LEFTOVER TURKEY
We lambaste the year's least appetizing films.

Contributors: Kristen Ashley, Mark Ashley, Michael Buck,
Melissa B. Cummings, Chris Dashiell, Anne Gilbert,
Thor Klippert, Don Larsson, Ron Leming, Ed Owens,
Shari L. Rosenblum, Myron Santos, Howard Schumann,
Sasha Stone, and Josh Timmermann.

The Passion of the Christ
Apparently dismayed by the Christian will to charity, Mel Gibson put up his own money to beat ploughshares into swords, slicing and dicing all who would oppose the religious righteous, and serving them up with a spice of vengeance bordering on the psychopathic. A pornographic delectation in torn flesh and lascivious bloodletting, it is fire and brimstone aimed to stir the merciful by religion into murderous frenzy.
-- Shari L. Rosenblum

If it was necessary to have a fundamentalist snuff film made, it seems only fair that the speaking roles should have been cast with the actual evangelical preachers who've been flogging the poor fella for years.
-- Michael Buck

It’s a shame that criticism and praise for this one fell so strictly along faith lines. If the film had been about a less divisive topic, its shortcomings would be far more evident. A histrionic, brutal piece of self-indulgence, Passion has little going for it save its staunch beliefs. It may well be one of the most popular and widely-seen sermons ever mounted, but as far as cinema goes, it’s far too prejudiced and narcissistic to be compelling.
-- Anne Gilbert

...and the bashin', and the smashin', and the lashin', and the thrashin'. You'd think no one ever got crucified before.
-- Thor Klippert

Heavy handed, emotionally draining, and lacking in spiritual feeling.
-- Howard Schumann

As a sustained nightmare vision, the film is legitimately frightening. It should be noted that, from Peter's slow-mo ear-slashing to the depiction of Satan as a lurking bald woman, this is one seriously fucking strange movie. But it seems to me that Gibson is using the ol' ultra-violence largely as a very dubious means to compensate for the genuine dramatic weight that his film sorely lacks. The foundation of the Christ myth is that Jesus was both human and divine, but the only aspect of Christ's humanity that Gibson bothers to explore is his very evident ability to feel physical pain.
-- Josh Timmermann

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
The edge of reason? They've long since passed the edge and fucked reason right up the ass. This movie was an abomination. The book, well, the book was reasonable (just), and funny (still) and Bridget was as likable, nay, as adorable as ever with the usual, acceptable neuroses screwing with her life. The movie pissed all over the book. The whole point of Bridget is that she's every girl -- she isn't perfect but she's pretty magnificent just the same. In the movie, she's not only not perfect, she's unacceptable. She's an idiot and entirely useless. I'm all for suspension of disbelief, but there is no Mark Darcy in this world or any other (including Hollywood) that would even tolerate five seconds of that woman (the better-living-through-chemistry-poofy-lipped, goggle-eyed stare -- every word, every expression, every action absolutely vile -- and that yellow dress, oh dear lord in heaven, it makes my skin crawl).

I mean, women can have a belly or an ass or a puffy face and be delightful. They can be clumsy or commit (even frequent) faux pas and be a helluva good time. They can often be clueless, have more knowledge of pop culture than ancient history, and still be interesting. They can have a not-so-stellar fashion sense and an inability to do anything with hopeless hair and still be attractive. (Please see the first film for evidence of all the above -- or, come and meet me or most of my friends.) This film tore Bridget down, stripped her of all the things we hold most precious -- more precious than any concave stomach or exceptional, well-turned-out entrance -- the fact that not in spite of but because of our flaws, we're wonderful.

