Many film aficionados and film critics will certainly being making their lists and so I submit mine:
1. The Spy Next Door
Jackie Chan embarrasses himself as a spy who hides among a suburban family. For a very funny man, this film is very often not. It is heavy handed and extremely predictable. We were not without a good Jackie Chan vehicle however this year, The Karate Kid. I’m not fond of remakes or thinking of Jackie Chan as old but this film did a more than affable job and is a far superior film to The Spy Next Door.
2. I Spit on Your Grave
Thankfully this film survived very little time in the theaters. The plot of this remake is simple (Yes, it a remake – why it was needed to be done I don’t know. The other is considered a considerable Turkey. It is even included the Medved Brothers book, The Golden Turkey Awards.). A woman is violently raped by a group on men and in the other half of the movie she spends the whole time taking revenge by torturing and disemboweling the men. Unlike other films like A Nightmare on Elm Street, Rob Zombie’s Halloween, and Friday the 13th, this has no improved production values and gives us no new information. As said earlier, why it was remade, I have no clue.
3. Tooth Fairy
Let’s see. My name is the Rock and my wrestling career is over. I’m not content to be an action star. I want to be more family friendly. My remake of Return to Witch Mountain wasn’t that successful, so I thought I’d try again with this comedy which takes my whole butch image and throws it to the wind while I embarrassment myself in tights and a white tutu in a immature and predictable comedy. Oh, it has some good points including a cameo by Billy Crystal but I figure if Vin Diesel can embarrassment himself with a family comedy (The Pacifier) why shouldn’t I?
4. Jackass 3-D
What frustrates me most is not the grossness or tastlessness of the film. If you have any familiarity with the previous two films or their MTV Series, Jackass, the immature and gross antics is not a shock or a surprise (thought I admit there were times I wanted to join the people on screen throwing up and the bits with the gorilla suit and the large hand were very funny). What kills me the most is that Johnny Knoxville and company can not admit which is obvious to me. They spend the entire film explaining how straight they are and obsess about what they can shove up each others’ butts and teasing and straining each others’ cocks. Why can’t they just admit they are a group of homosexuals who like BDSM (especially pain, electricity, scat, water sports and beating each other)? It seems that Steve-O had done an admirable job with his chemical dependency recovery, maybe the step is to comes to terms with his and the others’ sexuality.
5. Percy Jackson and The Olympians: The Lightning Thief
Leave Clash of the Titans’ remake alone. This is far stupider. Poseidon’s son has to defeat Olympic Gods run amuck. This was filmed as a successor to Harry Potter being also a book series. Try again.
6. The Last Airbender
M. Night Shyamalan is a great director but this attempt at recreating the successful Nickelodeon series proves that not everything in animation looks as credible in live action.
7. Piranha 3-D
(Cue-Jaws theme). Christopher Lloyd discovers an extinct form of Piranha as a part of the underwater collapses. I can’t decry this movie too much. It is destined to be in the claws of Elvira or the Son of Svengoolie. If you cheer when Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers kill dumb teenagers, then you’ll love this movie. A pack of roaming piranhas first bite a victim and then devours them whole. It is fun to watch them eat their way through one dumb moron to another in this remake of the film Piranha which after was only ripped off from Jaws itself.
8. Birdemic
Horror on a low budget is not always a bad thing – Blair Witch Project, Feast, and Paranormal Activity are all brilliant examples. This is far from those films. The birds look like they are either drawn on, hanging from posts, or chroma keyed in. This is obviously someone’s first attempt, maybe even an elementary or high schooler’s attempt, at filmmaking. This tenth rate version of Hitchcock’s The Birds is hilarious because of how bad it is. It is also very destined to find its way to Son of Svengoolie and Elvira who will have a good time noting this film is for the for the birds no matter how fake they are. Oh, where is Mystery Science 3000 when we need it?
9. Nutcracker 3-D (aka “ Nutcracker -The Curse of The Rat King”)
(No! Don’t cue the Tchaikovsky!) After all this film has very little to do with the traditional ballet. (Oh, the waste of talent including lyricist Tim Rice, Elle Fanning, John Turturro, Richard E. Grant, and Nathan Lane as Albert Einstein – yes that Albert Einstein.) In the best Michael Cimino and Kevin Costner tradition that proves a great director (The Deer Hunter and Dances With Wolves) can go oh so wrong (Heaven’s Gate and Waterworld and The Postman), here comes Nutcracker 3-D. Directed by Andrey Konchalovsky whose previous films include the TV versions of The Lion In Winter and The Odyssey and big screen films such as Tango and Cash and Runaway Train, this big budget flop stars John Turturro as the Rat King with his mother (played by Frances de la Tour) trying to take over the human world only to be stopped by a young prince who gets turned into a nutcracker only to be turned human again by a young girl (Elle Fanning). If you want an adaptation of a classic that has little or almost nothing to do with its original but is at least watchable and a lot more fun, try the Jack Black version of Gulliver’s Travels. (Personally, I’ll wait. Jack Black was born to be Kung Fu Panda and a second film of that arrives this Summer.)
10. The Human Centipede - First Sequence
Vanessa Williams might “Save The Best for Last” (BTW hasn’t she been great on Desperate Housewives) but I saved the worst for last. This film even gives gorno movies a bad name. (Damn you, Eli Roth and Quentin Tarantino. Where are you when we need you? Hostel 3, please?) The Human Centipede is directed by Tom Six (a director from the Netherlands) and starring Dieter Laser as Dr. Heiter, a retired surgeon who kidnaps two pretty but ditsy American girls whose car breaks down by his house and laboratory in Germany only find themselves trapped and part of a diabolical plan to connect people by cutting their knee muscles and attaching them via their gastric systems. By doing so, he plans to bring to life his sick lifetime fantasy, a human centipede. This is only the first part of this movie. The Final Sequence is coming in 2011. By the time, Mr. Six is done who knows how disgusting this may end up. (BTW, this has already won awards – the year’s worst movie at the 2010 Scream Awards but also Most Memorable Mutilation. My prediction is that this or Nutcracker 3-D will win hands down at the Razzie Awards as “Worst Movie of the Year.”
