2014 is last year's news. Ol' Daddy Earth is fixin' to make one more trip round the sun (name that movie), and as such, it's time to take a look back at the best and worst films of the year. While watching and analyzing the best films is a rewarding and artistically fulfilling experience, it's so much more fun to talk about the bad ones because it gives me a chance to get in touch with my inner bastard.
I want you to take a moment to reflect on the fact that Michael Bay directed a 4th Transformers movie this year, and executive produced a new version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and they didn't even make this list. If that frightens you (as it should), you might want to stop reading now. But if you are brave enough to plunge ahead, then let's take a look at my picks for the 10 Wost Films of 2014.
1. INTO THE STORMIf Twister and The Blair Witch Project had a one night stand, their love child would probably turn out a lot like this movie. Into The Storm, which follows both a group of tornado chasers and a single father and his two High School age sons on the day of a major natural disaster, desperately wants to pull off the"found footage" style, but it also wants to be a special effects blockbuster. Now, perhaps that could work. But not with a full orchestral score, multiple, intersecting storylines, and underwater shots. The filmmakers try to explain the exhaustive amount of coverage by coming up with contrived excuses for every single damn character to be packing a camera of some sort (even if it is an early '90's model camcorder, it provides pristine, HD quality media that has been fully color corrected), but even then, there are overhead tornado shots in this movie that you couldn't get in a documentary if you strapped a Go Pro to God's forehead. The cast is uniformly dreadful, with the surprisingly charmless and stilted Richard Armitage of The Hobbit doing his best to make you appreciate how believable Gerard Butler is as the average American everyman. Not since The Happening has a serious thriller inspired this kind of spontaneous, uproarious laughter from the entire audience. When leaving the press screening, the studio rep asked for feedback on the movie; my co-host responded "a cancerous polyp on the anus of cinema" and the rep not only didn't blink an eye, he actually wrote it down word for word.
2. LEFT BEHIND
I know that God works in mysterious ways, but why anyone thought it was a good idea to reboot the Born Again Christian franchise that didn't make Kirk Cameron into the superstar he isn't today and cast Nicolas Cage and his hair plugs is beyond my understanding. Cage plays Rayford Steele (seriously), an airline pilot who has been trying to adjust to the serious illness called Christianity that his wife (Lea Thompson) has contracted. He takes this major life change in stride, supporting her in every way he can short of not having an affair or taking every opportunity to call her crazy behind her back. Meanwhile, his college student daughter Chloe (Cassi Williams), who thinks Mom is even crazier than Dad does, tries to surprise her Dad by coming home for his birthday only to find out that he is flying to London. She finds him at the airport, acting very friendly with a hot young flight attendant and not wearing his wedding ring ("Oh, my ring? I never wear that when I fly, honey.") Angry, brooding and constantly trying to provide exactly enough sex appeal to help sell this thing while at the same time remembering that it is a Christian movie, she meets and is swept off her feet by ruggedly handsome investigative journalist Buck Williams (Chad Michael Murray), and the two bond over talk about how stupid it is that anyone can believe in a God that allows Tsunami's, wars, and Nicolas Cage's hairplugs.
Rayford and Buck (which sounds like a '70's sitcom) board the flight, and while they are in the air, something totally unexpected and not at all foreshadowed happens . . . every child and several of the adults on the flight vanish into thin air, leaving their clothes and all of their belongings on their seats.
After nearly colliding with another plane that is (dum dum dum) not being piloted by anyone, and finally making radio contact with the ground to discover that this phenomenon is going on world wide, Steele realizes that the rapture is upon us. Yes, that's right, this movie expects us to believe that despite Casual Sex? Howard The Duck, The Beverly Hillbillies and Caroline In The City, Lea Thompson gets to go to heaven ahead of the rest of us.
