Cynical Cinema

Every now and then I watch a movie I know I will hate just so I can make sure I give every film released an equal chance. One of those movies was Resident Evil: Extinction, which I watched today. The first two Resident Evil movies redefined awful. They made absolutely no sense, and had cheesy special effects, and featured some of the most embarrassingly lazy dialogue ever created for a film. This third one is no exception. In this one, Milla Jovovich returns as the zombie-dispatching hot chick bad-ass. Here’s something that irritates me. Zombie movie purists. The people who get angry when you call these creatures zombies when they clearly aren’t. You see, the “zombies” in Resident Evil are created by a virus, and they aren’t dead people re-animated, they are just sick people. The “zombies” in 28 days later are infected with rage, they are not re-animated dead people. Who cares. If it walks like a zombie and talks like a zombie (aaarrrrrhhgghghhh), then it’s a zombie.

Two more things that irritate me. First - when an actress in a movie is naked, but strategic hand placement and sheet placement and objects obscure your view so that you can’t see any of the “good bits”. If you want to see that actress naked, then this will irritate you, not titillate you. If you don’t want to see that actress naked, then that means you don’t care if she is naked or not. In which case this will irritate you. Resident Evil: Extinction is R-rated. Why not just go for it? In Resident Evil, not only do they open with this scene, they hammer it home over and over again. You see, Milla Jovovich is a clone. Or something. It doesn’t matter. These clones of Milla exist in some kind of embryonic stage, suspended in bubbles of water. As clones in movies tend to be. It would, of course, make sense that these clones be naked. And they are. It would not, however, make sense that they would be covering their own chest with folded arms, each hand placed carefully over a nipple. That does not make sense.

The second thing that irritates me is when people say “lock and load” in a serious manner. Unless it’s Steven Seagal. Then it’s hilarious. This phrase was immortalized by John Wayne in the movie Sands of Iwo Jima (an average war movie at best), when he used it in a serious manner (going to war) and also a humorous manner (going to get drunk). Ever since, it has been a horrible cliche. It certainly gives one the impression that the screenwriters sure couldn’t think of anything original to say, and that at least they KNOW “lock and load” sounds bad-ass. After all, they’ve heard it in so many other movies. You know the guy in Resident Evil is a tough guy, because he says lock and load before the good guys do battle with some bad crows.

OK. One more thing that irritates me. When nerds on the internet say “the movie stays true to the video game”. It’s a video game. A movie staying true to it is not likely to be a good thing. Staying true to a book? That could be good. Even then, sometimes it’s a bad thing. But when you’re lifting a plot from a video game, you are likely to have a pretty thin plot. So you have to juice it up with something else. Like Angelina Jolie’s boobs in Tomb Raider, or a bonkers techno soundtrack in Mortal Kombat. Here’s the thing. If staying “true” to the comic book, or the book, or the video game is important to a potential viewer, then it is important only to those who have read the comic or the book, and played that video game. Even then, it is likely important only to those who have PLAYED (read: obsessed over) that video game. Which is like four hundred people. Anyone else watching that movie will have no idea what’s happening, and will not care at all.

Not that I am reading this about Resident Evil: Extinction. (Although I have read that about Silent Hill, which was a colossal waste of a movie also.) I have no idea how close in spirit, tone, or plot points this film was to the video game. If the video game had only three plot points, which seems likely, then I can only surmise that the movie is extremely close. The world is a post-apocalyptic wasteland (remember - Resident Evil: Apocalypse? Now this is Resident Evil: Post-Apocalypes.) There are a few survivors, one of them is Milla Jovovich on a motorbike who plays Mad Max. Or Kevin Costner from Waterworld. Some evil guys are doing some evil things at the cleverly named Umbrella Corporation. That’s it. That’s the plot. And even that’s not done well.

That being said, Resident Evil: Extinction IS the best of the three films, which is not saying much, I know. It’s kind of like saying No Strings Attached is the best N’Sync album. The only way to justify that opinion if someone asks you is to say “well, it IS”. And yes, I had to look up that N’Sync reference. Which only makes me hate this movie even more.

That’s eight out of ten on my randomly-decided-upon measuring stick for movies. The box for the Russell Crowe - Christian Bale remake of 3:10 to Yuma says “The Best Western Since Unforgiven!” This is not true. It is, however, the SECOND best western since Unforgiven. The best one was a little-seen film called The Proposition, starring Guy Pearce, and it was a phenomenal film. What 3:10 to Yuma understands very, very well is the western hero. The greatest westerns all had heroes cut from one of two cloths. Either they were generally decent people who didn’t want to use guns but were forced into it, like Clint Eastwood in The Outlaw Josey Wales, or Gary Cooper in High Noon, or Jimmy Stewart in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Or, they were tough, rugged frontier men who did not fear death, who were perfectly happy using a pistol, but they had a dark side and were not all good. Like Clint Eastwood in The Good The Bad and the Ugly, William Holden in the Wild Bunch, John Wayne in The Searchers, or Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven. True western heroes are never the type that are happy, upstanding citizens who also are great gunfighters who don’t fear death and are dangerous to bad guys but perfectly safe to good guys. That hero is the mark of a less interesting western movie. One that can still be good, but never great.

Another thing 3:10 to Yuma gets right is the villain. Yes. I hate it in movies when the bad guy whoots his own man just to prove what a bad guy he really is. And yes, Russell Crowe shoots his own man in the very first scene he’s in. But this time, it is with a purpose. It is not an attempt to make him into the personification of evil, he actually has a reason. Both Crowe and Christian Bale are absolutely fantastic in the movie, both playing the western “heroes” with shades of grey. Peter Fonda is fantastic as well, as a grizzled old Pinkerton detective, a standard character in the old westerns - the lawman charged with upholding the law who may actually be more evil than the man he is bringing to justice.

And that is what makes 3:10 to Yuma fantastic. This film really is a throwback to the western tradition of the 1950s when the original was made. That is one reason this is not a classic western. Really, there is nothing new here. This is just a revitalization and a masterful rendition of an old genre. There are two other things (two characters, in fact) that hold the movie back from being truly great - but it isn’t really the movie’s fault. You see, at the time in the 1950s, these two characters were in many of the westerns. But since then, these characters have become standard in countless movies, and so they seem like cliches. The one character is Crowe’s right-hand man, played by Ben Foster. He is the psychotic killer we see all too often in movies, the man who will kill anyone without compunction, but who looks upon his mentor with a kind of respect that borders on worship. The other character is Bale’s young son, who is almost cartoonish at the beginning of the film with his bitterness at his father and his lack of respect for his toughness. Of course we know he will respect his father by the end of the film, so it seems like overkill with so much of it at the beginning.

But the best part of 3:10 to Yuma is Russell Crowe. He is magnificent as the outlaw with ambiguous motives, he’s absolutely captivating whenever he is on the screen. He is able to walk a fine line between charm and menace, and it’s such a magnetic performance that we never lose sight of who he is. A killer and a bandit with some kind of conscience. He makes every scene he’s in come to life, and that’s almost the entire movie. The gunfights are great - realistic and gritty, if a little stylized. The final gun battle is also the second best since Unforgiven (number two is that final gun fight in Open Range.)

This is definitely the best well-publicized western since Unforgiven, but there have been quite a few good ones in the last few years, for all you western fans - Seraphim Falls was terrific, Pierce Brosnan and Liam Neeson turned in some great performances. The Proposition was criminally overlooked. Dead Man also, although that may well be because it is just so weird. But definitely worth seeing. And Open Range was a pretty good representation of the genre. It’s a genre that has been called dead many times, but with films like 3:10 to Yuma, one can only hope that the next resurrection of the western is coming soon.

It’s pretty clear that Billy Bob Thornton has two careers. One where he takes roles in serious movies and does a decent-to-good job in movies that are generally decent-to-good. (The Astronaut Farmer, Friday Night Lights.) The other career is the one where he takes roles in comedies, and plays really obnoxious, angry, foul-mouthed, possibly drunk characters, with mixed results. These movies can be fantastically funny, like Bad Santa. Or they can be painful, juvenile and idiotic, like School For Scoundrels or Mr. Woodcock (which is being released by Alliance Atlantis this coming Tuesday).

Seann William Scott also has two careers. One, where he plays a sex-crazed, party-animal frat-boy type, in teen comedies that are decent at best. Like American Pie or Road Trip. The second career is the one where he plays smarmy and wimpy characters in more grown-up comedies that are invariable lousy. Like The Dukes of Hazzard, Bulletproof Monk, Evolution, Dude Where’s My Car, and Mr. Woodcock.

This movie is definitely painful. And lousy. And dreadful. And insipid. And ridiculous. And awful. The reason I have found so many synonyms for horrible is that this is the level on which the movie works. You see, Seann William Scott plays a character that was terrorized as a child by his gym teacher, Mr. Woodcock (Billy Bob Thornton, of course). He grows up to become a self-help guru, and returns to his home town where he discovers that Mr. Woodcock is now dating his mom. And of course, having sex with her, which is apparently the REAL problem. The real problem with the movie is that they think comedy is having people yell synonyms for sex with his mom. Porked! Plowed! Such and such…this is not funny. It is irritating. And so is this movie.

