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untamed.nl |
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Judgement is swift. That's okay, but when it comes to understanding the menni different ways people react to movies, we still have a long way to go. It's easy to accuse someone who likes a gory horror movie of being sick in the head, it's convenient to call someone who enjoys sentimentalism a drama queen. So be it, it happens a lot, in this day and age of internet communication. The best way to deal with it is to be proud of being a sick in the head drama queen and wish the inferior being a peaceful rest of his life, then leave, because it's pointless to discuss. Trying to convince a troll he is being obnoxious is like explaining to a redneck that George W. Bush didn't make a very swell president, so don't waste your time. Everyone is entitled to their own favorite movies, with personal reasons and private feelings. Sometimes it's complicated, delving deep into character and history. More often it simply boils down to inexplicable taste, that cliché so true it hurts. There was a thorough dislike for hideously simplistic Ice Age: The Meltdown, way too easy disbelief and therefore compassion for Britney Spears and the depiction of the 'alternative guy' in Crossroads. A string of superfluous thrillers like The Fourth Angel and Godsend turned out to be the cure for insomnia, Dutch television movie Zadelpijn left an unprecedented wish to kill all women over forty. However, in the past decade there have been a handful of movies that were beyond offensive, actually causing nausea whenever remembering them. These elite few are so astonishingly bad that they drift into the category of evil, sincerely not kidding. Starting off this major movie review, please put your two thumbs down for the bottom of the barrel, the turkeys, the definitive worst movies of the decade:
First, let's remember that when watching over 300 movies a year, perspective usually shifts dramatically. Some people no longer care about story, others stop giving a damn about visuals. A 'bad movie' becomes something else than terrible acting, lousy script and below par editing. Or not. It's painfully obvious that The Pursuit of Happyness became a devilish movie because of personal financial circumstances, which lead to eye-opening doubt, mainly concerning capitalism. This Will Smith star vehicle has him running around the city trying to make a noble living. Homeless people are portrayed as dumb, parasitic beggars, constantly on the lookout to rob humble Americans. Arbeit Macht Frei, that's the message of this right wing wet dream, only surpassed by the final conclusion that if everything has become hopeless, God will help you out. Rarely has a film been this overtly morally repulsive. In fact, surprise hit Taken is the only one approaching the same league and it's another one fairly well conceived by general public and critics alike. Perhaps the action sequences get the adrenaline flowing sufficiently to totally block any social implications, but a more frightening conclusion might be closer to the truth: taking matters into your own vengeful hands is a widely spread accepted approach, even torture is okay. One could say that it's just a movie, or bring up Leni Riefenstahl to defend on a more intellectual level, but that approach will probably fade quickly as soon as a pedosexual rapist is being shown as a hero (haven't seen that one yet, but feel free to lemmeknow), dodging bullets and criminally not caring about other victims than his own flesh and blood, like Liam Neeson here. Sounds like a remake of a classic horror movie, part of the current seemingly neverending plague.
'now all I can think about is your smile,
and that shitty movie too..' The main advantage of being an independent reviewer is the possibility to just skip a movie. And boy, there were some awesome made-to-ignore titles. A true eighties fan does not want to see the The Dukes of Hazzard update/downgrade, with people like Mr. Jackass: The Movie himself Johnny Knoxville present. One other mister should really have stuck with television episodes of less than half an hour: Mr. Bean's Holiday uncomfortably reminded of the exceptionally boring first film, resulting in a wise decision. More dreary things: The Pink Panther, White Chicks and almost all macho action flicks. There are lots of reasons to leave a film to the masses, to fanboys, connoisseurs, or simply to oblivion. One person will never be able to see every single release, so always pick some titles to be skipped resolutely:
Notice any classic case of cause and effect? This one's so obvious it's almost scary: The Pursuit of Happyness drained all joy from the soul, leading to a personal boycot for I Am Legend. Will Smith became a persona non grata after all, for up to 2006 I have been more or less defending his Six Degrees of Separation ass to anyone who came to ask me 'does this guy actually appear in any GOOD films?' A similar question often comes up when Michael Bay is discussed and I feel proud to say I still have not seen Pearl Harbor. Maybe it's not as bad as that phenomenal Team America song made it sound, but I'm more than happy to never know. Norbit is a hasbeen nigger in a fatsuit, The Hottie & The Nottie stars an anorexic white cunt, I'll pass on those things too thank you very much. Now excuse me while I go watch Gigli. For fun.
Oh wait, one more to go. What the hell is universally critically acclaimed award winning Pedro Almodóvar doing amongst that obvious cream of the crap?! Feel free to never take me seriously again and please send hatemail, or put things into perspective for a change. The decision to skip Bad Education was made after seven failed attempts to really like one of the maestro's many masterpieces. Hable Con Ella (Talk to Her, 2002) sealed the fate: his films are good, but apparently he is just not my cup of tea. I'm not going to pretend to love when the truth is overwhelming apathy, that way an own opinion really becomes an own opinion, free from general consensus. And the need to actually HATE movies decreases. Arthouse darlings that didn't make it to da heart were plenty: Le Scaphandre et le Papillon annoyed the gimmick bejesus out of me, Il Y a Longtemps Que Je T'Aime made me cringe with its pursuit of arthousyness, Cidade de Deus became just one more of those hip poor youngsters in violent trouble flicks. Das Experiment should've experimented more, then it wouldn't have been this superfluous thriller, La Meglio Gioventù bored the soap out of my pores, François Ozon sunk to the absolute bottom with ridiculous Ricky. But hey, they're no match to Wedding Crashers, The Hangover, Superbad and loads other male, severely unfunny semi-blockbusters that so many people liked. I haven't even mentioned The Cell and Final Destination. So don't worry, I dislike films all over the place, all around the world. The only great film the Coen brothers have directed so far is fifteen year old. Start your prosecution, but there's no need to call me a hudsucker.