The movie is filled with insipid and offensive characters, from the angry compulsive gambler played by Martin Klebba (the diminutive buccaneer in Pirates of The Caribbean) who has a gigantic chip on his shoulder and is constantly spoliling for a fight, even before anything goes wrong, and forcing even the most liberal minded viewer to stoop to a cheap joke to the effect that we all should have known that when the rapture hit, Snow White and the other 6 dwarves would make it but Grumpy was screwed, to the devout Muslim who is instantly suspected of involvement when people disappear, but is actually a nice guy and encourages everyone to pray but of course doesn't get to go to heaven because (bzzzzz), "Sorry, Hassid! You guessed the wrong God! But we do have some lovely parting gifts for you," to the sassy black mother named Shasta Carvell (what is the deal with these names???) portrayed by American Idol's Jordan Sparks, who finds the air marshal's gun and accuses every passenger of being on her estranged husband's payroll and faking this whole thing.
When the plane finally lands safely because Chloe has seen Die Hard 2 (what the hell, she's not going to heaven anyway) our three leads look out on all of the devastation around them. "Is this the end?" Chloe asks. "No," Rayford's hairplugs reply, "This is only the beginning," the credits roll, and at the end a caption reads: Jesus Christ Will Return in YOU'RE ONLY BORN TWICE (release date unannounced), and then we cut to a stinger that reveals Thanos and Barack Obama smilingly evily and preparing for the next stage of their diabolical plan.
Rayford and Buck (which sounds like a '70's sitcom) board the flight, and while they are in the air, something totally unexpected and not at all foreshadowed happens . . . every child and several of the adults on the flight vanish into thin air, leaving their clothes and all of their belongings on their seats.
After nearly colliding with another plane that is (dum dum dum) not being piloted by anyone, and finally making radio contact with the ground to discover that this phenomenon is going on world wide, Steele realizes that the rapture is upon us. Yes, that's right, this movie expects us to believe that despite Casual Sex? Howard The Duck, The Beverly Hillbillies and Caroline In The City, Lea Thompson gets to go to heaven ahead of the rest of us.
The movie is filled with insipid and offensive characters, from the angry compulsive gambler played by Martin Klebba (the diminutive buccaneer in Pirates of The Caribbean) who has a gigantic chip on his shoulder and is constantly spoliling for a fight, even before anything goes wrong, and forcing even the most liberal minded viewer to stoop to a cheap joke to the effect that we all should have known that when the rapture hit, Snow White and the other 6 dwarves would make it but Grumpy was screwed, to the devout Muslim who is instantly suspected of involvement when people disappear, but is actually a nice guy and encourages everyone to pray but of course doesn't get to go to heaven because (bzzzzz), "Sorry, Hassid! You guessed the wrong God! But we do have some lovely parting gifts for you," to the sassy black mother named Shasta Carvell (what is the deal with these names???) portrayed by American Idol's Jordan Sparks, who finds the air marshal's gun and accuses every passenger of being on her estranged husband's payroll and faking this whole thing.
When the plane finally lands safely because Chloe has seen Die Hard 2 (what the hell, she's not going to heaven anyway) our three leads look out on all of the devastation around them. "Is this the end?" Chloe asks. "No," Rayford's hairplugs reply, "This is only the beginning," the credits roll, and at the end a caption reads: Jesus Christ Will Return in YOU'RE ONLY BORN TWICE (release date unannounced), and then we cut to a stinger that reveals Thanos and Barack Obama smilingly evily and preparing for the next stage of their diabolical plan.
Celebrated cinematographer and first time director Wally Pfister attempts to explore the "what if?"scenario that human consciousness might be able to live on in positronic form after the body dies, but only really manages to explore the question "If Johnny Depp can ruin a movie by overacting, can he ruin one just as effectively by not acting at all?"
In fairness to Depp, putting all of the blame for this colossal failure on his head is like blaming the failure of an entire building to stay standing on a single brick (though the brick would undoubtedly show more charisma.). The biggest flaw (which is quite a feat) in this stupid as can be but deadly serious debacle is that it's trying to be a "Love Never Dies" story that is based around a romantic couple (Depp and Rebecca Hall) that is so indescribably dull and utterly devoid of charm that it is not only impossible to care about them, but also to even speculate as to a single quality either one found appealing in the other in the first place. Paul Bettany tries admirably to give something resembling a good performance, but this movie may have cemented his reputation as a magnet for bad material. In the end, the only one who comes off looking good in all of this is M. Night Shyamalan, simply because the filmmakers proved that an overblown, pretentious and hair brained mainstream sci fi movie does not in fact require his involvement in order to suck.
