The Film Experience

They've been naughty. So we shan't be nice. Rather than choosing the 15 worst movies (we skip a lot of stuff that looks atrocious), here are 15 matters of annoyance within the movies of 2015, whether the movies were decent or terrible. Vague/light spoilers ahead.

15 Lumps of Coal From '15
Links go to past articles about the film or reviews if they exist

15 Grab Bag of Undelights
Afew I couldn't fit in below: Chris Hemsworth's wandering accent in In The Heart of The Sea often within the same scene. Is this First Mate Australian, British, or from the Bronx?; The way Mother Malkin's (Julianne Moore) red hair stays that way when she shifts into dragon form in The Seventh Son. That was cute with Madame Mim in The Sword in the Stone but in "realistic" cgi not so much; and, the perpetual agony of trailers that take you from the beginning to the end of a movie (Room and The Revenant are the latest victims) spoiling every story beat.

14 Longwindedness
In nearly great movies (Clouds of Sils Maria 124 min), good movies (Saint Laurent 150 min.), divisive movies (I'm still making up my mind about The Revenant okay? 156 min), and arthouse curiousities (Arabian Nights, Vol II 131 min., Love 135 min.) alike the tendency in contemporary cinema is to let the camera linger here and there and everywhere and also to include entire sections that add nothing particularly new to the plot or our understanding of character or theme if narrative isn't the movie's main thrust. Don't misunderstand: a good lingering camera can be among the greatest of things but if you're running over 90 minutes please justify it with new information. Shave 10 minutes (or a lot more in some cases) off any of these movies and they're instantly improved.

13 more after the jump...

13 Hysterical Machismo
In The Hateful Eight we learn in an endless monologue that nothing is more debasing than homosexual acts. In The Revenant put-upon Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio suffering for his art again. Dude, make a comedy next for f***'s sake) endures all manner of brutality and injustice at the hands of Mother Nature and Man... and Judy. But the loudest angriest wailing from his chapped mouth happens in the moment when his enemy suggests that his son is less than manly. Oy!

Speaking of hysterical machismo... check various reactions to the film, like so...

“Note to movie pussies: #TheRevenant is not for you.” Peter Travers throws the gauntlet on Leo DiCaprio’s Western https://t.co/V3msPx4PYy
— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) December 22, 2015

CHARMING!

12 Remakes as Reboots
First there were remakes. Then came reboots which were remakes but only of origin stories of serialized characters. ("Who wouldn't want to start over rather than having new adventures?" he asked sarcastically.) The new trend is the reboot as non-literal remake which is slightly less annoying but not by much. In these new pictures -- step to the front of the line Terminator Genysis, Jurassic World and yes you Star Wars: The Force Awakens (though you're super cute so we forgive you) -- Hollywood is no longer pretending that past movies didn't exist. But they're retelling them anyway, sometimes with extremely little variation, and passing it off as new. Brand Names = Renewable Hollywood Energy Sources. As much as I loved The Force Awakens the plot is a shameless Star Wars remake. Let's hope further episodes actually tell new stories.

11 Paul Giamatti as Kryptonite for Musicians
It was bad enough the first time casting directors did this to us on the ill fated musical Rock of Ages. So they did it twice again this year in Straight Outta Compton and Love and Mercy? Casting directors and Paul Giamatti and Paul Giamatti's Management are on notice. Next time a movie calls for a weasel narcissist who spells big trouble for a famous musican -- MOVE ALONG. Once was enough. Three times is asking for the world's scorn.

10 Shaky Cam. Use Sparingly If At All
It's been used so much over the past 20 years that we're all but begging filmmakers to stop. Especially if they're filming musical sequences. The Last Five Years undid itself with handheld nonsense while the stars were already being jostled about (in cars and on bikes) whilst singing... for extra movement sickness. Trust the material and stop fussing!

09 You're Missing Half the Species, Idiots!
The gender imbalance in American cinema both in front of and behind the camera has been under constant attack this year. And Good News: 40% of the year's top 20 highest grossers (Inside Out, Cinderella, The Force Awakens, Mad Max Fury Road, Mockingjay Part 2, Pitch Perfect 2, Home, Fifty Shades of Grey) have a woman in the leading role. So how are we still getting crap like this which sends the wrong message to both boys and girls.

Avengers set - no Black Widow Guardians set - no Gamora Star Wars - no Rey. She's THE MAIN CHARACTER. #WheresRey pic.twitter.com/TvYUeiA49o
— Jamie Ford (@JamieFord) November 12, 2015

08 The Intervention Scene in Trainwreck
Who approved this? Did anyone think it was funny? Is there any way to recall all DVDs and BluRays and delete it?

07 Cutesy Framing Devices
Both Tomorrowland and The Walk have good moments but they both begin disastrously, immediately testing patience with presentational "storytelling" devices that grate. Stop telling us that you're telling the story (it's understood) and just tell it.

