Most Painful Movies of the Aughts
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These movies brought me neither pleasure nor interest.
1. Russian Ark
The reviewers raved about this "journey through the Hermitage and Russian history," so I was expecting something innovative and artsy. What I got instead was two hours of a camera meandering through the museum while actors dressed in period costumes whispered. Seriously. That's it. For two hours. It was mind-numbing. Mind. Numbing. For Two. Hours.
2. Synecdoche, New York
I love Charles Kaufman, the writer. The movie Adaptation narrowly missed my Favorite Movies of the Aughts. But this bit of conceptual craziness was, what's the phrase? . . . MIND-NUMBING.
3. King Kong
Wayyyy too long and wayyyy too boring. What's the phrase I'm looking for? Oh, never mind . . .
4. Elizabethtown
A car crash of a movie from one of my favorite directors, Cameron Crowe. I have to quote a professional critic, who wrote about the reaction to the movie at a film festival: “‘Horrible,’ said one colleague, almost before my bags were in the taxi; ‘a parody of a Cameron Crowe film.’ Proclaimed another, well before the hotel was in sight: ‘People wanted to leave, to flee, but were riveted to their seats in utter disbelief and horror.’”
5. Sin City
As I was watching this uber-creative, uber-violent bloodfest, I was thinking, "These visuals are among the best I've ever seen in a movie. But I could never bring a DVD of this into my house." Such incredible talent applied to something so base.
6. Away from Her
This indie film about a couple dealing with the wife's Alzheimer's got a lot of critical respect. But it was so fundamentally wrong about how dementia works that it lost all credibility.
7. Signs
A watchable movie, but Shyamalan's tale of coincidence saving the day was philosophically corrupt, and that philosophical position was all there really was to the movie.
8. The Forgotten
Don't remember this one? It was a thriller starring Julianne Moore. You can see a hundred thrillers and think, "This isn't hard to pull off." But then you see a really bad one like this and you realize that constructing even a basic genre movie successfully requires tons of talent.
9. SWAT
You probably don't remember this one either. It was a thriller starring Samuel L. Jackson. And it stands in for all the crappy movies that Samuel L. Jackson has been in over the decade. His career represents the greatest example of talent squandered.
10. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
In the end, it's all about storytelling, the most ineffable talent of them all. Some movies, like this one, have all the elements to be great: talented actors (Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law), visual style (a sepia-blue tone applied to sets both futuristic and nostalgic), a winning concept (Paltrow as a plucky 40s-style girl reporter finding adventure and romance with Law's cocky pilot). But there's something missing, and it's storytelling talent. It's like cooking a wonderful dish for dinner that fails because, despite the fresh herbs, tender seafood, baby steamed vegetables, and French sauce, you forgot to add salt. It falls flat.
-
These movies brought me neither pleasure nor interest.
1. Russian Ark
The reviewers raved about this "journey through the Hermitage and Russian history," so I was expecting something innovative and artsy. What I got instead was two hours of a camera meandering through the museum while actors dressed in period costumes whispered. Seriously. That's it. For two hours. It was mind-numbing. Mind. Numbing. For Two. Hours.
2. Synecdoche, New York
I love Charles Kaufman, the writer. The movie Adaptation narrowly missed my Favorite Movies of the Aughts. But this bit of conceptual craziness was, what's the phrase? . . . MIND-NUMBING.
3. King Kong
Wayyyy too long and wayyyy too boring. What's the phrase I'm looking for? Oh, never mind . . .
4. Elizabethtown
A car crash of a movie from one of my favorite directors, Cameron Crowe. I have to quote a professional critic, who wrote about the reaction to the movie at a film festival: “‘Horrible,’ said one colleague, almost before my bags were in the taxi; ‘a parody of a Cameron Crowe film.’ Proclaimed another, well before the hotel was in sight: ‘People wanted to leave, to flee, but were riveted to their seats in utter disbelief and horror.’”
5. Sin City
As I was watching this uber-creative, uber-violent bloodfest, I was thinking, "These visuals are among the best I've ever seen in a movie. But I could never bring a DVD of this into my house." Such incredible talent applied to something so base.
6. Away from Her
This indie film about a couple dealing with the wife's Alzheimer's got a lot of critical respect. But it was so fundamentally wrong about how dementia works that it lost all credibility.
7. Signs
A watchable movie, but Shyamalan's tale of coincidence saving the day was philosophically corrupt, and that philosophical position was all there really was to the movie.
8. The Forgotten
Don't remember this one? It was a thriller starring Julianne Moore. You can see a hundred thrillers and think, "This isn't hard to pull off." But then you see a really bad one like this and you realize that constructing even a basic genre movie successfully requires tons of talent.
9. SWAT
You probably don't remember this one either. It was a thriller starring Samuel L. Jackson. And it stands in for all the crappy movies that Samuel L. Jackson has been in over the decade. His career represents the greatest example of talent squandered.
10. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
In the end, it's all about storytelling, the most ineffable talent of them all. Some movies, like this one, have all the elements to be great: talented actors (Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law), visual style (a sepia-blue tone applied to sets both futuristic and nostalgic), a winning concept (Paltrow as a plucky 40s-style girl reporter finding adventure and romance with Law's cocky pilot). But there's something missing, and it's storytelling talent. It's like cooking a wonderful dish for dinner that fails because, despite the fresh herbs, tender seafood, baby steamed vegetables, and French sauce, you forgot to add salt. It falls flat.
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posted by Anonymous at
11:28 AM
7 Comments:
Samuel L. Jackson and Christopher Lee are a special kind of actor. They're really a "working" person, you know? They're not choosy. One day you're in Pulp Fiction, and the next you're in Snakes on a Plane.
I have a lot of respect for an actor who treats his/her career as such, and not simply as an opportunity to create great art. I sometimes wonder if Leondardo Da Vinci's friends looked at him and felt like he was squandering his prodigious talent painting some rich man's wife for cash. . . .
Yeah, I just compared Snakes on a Plane to the Mona Lisa. YOU CAN'T UNREAD IT!
It's not a waste to spend your career on commercial projects. But it is a waste to spend your career on SUCKY projects.
You know there's a great novel that deals with exactly this issue: Aunt Julie and the Scriptwriter. Have you read it? If not, I really think you'd like it. It's by the Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa.
Everybody is in a sucky movie now and then. Stephen was telling me the other day that he thinks Natalie Portman is a terrible actress. Come to find out, he only ever saw her in Star Wars Episode I.
i remember you screaming and groaning (in non-p0rny way) about elizabethtown, and it afforded me no end of delight.
had *no* idea was cam crowe.
KIM WROTE:
I will declare A.I. the Movie of My Ass of the 2000s.
AUDREY WROTE:
I had a movie I would've walked out of if hadn't been there with friends. It's a 3-hour David Lynch movie called Inland Empire that was so full of pretentious noodling -- one of those where you imagine the director laughing at you when you to to unravel his nonlinear artsy bullshit.
Whew. I think that's my final exam anger talking!
DEBBIE WROTE:
hmm. i loathed "battlefield earth." i almost walked out. i would have, except i was really sick with mono (i'm sure the people breathing the air around me were grateful i was there!!) and had to stay with my ride home (boyfriend who gave me mono).
there were lots of other stinkers, but BE was the be-all and end-all of bad.
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