2013: My 20 Most Hated Films

It is difficult every year to sit through some of the things I make myself sit through, but I do it because I enjoy writing about film, and why I like or dislike it. I like deconstructing good cinema and bad cinema alike, and discovering what works. This year I felt was a much better year for movies than many of the recent past, but that doesn't mean we escaped the usual garbage that permeates every year.

20. The Heat (66%)

I hate that my worst list is usually filled with bad comedies. Comedies I have to continuously hear how funny they are. Director Paul Feig proved that his talent lies within a good script, much like Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo's Oscar-nominated "Bridesmaids" script. He manages to waste almost two hours with the uncharismatic duo of Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy (who has three films on this list). The two stumble through improved scenes and ridiculous situations until an opaque ending falls into your lap that you can't possibly care about. What could have easily been an interesting female take on "Lethal Weapon", gave way to tired slapstick and jokes about spanx.

Most Embarrassing Moment: Melissa McCarthy trying to recapture her thunder from "Bridesmaids" was a little sad.

19. 21 and Over (28%)

I can't even think of of words that explain exactly how bad this film was. So, let me stumble through a couple of sentences like the actors stumbled through this ridiculous plot and bad writing. Jon Lucas and Scott Moore have written and directed a mind-numbing party film about a couple of irresponsible college kids who get their friend far too drunk, and then they lose him. This is the plot to a movie. I promise, you aren't missing anything if you skip this. Trust me.

Most Embarrassing Moment: Two words - Tube socks

18. Stoker (69%)

I was very interested in Chan-wook Park's ("Oldboy") English language debut. His narratives are usually stark and jarring, but "Stoker" fell flat in many ways. Whether it was Nicole Kidman's normal cheesy performance, or Matthew Goode's bland one, there isn't much for Mia Wasikowski to play off of. She is the lone bright spot in a very poorly paced, and clumsily written movie. Instead of feeling shocked at all of the incest and murder that runs throughout the film, I simply felt bored. As if I had seen this all before, but in much better Park projects.

Most Embarrassing Moment: Every time Goode kills someone with a belt, it becomes sillier.

17. Scary MoVie (4%)

How have things gotten this far? Really. Somebody please tell me. Are people really going to see spoofs anymore? Has there even been a good since "Robin Hood: Men in Tights"? This series should have ended after the second installment, which is still my least favorite of the five, and should never have wasted the talents of David Zucker (who also hasn't made a decent film in nearly two decades). The actors speak their lines so quickly in this movie, it almost feels as if they'e trying to race to the end of it quicker than the audience ran for the exits.

Most Embarrassing Moment: The entire opening sequence with Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan.

16. Grown Ups 2 (7%)

Do you know those times when you're sitting around with a group of friends, making jokes that only you would find funny, and then, for some reason, you try to tell some of these jokes to a third party, only to find them fall flat? That is the very essence of "Grown Ups 2". A group of aging sketch comedy actors doing sketches that make them laugh, and trying to make them fit into a movie. Almost none of the scenes flow together, and none of them are funny. There is also a lot of wasted talent in this film, most comes from a series of cameos including Steve Buscemi and Shaquille O'Neal (easily the best part of the film).

Most Embarrassing Moment: 80's nostalgia usually takes me out of a film, and there was an entire 80's party.

15. We're the Millers (47%)

Is it telling that when I went to find a picture of this film, that most of the results were of Jennifer Aniston's strip scene? This movie was so bad, that the only thing interesting about it was her breasts. This movie is awful from the premise up. A man gets in trouble with a drug dealer, and has to become a mule to save himself. Thus he hires a fake family to help him cross the border, and a bunch of stupid things happen (like a fake baby made of weed getting run over by a car). The jokes aren't funny and the acting is mediocre. There really isn't much about this film that is at all redeemable.

Most Embarrassing Moment: The film opens with the "Double Rainbow" YouTube video.

