The Movie Club Redux, Part 10: Sma-Smortion?!?

TO: Levi, Tavis, Lin
FROM: Boltron
RE: Worst of the Year?

Levi, welcome aboard! Now — how about that Best of the Year list?

I want to add my two cents about the ending of No Country for Old Men — but I'm still trying to figure out how Tommy Lee Jones and Javier Bardem saw each other's reflections in the broken lock at the motel yet didn't end up face-to-face in the room!

I was so baffled by that scene that I was only half-paying attention during Tommy Lee's monologue about the dream — and suddenly the movie ended and I went, "Wait! What just happened?!"

The more I've reflected on that ending, however, the more perfect it seems. Levi, I must respectfully disagree about things being worse than they were — I think Barry Corben's story in the film's penultimate scene makes it clear things have always been bad, violence is as inexplicable as it is inescapable, and we are all subject to the horrible whims of fate.

Regardless of the ending, No Country was the year's most cinematically assured film. The sequence where Javier Bardem finds Josh Brolin in his hotel room is breathtaking — it should be studied all by itself in a master filmmaking class. This is how you pay off a set-up. We see nothing but the shadow under the door, but by then the Coens have so perfectly imbued their sound cues in our heads that what we hear paints a perfect picture.

And was there a single more suspenseful moment in the entire year than when the audience is practically screaming for Brolin to move away from that fucking lock?

I'm with you, Tavis — I love the Coen brothers' whole filmography, and think most critics have dropped the ball on them. They always swat the Coens for being "cold" and "unemotional," which is complete bullshit. I defy anyone not to find the (admittedly dark, yet still very much beating) heart at the center of Miller's Crossing. Or Barton Fink. And lest we forget, although today everyone (well, except for LIN, ahem!) jumps on the Big Lebowski bandwagon, it was completely dismissed by half-blind critics on its release.

As you know, Levi, you and I share the not-terribly-popular opinion that Last Crusade was the weakest of the Indy movies. I maintain that Temple of Doom is a worthy successor to Raiders (yes, it's dark, but I like my movies like I like my men) — and, of course, nothing can touch Raiders for sheer cinematic thrill-ride. Last Crusade basically took a dump on Raiders and tried to laugh it off. The whole film feels like a lark, nothing sticks to it, and ultimately it's the most forgettable of the bunch.

Do I have any faith that The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (say that five times fast) will be a worthy successor? Let's put it this way: of the Magic Three who oversee the Indy series, only one has produced anything in the past decade that makes me think he shouldn't retire from film altogether. And when we're talking about Spielberg, really, the man should just keep making films from the grave.

Lucas and Ford, however, might want to take up gardening.

I'm not giving up on the possibility that they'll hit the magic button again. I believe Spielberg is a powerful enough force for good to win out. True, Lucas cranked out the abominable Star Wars prequel trilogy — but as I've groused elsewhere, I think the entire Star Wars series is a bust (save Empire Strikes Back, the only one that really works). But it sure inspired a lot of fun times with those action figures in the Eighties!

I've made my case in the past for avoiding Transformers, and I stand by it. Nothing I've seen or heard since has convinced me otherwise.

"Anonymous" wrote in the comments section (yes, incredibly, someone is reading these!!) that Gone Baby Gone is his first choice for Worst of the Year. I wasn't blown away by the film, but I can't say it was truly terrible. The leads lacked chemistry and the plot twists were a mite too obvious (you don't cast Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman without involving them in some major plot developments), but I dug the South Boston flavah and admired the downbeat ending.

The truth is, I'm having trouble with a "Worst of 2007" title, mainly because I (mostly) avoided the ones I just knew would suck.

Yes, I did give in to Spider-Man 3 — and for about the first hour I thought it was okay. In fact, I remember thinking, Hey, this isn't nearly as bad as I'd heard! Maybe it will be good. Then Peter Parker turned into Fallout Boy in the most ridiculous sequence of the year, a major antagonist like Venom was tossed into an already overstuffed mix and treated as an afterthought, and the climax devolved into the lamest Marvel Team-Up in history. I have rarely been so relieved to see the end credits of a film come up — I spent the last hour of that movie terrified that Sam Raimi would find some way to screw up the entire series even more horrendously.

But after the misery that was the first Pirates of the Caribbean sequel, I wasn't about to fall for that shit again. And no Tim Allen comedies for me, thanks. In fact, I managed to dodge pretty much every stinker that mainstream critics had to wade through (no Southland Tales — suck it, Richard Kelly!).

Honestly, I have to admit that the worst films I can recall seeing — and here I should perhaps note that I hardly remember ANYTHING from last spring except Zodiac, so maybe I saw a dozen lousy movies and successfully dumped the memories from my database — were the critics' darlings that didn't live up to the hype.