A total disaster of a film and everyone involved should be ashamed and even apologize publicly for destroying all things Bridget in one fell swoop.
-- Kristen Ashley

The Polar Express
Whose dumb idea was it to have characters with zombie features in a kids movie? Not only that, but Bob Zemeckis managed to squeeze any ounce of quality the book had (which was, frankly, not much to begin with) and make what amounts to one of those hyper youngsters who makes you come into his room and see this cool new computer game - over and over and over. While some of the scenes are breathtaking, they don't make up for what should have been a scary, spooky ghost story, not an animated children's flick. The kids should have, at the very least, been given coats and hats to wear.
-- Sasha Stone

Something's Gotta Give
I agree. Something's gotta give. Jack Nicholson has got to realize that he's not as talented as people make him think he is. He's gotta wake up, smell the Viagra, realize he's past it, and retire to some tiny island in the Pacific. Maybe then we could watch an award ceremony without his smug sunglasses shark grin bloody bastard receding hairline face plastered over everything. However, I would still like to see more of Diane Keaton.
-- Mark Ashley

The Village
More supporting evidence that The Sixth Sense was a fluke, M. Night Shyamalan's latest gimmick film is so tediously paced most will have lapsed into a coma long before the big surprise. You would have to be a complete twit to accept the film's premise or its twist (you can guess it from the trailer alone, if you're good, and it's not even remotely as clever as M. Night seems to think it is), and you can't swing a yellow rain slicker without hitting plotholes galore.
-- Ed Owens

It’s unfortunate when a director becomes so dependent on his own self-imposed devices that it becomes a crutch. But just because he's a sad shell of his former glory is no reason for M. Night Shyamalan to sic this monotonous, predictable, poorly-conceived piece of dreck on the moviegoing audience. It’s bad when the “twist” is guessable from the previews; it’s worse when you just can’t bring yourself to care.
-- Anne Gilbert

Could someone please tell M. Night that you don't have to stick a Twilight Zone-style trick ending onto every friggin' movie you make?
-- Chris Dashiell

The Stepford Wives
The sober-toned comic dystopia of Ira Levin's novel and Bryan Forbes's 1975 film adapatation is gutted and left for dead in the smug been-there done-that remake brought to us by Frank Oz. Never mind that the film seems to find the Levin/Forbes concepts of suburban conformity, feminist consciousness, and marital communications trifling problems already solved -- it sadly doesn't even have a handle on its own conceptualizations. Are we talking implants or robotic replacements? And what the hell did the dog do to deserve that? In the end, the haunting air of the original satire is reduced to an exercise in nostalgic male-bashing (they're so stupid and schleppy; isn't that hi-larious!). A loathesomely unfunny revenge fantasy: emasculation in pretty pastels.
-- Shari L. Rosenblum

Dogville
There are some interesting facets to Lars von Trier’s smugly moralistic Our Town saga: for instance, the way he makes use of his blank stage of a set, or the way he accesses a distorted version of collective nostalgia. But all of that is just kicked to the curb when faced with the staggering depths of the misogyny and sadism presented in the well-intentioned small town of faux America. If it were just the way that the town inexorably, and gleefully, subjugates Nicole Kidman’s Grace, it would be bad enough. But even more revolting is how willing she is to accept her treatment, how she seems to somehow believe that she deserves her degradation and abuse. It’s thoroughly unappealing on its own, but wrapped up in a trite and superior castigation of America? Thanks, but no.
-- Anne Gilbert

I didn't see the entire film, so I can't really offer an opinion. I had to go to the bathroom and may have missed a couple of rapes.
-- Thor Klippert

If you're going to have John Hurt explain everything in a supercilious voice-over narration, it had better be a well-written supercilious voice-over narration. And if you're going to employ an abstract, theatrical style, then you'd better not combine it with cinema-verité naturalism. Dogville is a hopeless mishmash of clashing intentions and poorly formed ideas. Kidman strives valiantly, but nothing can save this flick from itself.
-- Chris Dashiell

13 Going On 30
I thought Hollywood was over this whole Big concept -- if Tom Hanks has done it and Dudley Moore has done it and frickin' Judge Reinhold has done it, it's been DONE! And this only proved that notion to be true. Also, I do not understand the attraction of Jennifer Garner. She screams "average" to me, and this film didn't do much for that impression.
-- Kristen Ashley

We Don't Live Here Anymore
It might seem pointless to take down a film that was made on a shoestring and was clearly a labor of love but We Don't Live Here Anymore is exactly the kind of film that makes me want to never go to movies anymore. My experience should have been called, "We don't go to movies anymore and here's why." Overwrought acting -- characters who seemed pointless in any other genre save for perhaps a short story long since buried in a literary anthology and dug up by ambitious young writers who feel the need to impress their sexy professor who they will then have sex with and ruin their academic career. Poor Laura Dern -- a contorted face, a skeletal frame. And Naomi Watts -- she is in too many films right now and it's starting to get to me.
-- Sasha Stone

