The Absolute Worst Movies of 2013

January 16, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Lists Tagged A Good Day to Die Hard, After Earth, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, Diana, Epic, Getaway, Iron Man, Lists, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, Movie 43, Now You See Me, Oz: The Great and Powerful, Pacific Rim, Parkland, Prince Avalanche, Reviews, The Canyons, The Fifth Estate, The Hangover: Part 3, The Host, The Last Exorcism: Part 2, The Lone Ranger, Worst Of

With all the talk of great movies out of the way, the task of singling out and ridiculing the slate of absolutely garbage that somehow managed to limp into theaters this year has come. Now every year inevitably sees a slew of flunkies hit the big screen like a batch of rotten tomatoes but I found 2013 in general to be a torpid offender in the “worst of” category. Maybe I ought to chalk up the number of bad movies this year to the fact that I watched over 150 films but then again, I did actively skip a lot of movies that seemed objectively “bad.”

You won’t find the likes of Scary Movie 5, Grown Ups 2, Safe Haven, or Madea’s Christmas on this list because there was no way I was going to see those films. At least the ones I’ve included below had a shot at being decent. Whether or not that makes them even more offensively bad is certainly a topic worth debating, but all that really matters is that they stunk to high heavens and deserve to be watched by no one.

Before I launch into the absolute bottom of this trash bag of entertainment, I do need to recognize some crud that managed to stay off the list just because their terribleness was one-upped. But don’t confuse their absence from the coveted top ten as me patting them on the head and letting off the hook. Think of it more like a police officer letting you off for grand theft auto because someone just set fire to a hospital full of cancer babies. Obviously they’re going to go after the baby arsonist. Here, I have my sights on the baby arsonists of cinema.

Dishonorable Mentions:

Prince Avalanche
The Last Exorcism: Part 2
The Lone Ranger
Parkland
Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
Epic
Diana
Now You See Me
Pacific Rim
A Good Day to Die Hard

10. GETAWAY

A remarkably dull endeavor that (worse than anything) turned Ethan Hawke‘s otherwise considerable year on its head, Getaway uses close quarter tactics to unwittingly beat us into a state of exhaustion and apathy. More believably a hack than a hacker, Selena Gomez offers some of the worse acting of the entire year so poor Hawke didn’t stand much of a chance. Watching them interact is like having a Skype conversation with a five second delay. There’s just absolutely no life to it. There is one definitive scene towards the end of the film that showcases how the film could have been approached successfully but, unfortunately, filmmaker Courtney Solomon decided to go the easy, cliché action route and blasted out this dud of a thrill ride that’s absent on thrills and, at the end of the day, makes absolutely no sense.

9. OZ: THE GREAT AND POWERFUL

What a plastic, cold effort from otherwise rafter-swinging Sam Raimi. In addition to being a massive disappointment, Oz: The Great and Powerful is easily one of the worst of the year. It all just seems like one big joke. The cocksure and smarmy performance from James Franco is certainly gag-worthy but it’s somehow outshone by the spam of a performance from Mila Kunis as the poorly makeup-ed Wicked Witch. Even the usually consistent Michelle Williams and Rachel Weisz are flat and ineffective. For a movie with so much talent, promise, and resources, Oz is a far cry from great and not even remotely powerful.

8. ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE

I hate to bury Adam Levine‘s 2006 horror movie that finally saw the light of day this year but it really deserved to stay in its coffin. Existing on a purely meta level, this genre film dares us to see past the faux-irony that is having everything we expect to happen happen. Or maybe the whole thing was supposed to be a shock and I just saw through it like the 35-cent jello mold that it was. Although a small fan base slobbered this one up, it unequivocally offered nothing new in terms of surprises, effects, or execution and was as wholly flat as the Texas plains where it takes place. All the Boys Love Mandy Lane is a glowing representation of the horror of lazy horror.

7. MOVIE 43

You know this list is bad when you find Movie 43 all the way up in seventh place. Steaming pile of garbage though it was, I didn’t actively hate Movie 43 the way I did many of the others on this list. Sure, it’s lazy, dumb, obnoxious, tasteless, offensive, and desperate for laughs but at least we didn’t go in to this expecting it to be a real movie. And for the many, many misses, there were a few sketches that worked my funny bone and I gotta dish out some credit where it’s due. Still, nothing this year clawed at my nerves like the Beezel the cat sketch. That was just in a league of its own.

