Ten Worst Of 1999
Kindo LaRue
So Glen Ballard, super-producer of Alanis Morissette and Aerosmith, wrote a
script about an aspiring singer in L.A.
(sigh!). He would be the one to tell the story the most honest and direct
way, right? Sadly, no. CLUBLAND is an
atrocious piece of filmmaking that was just barely released this past
spring. Director Mary Lambert drops every
conceivable ball there is to drop here. She shoots the whole film in
handheld (due to the lunchmoney budget) and with
constant music going on in the background (gotta sell soundtracks, people!).
These two elements combined make for a
headache inducing ride down the predictable "It's all about the music, man!"
yellow brick road. And to heap on more
pain, it's music so pretentious it would make current wuss-rock kings
Matchbox 20 and Goo Goo Dolls wince. Add to
this mess the most amateurish acting you will ever see in a theatrical
release. Lead Jimmy Tuckett joins last year's
inductee Alicia Witt (URBAN LEGEND) to the "I can't believe this performance
was committed to film" hall of fame.
He, seriously, is without talent. That’s saying something when the whole
cast is awful. Lori Petty is in this, need I say
more? The music that fills the film wouldn't sell two copies, and we as an
audience are supposed to swoon over the
songs. Nope. The whole film is filled with clichéd nonsense: slick drug
dealers, a gunfight, the girl the lead "really"
loves (and we are expected to swallow this tripe right after the hero of the
film receives oral from a groupie?), and the
brother who keeps messing up - but he's got good intentions. There's more,
but who cares? Glenn Ballard was given the
chance to make his movie, his realisic insider look into popular music, and
it all sucks. CLUBLAND is a work of pure
drivel, the worst kind of film that comes out of Hollywood. Bad acting, bad
directing, bad music, bad product
placement, bad cinematography, (I'm sure) bad catering.... If so much work
could go into stories more than .005% of
humans care about (You never hear in a movie line "Oh, man! Aspiring
musicians in Los Angeles!"), wouldn't that be a
better use of a budget? I think so.
DROP DEAD GORGEOUS (New Line Cinema)
Within five minutes of this disaster you can already see what’s in store for
the rest of the film. Directed by Michael
Patrick Jann (MTV’s THE STATE ensemble comedy show, which says everything
and so much more), DROP DEAD
GORGEOUS has the distinction of actually being the only film nearly as bad
as CLUBLAND, a film that I thought had
reached such depths that no one could touch it. This monstrosity has the
balls to call itself a comedy? I don’t think so.
The only laughs going on during this film are the laughs of the distributors
counting the money I spent to see this
crapfest. Nothing, I mean NOTHING is worth the time in this movie. Without
spending the energy to nit-pick this junk
to death, can I say that The Eden Prairie Mall is not a good choice for a
Mall Of America stand-in? Or that this
"Fargoesque" humor can only be funny once? Or maybe that a supposed
documentary featuring a cast who have visable
body microphones on is just a bit assbackwards? Maybe these ideas are too
revolutionary for the kindergarten crew that
gave birth to this low point in American cinema. I know it’s just a movie,
but the filmmakers chose to do this, not I.
Violently politically incorrect, the film seems to have been put together by
a committee who’s specialty is deciding
which group of people to make light of next. The deaf, bulimic, poor, Asian,
retarded, Hispanic, Jewish... they all get it
in the crayola drawn script by Lona Williams. Now, I’m all for making fun of
people, but DROP DEAD is both shallow
and desperately unfunny. They work overtime to point out the jokes, stopping
short of actual arrows, and nothing
works. Not one laugh. This is the work of decidedly talent-free individuals
who seem to have nothing better to do than
to waste good film with such DOA material.
WILD WILD WEST (Warner Brothers)
A massive misfire from two talents(Will Smith and Barry Sonnenfeld) who have
proven themselves plenty before,
WILD WILD WEST managed to embarrass everybody involved with the project.
Proving that he might not own July
4th like he believes, Will Smith falters mightily in role that doesn’t fit
him at all. Kevin Kline sleepwalks through this
mess, and Salma Hayek is seriously slighted. Barry Sonnenfeld blamed the
Internet for this film’s critical barbecue.
How pathetic. Sonnenfeld has become the fat cat “but it’s my film” type of
director that refuses to believe that he
might not be capable of genius. WILD WILD WEST proves that money cannot buy
everything, even with 180 million
dollars of pure Hollywood sheen. Yuck.
HURLYBURLY (Fine Line)
Imagine a film experience equal to rubbing your knees with a steak knife.
