Cavalcade of Awesome

Allright, last week I gave you my 5 favorite movies of 2007. Now it’s time to unleash upon your delicate sensibilities the 5 worst movies I saw in 2007. Be warned, these movies are bad. Some of them may be bad enough that I’ll recommend watching them, but only for the bold. Do you have the stones to sit through 2 hours of crap? We’ll see.

Here they are in no particular order:

Kicking it Old Skool– You’ll find that most movies on this list are here because they had a ton of potential, but completely squandered it. This movie has a funny premise; Jamie Kennedy is an elementary school break dancing king in the early ’80s. During a particularly dangerous move, he falls and is put in a coma for 20 years. When he wakes up he has to adjust to the fact that all his friends have grown up and break dancing is no longer cool. Classic fish-out-of-water premise using the ’80s and break dancing. I love it. Except the movie is terrible. Almost unwatchable. The best part of the movie is about 5-10 min in. Jamie Kennedy’s doctor is played by Alan Ruck (Cameron Frye in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off). Ruck’s character in this movie is named Doctor Frye and he even mentions paying off his father’s Ferrari. Steph and I about died. Great stunt cameo, this movie is gonna rock, right? Wrong. DEAD wrong. STAY AWAY.

Shoot ’em Up– This looked so good in the trailer. Clive Owen is a mysterious “nanny” that gets caught up helping a woman and a baby escape hired killers. It looked like a cross between Pulp Fiction and Lucky Number Slevin; lots of action and funny dialogue. Well, this movie is weird. Monica Belucci plays a prostitute who lets grown men breast feed from her. Paul Giamatti plays a hitman with an overbearing wife. The dialogue is ridiculous. I had serious issues staying “in the movie” if you get what I’m saying. Just weird, with a few good action scenes. This is here mostly because it should have been much, MUCH better.

Knocked Up– Oh Seth Rogan, you magnificent bastard. What happened here? The cast for this movie is pretty much part and parcel from the very funny TV show Underclassmen (if you remember the 1 season it ran back in the early ’90s). Seth Rogan is on a roll lately and the premise seemed amusing. However, Seth and his friends in this movie are lame. Seth’s character is even somewhat of an A-hole. Katherine Heigl’s character is a little witchy (with a ‘b’). I could not laugh at this movie because the whole thing is so tragically sad. Paul Rudd saved the 5 minutes of the movie he appeared in. Other than that, I say go see Superbad instead. I really wanted to like this one, too.

Grindhouse– I love Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. I love From Dusk till Dawn, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Desperado, etc. I knew the score when I bought the ticket, so I expected a bad movie. Unfortunately, this was horrible. I love the concept, I loved the old “trailers” in the beginning and during intermission. However, I expected the movies themselves to be bad the same way From Dusk till Dawn is a “bad” movie. Fun-bad. Not Bad-bad. Planet Terror is just ridiculous and Death Proof is just boring. The 4’6″ main character in Planet Terror all of a sudden becoming an ass-kicking killing machine was a little much. The 45minute long car chase at the end of Death Proof was about 35 minutes too long. I expected much better “B” movie excitement from Rodriguez and Tarantino. But this movie is definitely not for everybody.

You Kill Me– I’m not even 100% certain that this movie was even released in theaters. Has anyone else been watching Sir Ben Kingsley’s career crash and burn across the Hollywood landscape recently? WTF?! He went from movies like Ghandi, Schindler’s List and Searching for Bobby Fisher, to staring in movies like this, BloodRayne and A Sound of Thunder. It’s almost like he was knocked in the dome around 2001 and it’s affected his judgment ever since. Kingsley stars as a Jersey hitman with a drinking problem who falls out of favor with his uncle and must move to California to get his act together. There he meets Tea Leoni’s character and they fall into some sort of weird co-dependent relationship that manages to help both of them. It’s like a bizarro Leaving Las Vegas (another “worst of” movie) without all the dramatic undertones and Elizabeth Shue nakedness. If you hated Leaving Las Vegas, don’t see this. However if you liked Leaving Las Vegas, you should also stay away from this.

Okay there’s the top…of the bottom. The worst of the worst this past year. What about Honorable Mentions? Okay. I only have one, and it’s got a caveat that comes with it.

DOA: Dead or Alive-This is what I’m calling my bizarro entry. It’s bad, but it’s sooo good at the same time. This movie is here because it has one of the worst scripts in the history of recorded sound. It’s like a 6 year old sat in a room and typed out random conversations that could be heard from the office next door, then that was translated into Russian, then that was translated back into a made up language called Unbunku. That’s how bad this script is. However, the movie does have two things going for it that brings it back up into that rarified realm of awesomely bad. Number one is, the action. There is a ton of action in this movie, and it’s filled with energy and cool camera angles. Some of the action is so over the top and zany that you have to laugh…but in a good way. I mean, for the final battle you have Eric Roberts versus like 6 people and he pretty much beats them all. That’s how zany and unrealistic this movie is. In a fun way, though. The other thing this movie has going for it is that it has the most gorgeous women I’ve ever seen all in one movie cast. The 4 main girls are all flawless and they spend half the movie in bikinis or underwear. It’s awesome. I can’t recommend this movie enough, however, be prepared for one of the most ridiculously bad movies you’ve ever seen.

Next – This movie started out good. Nic Cage, Jessica Biel and a really cool premise. What more could you ask for? Unfortunately the execution blows. Nic Cage stars as a guy that can see 2 minutes into his own future (cool, yes?). The movie begins with a very cool scene where Nic is using his gift to escape security at a casino. Very cool and stylish escape that got me excited to see how this movie was going to play out. Unfortunately the next hour is only okay and the last 20 minutes are unforgivably bad. The ending uses a tactic that somewhat irritates the living crap out of me. I don’t want to give it away, but the ending ruins the whole experience for me. Rent it if you are curious, but be aware that the last 20 minutes is a little dicey even if you enjoy the first hour or so.

There you have it. The most offensively bad movies of 2007. I actually had trouble picking out the worst movies because it really was a good year. But these were obviously the worst when I took a good look at my list.

As you can see above, I cleaned the board and started anew for the 2008 movie season. We haven’t seen any of the movies that started since Jan 1, but hopefully that will change soon. Let’s hope 2008 is as good as 2007.

See you in the theater!

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