Alright, everyone can say Fantastic 4 was one of the worst movies of the year. But what's your list of 5 worst movies of the year, with a Metacritic score above 70? Mine? Without further ado:

King Kong (81) - Absolutely mind-boggling how people could have enjoyed this one. Incredible irony abounds in the forums: typical King Kong lover blasts King Kong hater about disliking the length, saying they lack attention span. Yet the entire last 2/3's of the movie plays like an ADD instructional video. More video game than cinema, this was hands down the worst scripted movie of the year. I was tempted to blame the actors, but much like the Star Wars flicks, this movie displayed how incredibly important the script and director is in making a good actor.

Wallace & Gromit (87) - High expectations were doused in this stinker. But really, how much enjoyment can one get out of a story that pits two main characters who can't communicate with words (the dog, and then the man-turned-wererabbit)? Maybe I'm simple and unrefined, and can't enjoy a movie without good dialogue. And I can't seem to appreciate a movie lacking any wit whatsoever. I suck.

Grizzly Man (87) - (I'll copy my original forum posting) One of the weakest documentaries I've seen in a long while. Herzog spends more time on his own opinions on Treadwell and company than actual facts (How did Treadwell finance these expeditions? What did he do in the offseason? Etc). Meanwhile, the movie seemed to be about Treadwell's complexity, when after 10 minutes, it seemed quite obvious: A disturbed man who wanted to feel important. I spent an hour and a half of having that forcefully explained to me, while suffering through prepared "interviews", where the subjects lacked any sort of genuiness whatsoever. A strange, bad movie. Watch only to be confused by the filmmaking. Critics were influenced by Herzog's stature, apparently? I have no idea.

Broken Flowers (79) - I love Bill Murray. I love Bill Murray's "unfunny" movies. I love Bill Murray's "slow" movies. Yet this one I could not comprehend for the life of me. 30 minutes worth of work done over an hour and a half. Why didn't they make it more complex? It was a fabulous idea with a fabulous lead, yet they also seemed lazy in the making of it. Why show more dialogue between characters when you can show Bill Murray driving his rental car for a minute straight? I don't know the answer to this. Do you?

War of the Worlds (73) - AKA King Kong lite. A movie that shows the best of human virtues: run, scream, and let bacteria handle the rest. Not that I enjoyed the movie in the first place, but could there a more anticlimatic ending of a movie in modern history? Silly stuff.

What the hell? King Kong and Wallace & Gromit were two of the better movies of the year. King Kong was a bit long, i admit, but I think it deserves a lot more credit than you've given it. And by the way, check out Wallace & Gromit's 87 rating from 37 critics on metacritic. You're definitely in the minority on that one. plus it helps if you've seen the previous 3 wallace and gromits.

As for my bottom 5:
1. War of the Worlds (so promising, yet so bad)
2. ah, forget it, i dont wanna waste any more time on this excuse for a topic.

now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go get a coffee at starbucks. mmm, white chocolate mocha!

Oh. Wallace & Gromit got an 87 on Metacritic, compiled by 37 critics no less. Well jeez, I change my mind. If others liked it, I better. I mean, there's nothing, NOTHING worse than not conforming with society's standards. I guess I'm a dope for not getting an ipod too.

Hope your $128/gallon white chocolate mocha was worth every penny. Enjoy your mass conformity.

Fight the man. Fight on, young avenger.

King Kong (81). My strong feelings and problems regarding this movie have been posted at length elsewhere under Action Movies.

The March of the Penguins (79). While I accept that this warm and fuzzy (if one can be warm in the Antarctic) and the tremendous technical difficulties of this movie, I still have to insist on comparing this movie to many of the other National Geographic movies that I have seen and each one has the same intensity, good photography, enchanting narrative. For this particular one movie to be raised above the others, just seems to be over-rated for me.

Syriana (76). An important politically correct movie in these times, but still does not come close to reaching the level of concise, compelling, intelligible directing and editing when using Traffic (2000) as a benchmark. While some have argued that the convoluted nature of the conspiracy and corruption necessarily make the complexity of this movie more realistic, the movie didn't seem suffer so much from the intricate, covert nature of the oil game as the director's inability to demonstrate this nature in a way that avoids making it seem part of the movie's problem instead of the reality of the problem.

War of the Worlds (73). The plot weaknesses even in an acknowledged sci-fi, action, adventure film were too big and too distracting to really allow this movie to be seriously dramatic and compelling. The attempt at suspending my belief in reality could not be sustained in light of the gaping holes in logic and even emotional reality.

Batman Begins (70). This movie overall was good and my problems with it are more technical and minor but sufficient in number to have detracted from the overall enjoyment of the movie resulting in a significant lower rating. Two points I can remember were the flashback technique at the beginning of the movie and the search for the rare flower was so underdeveloped though a strong point made at the beginning of the movie that set up the movie in a way that made it difficult for me to shake off the lapse in plot development.

