Worst Films of the Decade

[FotoStoreSheila]

Jan 23, 2010 21:29:03 GMT -4 hushhush said:

For a true worst of the decade, Lady In the Water - Oh, what utter drivel that was! I tried to watch some of that movie on TV one evening just to see how bad it really was. I only lasted about an hour, and I actually LIKE to snark on bad movies! It was soooo, sooooooo bad.

Ew, I'd almost forgotten about this movie. I actually saw it in the theatre on opening weekend. I quite liked The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, so my hopes were high. Normally, I am not one to talk back to the screen, but I just couldn't help myself. When M Night appeared on screen as the great Messiah whose brilliant and insightful prose would save the world, I actually shouted "Oh HELL no!" at the screen. It's a good thing the theatre was virtually empty.

[discoprincess]

Jan 18, 2010 19:14:10 GMT -4 Smilla said:

Oh, I will gladly hop aboard the Beautiful Mind hate train. So, so bad. What hurts me the most is the waste of solid supporting actors beneath awful writing

I loved seeing Adam Goldberg and Anthony Rapp together again.

Someone mentioned Along Came Polly. I saw that movie on a blind date for Valentine's Day. I ended up not liking the movie or the date! A couple of gross-out moments in the film were gratuitious (like the towel in the toilet incident WTF?! Why couldn't he just yell out to Polly from behind the door, "Uh, I need some more toilet paper"?).

I had a hard time buying Reuben's relationship with Polly, as they were fundamentally incompatible. The only thing I liked was Polly's character, whose flightiness I found interesting and endearing.

I'm not as critical about movies as some people, so when I have problems with a movie, you know that it's fatally flawed.

[Alexis Machine]

Autumn in New York!

An aging playboy with a limited amount of charm falls in love with a dying young woman with no discernible personality. There were so many things wrong with this movie:

1)We only see the relationship from his point of view. They hang out at Richard Gere's restaurant with his friends, at his apartment, at his friends Halloween party.

2) At the beginning of the movie we see Winona Rider at her birthday with her friends. We don't see them again until she dies at the end of the movie. WTF?

3) Winona Ryder has the worst grandma ever. Granny waits until after the relationship is going smoothly to drop this bombshell:

Granny: Your mother was in love with Richard Gere, he rejected her and screwed some woman named Millie in a cabana at the country club.
Winona: Why didn't you tell me this earlier?
Granny: I've made bad choices in my life.


4)Speaking of Millie, her daughter with Gere tracks him down, and he shows up at her place looking for a cure for Winona. The unintended message seems to be: I couldn't be bothered with you when you were growing up, but my young piece of ass is dying, and I need help.

5)The entire movie plays like a two hour hallmark commercial: schmaltzy music, extended closeups, pastels, pastels, pastels.

The only reason I sat through this" Sam Trammell, JK Simmons, and Vera Farmiga

[normadesmond]

When exactly did Hannibal come out? Was that the oughties or the nineties? Cause if it's the former, it belongs here.

Terrible plot in its own right, it's also disgusting, stomach-turning, mean-spirited, heartless, virtually unwatchable, and the makeup job on Gary Oldman's face was completely gross for the sake of being gross. In order to try and make Hannibal more sympathetic, they had to come up with an even worse villain, Mason Verger (Gary), who is soooo evil and perverted it was ridiculous. It also retroactively ruins Silence of the Lambs, since it launched a bunch of atrocious sequels/prequels (Red Dragon, Hannibal Rising) instead of leaving it a stand-alone film.

One of the worst films of the decade for this reason: it wasn't just nauseatingly gory trash, it was trying to be High Art and make some Profound Statement about The Nature of Evil.

I'm also convinced that Thomas Harris, the author of the books, had some kind of grudge against Jodie Foster/Jonathan Demme and intentionally wrote the stomach-turning book in such a way as to turn them off and replace them with new blood for the movie. If you read the book, it seems clear he approved of Anthony Hopkins' portrayal but not much else. I also think Ridley Scott's direction of this atrocity may have cost him the Oscar for Gladiator, which won Best Picture, but this movie came out right during Oscar season and probably caused Ridley to lose Best Director.

A lot of people would probably dispute this, but I'm just about positive that Thomas Harris wrote the novel as a poison pen letter to Jodie Foster (one critic suggested this in his review of the film and I think he's right).

