Worst Films of 2019

Walked out on several of these:

The Wind
Greener Grass
Aniara
Shazam
The Dead Don’t Die
Arctic
John Wick 3
Sword of Trust
Her Smell
Biggest Little Farm
Them That Follow
Art of Self-Defense

worst movie i saw this year was late night. i often love boring, cliché trash but this one was too boring

kaling's attempt to work #metoo into the script is incoherent

I really liked both Shazam and John Wick 3 (NOTE: I didn't see the end of John Wick 3)

I've only seen a handful of movies this year, but Downton Abbey can't possibly not be among the worst

xpost (SPOILER: the puppy came back to life)

no list without JoJo Rabbit is worthless

It's a delight to think that some films get worse two days after screening.

xp as it happens, both wick 3 and shazam shared their most repellant and deadliest quality: shiny upbeat sadism in service of nihilism

having not even tried wilderpeople or boy yet, i'm not sure i have any reason to see life is beautiful II

as it happens, both wick 3 and shazam shared their most repellant and deadliest quality: shiny upbeat sadism in service of nihilism

what about johns wick 1 and 2 left you unprepared for this in john wick 3?

not seeing them, i suppose

keanu's been "having a moment" this year so i figured i'd see what all the hubbub was about
apparently it's about nonstop dehumanizing humorless murder filmed with all the subtlety of a Gears of War cutscene

you figured you'd see what all the hubub was about by watching the third movie in a series

it was out tbh

def think you’d like Boy > Wilderpeople >>> Jojo, forks

it was out tbh

yeah fair

its true that the movie with the trailer that shows keanu reeves having a kung fu gunfight on horseback in manhattan could have been more subtle and lacked a meaningful moral core.

you figured you'd see what all the hubub was about by watching the third movie in a series

could have been more subtle and lacked a meaningful moral core.

to be clear: i didn't need subtlety in the story or the acting but in the direction. if all you're gonna do is sit me in front of a conveyor belt of executions, I feel like you're obliged to come up with interesting visual choices to present those murders AND/OR do them in a cartoonish enough, tongue-in-cheek style so that I don't feel like a bad person for watching. Wick 3 ran the opposite direction almost immediately so i followed suit.

i stopped watching the first one when the puppy gets killed and never went back

that's the heart though

the action is also beautifully choreographed imo but ymmv, sometimes the john wick movies are also too much for me even though i love them

The choreography + Keanu's manipulations of po-faced badassedness impressed me, but it's not a film I'll watch again.

anyways, is everybody okay with the idea that the cinematic reboot of noted ultra-wholesome 1940's comic book superhero turned early 80's Kids Power Hour saturday morning cartoon tentpole Captain Marvel (newly rechristened SHAZAM for reasons that merit their own movie) is comparably violent to Dude Killed My Dog 3?

In case you need a refresher, after Thaddeus Sivana, against the wizard Shazam’s protests, stole the Eye of Sin from the Rock of Eternity and became the new vessel for the Seven Deadly Sins, he traveled to Sivana Industries to confront his father and brother. Both of them had been emotionally abusive towards Thaddeus growing up, with his brother, Sid, blaming him for the accident that paralyzed their father. Now that he had the power to exact revenge, Thaddeus tossed Sid out the window and had the Seven Deadly Sins murder Mr. Sivana and everyone else in the room.

"Joker" was hot steaming garbage. I'm
still perplexed as to what a hit it's become - ok, not really.

"Her Smell" was insufferable.

xpost Leeeeeeet me guess without even bothering to check: Geoff Johns was involved in some capacity.

you win a pony
https://ew.com/books/2018/12/04/geoff-johns-shazam-bigger-spotlight-page-screen/

His impulse to befoul anything that once reeked of whimsy is pathological and more than a little creepy.