No biggie, but THREE people list one of my top three flicks of the year as one of the five worst, War of the Worlds. Nothing I wouldn't have expected, but that's all the NEW comments about it I'll mention. Let the Stoning Re-Commence!

quote:

Mark f posted:

No biggie, but THREE people list one of my top three flicks of the year as one of the five worst, War of the Worlds. Nothing I wouldn't have expected, but that's all the NEW comments about it I'll mention. Let the Stoning Re-Commence!

I don't have stones readily available so I guess you'll just have to put with "words" instead.

The weak plot points in the remake of The War of the Worlds are somewhat vague now, but a number of them still stand pretty stark in my mind.

1. The apparent ease with which our heros are so conveniently able to find a power source when nobody else could and then to be able to magically find a clear path sufficient to manuever a vehicle out of town is beyond contemporary sci fi genre acceptability.

2. How our heros are so foolish to find themselves trapped with a mob crowd when Tom Cruise had initially been so paranoid and careful to begin with, the scene reeks of script fake-manipulation just to introduce the mandatory crowd terror scene.

3. How our heros then find themselves the last people on the ferry again becomes a manipulative plot device just for the sake of the continuation of the story without any basis in likely reality.

4. How our lost son is found again climaxes the movie in its American fantasy of a all that ends well story that is too much over the top.

5. I also read one critic who had a serious problem with the military response to the attack and felt that how it was presented in the movie was pretty made-up in terms of actual military strategy that suggests to me that the director took such great liberties with real military action and sacrificed believability for supposed impressive photographic, physical performance that actually weakened the internal integrity of the movie. Unlike the original version, the military scenes seemed almost disconnected from the rest of the movie.

My standard for excellent science fiction movies is the belief that such movie experience have a solid basis in the possibilities of reality as witnesses in Alien (1979) or 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Take even Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) that had a very serious, heavy-weight feel when it came to the military counter-balanced by the almost comic relief of the civilians in the movie. These good movies don't require its audience to have to conduct mental manipulations of both science fiction and plot conveniences of a less than meticulous screenwriter. I would hazard to say that even the Matrix(1999) had better internal consistency and integrity than World of the Worlds. At least in A.I. (2000) the screenwriter and director at least made an attempt (some critics would say feeble attempt) to justify why the mother would let her artificial son go. But with War of the Worlds the audience is left with no such attempts to explain the continuing series of improbable and unlikely events that transpire in this movie version destroying most of this movie's entertainment value and credibility.

Movies nowadays need to adapt to a hopefully changing audience, versed with a growing, heightened sense of intelligence, adept with technology and no longer fooled as much by the gimmicks of old. I would envision a movie going audience who would enjoy entertainment but entertainment that contains a much more solid grounding and sense of reality upon which the rest of the action and drama and comedy can be built upon unless it is clear from the get go or there is a deliberate cinematic twist to justify why the sky isn't falling or the world isn't flat. We can enjoy farce, physical comedy, action-adventure, yet today's next generation are supposedly much more sophisticated in their cinematic expectations when it comes to really good movies. I hope we have evolved beyond what was a more simplistic view of movie-making and what directors could used to get away with. I'm saying there aren't basic fundamental camera and film theory techniques use by the masters of old that will always remain relevant and necessary for good films, but that the content and substance underlying such movies about which the technique is to be used on hopefully is becoming more attune with our increasing awareness of reality, scientific discoveries, cause and effect, and our probing more into our own spirituality.

OK. You seem to believe that War of the Worlds just fits in scenes wherever the hell it wants, but Crash is something resembling a documentary, where the script makes total sense and has much more respect for its audience? Is that correct?

As far as your opinion that somehow modern audiences are more-attuned to their spirituality or have some greater grasp on reality, I beg to differ. The simple wisdom and humanity found in something as "manipulative" as Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington far outweighs what's coming out today with Good Night, and Good Luck, Capote, Crash, etc. That won't stop those all decent-to-good newer films from garnering their awards, but they could sure learn from the classics about human nature and the true power of cinema.

quote:

Mark f posted:

OK. You seem to believe that War of the Worlds just fits in scenes wherever the hell it wants, but Crash is something resembling a documentary, where the script makes total sense and has much more respect for its audience? Is that correct?

Hmmm...you seem to be my conscience. I was wondering when and if you would come up. The only thought I can summon up is a distinction between Crash and The War of the Worlds in regards to the differences between coincidences and logical flaws. While I admit to the presence of perhaps karmic like coincidences that are hard to accept in a movie like Crash where apparently separate characters and plots somehow beyond statistical happenstance seem to collide together, in War of the Worlds, the coincidence of our heros finding themselves the last ones on a ferry or somewhat luckily finding a power source and a debris-free path for their getaway vehicle is more of a rational disconnect between cause and effect having nothing to do with the karma of our heros in this movie. In Crash, we have everyman or everywomen characters whereas in The War of the Worlds we have everyman heroic figures who trascend everyman laypeople where the coincidence occur much more frequency than everyman heros. Heros need to demonstrate that they are heros or that the coincidences that befall them are somehow explained and exposed as acts of God or destiny.

