Was it just me, or was 2014 one of the worst years for movies in recent memory? Of course there were good films (every year has at least a few) but when I look back at all the films I saw over 2014, generally speaking, the movies were pretty blah. Actually "blah" is a good word to describe this list of mine. Most of the movies weren't terrible, they were just blah.
10. Dumb and Dumber To
I can acknowledge that the Nymphomaniac movies are brilliant. Lars Von Trier is a cinematic genius after all. He doesn't just make movies. He makes art. This art, however, just wasn't my cup of tea. Actually, I quite liked Part I. But Part II was exhausting to watch!!! The first movie begins with a man named Seligman coming across a woman named Joe who is lying in a dingy alley, beaten to a pulp. He takes her to his apartment where she spends the next several hours telling him her life story, and about being a nymphomaniac. Seligman is asexual, so he is unaffected by her shocking sexual escapades. She keeps trying to tell him that she is a horrible person, and he keeps trying to tell her that she is not by rationalizing her behavior. I think the two characters represent the two extreme behaviors of human beings: animistic desires versus rational intellect.
In
Part I, Joe recounts her childhood, adolescence, and sexual awakening.
I liked this part of the story. I was with Joe in her journey toward
adulthood. In Part II, Joe tells the story of her adulthood on. To me,
it was a mess! Her path goes in so many weird directions, that I
couldn't get on board. Now, again, Lars Von Trier is brilliant, and the
journey probably makes perfect artistic sense, but I didn't want to
take the time to analyze it. The film lost me when Joe started working
as a "debt collector"/torturer. It seemed a bit out there. And the
ending! The ending is quite controversial! It's a pretty great ending,
actually. But it does take you by surprise, and you find yourself
thinking, "Wait...WHAT?"
One more thing: Shia penis!!
8. Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier
Yeah, I know! People jizzed themselves over Captain America 2. I didn't! I stayed very dry and unamused. I think I'm suffering from super hero fatigue. But seriously, how many times can a super hero save the world? And since each film has to be bigger than the last, eventually you will reach a plateau. A plateau that I want to jump off of after watching so many of these movies! Don't get me wrong. I usually love comic book movies, but they're all starting to feel the same to me.
7. Winter's Tale
Do you guys remember this movie? It's the movie with the magical flying horse and Will Smith as Lucifer wearing a Jimi Hendrix tee shirt! I just HAD to watch this movie out of morbid curiosity, and I am so glad I did! Not because I ended up enjoying it. But because it was so ridiculous that I feel my life is a little bit better somehow knowing that such ridiculousness actually exists! If you have a couple of hours to kill and you feel like saying "WTF?!" a lot, please watch this movie! Watch it high, if you can!
6. Good People
Not sure if this movie ever had a wide release or not, but it's on Netflix right now. I watched it because I love James Franco, but the movie was very lackluster. James Franco and Kate Hudson play a married couple who are struggling financially. They sublease their basement to an older gentleman who happens to be a criminal. After finding their tenant dead and reporting it to the cops, they discover that their tenant hid a bag full of cash in the floorboards. You can imagine what happens next. The couple struggles with "Should we keep the money or turn it in?" Then criminals and cops come after them...pretty typical.
5. The Amazing Spider-man 2
There's that super hero fatigue again. Why did they make this "reboot"? Why??? The original Spiderman movie is GREAT! This franchise is completely soulless. It's so obvious that the producers created this series purely to make money, and everyone was just going through the motions. No one truly LOVED this movie as it was being made. It was nobody's baby. It was not nourished and cared for. It was slapped together while some Hollywood exec sat in a VERY big office with a nice view, bathing themselves in $100 bills saying, "More money! More money!" Yes, that is exactly the circumstances in which these movies were made. Thank goodness this franchise is over!
4. Noah
Uuugghhhhh!!!!! I was very excited about this movie because I'm a huge fan of Darren Aronofsky. I have never disliked any of his films. I guess there's a first time for everything! Wow, he really disappointed me with this one! Even though I'm from the Bible Belt, I've never read the Bible in full, so I'm not familiar with how the story of Noah actually goes, but whatever was portrayed in the film did NOT work for me! This could have been really awesome, it is based off of some pretty epic material after all, but it wasn't! The CGI wasn't even very good! Such a disappointment on so many levels!!
