The worst movies I have ever seen
1. Bloodrayne
Okay, so I have a weakness for vampires. I just had to see it. And it had the woman who played the Terminator in T3, so I thought it couldn’t be that bad.
I honestly don’t know why I forced myself to finish it. If anything, the worst thing of all was realizing how desperate Ben Kingsly must have been to have agreed to be in that movie. The acting was shockingly awful, there was completely arbitrary, unnecessary, and gratuitous sex and violence, and the plot was atrocious.
2. Shame
This is an example of a movie that critics loved, that had excellent actors and excellent acting, but the plot and general feel were horrible. Despite the large amounts of sex, the movie struck me as extremely puritanical. It portrayed sex in a violent, sickening way, over and over again.
There were exhaustingly long shots of seemingly nothing, with deafeningly loud, swelling orchestral music (one example was a scene where the main character is staring at a woman on a train for what seems like fifteen minutes). The entire film’s purpose seemed to be to make the audience as uncomfortable and nauseous as possible, with no actual message or even plot. I left 15 minutes before the end, due to being incredibly disturbed and triggered, and feeling like my ears had been assaulted. Once again, I shouldn’t have waited that long.
3. Southland Tales
Another example of a film that had long, pointless scenes and a poor plot. Instead of no plot, it was all over the place and confusing. It was difficult to tell who the main characters even were, and it didn’t make a lot of sense. In addition, the acting wasn’t very good, and there were scenes of people acting absolutely crazy for no reason. I was especially disappointed in Sarah Michelle Gellar, who I know is capable of good acting. I turned it off 3/4 of the way through.
4. Being John Malcovich
Virtually everybody I know loves this movie. Sometimes I wonder if perhaps my soulmate will end up being one of the few other people in the world who hated this movie.
I was watching it with my parents, so I watched it all the way through. The thing that gets me hating a movie more than anything else, is when there is absolutely no moral message, and none of the characters have any redeeming value. It’s more than that, too – The Godfather was about villains, but it was very educational regarding the structure and philosophy of the Mafia (I actually found the Godfather quite boring, but it’s not bad enough to be on this list). In the case of this movie, all the characters were assholes who didn’t care about anybody else. They did assholish things with little consequence. Oh, and there’s this really cool speculative fiction twist which apparently redeems the entire movie in some people’s eyes. There, I just told you the whole story.
Movies that I liked, that were crapped on by critics
1. The Cell
In addition to being cinematically gorgeous, The Cell had an interesting sci-fi angle to it, and was surprisingly psychologically accurate. The acting wasn’t bad, and the story was interesting and satisfying. I found it amusing to no end when a film critic denounced it as “psychologically inaccurate” with no explanation as to why, as if film critics are well schooled in psychology.
2. Glitter
There are a lot of “finding your dreams” movies out there, but few with as much heart and honesty as Glitter. Instead of ending with the main character “making it” as a singer, it begins with it. It shows the ups and downs of being a part of that world. I found Mariah Carey’s acting to be very good (see Precious for another example). In addition, the love story arc ended surprisingly and realistically, with her showing real courage by leaving an abusive relationship – the relationship that began her career in the first place. She did not “get the guy” in the end, despite it looking like a romantic drama at the beginning.
3. Twilight
I’m putting this one here, because a lot of people claim to hate it, though I don’t think they really do. The widespread hatred of Twilight seems to be more of a “hate fad” than anything else (see Justin Bieber for another example). People love to hate it – they create a culture of belonging, through that hate.
First of all, the cinematography was gorgeous. The town was portrayed well, with all its cliffs, beaches, and gray, cloudy landscapes. The only acting that I found sub-par was that of Robert Pattinson, who seemed a bit wooden – but it didn’t really ruin the movie for me. A lot of people seem to love mocking Kristen Stewart for her “not smiling,” and “showing no emotion,” which betrays more the assumptions that our culture has about how women should behave than anything else. Stewart plays her character with honesty and integrity – which is difficult to do, given the fact that Bella is quite one-dimensional in the book.
Just gonna leave this here.
