The Chateau

January 29.

Wow, bad movies really are painful.

The Chateau is a comedy about two American brothers (Yes, Paul Rudd and Romany Malco play brothers, and no not like brothas, they are brothers. (Malco is adopted.) A joke which they use about 1,000 times.) who inherit a chateau, along with its staff, in France.

They think they are going to get there, sell it, and pocket the cash but zaniness ensues. It's really not worth getting into what happens or why, honestly, it's not. There's thousands of great movies and there's no reason to watch this ridiculousness.

Rating: Hate

The Affair of the Necklace

January 29.

No, no, no, no, no. No.

Hilary Swank may have won an Oscar, but she's awful, awful, as a down-on-her-luck aristocrat in pre-revolutionary France. Awful.

I found this movie because I watched a documentary about Marie Antoinette and thought this true story of a necklace scheme, which is credited for starting the French Revolution, was fascinating. But The Affair of the Necklace did not translate. The bad script and bad acting did not bring the story to life or shed a new light on the doomed queen of France.

The whole movie was flat. Swank is not sexy and not even a little French. I still think the story of the extravagant necklace, which the queen might have been trying to buy secretly, as not to incite the people of France who were starving to death, is interesting. Especially since the queen claimed she never agreed to buy the necklace but because the citizens believed the story, or wanted to believe it, it put them over the top and started the French Revolution, which left the queen and her husband headless, and the monarchy dead forever.

But why with such great material, why are so many movies so bad?

Rating: Hate

Season of the Witch

January 9.

So, Season of the Witch stars Nicolas Cage and Clay from Sons of Anarchy as knights in the 1300s-ish and they’re going to transport a witch for some reason.

This seems to be almost horror – witches get hung and drowned before coming back to life to kill the priest who ordered the execution. I’d probably be scared if I wasn’t laughing at the acting and lack of accents. Nic and Ron Perlman, who are way too old to be running around fighting in the crusades, are using some old English words and speech patterns but with their normal accents and modern slang. Wow, it’s bad. I wonder if there was a script or if the actors were just given an outline of the general story like they do on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Note to writers: these guys need a script. The dialogue is absolutely awful. As I watch Perlman, I can see him laughing at the producers for paying him for this.

Most of the action takes place in front of a green screen and there are a lot of creepy moments just for the sake of being creepy. It seems lazy and thrown together. The storytelling isn’t good either. Towards the end Nic starts explaining what just happened while flashbacks from the movie I’m in the middle of watching appear on the screen. I didn’t forget, I’m not that stupid, and this is not that complicated. On a positive note, there are zombie monks. They are good for a laugh if nothing else.

Rating: Hate

Ang tanging ina mo: Last na 'to!

January 8.

I thought I was going to be alone watching Ang tanging ina mo: Last na 'to!, but, nope, it seems the entire Las Vegas Filipino expat population is here with me. It’s mostly old people looking at me wondering what I’m doing here. No one is speaking English and it’s weird to be in a place I’ve been hundreds of times and have it feel totally foreign.

Ang tanging ina mo: Last na 'to! is the third and final installment of a popular Filipino comedy series. I haven’t seen the first two but I read about them in preparation. In the first, the main character, Ina, becomes a single mother of 30 or 12 or some ungodly number of children and she has to figure out a way to raise them and earn a living. Sounds funny, right? Hmm. So in part two, Ina, having her life in order, becomes president of the Philippines. Yes, president of the Philippines. So that’s where part three begins, her kids are growing up and she’s president … of a country.

The movie starts with loud, annoying music followed by loud, annoying talking and it takes me a few seconds to realize there are no subtitles. What?! Umm. I don’t speak Tagalog, or whatever this language is. I have seen tons of foreign movies and it never occurred to me that there wouldn’t be subtitles. I have wondered in the past if I would be able to follow a foreign movie without subtitles and I now know the answer: sort of.

 The problem with this movie isn’t that I don’t understand what they are saying. I really think I would have thought this was stupid even if I understood. The real problem is that it’s so over-the-top, so loud, and so annoying. I can’t believe people are watching this or that it was entered into film festivals. I keep checking the time and it’s not going fast enough. A baby has been crying for nearly half of the movie and normally I’d be mad that the parents didn't take him outside but I am sort of glad for the distraction and I feel his pain.

Without knowing what is being said it’s hard to gauge when the end is coming, but the end does come, finally. 

Rating: Hate

Country Strong

January 8.

So, here I am, bored to tears, watching my first mess of a movie of the year, Country Strong. It isn't long exactly, but it does feel like it won't end.

There are too many main characters - Gwyneth, a country super star fresh out of rehab; McGraw, her asshole of a husband and manager; and the two young wannabes along for the ride. The writer really should have picked whose story this was before trying to jam all their lives down our throats. As the story builds it feels forced and phony. This is not at all like last year's successful movie about a washed up, drunk country star - Crazy Heart, which was authentic and raw.

