If you wanna see the dumbest movie of 2010, go and waste your ten buck on The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. Cheesy dialogs, amateur acting, poor visual effects, weird love triangle, predictable situations. Previously, I gave an award for a stupidest movie of the year to Sex City 2. But watching this allegedly supernatural film changed my mind – the prize goes to it. The romantic vampire movie and its script repeats the same formula as previous Twilight Saga movies: most of it will bore you to death and then last 5 minutes is spent on chaotic supernatural fighting.
Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner reprise their roles as Bella Swan,Edward Cullen, and Jacob Black with the same dull performance. So called vampire Pattinson hangs around with a constipated facial expression ready to cry at any moment. While werewolf Lautner behaves like a young thug and goes naked at an instant. Probably his character Jacob Black has to go through a lot of clothing, if you ask me.
Having said that, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse set a new record for biggest midnight opening in domestic box office history. Overall, it gathered an estimated $30 million in over 4,000 movie theaters. So, I guess, this is a new formula for commercial success. Speaking figuratively, studio Summit Entertainment will keep on milking this franchise until it gets the last drop of the milk. So, tighten your belts, because more sequels are on their way. Studio already approved The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn and intends to split it in two films. Seems, like the world is going to hell.
I still remember how in 1999 film critics were hailing M. Night Shyamalan. They just watched the suspense movie Sixth Sense and out of excitement they were predicting a great future for a young director putting him somewhere between Alfred Hitchcock and Steven Spielberg. Well, that did not happen. In fact, somewhere around 2006 Shyamalan’s career took a huge nose-dive, when his moronic fantasy film Lady in the Water and idiotic thriller film The Happening flopped. To make the things worse, Lady in the Water received 4 Golden Raspberry Award nominations, and won 2 infamous movie awards – Worst Director (Shyamalan) and Worst Supporting Actor (also Shyamalan).
And now Shyamalan presents us with another stinking masterpiece The Last Airbender dubbed as an action-adventure fantasy film. It cost 150 million but, probably some name a total budget figures around 280 million dollars. No more Hitchcock for you, my intelligent moviegoer – this stinker is based on an average cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender. And, this is just the first film from the planned trilogy. Too bad, it won’t be the last so we will have to suffer more.
The film has a unique feature – none of the actors can act. And although, most of the characters of the cartoon are Asians, the cast of the film is all white, except for the poor Dev Patel who got sucked into this venture after wonderful performance in Slumdog Millionaire.
If you have children and take them to that movie, they will be happy with all those cool CGI effects. You will probably like them too. But even the best computer effects can’t make a stupid film better. Especially, this one with convoluted and confusing plot, amateurish acting, and disappointing directing.
About 11 years passed since animated fantasy film Toy Story 2. So, naturally, Andy had to grow up and go to college. As a result all his plastic toys are dumped in a day-care center where they have to fight for survival. The minimalistic plot of the movie got universal acclaim. Even on its second weekend Toy Story 3 was still number one movie in the US and Canada. managed to sell more movie tickets than Grown Ups and Knight and Day combined.
11 years is a lot of time even for a new installment of a big blockbuster franchise as Toy Story. It is risky because a new generation has already grown up and these youngsters could easily reject the sequel. Luckily, nothing of the kind happened as a great screenwriter Michael Arndt won moviegoers again with his sentimentality and calls to re-visit our childhood. For those who does not know Michael, he is the guy who created a script of Little Miss Sunshine.
Leading voice actors and the director also added to the success of this new movie. Tom Hanks was Woody and Tim Allen voiced Buzz Lightyear again. Director Lee Unkrich was a co-director on Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., and Finding Nemo that got Oscar for Best Animated Feature in 2003.
I like Adam Sandler. And although I don’t know him personally, I feel that he is good to his not so successful actor friends who tend to appear in various film roles from one of his film to another. So I had some sort of anticipation when I was watching comedy film Grown Ups. After all, many comedy veterans were in it too. Comedy vets did not let Adam Sandler down but he did as he was one of the producers and script writers of that film. In fact, the movie script was terrible.
Gone were smart comedy dialogs – they were replaced by lots of low-brow cheap skits and fart jokes. Some movie episodes that could shine and just did not work that way – instead, they were heavily full of stunts. The result product turned out to be a not-so-funny movie. Surprisingly, Grown Ups was saved from a complete commercial disaster, it will even makes some money. However, SNL cast and the rest of the comedian cast are getting older, thus, turning into expendable victims of the cruel Tinseltown. And getting easy laughs from the crowd is not that easy anymore.
