Cinematic Shame: The Worst of 2007

Awards Page Index * OSCAR coverage here
2007 Cinematic Hall of Shame
Nathaniel R December 29th
(Pg 1 -Avoided & The Overrated / Pg 2 -Hall of Shame)

Dishonors Go Out to...

Worst
Supporting Actress
sucking from the sidelines

A lot of people hated Kirsten Dunst 's mopey singing Mary Jane in Spider-Man 3 but can you blame Kiki for looking bored. That storyline ...again? We'd already covered it for 5 hours

Three women who aren't giving much of anything in roles that could have used a little of something (whoa, I'm specific!) were big eyed beauty Alexandra Maria Lara in Control, Abbie Cornish in Elizabeth the Golden Age and hot mechanic chick in Transformers but none were bad so much as unfulfilling. Beth Grant tried too hard in No Country For Old Men selling sketch comedy rather than the more lived in style favored by the lesser known bit players. And finally I could name Jessica Biel for the embarrassingNext but she didn't once seem distracted by Cage's "hair" and didn't flinch from bedding him so, um, she probably was acting

the nominee is...
Susan Sarandon, Enchanted
And the Loser is...
"Lynette", Georgia Rules

Felicity Huffman
Georgia

Susan Sarandon
Enchanted

Georgia Rule is a mess of disparate tones but she doesn't match even one of them. Lohan and Fonda survive and sometimes engage with effortless star mojo. Felicity
A-C-T-S like she's in some serious tragic drama. Blech

Love the Sarandon but she doesn't understand evil witch stylization at all. Watch Anjelica Huston, Miranda Richardson, Margaret Hamilton, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sigourney Weaver, etc...

Watch and learn

Worst Actor
unfortunate lead performance of the year

There's no point in even mentioning other nominees. Truly. There were underperformers in the films I saw this year, people who couldn't quite reach what the film around them was going for but few outright bad performances.

This award goes --no contest -- to Nicolas Cage in Next. He's long since abandoned his once impressive gift but his work in Next is from the "Joey Tribiano" school of acting. When he would "show" psychic powers it looked more like constipation than concentration. And that's just scratching the surface of the things that are wrong here. It's not his fault that the rug looks terrible but honestly. If you're bald, why go for the below the ears 'do? Not flattering. Totally distracting. He shares this "award" with the hair and makeup people.

Worst Supporting Actor
sucking from the sidelines

I thought about including Rainn Wilson (Office Space) who started Juno with such an off key sitcom note but the movie recovered. It would be a petty exaggeration to include Chris Evans but I'm still mad at him for phoning in the Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer performance since he's the only thing that kept me going through the first one.

Then there's Quentin Tarantino in Planet Terror, the only performer who didn't know what the hell he was doing in that demented Robert Rodriguez romp. I get why QT puts up with himself in his own movies but why would any other director, even a friend, let him stink up their joint? In the end though, bitching about Tarantino's acting is so '90s so...

The nominees are:
Him. Again! Seriously?, 30 Days of Night
Yummy/Vacant, Evening

And the Loser is...
Hammy McHammerson, Stardust
just stop

Robert DeNiro
Stardust

Danny Huston
30 Days of Night

Patrick Wilson
Evening

Having too much fun with the mincing. It's one thing to enjoy oneself. It's another to wink with such abandon that you take the audience out of the movie with your self-congratulatory hamming

He knows where the bodies are buried in Hollywood. He has catalogued the skeletons in all the closets. Isn't that the only explanation for his ubiquity?

I've been a Wilson groupie but even his indisputable classic Hollywood handsomeness can't overcome this nothing turn. He was so strong in Little Children. How come he can't even sell the kissing / seduction scenes this time around?

You know that I wanted to hand this prize twice over to the woman of my dreams (i.e.: nightmares) Hilary Swank for The Reaping and P.S. I Hate You but I sat myself down this year and I said "Nathaniel. No Swank movies for you this year. Be strong" so for all I know she was super in them rather than than superbad.

