2004 reeks of Affleck, bad flicks
When it comes time to wrap up 2004, two words come to mind.
Ben Affleck.
No one, to my way of thinking, represents the power of sheer marketing more than this marginally talented movie star who, whenever he has a new movie out, graces the covers of lifestyle magazines everywhere, each of which poses the question that we’re all dying to know: Has he has finally found love?
This month.
In next week’s issue of 7, we explore such mediocrity. A number of staff writers will offer views of what represented the worst of 2004. In that vein, I thought I’d get a head start this week and take a look at what I consider to be the worst of 2004 in movies.
I’ll preface the list with this caveat: I didn’t see every movie this year. Hey, even someone who loves movies as much as I do couldn’t drag himself to see “Surviving Christmas” (Affleck!), “Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed” or that Olsen twins epic “New York Minute,” among others.
But I have seen 192 movies so far this year, more or less (I may have seen as many as 10 or 15 more, but I suck at record keeping). And as you can see, there are more than enough bad ones in the bunch.
Here, presented in reverse order, are 10 of 2004’s more notable stinkers:
10. “The Stepford Wives”: In 1972, Ira Levin’s novel about women being replaced by easy-to-manipulate robots was both timely and shocking. It was followed by a 1975 movie. Now comes this lame exercise in updating that is a bit too clever for its own good. Instead of doing some sort of 21st century retooling of feminism, it makes other women – not men – the enemy. How’s that for a study in self-hatred?
9. “Gothika”: Halle Berry plays a psychologist confined to her own facility after being accused of murdering her husband (Charles S. Dutton). Her claim: She’s possessed. Question is, whatever possessed an Oscar-winning actress to star in such a turkey? Can you say “payday”?
8. “Twisted”: Ashley Judd plays a San Francisco cop, newly promoted to homicide, who discovers that all the men she’s been having sex with are ending up dead. Turns out they were the lucky ones. They didn’t have to sit through the rest of the movie.
7. “Troy”: Look at Achilles. He looks just like Jennifer Aniston’s husband. He likes to bed women and he hates his king, Agamemnon (Brian Cox), but he wants eternal glory. So he fights. Until that wimp Paris nails him with a couple of arrows. Poor Achilles. Poorer us.
6. “Walking Tall”: Dwayne Johnson speaks English better than either Arnold Schwarzenegger or Buford Pusser. But it’s the late Tennessee sheriff Pusser whom Johnson – aka The Rock – plays in this ultra loose remake. The Rock isn’t ready for Shakespeare, but how about governor of California?
5. “Alexander”: Alexander wasn’t born on the fourth of July, but his mother was a kind of lizard queen. He never roamed Wall Street, but he was a natural born killer. And this film may not tell us who he really was, but Oliver “Mr. History” Stone sure would like us to think that it does.
4. “Garfield: The Movie”: Bill Murray plays the voice of the comic-strip cat who is to gluttony what Donald Trump is to self-promotion. The jokes are lame, the acting is better on Nick at Nite and “director” – so to speak – Peter Hewitt likely learned his “craft” – so to speak – in a correspondence course.
3. “Jersey Girl”: Once upon a time, Kevin Smith made a crude little movie titled “Clerks” that joked about oral sex, roller hockey, dope-smoking stupidity, slacker sensibilities and did I say oral sex? Then Smith began taking himself a bit too seriously. The result: He became the Fred Rogers of PG-13-rated melodrama.
2. “The Big Bounce”: Even with Owen Wilson’s easy humor, Morgan Freeman’s talent, the beauty of Hawaii and a script based on an Elmore Leonard novel, this can’t-miss project does exactly that. Somewhere, Leonard is rolling over in his grave – which is a real feat considering he’s still alive.
1. “Christmas with the Kranks”: This supposed adaptation of the John Grisham novel “Skipping Christmas” is so bad that it makes last year’s “Bad Santa” look like “Miracle on 34th Street.” In fact, what with broken promises, smashed tree ornaments and boorish neighbors with bad manners, this film so reeks that it forced me from the theater.
Its single positive quality?
No Ben Affleck.