6. THE HANGOVER: PART 3

An ugly and unnecessary conclusion to a series that should have ended when it began, The Hangover: Part 3 has no idea what it’s doing. Instead of rehashing the events of the first one like the Bangkok-set Hangover 2 did, this second sequel turns fatally dark and all but drops the comedy angle. There’s not a laugh to be found in its 100-minute runtime. And maybe it’s the disappointment that the series has fallen so far or maybe it’s the fact that this movie is just undeniably bad to the bone but The Hangover: Part 3 is the perfect example of sequels sullying the good name of the original. The decision to carry on the franchise even though they were clearly out of ideas is only exacerbated by bringing Ken Jeong‘s cringe-worthy Chow character to the forefront. What a steaming mess this flick is from cover-to-cover.

5. THE FIFTH ESTATE

A purely pathetic effort no matter which way you look at it, The Fifth Estate is the Billy Madison of biopics. And with its agenda so clearly honed in on degrading Julian Assange, I’m surprised they didn’t just have Adam Sandler play the part. Shockingly enough, it seems to have no idea how terrible it is. There are no character revelations, no sense of arc, no focus, and no real reason for this film to exist at all. Beyond the cinematic no-no that is trying to make coding cool, Bill Condon goes so far as to craft a series of scenes that take place in “the coding world.” Part bumbling Matrix-style mind game, part collective brain fart, these recklessly awful sequences provided some of the most laughable moments of the entire year. The true shame is that within The Fifth Estate is an important story but it was approached with the finesse of a drunk chimp and made for entirely daffy drama.

4. AFTER EARTH

Look no further than Jaden Smith‘s earth-shatteringly horrendous performance to see the failings of M. Night Whoever‘s latest box-office turd. It was a miracle that anyone agreed to finance another Shyamalan film after steady and progressively worse receptions of his films but, considering the sizable budget on this one and the seeming star power in the Smiths, hope was in the air that maybe After Earth would be a redemption of sorts of the faltering director. But when it crashed landed, it couldn’t have been further from a revival. Defunct on all levels, After Earth is one of the dumbest films to see the light of day in 2013 and fails on just about every level that a film could fail at. However if there was one film this year proved to us the effectiveness of acting through pouting your lips, After Earth proudly stands on the puffiness of Jaden’s punim.

3. THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS: CITY OF BONES

Long, unnecessary title aside, plot threads dangle throughout The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones like cobwebs in a tomb. Though convention has taught us to expect resolutions by a movie’s end, it’s almost as if the people in charge here forget how many nonsensical plot holes were left gaping by the time the lights went up. The best, and worst, example of which includes the central teenage pair who fall for each other even though they’re informed that, you know, they’re brother and sister. But, I mean, whatevz right? Backed by awful, hammed up performances across the board, this flunkie failed to make even the devout YA fans care. The saving grace is that after such a disappointing financial cull, production was halted on the follow-up that was already in progress, so it’s unlikely that we’ll ever see a sequel.

2. THE CANYONS

As ugly as it is repugnant and pseudo-intellectual, The Canyons is gross and unnecessary on all fronts. Imagine a movie so bad that Lindsay Lohan looks endlessly talented when compared to her co-stars and the solitary selling point is its close resemble to soft core porn and you have the ingredients that make The Canyons. From the very first tracking shot that just screams amateur filmmaker, I knew this film was going to be awful but nothing could have prepared me for just how hideous and empty it really was. The Canyons goes about trying to indite LA trust fund babies for being vacuous and unable to relate by being vacuous and unable to relate. Like that guy who wears neon t-shirts down to his kneecaps and leaves the sticker on his b-ball cap and think he’s the cock of the walk, the whole cast and crew in The Canyons just don’t seem to realize that we’re laughing at them, not with them.

1. THE HOST

An amazing feat of filmmaking as implosion, The Host, when it isn’t awful, is busy boring you to tears. Even for a teen franchise, The Host is dramatically inept and utterly incapable of making you care about anything or anyone. As if that’s not enough already, it lacks even one moment of genuine excitement. Even the love quadrangle will leave tweens checking their watches. The Host transforms the boredom of watching the paint dry with waiting for the wheat to grow. Seriously, there are multiple scenes where the characters are literally waiting in a cave for wheat to grow. How did anyone expect this movie would appeal to anyone?! I haven’t even mentioned the intolerable voice-over inner-monologues a la teeny-bopper arguments which serve as the brown icing smeared on this shit cake. The Host is so actively bad that it seems like the kind of thing that would play on repeat in hell while your eyes are shuttered open Clockwork Orange style.

