10. Envy
Ben Stiller, Jack Black, & Christopher Walken and the movie is not funny? A goddamn travesty.

9. The Day After Tomorrow
Awful eco action film that would have been better if Trey & Matt had made it with puppets.

8. Resident Evil 2
As crappy as the first film. Lame action scenes and hardly any zombies.

7. Van Helsing
CGI needs to die.

6. House Of Flying Daggers
Another stupid kung fu film tailor made for American audiences. Zhang Yimou is more interested in the stupid romantic triangle than he is in the main plot. I didn’t think I could dislike a kung fu movie as much as I disliked Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I was wrong.

5. The Punisher
Lousy unexciting action film.

4. The Grudge
I hated the Japanese version and I hated this American re-make. Japanese people in kabuki make-up is just not scary.

3. The Village
Good build up but then the last half makes this film one of the stupidest in recent memory. And don’t market a film as a horror film when it isn’t.

2. Passion Of The Christ
2 Hours of a guy getting beaten and tortured. So freakin boring.

And the worst film of the year....

1. Alexander
A 3 hour endurance test that play like a gay porno missing the porno parts and with some of the worst acting in recent memory. If Rosario Dawson didn’t get naked, the whole movie would have been worthless.

What movies did you hate this year?

Alright! Its been a long time since I've disagreed with somebody so much!

I think Mr. Green did the right thing in epiloging his dislike of HOUSE OF DAGGERS by explaining that he thought CROUCHING TIGER was previously the worst martial arts film of all time. Most people probably think it's one of the three best within the genre (including HERO and HOUSE OF DAGGERS), and I'd agree with them, but it does pretty much hold true that if you hated one of them, you probably hated them all.
I personally loved THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, and think it was the best film of the year. I think the extended torture is crucial to the message of salvation and sacrifice. I've got major problems with most religious loonies, but Mel Gibson is one religious loony that I like. From an acting standpoint alone, it would be one of the best films of the year. Since seeing PASSION, I find it difficult to watch films with actors not even attempting convincing accents, nevermind learning the appropriate languages of the time presented. I think in that respect, films have turned a corner and I can't go back.

I actually quite enjoyed the VILLAGE. ***SPOILER*** I don't think it's the greatest movie of all time, but I think it succeeds as a dark children's fairy tale about people living in a fairy tale who really live in the real world. ***END OF SPOIER*** If you object to the marketing of this film as a horror movie, shouldn't SAW be on a 10 worst films list? It was presented as a graphic horror film when I found it to be little more than a mellow detective film dressed in a monster (sic. clown) mask. I didn't hate it (and subsequently don't think it was one of the ten worst films of the year) but I didn't love it either.


My List in no particular order except #1 which is definitely the worst film I've seen all year:
#1
TRANSAMERICAN KILLER

The Rest:
AMERICA'S HEART AND SOUL
ANATOMY OF HELL
BETTIE PAGE: DARK ANGEL
CAT WOMAN
DE-LOVELY
EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING
IRON JAWED ANGELS
MAN THING
VAN HELSING
all of which I saw in Theaters this year.

wait, MAN THING came out? as in the Marvel Comics book adaptation, or something else entirely? More info, please.

Otherwise, I'll second ANATOMY OF HELL and THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST. I didn't see too many films this year that I hated enough to put on a "worst" list, and some that would otherwise make that list I don't feel like beating on again. Even looking at my list, while I see GOODBYE LENIN is near the bottom, it's not that horrible - just terminally overrated. There are definitely some disappointments, like A DIRTY SHAME, THE LADYKILLERS, and SKY CAPTAIN, but even those films have too many positive qualities for me to tag them with the "worst" tag.

One film I would add, though, is the dreadful OSAMA, which basically just exists to tell us that, in fact, the Taliban are bad.

I saw the Marvel Comics MANTHING at AFM in november. Absolutely dreadful. It looked like it only cost about a million bucks, which considering the budgets on recent other Marvel Films is shoestring. It was filled with charcters named for Marvel Comics staff from the early seventies, and the use of their names always seemed overstated -never clever. It was badly shot and the monster looked goofy, too. It took it's cues from Blair Witch and tried really hard to look like a 70s horror film. Terribly disappointing. I always used to snicker at the comic book title "Giant Size Man Thing... Coming Soon!"
Poor Mike Ploog and Steve Gerber get their names mentioned about a hundred times in such a crap film. Well at least after HOWARD THE DUCK, this is probably the last terrible film adapted from a comic book by Steve Gerber that anyone will have to see -a shame really.

