By Matt Singer
January 5, 2005
Though I have my own picks for the best films of 2004, it seems far more befitting this column’s status as Movie Poop Shoot’s home for all things bad and ugly (for the moment, forget the good) to look back, one last time, on the movies that made us retch, made us sigh, made us wish we’d stay at home and watched more episodes of THE OFFICE. This list is not as definitive as I would like (even I couldn’t find an excuse good enough to convince myself to pay $10 to see NEW YORK MINUTE), so consider this a sampling of those movies you were hopefully able to avoid or wished you had, in ascending order of badness.
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5) Taxi - Laurel and Hardy. Martin and Lewis. Gibson and Glover. Fallon and Latifah? TAXI, a mess of cop stereotypes and shrill unfunny jokes, paired up a former SNL cast member and a former hip hop artist and rising actress, and wound up with a comedic duo that made me long for the quick timing and easy chemistry of Skeet Ulrich and Cuba Gooding Jr in CHILL FACTOR. TAXI was based on a hugely popular series of films by Luc Besson (who has given the United States THE PROFESSIONAL and THE FIFTH ELEMENT), but as a French-to-English translation TAXI is even worse than the immortal Tim Allen classic JUNGLE 2 JUNGLE. On SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, Jimmy Fallon always seemed to break up anytime anything remotely funny happened when he was on stage. Note that in TAXI, he doesn't crack up once. Neither did I.
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4) Van Helsing - "My life. My job. My curse," and don't forget "My hair." The only thing truly superior about this thoroughly mediocre adventure film was Hugh Jackman's awesome hair extensions and a rockin’ scarecrow hat. If you squinted, you could really convince yourself that Motley Crue's Vince Neil was totally kicking ass on the undead. VAN HELSING was like staring at a broken clock: so boring that time appeared to have stopped. Director Stephen Sommers may not have reinvented the wheel with his MUMMY series, but at least those pictures were exciting; VAN HELSING was dreary and dull, and for all his claims about returning these classic horror characters to greatness, his Dracula, Frankenstein, and Wolf Man were amongst the worst cinematic incarnations ever. What’s great about a Frankenstein monster that looks like a sack of electrified blue poop?
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3) Alexander - The only film from 2004 that was a certifiable unintended camp on its first day in theaters was Oliver Stone's massive misfire ALEXANDER, which inexplicably mixed pompous history lectures from a decrepit Anthony Hopkins with the sinister machinations of Angelina Jolie covered in snakes. It's unclear why Stone cast Jolie -- 12 months younger, and she'd be the same age as Colin Farrell -- but I would like to personally thank him; the biggest laugh in a movie theater in 2004 came on her bellowed delivery of the all-time classic line, "In my womb I carried my avenger! AAAAAAARGH!" She's not the only one in pain; audiences around the country were stupefied by this nearly three hour turgid slog, which cost its investors some $200 million dollars. The Red Cross has to beg for every penny it can to save people dying by the tens of thousands in Asia and Oliver Stone got to make a $200 million dollar movie about Colin Farrell in medieval short shorts. No wonder the rest of the world hates us!
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2) Catwoman - The pitch meeting for CATWOMAN at Warner Bros. Pictures:
"Hey guys I've got a great idea! You know about all these successful comic book movies that use the essence of these timeless characters to create stories that resonate with audiences all over the world? Well let's make one, only let's take everything good about our character, throw it out the window and replace it with thoughtless cliché! Yeah we'll just make some crap up about a woman who has cat powers and plays pickup basketball and fights Sharon Stone and stuff! No one will care because we'll use computer effects to make Catwoman bound across rooftops like a cat! And we'll totally pretend to promote empowering women to be strong and tough, while we secretly degrade women by implying that the only way a woman can succeed is by looking like Halle Berry and wearing pants with holes in the ass! Who's gonna direct it? How about Pitof? No that's not a Moroccan rice dish! Well, okay it might also be a Moroccan rice dish, but more importantly, it's a French director who clearly has no interest in his source material! We can’t miss!”
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1) Little Black Book - Perhaps there were more putrid features films in 2004. But none were any weirder than LITTLE BLACK BOOK, the one movie so befuddling that it made me question whether the water I was drinking was laced with acid. LITTLE BLACK BOOK, a story of a woman's dangerous psychopathology, was sold to audiences as a cheerful romantic comedy. Brittany Murphy plays a woman who does not trust her perfect fiancee, and spends the entire film meeting women who prove her suspicions incorrect, which only encourages her to dig deeper and probe farther, and lose all touch with reality. According to LITTLE BLACK BOOK, women don't want good men at all, they want bad men who cheat on them and leave clues of their indiscretions behind so that they can play detective and catch the scumbags in the act (and then cry a whole lot). If you can stomach the film, which is about as entertaining as a case of little black death, you will be treated a movie that hates women, ignores men, and promotes screwing your friends over on live national television. Romantic comedy? Only if THE DEER HUNTER is considered one too.
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