That's a legit response. The movies just have two different agendas. War of the Worlds is a very personal film. It's more about family than it is about heroes. It's about to what extremes someone will go to try to protect their family. It is a sci-fi film, but it's really more of a horror film. The sci-fi elements are only used to project the unknowing of the enemy. The aliens, the military, and all the other characters are there to just put the central characters through the ringer to enable them to turn from a dysfunctional family into a functional family.

I personally see the film as a metaphor. Well, it's also one of the scariest films I've ever seen, but this supposedly-more-intelligent audience you referred to earlier, they love Jackass and every other low-ranking thing which comes down the pike, and then all of a sudden, they pick apart the scripts of War of the Worlds and King Kong? I'm afraid that too many people are too literal-minded, have no imagination, and/or apparently HATE remakes of older films which they've either NEVER seen or don't like!

There are logic flaws with ALL films, but people really seem to get into it when they are predisposed to hate Scientology or Cruise acting weird or Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg being too rich, or something very similar. I just let the films go out there on an even playing field and look at them for what they are. I also try to find deeper meanings in what is being presented, rather than just harping on my predisposed prejudices.

Nothing personal. This tells everybody more about me, not about them. If it explains you too, then I'm appreciative.

quote:

Mark f posted:

That's a legit response. The movies just have two different agendas. War of the Worlds is a very personal film. It's more about family than it is about heroes. It's about to what extremes someone will go to try to protect their family. It is a sci-fi film, but it's really more of a horror film. The sci-fi elements are only used to project the unknowing of the enemy. The aliens, the military, and all the other characters are there to just put the central characters through the ringer to enable them to turn from a dysfunctional family into a functional family.

I personally see the film as a metaphor. Well, it's also one of the scariest films I've ever seen,

I can appreciate the horror perspective over the sci-fi perspective of War of the Worlds and the family concept over the hero idea of this movie. When I went into this movie I definitely had science fiction in mind not horror. I don't know if the dysfunctionality of the family to functionality of the family is really well developed in this movie as I really wasn't paying as much attention to it as to the atmospherics. I did like very much the intense family dynamics at the beginning of the movie, similar to Walk The Line and even Naria scenes at their respective beginning scenes.

When I read the expression one of the scariest films I've ever seen, I'm surprised because I didn't find the movie all that particularly scary. If you can, it would be intriguing to know what particular scenes would consider as scary.

Scary for me are selected scenes from:

Manhunter (1986)
Nomads (1986).
Alien (1979).
Munich (2005).
Twelve Monkeys (1996).
The Blair Witch Project (1999).
The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951).
The Thing (1982).
Planet of the Apes (1968).
The Exorcist (1973).
Silence of the Lambs (1991).
The Great Escape (1963).
The Andromeda Strain (1971).
The Birds (1963).
Psycho (1960).

Scary scenes in the 2005 War of the Worlds:

-The constant lightning strikes close to Cruise's home.

-The first tripod's emergence and havoc.

-The escape from the city in the extended shot.

-The scene in the kids' mom's basement with all the light and noise.

-The scene with Dakota Fanning next to the river.

-The scene at the railroad crossing.

-The mob scene where you are about to lose your life and/or your daughter.

-The scene at the ferry where the tripods show up on the hill and arise from the water.

-The scene at the hill where Cruise has to choose which one of his kids to let go.

-The scene in Tim Robbins' basement where the long-necked electronic eye AND the aliens look for the humans. Later, Cruise has to deal with Robbins behind closed doors.

-The scene where the tripod notices and picks up Dakota Fanning.

-Etc., etc.

EDIT- Some thoughts about my fave scary scenes are found here.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mark f,

In reply to mark f's post, I'd say that War of the Worlds could be very scary at times, but it just didn't seem all that scary overall, but seemed to rely more on the special effects, which I think seemed to overshadow the shock value. I'm not knocking either, but I'm saying that the action and special effects were wayyy better than Spielberg's horror/fear factor. In fact, probably one of my favorite scenes of that whole movie that combines not only scariness with incredibly great looking shots is when Robbie goes over the hill to see the robot things, there's that large explosion, and then that face/head of the spider robot just comes up, as if it were a demon from hell.

Oh, and not to start another discussion, but I think that this role was made with Tom Cruise in mind. Not the movie premise, but just Tom Cruise' character.

quote:

Mark f posted:

Scary scenes in the 2005 War of the Worlds:

-The constant lightning strikes close to Cruise's home.