HURLYBURLY was a serious waste of time,
talent, and patience. It’s being nice to say I despised this film. It’s such
an endurance test, it’s not funny. Sean Penn,
who rarely acts and we get him in three films this year, is firing on all
pistons for the 125 minute running time. It’s old
even before it begins. Penn is capable of so much, and yet he wastes his
time trying to avoid what he considers
“Hollywood” material. So what does he play here? A drug inducing, morally
ambiguous film producer. In fact,
EVERYBODY seems to be playing the same role. The fact that this film started
life as a play adds to the fun, because
all they do is talk. And talk about nothing they do. This is the same
material we have seen over and over again -
Hollywood, drugs, Hollywood, drugs... OK, WE GET IT!!! Only this time it’s
yelled at you. Meg Ryan must have been
doing a favor because this is way beneath her. The same can be said of Kevin
Spacey and Garry Shandling. Shot
blandly, staged atrociously, and just so disgustingly pretentious... I’m out
of breath.
THE CORRUPTOR (New Line Cinema)
I’m hard pressed to find anything noteworthy to talk about here. I’ve been
wary of director James Foley for some time
now. This man has previously given us such wonders as FEAR and THE CHAMBER.
He is now officially a hack with
this muddled and aimless thriller. A film that wastes the ample opportunity
to create something compelling and
exciting. With headliners Chow Yun-Fat and Mark Wahlberg, you would think
Foley could easily assemble a decent
action film with the sparest of parts. You rarely see a motion picture that
tries so hard, yet is completely lifeless. Foley
gets a workout on the zooms and other assorted camera tricks. He seems to be
hiding the bizarrely incomprehensible
script with this choice of camerawork. When the film sits still for a couple
of brief moments, the ugly reality that the
movie isn’t working shines right through. Yun-Fat is a dashing leading man
(as seen in December’s ANNA AND THE
KING). He’s got real charm and grace. Here, he is reduced to overacting and
becomes a victim of too much looping.
That, and the fact that the movie isn’t any good, dissolves the attempts he
makes to create a rounded character. He
deserves better. Wahlberg proves what I have suspected for some time...
BOOGIE NIGHTS was a fluke, ladies and
gentlemen. He will never be able to attain that excellence again. THE
CORRUPTOR is one big collection of
overindulgence and sheer misjudgment.
TEACHING MRS. TINGLE (Dimension)
What Kevin Williamson proves with his directorial debut is that we will
never need another Kevin Williamson script or
finished film for the rest of our lives. This mess that Dimension has
decided to dump in the notoriously weak
late-August time period is just so bad, so unbelievably amateurish, it’s
comes as no shock that the writer of the beloved
SCREAM and creator of the equally beloved DAWSON’S CREEK could crap out so
badly. Helen Mirren should be
ashamed of herself for taking a role in this film. As the title character,
Mirren is lost at sea with the slimy script. Giving
no dimensions to her character, no really good lines to rely on, and no
reason for the way she acts, Mirren can only
stick to a tired mean old bag act. It’s demeaning to such a respected
actress. Katie Holmes can only smirk so much
before her act is spent. It’s annoyance of the month Marisa Coughlan that
really disrupts the film. Overacting badly,
she’s the worst new actress to come around in some time. I look forward to
her USA cable movies. Williamson resorts
to pretty lazy screenwriting here. Allowing Coughlan to recreate about three
minutes of THE EXORCIST (in a scene
more defeating than words allow) reeks of an absence of imagination, and his
jokes fall flat every time. Shame on
everybody.
VARSITY BLUES (Paramount)
In the weeks leading up to this movie’s release, my hopes were about as low
as one’s could get for a movie. All
Paramount and MTV would allow me to see are endless commercials featuring
mean ole John Voight and a fat kid
stripping. Who in their right mind was really looking forward to seeing
this? Apparently everybody was. Written by a
half-wit, directed by a hack, and a cast full of amateurs, VARSITY BLUES
kicked off 1999 with a thunderclap of
mediocrity. Is there anything quite as depressing as big fat juicy cliched
characterizations? Check these out. Fat Kid -
Eats too much, dumb. Coach - Racist, Evil. Cheerleader - Slut. Star
Quarterback - Heart Of Gold. All of this is put in a
retard bouillabaisse with constant scenes of drinking and a sequence of
appallingly bad taste in a strip club. Filled with
a consumer friendly soundtrack, “Varsity Blues” feels more like an R rated
afterschool special than a serious
indictment of high school football. Don’t believe me? Try not to laugh out
loud when the film pops racism,
performance altering drugs, and overzealous parents along with all the
alcohol and “whip cream bikinis” (Don’t ask).