[Mutagen]

Jan 26, 2010 13:16:36 GMT -4 FotoStoreSheila said:

Jan 23, 2010 21:29:03 GMT -4 hushhush said:

For a true worst of the decade, Lady In the Water - Oh, what utter drivel that was! I tried to watch some of that movie on TV one evening just to see how bad it really was. I only lasted about an hour, and I actually LIKE to snark on bad movies! It was soooo, sooooooo bad.

Ew, I'd almost forgotten about this movie. I actually saw it in the theatre on opening weekend. I quite liked The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, so my hopes were high. Normally, I am not one to talk back to the screen, but I just couldn't help myself. When M Night appeared on screen as the great Messiah whose brilliant and insightful prose would save the world, I actually shouted "Oh HELL no!" at the screen. It's a good thing the theatre was virtually empty.

What kills me about The Lady in the Water is that Bob Balaban and Paul Giamatti were both actually good in it. I mean the movie was still terrible and pointless. But I remember liking Balaban's scene and actually being emotionally gripped during Giamatti's climactic monologue about his dead wife. In a way, that almost pisses me off more than if the movie had just 100% sucked - like Shyamalan had two great performances staring him in the face, and he still buried them under the crushing suck of his plot.

[iClaudia]

Jan 29, 2010 15:34:30 GMT -4 Alexis Machine said:

Autumn in New York!

<snip>

5)The entire movie plays like a two hour hallmark commercial: schmaltzy music, extended closeups, pastels, pastels, pastels.

The only reason I sat through this" Sam Trammell, JK Simmons, and Vera Farmiga

I had forgotten about Autumn in New York! You nailed it on every point. What a laughingly bad movie. I don't think that there has ever been two actors on screen with less chemistry. It was this movie that made me realize just how limited Winona Ryder is as an actor. Her Oscar nods left me scratching my head but she was at least somewhat engaging in movies like "The Age of Innocence". She was absolute cardboard in AINY.

This brings to mind another treacly movie starring Richard Gere, Nights in Rodanthe. I saw this in the theater because of how much I love Diane Lane. She and Viola Davis were the only saving graces in what was a horrible movie. This sort of thing is best left to Lifetime and the Hallmark Channel. It's just ridiculous on the big screen.

[magazinewhore]

Autumn in New York! That was on cable the other day. Yeah, that's a bad one. Worse than The Village? That's a tough call.

[Smilla]

Ohhh, how could I have forgotten Bad Company (the Chris Rock/Anthony Hopkins one, not the Ellen Barkin/Laurence Fishburne one)? Not just one of the worst of the '00s, but one of the Worst Ever. Every offensive stereotype in the book, horrible spy movie cliches, and terrible dialogue. My brain hurts just thinking about it.

[Neurochick]

Lady in the Water was worse than The Village IMO both were bad but I could at least sit through The Village, I've never been able to sit through Lady in the Water.

[satellite]

Jan 30, 2010 17:50:42 GMT -4 @normadesmond said:

When exactly did Hannibal come out? Was that the oughties or the nineties? Cause if it's the former, it belongs here.

Terrible plot in its own right, it's also disgusting, stomach-turning, mean-spirited, heartless, virtually unwatchable, and the makeup job on Gary Oldman's face was completely gross for the sake of being gross. In order to try and make Hannibal more sympathetic, they had to come up with an even worse villain, Mason Verger (Gary), who is soooo evil and perverted it was ridiculous. It also retroactively ruins Silence of the Lambs, since it launched a bunch of atrocious sequels/prequels (Red Dragon, Hannibal Rising) instead of leaving it a stand-alone film.

One of the worst films of the decade for this reason: it wasn't just nauseatingly gory trash, it was trying to be High Art and make some Profound Statement about The Nature of Evil.

Well, yeah, if you think of it as a drama. I find it to be one of my favorite campy black comedies. So... yeah.



I have to vote for See No Evil- a horrible and stupid mish-mash of every horror movie cliche ever-
The villian-
is played by a WWE wrestler so he's huge and has super strengh- Halloween.
was psycho-sexually warped by his crazily religious mother- Carrie
attacks with and hangs his victims on meathooks- Texas Chainsaw Massacre
and lives isolated in a dilapidated abandoned hotel- Psycho

He stalks and picks off a group of visiting teenagers- Friday the 13th
who learn that there's millions in cash hidden somewhere on the premises- House on Haunted Hill
and one gets mauled to death by a pack of dogs- Cujo

and just for an extra gross-out factor there are live maggots living in the killer's head wound.