-The first tripod's emergence and havoc.

-The escape from the city in the extended shot.

-The scene in the kids' mom's basement with all the light and noise.

-The scene with Dakota Fanning next to the river.

-The scene at the railroad crossing.

-The mob scene where you are about to lose your life and/or your daughter.

-The scene at the ferry where the tripods show up on the hill and arise from the water.

-The scene at the hill where Cruise has to choose which one of his kids to let go.

-The scene in Tim Robbins' basement where the long-necked electronic eye AND the aliens look for the humans. Later, Cruise has to deal with Robbins behind closed doors.

-The scene where the tripod notices and picks up Dakota Fanning.

-Etc., etc.

Thank you for your very detailed, selective list of scary scenes from The War of the Worlds. As you've mentioned that this movie is one of the scariest movies you've seen, your use of the word has piqued by interest. What do you mean by scariest? I know this might be a dumb question to some, but still, I curious, particularly in regards to this movie?

Several ideas I have about the term?

(1) You actually physical almost jump out of your seat, shit in your pants, and gasp in a jerky fashion as a reflex reaction to some actually supposed death threatening experience.

(2) You have a constant fear or anxiety, shivering in your seat, constantly on edge feeling.

(3) You fear for the possible movie death of a character that you've come to treasure and desperately want to see stay alive.

(4) You can't watch the screen without falling apart.

(5) A heavy dread of something bad is going to happen.

(6) You feel that your own life is strangely connected to the movie so that you seem to actually feel what the characters themselves are feeling and is projected from the screen into yourself (this may or may not involve the prior mentioned level of terror above).

(7) Quality versus quantity - the movie has some of the most terrifying scenes in it or the movie overall is mostly scary as a whole?

Bloody Hell!!! Worst 5 and that's the best you could do?!!! You should get out more. There's been some absolute stinkers this year.

Duncan - look at the guidelines - worst movies with a Metacritic score 70 or above. Thanks for the advice anyway. A Brit (or at least someone attempting to sound like a Brit) always knows best

One of the neat nuances of this topic with its restriction to the worst movie with a 70 rating is that it is designed to provoke a string of controversy by its very nature by making someone posting on this site have to go against the sum total of many critics good ratings. What a challenge!

I had my "Worst of" list already this year, with "The Longest Yard" topping my list. But then I saw the guidelines of a MetaCritic rating of 70 and above. But I'm still EASILY able to give you a Top 5. As a matter of fact, I"ll give you a Top 6, as three of the six were films I rented based on the high MetaCritic rating score it received:

1. My Summer of Love (82) - Rented this because of MetaCritic. Slow and the "twist" ending would have been laughable if it wasn't so ridiculous.

2. The Holy Girl (75) - Rented this because of MetaCritic. This Argentinean movie had a horrible ending (it just ended with no explanation or resolution), and the first hour of this one hour and 45 minute piece could have been cut entirely, and the story would have been barely affected.

3. Broken Flowers (79) - After considering the abominable "Coffee and Cigarettes" as the worst film of 2004, it is now obvious to me that I don't "get" Jim Jarmusch.

4. Munich (74) - I just couldn't get beyond the politics of this movie, which I found extremely offensive. I could see Michael Moore or Oliver Stone making a movie like this, but not Steven Spielberg, the same man who made the incomparable "Schindler's List."

5. Brokeback Mountain (87) - I'm not Gene Shalit, and my "Best of" list (see one of those two boards) includes sexually provocative films like "Mysterious Skin" and "Saving Face." I read someone who didn't like this film who thought that people who liked this film were so enamored with the message and plot of this movie that they didn't care about the execution. That's what I feel. I never cared about these characters, nor thought it was a "love story." I have no doubt this will win many more awards before the season ends, including Oscars. But that will not vindicate this movie for me.

6. Me and You and Everyone We Know (76) - Rented this because of MetaCritic. One person's original is another person's bizarre. I thought this was bizarre, depressing, and I found some of the sexual scenes involving children to be handled poorly.

quote:

Originally posted by downwithstarbucks:


King Kong (81)
Wallace & Gromit (87) -

Grizzly Man (87) -

Broken Flowers (79)

I didn't see WALLACE & GROMIT so I won't comment. I wasn't crazy about KING KONG, but I found it mildy enjoyable. WAR OF THE WORLDS was a bit of a dud, but it wouldn't make my worst list. I probably wouldn't put BROKEN FLOWERS on my worst list either, but I think this one was a real dud and a bad movie.

We are in big disagreement on Herzog's GRIZZLY MAN, which I found riveting and was on the edge of my seat. Herzog did a great job of organizing footage that Timothy Treadwell shot and this was a fascinating portrait of a guy who was completely de-ranged. I also thought Herzog's insights into Treadwell were interesting. This was the best doc by far that I caught in '05.