Recently I several media sources introduced a peculiar phrase. They say that Tom Cruise lost his mojo. Can’t agree with that. I think that Tom Cruise was at his best in the action movie Knight and Day that seemed to flop on its first weekend. The guy is over fifty and gets the role of an exceptionally energetic and agile ex-spy. The leading actress Camerone Diaz showed us before and again in this action movie that she just can’t act and should not get hired anymore. The whole movie was built on an old a formula but with added CGI effects. Yet, despite all that, Tom Cruise played his part well. As they say now, he delivered.
Problems started during the development and production period of the film. Something in the air already spelled disaster. Suffice to say that the first director left, the film changed names like Wichita and Troubled Man. The leading male role was offered consecutively to Adam Sandler, Chris Tucker, and Gerard Butler and they all declined. The female leading role was initially offered to Eva Mendes who also turned it down. Movie also changed production studios and its budget exceeded 125 million dollars in the end. Marketing campaign sucked.
Big opening weekend numbers are usually driven by young moviegoers. I don’t think that Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz are extremely popular among this age group of audience. Given time, there is a chance that this action movie will fare better with adult audience or maybe not. However, it is just not right to call the film a box office bomb. Not yet.
In case anybody wonders what kind of superhero movie should be oriented to, the answer is already here: Kick-Ass. With a little budget around 28 million and without relying heavily on CGI effects or a team of movie celebrities (with the exception of Nicolas Cage), director Matthew Vaughn created an incredible film. Of course, audience was not ready for it. I bet Kick-Ass shocked a lot of parents around the world because of a swearing and killing little vigilante Hit-Girl (Chloë Moretz) and Damon Macready – a father with extremely special family values.
Even though, currently Kick-Ass is practically a financial disappointment to producers, I am positive that there will be a huge demand when its DVD is available to the general public. Currently this film did not even make 100 million bucks worldwide. Give it time, those who skipped the cinema theaters will follow to return in full the investments.
I am not gonna search for flaws and pick on the creators of the film. To me as a viewer, it is important that Vaughn decided not to shoot another caricature for masses, he took a big steps from regular canons and went for a bigger price – leave for the history a memorable and intelligent film. I am not much of a Nicolas Cage’s fan – there is usually too much of him in other movies. Yet he kept his cool in Kick-Ass and did not try to look other actors as his supporting cast.
It did not bring much surprise that family advocacy groups angrily kept on attacking this film. After all, they usually attack anything creative and new preferring stale and boring standards of the 1970s. This is one of the rare occasions when I hope that a sequel will follow and outshine the original.
Even if you have nothing else to do I would still not recommend you to go and watch The Bounty Hunter. It is one of the most boring and stupid films I ‘ve seen for the last year. The major heroes are played by swiftly looking her youthful looks Jennifer Aniston and the guy nobody heard about several years ago – Gerard Butler.
One would think that this kind of movie should be filled with actions. But, in fact, all the creators can offer are some crude immature games between two heroes who used to be a husband and a wife not so long ago. Authors also heavily borrow from all other flopped bounty hunter movies that ever appeared on Hollywood screens. Really, if I go back in my memory I recall only one movie from this genre that was worth watching – Midnight Run with Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin. It was not a masterpiece either but, at least, it was entertaining and had some good jokes in it.
Another thing that makes me wonder – who appointed Jennifer Anniston to be an “American sweetheart”. So-called actress plays one and the same person in all her movies. If you watch one by one several of her movies you will see what I mean. Come on, Friends TV series ended awhile ago, get over it. Two more bombs like The Bounty Hunter and she will join the fate of Meg Ryan, Halle Berry and the like.
I was reading some professional critic reviews who were singing praises to Jennifer and Gerard in this movie, shifting the blame to producers, scriptwriter and director. I wish I knew what critics are smoking these days. Even 2002 bombshell like Serving Sara with Matthew Perry (a colleague from Friends) and Elizabeth Hurley looked hilarious comparing to The Bounty Hunter.
