058. Best Friends

058. (11 Feb) Best Friends (1982, Norman Jewison) 20



A romantic comedy devoid of romance and comedy. Burt Reynolds and Goldie Hawn's natural charisma rises to the surface, but they're saddled with the most unlikable characters. It's downright depressing as Hawn refuses to commit to Reynolds, reluctantly marries him, and then they have zany, unhappy adventures together meeting their in-laws. As their relationship gets increasingly hostile and abusive, it's incredibly unpleasant to watch. No surprise, but the Oscar-nominated tune "How Do You Keep the Music Playing?" is every bit as bad as the film.

022. The Promise

022. (21 Jan) The Promise (1979, Gilbert Cates) 39



I've seen some convoluted, absurd melodrama plots, but The Promise really takes the cake. After a car accident, Kathleen Quinlan accepts evil Beatrice Straight's offer to get facial reconstruction surgery in lieu of ever seeing Straight's son, the dashing as ever Stephen Collins, again. Predictably enough, Straight tells Collins the love of his life is dead. He conveniently runs into her post-surgery, unable to recognize her with a new haircut apparently, spending much of the film trying too woo her while she's understandably annoyed that she has no idea who she is. It's utterly bizarre, and I'm skipping over most of the details just because it's far more complicated than that.

Far too focused on its plot, this is never a convincing romance. Without our being able to root for characters that are dopey and unlikable, it's hard to care about their titular promise to love each other forever. The finale is predictably sweet, but still surreal since Straight never gets her comeuppance for her villainy. It's classic camp, to be sure, but a puzzlement that the script ever got produced. The Oscar-nominated theme song fits the film's embarrassingly schmaltzy tone.

019. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

019. (21 Jan) Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991, Kevin Reynolds) 7



Kevin Costner and Christian Slater are easy scapegoats because they are, after all, unbelievably wretched here. But Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves fails on most basic levels. Despite all the period sets and costumes, it looks and feels like something a Renaissance fair would put on. As an adventure film, it's boring and obnoxiously self-serious. Without any fun or excitement, this is overlong, tiresome and ultimately painful.

017. The Bodyguard

017. (20 Jan) The Bodyguard (1992, Mick Jackson) 26



The Razzie nominations and reputation still couldn't prepare me for this. This is sheer obliviousness captured on film, from Costner and Houston's complete lack of romantic chemistry to the outrageously half-baked assassination plot. Its unnecessary pretension only makes it funnier, like when Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston see Yojimbo on their first date. That eventually pales in comparison to all the Oscar talk, as Houston gets nominated for Best Actress and then insists on going to the ceremony despite the recent death of her sister and the certainty that her attacker will strike at the event. The Academy Award scenes are perfect camp, especially as the ego-stroking paid off in this picking up two actual Oscar nods.

012. Ben

012. (19 Jan) Ben (1972, Phil Karlson) 15



This is certainly not what one would expect from a film famously about killer rats, with the first half centering on a kid and his love of marionettes. His relationship with Ben doesn't particularly make sense since they share a sandwich and are suddenly best friends. It at least sets up the total tonal disconnect between the weird humor of the marionette scenes to to ominous shots of Ben and his gang to the choppy final action sequence. Ben himself, at least, is very much ahead of his time, promoting an anti-bullying message when his human friend is harassed. Not having seen Willard, it's hard to say if this is merely spoofing that film up until the sewer-set finale. This plays like a dumb comedy, particularly when the rats invade a women's gym, terrorizing a fat woman on a treadmill and sending the ladies in the steamroom into hysteria.

The kid also composes the Oscar-nominated "Ben" on his own, which is fairly insulting to the actual songwriters since it insinuates a six-year-old could have penned it.

011. Ice Castles

011. (19 Jan) Ice Castles (1979, Donald Wrye) 28



Ice Castles appears to be operating on a half-finished screenplay, full of major plot points and characters with way too much backstory that aren't remotely fleshed out. The dopiness, schmaltz and soapiness are fun to some degree, but the nonsensical story, bad acting, and painfully repetitive Marvin Hamlisch score wear thin quite quickly. The Oscar-nominated "Through the Eyes of Love" must play in some form fifty times.

Colleen Dewhurst's hammy turn is irresistible, and her over-the-top approach shows how embarrassing Lynn-Holly Johnson's earnestness really is. Johnson has no star quality to speak of; she's a good skater who got lucky and landed the lead. The hilarity reaches its height in the film's finale when we're meant to believe Johnson's blindness is a secret to the world where she was on the cover of Sports Illustrated and a famous Olympic hopeful a mere five months earlier.

333. Chasing Ice

333. (26 Dec) Chasing Ice (2012, Jeff Orlowski) 45



"A picture's worth a thousand words," said no one ever to photographer James Balog. Though he takes incredible pictures of ice, the man simply will not stop waxing philosophical about global warming. His self-important soundbites get increasingly grating as he's clearly playing to the camera, even crying at one point because he's so dedicated to his craft. The film itself is appropriately alarmist, showing the serious amount of glacial melting in recent years in a compelling way. Too bad they didn't have a better mouthpiece. The lilting song "Before My Time," performed by Scarlett Johansson, is nice.

