THE TEN LEAST ANTICIPATED FILMS OF 2012
10. The Phantom Menace in 3D: Go visit a dumpster behind your nearest Subway. Pick out a half-eaten Turkey and Jalepeno Melt. Leave the maggots in place. Take the sandwich home and blowtorch a crust of cane sugar over it and then smother it in a bowl of beef gravy. Put a post-it note on it that says “Enhanced!” and take it to your neighbor’s house and at gunpoint, force your neighbor to give you 40 dollars to watch his children eat it. This will be the experience of the release of The Phantom Menace in 3D.
9. Outrun. Directed by Dax Shepard and David Palmer. Starring Kristen Bell and Bradley Cooper.
This movie is flashing more warning signs than the highway into Chernobyl. Just a few of them as quoted here:
• Dax Shepard “pulled triple duty for ‘Outrun,’ acting, writing and co-directing.”
• The film is about a couple played by Shepard and real-life fiance Kristin Bell on the run across America during which, “ the duo meet a variety of zany characters along the way.”
• [W]e asked all of our friends to be involved, all of our actor friends,” Bell said.
• “it’s like ‘Smokey and the Bandit,’ Sundance Style.”
• “Shepard and Palmer also co-directed the 2010 spoof film ‘Brother’s Justice.’”
8. This Means War: Letting McG direct a comedy is like letting Tickle Me Elmo lead the American forces to war in Afganistan.
7. W.E. Holy Duke of Wellington. Madonna not only thinks she is British now, she thinks she is a countess too.
6. Scary Movie 5. The Weinstein Company is apparently telling people with a straight face that this installment is a “reboot” of the Scary Movie francise. The Reboot concept has now officially jumped over the shark, water-skiied straight out to sea, got swallowed by a whale and coughed up on Pleasure Island.
5. The Avengers. Take all of the loudest, most bloated, portentous action franchises, put them together and what have you got? A year of leaked costume photos, first looks at the villans, character one sheets and Burger King tie-ins.
4. Total Recall: What is not bad about this? The director of several Underworld films remaking a Paul Verhoeven movie? I’m sure they will tell us it’s not a remake, they went to the original Philip K Dick source material for a new imagineering of the tale.
3. Dark Shadows. When can we stop pretending that one of these Tim Burton movies might be good ever again? Johnny Depp mugging. Spooky Elfman carnival music. People with white faces and their hair standing up. Will you ever be able to fall asleep in the dark again?
2. Battleship. So we’ve got this board game we gotta turn into a movie, but once we get the battleships floating around in the ocean part down, what the hell are we going to do with them?
- I got it! How about aliens invading the Earth and wanting to kill all of humanity?
- Hmmm…I like it, but it just sounds a little…familiar?
- What do you mean?
- Aliens wanting to destroy the Earth? Haven’t we seen that before?
- I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.
- Wasn’t there Battle: Los Angeles?
- In 2012?
- I think it was maybe last year…
- Last year?
- 2011?
- What the hell does that have to do with a movie for the summer of 2012? Do you think our audience is going to be filled with Jeopardy champions who remember what they saw in 2011?
- And V…Falling Skies, War of the Worlds, Transformers, Independence Day…
- It’s apples and oranges.
- How is that?
- Because none of those fought a board game.
- You got me there.
- You mean I sunk your battleship?
- Yes, exactly.
1. Titanic 3D. The sum of all fears. Think of all the subtleties you missed in two hours of Jack and Rose and two hours of drowning death snuff film. All the little moments of torture we didn’t catch the first time around. Now with this extra third dimension, every square millimeter of wooden acting, excruciating dialoge and human suffering will be drilled to the back of your eyeballs from where no force known to man shall ever dislodge it. Actually, playing with dimensions on this might not be the worst idea; if they could figure out how to show Titanic in 1D it might not be half bad. A decent compromise at least with the Titanic ideal of No D.
0. Moonrise Kingdom, but I have no words left for this one.
Honorable mentions: Rock of Ages, Men in Black 3, What to Expect When You’re Expecting, Red Dawn,
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