Hmmm Doug, I really loved GOODBYE LENIN, and although I'd agree that it was "over-rated" by some folks who flocked to see it, I certainly don't think THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST belongs on or even near any "worst" list.

One film I feel was criminally over-rated right now is SHAUN OF THE DEAD. I mean, I enjoyed it somewhat as a video rental, but beyond that...

NOPE. Nothing even remotely special at all. As far as zombie "horror comedies" go, THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD kicks its ass to hell and back many times over.

Oh, and Marc, I gotta say I disagree tremendously with your condemnation of THE PUNISHER, which I believe was criminally UNDER-RATED if anything. I really dug this film myself...

Vincent

ANATOMY OF HELL was clunky, pretentious and an underachiever, but perversely I found myself enjoying it a lot whenever Rocco Siffredi wandered near the beach, as if he’d decided to check out what it was like being inside a Jean Rollin movie. (Myself and a friend had some very funny after-the-screening conversations with other patrons from the theatre, too). I still think I'd rather watch Siffredi in a film by practically any other European director (or even in one of his Joe D'Amato or John Stagliano epics) than in a film by Breillat though.

I still haven’t seen ALEXANDER but find it interesting how before they’d opened, I’d pegged THE AVIATOR as one to catch eventually and ALEXANDER as one to see asap. Given the word on both movies now, the situation has reversed itself and I’m eager to see Scorsese’s movie. Following GLADIATOR, TROY and ALEXANDER I'm not sure if the current sword and sandal stream is one I'm all that keen to follow to the end.

I think I skipped too many bad movies this year to make any sort of list, but I liked HERO a lot and suspect that FLYING DAGGERS will appeal a lot when I finally catch up with it. I've also literally only seen 30 seconds of PUNISHER but it's been recommended by another (comic-loving) friend of mine, so I'll make time for it someday.

Luckily I didn't see alot of bad movies this year -- I was stone-cold broke for most of the year, which meant I had to be at least a little selective.

I think ALEXANDER is easily the worst movie of the year, but it's bad with such panache it's hard to dislike it. Others I hated are going to pop up on a lot of lists:

VAN HELSING
THE VILLAGE
RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE.

I would also toss in THE MACHINIST, a dreadful psychological thriller that wastes a lot of good acting in the service of a slow, pretentious, badly-written and utterly predictable script. One of the few times I ever walked out of a movie.

I too liked THE PUNISHER. And I think HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS will pop up on my personal ten best list.

The tail end of the year doesn't look all that fascinating to me. Though I may try to catch the horror flick DARKNESS.

doug

Vincent, I can't really remember GOODBYE LENIN with enough clarity to go into detail about why I disliked it - basically, though, I just felt a complete lack of emotional connection with the character's quest, and when it became clear the movie was about nothing than that, it was just like waiting for water to boil. There were some nice Kubrick references, though.

As for PASSION OF THE CHRIST, I've probably shared my feelings here before, but (MINOR SPOILER!) after surviving all the slo-mo, once I got to the part where they decided to have Christ *invent the kitchen table!*(END SPOILER) I lost any sort of investment in the film. Give me THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST any day.

But then, I loved SHAUN OF THE DEAD. I'll cop to not having seen RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, though, and I don't doubt that seeing SHAUN with an enthusiastic 2000+ person crowd the first time undoubtedly helped.

I guess I do have a top 10 films that i absolutley hated this year, so excuse the edit, i thought of some more and here are the top 10 movies that i saw this year that i thought were complete crappola:

1.) Resident Evil: Apocalypse- so dull and boring. I kept nodding off and at one point when i woke up, almost half the people who were there before were now gone. i went to resee it at the $1 theatre just in case i missed something. i didnt.

2.) van helsing- why bother with a good movie when you can pack it with tons of cgi.

3.) the grudge- not scary at all. over rated and so much worse than the jap version, which i did not like much to begin with anyway.

4.) the village- i did not like.

5.) troy AND alexander- two horrible over blown movies. i was bored throughout each.

6.) alien vs. predator- what could have been a wild sci fi action thrill a thon, was actually a boring toned down pg 13 mess, directed by one of my personal least favorite directors of all time.

7.) De Lovely- ugh.

8.) Taking Lives- it's alaways good to see angelina naked, but besides that, but i saw the end coming a mile away and was copmpletely disappointed.