311. Les Miserables

311. (15 Dec) Les Miserables (2012, Tom Hooper)* 28



Midway through act two, Hugh Jackman and Eddie Redmayne quite literally are up to their necks in fecal matter. That Les Miserables willfully offers that metaphor makes it the ballsiest or most clueless film of the year. Considering how dreadful it is, I'm leaning toward the latter.

There's not an iota of scale in Les Miserables, with roughly four wide shots that so much as hint that this is a historical epic in its entire bloated runtime. Just like in The King's Speech, Tom Hooper's amateurish aesthetic undermines every moment. Here he's as reliant on dutch angles as he is on dopey framing, keeping heads in the corner of a shot while negative space dominates the background. It's one of the worst photographed major studio films I've seen. But there's simply not much to work with since the sets and costumes are decidedly unremarkable. When Les Miz is not irritating to look at, it's boring.

Tom Hooper's direction is astoundingly misguided. Without dialogue, he relies on the score to tell the story. Unfortunately, only five musical numbers are at all good. Most of the talk-singing is instantly forgettable (namely the added and useless tune "Suddenly"). The nasally Hugh Jackman and overly emotive Samantha Barks are shameful standouts in the cast. Russell Crowe channels Pierce Brosnan in Mamma Mia! Eddie Redmayne and Amanda Seyfriend, without a hint of romantic chemistry, are wasted vocal talents. The much discussed Anne Hathaway is the only performer to give emotional impact to the film at all, overplaying her part, but at least not embarrassing herself in an intense close-up during "I Dreamed a Dream."

Hooper has suggested he attempted to emulate West Side Story, at least during "One More Day," which shows how ambitious and incompetent he is. His shoddily edited film not only is totally incoherent, unmoving, and uninteresting, it's laughable. Crowe's biggest dramatic moment is the most obvious joke, but it's impossible to enumerate the goofs in a film where next to nothing works. Empty heads and empty filmmaking.

290. Mother Wore Tights

290. (26 Nov) Mother Wore Tights (1947, Walter Lang) 35



Betty Grable and Dan Dailey are cute enough as the singing and dancing duo at the center of Mother Wore Tights, but this is quite typical of the unremarkable subgenre of musical comedies about vaudeville. Generic gags, a predictable plot and repetitive numbers make this all the more ordinary. The charming Oscar-nominated "You Do" is the high point. The cinematography remains rich despite the routines all taking place on stage.

286. All-American Co-Ed

286. (24 Nov) All-American Co-Ed (1941, LeRoy Prinz) 42



What a curious opening scene this has, where a chorus line of fraternity brothers in full drag singing in falsetto. The film goes out of its way to dispel there being any sissiness in the cross-dressing, as the boys enter one of their own in a beauty contest at an all girls' school. A questionable reporter takes an interest in the "lady," adding wacky subtext since he's attracted by the maleness in "her" appearance and freaks out the young man in drag in the process. There's more than a little gay panic the gender-bender experiences when he's basically sexually assaulted by a local boy. The romantic Oscar-nominated tune "Out of the Silence" is nice, but like all of the songs here it's instantly forgotten. Overall, this is an inoffensive, almost deserving nominee for Best Musical Score.

280. Life of Pi

280. (20 Nov) Life of Pi (2012, Ang Lee)* 49



Ang Lee regresses with Life of Pi, exploring his trademark themes of repression and grief in a most literal sense. Even his obvious fades and a reliance on cheap imagery like a slow teardrop streaming down someone's face suggest the aesthetic of a director less developed than Lee. Claudio Miranda's cinematography and the visual effects are undeniably stunning, but they serve a narrative that's never emotionally involving or particularly interesting. David Magee's screenplay is a redundancy since he employed all the same tricks, to similarly hackish effect, in Finding Neverland. The ending serves as a ten-minute third act, dissolving all enchantment away from Life of Pi once and for all.

272. Skyfall

272. (11 Nov) Skyfall (2012, Sam Mendes)* 52



There's been enough written about Skyfall's nonsensical plot that my concerns need not be enumerated. However fun Javier Bardem's villainous turn may be, he could scarcely have had a more preposterous revenge plot concocted. Fortunately, that opens things up for the enjoyable opening chase and a colorful, brilliantly photographed sequence in Shanghai. They're high points in a film that's mostly frivolous and amusing, even if this franchise gets all the more self-serious. We're three films into the Daniel Craig era of Bond and still debating the relevancy of secret agents?

262. 55 Days at Peking

262. (04 Nov) 55 Days at Peking (1963, Nicholas Ray) 34



From the extraordinary number of actors in Asianface to the way the Chinese are vilified, 55 Days at Peking has some pretty serious racist implications that have made it age badly. Still, it does explore the way the West exploited China, so it's not completely oblivious. The production value is exemplary and Dimitri Tiomkin's lush, Oscar-nominated score is quite strong. However, the selling point here is Charlton Heston, who is charismatic and photogenic as usual. He and Ava Gardner have a palpable sexual chemistry that makes their too few scenes together tower above any of the unexciting action sequences. For all its scope, this is surprisingly dull, especially once the rebellion is underway. The dreamy Andy Williams tune "So Little Time" that plays at the film's end is rather sublime.