Team America: World Police
Perhaps Trey "Giant Douche" Parker and Matt "Turd Sandwich" Stone's next politically conflicted project can be a remake of The Passion of the Christ as a film supporting both gay marriage and the death penalty.
-- Michael Buck

The Motorcycle Diaries
This film depicts the early years of Cuban Marxist revolutionary hero Ernesto "Ché" Guevara (Gale García Bernal) and the process that led him to give up a promising medical career to become a radical activist. Directed by Brazilian Walter Salles, the film shows how an 8,000-mile road trip with his friend Alberto Granada (Rodrigo De la Serna) across South America in 1952 on a 1939 Norton motorcycle led to Guevara's transformation. The political implications are clear, but Salles touches on issues of class-consciousness and injustice only from a safe distance. Although the film endorses idealism in a world grown cynical, it offers its radicalism as an entertaining road trip, a cinematic T-shirt for comfortable middle class audiences that ignores such untidy adjuncts of social upheaval as internment camps, prisoners shot on sight, and bloodlust against real or perceived enemies.

Nothing is said about conditions in present day Latin America, where the richest 10 percent account for 35 percent of total earnings, where 43 percent of the population live below the poverty line, and where 20 million people are poorer today than they were in 1997. The Motorcycle Diaries preserves the symbol while overlooking the man, simplistically presenting only the sentimental side of a multi-faceted personality. If we want insight into who Ché Guevara was, what drove him, and what demons caused him to proclaim: "Hatred as an element of struggle, unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine," we will have to look elsewhere.
-- Howard Schumann

The Department of Redundancy Department
by Ed Owens

Myth-or-miss dept: Alexander and King Arthur
Oliver Stone and Antoine Fuqua took two of the most legendary kings in history and made two of the most legendary bores of the year. Fuqua's shaky "horseback" cam showed more signs of life than the any of the actors involved, even during some of the more spectacular battle scenes, while Stone's boy-toy portrayal of Alexander skirts any truly provocative issues in favor of a bland recital of a middle schooler's mediocre history fair project.

Like-another-hole-in-the-head dept:
SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2 and The Whole Ten Yards
As if the originals weren't bad enough, these completely unnecessary sequels take everything that was wrong with their predecessors and magnify it tenfold, with not even half a brain between them. Apparently seeking to fill the void left by the eventual (and none-too-soon) demise of the Look Who's Talking franchise, Super Babies: Baby Geniuses 2 manages to insult nearly every demographic while hammering another nail in the coffin of Jon Voight's career (does he really still need a paycheck this badly?). The Whole Ten Yards hangs its hat on the non-existent chemistry between Bruce Willis (badly spoofing his tough guy image from a string of 90s films) and Matthew Perry, whose awkward (and nonstop) pratfalls make Jerry Lewis look graceful.

Sermons-of-the-shrill dept: The Passion of the Christ and Fahrenheit 9/11
Gibson's pornographic paean to all things Christian is so completely lacking in joy or praise that Christ isn't the only one bludgeoned to death by this messianic snuff film's relentless and blood-drenched violence, while Moore's cinematic rage against the machine is equally abusive in its streaming invective and bitter manipulations. Both films choose preaching to the converted over even a rudimentary attempt at persuasion, belying a smug sense of self-satisfaction that neither film earns.

Shooting-fish-in-a-barrel dept: Catwoman and Garfield: the Movie
Halle Berry tarnished the already sullied name of the Oscars by appearing in Catwoman, a bizarre circle of hell that barely looked good on paper, while director Pitof decided that standard close-ups are apparently not close enough, shooting his actors so close that the camera moves incessantly trying to keep up with every nod. Meanwhile, if Garfield succeeds at nothing else, it manages to lull you into the false belief that it can't get much worse, moments before Bill Murray launches into a maudlin musical number bemoaning the arrival of Odi -- "New Dog State of Mind" -- the film's big grab at the elusive ring of cleverness.