I also saved myself from Lindsay Lohan's drug induced decision to make I Know Who Killed Me among others. So (gulp) Here we go:

And the Nominees Are...
The Alba, Fantastic 4: Rise of CGI
Claire Danes, Evening and Stardust

And the Loser is...
This hurts me more than it hurts her... Julianne Moore, Next
The continuing talent implosion of one of the (formerly) best in the world has me in monologue hysterics. I've gone all Sally Field in Steel Magnolias, shaking my fists and sobbing...

"Oh God! I am so mad I don't know what to do! I wanna know why! I wanna know why Juli's career is over! I wanna know how the public will ever know how wonderful her gift was! Oh GOD I wanna know why? WHY? Lord, I wish I could understand!

No! No! No! It's not supposed to happen this way! I-I don't think I can take this! I-I don't think I can take this! I-I just wanna hit somebody 'til they feel as bad as I do! I just wanna hit something! I wanna hit it hard!"

Worst Actress
unfortunate lead performances

Jessica Alba
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

Claire Danes
Evening and Stardust

Julianne Moore
Next

If I were in a better mood I might give her points for "most improved" She has added a few extra poses besides folding her arms and pouting. so, um... hooray (?)

Thanks for stretching Jessica.

Next we'll move on to trickier combinations of new facial movements with gestures and something we'll call "subtext"

Don't be afraid!

I am convinced that only wardrobe and dye job(s) separate these two performances. That's a problem since one is a troubled young woman in a period piece and the other is a celestial body in a comic fantasy.

But even if they're different they're both bad: fidgety, mannered, and way too contemporary for either genre

Tough ♥ Time
It's no great shame to not be good at everything. See, 250+ other famous actresses are better at tough chick posturing. Stop it. Play to your strengths while you still have a career.

P.S. A kind man tried to console me with the notion that perhaps you were going all avant- garde and playing the role as Amber Waves might have. Sorry, Amber isn't even this wooden

discuss on the blog

Shame For Everyone!
MISCELLANEOUS STUPIDITY

Why Can't We Fix This? Hot buzz festival films are still losing momentum as distributors sit on them banking on unreliable foreign film Oscar noms

<-- Bad Luck Charm Bryce Dallas Howard = disappointing movies. Spider-Man 3 is but the latest. It's now a foolproof equation, isn't it?

The Pearls Before Swine Award
("Best Performance in a Bad Movie") Hugh Dancy in Evening. Alan Tudyck in Death at a Funeral. Sylvie Testud in La Vie En Rose. Maybe Jodie & Cate in The Brave One and Elizabeth Duh ...but aren't they partially to blame?

Diminishing Returns
Spider-Man franchise. Even before the close of its opening weekend there was already buzz on Spider-Man 4. If you can't quit while you're ahead, at least quit while you're starting to lag behind

Borg Brain
Say you're a casting director and you need a small role filled by a stuffy vaguely prickish corporate guy. Does it have to be Dennis O'Hare (A Mighty Heart, Michael Clayton, Charlie Wilson's War, Brothers & Sisters, etc...) every time? I like him but I worry about casting directors and their limited imagination. Do they share a hive like brain?

Most Obnoxious Media Trend
Websites, Entertainment Tonight and even legitimate news sources are still more interested in no-talent party girls and inane reality shows than anybody with any actual talent or any actual entertainment that people will care about in 10 years. Depressing.

Missed Opportunity
Enchanted. It's a cute movie to be sure. It's sometimes quite funny and its got two incredibly game performances from Amy Adams and James Marsden. Coulda been a classic with more finesse and a better screenplay

What's with this poster? This is like the kind of poster I make for the foreign films when I can't find a real one. They paid someone for this Elizabeth poster?

Random indulgent annoyances
The first 1/2 hour of Death Proof

The extra half hour on the end of about 10 major movies

CGI when more traditional makeup/ special effects methods would be far scarier / more magical (I'm talking to you I Am Legend and Stardust)

Make Me Feel It In The TV Set we're supposed to feel for the artist whose work is compromised by the corporate entertainment machine. The problem is that to feel that fall, his show has to seem good in the first place. It didn't so no great loss.

"WE ARE SPARTA!"
Stop shouting. I heard you the first time.

What the F***?
That neighbor family in Margot at the Wedding? It's like another movie entirely

SLOW DOWN!
The whole joy of Transformer toys was marveling at how their parts twisted unfolded and turned to form something else entirely. In the movie its more like high speed morphing --one thing was never secretly the other. Kinda defeats the point.

