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: Twixt review

After a decade long hiatus from filmmaking, Francis Ford Coppola has spent the last several years getting back to his roots. Inspired by his daughter Sofia, he promised he wanted to get back to smaller, personal films that he could finance independently without a studio to limit his artistic vision. And after bouncing around between studio projects in the 90’s (John Grisham’s “The Rainmaker,” the Robin Williams fantasia “Jack”) this sounded like a great idea. His first two efforts, “Youth Without Youth” and “Tetro” were both decidedly mixed affairs that received a muted reaction from critics and were completely ignored by audiences.

His latest film “Twixt” stars Val Kilmer stars as a hack horror writer who arrives in a small town and becomes entangled in a murder mystery. I was at Comic-Con where the legendary director was on hand to present some footage from the film which looked troublesomely amateur. Despite this shaky first impression I still hoped for the best when I caught the film at the World Premiere at TIFF this weekend.

Check out my review at The Playlist/IndieWIRE

Check out my review quoted at The LA Times

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Comic-Con ‘11

After years of watching from the sidelines I finally attended my first San Diego Comic-Con. I’d been to the New York version the past couple years but it just doesn’t compare to the original. I was lucky enough to attend as part of a work trip to help promote our site The Long Khan, whose promo video would be featured in a panel Friday morning moderated by Kevin Smith and featuring William Shatner who would be recreating Captain Kirk’s famous scream along with an audience of 2000 people. It was awesome. Saturday was the only real day I got to go see panels and check out the convention floor so I tried to make the most of it. I spent the first part of the day in the legendary Hall H, the 7500 capacity room that showcases all of the big film presentations usually with cast/filmmakers in attendance.

As much as I’d heard about Hall H over the years, I was a little worried about the prospect of being stuck in there all day sitting through panels I wasn’t as interested in to get to the ones I really wanted to see. But 5 hours just flew by in there. I saw panels for Francis Ford Coppola’s experimental goth “Twixt” with Coppola, star Val Kilmer and composer Dan Deacon in attendance, the “300”-esque “The Immortals” with director Tarsem Singh and cast members Henry Cavill, Freida Pinto, Stephen Dorff, Luke Evans and Kellan Lutz, LARP-ing love letter “Knights Of Badassdom” with an all star geek cast of Peter Dinklage, Ryan Kwanten, Summer Glau, Margarita Levieva, Danny Pudi, Michael Gladis, Jimmi Simpson and director Joe Lynch and dark reimagining “Snow White & The Huntsman” with Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth and Sam Claflin led by first time filmmaker Rupert Sanders.

The panels are a strange phenomenon. As I wrote on my full recap of the ‘Snow White’ panel over at The Playlist… As transparent as the marketing and pandering can get during the panels where all cast and crew have been coached on exactly which topics to hit and which to avoid in order to stay on the good side of fanboys and girls, the whole thing still kind of works. I went into Saturday’s panel for Universal‘s “Snow White & The Huntsman” with next to no interest in it and damn if it didn’t end up winning me over along with the rest of the packed crowd inside Hall H. You know it’s a show and they’re aiming straight for the geek audience and yet there’s such an enthusiasm in the room it does end up creating some excitement.

“The Immortals,” I thought looked like a “300” rip-off before the panel but after the footage (and being charmed by the candidness of director Tarsem), now I think that it’s insane fight choreography and beautiful cinematography could just turn it into something cool. “The Knights of Badassdom” I would have dismissed as being a direct-to-video level nerdfest but the clips really made it look like it could be a cute little movie. And this is in spite of the incessant pandering to the LARPing community by director Joe Lynch. That particular subset of nerd is much smaller than he was probably anticipating judging by a muted crowd reaction to those particular shoutouts. ‘Snow White’ as I mentioned on the writeup above, hasn’t started filming yet, but the reel of demo footage along with the director’s commercial work did make me interested to see how it turns out. After 5 hours of panels it was time to finally check out the convention floor.

What I didn’t realize was exactly how big the floor actually is. At NYCC, it’s one gigantic room that takes a day or so to browse through it. SDCC has 4 of these rooms and would probably take you all 4 days to get through the place. I didn’t have the energy for that so I took a brief look around and stopped off at the MondoTees booth to get a look at the art they had onsale which included an incredible print of “The Mummy” by Martin Ansin. Unfortunately it was printed on wood and was not going to be coming on the plane with me, thus I had to pass it up.

I also saw on Twitter that “Scud: The Disposable Assassin” creator Rob Schrab had a booth and knew I had to stop by. ‘Scud’ was a huge deal to me in high school, it was my favorite comic book, probably of all time, and the last book I read consistently. It was co-created by Dan Harmon, who most people will probably recognize now as the creator of “Community.” Both guys love movies and used the book as practicing ground for all the things they would have done on film had anyone given them a chance. A decade or so later, both guys are doing pretty well in film/TV, Harmon with his sitcom and Schrab as producer/director for “The Sarah Silverman Show” and “Children’s Hospital.” So I was able to nerd out and tell him how much I loved his comic and that I was happy for his success in Hollywood. He was super nice.

And that was pretty much it. I spent the evening seeing “Captain America” (not officially part of Comic-Con but certainly in the spirit of) with my uncle, aunt & cousins who live in San Diego. There was so much going on that I wish I could have spent more time there: I missed panels for “The Amazing Spider-Man,” “Prometheus,” Peter Jackson & Steven Spielberg’s panel for “Tin-Tin,” a sneak preview of “Drive,” the world premiere of “Cowboys & Aliens,” a Conan O’Brien art exhibit and countless afterparties. The best part of Comic-Con is that it’s not just a convention. Unlike the NYCC which is on the West Side Highway surrounded by blocks and blocks of nothing, the San Diego convention center is right in the heart of downtown with tons of bars, restaurants and shops just across the street. The whole neighborhood gets into the spirit throwing themed events during the day and parties at night. It’s SXSW for comic-book nerds and I’m going to try to make it back next year so I can take it all in.

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