The plot was very interesting, just like in the book; Meyers created her own vampire world with its own rules, and it was detailed and imaginative. Catherine Hardwicke told Meyer’s story accurately and beautifully, which is hardly surprising, given that her directorial debut, Thirteen, was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
But the biggest objection to Twilight – I kid you not – is that in the Twilight world, vampires sparkle in the sunlight. That’s it. Apparently this fact threatens a lot of men’s masculinity; after all, masculinity is a very delicate thing. An entire meme began: “Still Not As Gay As Twilight,” which was not only homophobic, but sexist as well. People’s desires for the vampires to be more violent than they were, calling them “fairies,” just showed how intolerant and bloodthirsty a lot of audiences are today.
RE Twilight
I hated Twilight for many reasons:
-bad acting all around. Kristin Stewart in particular is so wooden she could be replaced by a pole with a face drawn on it, like Keanu Reeves in all the Matrix movies. She has zero inflection to her voice, zero emotion, zero feeling, and no facial expressions. I don’t see how it’s sexist to want an actor or actress to show emotion since they get paid a gazillion dollars to do just that. I want actors and actresses (male or female) to play their role with feeling. I want to believe it. Now, I’ve only read a little of the first book, so maybe she really is in character and Bella is just devoid of all feeling and emotion. I’ve seen her in other movies, some of them are better than others (I think she’s great in Speak, and that amusement park movie). It’s not just her either, Robert Pattinson is pretty bad too (I cannot take him seriously) and his siblings, oof. It gets worse in the later movies. Also the “bad” vampires in the first movie were not believable to me, they didn’t seem very evil at all. They seemed more like a indie band on tour..
-I do think it’s stupid that they sparkle in the sunlight, but it’s not because it isn’t masculine so much as the way Edward cries “THIS IS THE SKIN OF A KILLER!!111″ with a grimace on his face as he sparkles in the sunlight. I just can’t take it seriously. I think the objection is just that it’s such a departure from the way vampires are usually portrayed, bloodthirsty killer vs tortured, angsty teenager.
-the relationship between Edward and bella is anything but healthy, it’s based entirely on him wanting to kill her/suck her blood but resisting doing so, and he stalks her, watches her sleep, is generally quite creepy and says things like “well no one is going to believe you” when she mentions him stopping the truck with his bare hand. After twilight came out way too many of my friends were saying stupid things like “Waiting for my Edward cullen, *~*Swoon!!~*~” He is way too possessive and she basically hands over her entire life to him so he can take care of everything. I will take my non creepy boyfriend who respects me, thanks.
-Jacob basically imprinting himself on Edward and bella’s newborn baby, WTF is that??
-There is way too much time with them just staring at each other and no lines being said. It’s an awkward, too long silence, reminding me of that scene in Star Wars 3: Revenge of the sith where there are several minutes of anakin and padme staring out the window across the city from each other while music plays in the background with strained expressions on their faces. It goes on and on and on, for far too long.
-Like I said I only read a little of the first book, so perhaps the writing improves, and I will concede to that if that’s the case, but what I did read was just really lacking something. Now, I’m certainly not a literary critic. And I know that Bella is what, between 16-18 in the books? So she’s going to sound like a teenage girl. But the writing quality is really juvenile and not what I would expect from a bestselling author. I have read a lot of young adult fiction, even now that i’m really too old for it, and I even read books like the Outsiders where the author was an actual teenager when the book was written, and I just don’t get it. Harry Potter, for example, is so much better, the way she writes just sucks you into his world and she manages to make them sound their age without she, herself, sounding like a 15 year old writing for her creative writing class in high school. She sounds polished.
Gosh, I’m sorry for the essay…I guess I felt the need to rant about Twilight
Really, I don’t care if you like it, or anyone else, I like lots of things that the majority of people think “wow, that’s awful”, but I felt you made some assumptions about why people hate on it that aren’t necessarily true and wanted to offer another point of view.
I really think that, were Kristen Stewart a man, people wouldn’t be criticising her for her acting. Subtlety isn’t the same as being emotionless. She has a stereotypically masculine, or what I call “boyish,” way about her, that I think turns a lot of people off. I’m not saying that people who dislike her acting are sexist, but rather that there is an unconscious cultural bais against actresses who show similar emotion to their male counterparts. As for inflection and emotions, she portrays her emotions very effectively in her eyes. In the scene in Snow White and the Huntsman where she comes to kill the queen, she shows her quiet rage very well.
