WORST FILMS OF 2011

Will be doing my Best Of column next week after seeing a few more films such as Cowboys and Aliens, Hangover 2, The Debt and Mission Impossible. But as we are all aware, films this year sucked and sucked hard. I think the quality was slightly better than 2010's slate of utter garbage, but this year fell into the damaged mindset that all we want to see are superhero flicks, remakes and sequels. The best films I saw this past year were almost all original pictures, albeit remakes like Girl With The Dragon Tattoo rivaled the original, perhaps even surpassing it. The good news is that next year looks to be a banner year for films and hopefully I will see less drek than I have been. Some of these films may be from 2010 but are here as I saw them not as they were released.


10)GREEN LANTERN- Easily the worst superhero film this year, it rightfully tanked at the box office. Ryan Reynolds had a bad year with this and the average Change Up. The film looked washed out, in desperate need of a script makeover, and a whole new ending, Hal Jordan spent way to much time on Earth and not enough time learning how to use his powers. Plus, he was an insufferable twit. The producers are still saying a sequel is in the works but I can dream that it is all a cruel hoax.

9/8)JACK AND JILL/JUST GO WITH IT-I like Adam Sandler movies. I own quite a few of them as a matter of fact and usually disagree with the haters about them being funny or not. These films on the other hand were terrible. Jack and Jill just seemed lazy and date, Just With it had Jennifer Aniston in it (otherwise known as the kiss of death) and even the not as bad as feared Zookeeper (produced by Sandler) had Sandler has a very unfunny monkey. Do something funny for God's sake and stop these awful awful movies. Please.

7)WINTER'S BONE- Yes it came out on 2010 and yes it was up for a bunch of Oscar's and yes it was the single most boring films I saw all year. I like slow pictures done by masters like Kubrick or Malick. I think Remains of the Day, a glacial picture, is a work a brilliance. This film looked like a travel guide to Appalachia country. Long shots of nothing done in a way that would have Terrance Malick saying get on with it, this film about a girl looking for her deadbeat father could have been interesting. However, the plot goes nowhere fast with no surprises at all. The Descendants is a great picture about the troubles of family life that I think is very similar to this in many ways. The big difference is that The Descendants had interesting characters in real situations while Winter's Bone felt like a movie and a long dull one at that. Rent only if your having trouble sleeping.

6)I DON'T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT-Someone keeps telling Sarah Jessica Parker she's a movie star. I got bad news for both you and Jennifer Aniston: GO BACK TO TV. How many bad films by these two do I have to sit through. Men are presented as worthless, insensitive pricks, a common theme in TV and film that is beyond old already. How would women like it if every show had a dumb blond, a barefoot pregnant wife and a shrew of a female boss? They'd riot. This Sex and the City clone was DOA in the box office so some women out there have taste.

5)TOM HANKS-The usually great actor stumbled badly this year with two craptaculars, Larry Crowne and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Both were unwelcome heartstring tuggers that seemed badly dated and in bad taste, a non-winning combo. Crowne had Hanks as a guy who loses his job, goes back to college and meets cute with Julia Roberts. This would have played fine in 1980, but in today's world this film was pure fantasy and a punch in the face to all the real unemployed out there. Extremely Loud plays fast and loose with a horrible tragedy that seems to be in ultra bad taste to introduce into a fictional movie. Can we wait a few decades before exploiting one of the greatest tragedies in American history? And Hanks, get a better manager or better scripts because you are way above this crap.

4)KIDS FILMS- A horrible year for kids films thanks to the eight million that were at the theater this year. Let's list all the box office disasters, leading up to my number one: Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2, Hoodwinked 2, Hop, Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer (why God why?), Mr. Poppers Penguins, Glee: the Movie, Spy Kids 4, Happy Feet 2, Chipwrecked, We Bought A Zoo, and the biggest disaster..........Mars Needs Moms, a 150 million dollar car wreck. Stop making so many kid movies as, you can see from the above list of losers, they are not making you the money they once did. Perhaps if you looked at their quality not quantity you'd make some actual money.

3)THE RITE- What the hell Anthony Hopikins is doing in this lame Exorcist ripoff is beyond me. How do you make exorcisms boring? Watch the film and learn all the tricks to the trade for doing just that. A terrible film.

2)TWEEN FILMS- Every bit as bad as the kids films, were a host of tween based films that, other than the reprehensible Twilight series, died a painful death at the box office. Beastly, I Am Number Four, Abduction, Red Riding Hood, Justin Bieber 3D, Water for Elephants, Prom, Priest, and Footloose all came and went. Twilight,a huge hit, still sucked by introducing the world's worst role model in Bella. Why women aren't getting angry at this waste of space character who is only defined by her male counterpart is beyond me. Some lousy films in this list bear the question who is running Hollywood?

1)SUCKER PUNCH- The most disappointing, unwatchable movie of the year. Supposedly made as a musical with all the music removed, this latest film from hit or miss director Zack Snyder is repellent, derivative and surprisingly boring. I loved Dawn Of the Dead and Watchmen and didn't care for 300, but this was awful on a whole new scale. The script was terrible, the acting awful, the directing pedestrian and I don't even know if I made it to the end as I don't remember anything about it. Truly the worst film of the year. NEVER WATCH UNLESS MASOCHISM IS YOUR THING!

Happy New Year all.