review

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TIFF ‘11: Take This Waltz review

The sophomore feature from actress turned filmmaker Sarah Polley looks to examine love, infidelity and whether one person can be everything to someone else indefinitely. Michelle Williams stars as Margot, a writer who on an assignment in Nova Scotia meets Daniel (Luke Kirby). They flirt briefly and Margot wonders if they’ve met before. The two end up seated next to each other on the flight back to Toronto together and continue this flirtation in a shared cab together when he reveals that he lives across the street from her. She reveals that she’s married. Her husband Lou (Seth Rogen)—a chef in the middle of writing a cookbook solely devoted to ways of cooking chicken— isn’t distant, cold or aloof but instead warm, loving, devoted.

This becomes a problem because Margot continues to see Daniel. At first she wakes up a little earlier to run into him on the street as he’s off to work as a rickshaw driver (ugh). It becomes impossible to sympathize with her as she continues to get closer and closer to the edge of actually cheating. She asks him to describe how he would fuck her (in a prolonged scene), they swim in a pool together, ride around in an amusement park, she goes to his house. She tells him she loves him. She does everything except make actual physical contact, breaking away when he touches her leg.

The film is shot beautifully, Williams’ Margot is a hipster princess lit warmly by Luc Montpellier’s sun dappled cinematography but her character is nearly insufferable. She’s the manic pixie dream girl as a basket case nightmare. You don’t fall for her, you want her to run off with the rickshaw driver so that Rogen can move on because he deserves better. And if this film were about Margot fucking up her life that would be fine but the filmmaker seems to want us to sympathize with her and we just don’t. She is a girl who refuses to grow up, never tries talking to Lou, never seems to really turn on him, she spends the day making kissy faces at Daniel then returns home to her husband to be lovey with him.

Their marriage is portrayed as a series of endless tics. They have word games, private jokes, playful touchy routines and nothing resembling a real relationship. Have these two known each other for 6 weeks? Supposedly they have been married for 5 years but don’t seem to know each other at all. It’s all empty. However the thing that saves the film from complete unwatchability is Rogen who is great here in a more dramatic role. He nails every moment perfectly and you root for him the entire film. He’s tried his hand at more dramatic roles before (stretching even in Apatow’s “Funny People”) with mixed results but here he never falters.

Despite the cinematography, Rogen’s performance and few nice moments (Williams at the amusement park is pretty great) the film goes off the rails completely in the final act. There is a WTF montage you will have to see to believe set to Leonard Cohen’s “Take This Waltz” (hence the title) and it’s just jaw droppingly bad. Should also mention the film features a notable performance from Sarah Silverman playing a Lou’s sister, a recovering alcoholic. The comedienne is good in the part but most of her press has been around her nude scene in the film. There is a shower sequence that has got to be one of the most gratuitous nude scenes in film history. We get women come in all shapes and sizes, we’re just not sure what this has to do with the themes of this film.

There is a line in the film about how everything new gets old eventually, meant to recap that the excitement of a new relationship will fade too. Unfortunately that’s not what the film is about. We’re not seduced by the promise of her relationship with Daniel nor are we supposed to fret for Margot for fucking things up. It straddles the line where we’re supposed to understand why she does things but we never do. She acts childish and inexplicably never accepting responsibility for her actions or tries to have an adult conversation. The film is as frustrating to watch as it is to describe.

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