14. I Give It a Year (55%)

I'm sure writer and director, Dan Mazer, meant well when wrote this comedy, but instead he wrote a mean-spirited farce about marriage. There were no laughs in this horrible comedy, and list of very bad performances from people I like, and a few I really don't. Every awkward situation in this movie is as groan worthy as the next, and every line is like listening people speaking in tongues. The title alone, which is actually a line of dialogue in the film, should be enough to tell you exactly how bad this film is.

Most Embarrassing Moment: Stephen Merchant's best man speech is neither funny or interesting.

13. The Lone Ranger (31%)

I wish Disney would have just called this "Pirates of the Carribean 5: The Western Years", because there really is no differentiating between this swill, and that swill. Over blown special effects, stupid action sequences, and scenery chewing performances all help to make this a drag of a movie. They turn the title character into a whiny, stupid sidekick, and manage to drain any respect from the franchise. Not to mention, when they got around to finally using the Lone Ranger's signature line, they spoof it, and throw it away as if it was a joke to begin with.

Most Embarrassing Moment: Every time Johnny Depp talks.

12. The Starving Games (0%)

Another spoof from spoof masters, and by masters I mean guys who keep getting film deals somehow, Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer ("Date Movie", "Epic Movie", "Disaster Movie"). This time they have set their sights on "The Hunger Games", and they managed to fill it with cheap throw-away jokes, and empty pop culture references that fly by so quickly that you barely have time to process them by the time next one goes buzzing past your ears.

Most Embarrassing Moment:

11. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (12%)

Here is an example of Hollywood trying to cash in on the "Twilight" young adult fiction craze, and actually making a film that is somehow worse than the "Twilight" series. Everything about this film was incredibly uninteresting, and every performance is sub-par at best, even the usually exciting Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Direct Harwald Zwart gluts the screen with cheap special effects, clumsy action sequences, and corny dialogue that continuously pours from the mouths of the actors curdled milk. I'm not really sure how this missed the top ten.

Most Embarrassing Moment: That blonde guy in the picture? He was a pretty bad find...

10. A Resurrection (N/A)

I'm surprised this is the first horror movie to hit my list this year. I genuinely love bad horror movies, but this was pretty hard to stomach. A young boy is murdered, and his soul comes back to claim the lives of those who were responsible. The acting was horrid, despite the presence of Devon Sawa, as every actor seemed to mumble their ways through their lines. I don't even know what was up with this grimy looking cinematography. Every scene looks like they forgot to clean off the lens before they called action. I think writer/director Matt Orlando needs to get to back to film school.

Most Embarrassing Moment: Misha Barton plays a guidance counselor. 

9.  Aftershock (35%)

There are bad disaster films, the kind with the name Roland Emmerich stapled to them, and then there is "Aftershock". This is one part disaster flick, one part true story (based on the 2010 8.8 Chilean earthquake), and part horror film. That's right. It follows around a group of tourists being lead around Chile by a semi-famous local (named Pollo) who is giving them party tour of the Central Coast. They end up in a club when the earthquake hits, and then all hell breaks loose. Or at least the prisoners do. They violence is unnecessary and gratuitous, while the acting even more horrific than the things happening on screen. I should have known that with Eli Roth's involvement, this would not turn out to be as good as "The Tower".

Most Embarrassing Moment: A character loses his hand, and the frightened patrons of the night club kick it around a dance floor. Laughs ensue.

8. The Hangover Part III (19%)

There were so many bad sequels this year, but none were as bad as the absolutely played out joke that was "The Hangover III". Every movie in this series was bad, and each got worse than the last, until this steaming garbage pile was dropped in our laps. Zach Galifianakis continues to annoy as the semi-retarded Alan, and Bradley Cooper proves that he isn't that great of an actor without the help of better directors like David O. Russell. Unfortunately, this time Todd Phillips managed to drag John Goodman down with the sinking ship, which may have been the most disappointing part of the whole ordeal. 

Most Embarrassing Moment: I want to say the whole scene where Alan murders a giraffe, but there is so many bad moments. 

