The good stuff comes tomorrow, and probably in two parts: My Favorite Movies of 2009 and the Honorable Mentions. But first, we must reflect back, lest we forget. So I present to you Five Movies I Hope I Never See Again, in order of heinousness.
5. My Bloody Valentine 3-D - Talk about a movie that killed the 3-D experience for Summer Fest. Had it not been for Friday the 13th Part III, the gimmick portion of our July marathon could have belly flopped.
Nothing about My Bloody Valentine 3-D works: not the gore, not the nudity, not the story - which painfully tries to out-think the original film - and certainly not the acting. The film might have been salvaged by the use of that extra dimension, but instead only seemed interested in making forests appear to have more depth. I regret subjecting unknowing viewers to this stinker, and now I'm strongly reconsidering the new "3-D" movement.
4. Righteous Kill - This is the kind of movie that's such a waste of time I had to remind myself I watched it. Pacino and DeNiro are parodies of themselves, the story "twist" is laughable, and I'm still chuckling about how ridiculous that 50 Cent dummy looks when thrown out of a window. I'd tell you more, but honestly I only remember that I won't watch it again.
3. s. Darko: A Donnie Darko Tale - I watched it so that you wouldn't have to, although I suspect few people really harbored any interest in a sequel to Donnie Darko that had nothing to do with its creator Richard Kelly. Truth be told, had the second trailer not duped me with pretty imagery, I too would have taken a pass. But instead, I watched it, and even pretty pictures can only get you so far when the story is garbage. The geniuses behind s. Darko seemed to think that killing your main character in the middle of the film, only to bring her back and invalidate everything that happened between, was a good idea. No, it was a waste of my time, a movie filled with cheap carbon copies of characters from Donnie Darko and undercooked science fiction elements they hoped would pass off as "deep". Avoid at all costs, even if that pan boosted blogorium readers for two weeks.
2. The Limits of Control - I can put up with movies that are self indulgent. I can put up with movies that don't go anywhere, or that are essentially exercises in repetition. But something about The Limits of Control got under my skin and the subsequent scratch of that itch drew blood. I do not simply dislike The Limits of Control, I hate The Limits of Control. I hate that a director who I enjoy so much made such an obvious, stupid, boring film. I hate the half baked attempts at intertextuality, the insipid conversations, and the ham-handed insertion of "meaning" into the last act of the film.
I hate the way that the film doesn't end, so much as the camera runs out of film and stops, a final "fuck you. this movie doesn't have to have an ending, suckers!" I hate that I wasted two hours watching The Limits of Control, and that it felt like four hours. I hate this film.
1.
Instead, the movie arbitrarily lifts scenes, drops them in willy-nilly, and relies on a "rawkin" soundtrack and this month's dispensable CW stars to stand around waiting for Derek Mears to kill them. The tunnels are stupid, the dismissal of the summer camp is stupid. The POT FARM is stupid! And even if you don't agree that Jason might be growing the pot, you can't argue that he doesn't kill everybody who gets near the farm. On top of that, the reveal of his hockey mask is so inane, so arbitrary, that I felt ripped off even after checking it out from work. I am much more likely to watch Rob Zombie's Halloween 2 than I am to waste another minute on Platinum Dunes' future mangling of Freddy and Jason.
Dishonorable Mention: Street Fighter - The Legend of Chun-Li, Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus, The Haunted World of El Superbeasto, and on a technicality - My Name is Bruce.