4. 300: RISE OF AN EMPIREThe follow up to the runaway tits and togas hit of 2006 that turned director Zack Snyder and star Gerard Butler into sought after Hollywood commodities. But there were some obstacles to a sequel: 1. with Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn of A Franchise, on his plate, Snyder was too busy to direct this time around, and Butler's character, King Leonidas, was a bit too dead to return, along with the rest of the title characters, who became speedo clad martyrs at the battle of Thermopolaye. So how to do a sequel? What about a prequel? No, wait: a pre-seq- during-quel! Nobody's ever done that! The movie will take place before, after, and at the very same time as the first story, in different parts of Greece and Persia. Yeah! That'll be coherent as hell. Noam Murro, whose only feature credit is 2008's Smart People (this movie could have used some of them) takes the helm as director, but how to fill the sandals of Gerard Butler, whose Leonidas was Russell Crowe, Arnold Schwartzenegger, Fabio, and Scrooge McDuck in all rolled into one? So much work had gone into creating Leonidas, from the daily regimen of steroid sandwiches and bench pressing locomotives to the inspired direction "growl a lot, and if there's any black mascara left over from your beard, rub it around your eyes." How does one go about filling such a gaping void? Well, producer Snyder apparently ran a Google search on the words "gaping void" and came back with Sullivan Stapelton, who may not have Butler's oily, exploding pectorals, but more than makes up for it with a charisma and star quality the likes of which we haven't seen since George Coraface in Christopher Columbus: The Discovery. Stapelton plays Thortestacles, a General or something who fights for the glory of all of Greece, not just Sparta, and realizes that if Leonidas, Davy Crockett and the rest of the brave 300 die a glorious death in battle, he can sell a lot of bumper stickers and rally enough support to win the war. Eva Green provides the glistening chest this time around in the role of Amnesia, the blood thirsty villainess who inspires The God King Twerxes, and between a tasteful and low key sequence wherein Stapelton and Green meet on a boat to conduct the kind of vigorous peace talks that would cost upward of two grand a night in Vegas (on the table, up against the wall, in the jacuzzi, with knives, without knives . . .), the grand, Shakespearean quality dialogue ("Shut yer f*ckhole!) and the constant "Old Faithful" style geysers of blood that, thank heavens, come in glorious 3D this time around, this movie takes the term "in your face" to new lows.
5. RIDE ALONG
When a legendary, hard boiled Atlanta Police Detective (Ice Cube) learns that his sister's loser boyfriend (Kevin Hart) has not only proposed to her, but been accepted into the police academy (despite the fact that he failed the "making funny noises" test), he invites the prospective boy in blue on a ride along, to, and I quote: "Show me what kinda man you made of." Not a movie to be held down by conventions and stereotypes, this "comedy" does valiantly attempt to avoid stereotypes by steering clear of anything even mildly amusing for its entire 139 minute run time. With four credited screenwriters, you would think that at least one of them would have tried to write at least one decent line of dialogue.Brothers Mark Waters (director of Mean Girls) and Daniel Waters (writer of Heathers), were bound to team up eventually, and as long as they were doing so, why not make a teenage vampire soap that will make feel like you personally owe Stephanie Meyer an apology by the halfway mark? Vampire Academy follows 17 year old Rose, a "Dhampir" (half human, half vampire) who is the bodyguard for a "Moroi" (the peaceful and sweet kind of Vampire), and the "story" involves their teenage adventures both in and out of St. Vladimir's Academy. Zoey Deutch, in the role of Rose, gives us an idea of what it would be like if Ellen Page got possessed by the same demon that took control of Meg Ryan's body in 1995 and caused her to devote all of her time and energy to being self consciously cute, with the added annoyance that Deutch is trying to be both cute and a bad ass at the same time. But this movie isn't even remotely bad ass, it's just plain ass bad.
7. POMPEII
Lava means never having to say you're sorry.