Misleading Marketing
It's so common that I'm still surprised when audiences are dumb enough to be shocked by what they're seeing in the theater: Sweeney Todd is a musical? Oh God No! Bug is a psychological drama?

Worst Villain
gaseous cosmic clouds are not threatening ... even if they're named Galactus. (Fantastic 4) Zzzzzzzz. I also hate the rule breaking plot point of the one zombie that is sentient and vengeful that 28 Weeks Later uses. Oh, yes, and he's also invulnerable because that's how villains are in horror movies.

I just lost my appetite Sweeney Todd proudly has the "worst pies in London" but what have they got on Waitress's pastries? Not much. Those were less appetizing than the site of hundreds of rats in the kitchen in Ratatouille

and finally...
Now Playing at AMC 10 HADES
The screens are tiny, the sound is tinny, the floor is sticky and the movies are horrid.

WORST PICTURES
A Multiplex of Horror
10 Dishonors in Alpha Order
There were (probably) worse movies but these were the dregs of my personal
07 viewing

30 Days of Night -Take one unkillable concept: vampires ravaging a town where the sun doesn't rise. Then kill it. Turns out the concept isn't strong enough to survive lame direction with no action sense, gore instead of scares, and sleepy actors. A missed opportunity (putting it mildly)

300 -Boneheaded. Boring. Butch. BUT NOT GAY!

The Brave One -Jodie continues to owe us [review]

Death at a Funeral - Stale humor, overly simple characterizations and filmmaking as mopey as Matthew McFayden's grieving expressions [more]

Evening -If someone like me (an unrepentant lover of actresses) hates this movie, I can't imagine how tough a sit it is for others. [review]

Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer -Second time around: a little less cheap looking, still tacky, not as fun.

The Living and the Dead -Insufferable art film. 83 minutes that stretch out like they're 183.

Next -Not just bad but 'seal the area' terrible. Possibly the dumbest / worst movie of the decade (excluding the Wayan Bros filmography of course)

La Vie En Rose -I really . movie this do hate . I [review]

Waitress -The most insensitive thing you'll possibly ever hear me say: If someone dies tragically, it does not mean they were good at making movies. This movie looks like crap (what the f*** is with the awful lighting and nondescript sets?) and feels like crap (conservative values and unconvincing character arcs) and I didn't want to eat pie when I was finished watching it. And I love pie people!

discuss on the blog

last year

Worst Supporting Actress sucking from the sidelines		A lot of people hated Kirsten Dunst 's mopey singing Mary Jane in Spider-Man 3 but can you blame Kiki for looking bored. That storyline ...again? We'd already covered it for 5 hours Three women who aren't giving much of anything in roles that could have used a little of something (whoa, I'm specific!) were big eyed beauty Alexandra Maria Lara in Control, Abbie Cornish in Elizabeth the Golden Age and hot mechanic chick in Transformers but none were bad so much as unfulfilling. Beth Grant tried too hard in No Country For Old Men selling sketch comedy rather than the more lived in style favored by the lesser known bit players. And finally I could name Jessica Biel for the embarrassingNext but she didn't once seem distracted by Cage's "hair" and didn't flinch from bedding him so, um, she probably was acting the nominee is... Susan Sarandon, Enchanted And the Loser is... "Lynette", Georgia Rules

Felicity Huffman Georgia	Susan Sarandon Enchanted
Georgia Rule is a mess of disparate tones but she doesn't match even one of them. Lohan and Fonda survive and sometimes engage with effortless star mojo. Felicity A-C-T-S like she's in some serious tragic drama. Blech	Love the Sarandon but she doesn't understand evil witch stylization at all. Watch Anjelica Huston, Miranda Richardson, Margaret Hamilton, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sigourney Weaver, etc... Watch and learn

Worst Supporting Actor sucking from the sidelines			I thought about including Rainn Wilson (Office Space) who started Juno with such an off key sitcom note but the movie recovered. It would be a petty exaggeration to include Chris Evans but I'm still mad at him for phoning in the Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer performance since he's the only thing that kept me going through the first one. Then there's Quentin Tarantino in Planet Terror, the only performer who didn't know what the hell he was doing in that demented Robert Rodriguez romp. I get why QT puts up with himself in his own movies but why would any other director, even a friend, let him stink up their joint? In the end though, bitching about Tarantino's acting is so '90s so... The nominees are: Him. Again! Seriously?, 30 Days of Night Yummy/Vacant, Evening And the Loser is... Hammy McHammerson, Stardust just stop

