CHICAGO – Sitting in the dark, watching 2012 unspool through the reels of the year’s films, often creates a situation in which time can actually be felt going by. That happens when viewing “The 10 Worst Films of 2012.” Brian Tallerico and Patrick McDonald join forces to analyze these time wasters.
From fish who eat people, to old-timer baseball scouts, to campaign year propaganda, no subject seemed untouched in the pursuit of 2012 cinematic blight. To soften the blow, Tallerico and McDonald split the assignment, and contributed five films apiece from their Halls of Shame. A Redeeming Factor is added, to keep them from going completely insane. Each reviewer is indicated by their initials (BT, PM) at the end of their insight for each torturous film. And away we go…
“Piranha 3DD”
Dumb, dumb, dumb. What did we learn here? Tongue-in-bloody-cheek gore-fests like the first “Piranha 3D” are nowhere near as easy as they look. Alexandre Aja’s first film looks like a genre masterpiece compared to this terminally unfunny piece of fish crap that completely misjudges the balance between character, humor, and horror, producing none of the above. David Hasselhoff isn’t even believable playing himself and he might be the best thing about the movie.
REDEEMING FACTOR: Almost everyone who you quickly grow to hate in “Piranha 3DD” dies in brutal ways. There’s a small bit of joy in watching stupid characters die in stupid ways. One only wishes the filmmakers would get in on the action. BT
“Trouble with the Curve”
Oy, the trouble with this movie! Let’s start with the miscasting – Amy Adams and Clint Eastwood have no chemistry as the daughter and father (the aging baseball scout), Justin Timberlake – as a baseball scout colleague – is as sports oriented as you’d expect from an ex-boy band singer, and John Goodman is just same old, same old as a baseball executive. The baseball itself is useless in any basis in reality and the ending – when a phenom comes out of proverbial woodwork – is impossible to believe in this era of traveling youth leagues. Instead of Clint capitulating to his golden years, he of course he is ultimately right and heroic in the film. So much for nuance. I count five strikes, two more than necessary for an “out!”
REDEEMING FACTOR: Director Robert Lorenz did one fancy shot during a baseball game that could be called creative. PM
“The Lucky One”
In a year of stupid romantic dirges like “The Words” and “The Vow,” this one easily took the prize as the movie that should instantly end any blossoming relationship if your potential mate likes it. “You know I really love that movie with Zac Efron as the half-asleep vet who hunts down a girl in a picture like a stalker!” “Check, please!” Efron and poor Taylor Schilling have zero chemistry in this snooze-fest that plays almost like a “Family Guy” spoof of other Nicholas Sparks movies. Only not quite as funny.
REDEEMING FACTOR: It’s always great to see Blythe Danner working. She’s been underrated for decades. One just wishes she would be a bit more choosy with her scripts. BT
“The Babymakers”
One of the most uncomfortable “elephant in the room” circumstances is a couple who want to have babies but cannot. So let’s make a comedy out of it! Hoo-Ha! This is painfully unfunny, and so forced I expected studio interns at the theaters to hit me over the head with a binky while I took it in. The story line morphs into a heist picture, as better to give director Jay Chandrasekhar a small part as a stereotype from India. What are the wacky boys from the Broken Lizard comedy troupe trying to steal? Seminal fluid from the sperm bank. It’s a comedy that keeps on coming, I mean giving.
REDEEMING FACTOR: The interview I conducted with Kevin Heffernan and Jay Chandrasekhar was infinitely better than the film. PM
“The Devil Inside”
Hey, let’s make half a movie! When “The Devil Inside” ended with little more than a push to get viewers to bring traffic to a website that didn’t deserve it, there was nearly a revolt. The F CinemaScore and stories of people booing and throwing things at the screen led to an amazing 76% drop in its second weekend. The story about the awful non-ending and box office plummet overshadowed the fact that “The Devil Inside” is an AWFUL movie even if it had a great ending. The thing plays with nothing but cliche and it does so in a lackluster, uninspired, entirely non-scary way. There’s not one genuine character, idea, or even jump-scare in this junk and even if the ending was disappointing, it at least stopped the awfulness of what came before.
REDEEMING FACTOR: You can use it on April Fool’s Day and trick people into thinking they’re seeing an actual movie. “Hey, want to watch a scary flick!” Then watch their face when the non-ending ruins their day. Scream April Fool’s and wait to get punched. BT
“Hick”
I’m ready to join the Daughters of the Confederacy after seeing this travesty, or at least have empathy for southerners as they watch actors like Eddie Redmayne (British) and Alec Baldwin (Long Island, New York) trying to portray their brethren. In a happy plot line, a 13-year-old girl (Chloe Grace Moretz) gets a gun for her birthday and then runs away from home, encountering her new family like Dorothy in the Land of Oz. But there is no pot of gold over this rainbow, as the film consists of leering stereotypes (Redmayne), a creepy Lolita sense for Moretz and a screaming-all-my-lines Oscar baiter (Juliette Lewis). Everything you need to know about this film is that Baldwin – Alec Baldwin – portrays a guy named Beau.
