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2019 IN REVIEW – The Worst of the Year (…and also the ones in between)
Alright, so 2019 wasn’t the year I wound up kicking back into high gear with my writing, but I’m determined to get my list of best and worst movies reviewed before this early Oscars ceremony, and, dammit, if I have to cut out talking about the ones in the middle this time, I will!
First, though, I want to give a preview of the films you won’t be seeing on either list. These are films I saw and either liked or disliked, but didn’t particularly find to be extraordinary. If they are on the following section, they are anywhere from just mundanely bad to good, not great — at least in my opinion, of course…
| TITLE | RELEASE DATE | RATING (x/5) |
|---|---|---|
| Escape Room | 1/04/19 | 2 |
| The Upside | 1/11/19 | 2 |
| The Kid Who Would Be King | 1/25/19 | 3.5 |
| Cold Pursuit | 2/08/19 | 2 |
| What Men Want | 2/08/19 | 2 |
| Isn’t It Romantic | 2/13/19 | 3 |
| Alita: Battle Angel | 2/14/19 | 3 |
| How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World | 2/22/19 | 3 |
| Greta | 3/01/19 | 2.5 |
| Little | 4/12/19 | 1.5 |
| Missing Link | 4/12/19 | 3 |
| The Hustle | 5/10/19 | 1.5 |
| Pokémon Detective Pikachu | 5/10/19 | 3 |
| Brightburn | 5/24/19 | 2.5 |
| Ma | 5/31/19 | 3.5 |
| X-Men: Dark Phoenix | 6/07/19 | 2.5 |
| Late Night | 6/07/19 | 3 |
| Men in Black International | 6/14/19 | 2.5 |
| Child’s Play | 6/21/19 | 3.5 |
| Annabelle Comes Home | 6/26/19 | 3.5 |
| Stuber | 7/12/19 | 1.5 |
| The Lion King | 7/19/19 | 2.5 |
| Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw | 8/02/19 | 2.5 |
| Dora and the Lost City of Gold | 8/09/19 | 3.5 |
| Good Boys | 8/26/19 | 3 |
| Hustlers | 9/13/19 | 3.5 |
| Abominable | 9/27/19 | 2.5 |
| Pain and Glory | 10/04/19 | 3 |
| Let It Snow | 11/08/19 | 2 |
| Last Christmas | 11/08/19 | 2.5 |
| Noelle | 11/12/19 | 1.5 |
| Lady and the Tramp | 11/12/19 | 2.5 |
| Charlie’s Angels | 11/15/19 | 2.5 |
| Queen & Slim | 11/27/19 | 3.5 |
Right, so with all that out of the way, let’s get on to the real meat of this and present… my top 22 picks for the worst movies I saw from 2019…
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2018 IN REVIEW – The Worst Movies of the Year
Alright, so I’m going to beat the Oscars, I just know it! … Personal goals aside, I did figure out that there were plenty of movies I liked or at least was indifferent to from 2018, much more than I hated. That being said, any year will have its stinkers, and here are 24 of them in rough order. I mean, it could change with time, but I feel good about this, currently, and definitely feel good about my top pick, so take this as kind of a list of terrible or even just really bland, boring movies from the year that leads up to the one to rule them all.
Read more…2018 IN REVIEW – The Movies In Between That I Have Seen…
Yes, I am, indeed, very late to starting this, but despite the agony of malaise, lack of motivation, and all sorts of other emotional afflictions I’ve been facing, I am determined to get my 2018 in Review series completed by the time the Oscars are awarded, starting with the films that I considered neither enjoyable nor awful enough to put on my favorites nor my worst of the year lists! As per usual, if you don’t see the movie here, there’s a good chance that I either didn’t see it in time, hated it, or maybe even loved it! Films that are on this list are not necessarily bad, mind you, but neither are they the greatest movies of the year.
Some of them were considered among the worst of the year, but I found something to enjoy in them, nonetheless, as is the case with the first movie on the list (which isn’t organized according to quality but rather release date within the US). Some of them either received widespread accolades or were loved by many, but I found them lacking in some way to not put it on my favorites list. Perhaps I found them boring or severely overrated? Three of the films on this list were nominated for Best Picture for multiple ceremonies, after all. Regardless, I hope you enjoy reading this list, even if I found none of them superlatively great nor bad. Please excuse the roughness due to aforementioned afflictions…
2017 IN REVIEW – The Films Between Two Extremes
Okay, so I’m very behind. I have decided on dropping the whole review of films I hadn’t seen yet thing with 2017. It took me way too long, and, with this year in particular, I just wasn’t feeling it. December and January were hard months for me – as was most of 2017 – but I also felt as though I’d seen most of the films I wanted to, even while reviewing the ones I had missed. And so, I break with a longstanding tradition and skip straight to talking about the films I have seen, starting with the films that I neither felt were awful nor were among my favorites.
Below you’ll find the 50 films(!) that fell within this category along with a brief-ish summary of how I felt about them – and how critics in general felt about them with the included Rotten Tomatoes score. These are not intended to be reviews, and I also warn you that in the interest of finishing this by Oscars night, I did not double check my writing, so I apologise for the roughness. But then again, nobody’s apologizing to me about the roughness that was 2017, so… screw it. Here we go!
2016 IN REVIEW – The Worst Movies of the Year
Alright, so… I went a bit off the deep end this year, I think. I think I’ll exercise a bit more restraint for 2017. No point in stopping this year, though, when I’ve already started!
