

Worst Movie Year Ever? - grellas
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703977004575393493956088352.html?mod=WSJ_hps_MIDDLEFifthNews

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ugh
A year with Toy Story 3 and Scott Pilgrim (directed by Edgar Wright) can’t be
bad.

Hollywood has always produced those movies that make me queasy – over the top
visuals, artificial sound, mindless story. The solution to the problem is to
just not watch them.

~~~
jerf
Hey, "Scott Pilgrim" isn't actually out yet; let's not herald it as a year-
saving success yet, no matter how good the trailers look.

Besides, correct me if I'm wrong, but whereas Toy Story 3 has broad appeal,
Scott Pilgrim looks more like something destined to be a cult classic. A lot
of "bad movie years" generate a fair crop of movies with cult appeal, we still
call them bad movie years by most standards.

~~~
ugh
Yeah, you are right. Got a bit too enthusiastic about Scott Pilgrim, there.
Looks to be an awesome movie, though.

As far as I am concerned there are only four or five movies worth watching (in
the cinema, anyway) any year, as far as I am concerned there aren’t good movie
years and bad movie years, rather just good movies and bad movies.

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ComputerGuru
I beg to differ. Some really, really bad movies this year, but there are some
real gems.

1) How to Train Your Dragon (it's just magical for some weird reason)

2) Inception (finally something new)

3) Toy Story 3 (don't need to explain)

~~~
kxs
I've to second that, although I haven't watched Toy Story 3 yet, how to Train
Your Dragon was really good. I've actually the feeling that this year is
better than last year. I really liked Kick Ass and I'm eager to watch
despicable me. But yes, Grown Ups was absolutely terrible.

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bediger
Does the article's author's misuse of "installation" instead of "installment"
bother anyone else?

I mean, I hate to be a Usage Nazi as much as the next guy, but an
"installation" is just not the same as an "installment". Those two words just
don't mean the same thing.

I do, however, agree with the author's sentiments about Shia LeBeouf, and what
DiCaprio should do with his Inception Technology.

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awa
Aren't they suppose to compare this year with some of the other years to show
this is the "Worst Movie Year Ever"

The infographic shows what happens every year, some of the highly anticipated
movies don't work (Sex and the city, Prince of Persia) , some of them work
(Toy story) and then there are a few surprises(Inception, which released 2
weeks back so the $ figure will go up)

~~~
mechanical_fish
_Aren't they suppose to compare this year with some of the other years_

Of course not. That would be _mindful_. This is a mindless nostalgia piece,
right out of central casting.

The fun thing to do when one of these articles arrives on the radar is to see
which cherry-picked "classics" are being name-checked:

 _"The Godfather," "Jurassic Park," "Casablanca," "Gone with the Wind," "My
Fair Lady" and "The Matrix,"_

These lists are always carefully constructed. In this case we have two
extremely popular classics from the 1930s, generally regarded as among the
best films _ever made_. That's to establish your street cred as someone who
has actually _seen_ some great movies. Then one film each from the 60s, 70s,
early 90s, and late 90s, to ensure that every one of your readers over the age
of thirty has something to be nostalgic about, and that they believe that the
author is sufficiently "hip". (No sense in listing too many films from the
2000s; twentysomethings don't read newspapers.)

Then I got as far as this line:

 _Where once there was "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," there is now "Robin
Hood," prince of duds._

This line is a dead giveaway, because "Prince of Thieves" was not a good
movie, let alone among the best Robin Hood movies; it was redeemed only by the
presence of Alan Rickman. Why, then, is the movie praised here? Because the
writer really needed to write a cute sentence, reality be damned.

That's about all you need to read. The rest just wrote itself. It can read
itself as well.

~~~
evgen
> In this case we have two extremely popular classics from the 1930s,
> generally regarded as among the best films ever made.

Just to beat a dead horse, the two films you reference were from the same
year; 1939, the best year Hollywood ever had. Ever.

Other films of that year included Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Wizard of
Oz, Ninotchka, Dark Victory, Goodbye Mr. Chips, Gunga Din, The Hunchback of
Notre Dame, Stagecoach, Of Mice and Men, and Young Mr. Lincoln. It was the
peak of the "studio system" and Hollywood never again came close to it in
terms of the sheer quantity of quality that was produced that year.

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gamble
If not the 'worst evar', this _has_ been a summer when supposedly safe "pre-
sold" properties like Robin Hood and Prince of Persia fell flat - critically
_and_ commercially. With so many licensed films coming down the pipe, that has
to put the fear of god into a few movie executives.

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zandorg
We'll be saved by Robert Rodriguez' Machete, perhaps the greatest C-movie ever
made.

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ZachPruckowski
The studios feel the need to constantly up production values to avoid small-
fry competition and spend truckloads on marketing. While this effectively
creates barriers to entry at least as fast as technology is tearing them down,
it also forces the studios to go bigger. As you go bigger, you become more
risk averse and lose creativity.

In fact, Hollywood movie studios have exactly the same problem as most large
companies - how do scale agility and risk-willingness and creativity up to
billion-dollar companies?

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culled
Why is the author so hung up on "Dinner For Schmucks"? It didn't seem like
he's seen it yet and so far its RottenTomatoes score is a bad but not horrible
56% while Grown Ups is just at 10%. Unless he's seen it I don't think it's
fair to call it the likely worst film of the year.

Is it just because no one is allowed to remake French movies?

~~~
chc
As I understand it, his point isn't that these movies are bad, but that
they're all thoroughly _mediocre_. I reckon he'd rather have a good movie and
three bad movies than four mediocre movies.

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wepu
"Get off my lawn you damn kid directors!"

Gimmie a break.

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jjantzen
Not sure about that, I did enjoy Inception as well as Iron Man 2, but it would
be nice to see more original scripts being pumped out of hollywood.

~~~
chc
Inception wasn't creative enough for you? Aside from general spy-action genre
tropes, I haven't seen much else like it.

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gigafemtonano
All Hollywood needs are some new writer-directors breaking into the scene.
Imagine this decade producing new well known names like Tarantino, the Coen
brothers, and the Wachowski brothers. They all got to be well known by doing
something totally different, and that can only happen if everyone is doing the
same thing. The time is nigh...