Stewart isn’t simply criticised for her acting. She is criticised as a person, for showing no emotion, because she doesn’t smile for the camera, or show strong emotion during interviews. I especially identify with her in that sense, because I often feel a certain way that I don’t necessarily show on the outside – and it frustrates me to no end, for example, when people insist that I have to act happy when I feel happy. I don’t become happy for other people’s benefit, and I owe nobody a smile. This is a common cultural attitude towards women, and it exists towards Stewart off screen as well, which further convinces me that the criticism is really about her not doing her duty as a woman to make other people feel good.
Strong facial expressions are not necessary for the portrayal of emotion. She portrays emotion mostly through her eyes, which is quite clear to me. The biggest criticism I have for her is that, judging from her interviews, she appears to act like herself when she’s playing Bella. But that’s what happens when you create an empty character – they have to be filled by the actor portraying them. But I honestly don’t see how acting like yourself is necessarily bad acting – at least she’s acting like an existing, 3-dimensional human being; and it’s not like she’s incorrectly portraying Bella.
The vampires in Twilight (save the “vegetarian” main characters) are every bit as lethal as the ones in other fictional universes. You may feel that them sparkling takes away from that, but I don’t. For decades now, vampires have been portrayed as irresistible towards humans, and this is just another way of showing that. They are supposed to be beautiful.
I have written in a previous post about the disturbing nature of the relationship between Bella and Edward – http://sitakali.org/2011/06/27/vampires-and-rape-culture/. I am actually even more disturbed by a particular scene when Jacob forces himself on Bella and then laughs it off (I didn’t mention that in the previous post). The imprinting thing is definitely weird. The story of Twilight has a lot of problems on a social awareness level, and I’m not denying that. I was stating that I thought that the film was well done.
I didn’t really notice the staring going on for stretches – certainly it wasn’t comparable to the movie Shame!
Twilight was the best out of the series, as Meyers gained almost full editorial control after the first book was so successful. The next three went on and on unnecessarily. I have to say that I’ve definitely read worse YA fiction than Meyers. I’m currently reading The Host, and I find it really good (though also a bit long and poorly edited). I’ve actually heard complaints about Rowling as well, due to that fact that she also gained editorial power and her books got longer, too. I honestly have trouble seeing what’s so juvenile about the way that Meyers writes, aside from it being from the point-of-view of a teenage girl. Dan Brown, for example, is a far worse writer, and he writes adult fiction.
As for why people hate Twilight, I’m going by what I’ve seen on the Internet. Criticisms are by and large made up of men calling Edward a fairy, saying that Twilight is “gay,” and laughing about sparkly vampires. That’s it.
It’s so hard to explain what I mean by juvenile. Of course she’s going to sound like a teenage girl. It just sounds….unpolished? I can’t find the right word. I’ve read books that were actually written by teenagers and they just sounded so much better. I’m not a very good writer, but then that’s why I don’t make a career out of it….
As for Kristen Stewart, I do agree that she gets a lot of crap for not showing emotion off camera properly. But I’ve seen the male twilight actors get criticized for their bad acting too. As an actor or actress your job is to play the part (and yes, she got an empty character, only so much you can do with that) and yes…show emotion. Maybe she does show it through her eyes (She does in Speak, which I said she is great in…I haven’t seen the snow white movie she’s in) but it just doesn’t work for me in Twilight. Those actors made more money than you or I will ever see in a lifetime, I don’t think it’s asking too much for them to do their jobs. I feel the same way about both male and female actors here. I think maybe you’re reading sexist views into what I’m saying…I am strictly speaking of her acting in this movie….not about how she’s seen in real life. It’s not because I think she isn’t doing her duty as a woman to make people feel good. Or you’re just speaking on what you’ve read other people say and not applying it to what I said, that’s totally possible.
Anyway I do think I read too much into your post, since you were just commenting on the movie (and just the first one) and I went on a rant about how much I hate the whole story. And again, it doesn’t bother me if people like it, I just don’t.