League of Melbotis

Question NUMERO DOS:

Most questionable release from a major movie studio (theatrical release)

Eric Nordtrom: Bewitched. I will never, ever see it.

Tamara: War of the Worlds=Waste of My Afternoon. Just stop it, Stevo! For
the love of your legacy, just stop it!

Natalie: Oh, there are so many, but because I've had to watch this one umpteen times (and want to cry in frustration every time), I'm going with "Son of the Mask."

Jim D.: Every release from a major movie studio is questionable. Is it possible to narrow it down to just one? There are easy, easy targets like Big Momma's House II and the Deuce Bigalow sequel. There is self important detritus like Crash (wherein Hollywood finally lets us, the great unwashed in flyover country, know that we really all do need to get along). The burden is on the studio to prove that their latest release is not crap, and this is a burden the studio execs are either unaware of or (more likely) simply don't care about at all. (I had to ad the "at all" to that preceding sentence so that it wouldn't end in a preposition, but even with that addition, it still is lazy writing. Sigh.).

Ryan V.: King Kong.

Peabo: War of the Worlds. Seriously, the story line wasn’t that great the first time around when we didn’t know it. I expect more of Spielberg. You can’t just expect to put Spielberg and Cruise on a poster and expect us just lap it up because you’ve entertained us before. I mean give us some kind of Mark Singer pealing aliens fake rubber human faces off, anything, something !

Denise: -Sahara. I was forced to watch this stinker while flying to New York. The movie plot includes buried treasure in Nigeria(as if), American Civil War flashbacks, toxic waste potentially killing all life on the planet, Doctors Without Borders, Matthew McConaughey getting fired out of a 150 year old cannon, and evil warlords. The only reason I did not pluck my eyes out to prevent watching this was that McConaughey was a nice piece of eye candy.

RHPT: Rent and The Producers. I really like Rent, having seen it at least four times, and was very excited to see it turned into a motion picture. However, the movie fell flat. It lacked the energy and passion of the play.

I've never seen the Broadway version of The Producers, but I thought the movie was boring and overly long. I excepted much more from a play that garnered so many accolades.

Nathan: Duece Bigalow: European Gigolo.

Social Bobcat: -The Shaggy Dog - who the eff thinks that Tim Allen + poorly done CGI of a man knocking over an old lady equals comedy gold? (runner-up: just about any movie that Steve Martin has come out with in the last five to ten years. Steve, is that new boat worth the cost of your dignity?)

Maxwell: Did they really release a film this year based on the "Have you checked the children..." scary story? Did anyone else think of Joey on Friends and "but she's been dead for seven years..." bit?

Harms: Wow, I saw two horrible "scary movies" in 2005: "Hide and Seek" and "White
Noise". What absolute stinkers. The latter had an interesting premise and it's clear that the writer decided to go hump grass or something when writing the ending rather than refer to the first half of the screenplay at which the second half was totally at odds."

I discuss this failure at: http://www.stevengharms.com/archives/000415.html

The former was terrible. It's a horrible black mark on the career of R. DeNiro. It's predictable, formulaic, with a flat, boring menace. Dakota Fanning was creepy, but that may just be a side effect of hanging around Tom Cruise a lot that year.

DeNiro is a great actor when given material that breathes through an Italian-American respirator. His appearances on SNL are abysmal and as flat as his work in this movie. Terrible. Terrible. I hope the director or producers are friends of his because they really got a big favor out of his lending his name to that steamy pile of gorilla urine.

Steanso:The Dukes of Hazzard
Do we really need to recreate this? Do Confederate flags and redneck values need more of a push at coming back into fashion? (CrackBass) will argue that we got a good Jessica Simpson video out of it, but I would counterargue that we still would have gotten something out of Jessica Simpson this year in which she would have been rolling around half naked, even if this movie had never been made ?

CrackBass:

The Ape

The guy who plays Harry Osborne in the SM movies stars (and wrote, and directs!!!)this one about “A young writer, nearing a mental breakdown caused by his family and boss, moves into an apartment occupied by a walking, talking, foul-mouthed ape in a Hawaiian shirt and Converse High Tops” And they couldn’t get funding for the remaining two films in M. Night’s Unbreakable trilogy????

Reed-o: There's so many each year. Even though I didn't see them, I guess I
will go with

Duece Bigalow: European Gigolo

I would say Catwoman, but the initial premise itself isn't bad. Just poorly written, and executed. Everything about Duece Bigalow strikes me as bad. Did the first Duece Bigalow really gross enough to warrant a second movie? I hate Rob Schneider.

Jamie: Over the Hedge. This CG (as if there is any other kind these days) animated tale has yet to be released, but has already elicited groans from the League household. I believe there have been no fewer than three 'cartoons' in the past year featuring talking animals forced out of their comfortable environments.

The League:

Movie I saw: Probably Son of the Mask. Why would the studio want to punish us for enjoying the first film, even as a lazy Saturday afternoon lark? Luckily I saw this on cable. Not exactly free, but a fraction of the cost of paying to see a movie with a discernable odor.

Movie I did not see: Impossible to say. So much out there. Lots of stupid looking kids movies (Chicken Little), pointless romantic comedies (Rumor Has It) moronic horror flicks (How is their a 3rd Final Destination? For the love of @#$), movies for 9 year old girls which brutally reinforce gender roles (Aquamarine), movies about dudes in the hood trying to make it as a rapper (one of these, I believe, was Oscar nominated) and just a lot of junk (why are they still paying Martin Lawrence to do anything? Oh, yeah... #1 opening weekend, eh?) . There was probably a lot of bloated, self-indulgent junk, but I think I missed a lot of it.


RESULTS

Man, ya'll really do not like Rob Schneider. That's three of you that singled out Deuce Bigalow: European Gigalow. Spielberg's War of the Worlds also seemed to draw quite a bit of ire. I did see War of the Worlds, and I liked the original better. None of the additions Spielberg added made any damn sense.

Jim gets the "Boo" for taking the snotty way out and condemning each and every movie made and/ or released by a studio (very film school of you, Jimbo). However, it's tough to argue with some of his examples.

CrackBass scores special points for his identification of a movie nobody ever heard of, and, I think, actually sitting through a movie with an ape in sneakers.

However, it is Steanso who brings up the best point about a completely unnecessary movie, Dukes of Hazzard and his astute observation re: Whatsername Simpson's inevitable decline into rolling around the hoods of cars.