One of the first scenes in this movie is the only funny one. Where Seann William Scott does a book signing for his new self-help book. It’s funny because the whole self-help session is idiotic and painfully stupid. The tree of tranquility, the warm pool of security…all that kind of crap. It’s reasonably funny. Then the movie takes this abrupt U-turn into idiocy. When Scott finds out that Thornton is nailing, banging, having his way with his mom, he goes out of his way to ruin their relationship. Breaking into his house, (which of course leads to him hiding under the bed while he listens to them have sex), trying to set him up, (which of course turns out badly), and a myriad of other things. Staggeringly simple, terribly written, and horribly acted, and I wonder what happens at the end? Does he learn that Mr. Woodcock is actually a very nice person, and accept his mom’s new relationship?

Of course he does. But…where does he come to this realization? Well, the only place that could make this movie any worse. Live, on the Tyra Banks show! The only show on all of television that I hate more than I hate this movie. And I REALLY hate this movie.

When I started watching Exiled, the latest Chinese action film from director Johnnie To (who is very good), for the first time in a long time I found myself wishing desperately that I spoke Cantonese. I figured that if I spoke Cantonese, I would have some idea what the hell was going on. For the first forty-five minutes of the film, I was basically lost as to the plot. And what was most irritating was that even if I spoke Cantonese, I would still likely not have understood. There was so little dialogue, and so much sweeping camera work that the story is moved along almost exclusively in pictures. Which were impressive. The camera work here is terrific, and in some cases, breathtaking. But that does not tell the story. The movie opens with four guys following a fifth guy into his house, at which point they even up the odds and have a gun fight. When they see this fifth guy’s wife and baby, they stop their gunfight, repair the bullet holes in the house, and they all sit down to dinner. What? They go see another guy, then that guy sees another guy, who’s talking to the boss who keeps phoning one of the original four guys…it seems bonkers.

In fact, I learned more about the plot from reading the back of the box than I did from watching the film. I can only surmise that the blurb written on the back of the DVD case was written by the director himself, or at the very least someone who spoke Cantonese. Because I would be amazed if anyone sitting here in Canada or the U.S. could have figured it out. It turns out that two of the four guys were there to kill the fifth, and the other two were there to protect him. And in order to make sure that his wife and baby are provided for, the fifth man suggests that all five of them pull off one last big score before he is executed so his wife and baby will have something to live on. Again, I got this from the back of the case, and not from the movie itself.

My girlfriend gave up. After half an hour, she was totally lost, and even the occasional brief gun fight could no longer pique her interest. My commitment was a little greater. I figured that if Alliance Atlantis was giving me the DVD to review, the least I could do would be to sit through it. And am I ever glad I did! From the forty-five minute mark on, the movie makes sense. And by the end of it, the whole thing makes sense, and you have forgotten that painful first forty minutes or so. The main reason is the five main actors, who are all terrific. I’m not going to attempt to write their names down here any more than I plan to try to pronounce them on the air, but all five are wonderful. They are so convincing as buddies and equally convincing as enemies. Equal part good guy and bad guy, the killers and thieves with a certain ambiguous morality…I think I have written something a lot like this recently. Sound familiar?

Well, the Chinese certainly love their American westerns, and Exiled is no exception. The main characters are very reminiscent of Sam Peckinpah’s Wild Bunch, there is a scene where a gun keeps being shot away from a soldier that is taken directly from a scene between Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef (with a hat, not a gun) in For a Few Dollars More. And the final scene is straight out of the Wild Bunch as well. Oops. For those of you who have SEEN The Wild Bunch, that may have given away the ending somewhat. Sorry. The main problem with Exiled is that the second half is far superior to the first, yet the second half would not work at all without the beginning. So you can’t just skip to 44:15 and start watching. I give the first half four out of ten, the second half eight out of ten, which overall gives the movie six out of ten. Makes sense, right? Exiled comes out on Tuesday, January 15th.

The same way I have a soft spot for ridiculously bad musical acts like Poison, I also have a soft spot for really terrible movies, like those that star Steven Seagal, and those that involve prehistoric animals terrorizing cities. So on Tuesday, I left two Rogers Video cashiers crestfallen when I rented the movie they wanted to watch that night - Mammoth! You see, there is a comet that crashes into the Earth. And it re-animates a mammoth who resides in the Museum of Natural History. This prehistoric wooly beast then takes out it’s thousands of years of anger on the poor, unsuspecting small town in which the museum is located. This is a concept right up there with the classics of the last few years, among them Megalodon, Sabretooth, and Pterodactyl.

But wait - there’s more! Not only is there a mammoth on the loose, goring people with it’s tusks and stomping them in their cars, but it is being controlled by…aliens! AND, there is a severed hand that also becomes re-animated. Terrific stuff. The one complaint I have about the film is that there is just not enough mammoth. There are some great scenes where you can see just part of the creature, since animating a whole mammoth would have been too expensive, but there is not enough stomping and goring. Too much actual story. Mammoth is great and it stars Tom Skerritt. What more could you want? A fine film, but not yet in the league of Pterodactyl.

Death of a President is an interesting movie. It came out in 2006, and tells the (obviously ficticious) story of the assassination of George W. Bush through newsreel footage, manipulated computer images and faux-documentary style actors. Unfortunately, that’s all it is, is interesting. There was a time where this was the most controversial movie in the world, but that controversy (as so often happens) existed only before anyone actually saw the film. The movie is very well done and very convincingly shot. Dick Cheney’s press conferences have been expertly manipulated to show him delivering eulogies and talking about the death of Bush. The actors are all good. The story follows up on the assassination as Cheney adds more teeth to the Patriot Act (’cause that’s what it needs), and a young man appears to be falsely convicted of the murder, and he is quickly executed.

The thing the movie fails to do, which I was hoping for, is have an opinion either way on Bush and Cheney and anti-Bush protesters and any other party that might be involved in a scenario such as this one. The reason it caused such controversy was that it imagined the assassination of a real man, the sitting president at the time of the movie’s release. Much like the documentaries of Michael Moore, the right wing jumped all over this as blasphemous before they had even seen it, and in most cases they stated unequivocally that they would never watch it. They assumed it would be filled with anti-Bush, anti-neocon rhetoric, and come out wholly on the side of those who would muder the president. But it doesn’t. And it doesn’t attack them either. The movie doesn’t seem to be squarely on any side, nor does it create any truly provacative ideas. And that is the problem. It ends up just being a bunch of stuff that happens.

While Death Of A President is very watchable, and certainly interesting, and resonably insighful, there is nothing new here, and when it’s over the film had been unable to make me feel one way or another about this imagined assassination. If Gabriel Range had really wanted to make a controversial movie that would be remembered for years to come, he would have made sure that he took a stance on one side of Bush or the other. As it stands, the controversy came and went, as will this movie.

This is not a top-fourteen list. It is just fourteen movies that are well worth checking out. I have not seen all the best movies of 2008, because I tend to wait for DVD, and therefore I have yet to see No Country For Old Men, Sweeny Todd or There Will Be Blood. But I don’t know of a single film critic who doesn’t have a bunch of year-end lists, I have decided to do a couple myself, since I have been pretending to be a film critic for some time now. These are not in order, they are just fourteen movies well worth renting on DVD this year.

Ratatouille: A rat with an incredible palate and cooking ability becomes the top chef in Paris. The best animated movie in years, this one courtesy of Brad Bird, the genius behind such quality films as The Incredibles. The brilliance of Ratatouille comes from two things. First of all, the movie does not dumb itself down for the benefit for the children at whom it’s aimed. The dialogue, while not “adult” dialogue, and not filled with those clever double entendres that fly over the head of children while adults snicker in the audience. It assumes children are capable of understanding multi-syllabic words and actual realistic sentences. The second thing it does extremely well is the animation itself. The rat is cute, like all main characters in animated movies, but it is also very rat-like. You always get the sense that people would indeed be freaked out to see this animal in their kitchen, and therefore everything else falls into place in ringing true. Well, as true as a rat-chef can be.

The City Of Violence: A Korean action movie by Seung-Wan Ryoo. A cop, Tae-Su, assigned to the organized crime unit returns to his hometown for the funeral of a high school friend. There, he reunites with some old friends, but something feels wrong about his friend’s death. Tae-Su begins to investigate, which leads him through several bloody conflicts and, of course, to one final bloody battle. There is nothing new in City of Violence. Several themes are very central to Asian cinema, and one of them is the idea of childhood friends who went their separate ways but who are united by a certain bond. Another is one man against an entire gang fight scenes. The City of Violence is no exception, and it even tips it’s hat to an older movie, The Warrior, during one of these epic fight scenes. What sets this film apart is it’s acting and it’s atmosphere. In American cinema for the most part, the best actors do dramas and serious movies, and leave the action films to the flavour-of-the-month actor. In Asian cinema, the best actors are the ones who do action flicks, because for the most part those are the best movies. This is one of them.