I’ve been curious about Aniara, heard mixed reviews. Not worth watching?

glad to see some hate for Her Smell and the Wicks (one was all I could manage)

I see relatively few bad movies since I stopped reviewing em (my pre-selection is like a bloodhound's)

like if I saw the Noe and T*r*ntino films, i'd put em here

but no

echo in the canyon. like being forced to read every page of an issue of mojo. jakob dylan and beck are given more screen time than david crosby. even tom petty manages to be annoying.

I thought Aniara had some clever ideas but they were all leading to a sort of weirdly anti-humanistic POV with an ending that got a chuckle out of me but also basically invalidated everything that came before as pointless. Seductive, promising, ultimately a little sadistic to the viewer; didn't pay off at all.

all that may be a function of the poem it's based on:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniara

Can’t agree with you at all about Jojo Rabbit, I thought it was great. Shazam was fun. John wick 3 was fun. The worst movies I saw this year were Serenity, IT Chaper 2, and yeah, Late Night.

Also yes Echo in the Canyon was a missed opportunity

echo in the canyon. like being forced to read every page of an issue of mojo. jakob dylan and beck are given more screen time than david crosby. even tom petty manages to be annoying.

― ingredience (map), Tuesday, December 3, 2019 9:18 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Roger Mcguinn's fucking hat

What was so objectionable about The Biggest Little Farm to put it on a worst of list?

fatuousness mostly. flimsiness as well. very quid/aggy.

Have absolutely no desire to see Jojo Rabbit or anything by Taika Waititi but It Chapter 2 is def on mine

i will not be seeing It pts 1/2/infinity, Late Night, Jojo, Downton, Echo in the Canyon or Joker. Thread is helpful.

What was so objectionable about The Biggest Little Farm to put it on a worst of list?

Speaking for myself -- as muttered on the Alamo Drafthouse thread, the SF one is my actual local theater, so I see a lot of films there. This meant I saw the trailer...a lot. It was annoying the first time I saw it; by the tenth time or whatever I was pondering how to burn the screen down.

I'd much recommend the poem Aniara, it's pretty incredible. And the film is quite clever in how it adapts it. Still don't really think it's enough, it doesn't really work.

Shazam, IT Chapter Two and Doctor Sleep were all terrible.

the arthouse elephant in the room:

An Elephant Sitting Still

a good 2018 film

The worst thing I saw this year, by a *huge* distance, was the Netflix movie Polar directed by Jonas Akerlund. Those of you who thought John Wick sucked should see what a bad movie really looks like.

Tbh though I don't think I saw anything bad in theaters this year!

bad astra

Her Smell
Biggest Little Farm
Them That Follow

these sound like made-up titles

I've barely seen any Rick & Morty, but I gather from the synopsis that it makes fun of heist stories in the recent episode.

I think those Hustle tv shows, Gone In 60 Seconds, and Confidence (2003) possibly fit into this niche. Do some people really love these?

Those two really really stupid ones with Woody Harrelson et al are the absolute worstest

gone in 60 seconds was fun. I think? can't remember now.

I've got the original Gone in 60 Seconds which is pretty draggy when they're not racing cars but at least it doesn't have Bacon Cage in it

Those two really really stupid ones with Woody Harrelson et al are the absolute worstest

― éminence rose et jaune (Noodle Vague), Friday, December 6, 2019 6:15 PM

Seven Psychopaths one of them? I haven't seen it but I liked In Bruges so I'd be a tad more optimistic for it.

Always found the film of Get Shorty annoying in a similar way to some of the films I listed.

i expected to hate biggest little farm and i ended up liking it.. i thought it illustrated some complex ideas about ecosystems pretty well and the movie as a whole felt more lived-in than the super-wholesome vibe put off by the trailer. of course any movie about food production that doesn't talk about the money backing it and doesn't admit that capitalism is a big part of the problem is lying somewhere.