So there it is, the worst of the worst of 2013. As a consolation prize for everyone who made it all the way to the end, here are my (brief) awards for worst actor and actress.

Worst Actor: Johnny Depp “The Lone Ranger”/Jaden Smith “After Earth”

I had to make this category a tie because both performances are truly awful, but for their own unique, special reasons. While Jaden seems to be suffering from a case of not knowing any better, Depp has no such excuse. So a tie between Johnny “I don’t want ever watch the movies I’m in”/”I’m 1/64 native American so me playing Tonto isn’t offensive” Depp and Jayden “I literally can’t act”/”But Daddy says I can” Smith seems like a fore-drawn conclusion in the worst actor of 2013 showdown. When it comes down to the wire though, I don’t think I could be forced to choose which of their performances is more actively awful. Coin toss anyone?

Worst Actress: Selena Gomez “Getaway”/”Spring Breakers”

If there’s one thing Selena Gomez has proved trying to break away from her Disney image it’s that she shouldn’t have tried to break away from her Disney image. Her wildly ineffectively chemistry with just about anyone who happens to be unlucky enough to share a scene with her is written on the walls with permanent marker. Between her pitiful performances in both Getaway and Spring Breakers, Gomez only has herself to compete against herself to be named the Prom Queen of grade-F acting.

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Out in Theaters: DIANA

November 8, 2013 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Biopic, Diana, Naomi Watts, Naveen Andrews, Oliver Hirschbiege, Out in Theaters, Reviews

“Diana”
Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel
Starring Naomi Watts, Naveen Andrews, Douglas Hodge, Cas Anvar, Daniel Pirrie, Charles Edwards, Geraldine James
Biography, Drama, Romance
113 Mins
PG-13

A princess locked away in her castle has never been quite as dull as in Diana. Even her knight in shining armor is a touchy troglodyte, so petrified of being in the public eye that he’d sooner bury his passion under a callused doctoral turtle shell than mumble “I love you” one more time. Diana keeps telling us to root for this unlikely and spotted relationship and yet we see it clearly for how fickle and irrevocably broken it is, eviscerating all emotional attachment and leaving its audience with cold feet.

While Diana the woman was a visionary humanitarian, Diana the movie is blind to its own half-baked inconsequentiality – a relic of biography as bore that has no place in the rom-com market it nearly exists in. A shining example of the tail wagging the dog, Diana is tugged through the mud with its lackluster “universal love story” front and center, a mistakenly proud icon of this flunky biopic.

Rather than focusing on Princess Diana’s chest of civil achievements, Oliver Hirschbiegel contents himself with this turkey of a love story. In doing so, he misses out on establishing historical interest and wholly makes us wonder why he chose to make a film about Diana at all since this lame love story could have belonged to pretty much anyone else.

Entirely uninterested in stirring the pot, Diana presents events that take place behind closed doors as fact and headlines as monuments to her character. With a narrative that’s pierced by moments of tabloid iconography and held in place by the glue of hearsay, there’s nothing to learn about Diana here apart from that one fated schoolgirl crush on an unlikable doctor.

As Diana, Naomi Watts is sadly unremarkable. Rather than a woman of action, she drifts like a puppy dog, hopping from cause to cause like they’re islands in the tropics, never taking a moment for deeper introspection. While Watts assumes some of Diana’s physical tendencies, there is little to award for her performance as Diana: The Princess of Tedium. Naveen Andrews is similarly disappointing, embodying a character that you never really like much less fall in love with. It’s hard to tell though how much fault belongs to Andrews though as his character is unfitting of this love saga – his hardened, driven persona incongruous with the stuff of true love fables.

Worse than the parts of their two fruitless performances is its sum. Even a blind man could see that there is no great love here. In fact, there hardly seems to be any love at all. Chemistry between Andrews and Watts is mostly invisible and consistently as sultry as a wool blanket. Little more than a wet dream fantasy overcooked in an Easy Bake Oven of delusion, their relationship is borderline pathetic, much less inspiring.

Having based the entire film around this floundering relationship, Hirschbiegel has set it up for inevitable failure. In romance, there is joy, but there is no joy here. No, just a wandering stream of historical conscientiousness built on a creaky foundation of overwrought infatuation.

Perhaps most unforgivable of all is how long Diana seems to stretch on – it’s an endless desert of enjoyment without the mirage of anything better to come. A mere ten minutes in, I was checking my watch. From there on out, it hardly improves.