Eastern Promises: Viggo Mortensen and David Cronenberg are the best actor-director tandem working today. Mortensen is fantastic as usual, as is Naomi Watts and Armin Mueller-Stahl. This is the best movie I saw on DVD this year. Russian mob. Tattoos. Violence and terrific acting. What more do you need?

Knocked Up: A fat, lazy guy who resembles me in many many ways gets an unreasonably hot Katherine Heigl pregnant. Hilarity ensues. The best kind of chick flick in that it will make chicks who watch it irritated, while it will make guys split their sides with laughter.

Superbad: The same guys who made Knocked Up made the funniest high-school-loser-teenage-sex movie of the last fifteen years. Maybe ever. Some of the funniest performances and best dialogue in a movie this year. McLovin rules!

Rescue Dawn: Vietnam prisoner-of-war camp drama starring Christian Bale and Steve Zahn, directed by Werner Herzog. Bale is one of the best actors working today, Herzog has made some seriously classic films, but Steve Zahn? Bandidas, Saving Silverman Steve Zahn? His performance is the surprise of the year.

The Bourne Ultimatum: Best of the Bourne series, and that’s saying a lot. The most intense scene in a movie lately was the one where Matt Damon guides a reporter through a crowd via cell phone as the bad guys close in on him. Heart-racing, tremendously fun and exciting.

The Host: Coolest monster movie in a long time. Korean as well, this one is excellent, creepy, and yet still has time to wink at the audience and put in some terrible monster-movie bad moments, like the one where the monster appears for the first time at a beach and eats everyone. Hilarious. And awesome.

Away From Her: Sarah Polley has always been a great actress - yes, even in Road To Avonlea, which my mom watched religiously, but which made me angry as a child. Now she proves she is a very good director as well, with this film about Alzheimers. Julie Christie just won a Golden Globe for her role as the Alzheimers-stricken elderly lady, and deservedly so. Gordon Pinsent, for some reason, has not been mentioned in any critic’s circles for his protrayal of her suffering husband, but he certainly deserves very high praise for his performance as well.

Hot Fuzz: The funniest movie of the year. Only people (the Shaun of the Dead people) who absolutely love all movies, especially brainless action flicks, could have made a movie that seems so familiar, yet so new at the same time. The scene at the end when Nick Frost fires his gun into the air and yells “aaaarrrrghhh!” made me laugh harder than any other movie moment this past year.

3:10 To Yuma: A fantastic adaptation of an old, forgotten western is bang on. Not a perfect movie, by any means, but terrifically entertaining. Christian Bale and especially Russell Crowe are electrifying, both deserve award consideration for this one.

Sicko: Michael Moore’s look at the American health care system is funny, eye-opening, and devastatingly tragic. Say what you will about Michael Moore, this man knows how to make an audience laugh, knows how to tug at their heart strings, and the fact that he lobbies for change while doing so makes him all the more important as a filmmaker.

Grindhouse: This is actually two movies. Which adds up to fourteen overall. Death Proof is just more Quentin Tarantino being in love with making movies, and that is just blissful to watch. Kurt Russell is wonderful, and that stunt girl who rides the car is fantastic. The second movie, Planet Terror, is not as great, but is still an awfully fun ride through the world of zombie attacks and machine-gun legs. Bruce Willis makes an appearance. That makes it well worth while.

Lucy Liu is kind of hot. Not hot enough to carry a movie on her own, but kinda hot in a dominatrix, angrily-sexy-chick kind of way. And she can not carry Rise: Blood Hunter on her own. The cover of this movie makes it look like Blade, or Underworld, or Van Helsing, or any one of these vampire-hunter movies that have begun to crop up everywhere. But it isn’t. It’s much worse. You see, Lucy Liu is kinda-dominatrix-hot, and that’s it. She is not an excellent actress, she is just a passable actress in secondary roles. Remember Ecks vs. Sever? God knows I wish I didn’t. Rise: Blood Hunter also stars Michael Chiklis, most recently seen in The Shield and Fantastic Four, but still best-loved by all for The Commish. His character keeps showing up, but is given absolutely nothing to do in the film. His involvement in the final scene is irritating, since we just don’t care about him at all. But then, we don’t care about anyone else either.

Lucy Liu plays a reporter who is working on a story about a cult. She gets attacked by a vampire, and becomes one. She then sets out to destroy all vampires. In the process, she undergoes an instantaneous transformation from a meek, sad little weakling into a tough-talking, bad-ass little weakling. The lines here are painful. “Have mercy”. “Sorry, I’m fresh out just now.” Not only are you ripping off the line, you’re making it immeasureable worse. The movie is told in that disjointed narrative that Tarantino popularized with Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, but the director clearly has no idea why that style is effective. He just thinks people seem to like that.

And then the bizarre cameos. Marilyn Manson shows up as a bartender, which I understand. It’s goth, it’s vampires, it’s Marilyn Manson. He can’t act at all, but at least the pieces fit. Then…Nick Lachey shows up for two minutes as some thug in the hood. Nicke Lachey? What? And there is nudity. Tons of female nudity, all the way through, much of it courtesy of Lucy Liu herself. However, it is all that obnoxious kind of nudity where you never get a full-frontal boob shot (except for that hooker at the very beginning), and therefore the camera has to go to some pretty strange angles to avoid showing everything at once. Your actress agreed to appear nude. You are showing her nipples anyway. Do you get a better rating if you show them only one at a time and from a side view? Come on. Rise: Blood Hunter is kind of worth it for the nudity, but if you’re that kind of pervert, Lucy Liu is also naked in City of Industry, full boobs, and the movie is much better.

There are a few telling scenes in the new documentary Jonas: The Quest. One is where a woman describes the effect Jonas has on an audience. She says it’s very telling when you see a guy perform on stage, and look at the crowd. If the women are excited and turned on, and the men are not pissed off, then you have a really special act. This is probably true. Then she cites some examples of rockers who have been able to pull this off, starting with Jon Bon Jovi. What?

Jonas: The Quest is a documentary from Quebec being released by Alliance Atlantis on January 15th. It’s about a Quebecois rock star named Jonas, who is searching desperately for his big break. A lot of it rings true. I have never heard of Jonas. The movie explains that it is much easier for many French Canadian artists to get their break in the U.S. than it is in Canada. I believe that. How many French Canadian musicians can most of English Canada name? Celine Dion and Roch Voisine? Mitsou? Yeah. Not exactly a proud heritage there. But there are definitely many artists labouring in Quebec that never get the mainstream recognition they deserve. But I’m not sure Jonas is one of them. There are constant comparisons to Nickelback. That’s kind of telling as well. His band is good, his voice is good, but his songs are not exactly world beaters.

Jonas: The Quest is an interesting movie, especially for those who want a real inside look at the Canadian music business. But for anyone else, there isn’t much here. None of the personalities are huge enough to be engaging, and the music itself is mediocre. Would you watch a documentary about the undiscovered Coldplay? Especially if there was no real conclusion, none of the characters were interesting, nothing really happens from beginning to end, and you have to watch a lot of Coldplay songs? I would guess no.

I went into Rogers near my house yesterday to pick up this week’s new releases, only to find out they were shutting down that store. Everything was off the shelves, and being sold off cheap. So I took advantage of the opportunity to beef up my terrible-monster-movie collection. I picked up Boa vs. Python, Frankenfish, and Attack of the Sabretooth (which is not to be confused with the “superior” movie, Sabretooth, released some years before). I then sat down to be entertained by ridiculous badness and aggressive mediocrity. I watched Frankenfish first, which hit all of the gnre buttons dead on. Topless female nudity, mostly gratuitous (and none involving the stars, of course). A pointless romance between the only two characters who could possibly get together, the bad-ass local guy who knows the swamp and can kill the evil fish by himself…it was all there. The awesome badness of the movie was sealed when the attractive black guy and the Chinese girl were clearly not going to get together, and they meet up with a very attractive black girl whose white boyfriend was an obnoxious sissy…these movies still think that only people of the same race can hook up properly. Otherwise, the audience has too much to think about.