9.) Catwoman- ha. one of the most over rated actresses ever in one of the most ludicrously stupid movies ive ever seen.

10.) Exorcist: The Beginning- hated it, but will give the schrader version a shot for sure.
and Open Water, which I loved the first time i saw it, was deadly dull the second time, since the whole movie is based on finding out what happens to them, and i tend to not like movies with low rewatchability, but it is good the first time you see it.
whoever else mentioned the punisher as being under rated, you can mark me with then, as i thought that movie was just dandy.

I'm grateful that I can't come up with 10, but the ones that I can come up with, and all deserve a place in the horror forum, are:

Saw - I still can't believe how bloody awful this film is.

Exorcist: The Beginning - I wish it had either been a lot worse (therfore, a hoot), or much, much better. Is it was, this film just "laid there like a bored hooker" (quote blatantly robbed from Julie Brown).

Stepford Wives - should have been good, but I guess that theoretically applies to most every film that gets released

Dogville - crap disguised as art. it was a valiant effort, but boy oh boy did it fail miserably.

Here's my bottom 10:

ANATOMY OF HELL
EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING
NAPOLEON DYNAMITE
OPEN WATER
RECONSTRUCTION
THE VILLAGE
SAW
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
MARONNIER
THE NEST

I guess the year couldn't have been that bad, since I had to delve into the undistributed bin to fill out a bottom 10. ANATOMY, EXORCIST, THE VILLAGE, SAW & PASSION seem to be conensus choices. SAW is remarkable for the number of bad performances it contains. Why hire Benito Martinez and only use him for a minute-long role? I would've much rather seen him in the Cary Elwes part. I know a lot of people loved NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, but I found it painfully unfunny. I saw it opening night with an audience that laughed like crazy. It was one of the most alienating moviegoing experiences I've ever had.

10. JERSEY GIRL--I'm a Kevin Smith fan, but this middling soppy sitcom is a real disappointment. I've been urging Smith to grow up for years, and even though this is a step away from his View Askew-niverse films, he has yet to make a movie as smart as he is.

9. HOME ON THE RANGE--Disney somehow blew $100 million on this lame animated feature, its 45th and final hand-drawn film.

8. THE LADYKILLERS--The star of BOSOM BUDDIES and the writer/directors of THE BIG LEBOWSKI team up for a frighteningly dull black comedy. If there's a worse actor than Marlon Wayans making films today, I don't want to see him.

7. BROKEN LIZARD'S CLUB DREAD--I was a huge fan of SUPER TROOPERS, which made Broken Lizard's followup that much more disappointing. They're doing DUKES OF HAZZARD next, which could be either brilliant or awful.

6. SUSPECT ZERO--A plodding serial killer thriller obviously inspired by THE X-FILES, but without that series' style, smarts and star power.

5. WILD THINGS 2--I know, I know. What did I expect? What's most frustrating is that the screenplay gets carried away with itself, offering up so many plot twists that you realize at the end of the movie that it was a waste of time, that the scam perpetrated in the film was completely unnecessary and negates the purpose of the film.

4. TAKING LIVES--Few recent comedies have had laughs as big as the one I received from this boring and stupid serial-killer thriller. Thank you, Angelina, for popping your top again.

3. SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW--Devoid of original ideas and awash in an ugly yellow fog that made it nigh impossible to even see what was happening.

2. TWISTED--Guess what...another bad serial-killer thriller. This one wastes a good cast and a great director, Philip Kaufman.

1. VAN HELSING--Worst Film of the 21st Century, so far. The stagecoach explodes, for God's sake!

Four That Could Have Been Worse and Surprisingly Don't Make The List:
SPECIES III
STARSHIP TROOPERS 2
SNIPER 3
FRANKENFISH

I completely forgot about TWISTED! I can't belive Kaufman directed this abysmal movie. That may bump one of the others from my list -or at least tie it with CATWOMAN.

****SPOLIER****
Actually if you haven't seen the film TWISTED and do read this, I'm doing you a favor. How was it possible for Samuel Jackson to be the culprit? The shots around the crime scenes make it impossible for it to have been him. It reminds me of those giallos that have a 2.5 meter viking in the establishing shots of the killer only to have it be a petite woman in the reveal. It's a shame this wasn't cheesier, or it could have been one for the ages, but it took itself so seriously, and after QUILLS I would have thought that Kaufman was back in top form. Wrong again!
****END OF SPOILER***

Oh, and who can forget BATTLE ROYALE 2 and CASHERN? After such a strong season of Japanese films in the year prior, 2004 was like a visual oxymoron. If you've had the displeasure of the live action DEVILMAN film, then Cashern is a masterpiece by comparison, but there have been so many heavy-handed message (or anti-message) films from Japan, that I really wish they'd go back to nonsensical comedies (Cutey Honey movie is a wonderful exception, though).

