Sunday, February 20, 2011

The Worst Best Pictures

MSN is my Home Page on the Internet, and they regularly feature fragments of trivia and tripe from the popular culture. Today they featured what one of their writers concluded were the worst of the celebrated Best Pictures from Hollywood.

They tarred and feathered Chicago, Shakespeare In Love, A Beautiful Mind... And I totally agree that they were terrible. But the writer also took a swipe at Driving Miss Daisy, The English Patient, Rain Man, and Out of Africa... All of which I've seen more than once, and would enjoy seeing again in the future.

As you know I'm almost never critical... But I've decided to come up with a list of Celebrated Movies that Totally Suck. The movie Chicago won't make the list, because I will only include movies I was able to sit all the way through.

10. A Fish Called Wanda... It's a wonderful thing when a great cast gets together, but if the story isn't worth telling? But that didn't stop the Academy from nominating it for best original screenplay.

9. The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover... Bo-Ring! Helen Mirren couldn't save this waste of film. But the thing actually won some awards.

8. Mullholland Drive... Watching this movie was a painful and disappointing experience because I kept expecting it to turn into something clever. Turns out it had no more continuity, at least in reality, than a dream you might have after eating too much Italian food. David Lynch was Nominated Best Director.

7. Ghandi... "They may torture my body, break my bones, even kill me, then they will have my dead body." I wanted a crack at that after wasting my time watching this movie. It won 8 Academy Awards and stole the the Best Actor Award from Paul Newman in The Verdict. I figure the film won awards because the man Ghandi is one of The Left's favorite Jesus substitutes.

6. The Piano... Nominated for Best Picture... In the two hours I wasted watching this movie, the only thing that captured my imagination was Holly Hunter sitting naked on the bed.

5. Gangs of New York... Nominated for Best Picture. I do not cozy up to films in which I despise every character. By the end of the movie you sort of wished everybody would die so the movie could be over.

4. American Beauty... Won Best Picture. Oh really? As I recall, this picture had latent homosexuality, masturbation, murder, teen nudity, drugs, and pedophilia as its redeeming qualities. No wonder it won.

3. Shakespeare In Love... Won best picture. I thought this movie was a complete bore, and I figure it won because it showed one of Gwyneth Paltrow's nipples. It's sad, because it beat out another, much better movie, the nippleless Saving Private Ryan.

2. Pulp Fiction... Nominated for Best Picture. Again, a movie full of unlikable characters that you wish would just go away. A pitiful, disjointed plot.

1. Midnight Cowboy... Won Best Picture 1969. With the rise of television, in the 50's and 60's the movies didn't really know what to do with themselves. Midnight Cowboy represents that era perfectly. I watched the movie, and I just didn't care.

....

4 comments:

SkyePuppy said...

An excellent list! I can actually say that I have not seen one of these movies, because for most of them I knew I wouldn't like them. Knowing what Hollywood thinks of conservative, Christian America and our military, I usually wait to see a movie until after I've heard how it treats the institutions I care about and/or am part of.

I'd add Crash to the list. I saw that one and wished I hadn't.

Bekah said...

You made me nervous! I thought maybe one of my all time faves was going to make your list. Apparently my tendency to watch shallow chick flicks made everything safe. LOL!!

Malott said...

SP,

Haven't seen Crash. I think waiting until some other sucker has already wasted his money is a good plan.

Bekah,

You have several friends with young kids... You need to take advantage and accompany them to kids' movies. My best movie experiences were when I use to keep the little Philippine girl and we would go see a movie.

Delta R. Vines said...

This is a good list, Malott! There are some I could add to it, but I agree with your top choices completely. I think I'd have to put "Eyes Wide Shut" with Cruse/Kidmann as number 11. Ugh.

There are some very good movies out there. Case in point: The King's Speech. I'm concerned that the "academy" will choose "The Kids Are Alright" as top movie. With the main characters being a lesbian couple, it's just the thing they would do. sigh. groan.