Today, the gang over at the Onion AV Club gives their rundown of the worst movies to hit screens in 2008. It’s a list that includes everyone from Indiana Jones to Eddie Murphy to Jessica Alba, but the top spot is saved for none other than Larry the Cable Guy and his cinematic non-masterpiece, WITLESS PROTECTION. As bad as the movie apparently was (heck, I didn’t see it. Did you?), the write-up ends on a hopeful note, predicting that maybe, just maybe, this sort of bad movie will be a thing of the past…
“Larry The Cable Guy’s redneck minstrel act was a perfect fit for George W. Bush’s America, a place where reason, empathy, and basic decency were derided as elitist qualities by a loudmouth extremist minority that pretended to represent Middle American values. But as 2008 draws to a close, a mainstream comedy that includes a scene where the “hero” refers to an Arab-American as “Pamperhead” without an immediate comeuppance seems to belong to another, hopefully distant era.”
Of course, there will always be stupid, inane, awful movies, no matter who’s in office or what the national mood is. And though I didn’t see WITLESS PROTECTION (I can’t stress that enough), I did see the No. 2 movie on the Onion’s list, the latest disappointment from a once-promising director, M. Night Shyamalan’s THE HAPPENING. Quoth the Onion…
“Shyamalan once looked like a brilliantly innovative stylist, but these days he’s starting to look like an incompetent craftsman with only one tool, which he keeps twisting to increasingly inappropriate tasks.”
Exactly. I saw few movies in the theaters this year (a child cuts way down on moviegoing), but one of them happened to be THE HAPPENING. Oh, how I wish that hadn’t been the case.
If you aren’t seeing movies in the theaters, then how can you be a movie critic??? your tireless reviews of movies that are 40, 50, 60 and even more years old is completely irrelevant. The job of a movie critic is to review new movies that people are interested in seeing, to help them decide whether they should see them or not. You rarely if ever do that. You take copy from the AP or other major outlets and just print that. That’s pretty pathetic. Stop living in the past, stop wishing for cellulose and black & white. The roaring 20′s are gone, please stop torturing everyone with your reviews that only you care about. Hundreds of millions of movie tickets are bought each year, guess what…people aren’t going to watch citizen kane, or gone with the wind. Grow up.
Apparently Dean is having trouble finding the 100s of reviews out there on the latest blockbuster. Dean, how about checking out http://www.rottentomatoes.com or http://movies.yahoo.com and leaving our Movie Man alone.
We here on this blog are interested in classics and indies and things outside the mainstream.
Oh and it’s not up to the critic to decide if you should see a movie or not. The critic gives an honest assessment and perspective. It’s up to the reader to decide if he/she would like to see the movie.
Dean, I’ve never claimed to be a critic of movies that are in theaters. Ever since I started writing my column for the paper, almost 15 years ago, I’ve focused on home video — mostly because, in a city like Rockford, it’s impossible to see movies in advance so the review can run on the day the movie opens — which, after all, is when people want to read it. And, by focusing on home video, I can review both old movies getting new DVD releases or new movies arriving on disc. This week, for example, I reviewed that ancient Jazz Age classic THE DARK KNIGHT, and before that I reviewed other golden oldies like HELLBOY II and THE STRANGERS. I do enjoy reviewing older films because they’re often much better than the drek Hollywood shoves down the movie audience’s collective throat every weekend. If all you care about is what’s opening Friday, you’re missing out on about 100 years of excellent movies — but hey, that’s up to you. As for me, I’ll worry about if a movie is good, not when it was made.
I’m not a huge fan of oldies, but I like some. And while there are some great independent films, I find 95% of “indies” to be pretensious, boring, horribly made, or all of the above.
That being said, “DeanWinchester” (not his real name, by the way – it’s a Supernatural reference) is way off base. First of all, this is a movie blog, and Will’s other stuff is columns – it’s not “this week’s reviews.” It’s a discussion of movies. Old and new, all are equally relevant. Do I care about all of them discussed here? No. But there’s usually a good mix of old and new, blockbusters and indies… Something for everyone.
…and how about that “people aren’t going to watch citizen kane or gone with the wind”? Having spent 10 years in a video store and just as a person who is ALWAYS discussing films with everyone I know, you are SO wrong.
Dean’s just mad because all the movies he thinks are great like WITLESS PROTECTION were on this list.
I have no problem with “classics” my problem is with Old Timey Will having his crap published in the paper every week, and trotted out like hes a movie critic. Do we need a review of the Dark Knight in DECEMBER???? NO. Everything that can ever be said about that movie was said in the summer WHEN IT CAME OUT. Same goes with Hellboy 2, and The Strangers. You write the column like a guy completely out of touch!! I congratulate you on your blog, that is where your drivel is meant to be published. but I call on you to resign from the newspaper, as your out-dated reviews are of interest to no one. Take a glance at a real newspaper sometime, notice all of the in-depth reviews on modern cinema. There are plenty of gems being produced, and a real critic would go out and find them, and let his readers know about them. All you are doing is rehashing things that have already been said, about movies that have been watched millions of times already. what sort of public service is that??
Real newspapers with in depth reviews? A famous movie critic would disagree:
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/11/death_to_film_critics_long_liv.html#more
Admit it Dean, you loved Witless Protection and/or the Happening and it struck a nerve.
Dean, like I said, this is a DVD review column, not a movie column, and the reviews reflect when the DVDs arrive in stores, not when the movies arrive in theaters.
As for critics at real newspapers, do you realize many, many papers have let their critics go and are relying on wire reviews? In case you were wondering, being a critic for the Register Star is far from my full-time job. Ninety percent of the time here, I’m copy editing stories or designing pages. I don’t have the time to be a full-time movie critic, and the paper (like most papers) doesn’t have the resources for that sort of position. I’d like nothing better than to spend my days in Chicago, watching brand-new movies and writing about them, but that’s just not going to happen. Sorry.
The gentleman with the glove in the first picture is none other than Pecatonica’s own, Jesse “Tom” Dabson, who recently ran for the county board.
Man, Will, what you do to the Dean to get him all riled up?
Can I ask a favor? Can you please replace the photo attached to this blog post? It’s making me nauseous.
I really like the blog, and I think will does a good job.
The movie reviews for current releases are sucha mixed bag, from A-Z. That the movie Punisher: War Zone.
Some critics loved it, some hate it, and think it was comically horrible.
It’s just a matter of opinion, really, and, to my knowledge, keeping this blog up is for entertainment purposes.
Take it for what it is meant to be, fun. If you’re not having fun with it, then don’t aggravate yourself by subjecting yourself to it.