7. Pain & Gain (49%)

Oh, Michael Bay. This is my third year doing this list, and you have managed to make two of them. This time you mangled a true story about a crew of Miami body builders who kidnapped, tortured, and murdered people in the late 90's by turning it into a comedy. A really unfunny comedy. Bay treats these meatheads with more respect than he has ever treated any characters in his entire filmography, and treads lightly through all of their awful plans and executions. The talents of Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, and Anthony Mackie are all wasted in this waste of time and space to the point that I almost wondered if I would ever enjoy them in any movie ever again. Fortunately, I did: Wahlberg in "Lone Survivor", Johnson in "Fast & Furious 28" (or whatever number they are on), and Mackie in the "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" trailer.

Most Embarrassing Moment: Comparing the movie to the real events, and Michael Bay directed it. 

6. Breaking the Girls (11%)

This movie wanted to be "Wild Things" so bad, that it forgot what made that movie interesting wasn't just the intricate sex scenes. And sex scenes were all this film had to offer, and even those weren't any good. The dialogue in Jamie Babbit's non-thrilling thriller is clunky at best, and the acting is all second rate. Every "twist" feels less like a revelation, and more an obvious turn that the characters should have known about all along. 

The Most Embarrassing Moment: All of the gratuitous lesbian make out scenes.

5. The Lost Medallion: The Adventures of Billy Stone (0%) 

Writer/Director Billy Muir seems like he rushed through film as fast as he could, for reasons I don't understand. His actors are all flat and unimpressive, his script is poorly paced and makes little sense, and his camera work is really rough. Not to mention, he tries to end the film with a faith-based conclusion that undermines everything that just happened. This is supposed to be a children's version of "Raiders of the Lost Ark", but comes off as a muddled mess with slapstick action scenes and little actual direction.

4. A Haunted House (10%)

Yes, this is the third spoof on the list, and boy was this one a doozy. There was once a time when the Wayans Brothers were actually funny, but that time seems to have passed. It probably passed sometime around "Scary Movie 2" or "White Chicks". Here is another example of thinking padding your film with nothing but sex jokes is what comedy is all about, and telling twenty jokes a minute constitutes timing. Every performance is like forks scraping a plate, but much, much more annoying, and and the writing never finds its footing outside of a bunch of lame sex jokes. Seriously, there are a lot of sex jokes.

Most Embarrassing Moment: The first big joke of the film was killing a dog. 

3. Crystal Fairy and the Magical Cactus (82%)

This indie road-trip drug comedy was Michael Cera at his most irritating, and that is saying something, because there have been times when he pushes the boundaries of irritating to their limits. The plot revolves around a group of friends who want to try a recipe involving a hallucinogenic cactus grown in Chile. Along the way they pick up a young hippie named Crystal Fairy who finds herself constantly at odds with Cera. The writing isn't worth the paper it is written on, and the actors all seem very uninterested. Nothing works, and I wound up falling asleep during my first attempt at watching it.  

Most Embarrassing Moment: Michael Cera's impatient attitude made me impatient for the end.

2. InAPPropriate Comedy (0%)

Sketch comedy is best left to people who know what they are doing, and not just doing it to get a rise out of people. Being offensive can be funny, but, unfortunately, this crew knows nothing about that. Every scene was as groan worthy as the last, and they kept repeating the worst sketches over and over again. Not only was this bad enough, but they dragged Adrien Brody, an actor I'm quite fond of, into the film, and made him do sketches so bad that I started thinking they should take his Oscar back. And speaking of taking awards away from people...

Most Embarrassing Moment: The "Flirty Harry" or "Amazing Racist" sketches were all pretty bad, but then, so was the whole movie.

1. Movie 43 (4%)

...I wrote this review back in January, and I stick by it! I think that is all I really need to say, because the less you know about this film, the fuller your life will be.

Most Embarrassing Moment: Hugh Jackman's neck-scrotum... I can't believe I just typed that...