129. Ted

129. (28 Jun) Ted (2012, Seth Macfarlane)* 41

Better than one would expect a film about a foul-mouthed, living teddy bear to be, Ted is still hokey and formulaic enough to have sprung from the mind of Seth Macfarlane. Like his generic Family Guy, the pop culture jokes will date woefully. Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis do what they can to make their bland romance something more, but they can only do so much with this volume of potty humor and lameness.

098. The Great Muppet Caper

098. (24 Mar) The Great Muppet Caper (1981, Jim Henson) 45



It feels like the Muppets are going through the motions here. The exposition, gags, and musical numbers play out mechanically. There's an occasionally cute moment or two, but Piggy's mistaken identity plot and Kermit and Fozzie playing twins are lame main plots. The high point is the Oscar-nominated "The First Time It Happens," which still isn't amazing, but it's such a lavish and absurd routine it's easy to give into.

097. Mannequin

097. (21 Mar) Mannequin (1987, Michael Gottlieb) 54



Between the outrageous supporting characters and a love story too weird to really be romantic, Mannequin should be too silly to work. But its sincerity works in its favor. The way Andrew McCarthy's friendship with a gay windowdresser named Hollywood is particularly charming. The villainous performances are too broad, with James Spader making a fool of himself, but they're peripheral enough not to derail things. It's mostly just fun watching the stupid and wacky affair between Kim Cattrall and McCarthy play out. It doesn't hurt that "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" is an awesome Best Original Song nomination.

096. Hercules

096. (19 Mar) Hercules (1997, Ron Clements & John Musker) 36



I'm not clear who supported this departure in Disney style. The harsh lines and cheesy background and character design are often shockingly ugly. Ron Clements and John Musker are also saddled with a truly lame score and an irritating plot. It's hard to believe they ever made The Little Mermaid even in Hercules' fleeting moments that work.

The generic, but amiable "Go the Distance" and cute "I Won't Say I'm in Love" suggest Alan Menken, but it's about as minor as his work gets. The music's just not ingrained into the story, which isn't surprising considering how muddled the script is. The wacky concepts, unnecessary sidekicks, and underdeveloped relationships in Hercules are reminiscent of the issues Pocahontas had. That pair of clunkers could've sunk any studio.

Winner Breakdown: Original Song and Score

Music (Original Score):- The Adventures of Tintin (John Williams)
- The Artist (Ludovic Bource)
- Hugo (Howard Shore)
- Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Albert Iglesias)
- War Horse (John Williams)


This was a really good year for music, with Alexandre Desplat scoring six different films, Thomas Newman doing one or two, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross also in there. I was slightly disappointed to see that none of these people made it in, and we got 2 John Williams nominations instead. I have no qualms against Williams, but would've loved to see Desplat in there again, or even the others I named. But this year's nominees are all really good. By far, my favourite is John William's War Horse. I'm not even a very big Williams fan, but I adored his work. However, Ludovic Bource's music carried The Artist. While I thought it was a charming score, I thought it was a little wrong in some places, or cut off mid scenes, but I suppose that's not Bource's fault. However, the score that could pose the upset, I think, would be Howard Shore's work for Hugo. It is so unlike Howard Shore's other music, and is so typically French, and is quite charming. However, I don't see Shore winning this year, nor do I see Iglesias or Williams winning either. Undoubtedly it'll go to Bource... and who can blame him?

Will Win: The Artist
Could Win: Hugo
Dark Horse: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy
Who I Want to Win: War Horse


Music (Original Song):- Man or Muppet (The Muppets)
- Real in Rio (Rio)


The big news is that there will not be live performances of the Original Songs this year at the Oscars. Personally, I don't mind, because I never really knew any of the songs anyways, and always changed the channel, or went for popcorn during this time. But it's interesting, having only 2 nominees. Many were predicting Mary J. Blidge's "The Living Proof" from The Help to win, however she wasn't nominated. But I think it's fairly obvious that "Man or Muppet" from the Muppets. While I love Rio, and the music from it, it really don't stand a chance against the Muppets. 

Will Win: Man or Muppet
Could Win: -
Dark Horse: Real in Rio
Who I Want to Win: Man or Muppet

030. Rio

030. (24 Jan) Rio (2011, Carlos Saldanha) 47



Considering how well-animated Rio is, it's astonishing the concept is so awful. It's almost entirely reliant on visuals since the plot merely has an awkward parrot lost in Rio. His misadventures are a lame excuse for one action sequence followed by another. Bad musical numbers and awful voice actors are plentiful. (Who on earth cast Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway as the leads?) Jemaine Clement tries to liven things up as the villain, but there's no discernible motivation for a villain in this film so he's just misplaced. At least there's a nice sequence featuring air gliders. The Oscar-nominated "Real in Rio" opening number is also pleasant, if forgettable.

481. The Muppets

481. (28 Nov) The Muppets (2011, James Bobin)* 67