06 White-Washing and De-Gaying and The Like
Vulture already cast a welcome light on the habit of films to make LGBT stories about straight people. No need to reiterate that so we'll move on to other tricky business. The rapid progress in trans awareness and politics is very good news for the world but it presents a problem to filmmakers. New films on the topic (like The Danish Girl and The New Girlfriend) can feel instantly dated, all too safe, and inauthentic. The shifting terrain is even harder to cross without stumbling once you consider that these films are premiering in the same market place as better entertainment starring actual trans people or written and directed by people with actual LGBT experience (Amazon's Transparent, Netflix's Sense8, and Sean Baker's Tangerine).

We're avoided throwing more bricks at Stonewall. Too easy of a target. But making a young white suburban man the catalyst and hero of a story that really belongs to impoverished LGBT people and people of color was just gross.

05 Have Concept. Will Movie
A concept itself is not enough. In theory Hot Pursuit and Chocolate City and Love and many more could have been good movies. But execution is even more important. (A minor variation: Have Too Many Concepts. Will Movie -- we're looking at you Jupiter Ascending. Sometimes editing your ideas is a good thing. Like for instance, why is this post so long? Apologies!)

04 "HAM!"
The new meeting of 'Over Actors R Us' is in session. Attending this year are Dame Helen Mirren cupping her hair and sassing (Woman in Gold, Trumbo), Sir Patrick Stewart going full fey (Match), Eddie Redmayne madly blushing and villainous vamping (The Danish Girl and Jupiter Ascending), and Mark Ruffalo 1½ times too much on average (Infinitely Polar Bear and even Spotlight at little bit). You are not on stage. The camera sees every flicker of your face so stop playing to the back row!

Disclaimer: We considered including Bryan Cranston (Trumbo), a likely Best Actor nominee, but in his cartoonish Dalton Trumbo's defense, this tendency to be a "character" and say each line 'like it was carved in stone' is called out within the movie so larger than life Dalton Trumbo was. Cranston plays accordingly.

03 Girl Sacrifice!
Women in movies have it rough. So often they're there to stroke their man's arm and be "supportive" inbetween the important scenes (this year's PERFECT example is Katie Holmes in Woman in Gold... literally her whole part is stroking/hugging/supporting inbetween real scenes). The manic pixie dream girl trope has been annoying for years but at least that archetype gave (young) actresses something "fun" to do. Me and Earl denies and the Dying Girl even that typical vivaciousness. Rachel (well played by Olivia Cooke -- it's not her fault) is just a ghostly sacrifical lamb to help the "Me" grow up while humanizing "Earl" so that his "titties" vocabulary doesn't paint him as a misogynist. [An opposing positive review]

02 Quentin Tarantino & The Hateful Eight
Casual observation of various directorial careers suggest that filmmakers forsake brevity and indulge in repetition more adamantly the more famous they become. Coincidence? No! Examples are abundant if you wanna go there. Quentin Tarantino's first feature Reservoir Dogs (1992) which debuted at Sundance was 99 minutes long. It was absolutely crackling with tension as it dumped its memorably motormouthed criminals into an ever tightening vice of violence until the bloody end.

Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight, his second sadistic civil war era western in a row, is 187 minutes long and attempts that same downward spiral into mayhem. But the crackling tension is absent for about, oh, 140 of those 187 minutes. Quentin is in no hurry to take us to the bloody meal despite not providing his usual gift of rude wit and indelible characterizations as appetizers. There are whole sequences where you just watch horses or people trudging through snow for lengthy shots. Each introduction of characters involves long 'should I or shouldn't I trust you?' conversations. If you've ever watched a Tarantino movie or any movie with a bunch of people trapped in the same space for that matter, you know the answer is a resounding "no". There is a joke about a faulty door which is good for one chuckle that is repeated five or six times (?) where you watch the characters do the same exasperated thing each time. By the time you've reached the intermission virtually nothing has happened other than introducing most of the characters. Maddening. Hateful even you might say! Setting the stage is what you do in the first reel of a movie, not for the first 99 minutes before you take us to the actual story. Any number of great films, even leisurely paced ones, will provide wondrous examples of how much story detail you can pack into a scene and even within a single shot. The Hateful Eight might have worked if it was 99 minutes long but at 187 it is fully intolerable.

It's clobbering time!01 Everything about Fantastic Four
When word arrived that Fantastic Four was awful I thought "Sure, troubled production. But it can't be that bad!' But then I saw it, slackjawed. How on earth did this film make it to release in this shape? How was it even possible to make a film that was even worse than the first two embarassing Fantastic Four films? The 2015 version does everything wrong starting with the remake as reboot (see #12 above) when the FF's origin story, never their strength, was barely compelling enough for one feature film. It turns good actors into wooden duds (Miles Teller, Michael B Jordan) and covers up the faces of two of our most underappreciated talents (Jamie Bell and Toby Kebbell) so that they're essentially not even in the movie for long enough to matter. The pacing is leaden turning its sensible 100 minute running time into an endurance test. Most shockingly, considering financial investments and typical studio practices, the visual fx are shoddy and there is virtually no action. Okay, okay. Technically speaking there are two (?) action scenes. Both are so incoherent and perfunctory that they are closer to brief vfx test reels than "setpieces" in the usual movie sense. It was our only "F" of the year; the grade was no alliterative pun.