IT pt 2 was a real piece of shit and like 3 hours of it

I liked the first hour of IT 2, then was just bored. most of my friends, who I expected to hate it, since they were hardcore book fans, ate it up and got defensive about all criticism of it. such a weird reaction to such a forgettable movie.

the gayxploitation opening was so fucking stupid and badly handled and the worst part of the movie though.

it sounds like it was an awful opening BUT I do support Xavier Dolan dying.....torn

dying ONSCREEN I should specify

haha. a friend of mine told me he sat next to someone who cheered on the hate crime scene. any movie that's going to serve that up for knuckle-draggers is garbage imo.

oh jesus

Seven Psychopaths one of them?

No I meant the "magicians do magic heists" movies, you'd think it was impossible to be sub-Nolan but apparently not

Xpost i felt sick at that scene but found out it apparently came from the book.

Glad nobody did that at my showing.

Velvet Buzzsaw
Pet Sematary
Rocketman
Judy

I was apparently in the vast minority who thought It: Chapter 2 was better than the (pretty awful) first part.

what was so bad about judy ;_;

I'm biased against the genre.

haha yeah i don't like the biopic genre either but i thought it was weird / interesting / deeply depressing and r.z. doing her best wounded animal throughout was something else.

There were points I was caught up somewhere in between rolling my eyes and wiping mist away from them, which means it at least flirted with camp a few times.

xp back to whiney: i thought the filmmaking and the script for Art of Self Defense were so immediately, egregiously bad that I turned it off shortly after he went to the dojo.
i'm gonna take a crazy leap here and suggest the people who beat him up were from the dojo, no?

I really like Rocketman. Loads of fun.

richard jewell

obv

my friend had a screener and it’s like barely a movie

so smarmy and self-regarding that it had the unintended effect of making me believe jewell did it

"did you do it?"
"No"
"Did you do it?"
"No"
"Did you do it?"
"No"
"We think you did."
"Oh."

HER SMELL is easily my favorite movie of the year, probably top 5 of the decade

i lasted about twenty minutes and then the person i was with simultaneously leaned in at the same time i did and we both said "wanna go?" more or less at once

Has everyone read the Wiki synopsis for Last Christmas already

Scenario I cannot ever imagine myself in, regardless of whatever came next:

Slides actual cash money toward a cashier. "One adult for Her Smell, please."

Who stands in line anymore

I'm waiting for Smell Her, personally.

Sir...

Thanks for the heads up on Last Christmas, Simon. I don't know how it took the Hallmark Channel so long to get one of their movies into an actual theater, but good on em.

I'm waiting for Smell Her

A sequel to Talk to Her?

Or Ben Hur.

Ben Hur break her any way you want her

yahoo headline:

Clint Eastwood's record-breaking movie flop

Unlike the breakout success of "Joker," the debate surrounding "Richard Jewell" did little to inspire interest among moviegoers.

it is truly some deeply astonishing shit to see one succeed while the other failed.

What’s the deal with Richard Jewell, is that a Batman thing too?

Richard Jewell is a renowned jewelry thief looking for one last score. Unfortunately, the job goes bad and he is pursued by veteran cop Olin Picks, who is three days from retirement.

That's when The Man With No Name shows up

Richard Jewell was so inspired by vajazzling that he created a similar line of genital adornments for men. Guess what the company was called. Just guess.

The Mule quietly made over $100 million in America last week, so I won't count this fucker out yet.

er last year

The new Michael Bay thing, 6 Underground, definitely belongs on this list. I'm not anti-Bay (I own Pain & Gain and respect the Criterion people for picking up on The Rock and Armageddon) but this thing is fucking garbage.

Richard Jewell crucially lacking Baby Yoda

I watched The Fanatic and it's not a "fun" bad movie. Deeply misanthropic.

seriously though, it's not too hard to figure out why a historical drama focused on a little remembered 90's catastrophe starring an unknown guy and titled "guy whose name you don't know" didn't clean up at the box office; the "it's the media stupid" subtext and imaginary honeypot journalist scandal probably muscled out the small sliver of the audience who would otherwise be curious enough to try it

I liked Aniara a lot, btw. Still plan on getting around to Hagazussa.