Robert DeNiro Stardust	Danny Huston 30 Days of Night	Patrick Wilson Evening
Having too much fun with the mincing. It's one thing to enjoy oneself. It's another to wink with such abandon that you take the audience out of the movie with your self-congratulatory hamming	He knows where the bodies are buried in Hollywood. He has catalogued the skeletons in all the closets. Isn't that the only explanation for his ubiquity?	I've been a Wilson groupie but even his indisputable classic Hollywood handsomeness can't overcome this nothing turn. He was so strong in Little Children. How come he can't even sell the kissing / seduction scenes this time around?

You know that I wanted to hand this prize twice over to the woman of my dreams (i.e.: nightmares) Hilary Swank for The Reaping and P.S. I Hate You but I sat myself down this year and I said "Nathaniel. No Swank movies for you this year. Be strong" so for all I know she was super in them rather than than superbad. I also saved myself from Lindsay Lohan's drug induced decision to make I Know Who Killed Me among others. So (gulp) Here we go: And the Nominees Are... The Alba, Fantastic 4: Rise of CGI Claire Danes, Evening and Stardust And the Loser is... This hurts me more than it hurts her... Julianne Moore, Next The continuing talent implosion of one of the (formerly) best in the world has me in monologue hysterics. I've gone all Sally Field in Steel Magnolias, shaking my fists and sobbing... "Oh God! I am so mad I don't know what to do! I wanna know why! I wanna know why Juli's career is over! I wanna know how the public will ever know how wonderful her gift was! Oh GOD I wanna know why? WHY? Lord, I wish I could understand! No! No! No! It's not supposed to happen this way! I-I don't think I can take this! I-I don't think I can take this! I-I just wanna hit somebody 'til they feel as bad as I do! I just wanna hit something! I wanna hit it hard!"	Worst Actress unfortunate lead performances

	Jessica Alba Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer	Claire Danes Evening and Stardust	Julianne Moore Next
	If I were in a better mood I might give her points for "most improved" She has added a few extra poses besides folding her arms and pouting. so, um... hooray (?) Thanks for stretching Jessica. Next we'll move on to trickier combinations of new facial movements with gestures and something we'll call "subtext" Don't be afraid!	I am convinced that only wardrobe and dye job(s) separate these two performances. That's a problem since one is a troubled young woman in a period piece and the other is a celestial body in a comic fantasy. But even if they're different they're both bad: fidgety, mannered, and way too contemporary for either genre	Tough ♥ Time It's no great shame to not be good at everything. See, 250+ other famous actresses are better at tough chick posturing. Stop it. Play to your strengths while you still have a career. P.S. A kind man tried to console me with the notion that perhaps you were going all avant- garde and playing the role as Amber Waves might have. Sorry, Amber isn't even this wooden