Of course, this girl (and those around her) is unrealistically hot for someone who has been brought up on a houseboat deep in the swamp, and somehow has perfect hair and makeup the whole time. Of course, there are also the customary bad guys too - cowboy-type rich executives, the people who genetically created these mutant Frankenfish to begin with, who will swoop down to the swamp, attempt to capture it alive, and get their just deserts for being so evil. Of course, when the heroes finally finish the job, they laugh and kiss each other as though forty-three other people have not just died in the carnage. And, of course, there is one final SCARE at the end. This is the monster movie formula, and it is fantastic. The only thing they were missing was a group of sorority girls and fraternity boys who happen to get caught up in the chaos. Which brings me to the next movie…

Attack of the Sabretooth involves sorority girls and fraternity boys who have been thrown together and dumped on an island for the purposes of completing some sort of scavenger hunt. Why this island, why a scaveneger hunt, dropped off by whom, why only five of them, we will never know. Every ethnicity and stereotype is represented. The black girl who is good with guns. The oriental guy who is good with computers. The ditzy blonde big-chested cheerleader and the muscle-bound jock she secretly lusts after. (Despite her assertions that she hates him.) And, of course, the goth chick who so desperately insists on not being judged. At the same time, the evil bad guys who genetically created the monster sabretooth tigers and want to recapture them alive are hosting a meeting of investors on this same island to show them the sabretooth menaces. When people start dying, the evil bad guy in charge of course tries to keep that quiet, so it does not scare off the investors, while the tough-chick security guard who’s been there and seen it all goes renegade to bring down the big cats herself.

There are a few variations on the cliches in Attack of the Sabretooth. There are TWO evil bad guys, scheming against each other, and…oh! They’re brothers! Who hate each other! Even though one is clearly American and the other clearly British, they are brothers. There are three sabretooth tigers who get loose, a male a female, and, bizarrely, a genetic freak. In most monster movies, the freakish genetic abnormality is three times the size, three times the fury, and shows up only at the end…blah blah blah. In Attack of the Sabretooth, this weird cat does indeed show up at the end, but it’s special freakish nature is such that it doesn’t have back legs, only a pile of jelly coming out of it’s butt. So it drags itself around with it’s front legs, and kills no one. Oh, and no boobs at all. Another cliche of these movies remains intact, however. The one that says that there must be dozens of rooms in the building, each with generically labeled items like “flammable gas” canisters, which can all be used in clever ways to kill the predators. Then the movie ends, with one big FINAL SCARE, but this time, it is in what would appear to be the middle of the movie.

Attack of the Sabretooth is a Jurassic Park rip-off with hilariously bad animation and even worse acting. It is terrifically indicative of the genre. However, Boa vs. Python is something else entirely. Oh, sure, it has it’s share of totally gratuitous boobs, it has unrealistic creatures attacking unrealistic humans, and various attractive young people who band together to fight the good fight against the bad beast. But this time, it takes place in a CITY! And the epic final battle is not between the beast and the two surviving characters who are meant to hook up, but between two of the monsters themselves! The boa and the python, of course. This time there are government agents involved, and the animation is slightly better than usual. Jamie Bergman shows up as a marine biologist. The least convincing scientist since Denise Richards played Christmas Jones in that Bond movie. And the boa apparently eats in a bird-like motion and growls like a…sabretooth tiger.

If you want a really good monster movie, rent Jaws, or The Host, or…ummm…something else. These are the bottom-of-the-barrel, worst-movies-ever type of monster flicks, the kind where they purposely insert breaks in the film where commercials could go, knowing it will likely appear only on late-night TV, and that way they don’t have to re-edit the movie once for TV and once for video. They are staggeringly awful, and the only thing that could make me enjoy them more would be the inclusion of Steven Seagal.

I just wrote a blog about fourteen great movies. I have decided to include an extra bad movie here, because I want to make the point that Hollywood makes far more bad movies than good ones. I really wanted to write about twenty-eight bad movies, but I wasn’t feeling nearly masochistic enough. Two things - much like the great movies I talked about, the bad movies list will not be complete. There are many bad movies I have yet to see. License to Wed, I assume, is awful. Likewise Good Luck Chuck. But I have not seen them, and so I will not comment. Also, films like Boa vs. Python and Mammoth do not count, since they are not movies that big studios attempt to force on the general public. In order to rent and watch these films, one has to be a specific kind of masochist. The following films are the kind that real people may well have watched, hoping for something good, but then they were insulted and assaulted with crap. In no particular order, here goes.

Norbit: Eddie Murphy plays three characters, which worked in The Nutty Professor. This time, every character is an offensive and racist stereotype, not one of the characters is funny, and the movie is painful. A hint to filmmakers. If you can’t find a real fat lady to be in your movie, and you have to dress up one of your actors to be a fat lady, it is likely because the jokes about fat ladies are so offensive and in such poor taste that no real fat lady would ever subject herself to the movie. Neither should the audience.

I Know Who Killed Me: The worst performance of the year was turned in by Lindsay Lohan as a bad-girl stripper. The second-worst performance of the year was turned in by Lindsay Lohan as a goody-two-shoes high school girl. Both were in this movie.

The Number 23: Well…at least it made me laugh. This was one of the worst-thought-out, horribly done “thriller” movies of the year. The best thing about it is that it was so incredibly awful, but the people making it really didn’t know how bad it was. That can make something cross over from just a disaster into crappy camp. Think Showgirls.

The Reaping: Hilary Swank either wins an Oscar or she is in a terrible movie. This is a terrible movie, and she got no Oscar. The biblical plagues should really have ended in the destruction of the print of this movie.

Because I Said So: Diane Keaton, what happened? Mandy Moore, I think someday you could be good, but what happened? Mandy Moore likely IS good. But she has never in her life appeared in a good movie. I know for a fact that Diane Keaton is good. I saw Annie Hall. Watching Because I Said So for me was like walking into a theatre hoping for Annie Hall. Then, before I got to my seat, someone kicked me in the nuts and stole my popcorn.

Wild Hogs: There is nothing remotely funny about Wild Hogs. But it made a lot of money at the box office this year, because the names bring people in. Travolta, Macy, Tim Allen. No, I’m serious. Tim Allen is a box-office draw. No, really. I mean it. People like watching him! This is a high-school after school special with big name actors and motorcycles. Insipid.

I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry: A long, running gay joke, that is never funny, and offensive, and then tries not to be offensive by preaching the gospel of love thy neighbour and don’t be homophobic. Ridiculous, stupid, and boring as hell.

Rush Hour 3: Chris Tucker just opening his mouth is not funny. Jackie Chan punching him in the mouth to shut him up WOULD be funny. This does not happen in Rush Hour 3. Therefore, Rush Hour 3 is not funny.

Georgia Rule: Lindsay Lohan flashes her privates at some mean girls. She tries to run someone down with her truck. She sleeps with everyone. The makers of this movie read about all of this in the tabloids, and thought Lohan would be perfect for this role, since the girl she plays does ALL of that. But they were wrong. Lindsay Lohan is perfect for nothing. Except being in tabloids.

Epic Movie: The worst movie of the year. Maybe, just maybe, the worst of any year. Gross-out humour that finds the gross but forgets the humour. Just being disgusting isn’t funny. It is disgusting. And just recreating a scene or character from a famous movie does not spoof that movie. You have to actually do something funny with it. Epic movie does nothing funny. With anything.

Spiderman 3: Peter Parker and Mary Jane Whatsherface spend the third consecutive movie carefully avoiding communication with each other, and making sure they did not say the one thing that would have solved all their problems. Like, “that Harry guy is trying to kill me”. That would have made things easier, complicated the movie much less, and spared us all that cheesy and lame romantic intrigue garbage. Which would have left us with still one, possibly two, too many villains, and a boring story with great special effects.

Happily N’Ever After: There are (I hope) producers in Hollywood who don’t think that kids are essentially stupid. Witness Ratatouille, which was smart and funny and charming. Happily N’Ever After proves that some producers really think kids will be entertained by absolutely anything. All the intelligence and charm of a third-rate grade-four class clown.

Pirates of the Carribean 3: Enough already! I believe this movie may have been eleven hours long. Any movie that has Chow Yun-Fat, Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush and a cameo by Keith Richards, and yet can still put an audience to sleep, must really have had some bad writers with absolutely nothing to say. For eleven hours.

Premonition: Sandra Bullock lives her own, scary, Groundhog Day. This movie is so desperate to make sense that it cares more about that than about being entertaining. Therefore, we are so un-entertained, that we no longer care if it makes sense. The smarter folk among us might even turn off the film before the end, not even caring about the ending. I was not that smart.

Resident Evil: Extinction: The third, and probably not final, installment in what may someday be known as the worst trilogy in history. But probably not. It will have a fourth installment, and therefore not be a trilogy, and therefore have to settle for being the second-worst movie series of all time, behind Friday the 13th.

Honorable mention to Evan Almighty, The Hallowe’en remake, Underdog, and Mr. Woodcock. I have mercifully been spared watching such fare as Hostel II, Captivity, Delta Farce and Who’s Your Caddy, at least thus far.

I have read many critics absolutely slamming Death Sentence, the new Kevin Bacon revenge movie. And they are not entirely wrong. Death Sentence is definitely too simplistic. I is definitely filled with cliches. It opens with a montage of Kevin Bacon raising his son from the time he was a young boy, so that we know how much he loves him, and we feel bad when his son gets murdered. There is bad-ass music playing while he shaves his head to go on a killing spree. He does things that don’t really make sense, which lead to crazy action scenes. People conveniently end up near windows, so that they can be shot through said windows in a shower of glass. There are cheesy references to old western movies (Welcome To Hell is written on a clubhouse wall, either ripping off or paying homage to High Plains Drifter). The director was clearly attempting to create a sort of Death Wish - meets - Straw Dogs motif, but was unable to do so convincingly, and the whole movie smacks of effort.

