Arthur | Through the Shattered Lens

I’ve been pretty good at avoiding fillms that I knew was going to be awful before I even stepped into the theater so certain films from 2011 that everyone call the worst I probably won’t have on my list since I never saw them. So, such films as Jack & Jill, Bucky Larson and Zookeeper will not make my list since I was smart enough to not pay to watch it.

This ten worst list of 2011 are from films I did see during the year whether in a theater or on video. I couldn’t decide which film was worse than the next so this order doesn’t really determine which was worst. It’s just my way of keeping things organized.

Shark Night 3D – I had high hopes that this film would be 2011’s version of Piranha 3D in that it would be silly, goofy and over-the-top and knew it. Instead it’s tame with it’s PG-13 rating (seriously a film about Sharks eating college kids in 3D gets a PG-13 treatment) and has none of the joie de vivre that Piranha 3D had or the bugnuts craziness that Drive Angry 3D threw at you.
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides – With a cast that looked to be better than the Orlando Bloom/Keira Knightley one of the original trilogy I thought this new beginning for Capt. Jack Sparrow would breathe new life to the trilogy, but instead we get one of the worst entries in the franchise (that’s saying a lot) and one that ended up wasting the talents of Ian McShane in the role of Blackbeard.
Season of the Witch: I never saw it in the theater after I read Lisa Marie’s review of it. So, I waited until it arrived on Netflix and took a chance that maybe it wasn’t as awful as she said it was. I think she was being kind with her review. This film was awful in it’s awfulness that I couldn’t even enjoy just how bad it was.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon – When I first saw this film I enjoyed enough of the action when it was robot vs robot so all the human interaction part never registered, but as I saw it again on blu-ray I realized just how awful this third entry in the Michael Bay franchise was in a franchise that should’ve been fool-proof. I mean it’s giant robots that transform fighting other similar robots. I think if Shia LeBouf was replaced by someone like Jason Statham I would’ve enjoyed this film more, but Shia’s whining and screeching took away any enjoyment I had from seeing robots fighting.
Cowboys & Aliens – Another film that had a premise tailor-made for the summer blockbuster season with a cast that had Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig, Olivia Wilde (Mmmmm), Paul Dano, Clancy Brown, etc…not to mention Jon Favreau in the director’s chair. I thought that Favreau may have been railroaded and made a scapegoat for some of the failures of Iron Man 2 in 2010, but seeing what he ended up doing with this film made me rethink that maybe Marvel Studios was smart to cut him loose and bring in someone else.
Green Lantern – DC Studios…Geoff Johns…one of the Justice Leaguers. One would think that was recipe for one kick-ass space opera that would rekindle the fun that are superheroes the way Iron Man did in 2008. Instead what we ended up getting was one of the worst superhero films ever made which made Hal Jordan an emo character fighting against a villain who wasn’t terrifying and a cosmic evil that made the Lost smoke monster look horrific in turn. Fuck you DC and Johns for ruining what could’ve been a great franchise.
Arthur – I’m a child of the 80’s so I remember the original Dudley Moore version, but I was willing to give this one a chance. I shouldn’t have and any goodwill Russell Brand got from me with his performance from Get Him to the Greek vanished with this film.
Apollo 18 – Moon rocks with legs!! Nuff said.
Dream House – Another film that I thought was interesting enough to take a chance on despite the trailer pretty much ruining the twist in the story, but I thought it would have an interesting path getting to that twist. Daniel Craig may need to just stick to being James Bond, because he was almost like a cardboard in this film and the rest of the cast weren’t far behind. I never thought Jim Sheridan would ever make a bad film. I guess I was right. He didn’t make a bad film. He made a horrendously awful film.
Priest – This was another film that could’ve been fun fluff or even an entertaining bad film, but it wasn’t either of those. This was directed by Scott Stewart who did the abysmal Legion from 2010. I thought maybe he would do better a second time around adapting a popular Korean manwha title, but I guess the saying is true: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

I’m sure I left out a few other titles that ohters think should be on this list, but those probably I actually enjoyed or weren’t bad enough to bump any of these ten from my list. This list is pretty much almost a full day of my life wasted and me not able to get a refund. It’s near to 24-hours of awful that took a full day off of my lifespan. Ten films which could be the death of me down the line.

So, last night, me and Jeff were at the AMC Valley View to see The Adjustment Bureau (which I’ll be reviewing here either later tonight or tomorrow). We ended up arriving for the movie a little bit late because, while in route to the theater, we got stuck behind the dumbfug toadsucker who was driving one of those goddamn box-like Smart Cars and, of course, he was so smart that apparently, he couldn’t bring himself to risk going over 30 mph. on a three-lane street. So, we were stuck behind him like forever and then Jeff and I ended up getting into an argument about whether the driver was a woman (as Jeff claimed) or just some old hippie with long hair (as I claimed). The driver also had decorated his car with a lot of political bumper stickers — “Obama in ’08,” “Impeach Bush,” “White For Governor,” “Jesus Was A Community Organizer,” “Jesus Was Not A Republican,” “Socialist And Proud,” “Trees Make the Air We Breathe,” and those are just a few of them.

(Personally, I would never put any bumper stickers on my car because, quite frankly, they’re a little bit too permanent for my taste. I guess I’m too commitment-phobic to turn my car into a propaganda machine. However, I was once tempted to at least order an “I’m Another Person Not Reading Your Crazy, Left-Wing Blog” bumper sticker and to place it on a life-sized poster of me extending my middle finger which I would have then sent to an ex-boyfriend.)

Anyway, we were stuck behind this guy for-freaking-ever and by the time we finally got around him, since both me and Jeff understand that it’s actually more dangerous to go under the speed limit than to go over it, neither one of us had any sympathy for any of the political causes that the driver was trying to sell us on. In fact, that driver came close to turning us into Sarah and Todd Palin. (Don’t worry, we’re over it now.) The lesson here, I think, is that if you’re going to turn your car into a moving advertisement for your political beliefs, make sure you can actually know how to drive.

Anyway, by the time we got in the theater, we were still kinda all like “RAWR!” about getting stuck behind that Smart Car but then we saw a trailer that soothed our nerves and calmed us down. That trailer was for the upcoming Russell Brand film, Arthur.

Now, don’t get me wrong. The trailer looks awful and, having seen it, I now understand why so many people apparently can not stand Russell Brand. (I liked him in Get Him To The Greek.) Seriously, if not for one redeeming feature, the trailer for Arthur would hace to be the worst trailer since the trailer for Sanctum.

Playing in the background throughout the entire trailer was an old song from David Bowie and Queen, Under Pressure. As long as we simply ignored Russell Brand and Geraldine James and just listened to the music, the Arthur trailer was not only bearable but actually enjoyable. If nothing else, this song soothes our souls and brought both Jeff and me back onto the path of relative sanity.

Anyway, with all that in mind, how could I not devote a post to David Bowie and Queen’s Under Pressure?