Next year the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is going to extend its list of best picture nominees to ten. That’s quite an extraordinary feat considering I have trouble selecting five nominees in any given year. This year, however, the selection of films I would consider great is thinner than ever.
Granted, there is always a slew of movies that I don’t get to see for various reasons (I’m still dismayed that I missed Inglorious Basterds at the theatre) but then there is also a handful of “must-sees” that simply fail to pique my interest.
Below are four of this year’s most popular titles that I simply can’t bring myself to even pretend to want to see.
- The Blind Side
Yes, it’s a true story. Yes, I’m sure it’s an extraordinary story. And yes, I’m sure it makes for incredibly tedious cinema (The Bland Side). That’s the problem with real life… it just doesn’t often translate into a compelling movie. Put it on The Discovery Channel and maybe I can be enticed to see it. - The Twilight Saga: New Moon
I doubt I need to explain this one to any males over the age of 18. My wife and I broke down over the summer and rented the preceding episode only to be bored to tears by a bad vampire Back-to-School Special. Doesn’t it creep anyone out that the hunky lead vampire is a 108-year-old man who’s dating an underage girl? - Sherlock Holmes
Fun fact:I’ve never seen a Guy Ritchie movie.“Why,” you ask? Quite simply, they look like big-budget 80s B-movies that Chuck Norris would have turned down (except maybe Swept Away, which would have been a network mini-series starring Richard Chamberlain and Cheryl Ladd). Ritchie’s take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s popular detective turns a brilliant investigator and his witty friend and cohort into Oscar Madison and Felix Unger in a rendition of The Fight Club Odd Couple. - Avatar
File this one under “I just don’t get it.” We’ve been hearing about this movie forever. How its special effects are “game-changing” and it’s going to be ground-breaking. We waited for what seemed an eternity to get a first glimpse at James (“There are two candles in the dark, Bud”) Cameron’s first feature in a decade. Finally, this technological marvel is unleashed and I was so taken aback by what I saw that all I could muster to say is, “Yup. That’s CGI, all right.”
After watching the preview it’s also evident that there are no surprises in the flick. This is why I think Oliver Stone is the best director to make historical (JFK) or biographical (The Doors) movies: he doesn’t trouble himself with facts.
Watch the Saturday Night Live preview for Firelight instead. Who knew Taylor Swift could act?
UPDATE: Another fun fact is that when one is married, one must compromise when selecting a movie to watch. Therefore, I saw Sherlock Holmes with my beautiful beloved. It is as I expected: sound and fury.
When even the rave reviews are calling it a movie with bad acting, cheesy-dialogue, a weak script, and cut-rate CGI (“But the 3D is awesone, dude!”), one has to wonder why people would spend the extra cash (and a lot of extra time) on a gimmick that’s been around for more than half a century.
Disagree? That’s fine by me. Reply below.
OK, I like it!
‘The Blind Side’…didn’t see it, no desire, I’ll wait for HBO. But what you wrote is basically why I’m in no hurry to run out and spend $13 on a ticket.
‘New Moon’…If my wife loves it, then I cannot possibly love it.
‘Holmes’…want to see it but won’t run out and do it. To many modern stunts and effects to be such a period movie. Sort of ruins it for me.
‘Avatar’…didn’t want to run out and see it but my wife and I did and I loved it. I thought the story was cool, effects were cool and I didn’t even care about the acting. However, I looked at my watch with about 30 minutes to go to see how long it was because it started to feel that way. Would have liked to see a little more ‘blue guy’ kicking some but but hey, I didn’t direct it.
See ya buddy
Saw Avatar.
*shrugs shoulders
Even the special effects were not ground breaking. Good but not great.
The storyline though had me tearing what little hair I had left on my head!
Sherlock Holmes is easily the biggest disappointment of your list. Two wonderfully talented actors and classic source material wasted on a John Woo wannabe rehash. For anyone wanting an authentic rendition, they should check out the BBC Series starring Jeremy Brett. It’s yet to get any better than that.
“That’s quite an extraordinary feat considering I have trouble selecting five nominees in any given year.”
Easy solution. See more movies.
Some you may have missed this year:
A Single Man (Tom Ford)
Agora (Alejandro Amenabar)
An Education (Lone Sherfig; Starring Alfred Molina and Peter Sarsgaard)
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans (Werner Herzog)
Chloe (Atom Egoyan)
City Island (Raymond de Felitta; Starring Alan Arkin)
City of Life and Death (Lu Chuan)
Black Dynamite (Scott Sanders)
The Bone Man (Wolfgang Murnberger)
Brothers (Jim Sheridan)
Bright Star (Jane Campion)
Cherrybomb (Starring Rupert Grint)
Darbareye Elly (Asghar Farhadi)
Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold)
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Niels Arden Oplev)
Harry Brown (Starring Michael Caine and Emily Mortimer)
Home (Yann Arthus-Bertrand)
In the Loop (Armando Iannucci)
The Maid (Sebastian Silva)
The Messenger (Oren Moverman)
Mary & Max
(Adam Elliot; Starring Toni Collette and Phillip Seymour Hoffman)
Moon (Duncan Jones)
My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? (Werner Herzog)
The Secret In Their Eyes (Juan Jose Campanella)
Sin Nombre (Cary Fukunaga)
Welcome (Philippe Lioret)
The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke)
I’m psyched to be namechecked in your facebook post.
I read a critic’s comment that “The Blind Side” was two hours of white people’s self-congratulation. That was the best point I’ve seen against it and enough to keep me from seeing the movie for now.
You do have one thing to relate to in Avatar: Your search for “unobtainium.” haha – that was lame by my own admission.
If you have NOT seen any of these films, your words are irrevelent, inmaterial, and un-noted. your review AFTER seeing the films mentioned would be of more interest to your readers. Go see the films, then write!
Oy. I always laugh at this argument because it implies that the person chastising someone for a movie he/she hasn’t seen doesn’t do the exact same thing (“That looks awesome! I can’t wait to see it!” or “That looks terrible. Why would anyone want to see “‘Sex and the City?’”). It’s disingenuous and hypocritical. Not that I have anything against hypocrisy. I practice it daily.
Besides. You seem to overlook the basic point. These are films I have no desire to see. So why would I go see them?
Perhaps it’s best you don’t see “Avatar” since it’s being reported that people are becoming quite upset after seeing the movie. CNN reports that “some fans say they have experienced depression and suicidal thoughts after seeing the film because they long to enjoy the beauty of the alien world Pandora.” Wow Avatar…your taking “being blue” to a whole new level…
P.S. Is anonymous your mother?
No, anonymous is your sister-in-law’s mother.
We did wind up seeing Avatar, of course. It wasn’t as bad as I expected, though certainly nowhere near deserving of its hype.