Death Sentence is created from the same book as Death Wish, and in a lot of ways is a remake of the Charles Bronson classic. Kevin Bacon’s son gets killed in a gangland initiation ritual, and he goes all vigilante on the gang members’ asses. James Berardinelli says this: “Death Wish has taken its share of knocks over the years but at least it doesn’t pretend it’s something more important and meaningful than it is - a mistake made by Death Sentence to its detriment.” From Richard Roeper: “It’s terrible and it’s so disappointing because I love Kevin Bacon and I love Aisha [Tyler] and you have good actors here who are trapped.” Some halfhearted praise from Roger Ebert: “There is a courtroom scene of true surprise and suspense, and some other effective moments, but basically this is a movie about a lot of people shooting at each other, and during the parts I liked, the action audience will probably go out to get popcorn, or a tattoo or something.”

But that’s just it. There are actually parts I liked. And performances I liked. John Goodman as a crazy lunatic gun dealer, reminiscent of his roles in Coen Brothers films like The Big Lebowski or O Brother Where Art Thou, and Kevin Bacon, who broods and stews with the best (for a very good movie where Kevin Bacon broods and stews, check out The Woodsman). Although there is that cheesy I-love-my-kid buildup, the scene where his kid actually gets killed is nonetheless powerful. There is a solid courtroom scene that provides some surprises, and the scenes between John Goodman and the gang leader are well done. In the end, I sort of liked this movie. Of course, I will take Death Wish over Death Sentence any day, but that’s just because I enjoy Charles Bronson and his inability to show any emotion whatsoever. Death Sentence is just unfortunate because the action movie afficionados will not enjoy the slow, character-intensive parts (which are quite good), and the people who want to see quality in a movie will be put off by the gratuitous and nonsensical action sequences. There is something for everyone, but not enough for anyone.

The cover of the DVD “Cougar Club” certainly seems to indicate toplessness. As does the banner splashed across the jacket, “topless menus!” And it delivers! There are indeed topless girls in the menus. Possibly cougars, but likely a little too young to truly be actual cougars. So…if you click around on the menus, you will see boobs. If you watch the film all the way to the end, you will see boobs there as well, in a monatage of boobs over the closing credits. In between, during the movie itself, there are not many boobs. But a few boobs. In short, the only thing this movie has going for it is boobs, but there are not enough boobs to make this boob of a movie any less of a boob. The dialogue in the film is just about as clever as my own in the first part of this paragraph. An altogether painful experience, Cougar Club.

I know what you are thinking. If you knew it was just going to be one of those stupid teenagers-have-sex-with-people movies, why did you rent it? Good question. The main reason was the cast. I saw the DVD case and moved on. But on a second pass, I saw the name Faye Dunaway! And I took a look at it. I then saw Carrie Fisher, Joe Mantegna, and Izabella Scorupco. I thought, there is no chance all these fairly significant actors (or, in the case of Dunaway, legendary actors) would all have made a terrible error at the same time, would they? But it appears that yes, they would. And there is a big problem with a movie that’s only premise is the promise of boobs. The problem is that people will rent the movie based on their desire to see the boobs of the actresses whose names appear on the cover of the film. When neither Fisher, nor Dunaway, nor Scorupco, and not even the wrestler Chyna (who gets big billing as well) doff their tops, even though they all have gratuitous sex scenes, it clearly undermines the rest of the boobs, which belong to nameless girls and are so gratuitous as to be comical.

The basic premise of Cougar Club is that two young guys go to work for a law firm, and discover that they can easily have sex with their bosses’ wives. So the wives recruit other cougars, the young guys recruit other young guys, membership fees are charged, and a brothel of inter-generation trysts is created. This all gets wrapped up nicely in one of the worst courtroom scenes in history, and definitely the most offensive back-of-a-courtroom scene of all time. I have spent a long time enjoying cougars myself, but…I have spent way too much time dissecting a movie that really shouldn’t ever even be discussed. This ends now.

Often, you can tell a lot about a movie from the previews that are shown on the DVD before it begins. In the case of Good Luck Chuck, the distributors are saying “if you like Good Luck Chuck, you might also like Delta Farce, Waiting, Employee of the Month, and Andy Dick movies”. In other words, if you like Good Luck Chuck, you might have the IQ of a pomegranate. If, after learning all this from the previews, you still go ahead and watch the movie, you might come out with an IQ at least twelve points lower. And descend on the intelligence scale from “pomegranate” to “bag of hammers”. Please don’t watch this movie. Please don’t rent it for anyone. Please don’t encourage people to make more movies like this one. And above all, stop encouraging Dane Cook! He seems to be the latest “it” comic. People all over the place tell me about Dane Cook and how great he is. My sister got me a couple of his CDs. My co-worker Amanda sings his praises every time we work at a leather sale together. I have tried. I have listened to the CDs, I have checked out his stand-up act on youtube. But I’m just not there.

And now I have seen four of his movies. One is Good Luck Chuck. Two others are Waiting and Employee of the Month, both advertised in the previews on this DVD. All three absolute wastes of time, but only one is a true disaster, and that is Good Luck Chuck. (The fourth, incidentally, is the average at best Mr. Brooks, where Dane Cook is fairly decent because no one asks him to be funny.) Good Luck Chuck stars Cook as a man who seems to be a good luck charm for women. You see, every woman who sleeps with him immediately marries the next man she dates. This assumes two things. That a man who has the golden ticket to sleep with any hot woman he wants, any time he wants, without any expectation, ever, of committment, can’t possibly be satisfied and wants to find true love. And secondly, that every woman is so desperate for marriage that she will do anything just to meet a guy and have a wedding. I would like to have seen this movie done a bit differently. Like, women find out that if a certain guy runs over their foot with a certain lawnmower, they will instantly have a wedding. Then, we could see a bunch of women falling all over themselves to sneakily place their foot under the lawnmower blade. And then hilarity would ensue when ooops! Right guy, wrong lawnmower. No you have no love and no foot. Hilarious!

That is about the level of the comedy in Good Luck Chuck. Jessica Alba is another problem. She is on the cover of every magazine, and for some reason the world at large seems to think that it’s between her and Jessica Simpson for the title of Hottest Entertainer In The World. (And Dane Cook has somehow managed to get his talentless ass into starring roles opposite both of them.) But Jessica Alba (with the exception of Sin City) has never been in a good movie. And she has never been a good actress. She has been a good-enough, really hot face and body for poor excuses for movies like this one. In this one, she is asked to do physical comedy, as her character is a complete klutz. This is the “comedy” portion of the “romantic comedy” tag line to the film. She slips on a bun, falls backwards ont her chair, which breaks, and she catches the edge of the tablecloth on the way down, which spills orange juice upon the ground, upon which she slips as she gets up, causing her to fall full body on the table, which breaks the table on one side, causing the other side to fly up in the air, causing the cake to catapult off into the air, which then hits someone in the face, and that person spins around, hitting a … well, you get the idea. This scene may or may not have happened exactly like this, I stopped paying attention after six minutes.

I tuned back in when the physical comedy thing got old for them. Which was an hour after it got old for everyone else. At this point the director clearly thought “what else has worked in comedies lately?” And came up with gross-out humour! Of course, he is wrong. Gross-out humour has NOT worked in comedies lately. It has simply grossed people out. And it has not been funny. I am wracking my brain trying to figure out when, since There’s Something About Mary, has gross-out humour actually been funny. I’m coming up empty. Again, putting a woman in a fat suit in a movie in indicative of the fact that no REAL fat woman would lower herself to take that role. Therefore, that role is too offensive and not funny enough to be in your movie. And this movie is too offensive and not funny enough to be on DVD, let alone in your house, on your TV. Don’t encourage these people. Put a stop to it now.

There is a video that hit stores on Tuesday - it is the first Family Guy episode of the year, the hour-long Star Wars episode, and it is great. Now, of course, an hour-long episode really means 48 minutes, but with the bonus features on the disc, it is well over an hour in total, most of it terrific. The bonus features include a conversation between Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane and George Lucas, who is clearly one of his idols. Also, there is a featurette that plays every Family Guy Star Wars reference from the TV show up until this point. Also hilarious stuff. Clearly, the guys who do this TV show are bigger Star Wars nerds than anyone I know. Except for Dave Taylor, who has forty-one different copies of the trilogy, on DVD, VHS, Beta, reel-to-reel, slide show, and laser disc, among other formats. He also has eleven copies of the John Williams soundtrack, on CD, tape, 8-track, vinyl, and some formats I was not even aware had been invented yet.

