You know it was a bad year in movies when Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close only clocks in at #5 on the top ten worst movies. Why, it's the annual Vulture Critics' Poll! (Warning: you can probably guess what's chosen as the absolute worst movie of 2011. HINT: Worse than Transformers!) All the ballots are here, and when you read them, you wonder how the terrible, awful, boring War Horse didn't make it into the top ten. One awesome thing about the ballots: the New York Times' Nathan Lee only put down one movie: Midnight in Paris. Now that's awesome. (Still: super-mad at Alynda Wheat for putting Bad Teacher on her list. That movie was extremely amusing and incredibly gross!)
Monday, January 23, 2012
17
Could we talk about Armond White?
With his Better-Than list and now his ballot for this, he's coming off unreasonably reasonable as of late. I'm worried.
@Murgatroid Meta-trolling. By acting sincerely he's confusing and angering the people who thought he would never do so.
@Murgatroid Okay good, I thought there was something wrong with me! Agreeing with Armond White? Alright, I can take these hats off my feet and stop letting this hamburger eat me now.
Over Thanksgiving, I told my family that if I hadn't quit my job last year I'd have had to work on Jack and Jill. Usually when I tell this anecdote I get gasps of sympathy and understanding. This time, my aunt said "That movie looked funny! Was it any good?" and my head fell off and rolled down the stairs.
Oof; I worked on two of those movies. Yay me!
Spoiler alert: The dance you never see in "Sucker Punch" is the Elaine dance from "Seinfeld."
Adam Sandler sews up #1 and #2. Shocker.
@Pop Socket
And beat Human Centipede 2, as well. Now that's an accomplishment.
Did the critics who wrote in Bridesmaids only see five movies this year?
Oh, look at my clever one-liners and contrarian point of view! This isn't the worst of the worst movie lists, but it's up there!
(Seriously, Sucker Punch the "strongest feminist film to ever come out of Hollywood"!?!?!?!)
So I guess this is the wrong venue to say I enjoyed Contagion?
Look at you on the internet with Mark Kermode! Congratulations!
And thanks for putting in Contagion. Most boring civics lesson ever.
I'm not sure why anyone goes to an Adam Sandler movie thinking it won't suck?
One significant recurring plaint among some of the stranger picks is that, in comedies, the characters are doing (as Owen Glieberman puts it, re: Carnage) "ridiculously implausible things." Ha ha, I prefer comedies where ridiculous implausible things are left where they belong: outside the Cinema.
I loved Bad Teacher too.
Waoh, actually, can we talk about The New York Times' Charles Taylor picking Bridesmaids:
"Ugly in both technique and spirit. For this to be hailed as a breakthrough for women in a year when the most ambitious American film, Sucker Punch, also the strongest feminist film to ever come out of Hollywood, was condemned as sexist suggests that film critics have collectively lost their fucking minds."
I'm not sure what he misunderstood more: the fact that, as hyperbolic as it sometimes was, must of us understand Bridesmaids as more of a box office milestone for female-fronted comedies than a "breakthrough for women" or the very concept of feminism.
@semiserious or we could just talk about how Bucky Larson walked away with a single mention. I don't know how "girls doing a bit of crude humors" got Bridesmaids two votes, which both evoked some sort of defeat of feminism, and yet "boys doing extremely crude and incredibly boring 'humor'" got only one vote. That tells you all you need to know about how male film critics view feminism, doesn't it?