Oops. A couple of things I forgot in my rush to post the stinkiest filmthings in 07 movies. Pretend I’ve added them already to the cinematic shame pages<--- Careless use of indescribable hotness. Why is smoking Emily Blunt, memorably descending a staircase in nothing but dress shirt bra and panties, immediately dumped from Charlie Wilson’s War thereafter? Amy Adams (sorry) and Julia Roberts and the “jailbait” employees (Charlie’s words not mine) weren’t doing it for me. Emily sure the hell was. B-Side careless use: Oceans 13 wisely cast Ellen Barkin but damned if it gives her anything worth doing once she’s onscreen.
That comic relief witness in The Brave One who waxes hornily on Jodie “lockdown” Foster’s great ass. She was seated the entire scene. He never saw it.
Plot point K-Holes. Too much repetition and the movie gets trapped: Georgia Rule (Lindsay admits to abuse. denies it. admits to it. denies it. Repeat) Pirates & Spider-Man 3s (still reworking earlier conflicts. Why? We’re several hours into the story)
Reductivity. Becoming Jane, as enjoyable as it may be in parts, still spins from a central conceit that is wrongheaded at best and demeaning at worst: the great writer Jane Austen had no imagination whatsoever: she just stole all the plot points and characters from her own life!
Last chance: Purge your negative 2007 feelings in the comments
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The more I think about St. Trinians, the more I'm baffled and disgusted by it. It was morally reprehensible, but not enough to be amusing or funny in a sick way, just lazy and bad. If this is all Rupert Everett can rouse himself to act in, he should just stick to writing.
i'd never even heard of that one (completely ignorance toward the existence of any given movie always really surprises me since I spend so much time reading and writing and seeing movies but there you go)
another thing that's weirding me out: i knew of THIS IS ENGLAND earlier in the year but I haven't heard one person really talk about it until this week and now all i'm hearing is how great it is. I'm confused at how it suddenly emerged as a favorite if nobody loved it previously. must'a been a blind spot for me but now I'm sad i didn't get a chance to see it.
I'd be very very surprised if St Trinians had any succes in the US. For one, it's so insularly British that it probably wouldn't work anywhere else. Also, it sucks.
My biggest question of 2007? What the hell happened to Halle Berry's career? Perfect Stranger was SUCH a heaping steaming pile of stink that I had to keep reminding myself that it had an Oscar-winner in the lead role. Bleh!
And then she went and did a "prestige" picture where her co-star got all the acclaim. Poor Halle.
Nathaniel, you are really worrying me here--a B+ for Sweeney Todd, which is inexplicably getting so much praise in the blogosphere (really? I mean, really? It never got better then 'meh' for me), and now a C for Paris, j'taime? Sure, some of the segments were less than interesting, but most were at the very least fascinating and quite self-indulgent in the best possible way. I had one of my most enjoyable moments at the cinema this year with PJT, and I can't believe you disliked it! You really thought The Golden Compass was better? My god, that was possibly the worst cinema experience I had all year! Reading your worst of the year, I am strangely less in agreement than years past, but I am confident that you will come to your senses in 2008-- Nicole Kidman's comeback year. Can't we at least agree on that? As long as she is smart and plans to be pregnant for the Oscar's in 2009 (like Cate Blanchett, Marcia Gay Harden, and Catherine Z-Jones before her), she's in.
Nathaniel: I feel the same way re: THIS IS ENGLAND. I see it's available for online viewing on Netflix so I may do that today, just to see what all the sudden hubub is about.
Nothing will beat Because I Said So as the worst film of the year for me. Good thing you didn't see it Nathaniel. It's horrendous.
ok,i have seen this is england as i live in the uk and bought the dvd it is very good,no masterpeiece but a brilliant piece of film making and can i just say no best supp actor list will be complete without stephen graham,his scene in the car with his ex - the best bit of acting i have seen all year and isaw sam riley in control somone else who will go unnoticed in favour of rewarding johnny depp for being a star and well it's his time- rubbish!!
i saw bug yesterday wierd film but ashley judd leapt into my actress list with ease where she joins jodie foster,julie christie,marion cotillard and the undeservedly overlooked halle berry.
so nat fyc
actress halle berry in things we lsot in the fire or ashley judd in bug
actor - sam riley in control or thomas turgoose in this is england.
supp actor - toby kebble in control or stephen graham in this is england
supp actress - samantha morton in control or sigourney weaver in the tv set
This is venting about AMPAS and the critical community in general, but using a 2007 example to illustrate. It has already been mentioned by you and others how the various cognoscenti fail to recognize that comedy is usually much more difficult to execute than is drama, and thus do not, as a rule, nominate comedy performances/movies if a credible drama performance/movie is available. And woebetide your chances at Oscar glory if you are in a film classified as a 'family' entertainment (a.k.a. the Disney Kiss of Death), since such movies cannot possibly contain performances better and/or more difficult than the serious stuff. I despise prejudice in general, but I cannot abide the intellectual laziness this kind of poor judgement reflects.
The performance most likely to be criminally dissed this year - Amy Adams in "Enchanted". I just saw it yesterday, and I believe her performance is the best I have seen this year, and I have seen eight of your current top ten Best Actress handicap list. It was not camp, it was not over-the-top...all it did was completely convince me that a cartoon character had come to life. That's tough to do to a cynical engineer. She so completely and un-self-consciously immersed herself in the character that I believed that she believed it. I haven't felt that persuaded by a performance since Nicole put on a plastic nose. And Amy gets points that Nicole doesn't because Nicole had a character with an extensive history that she could mimic - Amy only had half a dozen animated Disney singing girls from The Little Mermaid on to help her out.
Folks, that is hard. I'll wait 'till I see the other two to call a winner, but Amy Adams certainly deserves a nomination. If only the Academy can get their noses out of the air or their heads out of their...scripts long enough to give it a, well, serious look.
Hm. The worst movie I've seen this year is Epic Movie; which was indeed released this year and may be one of the worst movies I've seen in my life. It's just... awful.
Emily Blunt had a strange year, didn't she? CWW and the non-entities that were Wind Chill and Jane Austen Book Club.
On the This is England front, I can put my own prior ignorance down to simply not seeing it at the cinema. I saw it on DVD and cursed myself for days for not seeing it theatrically. It's amazing and is my #1 of the year. I guess, conceivably, that something else could come along and trump it, but I doubt it. It just feels right.
It's downright shameful that critics have ignored it when they hailed it to the moon and back when it was released. But, then again, that can be said about many movies actually.
On "This Is England": The only reason why I checked it out at the IFC Center over the summer is because people WERE raving about it. It may not have been as well-publicized as others, the critical ejaculation was certainly present.
On Emily Blunt in "CWW": You say she disappeared after sidling down the stairs, but was it just me, or wasn't she also the very prominent belly dancer in Egypt?
1. I wonder what Elizabeth Taylor thought of the adaptation of her "Angel" book.......
2. This is England kept popping up but I never paid it mind. Maybe I will pick it up now.......
3. Death at a Funeral dispels the myth of "British? QUALITY!".......
On Emily Blunt in "CWW": You say she disappeared after sidling down the stairs, but was it just me, or wasn't she also the very prominent belly dancer in Egypt?
Those were definitely two different women.
Hmmm, so it is. My apologies. Just checked IMDb, and damned if Tracy Phillips who played 'Belly Dancer' doesn't look exactly like Emily Blunt (or at least she does in the 3 photos she has on her main page).
She wasn't born on the train. Maybe he saw it when she... got on?
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