But although I make fun of Dave every time I visit his place and sit among the shelves of Bob Fett action figures and Millenium Falcon commemorative cereal boxes, he is not alone. Not by a long shot. These people are out there. And they are otherwise normal in the rest of their lives, unlike the Star Trek geeks and the Lord of the Rings wackjobs and the Mr. Belvedere afficionados. This is because Star Wars holds a certain place in the hearts and minds (ooh, went all George W for a second there) of just about every single human being born after 1957. I, for one, was born about a year after the release of Star Wars. And yet it was still an integral part of my pop culture innundation throughout my life, so much so that even as a half-assed fan of the original series, I still know many lines, names, scenarios and moments from that original trilogy. In fact, the first movie has to be more familiar to the general population of the world than any other movie by far.

Which is why it’s the perfect pop culture spoof for a show such as Family Guy. For the purposes of this review, I will go ahead and assume that everyone, by now, is at least aware of Family Guy. (If not, watch it. It is the best comedy show on TV.) And Family Guy Presents Blue Harvest is what they do at their best. It is basically the entire Star Wars movie, condensed (easily, I might add) to 48 minutes, and featuring the cast of Family Guy in place of the characters in the film. The lines are basically lifted straight from the dialogue of the original movie, which seems lazy at first, but when the dialogue spins off, it becomes brilliant. The scenes where they poke fun of holes in the Star Wars plot are dead-on. The best one comes when Darth Vader is advised that the Death Star is 99.99 percent impregnable, except for this one two-metre wide hole which, if you fire a torpedo into it, would blow up the entire space station. He suggests perhaps covering that hole with plywood or something, but is voted down on the grounds of aesthetics.

Not content to simply lampoon the Star Wars phenomenon itself, Seth MacFarlane manages to get numerous other fantastic pop culture references into the movie - Judd Nelson shows up to deliver one line from The Breakfast Club. Rush Limbaugh voices himself as a right-wing bigot on Tatooine talk radio. Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo show up to deliver two lines from National Lampoon’s vacation. There are also references to Simply Red, Tupac Shakur, Redd Foxx, and dozens more, almost all of them fantastic. In the end, the familiarity we all have with Star Wars gives Family Guy license to do whatever they want within that framework, and that works beautifully. Blue Harvest is well worth purchasing, for the Family Guy fan, the Star Wars fan, or anyone who enjoys a 40-minute belly laugh.

I hate to call something a must-watch, because people send me emails, angry that I said Hot Fuzz is a must-watch, and they hate British people. Or that A History of Violence is a must-watch, but they hate violence! (I really did get both of these emails. I liked the violence one best.) But this is one. The Hunting Party is a movie that asks the question - how hard are the agencies of the world really looking for the Osama Bin Ladens of the world? Specifically, this movie deals with the CIA and their “efforts” to track down the war criminals of the conflict in Bosnia and Serbia. As it stands right now, most of the war criminals - murderers, genocidaires, rapists and worse - from the former Yugoslavia are still on the loose, (many believe some are sheltered in Russia) despite agencies like the CIA having vowed to track them down and find them half a decade ago.

The Hunting Party stars Richard Gere and Terrence Howard as a reporter and a cameraman who have been through many wars together. The film is inspired by the true story of a disgraced reporter, played by Gere, and his cameraman (Howard) and a wet-behind-the-ears young journalist who has to prove his merit because he is the big boss’s son. The three of them take off into the former Yugoslavia, searching for the region’s most notorious and dangerous war criminal, the butcher known as “The Fox”. How much of what transpires after that is true and how much is fiction, I don’t know. But I do know that the movie is enthralling. Three things make The Hunting Party tremendous. First, the social conscience and the real-world political questions raised by the film. Secondly, it’s pacing. The first time you see Richard Gere’s live, on-air meltdown on national TV, it’s almost comical, in a way. Later, you learn the circumstances behind that meltdown, and when you look back on it, you can no longer remember why you found anything funny in it at all, it just looks tragic. There is enough subtle humour throughout the film, at just the right places, to break up what would otherwise be overwhelmingly tragic and bleak subject matter. And third, the realism. These characters behave the way three real people, in the real world, would behave. Yes, they are foolhardy, yes, they are reckless, and yes, they are probably very lucky to be alive at certain points in the movie, but they never seem anything less than human at any point.

The Hunting Party is both a fascinating character study of a man who does not know how to stop being a reporter, and an eye-opening look at the way the CIA, the UN and other world agencies pay lip service to war criminals and the architects of genocide without ever really doing anything about them. It is, indeed, a must-watch. So watch it!

The Oscars are more hype than substance. The best picture winner is rarely the best picture of the year, the best actor and actress are rarely the most deserving, and the whole thing is more based on marketing and promotion than it is on straight-up merit. That being said, it is far better than say, the Grammys, in that at the very least Oscar winners are good movies with good performances and less attention is paid to box-office receipts than is paid to critical acclaim. Whereas the Grammys and other award shows of a similiar nature pay more attention to sales than they do to quality. Which is why Nickelback cleans up at the Junos. So I would certainly give the Oscars more credit than that. But the only awards you can truly count on for being bang-on are the Razzies. The annual awards for the absolute worst in movies are great, for a few reasons - they get to be as mean and politically incorrect as they want to be, they don’t have to take into account the pedigree of an actor, and they have way more movies to choose from than do the Oscars.

This year, I have already made my own list of the worst movies out there. While I would never bother comparing my list of the best to the Oscar nominees, I would certainly do so for the Razzies, since I feel they have more credibility. I chose Norbit, The Reaping, I Know Who Killed Me, the Number 23, Because I Said So, Wild Hogs, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Rush Hour 3, Epic Movie, Georgia Rule, Spiderman 3, Happily N’Ever After, Pirates of the Carribean 3, Premonition and Resident Evil as the worst of the worst. Having recently watched Good Luck Chuck, I would gladly add that one to the list as well. So here is the Razzie list:

Category: Worst leading actor.
Nominees: Eddie Murphy as Norbit in Norbit. Cuba Gooding Jr. in Daddy Day Camp. Nicholas Cage in Ghost Rider. Jim Carrey in The Number 23. And Adam Sandler in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.
Who should win: Nicholas Cage. Eddie Murphy was awful as Norbit, but we’ll get to him later. Adam Sandler was certainly bad in Chuck and Larry, but not Ghost Rider bad. Jim Carrey took a chance with the Number 23, and it failed miserably. And Gooding is just a bad actor. Always. He will never be good. But Nicholas Cage in blockbuster, big-budget movies, is the worst actor alive. He is fantastic in little, small-budget flicks (Leaving Las Vegas, Matchstick Men), but the bigger the budget, the more he sucks. Add to that the fact that he was especially bad in Ghost Rider, and you’ve got one of the worst of all time.
Who they missed: Seann William Scott in Mr. Woodcock.

Category: Worst leading actress.
Nominees: Lindsay Lohan as the stripper in I Know Who Killed Me. Lindsay Lohan as the clean-cut high school student in I Know Who Killed Me. The four female leads in Bratz. Jessica Alba in Good Luck Chuck, Awake and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Elisha Cuthbert in Captivity. And Diane Keaton in Because I Said So.
Who should win: Lindsay Lohan. For either role, but really the clean-cut student role is even more bizarre than the stripper one. One of the worst performances in movie history. Elisha Cuthbert was just in a bad movie, Diane Keaton had absolutely nothing to work with in Because I Said So, and Jessica Alba has always been useless as an actress. I was mercifully spared Bratz, but I can only assume that it had four of the worst-written female roles of the past decade. No matter how bad they were, they could not be Lindsay-Lohan-in-I-Know-Who-Killed-Me bad.
Who they missed: Ironically, they missed another Lindsay Lohan performance, this time in Georgia Rule.

Category: Worst supporting actor.
Nominees: Eddie Murphy as the old Chinese man in Norbit. Eddie Murphy as the fat lady in Norbit. Orlando Bloom in Pirates of the Carribean 3. Rob Schneider in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. And Jon Voight in Transformers, September Dawn, and National Treasure 2.
Who should win: Eddie Murphy. Although Orlando Bloom has been consistently awful in the Pirates movies, and I have not been able to understand how he gets cast in the roles he does, because he is so awful, it is more a mis-casting issue than it is a bad acting issue. Eddie Murphy cast himself, therefore he should know better. Both these roles are heinous and offensive, but the fat lady role is on the screen most often, therefore it is most offensive, therefore it is the worst. Jon Voight was irrelevant in his movies, and Rob Schneider is just bad always.
Who they missed: Dan Fogler in Good Luck Chuck.

Category: Worst supporting actress.
Nominees: Jessica Biel in Next and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. Carmen Electra in Epic Movie. Julia Ormond in I Know Who Killed Me. And Nicolette Sheridan in Code Name: The Cleaner.
Who should win: Jessica Biel. She is truly awful in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. In Next, she just has to deal with bad dialogue and a badly written character. In Chuck and Larry, her supposedly smart lawyer would have to be staggeringly stupid to do what she does. Carmen Electra is merely a passing character in Epic Movie, which makes her fairly irrelevant as a supporting actress.
Who they missed: Eva Mendes in Ghost Rider.