I have to disagree with you about CASSHERN. Sci Fi has been laboring under the yoke of BLADE RUNNER and ALIEN for so many years that it's totally refreshing to see something new. CASSHERN and RESURRECTION OF THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL both fit into a weird new genre of transcendental sci fi and I love them both very much. CASSHERN was what SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW would have been if SCATWOT had had a brain in its head to match its budget.

Does CASSHERN have flaws? Absolutely, but its flaws are there because it over-reaches, not because it's dumb.

I loved this movie so much, it's up there with DUMPLINGS for one of the best of 2004 in my book. Space Nazis vs. Robo Commies, constantly in danger of going over the edge, but sticking it out to the end when all hope is disappointed and the future is born out of a giant mushroom cloud over Japan. Fantastic!

Pick on VAN HELSING. Pick on TWISTED. Pick on any movie that was designed to make a quick buck off the audience. But leave my CASSHERN alone, you big bully! I can't put a movie this heartfelt, this passionately made, this flawed, and yet this fabulous on a "Worst of" list. Movies need to take risks like this, or all we'll wind up with are safe, market-tested duds like GOTHIKA.

Maybe we just differ in that I give intentions a lot of credit, but I can't fault a movie this well-intentioned and ambitious for going off the rails.

Fortunately, I don't usually wind up seeing the movies that seem to be clearly the 10 worst of the year. I did see The Village, though; and was definitely not very good. And the Dawn of the Dead remake - that was this year, right?

P.s. - Why was this shifted to sci-fi and horror? Are sci-fi and horror movies always the worst?

It was shifted because horror movies started popping up in the thread, and horror movies are off-topic for the AWH board. As has been discussed repeatedly in the past, if a thread or post on AWH veers into discussion of horror, it will be moved to a more appropriate board by the moderating team immediately.

Dave

Marty:

Have you seen Broken Lizard's first film, PUDDLE CRUISER, yet? It never got a theatrical release, nor video as far as I know, but pops up on the Sundance Channel from time to time, and it's my favorite of theirs. I first saw it via a rough cut VHS tape that they sent to the View Askew offices before it went to the Sundance Film Festival back in January 1997, and I fell in love immediately*. Apparently, it was a "hit" at the festival that year, but for various reasons the distribution deals all fell through, and they moved on the SUPER-TROOPERS...

If you haven't seen PUDDLE CRUISER, try and track it down. It's a blast, and I hope it eventually hits DVD 'cause it's a really funny film and deserves to be seen.

Vincent

* In fact, it was due to our love of PUDDLE CRUISER that we brought Broken Lizard film producer Rich Perello in as the producer of the ultra low-budget View Askew comedy BIG HELIUM DOG, and a bunch of the Broken Lizard team appear in that film, as well, with Kevin Heffernan taking a supporting role as "Phil", a.k.a. the dark lord Satan.

