The Worst Movies of 2011

Posted on December 30, 2011 at 10:13 am

I was lucky to miss several of the films that have been showing up on worst lists for 2011, especially “Jack and Jill” with Adam Sandler (and Al Pacino!), already the clear front-runner for the Razzies. But I was able to put together a list of miserable failures that are awful enough. To get on my annual worst list, it is not enough for the movie just to be terrible. It has to be downright atrocious, showing contempt for the audience or otherwise violating the bond between those who make movies and those who buy tickets to see them — the promise that they will make the best and truest movies they can.

1. “Mars Needs Moms” One of the biggest money-losers of all time, this motion-capture film failed visually, with its human characters disturbingly unexpressive. But it was the storyline that was the real problem, with weirdly retro gender politics and unnecessarily unsettling peril.

2. “Arthur” One of two unnecessary remakes on the list, this one gets extra badness points for terrible use of Nick Nolte and Helen Mirren.

3. “Just Go With It” Adam Sandler’s even more unnecessary remake of the delightful “Cactus Flower” is appallingly clueless about its own offensiveness, with even the good guy characters portrayed as heartless mercenaries.

4. “Zookeeper” This talking animal movie about a lovelorn zookeeper substitutes “frickin'” for stronger language to get a PG rating but forgets to substitute wit and heart for the inane and insulting screenplay. Extra badness points for wasting the talents of not just stars Kevin James and Rosario Dawson, Ken Jeong (a humiliatingly shrill, borderline racist caricature), Donnie Wahlberg as an animal-abusing zoo staffer, and voice talents Nick Nolte (again!), Cher, Sylvester Stallone, and Don Rickles.

5. “Red Riding Hood” Oh, Grandma, what a big, bad movie this one is. I had to invoke the infamous Gothika Rule to save audiences the misery of sitting through it.

6. “I Don’t Know How She Does It” I don’t know why they made it. One of the worst mistakes a film can make is overestimating the appeal of its characters. This film insults working mothers and human beings everywhere.

7. “What’s Your Number?” We are supposed to root for the heroine to realize she has not thrown herself away in a series of unpleasant and demeaning sexual encounters. But she has.

8. “Hall Pass” Perpetually childish men are constantly chastened and terrified by scary mommies with daunting sexual demands. Bad times!

9. “Sucker Punch” Not so much punch, but a lot of sucker. Hint: if the theme of the movie is female empowerment, heels and spangled miniskirts subvert the message. And the best images were taken from artist Ashley Wood.

10. “Bad Teacher” Bad movie.

Dishonorable mention: “Crazy Stupid Love” for spoiling a clever comedy with misogyny and a pervily positive portrayal of a teenage girl giving nude photos of herself to a middle schooler, and “Anonymous” for incoherent story-telling and sheer stupidity in its portrayal of just about everyone including Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth. The two worst movies for children: “The Smurfs” (Joan Rivers cameo? Really?) and “Hop” (a Hugh Hefner sexy bunny joke? Really??)

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Bad Teacher

Posted on June 23, 2011 at 6:00 pm

Are you a fan of comedy based on the sole premise that it is funny to see a beautiful woman make outrageously crude and narcissistic statements? Then go watch Sarah Silverman. This movie will only show you how much better she is by comparison.

It’s a shame to see the talents of Cameron Diaz, Jason Segal, Justin Timberlake, and Lucy Punch wasted on a one-joke premise that could barely support an SNL sketch. Here it is: Diaz plays Elizabeth, a bad teacher. How bad is she? She snoozes through class while the kids watch movies, she drinks and smokes marijuana at school, she never learns the kids’ names or teaches them anything, and she uses bad language. She will do anything to marry a wealthy man or get the money she needs for breast enlargement surgery, because she thinks it will help her marry a wealthy man. She is not just bad; unfortunately she is also unpleasant, annoying, and dull.

There’s really nothing more to say about the plot. Elizabeth is bad in many different situations — cafeteria, classroom, school dance, student’s home, and field trip. She is bad in different ways — mean, selfish, obnoxious, dishonest. She is rude to many different people — teachers, parents, students. She uses her looks, most notably at a fund-raising car wash where she diverts the funds to her own Daisy Dukes and in an encounter with the keeper of the standardized test she wants to steal (Thomas Lennon). But it’s the same joke over and over and over and over. The expression of unabashed, vulgar, angry, selfish superego in what is supposed to be a protected context has undeniable appeal (see the best-seller Go the F**k to Sleep). But it is not enough to sustain a movie.

It’s briefly fun to see “Modern Family’s” Eric Stonestreet in a very different role and Diaz gets some credit for being fearless — no winking at the audience to let us know she’s loveable. But Timberlake is wasted in another one-dimensional part. The few highlights come from Jason Segal, who has a wonderfully wry confidence as the school’s PE teacher and Lucy Punch as Elizabeth’s nemesis has some fun with the demented perkiness of a teacher driven around the bend. They show how much more a talented comic performer can bring to an under-written story. But that isn’t enough to keep “Bad Teacher” from being a bad movie.

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