Category: Worst screen couple.
Nominees: Jessica Alba and Dane Cook in Good Luck Chuck. Jessica Alba and Hayden Christensen in Awake. Jessica Alba and Ioan Gruffudd in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Any combination of Bratz characters. Lindsay Lohan and Lindsay Lohan as twins in I Know Who Killed Me. Eddie Murphy and Chinese Eddie Murphy in Norbit. Eddie Murphy and fat Eddie Murphy in Norbit. Adam Sandler and Kevin James in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. Adam Sandler and Jessica Biel in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.
Who should win: Jessica Alba and Ioan Gruffudd in the Fantastic Four are the most boring, irritating, and terribly unconvincing couple since Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom in Pirates of the Carribean.
Who they missed: Kiera Knightley and Orlando Bloom in Pirates of the Carribean 3. Also, Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst in Spiderman 3.

Category: Worst remake and/or rip-off.
Nominees: Are We Done Yet? (Rip-off of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House.) Bratz (Remake of the TV show…I guess). Epic Movie (Rip-off of…everything). I Know Who Killed Me (rip-off of Saw, The Patty Duke Show, and Hostel). Who’s Your Caddy (rip-off of Caddyshack).
Who should win: Epic Movie. This movie does not just directly quote every movie it is supposedly spoofing, but it also offends every movie they even mention. Beginning to end, extremely horrible.
What they missed: Underdog.

Category: Worst prequel or sequel.
Nominees: Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. Daddy Day Camp. Evan Almighty. Hannibal Rising. Hostel Part III.
Who should win: I’m so happy this category exists. In a lot of ways, the category honours the worst films that are sequels in what was already a fairly horrible series. Like Alien vs. Predator, Daddy Day Care, Hostel…In this case, Evan Almighty should win. Even though Bruce Almighty wasn’t the giant bomb that the others were, the sequel is a colossal waste of time. Yet it still had the temerity to call itself an “epic movie”. Garbage.
What they missed: Spiderman 3, Pirates of the Carribean 3…

Category: Worst director.
Nominees: Dennis Dugan (I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry). Roland Joffe (Captivity). Brian Robbins (Norbit). Fred Savage (Daddy Day Camp). Chris Siverston (I Know Who Killed Me).
Who should win: Chris Siverston. Roland Joffe just picked a genre that is almost impossible to do well. Brian Robbins I give the benefit of the doubt, and assume that Eddie Murphy was forcing all the action to suck. Dennis Dugan was given a dreadful script and a ridiculous concept. Chris Siverston could have done something with the crap he was given. Something. He could at the very least have coaxed a passible performance out of Lindsay Lohan. But he didn’t. He sucks.
Who they missed: Whoever directed Epic Movie. And frankly, I don’t care enough to look up who it was.

Category: Worst Screenplay.
Nominees: Daddy Day Camp, I Know Who Killed Me, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Epic Movie, Norbit.
Who should win: Epic Movie. The others were bad, sure, but Epic Movie didn’t even try to be funny. I could have written that screenplay in less than an hour. All you needed for this one was to have watched twenty movies. Ever. Then you just copy them. And add puke jokes. Sorry, not jokes. Just add puke.
What was missed: Good Luck Chuck.

Category: Worst excuse for a horror movie.
Nominees: Captivity. I Know Who Killed Me. Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. Hannibal Rising. Hostel Part III.
Who should win: I Know Who Killed Me. It’s just so bad.
What they missed: Hallowe’en, the Rob Zombie remake.

Category: Worst picture.
Nominees: Bratz. Daddy Day Camp. Norbit. I Know Who Killed Me. I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.
Who should win: Norbit comes awfully close, but I Know Who Killed Me is the worst movie in ten years.
Who they missed: Epic Movie.

There we go. That’s the most honest, complete list you will find at award season. The Oscar nominations are out today. I will do the same for the Oscars, although there will be more movies they missed and more performances that need to be acknowledged. Until then, avoid these movies!

I must say first, that this post is being created for more of an informative reason than for anything else. Although I have managed to suffer through just about every film nominated for a Golden Raspberry award, I have yet to see several of the Oscar nominees. Since my movie reviewing is confined largely to DVD viewing in the comfort of my own home, I have not yet seen Juno, No Country For Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Sweeny Todd, Michael Clayton, In The Valley of Elah, Into the Wild, Gone Baby Gone…and several others. Therefore, I am not qualified to comment on most of the categories. I have about two cents worth of opinions to add, but that’s it for now. Maybe in a few weeks, when I have seen everything, I will add to this post. Until then, for informative purposes, here are the nominees:

Category: Performance by an actor in a leading role.
Nominees: George Clooney in “Michael Clayton”. Daniel Day-Lewis in “There Will Be Blood”. Johnny Depp in “Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”. Tommy Lee Jones in “In the Valley of Elah”. Viggo Mortensen in “Eastern Promises”.
Who should win: I have seen only one of these performances. But I find it hard to believe anyone could have done a better job than Mortensen in Eastern Promises. The only one I could see beating this one is Daniel Day-Lewis, since he is always the best actor going, whenever he decides to work every five years.
Who was missed: I really think Russell Crowe deserved a spot here. Sure, 3:10 To Yuma was an action movie, a popcorn western, but he was absolutely electric. Also, his co-star in that movie, Christian Bale, certainly merited some consideration for Rescue Dawn. And Gordon Pinsent was fantastic in Away From Her.

Category: Performance by an actor in a supporting role.
Nominees: Casey Affleck in “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”. Javier Bardem in “No Country for Old Men”. Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Charlie Wilson’s War”. Hal Holbrook in “Into the Wild”. Tom Wilkinson in “Michael Clayton”.
Who should win: Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any of these movies. I have no idea who should win. I do, however, have a sense that Javier Bardem will win, since he has the most hype on him and his movie is getting the most hype at the right time.
Who was missed: Steve Zahn in Rescue Dawn.

Category: Performance by an actress in a leading role.
Nominees: Cate Blanchett in “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”. Julie Christie in “Away from Her”. Marion Cotillard in “La Vie en Rose”. Laura Linney in “The Savages”. Ellen Page in “Juno”.
Who should win: Julie Christie. Her performance as an elderly lady afflicted with Alzheimers was both heartbreaking and realistic. The best acting role of her career.
Who was missed: Naomi Watts in Eastern Promises. Somehow, this sensational acting job got overlooked.

Category: Performance by an actress in a supporting role.
Nominees: Cate Blanchett in “I’m Not There”. Ruby Dee in “American Gangster”. Saoirse Ronan in “Atonement”. Amy Ryan in “Gone Baby Gone”. Tilda Swinton in “Michael Clayton”.
Who should win: Again, I don’t know. I have not yet seen any of these. Based on the buzz and the nature of the role, I would put my money on Saoirse Ronan.
Who was missed: Christina Ricci…Black Snake Moan…yeah. OK, she wasn’t a supporting actress, I just wanted to mention her. This is a pretty thin category this year.

Category: Best animated feature film of the year.
Nominees: “Persepolis”. “Ratatouille”. “Surf’s Up”.
Who should win: Ratatouille is the best kids’ animated movie of the last five years. Surf’s Up was cute, but not that good, and Persepolis is fantastic but won’t appeal to enough voters. Why only three nominees each year in this category? Maybe because there are only six movies that qualify every year. And if you didn’t cut it off somewhere, you would have to include huge bombs like Happily N’Ever After.
Who was missed: Well…nothing. There were only two great animated movies made this year.

Category: Achievement in art direction.
Nominees: “American Gangster”. “Atonement”. “The Golden Compass”. “Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”. “There Will Be Blood”.
Who should win: Ummm…who cares? When was the last time you rented a movie because it had “Oscar Winner - Best Art Direction” on the DVD case?
Who was missed: Again, who cares?

Category: Achievement in cinematography.
Nominees: “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”. “Atonement”. “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”. “No Country for Old Men”. “There Will Be Blood”.
Who should win: I don’t know. Still haven’t seen any of them.
Who was missed: Rescue Dawn.

Category: Achievement in costume design.
Nominees: “Across the Universe”. “Atonement”. “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”. “La Vie en Rose”. “Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”
Who should win: I don’t know.
Who was missed: No one, really. This is a category that really honours “best period piece”, and there haven’t been that many great ones this year.

Category: Achievement in directing.
Nominees: “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”, Julian Schnabel. “Juno”, Jason Reitman. “Michael Clayton”, Tony Gilroy. “No Country for Old Men”, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen. “There Will Be Blood”, Paul Thomas Anderson.
Who should win: It seems likely that the Coen Brothers will win this one. Hollywood loves them, and they were pretty well shut out for their previous masterpiece, Fargo. (They did get a screenwriting Oscar for it, but no direction or best picture or anything else it deserved.)
Who was missed: David Cronenberg. For the second straight year he was not even nominated for yet another masterpiece. Mortensen got his best actor nomination as a “sorry we missed you last year”, why not Cronenberg too? I would also have liked to see Sarah Polley get a nomination for Away From Her.