I liked RESURRECTION OF THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL. I also liked AVALON (Polish-Japanese not American) from a few years back, which probably started this recent wave of "transcendental sci-fi" (I like your term, I think I'll borrow it). I was at the first screening of this CASSHERN in the US (which was only the second screenig ever -the day after the Japanese premiere) and I've never seen so many people get up and leave during a film in my life. These people were all prospective buyers, btw, and they couldn't take it. I would have left myself if I weren't a guest of the studio that produced it. If the director wasn't married to Utada Hikaru, this film never would have been made. If we're going to praise people for over reaching, then we'd better withdraw all the criticism deservedly thrown at the recent STAR WARS trilogy, GANGS OF NEW YORK and any number of films which also stink, but at least with those, the money is up on the screen. CASSHERN is the most expensive movie ever produced in Japan. That creates a little expectation, and CASSHERN didn't live up to mine. It certainly wasn't better than Miike's unsentimental remake of GRAVEYARD OF HONOR (which was Oscar worthy). The effects were bad, the performances on par with Coppola's DRACULA, and the story incoherent. If this were an American produced film, you'd hate it. Be honest! Did you praise THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK for over reaching? If bad cinematography worthy of music videos from 1986 equate with "pasionately made", I'll stick with (well made) crowd pleasering fluff like QUILL -the cute little puppy movie that is much more heartfelt and has ten times the passion of CASSHERN. At least the unnerving quasi-reality special effects in SKY CAPTAIN (which look better than the similar fx in CASSHERN) fit the tone of the piece, and the film didn't take itself too seriously. To be perfectly honest CASSHERN felt like a hamfisted, anime adaptation of Matthew Barney's overblown, self-indulgent CREMASTER CYCLE, which was universally abhorred in this forum. Throwing a dozen ideas at a wall doesn't make it creative, unless all (or at least most) of those ideas stick, and they must be original ideas. I didn't find the film to be as creative as it was reactive -remember that it is adapted from another source to begin with; first a manga then an anime. Do I like a hand ful of confusing films ? Sure. I love SUSPIRIA, but the elements that work in that film outnumber my need to comprehend what it's all suposed to mean: great cinematography, good performances, great music. Actually the music is one thing in CASSHERN that I did enjoy, but I also liked the music in MORTAL KOMBAT (which is closer to the tone of CASSHERN than MATCH GIRL). I also think the the costume design was boderline genius, but the clothes don't make the man, and the costumes didn't save this film.
Let's not champion films just because most people haven't seen them. Let's pick our battles and champion good genre films that are well made and deserve to be seen by larger audiences.

That said, you're right about GOTHIKA -total poop!

Sticking by genre, in no particular order:

CATWOMAN: Embarrassing to watch.

SECRET WINDOW: The minute Shooter showed up, I knew where it was heading. King already wrote this story.

ANACONDAS: SEARCH FOR THE BLOOD ORCHID: Straight to Blockbuster, why did this stop first in the theatres?

GODSEND: Return to Sender. I know that’s been done countless times, but so has this movie.

WHAT THE #$*! DO WE KNOW?: WTF I know is that the $ is the emphasis. Creepy crap veiled as psuedo-science. I include this under “horror” because people actually take this seriously.

NATIONAL TREASURE: Just stupid. If you’re gonna write/film a script, at least connect the dots.

VAN HELSING: If you’re gonna do a homage, take notes.

THE VILLAGE: M. Night needs to take a break. Book a cabin. Think. Not churn out knee-jerk crap like this in order to maintain being a player.

THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK: Like having some ADD kid throw ball-bearings in my face for two hours.

ALIEN VS. PREDATOR: Just dumb and inept. Not to mention PG-13. WTF?

This coming from someone that enjoyed RESIDENT EVIL 2.

I've been watching Hong Kong films for over 15 years and Crouching Tiger and House Of Flying Daggers both came off as souless cynical grabs at a western audience. Crouching Tiger was pretty much the kung fu version of Titanic with it's multiple doomed relationships and it's Celine Dionish end ballad while HOFD seemed to be a rip off of Crouching Tiger's "formula". I actually liked Hero as it felt like a Zhang Yimou film with martial arts and not a cynical grab for cash that HOFD is. It's a shame that these are the movies being pimped to a Western audience because they are not a true representation of how wonderful the Hong Kong film scene can be. This spring Sony is releasing Stephen Chow's wonderful Kung Fu Hustle. Kung Fu Hustle is a true Hong Kong film. It's exciting, it's silly, it's romantic, and it's absoultly insane! Hopefully Sony will give Kung Fu Hustle the same type of care and attention that they showed those two imposters.

How exactly is HERO a less cynical enterprise than HFOD? Zhang's recent interview comments - some quoted recently in the Asian cinema thread about whether HFOD is a political film - suggest that he's concerned first and foremost with competing with Hollywood within China. The compromises he's made lately may have at least as much to do with placating the Chinese government as reaching an international audience.

I tend to get suspicious when Westerners fetishize the "authenticity" of foreign films. For one thing, a miscegenated film reflects the realities of globalization and the ways culture can influence people across national boundaries. Is KILL BILL any less American for borrowing so much from Asian and European films? Was David Lynch pandering to his French producers with MULHOLLAND DRIVE? Were Jean-Pierre Melville and Sergio Leone compromising their Europeanness by making film noirs and Westerns?

"How exactly is HERO a less cynical enterprise than HFOD? "

Hero in no way, shape, or form feels like a commercial film and that it actually turned into a hit film in the US surprised the hell out of me. It's an art film that happens to have martial arts in it. To me it's more akin to Wong Kar Wai's Ashes Of Time than CTHD and HOFD. Those two are kung fu films for people who hate kung fu films.