Ironically-titled-dept: The Forgotten, The Punisher, and The Terminal
What starts off as a potentially intriguing psychological thriller quickly degenerates into an X-Files reject as Julianne Moore searches for her son and her self-respect in The Forgotten, while Jonathan Hensleigh's stab at capturing the Marvel Comics character of The Punisher on film is largely derailed by some of the worst dialogue this year, coupled with a grating performance from John Travolta -- enough to make me long for the halcyon days of the original film with Dolph Lundgren. On the other hand, the latest self-congratulatory collaboration of Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks gives contrivance a bad name and all but defines superfluous in the form of Catherine Zeta-Jones -- actually waiting in an airport has never seemed so inviting.

EVIL MOVIE OF THE YEAR
The Passion of the Christ
Mel Gibson has taken the story of the Passion from the Gospels, added quite a few additional details derived from the ravings of an 18th-century antisemitic nun, and directed it in the style of a brain-dead action film. All the Jews except Jesus and his followers are coarse anti-Jewish stereotypes. Gibson goes out of his way, on the other hand, to show the Romans in a good light. He's couched the old blood libel as subtly as he could, and thousands of idiots have declared that, no no no, the film is not antisemitic, just so you won't think you're seeing what you're actually seeing. It's a little thing called denial, folks.

The film pretends to represent the truth of one of the world's great religions, while conveying nothing whatsoever about the human soul's relation to God. It only presents the torture and death of its cult-hero as a kind of necessary cosmic historical event, as if to say: "The great almighty Lord suffered all this, so you should accept suffering as your lot also." This is a message of resentment in the guise of religion -- judgment and condemnation, not forgiveness. If I had to classifly the true philosophy behnid The Passion of the Christ, I would say it was Satanic. There is no good news here, no transformation. We are in the realm of superstition, mystery, and authority, huddling in the darkness of bigotry and self-righteousness. And lest you think that watching an actor playing "the Savior" being whipped to a bloody pulp for two hours would inspire compassion, I need to point out that many of the same audience members who were so powerfully moved by this film, overcome with emotion at watching the torture of Jesus on the screen, went into the voting booth in November and pulled the lever for our Torturer-in-Chief.
-- Chris Dashiell

Wimbledon
I have a special dislike of disastrous romantic films, and this could be up there with the worst. The production was completely inept. First and foremost, your leads have got to have chemistry. There was none, zip, nada. Paul Bettany, I am thinking, may have potential, and Kirsten Dunst has proven that she does, but together they were crap. Surrounded by a story and secondary characters that were poorly realized, the only things this had going for it were the tennis sequences.
-- Kristen Ashley

Spring, Summer, Fall,
Winter...and Spring
Films that leave me feeling spiritually uplifted are often subtle and understated in their evocation of the transcendence of the human spirit. On the other hand, those that "try" to impress us about how spiritual they are often fail to achieve their desired goal. Such is the case here. South Korean director Kim Ki-duk works hard at conveying a spiritual experience, but the film comes across as labored and self-conscious. While the shots are beautifully composed, the film offers little more than pre-packaged enlightenment, reiterating the accepted clichés about the long and painful process, the uphill battle full of struggle and effort, and so forth. In addition, the picture strikes me as inauthentic. It is simply not credible to me that a boy raised from birth in the Buddhist tradition would be capable of such cruelty, to animals and to other human beings as well. Well, if enlightenment means to lighten up, the best medicine for this sort of hokum is to laugh gently. After all, this too will pass.
-- Howard Schumann

Garden State
If you were to ask a hundred viewers to list five adjectives that best described this movie, I bet "quirky" and "sweet" would appear on 80% or so's shortlists. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the state of the American "indie" in 2004: "sweet" and "quirky," nothing more, nothing less. Whether these are virtues or backhanded compliments I'll leave up to you to decide...
-- Josh Timmermann

Intimate Strangers
In this paean to hyperpretentious pseudo-eroticism. a woman ostensibly seeking marriage counseling "accidentally" strays into the office of a lonely tax attorney and confides her problems to him. Confusion ensues. With twists and turns and suggestion made sexual by the camera's eye, it appeals (to those who claim it appealing) because it seems to tease, in Gallic relief: a gesture, a look, the mystery of the half-explored moment. But it grates because there is no thread, no purpose, no conclusion to be drawn. Patrice Leconte, whose Man on the Train captured the symbiosis of the oddly coupled so beautifully, here settles for the supposed allure of Sandrine Bonnaire and the artful sadness of Fabrice Luchini to take the place of an actual idea. It is at best a well-done waste of time.
-- Shari L. Rosenblum