3. That Awkward Moment
I can't! Have you ever seen that BuzzFeed article with the dogs who just can NOT handle it right now? Well, that's how I feel! (http://www.buzzfeed.com/mattbellassai/animals-that-cannot-even-handle-it-right-now#.ad52KbD3V6) I just CAN NOT with this movie!!
Zac Efron plays a 20 something year old who lives in a HUGE ASS apartment in New York (by himself!) and has a snazzy advertising job - because that's realistic! After one of his friends gets dumped, he makes a pact with his buddies to not get in a relationship. But then he meets a girl (who is so hipster cool!), hooks up with her, and then attempts to keep the pact by not falling in love with her. But guess what, you guys? I bet you don't see this one coming: He totally falls in love with her! And guess what else? His other friends break the pact too! Love is everywhere! Ugh! So many things wrong with this movie! First of all, using internet slang as a movie title is a bad idea to begin with. Secondly, I JUST CAN'T!
2. The Other Woman
This movie could have been cute in a fun, not so serious, girly comedy, First Wives Club kind of way. But it failed MISERABLY. Leslie Mann's character plays a woman who discovers that her husband is cheating on her with Cameron Diaz's character. As soon as Cameron Diaz finds out her boyfriend is married, she breaks it off and tries to remove herself from the drama, however, Leslie Mann is such a lonely desperate housewife, that she ends up befriending her. Together, they discover that the husband has a second mistress, played by Kate Upton. The three woman team up to bring the husband down. Again, the plot isn't totally horrible. But the execution was!
1. Tusk
I never thought I would see the day when a Kevin Smith movie takes the number one spot of my least liked movies of the year! Oh, Kevin! I am sorry, but what the HELL were you smoking when you made this movie??? I mean, just look at that picture. LOOK AT IT! I don't internet stalk Kevin as much as I used to, so I wasn't really aware of the circumstances by which this movie was made. Apparently it was discussed in a podcast, and Kevin had people tweet #WalrusYes if they wanted the movie to be made, and #WalrusNo if not. For once, Kevin's massive fan base made a very bad decision.
Some people really like this movie, and I can not for the life of me understand why! There's really nothing - NOTHING - to like about this movie. Johnny Depp is in it, which is kind of random but cool, but even he couldn't save it. Everything was just bad. BAD, BAD, BAD!!!
What were your least favorite movies of the year?
As tradition, my top ten favorite films will be posted Oscar night!
10. Dumb and Dumber To
I was one of the few who was actually really looking forward to this movie. I LOVE the original Dumb and Dumber. It's seriously one of my favorite movies of all time. To see Harry and Lloyd together again twenty years later? Sign me up!! The movie wasn't exactly bad. I would even go as far as to say that I enjoyed parts of it. But I didn't enjoy enough of it, and it was missing that something special that made the first film a classic. I think the thing it was missing was a certain level of innocence. In the original film, Harry and Lloyd were innocent and sincere in their dumbness. In the sequel, they seemed to be mocking us, like they were aware of our awareness of their dumbness...not sure if that makes any sense.... Basically, I believe this movie was made as a love letter to the fans. There were a lot of jokes and allusions to the original that were funny. But in the end, the love letter kind turned into a John Deer letter.
9. Nymphomaniac Volume II
I can acknowledge that the Nymphomaniac movies are brilliant. Lars Von Trier is a cinematic genius after all. He doesn't just make movies. He makes art. This art, however, just wasn't my cup of tea. Actually, I quite liked Part I. But Part II was exhausting to watch!!! The first movie begins with a man named Seligman coming across a woman named Joe who is lying in a dingy alley, beaten to a pulp. He takes her to his apartment where she spends the next several hours telling him her life story, and about being a nymphomaniac. Seligman is asexual, so he is unaffected by her shocking sexual escapades. She keeps trying to tell him that she is a horrible person, and he keeps trying to tell her that she is not by rationalizing her behavior. I think the two characters represent the two extreme behaviors of human beings: animistic desires versus rational intellect.
One more thing: Shia penis!!
8. Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier
Yeah, I know! People jizzed themselves over Captain America 2. I didn't! I stayed very dry and unamused. I think I'm suffering from super hero fatigue. But seriously, how many times can a super hero save the world? And since each film has to be bigger than the last, eventually you will reach a plateau. A plateau that I want to jump off of after watching so many of these movies! Don't get me wrong. I usually love comic book movies, but they're all starting to feel the same to me.