The most harrowing aspects of Diana’s life are surely found in her relationship with her celebrity status but even that is treated with clumsy hands. For Diana, every outing is a exercise in dodging her inescapable fandom. The claustrophobia of the public forum – a space that’s constantly transformed into the most intimate of photo shoots – is palpably noxious. But as she waffles between celebrity and infamy, her relationship with the press remains largely unchanged, as if no one thought to account for the impact of her shifting public persona.

For all the psychological trauma that these snapping cameras seem to cause Diana, little light is shed on her emotional burden. Rather, Hirschbiegel vilifies the press – here seen as an animalistic force operating solely under the “sharks to blood” mentality. Like a maiden set for sacrifice, Diana’s destruction comes across as inevitable. As if her high horse was just waiting to buck her off while everyone snapped photos and passed judgment. But for all of the supposing about Diana’s frail mental state, nothing ever sets. There’s nothing definitive about Diana in Diana, a film that is definitively dull.

There must have been some attempt along the way to reciprocate Diana’s perpetual boredom, a state brought upon by her princess locked away in a tower qualities, but boring your audience is something else entirely – something you steer clear of at all expenses. Closer in kind to a Hallmark movie than any biopic of substance, this torpid film gives ennui the royal treatment.

D-

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Talking with Oliver Hirschbiegel of DIANA

November 1, 2013 by Matt Oakes Posted in Interviews Tagged Diana, Interviews, Naomi Watts, Naveen Andrews, Oliver Hirschbiege

There’s probably not a person on Earth who couldn’t tell you who Princess Diana is, and yet public knowledge of her is only surface deep. Oliver Hirschbiegel (Downfall) aims to settle that score with his biopic Diana. Known for his unblinking film biographies of historical figures, famous (Princess Diana) and infamous (Hitler) alike, Hirschbiegel hopes to unearth the humanity in these people, digging deeper than the surface snapshot we so often focus on. Set to turn an icon into a person, he tucks into Princess Diana like she’s a girl next door who just so happens to live in a castle.

Together, Oliver and I spoke about how the universal love story of Diana transformed the princess’s humanitarian work, why Naomi Watts was the only choice to play Diana, how he didn’t even recognize Naveen Andrews as Lost‘s Sayid until filming was done, the Royal family and filming right at the gates of the castle.

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In making a biopic of such a superstar and massive international icon, what did you think was the more important aspect: making the story as entertaining and engaging as possible or strictly adhering to the facts and nothing but the facts?

Oliver Hirschbiegel: Well while reading it, I really was surprised because what I read was a truly universal love story. That became the main goal, whenever in doubt. I knew these characters by heart and I knew the story that I wanted to tell. At the same time, I did research for about a year, getting into these characters and finding out about all these aspects of the story and making sure that, as much as I could, that I was truthful with what I was telling. Of course, and this is in regard to certain incident like her getting into the boot of her car and aspects like that, but when it comes to the very intimate scenes when you have two people in a flat or something like that, you can just go by what you know about the character and the descriptions. There were descriptions of encounters of Hasmat and Diana and how they dealt with each other. You try to hit the spirit of that relationship. You try to hit the spirit of the characters.

You say that this is this “universal love story.” Watching the film, you definitely get the scene that that aspect is the focal point. It’s not so much about Diana’s life but this one relationship at the end of her life and how much that affected her emotionally. Why did you choose this topic as the focal point?

OH: Well the thing that happens through her finding that love is …. At the beginning we see her isolated and lonely and sort of aimless. She’s separated from Charles and not officially divorced yet but she doesn’t really know what to do with her life. In real life, she had cut off most of her friends really. She lives rather aimlessly and then finds that man. Finally, after being deprived of love from that very first years of her childhood on, she finally finds that love and opens up and through finding love and getting love, she sort of reinvents herself, which is a very important part of her biography. To me, it’s the most interesting because she becomes a new Diana. It’s not only when it comes to the whole fashion icon thing because she reinvents herself on that level as well but, for me, that is less interesting. The more interesting thing is that she becomes a stateswoman in a way.