Category: Best documentary feature.
Nominees: “No End in Sight”. “Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience”. “Sicko”. “Taxi to the Dark Side”. “War/Dance”.
Who should win: No End in Sight was a fantastic look at the mismanagement of the war in Iraq. It would be ironic if Oscar didn’t honour Michael Moore this year, because he is “too political”. And this one won instead. But it shouldn’t. Sicko was the best documentary of the year, and Moore will always be able to make the most informative and entertaining documentaries out there.
Who was missed: The Ralph Nader doc, An Unreasonable Man.

Category: Best documentary short subject.
Nominees: “Freeheld”. “La Corona (The Crown)”. “Salim Baba”. “Sari’s Mother”.
Who should win: Has anyone seen any of these? Will anyone see them? If a tree falls in the forest…and a movie wins an Oscar but no one ever sees it, do you still get a trophy?
Who was missed: How would anyone know?

Category: Achievement in film editing.
Nominees: “The Bourne Ultimatum”. “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”. “Into the Wild”. “No Country for Old Men”. “There Will Be Blood”.
Who should win: This is a category only other film editors will care about. I should leave the choice up to them, because I assume the rest of us won’t care.
Who was missed: I’ll leave this up to the film editors as well.

Category: Best foreign language film of the year.
Nominees: “Beaufort” Israel, “The Counterfeiters” Austria, “Katyn” Poland, “Mongol” Kazakhstan, “12″ Russia.
Who should win: No idea. I have seen none of these films, and I have rented every foregin film to come through my local video store.
Who was missed: The Host (Korea).

Category: Achievement in makeup.
Nominees: “La Vie en Rose” (Picturehouse) Didier Lavergne and Jan Archibald “Norbit” (DreamWorks, Distributed by Paramount): Rick Baker and Kazuhiro Tsuji “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” (Walt Disney): Ve Neill and Martin Samuel.
Who should win: I’m sure we’ll all be huddled around our TVs on Oscar night with bated breath waiting on the results of this one. Norbit? Pirates 3? Oh God, who cares?
Who was missed: La Vie En Rose was a good movie. What’s it doing in the “worst of the year” category?

Category: Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score).
Nominees: “Atonement” (Focus Features) Dario Marianelli “The Kite Runner” (DreamWorks, Sidney Kimmel Entertainment and Participant Productions, Distributed by Paramount Classics): Alberto Iglesias “Michael Clayton” (Warner Bros.) James Newton Howard “Ratatouille” (Walt Disney) Michael Giacchino “3:10 to Yuma” (Lionsgate) Marco Beltrami.
Who should win: 3:10 to Yuma. The score was perfect - a throwback to the old western Morricone-style soundtracks, never invasive, and always moving the action forward.
What was missed: Sunshine.

Category: Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song).
Nominees: “Falling Slowly” from “Once” (Fox Searchlight) Music and Lyric by Glen Hansard and: Marketa Irglova “Happy Working Song” from “Enchanted” (Walt Disney): Music by Alan Menken; Lyric by Stephen Schwartz “Raise It Up” from “August Rush” (Warner Bros.): Nominees to be determined “So Close” from “Enchanted” (Walt Disney): Music by Alan Menken; Lyric by Stephen Schwartz “That’s How You Know” from “Enchanted” (Walt Disney): Music by Alan Menken; Lyric by Stephen Schwartz.
Who should win: Once. The song is great, the movie is terrific. The others I haven’t seen.
What was missed: I don’t know. Can’t be much, if Enchanted has eleven songs in here.

Category: Best motion picture of the year.
Nominees: “Atonement”. “Juno”. “Michael Clayton”. “No Country for Old Men”. “There Will Be Blood”.
Who should win: According to most, No Country For Old Men ought to be the favourite. Juno is this year’s Little Miss Sunshine, and those rarely get real consideration for best picture. Michael Clayton will go the way of the other George Clooney movies of recent years - Syriana, Good Night and Good Luck, and it will not be a winner.
What was missed: Eastern Promises and The Hunting Party.

Category: Best animated short film.
Nominees: “I Met the Walrus”. “Madame Tutli-Putli”. “Même Les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go to Heaven)”. “My Love (Moya Lyubov)”. “Peter & the Wolf”.
Who should win: Again, who has seen these? And therefore, who cares?
What was missed: Umm…same question.

Category: Best live action short film.
Nominees: “At Night”. “Il Supplente (The Substitute)”. “Le Mozart des Pickpockets (The Mozart of Pickpockets)”. “Tanghi Argentini”. “The Tonto Woman”.
Who should win: Again, who cares?
What was missed: An opportunity to create the category “best films seen only by friends and family”.

Category: Achievement in sound editing.
Nominees: “The Bourne Ultimatum”. “No Country for Old Men”. “Ratatouille”. “There Will Be Blood”. “Transformers”.
Who should win: Let’s give it to the Bourne Ultimatum. They deserve something for making a really good movie. And four, maybe five more people will rent the movie if it has this Oscar.
What was missed: Another twenty minutes of our life that we could have spent reading instead of watching an insipid Oscar telecast.

Category: Achievement in sound mixing.
Nominees: “The Bourne Ultimatum”. “No Country for Old Men”. “Ratatouille”. “3:10 to Yuma”. “Transformers”.
Who should win: Apparently, this is not the same category as sound editing. For some reason. Let’s give this one to 3:10 to Yuma. They deserve some Oscars too.
What was missed: The difference between sound mixing and sound editing.

Category: Achievement in visual effects.
Nominees: “The Golden Compass”. “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End”. “Transformers”.
Who should win: This is really an award for “biggest budget”. So, Pirates, I guess.
What was missed: Other crap. Like Ghost Rider.

Category: Adapted screenplay.
Nominees: “Atonement”. “Away from Her”. “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”. “No Country for Old Men”. “There Will Be Blood”.
Who should win: Sarah Polley for Away From Her. No Country For Old Men (I just read the book) is already pretty easily set up for the screen. Away From Her would have taken an enormous effort and a lot of intelligence to adapt to a screen version.
What was missed: Eastern Promises.

Category: Original screenplay.
Nominees: “Juno”. “Lars and the Real Girl”. “Michael Clayton”. “Ratatouille”. “The Savages”.
Who should win: Ratatouille. Writing a screenplay that is both intelligent AND appeals to kids might be the toughest thing to do, especially when you can make a kids’ movie with no intelligence and almost no effort at all. Ratatouille deserves serious credit here.
What was overlooked: The Lookout.

That’s it, in alphabetical order. I will revisit this a few times as I actually watch the movies that have been nominated. This is more than I can say for many of the Academy voters, which is why I still consider the Golden Raspberries to be more honest and accurate representations of moviedom.

It took me a while to warm up to Heath Ledger. He threw me off early as the latest Hollywood pretty-boy, with films like Ten Things I Hate About You and A Knight’s tale, but over time I grew to appreciate his talents. It’s awfully sad that, at age 28, he died in his prime, as he was making a case for being one of the best new actors in the world. Here are five Heath Ledger movies that are well worth watching:

5. The Patriot. Ledger plays Mel Gibson’s son, in this civil war version of Braveheart. Not a great movie, but there are some seriously great scenes, like the one where the cannonball takes that guy’s head off (best seen in HD) and the scene where Gibson rescues Ledger from a group of soldiers as though he were Rambo.

4. The Brothers Grimm. Ledger and Matt Damon play the title characters in a bizarre but often entertaining take on the fables that made the Brothers Grimm popular. They go from town to town as hucksters, pretending to rid towns of evil spirits and ogres and goblins and so forth, until of course they run into a real evil spirit. Again, not a great movie, but some solid moments.

3. A Knight’s Tale. Mostly lame movie with a fine performance by Ledger as a young, poor nobody who wants to ascend to the top of the world through jousting. A fine classic rock soundtrack and the gorgeous Shannyn Sossamon make the movie more bearable, but Ledger somehow rises above most of the cheesy teen-movie type dialogue and scenarios to show that he is a fine actor.

2. Candy. A harsh, freaky story about two junkies who are addicted to heroin. Abby Cornish is also great in this one, and Ledger gives the finest performance of his career as Dan, a poet who can’t separate his love for heroin from his love for Candy (Cornish). Geoffrey Rush is terrific as the man who both enables the couple by providing them with the drugs, and then tries to help them when it is obviously too late.

1. Monster’s Ball. Not Ledger’s best performance, but the best movie he in which he appeared. Halle Berry’s best performance, however, and Billy Bob Thornton does some excellent work as well. Ledger plays his son, and the hatred between the two causes some serious tension and great dramatic moments.

Not included are Brokeback Mountain, which was overrated, and Ten Things I Hate About You, Ledger’s first starring role, because it was dreadful. Also good: Ned Kelly and Lords of Dogtown.

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