SHORT TAKES

The Brown Bunny: Gives solipsism a bad name -- Chris Dashiell

Timeline: You know how bands of explorers in Michael Crichton stories always suffer one fatality before the adventure even begins? More would have been better this time around. Say, twelve. -- Thor Klippert

Troy: Wolfgang Petersen should have stuck to German submarine films. Come to think of it, maybe he would have done better just concentrating on the Greeks inside the wooden horse waiting until it was time to get out. -- Mark Ashley

Exorcist: The Beginning: You knew it would be bad, but it's not even fun bad. Not even in parts. -- Myron Santos

Alfie and The Stepford Wives: These retrospective retreads revise the characters/narratives of their respective originals in ways that make me wonder if the filmmakers have even seen them.
-- Ed Owens

She Hate Me: And with good reason. -- Chris Dashiell

Napoleon Dynamite: Yes, I have curly hair and glasses. That makes me funny. Laugh away.
-- Thor Klippert

Surviving Christmas and Christmas with the Kranks: Why does Hollywood hate Christmas so? Did Christmas not bring Ugg boots or the Roomba it really wanted, so it made Christmas all fascist?
-- Anne Gilbert

Van Helsing: I don't have the heart to skewer this movie as it richly deserves because it was such rubbish. -- Kristen Ashley

I, Robot: I, Idiot -- for buying a ticket to see this loud, overwrought SF action flick because I heard that it might actually have some ideas in its prefabricated brain. -- Chris Dashiell

The Forgotten: In this tale of a mother who mourns for a child unremembered by her husband or her neighbors, all the possibly interesting or thought-provoking permutations are sacrificed for an amateur stab at X-Files weirdness, filtered through a schlock machine. Rarely has there been a film so badly out of step even with itself. -- Shari L. Rosenblum

A Dirty Shame: Waters, we know your game. The only shock you could serve up now would be a coherent story. -- Thor Klippert

What the #$*! Do We Know!?: I now know that quantum physics can double as a fascinating self-help tool for zipperheads. -- Chris Dashiell

Underworld: Talk about a mess: all the ingredients, and they failed to cook. -- Ron Leming

Big Fish: Dead in the water. -- Howard Schumann

Young Adam: I never can sympathize with a character's misery when they get to have this much sex. -- Thor Klippert

Silver City: What the hell happened to John Sayles? The most important election year in decades, and the best he can come up with is this tepid, utterly forgettable attempt at political satire? Ouch. -- Chris Dashiell

Wimbledon: When Harry Met Sally meets Rollerball -- but without the roller-skates or the fake orgasm. -- Mark Ashley

King Arthur: A movie undone by its borderline fantastical version of “history,” featuring a butch warrior Guinevere who opts for a sassy, strappy wardrobe that J.Lo might just be planning to wear to the Oscars this year. -- Anne Gilbert

Godsend: Is Greg Kinnear taller than Rebecca Romijn? Shorter? It's different in every scene. Really, that's the most interesting philosophical quandary posed by this shambling mess.
-- Thor Klippert

Mona Lisa Smile: If Julia Roberts taught at Wellesley in the 50s...well, she'd show those poor ignorant pre-feminist girls a thing or two, I bet.
-- Chris Dashiell

Fahrenheit 9/11: Great. Nice try, Mike, but now we're stuck with irrefutable evidence that the people actually prefer the emperor to have no clothes. Makes being in denial awfully hard. -- Michael Buck

Alexander: And the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad movie. -- Don Larsson

Spartan: An unthrilling thriller that takes implausible to new levels, hones it to a fine thud, screams the secrets of its mysteries from the heights of its delusions, and recreates the effect of the infamous water torture with self-consciously stilted dialogue delivered in stubbing stabs to your consciousness.
-- Shari L. Rosenblum

Greendale: Good intentions. Just keep telling yourself: good intentions.
-- Thor Klippert

Kill Bill, Vol. 2: Still swill. -- Chris Dashiell