Director Brian Robbins showed more of a spine behind the camera in the
goofily lovable GOOD BURGER. And stars
James Van Der Beek and John Voight? Well, the former should stick to TV were
nobody is watching, and tell me the
last time John Voight mattered.
IDLE HANDS (Sony)
Or should I say, “How Brian wished he was dead”. This ultra assbackwards
comedy horror flick should serve as a good
example of the limits the human body has. One can only take so many poorly
written jokes, one can only take so many
unimaginative splatter shots, and one can only take Devon Sawa for more than
2 seconds. His raspy vocals coupled
with his, probably, meth-enhanced performance is appalling. This is the
kind of film that subscribes to the asthetic of
more is more. I didn’t see a film that played at such an aggressive level
all year. It’s assaultive to the senses. Using
Dolby shocks more than you would like to believe, director Rodman Flender
pretty much shows he has nothing up his
sleeve. IDLE HANDS is supposed to be funny, but it’s not. IDLE HANDS wants
to scare you too, but it can’t. Both are
due to the laughably bad screenplay. It would be easy to accuse it of
stealing - which it does in large amounts - but the
screenwriters (this actually had two people’s contributions) can’t even make
the elements that have worked before
work for them. Reliable talent like Seth Green just can’t make this awful
film any fun, and I have a real affection for
stoner humor. Jessica Alba - future Jennifer Love Hewitt - shows she
nothing more than a pretty (real pretty) face. The
rest of the actors are stuck just trying to scream above the soundtrack.
While this isn’t, this should be the last of the
SCREAM type postmodern horror films. It’s an idea that has run it’s course,
and an idea that didn’t produce one good
film.
HAPPY, TX (Miramax)
Artisan Entertainment pays around 1 million for BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, and the
film clears over 140 million.
Miramax (think of them as the Bill Gates of indie film) spends a record 10
million to acquire this “comedy”, and it
barely breaks the 2 million mark. Irony or act of God? You decide.
Whatever curse this film had on it was well
deserved. A desperate comedy with performers unprepared to handle this type
of farce, and actor Steve Zahn who
should come equipped with an “off” button. HAPPY was unpleasant to sit
through in many ways, the most glaring
being how anybody thought this film was actually funny.
SIMPLY IRRESISTIBLE (20th Century Fox)
The words Sarah Michelle Gellar above a film title usually strike the fear
of God into me. I strongly feel that she is an
unusually talentless actress who has the world in her hand because a group
of people on this planet think vampires and
Backstreet Boys references are the funniest thing ever. Perfect enunciation,
hits all her marks, has all of her facial
quirks down pat, and her past history as a child star... She is an amazingly
vanilla presence. SIMPLY IRRESISTABLE is
a film who’s foundations are built on her charm. Yeeesh! Trying to be
whimsical, it comes across methodically forced.
Not funny - and boy the actors try - and the film looks very very cheap. The
sound recording appears to be in mono,
and even the street scenes look like a soundstage. I did walk out on this,
the film gave me no choice. Believe me, I am
the first to enjoy a clichéd movie. There is an inherent joy in seeing where
even the most familiar material is going.
This movie I could pretty much tell you where it was headed, how the actors
would be blocked, what the dialog was
going to be, how the camera would be placed, and maybe even how the lighting
was going to be arranged. And I would
be remiss if I didn’t admit to loathing Sean Patrick Flanery’s “I’m funny,
SEE!!!” performance. Very satisfying to see
this tank in the worst way.
Persi
>HURLYBURLY (Fine Line)
1998 and agreed. Pretty bad.
>THE CORRUPTOR (New Line Cinema)
One of my honorable mentions for 1999. Probably just for the fact that the chemistry between
Whalberg and Fat was great. I also found the story to include a couple of great twists and
altogether a pretty well put together flick. Can't say I liked 'The Chamber' (or any Grisham
crap, to tell you the truth) or 'Fear', but I liked the whole mood of this film. Chow Yun Fat is
the coolest person on the planet and is sorely underrated in this country. I guess my feelings of
'The Replacement Killers' was on par with your of 'The Corruptor'.
>HAPPY, TX (Miramax)
Oh, come on, I don't see what everone has against this film. Steve Zahn is a comic genius showing
us he was no fluke in 'Out Of Sight'. The story was a bit cliched and goofy, but still had some
very funny lines and did I mention Steve Zahn is a comic genius?
--
**Best of 1999**
Album: Built To Spill - Keep It Like A Secret
Movie: Magnolia
Television: Simpsons and Law & Order (Still)
Book: Left Behind (Part one in an 11 volume fictionalized account of the end of the world
according to Revelations)
Sandwich Slim
worse than all of those movies put together.
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