"I tend to get suspicious when Westerners fetishize the "authenticity" of foreign films. For one thing, a miscegenated film reflects the realities of globalization and the ways culture can influence people across national boundaries."

I've seen more kung fu movies than most people. Hell, I own over 150 kung fu films on 35mm, that's how crazy I am about them. I know when a kung fu movie is pandering to the west and that's what CTHD & HOFD are doing. Hero was huge in China but CTHD & HOFD were considered disappointments and there have been reports of scenes in CTHD & HOFD that have had western audiences weeping in the lattes have had the Chinese audience laughing in hysterics. These two movies aren't the only films I dislike for pandering to US audiences. Hell, Jackie Chan spent most of the 90's pandering to American audience. His two best films from the 90's are City Hunter and Drunken Master 2, the only two that didn't feel like he was trying to breakthrough into the west.

"Is KILL BILL any less American for borrowing so much from Asian and European films?"

You go into a Tarantino movie expecting him to borrow from everything. But here's the thing, Tarantino is not pandering, Tarantino is making the films he wants to make. CTHD & HOFD are kung fu movies tailor made for the USA.

"Was David Lynch pandering to his French producers with MULHOLLAND DRIVE? "

Again, David Lynch has only pandered once, Dune. Everything else is Lynch's unique vision. I really don't get what you're trying to say here. It seems you missed my point.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this abomination yet:

ALONG CAME POLLY

This was, without a doubt, the worst movie I have seen all year if not in my entire life. I was on an airplane when they showed it and somehow decided to put those headphones on--BIG mistake! It is THE most stale, THE most derivative, boring, joyless piece of "romantic comedy" junk ever made. I'm not a big romantic comedy fan, but I can appreciate what people like about THE WEDDING SINGER and PRETTY WOMAN for instance. But THIS--how ANYONE could have read the script and thought "how funny! let's make this!" is beyond me. I'm not sure if I should put a "spoiler warning" here, because the entire movie itself is one big "spoiler" of a good time. Ben Stiller plays [surprise!] a stuffy dude who can't hang loose and enjoy his life. Jennifer Anniston was severely miscast as the carefree hippie gal who has a messy apartment and exposes Stiller to all those wacky, fun, irresponsible things he's missing out on. A few examples of this movie's humor: Stiller gets indigestion when he eats foreign foods, but Anniston desperately wants Indian cuisine! So, he ends up on the toilet all night, thus ruining their big date!! Twice in a row! HA HA HA! Then, the king of the salsa dancefloor seems to be dancing extremely provocatively with Anniston [oh oh!]... but WHADYA KNOW, in the end, it turns out he's gay! It's not just a typical bad Hollywood movie...there's something downright cruel about it.

Worst Movie runners-up:
Spider-Man 2: just plain boring
Taking Lives: could have been decent, but was just predictable "thriller" trash
Alexander: guts but no glory
White Chicks: admittedly I didn't get to see the whole thing, but it looked dreadful
Elf: i haven't seen this one at all, but it's a big favorite at the video store where i work right now, to the point where just the sight of will ferrel spread-eageled in a jingle bell hat is enough to make me sick.

I liked ALONG CAME POLLY, but then again, as a ferret owner/lover*, I guess I'm biased towards any movie with a ferret as a co-star...

And SPIDER-MAN 2 rules. A great, great MOVIE.

And not for nothing, but it's just plain stupid that you hate ELF and put it on your worst list without having seen it. That's simply inexcusable and smacks of ignorant snobbery.

Vincent

* TWO Marshall Ferrets so far, Baron and Izzy, and I'm strongly thinking about adding Ferret #3 from my local Marshall-endoresed pet store, who I've tentitively named Remy.

What? You didn't like Toshiaki Karasawa as the mutant king? I thought he was great -- such rage-filled eyes! He made the film for me. If I ever come back to life as a bilious, revenge-seeking mutant, I'd like to have him for my leader!

I'll agree the film did have ridiculous, over-the-top moments, but I never felt it was stupid or disappointing.

Also, I'm a big lover of so-called "visual excess." I LOVED CREMASTER. I love part 2 of IVAN THE TERRIBLE, a movie I think informed CASSHERN in several ways. Films that are too plain, in design and structure, don't have a lot of appeal for me. I think that's why I haven't enjoyed a lot of recent HK movies (shot on location, but doesn't show the location in a particularly interesting way), and why I never liked CASABLANCA (dull, simple structure, unbelievable love stories).