Academy awards winner’s list is getting weirder and weirder. Ceremony organizers do try hard to look at Oscars’ night with disgust. Are they really gone mad? Sandra Bullock – best actress of 2009? Jeff Bridges – best actor for a Crazy Heart movie with a pretty weak and boring script that makes you yawn? And how do they have to hate James Cameron and bypass him like that? No matter what we think, but Avatar was the movie of the year. And the year was 2009!
They have to wake up and smell the coffee but they don’t want to. Sci-fi genre is too “low” for them. Comedy genre is a big no-no too. I just don’t want to dig deep trying to remember how many times they spat at really great actors and directors passing Oscars to the easily forgotten movies that nobody remembers anymore.
I can’t recall anything that made me feel nauseous as the movie It’s Complicated. This is also sad because I do like actors who play three main heroes of the film. And who are considered to be the cinema mavericks : Meryl Streep, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin. Creators name this masterpiece the romantic comedy but there is not much to laugh at. Putting aside cheesy and fake script, I can state that there is not much fun watching half naked old people.
Nothing can be further away from reality than this movie. Main characters try to depict romantic problems of the middle class people, but don’t make a mistake – these are pretty rich people who have nothing to do with us. The action takes place in Santa Barbara where divorced Jane (Meryl Streep) relies only on herself. She cooks at the spacious kitchen all the time and eats fruit and vegetables from her garden. However, you always wonder where she hides her maids and a gardener who must service hard all this huge property.
Yet, Jane is not satisfied with her mansion, she wants more floors and larger kitchen and office. I guess, 2009 is the best time for home remodeling, as she hires expensive-looking Adam, played by Steve Martin. And the love triangle is created by adding here rich ex-husband attorney Jake (Alex Baldwin) who dropped Jane as a sack of potatoes ten years ago and married younger trophie wife Agness (Lake Bell). By the way, Lake Bell choice of characters always puzzle me. Somehow I see her in other romantic comedies and HBO shows where she plays supposedly seductive women but her acting and looks tell us quite the opposite.
Anyways, all characters in the movie are overly sensitive. Everybody, including men, cry in this movie. Allegedly self-reliant Jane ambushes her psychiatrist trying to find out whether she should date her former husband or not. Tree grown up children of Jane are easily confused and disturbed when the see how their papa tries to make moves on Jane again. Poor things, they are so scared, that they run away in the car and then all three go to bed together with frightened faces.
So who is this mysterious girlfriend that appeared with Mel Gibson on the premiere of X Men Origins: Wolverine. What do we know about the lady for whom Mel is ready to go through the most expensive divorce of all times? Not much. It seems that Mel was hiding Oksana Grigorieva for over 3 years. Multiple sources listed her as a singer, a composer, a model and a pianist, who lives has a four bedroom house in LA purchased by Mel Gibson’s production company. She had been with former James Bond Timothy Dalton before and even has a son Alexander with him who is either 11 or 12 years old. But no sources could truly verify that they were ever really married.
Some media sources state that Oksana is 39 years old and came originally from the small Russian city of Saransk. And that Timothy met her while she was working as a translator (one more occupation) at the movie festival. I wish I would know how people from the middle of Russian nowhere find a job in London. But, wait! The mystery is even deeper than that. After moving with Dalton Oksana enrolls into Royal College of Music in London. Whether she ever graduated or worked for just a day as pianist remains a puzzle.
Sources like RadarOnline.com found a whole bunch of Oksana’s photos in lingerie and published them online. The only association with classical music is that this lady standing or lying in various poses on or about the grand piano. Another source pulls out of nowhere a peculiar story about Oksana and Ted Kennedy who helped the lady when American Embassy in Russia turned down her parents applying for a US visa. Teddy was so impressed with Oksana (???) that he used his pull to obtain the visa within a couple of days.
So, basically, all this info shows that sources don’t know anything. Everything is on the level of a gossip or speculation. We still don’t know whether she was cheating on a poor James Bond or was really separated from him while playing music with Gibson. Of whether Oksana is pregnant with Mel’s baby or it is all in the imagination of the media sources.
What we would like to know is how people of her caliber pop out of nowhere and approach Mel Gibson. I bet many girls would like to do it, that is why celebrities hire bodyguards. Another questions that concerns us is more of the moral level. Why would a lady seduce a man in his fifties, who always positioned himself as a devoted Catholic, who loves his wife so much that he has seven children with her. Well, it is understood that the guy is extremely rich, but somehow this does not make Oksana look good, does it?