Gladiator meets Titantic in director Paul W.S. Anderson's big screen atrocity. Set in 79 A.D., Pompeii tells the epic story of Milo (Kit Harington), a slave turned invincible gladiator who finds himself in a race against time to save his true love Cassia (Emily Browning), the beautiful daughter of a wealthy merchant who has been unwillingly betrothed to a corrupt Roman Senator (Keifer Sutherland.). As Mount Vesuvius erupts in a torrent of blazing lava, Milo must fight his way out of the arena in order to save his beloved as the once magnificent Pompeii crumbles around him. Sutherland seems to be enjoying himself in his hammy portrayal of the lascivious Senator, and one pictures the contract negotiations going something like this:
"Keifer, we want you for this movie. It's a meaty role, a period piece, and a real change of pace for you that could be really exciting."
" I . . . uhhhh . . . [Expletive Deleted] . . ."
"You can drink on set."
"I'm in."
In the final shot of this movie, our lovers kiss passionately as the lava consumes them, only to be frozen into perfect statues made of ash, which then scatter because as it turns out, all we are is dust in the wind.
8. NEED FOR SPEED
If you've ever found yourself wishing for a movie that was part Fast and Furious, part Michael Bay, and part Cannonball Run . . . well, first off, for the love of all that is holy, do not reproduce. Second, this is the movie for you!
Based on the popular video game of the same name (because that always works), Need For Speed follows the story of Tobey Marshall (Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul), a former race car driver who owns a garage in Mt. Kisco, New York. Struggling to make ends meet, he and his crew race at night using their modified cars.
After a local racing gathering, Tobey's former, rival, Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper, giving us the answer to the question "What if the role of Iceman in Top Gun had been played by Snidely Whiplash?") arrives at his garage with an offer to pay Tobey to finish the build on . . . get this . . . a Ford Shelby Mustang! If you don't know what that is, don't worry: it's explained at least 63 times throughout the film. Even though he doesn't like Dino, Tobey accepts the deal.
Tobey drives the Mustang against Dino's objections at a nearby track and reaches 234 mph, prompting a buyer to take the car on the spot for $2.7 million. Dino then challenges Tobey and his cute little hero worshiping sidekick Pete to race against him, from his uncle's mansion to a bridge over Interstate 684. If Tobey wins, he gets Dino's 75% of the Mustang deal; if he loses, Pete must die in a fiery crash and Tobey will go to jail for illegal racing and manslaughter while Dino burns rubber out of there. Amazingly, Tobey accept the terms and loses.
We jump ahead to when Tobey is paroled, and he has a plan: he will enter the De Leon, an illegal race set up by a mysterious racing fan called Monarch (played by Michael Keaton in what is almost literally a phoned in performance, as we see Monarch almost exclusively through webcam broadcasts, during which he does a bad Wolfman Jack impression and talks about Tobey until he becomes borderline sexually aroused.). Dino will be competing in the race as well, and if Tobey beats Dino, that will, of course, more than make up for Pete's death. Tobey gets in touch with the buyer of the Ford Shelby Mustang (seriously, a Ford Shelby, man!), who agrees to let him race it, provided he is accompanied by at least one a busty blond with a Spice Girls British accent. He reluctantly agrees.
But of course, the race is in San Francisco in just over 24 hours, so Tobey and Knight Rider Barbie must race to get to the race so that Tobey can race in the final race. On the way, they fall in love, damage a lot of property, are carried by a helicopter, and the Ford Shelby Mustang (yes, an actual Ford Shelby Mustang) is demolished by a semi truck while Barbie is inside, which means she has to be rushed to the hospital, where she is declared to be in critical condition, which means they put a Hello Kitty band aid on her forehead. But does this stop our hero from competing? Of course not! Not when . . . well, whatever it is he thinks he is going to accomplish . . . is at stake. He steals the illegal car that Dino used in the race that got Pete killed, races against him, and when Dino rolls his car and and goes up in flames as Tobey nears the finish line, Tobey has a "My face under Darth Vader's mask" moment and realizes he must turn around and pull Dino to safety. He then wins the race, and the police seize the car he stole from Dino, which is all the evidence they need to press charges against Dino and have Tobey legally declared the good guy.
And I left out the stupid parts.