Throwing in my ticket for worst, I'd also vote for ENVY, with a nod to JERSEY GIRL too. On my flight back to Hong Kong from San Francisco, I had to sit through something that was practically a bad movie fest -- THE CAT IN THE HAT, then JERSEY GIRL, then ENVY. They also had SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE, which I tried to watch, and just couldn't get into. Luckily, I've been able to avoid other bad movies, so I can't add anything else to the list.

Well, maybe you're right, but I freely admitted that I hadn't seen it and also admitted that I only saw part of WHITE CHICKS, so anyone reading the list would know to take my biases against those two movies with a grain of salt. I guess hating ELF after inexplicably being bombarded with its promotional campaign both here and while I lived abroad in Russia [where a huge poster featuring will ferrel's ugly mug was plastered to a wall by my house for months] may be illogical or even unreasonable. But there you have it. I can't bear the thought of ELF, I despise ELF, I wouldn't sit down to watch it even if someone paid me a hundred bucks.

Ha! I know what you mean! I can't stand Tom Cruise or Robin Williams -- Cruise gives me the willies, and Robin Williams is just so freaking hairy he makes my stomach turn. Irrational? Sure! But probably common! When I was a movie reviewer (just for my humble college newspaper, of course), I avoided reviewing movies with actors I hated, because I knew I couldn't give them a fair shake.

... Actually, I almost included THE LAST SAMURAI on my list, another one of the movies I had to watch on that awful flight, but I left it out because I couldn't bear to watch it. I just kept looking at it, thinking, "This is crap," and trying to sleep.

Calling CTHD a cynical attempt at "imitating" Hong Kong cinema displays some problematical assumptions and a reductively Westerncentric view of the wuxia pian. I'd call it a "fanboyish" statement if we weren't in some sense ALL fanboys who look especially silly when we use that term as a stick to beat each other with.

To start, the film's sensibilities seem rather more Taiwanese than Hongkie and it cleary owes more to King Hu's Mandarin language films of the late 60s and early 70s than anything by Tsui Hark, Corey Yuen-Kwai or Yuen Woo-Ping, despite the latter's state-of-the-art wirework. And while it departs quite a bit from its source novel, I find it interesting that many Chinese-born fans of _written_ wuxia think this is a far more accurate representation of their beloved genre than almost any Cantonese language theatrical film of the last 20 years. I believe that Louis Cha, aka Jin Yong, the most popular and influential wuxia novelist, went on record a few years back as saying that he liked Ang Lee's film better than any Hong Kong adaptation of his own work (which would include, of course, Stephen Chiao's ROYAL TRAMP and Tsui Hark's SWORDSMAN 2) and that he very much hoped Lee would adapt one of his own novels in the future. The "soap opera" elements that Marc castigates seem quite common in wuxia television serails, whether they be from Taiwan, Hong Kong or the Mainland, and this may be because the tv serial format has more room for the kind of characterization and plotting that wuxia _readers_ go in for. It should be remembered that Ang Lee himself was one of the those readers, and that he intended CTHD more as a tribute to the novels he read as a child than to any particular films of the neo-wuxia boom of the early 90s.

Oh well, at least Marc hasn't revived the Miramax-propagated disinformation that the film "bombed in Asia."

Ya know, I am not the biggest Ferrel fan out there, but Elf is actually a movie that works in some pretty amazing ways. Ferrel's Buddy character could easily have been the most annoying creation in film history, but he somehow manages to land on a very likable plain with him. Though he is over-the-top, he never gets it to a point of being annoying. It is a strange feat he actually accomplishes. I would actually recommend checking it out. Be prepared though for a good natured family film. My buddy, who LOVED Old School and hates anything too "clean" and too close to "family fun" wasn't very fond of it, and found it's "cleanliness" to be an annoyance.

As for worst films of the year, can Van Helsing take care of my whole top 10 since I can't think of any other I have hated? Granted, this was a VERY slow movie viewing year for me, but I feel pretty confident in it being dang near bad enough to cover a TON of ground.

Well, I don't know if I have 10 but TOOLBOX MURDERS was probably the film that annoyed me the most this year.

Most have been mentioned already, but here's my list of the worst of 2004:

WIMBLEDON - No one saw this one? It was very predictable and though there was interesting chemistry between the two leads, it was too average to be entertaining.

RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE
THE LADYKILLERS
OPEN WATER
THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK

ANCHORMAN - Man was I disappointed with this one!! I liked Will Ferrell in ELF (which has been mentioned in this thread, but I laughed enough to want to own it), but this one fell flat with every joke. The only time I chuckled was when Christina Applegate and Ferrell were calling each other names during the silent credit roll of the nightly news show. And it was good to see "Freaks and Geeks" alumni Seth Rogen as one of the cameramen, but that's it...

THE PRINCESS DIARIES 2 - This abomination was two hours long and set a new low for Julie Andrews' career. Yes, even S.O.B. is better than this one! While the first one was a G-rated film for families (including adults and teenagers), this is a G-rated film for 6-year-olds. Ugh... And any film which wastes the talents of Heather Mattarazzo should be destroyed, and poor Heather has nothing to do here except act as a loose connection to the first film.

THE BOURNE SUPREMACY - Maybe the storyline and performances were good, but I couldn't tell with the disgusting shaky camerawork obscuring any reason I would want to see this film. I endured the whole thing, and never once enjoyed it.

SHREK 2 - Another sequel which made more money than the original, yet was missing most of the magic which made the first one so memorable. I think my problem was that this one focused too much on Shrek and Fiona, who were the least interesting characters of the first film. I wanted more Donkey and especially more Fairy Godmother!!

I found someone to go to the cinema with this year, but as our tastes intersect mainly in the region of le crap, this is (mostly) what I ended up seeing:

Underworld, Timeline, The Butterfly Effect, House Of 1,000 Corpses, Gothika, Van Helsing, The Day After Tomorrow, Godsend, Hellboy, Catwoman, Anacondas and Shaun Of The Dead.

Shaun was the best film I saw by a country mile. Hellboy I did enjoy, but was also somewhat disappointed in. House, Butterfly and Day I enjoyed rather more than I expected to. The rest of the films you may organise into the Worst list of your choice, provided that Van Helsing comes in at #1. Not only did this film cause my friend and myself to formulate the Van Helsing Sliding Scale Of Cinematic Pain as a way of grading subsequent experiences, but the combination of that and Underworld has rocketed Kate Beckinsale to the top of my list of "People Who Need To Die Slowly And Painfully".

And not by being shoved onto a couch.

:: Ya know, I am not the biggest Ferrel fan out there, but Elf is actually a movie that works in some pretty amazing ways.

I still haven't seen ELF, but Will Ferrel gets a lot of credit from me simply because he appeared in a featured role in one of the greatest episodes of one of the greatest 'sitcoms' in all of human history- STRANGERS WITH CANDY. Ferrel has a featured role in the "Indian" episode from season 3...

- and anybody who's appeared in any episode of STRANGERS WITH CANDY is good people by me :-)

And I quite like UNDERWORLD. SHAUN OF THE DEAD, on the other hand, is easily the single most over-rated film of the year IMO. I didn't *HATE* it, but I far from "loved" it as most seem to have. As far as I'm concerned, it's worth a discount video rental at best.

Vincent

I rather enjoyed CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK, though it's certainly beyond stupid.

I think I'll probably end up keeping BOURNE SUPREMACY on my ten best list, although I had real problems with the shaky camera work too. The movie lingers in the mind oddly, though.

doug

Chiming in, even though I try to avoid bad things and erase them from my memory. Here's a couple that come to mind.

RESIDENT EVIL 2 - How hard could it be to make a guilty pleasure like this? This is offensive to people who aren't braindead zombies.

TAKING LIVES - Predictable, stupid waste of time.

TROY - Unwatchably boring and silly.

SAVED! - I tried to watch this earlier in the week and didn't even make it all the way through. I giggled exactly once, overall it seemed childishly one-dimensional and lame. There's a good movie with this plot somewhere, but this ain't it.

I HEART HUCKABEES - Like hanging out with your pot-smoking friends who think they are geniuses when high. In reality, they're just being idiots.

THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST - Had every shot not been changed in slo-mo, this would have been about 40 minutes.

The film that annoyed me the most this year has to be GARDEN STATE. It's the kind if faux-hip, formula nonsense that inexplicably passes for "art-house" these days. This one felt like it was written by an eleven year old -- "my friends are so boring...good thing I met a CRAZY COOL girl at the doctor's office. If only my Dad understood me! He TOTALLY doesn't get it!" -- Any middle schooler with an Ipod could have put together this phony, poorly flashy movie. Good marketing sold it as way smarter than it is.