7. Winter's Tale
Do you guys remember this movie? It's the movie with the magical flying horse and Will Smith as Lucifer wearing a Jimi Hendrix tee shirt! I just HAD to watch this movie out of morbid curiosity, and I am so glad I did! Not because I ended up enjoying it. But because it was so ridiculous that I feel my life is a little bit better somehow knowing that such ridiculousness actually exists! If you have a couple of hours to kill and you feel like saying "WTF?!" a lot, please watch this movie! Watch it high, if you can!
6. Good People
Not sure if this movie ever had a wide release or not, but it's on Netflix right now. I watched it because I love James Franco, but the movie was very lackluster. James Franco and Kate Hudson play a married couple who are struggling financially. They sublease their basement to an older gentleman who happens to be a criminal. After finding their tenant dead and reporting it to the cops, they discover that their tenant hid a bag full of cash in the floorboards. You can imagine what happens next. The couple struggles with "Should we keep the money or turn it in?" Then criminals and cops come after them...pretty typical.
5. The Amazing Spider-man 2
There's that super hero fatigue again. Why did they make this "reboot"? Why??? The original Spiderman movie is GREAT! This franchise is completely soulless. It's so obvious that the producers created this series purely to make money, and everyone was just going through the motions. No one truly LOVED this movie as it was being made. It was nobody's baby. It was not nourished and cared for. It was slapped together while some Hollywood exec sat in a VERY big office with a nice view, bathing themselves in $100 bills saying, "More money! More money!" Yes, that is exactly the circumstances in which these movies were made. Thank goodness this franchise is over!
4. Noah
Uuugghhhhh!!!!! I was very excited about this movie because I'm a huge fan of Darren Aronofsky. I have never disliked any of his films. I guess there's a first time for everything! Wow, he really disappointed me with this one! Even though I'm from the Bible Belt, I've never read the Bible in full, so I'm not familiar with how the story of Noah actually goes, but whatever was portrayed in the film did NOT work for me! This could have been really awesome, it is based off of some pretty epic material after all, but it wasn't! The CGI wasn't even very good! Such a disappointment on so many levels!!
3. That Awkward Moment
I can't! Have you ever seen that BuzzFeed article with the dogs who just can NOT handle it right now? Well, that's how I feel! (http://www.buzzfeed.com/mattbellassai/animals-that-cannot-even-handle-it-right-now#.ad52KbD3V6) I just CAN NOT with this movie!!
Zac Efron plays a 20 something year old who lives in a HUGE ASS apartment in New York (by himself!) and has a snazzy advertising job - because that's realistic! After one of his friends gets dumped, he makes a pact with his buddies to not get in a relationship. But then he meets a girl (who is so hipster cool!), hooks up with her, and then attempts to keep the pact by not falling in love with her. But guess what, you guys? I bet you don't see this one coming: He totally falls in love with her! And guess what else? His other friends break the pact too! Love is everywhere! Ugh! So many things wrong with this movie! First of all, using internet slang as a movie title is a bad idea to begin with. Secondly, I JUST CAN'T!
2. The Other Woman
This movie could have been cute in a fun, not so serious, girly comedy, First Wives Club kind of way. But it failed MISERABLY. Leslie Mann's character plays a woman who discovers that her husband is cheating on her with Cameron Diaz's character. As soon as Cameron Diaz finds out her boyfriend is married, she breaks it off and tries to remove herself from the drama, however, Leslie Mann is such a lonely desperate housewife, that she ends up befriending her. Together, they discover that the husband has a second mistress, played by Kate Upton. The three woman team up to bring the husband down. Again, the plot isn't totally horrible. But the execution was!
1. Tusk
I never thought I would see the day when a Kevin Smith movie takes the number one spot of my least liked movies of the year! Oh, Kevin! I am sorry, but what the HELL were you smoking when you made this movie??? I mean, just look at that picture. LOOK AT IT! I don't internet stalk Kevin as much as I used to, so I wasn't really aware of the circumstances by which this movie was made. Apparently it was discussed in a podcast, and Kevin had people tweet #WalrusYes if they wanted the movie to be made, and #WalrusNo if not. For once, Kevin's massive fan base made a very bad decision.
Some people really like this movie, and I can not for the life of me understand why! There's really nothing - NOTHING - to like about this movie. Johnny Depp is in it, which is kind of random but cool, but even he couldn't save it. Everything was just bad. BAD, BAD, BAD!!!
What were your least favorite movies of the year?
As tradition, my top ten favorite films will be posted Oscar night!
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