'be very wary, you could just lose
yourself along the way..'
Things I can do without for the next couple of
years: mumblecore, multiculti, vampires, zombies, choreographed fights,
transvestites, Brangelina, USA for Africa, black comedy, biopics, epics,
remakes, 3D. Most of all I will ignore all the guys in their twenties
who just completed the revolution against their parents, so now they
choose to aim their arrogance at all of us who dare to enjoy mainstream
movies. America sucks, Japan rules, basically. But the cool boys usually
bombard with arguments like 'hey, I also enjoyed this underground
stroboscope trip you've never heard of either', covering up an
inconvenient truth. Fascinating taste combined with total absence of
empathy, it's much worse than 15 year olds who fill their top 10 with
Tarkovsky and Bergman. Go enjoy Dumb and Dumberer, you pathetic
grownup wannabees. Luckily though these phenomenons take place on
internet forums only, so they're easy to avoid. One last thing I can easily do without: trailers. They take too long, give away too much
information and often succeed in raising wrong expectations.
The original first episode of Die Hard still convincingly holds its claim as the best action movie ever, with two thoroughly entertaining sequels. Twelve years passed and then the fourth installment finally showed up, so we all wore our stained shirts and roared towards the cinema. I won't argue that a bad sequel diminishes the value of the rest of the saga, but Die Hard 4.0 turned out to be a very hard pill to swallow: it's too over the top, with terrible cgi effects. John McClane stood on the wing of an airplane before, back then it pushed the limits of suspension of disbelief, Live Free or Die Hard simply blasts away all of those limits. Maybe it will grow on me, if I ever give in to the impossibility of wanting to watch it again. Prozac Nation (this decade's Girl, Interrupted) might do the same, more about that in the depression category. August Rush by Jim Sheridan's daughter came in the wake of In America, it took a long time to get off the shelf. Sadly it wasn't another tearjerking triumph, but religious saccharin in its most annoying form, awful music to top it off. Boy of the moment Freddie Highmore and respected king of the sentiment Robin Williams couldn't even save it, I rest my case. And now for something completely different: in the early winter of 2003 a cinemarathon of a world record seventy hours was held in Amsterdam, I popped in once in a while to see a few favorites (entire Alien saga, Platoon at 5am). Opening film was a premiere screening of Underworld, promising lots of vampire vs werewolf adrenaline and coolness, delivering absolute apathy. So Kate Beckinsale did it again: two years earlier Serendipity (which remains the loveliest word ever, 'lycanthrope' is second) paired her with hero John Cusack in a romcom, where did it all go this incredibly wrong? Formula executed like this tastes like rotting chocolate. Oh well, shit happens, we need the sour to fully appreciate the sweet.
'I look like Tom Cruise's retarded
cousin..'
Some of his movies are enjoyable, lots of
them aren't bad, all are overrated. But enough about Tom Cruise.
Worldwide audiences have a tendency to praise average movies and that's
okay: an earth without median would erase the edges too. And I will try
to cut down on corny phrases. Quentin Tarantino is overrated, as are
David Fincher, Wes Anderson, British horror and arthouse porn. We'll
talk about big prize winners tomorrow, lots of overrated stuff there
too, I'll refrain from listing
twice. We're slowly moving from the really ugly to the
slightly bad, we'll arrive at the amazingly good
soon.
Cusack, Black, Bonet, vinyl, mixtapes, a
list of ex-girlfriends: High Fidelity is a wet dream, a good
friend I'd love to fall in love with. On paper. Transformed to the
screen it all falls flat and I'm honestly clueless why, after multiple
viewings no rational explanation has been found. The next one is more
obvious, with a masterpiece casting a shadow. Mike Leigh is immortal
thanks to Naked and since then all his other work feels kinda
redundant, it's totally unfair. Isabel Coixet made great The Secret
Life of Words two years after My Life Without Me, I saw them
in reverse order. They both star Sarah Polley, heroine since The
Sweet Hereafter, so expectations were raised indecently. I like
movies about young women in peril, but if my memory serves me correctly,
the cancer diagnosed lady here is egocentric as hell herself. Ginger
Snaps is a werewolf metaphor for puberty, so count me in, bring it
on! And fail to impress! Last but not least there's Joseph Gordon-Levitt
starring in indie darling Brick, the definition of neo noir. It's
cool, it's sincere, it's good, but it's a one trick pony. Hm, that
sounds harsh. Fascinating movies like these, which I neither hate nor
love, are the hardest to describe.
'how can you love something that doesn't even
work?' |
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