Last year I was baffled at the critical hosannas (not to mention the Oscars) for The Departed, which I despised as un-thrilling, lazy filmmaking enlivened only by Matt Damon's strong (and unfortunately underused) performance. This year I heard the critics bellow wildly for the likes of Knocked Up, The Host, and... shit, I know there was another one, but I just can't think of it now. And in each case I wondered what was in their water and how I could guzzle a gallon or two of it, myself.

Lin, you named The Host as one of your favorites of last year, and I'd love to hear an explanation for that.

Rotten Tomatoes is peppered with critical accolades along the lines of, "What a joyous, crazy, scary, hilarious thrill-ride!" But I found nothing remotely suspenseful or scary about it — the fucking thing was as cheesy as a rubber-monster Godzilla flick, and as incoherent as seven Godzilla flicks randomly edited together. The tone veered wildly, but not in the right ways — when the film seemed to be trying to get serious, it was unintentionally hilarious; when it wanted to be funny, it was cringe-inducingly awful.

Is this just me missing some cultural divide? If this had been an American film, I suspect we'd all be talking about what a disastrous, overwrought mish-mash it was. But I get the feeling American critics kind of shrugged and said, "Those crazy Koreans!" and gave it a pass for not having tortured teenagers in it.

I found Knocked Up equally disappointing. This is coming from someone who really liked both The 40 Year Old Virgin and Superbad, so it's not like I'm opposed to that style of abrasive comedy (which, as anyone who's read Anarchy Rules knows, is right up my alley). Nor do I resist the squishy center Judd Apatow adds to soften the blows from his dirty gags.

However, the entire premise of Knocked Up was so ham-handed and fatally flawed that not a single moment rang true for me. The two leads had no chemistry, and the idea that someone like Katherine Heigl would ever hook up with someone like Seth Rogen without the benefit of being drunk to the point of alcohol poisoning is beyond ludricrous.

Then Apatow makes the fatal error of having them "fall in love" and be a couple when she decides to keep the baby. Dramatically speaking, I would have found it much more interesting if he'd wanted the abortion, she'd said no, and he became enough of a mensch to say, "Fine, then I'm taking part in my kid's life." Then, even though they apparently had no attraction, they would have to spend the next nine months together — and gradually, in time-honored movie logic, they would "accidentally" fall in love by the ending.

Instead, Apatow has almost no conflict, lots of half-assed scenes that felt improvised (I know this is his style, but this was the first film in which I could tell the screenplay read, "Aw, Paul and Seth will make up something funny here."), and the jokes were just so-so.

And yet, the critics loved it. Audiences embraced it. I shook my head in bewilderment and huddled amidst a small group of fellow resisters. It kind of reminded me of being an anti-war liberal during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Speaking of which... okay, yes, it's finally time.

No more avoiding it... Sma-smortion.

When that scene happened, I swear to God my vision turned red and I went into a rage-induced trance for the next ten minutes. I think I recovered just in time to see Heigl's screen mom played as a drunken villainess who positively salivates over the idea of vacuuming a glorious life right out of her daughter's womb, and then I went back to red again.

What the fuck has happened to this country?

And don't tell me abortion isn't funny. Even setting Citizen Ruth aside for the moment, here are two prime examples: back in the mid-Nineties, Seinfeld had a whole episode where Elaine discovers the guy she's dating is anti-abortion, and she (and everyone else she talks to) is stunned and appalled; and back in the early '70s Bea Arthur's character had an abortion on Maud, whose first season came out on DVD this year.

I realize a couple of know-nothing hacks like Norman Lear, Jerry Seinfeld, and Larry David don't know shit about real comedy — but don't you think Knocked Up's refusal to even address abortion as a viable issue rather than dismissing it outright was pure cowardice? Are we all bowing down to the heartland evangelicals now, for fear that we might only gross $100 million domestically rather than $150 million?

Not having seen Juno, I can't really add that film into the discussion, except that I've read about how Juno is scared off by an evil employee in an abortion clinic. And it gives me yet another reason to avoid the thing.

Then there's Waitress, where Keri Russell keeps her abusive asshole husband's baby for no better reason than... I don't know, she wants to make Please Stop Beating Up My Baby Pie, or something. That was a strangely uneven film in which, for every scene of nearly unbearable wistfulness, there followed a strong scene that gave you a rush of compassion for the characters. I walked out feeling that poor Adrienne Shelly didn't quite hit it out of the park with her first at-bat, but wishing she could step up to the plate again.

And also thinking that, between Slither and Waitress, Nathan Fillion is one of our sturdiest and most tragically unsung leading men. Of course, being a Firefly and Serenity nut (notice I didn't say "browncoat," as I'm not a truly fanatical nut — yet), I'm already on the guy's side.

And what about the gems that got away? How did audiences miss out on Hot Fuzz, which would have been the funniest straight comedy of the year if Superbad hadn't come along with its gallery of hilarious penis drawings?

What else got unfairly neglected in the shuffle?