Country Strong moves along quickly, it has to in order to fit it all in. Alcoholism, dead babies, affairs, parents in prison, lies, music - this movie has it all. The story isn't unfolding as much as is being thrown at us. The scenes don't build and reveal secrets slowly, they just spat out some issue and then the next scene spats out something new and unbelievable. And even without any build up everything is completely predictable.

I don't really like any of the characters but the secondary leads are better than Tim and Gwyneth. It is weird watching Blair Waldorf sing country music, but she's not bad. The young, sweet country crooner, who prefers singing in honky-tonks to good people who just want to hear some good music while they drink their beer, is cute, but his facial hair is distracting. It's long and straight and grows in patches. He needs to shave.

The end came just in time with a big, sad, to some, dramatic finale that, again, is predictable even though there isn't any preparation for it.

Rating: Hate

The Runaways

April 10.

"The Runaways" was completely underwhelming. The first quarter of the movie, about the 70s all-girl rock band, was promising. But the story and bad acting (by Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett and Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie) weighed the too-long story down.

I wanted so much to care about how the girls turned out but couldn't. Stewart did look a lot like Jett, but that wasn't enough to keep me interested. Fanning is probably a better actress but I cared even less about Currie's story. And, the film focused on her too much.

The only good part of the movie was the ridiculous hair, makeup, and clothes worn by everyone, especially band-manager, Kim Fowley (played by Michael Shannon). He had a different crazy look in every scene.

Hot Rod

February 28.

I rounded out the weekend of bad movies with the worst movie of all. Probably one of the worst movies ever made. "Hot Rod" was playing on Comedy Central and I stopped. I have no idea why, but I did. It's really not even worth examining why it was bad. Just know, Andy Samburg plays an aspiring stunt man and wears jumpsuits. 'Nuff said.

L.A. Without a Map

February 27.

The second bad movie I saw this weekend was "L.A. Without a Map." I saw it because a few weeks ago on a classic Howard Stern show he interviewed Vincent Gallo, who I hadn't heard of before. He was weird and funny and interesting, so, I added some of his movies to my Netflix queue. I got this one first and thought it was something I'd like.

American girl meets British writer while on vacation in England. He falls in, well he likes her, and follows her back to L.A. Sounds OK? It's not. The whole story moves so quickly it's completely unrealistic. The scenes would start in, what seemed like, mid sentence and I always felt like I was missing something. The American girl was played, poorly, by Vinessa Shaw, who although started her career in the kids soccer flick "Ladybugs," has gone on to be a pretty good actress.

I did like the Johnny Depp cameo. For most of his scenes he played a poster of himself in some Western and never spoke. I always read he took no money for his part. I also liked Vincent Gallo and Julie Delpy as the doomed couples best friends.

Cop Out

February 27.

My weekend of bad movies started with "Cop Out." I love Tracy Morgan and feel like I must have had some affection for something Bruce Willis did but can't really remember what. So, when my friend, Side Cap, wanted to see the cop-comedy I thought, OK. Plus I feel like I always see depressing dramas, mostly because most comedies look awful. And this one was.

I guess it played off a lot of older cop movies that I never saw. So, a lot of the references went over my head. There was a lot of gory, violence, which I don't ever remember seeing in the "Police Academy" movies. OK, I'm joking, I'm not saying it should have mimicked the PA movies, but this was supposed to be a light, funny movie.

The story wasn't very good either. The NYPD partners get suspended for a eight weeks for screwing up a drug bust, which puts a wrench in Willis' character's plans to pay for his daughter's dream wedding. (Do you see the holes yet? She hasn't paid for anything and the wedding is two months away? And he hasn't started saving yet?) So he plans to sell his rare baseball card, which gets stolen by a small-time crook who sells it to the same drug dealers that they were supposed to catch in the beginning. There's definitely something better to see out there.

Leap Year

January 8.

Ehh, OK, I knew I wasn't going to like this, but my friend Gigi and I had plans to see "Youth in Revolt" at Town Square. So, we met for some wine and food at The Grape first and by the time we got our tickets and popcorn the theater was packed. The only seats left in the tiny room were in the front row. Instead of getting a neck injury we stepped into "Leap Year" (I seriously thought it was called Leap Day until just now) with a few other friends we ran into just a few minutes before.

Gigi couldn't get over the ridicolous high-heels Anna (Amy Adams, who I usually love) ran around in the entire movie, and I didn't understand why no one was wearing a coat in Ireland in February. Although, the way every scene looked as if people were standing in front of a green screen, I'm sure no one went to Ireland to film this.

The movie had a serisouly dumb story line about a control freak (Bitch as Gigi called her) chasing her doctor boyfriend to Ireland to propose to him on leap day - because in 2010 you couldn't propose to a man on say, June 3. It's also stupid to think two people who are buying an apartment together in a wealthy neighborhood in Boston wouldn't have discussed marriage at this point of their four year relationship.

The only thing goode about this movie is Matthew Goode. His character is whatever, but he is hot with his accent and sneaky smile. More Matthew Goode, less stupid Chick Flicks!

Gigi and I both thought we should have had at least one more glass of wine or brought the flask for this one.