She’s not just the head of the charity, she’s not just supporting a charity, she becomes the motor of charity work on a rather political level. To put her clothes to auction for the AIDS charity, in those days that was a very bold move and a very smart thing, it was actually William’s idea originally, and was unheard of. Also, the land mines campaign. They fought for more than 20 years, politicians and very powerful institutions like the Red Cross and the UN. They had all fought to ban land mines on an international level and they hadn’t gotten anywhere. She takes that on and changes the world within three days. That’s astonishing and very impressive. That had been forgotten really. If you go on YouTube and look for that documentary on her going to Angola, there’s only like 15,000 people who have seen that. We’re talking about the most famous woman in the world. But what is she famous for? She’s famous for being the princess and flying around the world and hanging out with Dodi on a yacht and dying in a tunnel. That really needed correction.

For you, what was the most challenging aspect of the story to bring to the screen?

OH: Well to get it right. In all my films, my guide is this truthfulness and authenticity. I don’t want to play games with the audience. Of course, I want to entertain, I don’t want to bore them, but I don’t want to play dirty tricks on them. I try to do all the research and try to get it as right as possible. At the end of the day, it’s a piece of art and it’s my vision but it’s really based on formal research.

Why did you think that Naomi Watts was the perfect Diana for this story?

OH: As an actress, she is simply the best in her category. I wouldn’t know anybody would who pull it off. That was the first name I ever put down: Naomi Watts. And she proved me right.

What is it about her that really captures the spirit of Diana?

OH: She, more than others, makes me forget that I’m watching her impersonating a character. She becomes the character. In any film she does, regardless of genre, she becomes that and makes me forget that. She’s amazing really. Physically, if you look at her, she doesn’t really look like Diana but yet she becomes Diana and makes me believe that I’m watching Diana.

Similarly, why did you cast Naveen Andrews, who is most known for his role in Lost as this action hero, as your romantic lead. Knowing what we do about him, it is an unexpected choice.

OH: I didn’t know that Naveen did Lost. I looked at Bollywood actors and never really got The English Patient out of my head. I remember that story of that Indian soldier, I think he was a Sikh, and Juliette Binoche in The English Patient, touched me so much. It was so authentic and real. I looked them up and found out that it was Naveen Andrews. It sort of rang a bell but I didn’t put one and one together. So I looked him up on IMDB on realized he is that Iranian guy on Lost…and I loved Lost and watched Lost. I just didn’t recognize him as the same guy. We Skyped for an hour and we connected. As a director, you’re talking to an actor and you just know immediately. I knew I had my man. When I put the two together in one room, I just knew the chemistry was right. He’s not Pakistani, he’s Indian but from the North of India, which is a similar area. I think he’s the perfect match for Hasmat.

In the process of making the film, was there any pushback from the Royal Family about the story that you were telling or were they onboard?

OH:: No, they’re never onboard really. They basically stay out of it. They don’t want to have anything to do with it and they never comment either. Regardless of which story you want to tell, you’ll never be allowed to shoot within the vicinity of the palaces but they suggested for us to shoot at Kensington Gardens when there was a problem at Hyde Park, because of the Olympics games, but they allowed us to use Kensington Gardens and the palace as a backdrop. They even allowed us to shot at the actual gate where all the flowers were put down. The only thing they asked us to do was not put flowers down there because, for obvious reasons, that would have been sort of terrible for the sons. We draw in the flowers with CGI.

So you haven’t heard anything from either of her sons in terms of a reaction? Do you know if they’ve seen the film?

OH: Well, I don’t know. They never comment really. You never hear anything. It’s their policy for hundreds and hundreds of years. They keep their mouth shut and never issue any statement. Maybe one day but I find it doubtful.

One of the most distressing elements of the film is how the paparazzi and journalists are constantly in her face, snapping photos at her most susceptible moments. How did you try and approach that from a dramatic standpoint to express just how much pressure she was constantly under and how that pressure changed the course of her life?

OH: Well I enhanced that elements quite a bit. It was not in the original script. I just wanted the paparazzi to become sort of their own character and be constantly there and a constant potential threat. It’s something Fellini did in La Dolce Vita and I’m sort of bowing my hat to Fellini with that. Her life was like that. Today, it’s more common that that happens but the paparazzi, sometimes hundreds of them, being around her was a first in those days. That had never been the case before. I tried to get that out with a maximum powerful effect.

What was the hardest part of doing this story for you emotionally?

OH: To stay objective, if you will. In this kind of story, of course you connect with the characters, and I have to admit, I quite like Diana. The more I found out about Diana, the more I liked both of these characters. As a storyteller, you want to be careful that you keep your distance. I think it rings through that I like these characters but I think that’s the most difficult thing. You’re emotional involvement doesn’t take over your artistic expression.

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