Why Can't We Fix This? Hot buzz festival films are still losing momentum as distributors sit on them banking on unreliable foreign film Oscar noms		<-- Bad Luck Charm Bryce Dallas Howard = disappointing movies. Spider-Man 3 is but the latest. It's now a foolproof equation, isn't it?	The Pearls Before Swine Award ("Best Performance in a Bad Movie") Hugh Dancy in Evening. Alan Tudyck in Death at a Funeral. Sylvie Testud in La Vie En Rose. Maybe Jodie & Cate in The Brave One and Elizabeth Duh ...but aren't they partially to blame?
Diminishing Returns Spider-Man franchise. Even before the close of its opening weekend there was already buzz on Spider-Man 4. If you can't quit while you're ahead, at least quit while you're starting to lag behind	Borg Brain Say you're a casting director and you need a small role filled by a stuffy vaguely prickish corporate guy. Does it have to be Dennis O'Hare (A Mighty Heart, Michael Clayton, Charlie Wilson's War, Brothers & Sisters, etc...) every time? I like him but I worry about casting directors and their limited imagination. Do they share a hive like brain?		Most Obnoxious Media Trend Websites, Entertainment Tonight and even legitimate news sources are still more interested in no-talent party girls and inane reality shows than anybody with any actual talent or any actual entertainment that people will care about in 10 years. Depressing.	Missed Opportunity Enchanted. It's a cute movie to be sure. It's sometimes quite funny and its got two incredibly game performances from Amy Adams and James Marsden. Coulda been a classic with more finesse and a better screenplay
		What's with this poster? This is like the kind of poster I make for the foreign films when I can't find a real one. They paid someone for this Elizabeth poster?
Random indulgent annoyances The first 1/2 hour of Death Proof The extra half hour on the end of about 10 major movies CGI when more traditional makeup/ special effects methods would be far scarier / more magical (I'm talking to you I Am Legend and Stardust)	Make Me Feel It In The TV Set we're supposed to feel for the artist whose work is compromised by the corporate entertainment machine. The problem is that to feel that fall, his show has to seem good in the first place. It didn't so no great loss.			"WE ARE SPARTA!" Stop shouting. I heard you the first time.
	What the F?* That neighbor family in Margot at the Wedding? It's like another movie entirely		SLOW DOWN! The whole joy of Transformer toys was marveling at how their parts twisted unfolded and turned to form something else entirely. In the movie its more like high speed morphing --one thing was never secretly the other. Kinda defeats the point.
Misleading Marketing It's so common that I'm still surprised when audiences are dumb enough to be shocked by what they're seeing in the theater: Sweeney Todd is a musical? Oh God No! Bug is a psychological drama?		Worst Villain gaseous cosmic clouds are not threatening ... even if they're named Galactus. (Fantastic 4) Zzzzzzzz. I also hate the rule breaking plot point of the one zombie that is sentient and vengeful that 28 Weeks Later uses. Oh, yes, and he's also invulnerable because that's how villains are in horror movies.		I just lost my appetite Sweeney Todd proudly has the "worst pies in London" but what have they got on Waitress's pastries? Not much. Those were less appetizing than the site of hundreds of rats in the kitchen in Ratatouille

Worst Actor unfortunate lead performance of the year
There's no point in even mentioning other nominees. Truly. There were underperformers in the films I saw this year, people who couldn't quite reach what the film around them was going for but few outright bad performances. This award goes --no contest -- to Nicolas Cage in Next. He's long since abandoned his once impressive gift but his work in Next is from the "Joey Tribiano" school of acting. When he would "show" psychic powers it looked more like constipation than concentration. And that's just scratching the surface of the things that are wrong here. It's not his fault that the rug looks terrible but honestly. If you're bald, why go for the below the ears 'do? Not flattering. Totally distracting. He shares this "award" with the hair and makeup people.

WORST PICTURES A Multiplex of Horror 10 Dishonors in Alpha Order There were (probably) worse movies but these were the dregs of my personal 07 viewing
		*30 Days of Night* -Take one unkillable concept: vampires ravaging a town where the sun doesn't rise. Then kill it. Turns out the concept isn't strong enough to survive lame direction with no action sense, gore instead of scares, and sleepy actors. A missed opportunity (putting it mildly) 300 -Boneheaded. Boring. Butch. BUT NOT GAY! The Brave One -Jodie continues to owe us [review] Death at a Funeral - Stale humor, overly simple characterizations and filmmaking as mopey as Matthew McFayden's grieving expressions [more] *Evening* -If someone like me (an unrepentant lover of actresses) hates this movie, I can't imagine how tough a sit it is for others. [review] Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer -Second time around: a little less cheap looking, still tacky, not as fun. The Living and the Dead -Insufferable art film. 83 minutes that stretch out like they're 183. Next -Not just bad but 'seal the area' terrible. Possibly the dumbest / worst movie of the decade (excluding the Wayan Bros filmography of course) La Vie En Rose -I really . movie this do hate . I [review] Waitress -The most insensitive thing you'll possibly ever hear me say: If someone dies tragically, it does not mean they were good at making movies. This movie looks like crap (what the f*** is with the awful lighting and nondescript sets?) and feels like crap (conservative values and unconvincing character arcs) and I didn't want to eat pie when I was finished watching it. And I love pie people!