Cinematic Shame... with a "Stay Positive!" Twist

Year in Review. Every day a new wrap-up. Tonight, the "worst" of the year... 

Since we are absolutely determined to make 2017 the greatest year it could possibly be despite oppressive circumstances, let this post serve as last call for excessive negativity. Get it all out of your system in the comments, mkay? We'll also put a positive spin on these dubious "awards" for ungreat things at the movie theaters this year... 

WORST OPENING SCENE(S)
Hacksaw Ridge begins with such overworked hokey cartoonish Americana and Andrew Garfield plays his eventual pacifist hero as such a Forrest Gump style village idiot that it's something of a miracle that the movie becomes a surprisingly watchable war drama thereafter.

Even Garfield manages to turn his initially quite awful (sorry) performance around in the final hour of the film. I personally haven't seen a decent / good movie start so much like it was a terrible movie since Juno, have you?

WORST MIDDLE
Suicide Squad is so inept that it never gets past character introductions. Criticisms that it was just a movie trailer with a real movie running time proved to have deadlier aim than Will Smith's Deadshot.

Best Acting in Bad Movies, and other "Honors" after the jump.... 

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May Carrie Fisher's Brilliance Be With You

Instant gratification takes too long."

Meryl Streep popularized that brilliant one-liner in the essential showbiz comedy Postcards from the Edge (1990) but the line pre-dates the film, having emerged from the actress/writer Carrie Fisher's sharp pen (or was it tongue?) some time earlier. The line is so good it ended up on t-shirts. Fisher's best lines in print (multiple books, my personal favorite being "Surrender the Pink") or on the screen (Postcards from the Edge plus much script-doctoring) often sound exactly like things she may have uttered spontaneously in real life first with that unmistakably frank, darting, and mischievous wit. The showbiz icon passed away this morning after a heart attack aboard a plane this past Friday but her work and her influence will live on.

The irony of her delicious and beloved quip above isn't hard to miss...

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Doc Corner: George Michael on Show in 'Foreign Skies'

Nathaniel already looked at his favourite George Michael songs in tribute to the man's passing at age 53, and today a 1985 tour documentary featuring the finest male vocalist of his generation.

Three decades ago when China figuratively opened their doors to western culture, the first to arrive were… Big Bird and Wham! Two fey, energetic, hyper-coloured performers who sought a mutual exchange through music and film. The yellow Sesame Street character had Big Bird in China, while George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley got Wham! In China: Foreign Skies.

It’s a peculiar film, and not an especially good one. Half Chinese travelogue for the western audiences fascinated by the newly open China with their bustling food markets, seas of grey fashion, and their Great Wall; half concert film focusing, rightly, on the energetic and handsome George Michael sashaying around on stage like nobody had ever seen before.

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Trailer Leftovers: "Alien", "Snatched", and "Apes"

Chris here, still nursing our holiday hangover. To go with the massive amount of films descending upon the multiplexes at the holiday season, there is always an equally large amount of trailers to catch up to. Let's revisit the gluttony by reheating some trailer leftovers we've yet to discuss here, including Goldie Hawn's comeback vehicle Snatched, the hyperviolent & NSFW first look at Alien: Covenant, and the next installment of those damn dirty Apes!

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Going Crazy and Coping With 2016 Films

Year in Review. Every afternoon, a new wrap-up. Today Chris on films that represented the tumultuous year...

It's a comfort to know that even in no-good-horrible-very-bad years such as this that the movies will always be there to sustain us. However this year the movies seemed to reflect our troubled times right back at us - from racial divides in Zootopia to global communication breakdowns in Arrival. But these very films that embodied the awful also provided us with ways to cope with the ceaseless catastrophe that was 2016.

It should come as no surprise to have more than one horror film on such a list, but let's look at some examples...

The Witch
The Crazy: Look what nightmares can be wrought from living in a bubble, even a self-induced one. Is this even our reality or just perception?
How to Cope: Go join that coven! You go. You got this, girl!

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