REDEEMING FACTOR: The fall out from the sexualizing of the Moretz character will eventually make her future psychiatrist rich. PM
“A Thousand Words”
The worst comedy of 2012 should have been the worst comedy of 2009 but it sat on the shelf for a few years and got even more rotten than when it was first produced. What infuriates me the most about bad moviemaking is when one can literally see the laziness up on the screen. As ticket prices rise and the economy stagnates, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to take a family out to the movies and when one can see Eddie Murphy doing his bare minimum to get through a joke and then offering the least believable emotional manipulation of the year, it’s frustrating. Eddie Murphy’s a millionaire. He owes every single person who sat through this turd an explanation.
REDEEMING FACTOR: Once again, there’s a performer who takes none of the blame as the beautiful Kerry Washington (“Scandal,” “Django Unchained”) does everything she can to make her poorly-written wife character feel genuine. BT
“A Little Bit of Heaven”
With a title that provides the easiest rejoinder of the year, “a lotta crap of hell,” this steaming pile of cinematic excrement again has as its lead actress the poster child for worst-of lists everywhere – Ms. Kate Hudson. Here she offensively plays a dying woman, whose personality is so repulsive that while everyone falls in love with her or mourns her impending death, I wondered if secretly this wasn’t some absurd satire. Two Oscar winners participate, Kathy Bates as Kate’s mother (apparently Goldie Hawn wasn’t available) and Whoopi Goldberg as God (I kid you not, God. Apparently, that’s how the Kate character views God. What is this, 1992?). With other paycheck cashing performers like Gael Garciá Bernal, Peter Dinklage and Lucy Punch, they may be one of the worst films with the best cast ever. No one, except Kate Hudson (who proves every year she doesn’t care), will have this on their career highlight reel.
REDEEMING FACTOR: It was filmed in New Orleans, so cool vacation for the cast, and the NOLA-style funeral scene at the end meant the audience got to celebrate her demise with the characters, for different reasons. PM
“The Apparition”
Imagine a horror film so mind-numbingly incompetent that it crosses the line to performance art in which one questions whether or not the people involved knew they were making an absolute piece of crap. As the most lackluster protagonists of the year wandered around Costco and made brain-numbing chit-chat over tortilla chips, I started to pray for something interesting to haunt them just to alleviate the boredom. And then when the alleged horror of the story kicks in, the movie produces more laughter than fear. Whether it’s people saying dumb things, doing dumb things, or being haunted in dumb ways, “The Apparition” was the dumbest movie of 2012.
REDEEMING FACTOR: Ashley Greene somehow makes it out relatively unscathed as the movie has 1,000 problems but none of them are directly her fault. She’d be wise to expunge it from her IMDB profile like an exorcist eliminating an evil specter. BT
“2016: Obama’s America”
One of the foulest pieces of propaganda to ever play in a movie theater, “2016: Obama’s America” is filled with scary lies that are repeated ad nauseum as if partisan hack Dinesh D’Souza – who “made” this film – is talking to simple minded children (the target audience, apparently). With each wacky theory on “how Barack Obama thinks” and “re-creation” of President Obama’s life, brain cells are killed in mass quantities. This is basic red meat for Obama haters, filled with the type of Fox News hyperbole that was used against him in the 2008 campaign, and repackaged in this crass and pointless exercise (Bill Ayers and Reverend Wright, anybody?). To presume theories about another person’s life story, with no opportunity for the actual person to counter the arguments, is the coward’s way of smearing an opponent. So this is chicken shit and bullshit together, designed to scare people into voting against their own interests.
REDEEMING FACTOR: The man who represents the “family values” opposition who funded this dreck, Dinesh D’Sousa, was a married man who this year cavorted with a younger woman who was also married. This scandal caused him to turn in his resignation as president of King’s College. Karma is a bitch, eh D’Sousa? Oh yeah, and President Obama won the election. PM
[20] | By PATRICK McDONALD [21] |
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[3] http://www.hollywoodchicago.com/news/2016-obama-s
[4] http://www.hollywoodchicago.com/news/a-little-bit-of-heaven
[5] http://www.hollywoodchicago.com/news/a-thousand-words
[6] http://www.hollywoodchicago.com/news/brian-tallerico
[7] http://www.hollywoodchicago.com/news/hick
[8] http://www.hollywoodchicago.com/news/hollywoodchicagodotcom-content
[9] http://www.hollywoodchicago.com/news/list
[10] http://www.hollywoodchicago.com/news/patrick-mcdonald
[11] http://www.hollywoodchicago.com/news/piranha-3dd
[12] http://www.hollywoodchicago.com/news/the-apparition
[13] http://www.hollywoodchicago.com/news/the-babymakers
[14] http://www.hollywoodchicago.com/news/the-devil-inside
[15] http://www.hollywoodchicago.com/news/the-lucky-one
[16] http://www.hollywoodchicago.com/news/trouble-with-the-curve
[17] http://www.hollywoodchicago.com/news/20844/film-feature-the-10-best-films-of-2012
[18] http://www.hollywoodchicago.com/news/20929/film-feature-the-10-best-films-of-2012-part-two
[19] http://www.hollywoodchicago.com/news/20922/film-feature-the-10-most-overlooked-films-of-2012
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