9. SABOTAGE
Director David Ayer (End of Watch, Fury and the upcoming DC Comics action flick Suicide Squad) teams with no less a macho icon than Arnold Schwarzenegger himself in this ultra violent, ultra pointless mystery about a DEA S.W.A.T. team that steals millions of dollars in drug money only to have it disappear and ends up turning on each other. The actors are really giving it their all, especially Arnold, Sam Worthington and the talented Mireille Enos (World War Z, The Killing), but there is simply no rising above this material (which perhaps explains why Olivia Williams and Terrence Howard make the rather bold choice to set out to actually sink below it.). This movie is oozing testosterone from every orifice, but its hard to justify the violence as adding to the reality when it includes moments like finding a corpse nailed to the ceiling, or Arnold and Williams finding a river of blood leaking from Worthington's refrigerator only to the discover that his eviscerated corpse has been stuffed inside. This is pure exploitation filmmaking at its worst, and the solution to the mystery is so preposterous and unmotivated that it literally feels those times when you were a kid when you would play "Murder Mystery" with one friend, your sister and a bunch of stuffed animals in your back yard and didn't bother to decide who the killer was until two thirds of the way through and never really bothered to come up with a motive (ok, fine, maybe nobody else actually did that and it's a lousy analogy, but I stand by it.).10. THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2
It seems callous to kick Sony while it's down, and I need to be clear that I do not support cyberterrorism, despise censorship, and think that Kim Jong Un and the government of North Korea are an obscene stain upon humanity. All that being said, if the whole thing results in no Amazing Spider-Man 3 and the character going over to MARVEL Studios . . . hot damn!
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is shrill, frenetic, incoherent and the same time surprisingly dull, making not only all of the same mistakes as Spider-Man 3 but many of the same ones as Batman & Robin (yes, I compared it to the comic book Anti-Christ, and I am not budging on that. It's as campy and overblown a franchise killer as that film was, and time, combined with leaked Sony emails, are proving me right.). Director Marc Webb and the various screenwriters are trying so hard to juggle so many elements that we can only be sure they even remember that there is an audience watching this because they take every opportunity to insult its intelligence. In short, the characters don't work, the plot is convoluted beyond words, the dialogue is sometimes laugh out loud silly, and the action is overblown and boring (and done almost entirely in slow motion for no apparent reason.).
A talented cast is more than wasted, they are humiliated. Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone and especially Sally Field are certainly not without moments, but they come across as the acting equivalent of the musicians on the deck of the Titanic trying to give the passengers a false sense that things are under control. Jamie Foxx seems to be under the mistaken impression that he is still on In Living Color, and the look his character has been given, complete with overbite and the most ridiculous comb over I have ever seen outside of the church I went to growing up, leave one expecting Nicholas Cage to walk on at any moment and say "Dude, who does your hair?"
Dane DeeHaan's Harry Osborne had potential, but the script and the direction force this talented young actor to take things off into cartoon mad scientist territory far too quickly, and he falls in with Foxx and Colm Feore's ridiculous antics. And of course there's Paul Giammatti (No, I did not forget he was in this film. But it seems like Marc Webb almost did.). His appearance as "Rhino" at the end of the film plays like an ill advised parody of the last sequence of The Incredibles.
In summary, any movie that actually causes me to applaud when Emma Stone dies because it means the film is almost over really has problems. I realize that there is vocal group out there that insists on defending this film, and I support your right to be wrong, and let me say with all sincerity that I hope you enjoy the rest of the flight and that you have brought along a portable device to watch this movie. I will be stepping out early.
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So that about wraps it up for 2014, but January is almost here, so we can expect plenty of odious cinema coming our way, including the long awaited release of The Seventh Son (the one where Rooster Cogburn dresses up as a Knight to fight dragons) and the new Will Smith - Margot Robbie "drama" which, according to the conclusions I jumped to while zoning out during the trailer, is about a successful pimp who has a knack for matching Johns to their ideal hooker (Will Smith is Bitch.). Have a safe and Happy New Year, and please keep Star Wars Episode VII in your prayers (as long as you are a devout Christian. If not, God just lets it go to the machine.).