2016 was a crappy year, so here’s a list of all the crappy films I saw from it – all 43 of them, complete with answers for why I hated them, in approximately the order in which they sucked, in order of increasing suckage – though, really, what’s the difference between placement in 35 and 36? So, some of these are practically draws. Also, as always for these lists, I have included the Rotten Tomatoes score as of this writing, ’cause it’s always fun to see just how hated (or, in some movies’ cases, how confusingly liked) a movie is compared to my own ranking, right?
Anyway, forgive me if I’m a bit jaded and out of it this past year. I think I might write my list of favorite films while having a few beers…
2016 IN REVIEW – Between Greatness and Incompetence
Well, now we’re finally at the films that I actually did see from 2016. Below, in release order, are the films I watched from this past year that were neither great nor horrible. They made me neither super angry nor super thrilled. Again, they are ordered in terms of release date, and so the list does not represent a ranking. Should you watch these?
Should you avoid them? It’s really up to you. As the title suggests, I watched them and came away, generally, as feeling all of these were, generally, somewhere between greatness and incompetence. Read more…
REVIEW – Darkroom (2013)
Directed by: Britt Napier
Produced by: Britt Napier, Ron Stein
Written by: Michaelbrent Collings
Edited by: David Leonard, Jim Mol
Cinematography by: Frederic Fasano
Music by: Anthony Lledo
Starring: Kaylee DeFer, Elisabeth Röhm, Christian Campbell, Tobias Segal, Geneva Carr, Britne Oldford, Natalie Knepp
Year: 2013
Alright, so let’s get this point out of the way before I begin discussing this movie: Yes, I went to school with the star of this movie. I did not, however, know her very well, and I didn’t even have many of the same classes as her during the time she was there, and so I am in no way claiming to know intimate knowledge – and, even if I did, I wouldn’t divulge, because I am not writing for a gossip rag, and I am not a shitty person. That being said, it’s still kind of weird knowing that I very briefly crossed paths with someone in such a tiny school (43 people or so in my graduating class – she moved halfway through high school, so there’s that, too) who went on to be a recognizable actress. Not the biggest, mind you, but she had a prominent enough role in Gossip Girl for a couple seasons (I didn’t watch it, but I know I’m not the only person who watches things), and she once played Michael Rappaport’s daughter in a shortlived Fox sitcom called The War at Home, wherein she kissed Seth MacFarlane. He apparently remembered her well enough to invite her to do some voice acting on Family Guy. Heck, she was even one half of an actually crucial puzzle piece in Ted meeting the mother on How I Met Your Mother. That’s not unimpressive at all! So, yeah, there are people who will point at her and say, “I recognize her!” and so it’s still a noteworthy anecdote from my life (and anyone’s lives, really, from our class), especially considering that I once briefly played one of the gravediggers from Romeo and Juliet alongside her in our freshman year of high school for a school assignment – during which I cut my hand pretty badly on the jagged metal pipe I was using as a prop shovel. No wonder which one of us went on to act for a living and which went on to merely talk about people acting… for a hobby. Read more…
THEATRICAL REVIEW: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Directed by: Zack Snyder
Produced by: Charles Roven, Deborah Snyder
Written by: Chris Terrio, David S. Goyer
Edited by: David Brenner
Cinematography by: Larry Fong
Music by: Hans Zimmer, Junkie XL
Starring: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Irons, Holly Hunter, Gal Gadot, Tao Okamoto, Scoot McNairy, Callan Mulvey
Based on characters from DC Comics
Year: 2015
Well, this was pretty much was what everyone was fearing it would be… Read more…
2015 IN REVIEW: The Worst Movies of the Year
Here it is! I know, it’s been a long time coming. But it’s finally here: my list of Worst Movies of 2015.
These are the 2015 movies I hated most, for one reason or another. Most of them lost points for being boring, while others lost points for being just plain stupid. There’s a good chance that you will not be entertained by any of these films, and if you do, then it’s most likely for ironic reasons. I saw a lot of bad movies in 2015, though – almost 40 of them! – and while I could’ve just narrowed it down to a Top 10 list or something, I chose instead to just flat out warn you about all the terrible movies I saw from 2015 until the time of publishing this.
I’ve ranked them in order of approximate awfulness, but, as always with these things, ranks can change probably in the future. There’s one thing I’m certain of, however, and that these are just… just terrible. Don’t see the movie on the list? I guess I didn’t hate it that much. Or I didn’t see it. I’m sure that there were plenty of other films I missed that were much worse than these. Heck, I’m sure that my list of favorite movies of the year will have some that people think belong on this list for one reason or another. That’s the internet for you. That list is coming, though, and you can feel free to complain then. Until that time, though, here are the movies I hated most from 2015…
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2015 IN REVIEW: Everything in Between That I’ve Seen
Finally! We’re on the films that I watched! I know. I’m excited, too! These are the middle of the road films I watched this year. They are neither awful nor great films that I watched in 2015. Some of them are bad, some of them are decent, but none of them are truly great, in my opinion.
Now, keep in mind, there may be some mediocre movies that may not show up here. Don’t freak. They probably won’t show up on my Worst of 2015 list. The way I do things here is have a list of My Favorite Films of 2015, so they might not be the best, but I might have really enjoyed them, too!
So, if you don’t see the movie here by this point, it’s either that I hated it, really liked it, or just flat out didn’t see it. These? These you can pick and choose from and figure out if you like them yourself. You may not, but I don’t think you’ll be clawing your eyes out at them, either. Read more…
The Viewer's Commentary 