(#10 - #1)
10. Casino
Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, one of his finest big screen accomplishments, was a slick and well-acted gangster film, full of gripping characters and remarkable depth. When the director tried his hand at capturing the era of the Mob in Las Vegas years later, it came across as slick… and not much else. From the bloated running time to the overwrought performances, this film feels like Goodfellas’ sleazier, lazier little cousin.
9. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
I will admit that Captain Jack Sparrow is one of the greatest characters that Disney has ever unveiled. Johnny Depp’s performance is inspired lunacy – funny, sly, charming, weirdly unique, and quick to action. Or, in other words, everything that this first Pirates installment is not. An exceptional performance can only go so far, and Depp couldn’t stop this insipid and uninspired adventure from sinking under the anchor of its own stupidity.
8. The Princess Bride
Find this pick on my list inconceivable? To be fair, I was smitten by the wit and charm of the film’s excellent opening half-hour. Then, I became greatly disappointed to find that the remainder couldn’t match the opening's momentum, deft comedic wit and poignancy. Many screenwriters focus much of their attention on the first 30 pages (the set-up of the film until the first plot point), but everything onward felt like it was being composed from an unfinished draft that could not find its tone or flow. This is even more unfortunate considering that the screenwriter, the legendary William Goldman, also wrote the original Princess Bride novel in 1973.
7. The Blind Side
A wealthy Southern family takes in a homeless teenager, and inspires him to become a strong-willed left tackle on the field. The man is a young Michael Oher, who now plays for the Baltimore Ravens. Oher publicly stated that he hated the film. Why would that be? Perhaps it's because the film depicts him as a cuddly, lovable mute (akin to a pet) and gives credit to the Tuohys (a rich, white family) for catapulting the accomplishments of an exceptional African-American athlete. Is the film enjoyable? Sure. But there’s nothing feel-good about a movie that preaches tolerance but ends up pandering to its audience by using racial stereotypes.
6. Ed Wood
This is a bad movie about a bad filmmaker who made bad movies. But while the actual Ed Wood was a passionate showman who just happened to make some horrendous B-pictures, Tim Burton (this film’s director) is one of the most revered and respected in Hollywood. So you’d expect the film would have the flair, the dark whimsy and the unnerving zeal of his other pictures. Instead, it is a flat biopic that features a tone-deaf and irritating performance from Johnny Depp (a low point for the celebrated actor).
5. Scarface
Cuban gangster and drug lord extraordinaire Tony Montana has become a cinematic icon, mainly due to the gusto and verve of Al Pacino’s performance. But Montana is also an embarrassingly shallow, over-the-top cartoon who values decadent substances over real substance – and the film is just as bloated, unpleasant and shameless as the character. Brian De Palma dedicated Scarface to Howard Hawks and Ben Hecht, director and writer of the legendary (and controversial) original 1932 film, but one would shudder to think what they would think of this ill-conceived update.
4. Platoon
I have no doubt that Oliver Stone, a Vietnam vet, has some powerful, personal things to say in this Best Picture winner about young recruits coming to grips with their lives amidst the horror of the Vietnam War. Yes, the cinematography is crisp and stark, the performances (especially from Tom Berenger and William Dafoe) are potent and some of the nighttime battles are driven by a mad, virile intensity. There’s much artistic integrity to admire here, but I was left cold by how little the film immersed me within the heart of darkness of the war-torn region. There are many soldiers in this platoon, but when the film was over, I knew little about any of them. Without figures to latch onto, Platoon is a flat and impersonal film that I could never connect with emotionally.
3. Life is Beautiful
Dr. Strangelove blended comedy and the Cold War-era paranoia together perfectly. M*A*S*H* took the war in Korea and made a sublime laugh-out-loud farce (and subsequent TV show) out of it. But balancing a feel-good romantic comedy with the horrors of the Holocaust is a daunting task, and adored Italian filmmaker and comedian Roberto Benigni did not deliver. Instead, what begins as a beguiling love story ends up becoming nauseating, tasteless and entirely inappropriate. Words of advice to filmmakers, young and old: there is a time and a place to use comedy to entertain, satirize and inform, and inside a concentration camp during the 1940s is not one of them.
2. The Shining
This film is often cited as one of the landmarks of the horror genre, but even with Stanley Kubrick attached, the film is quite low on, well, anything horrific or scary. Sure, Nicholson is quite good as the crazed Jack Torrance, but the film is empty of humanity (the characters are self-absorbed caricatures) and, similar to the hotel hallways that Danny peddles through, vast and long-winded. Kubrick’s notable cinematic flourishes – the long takes and dizzying cinematography – build up some suspense but rarely materialize into a good scare.
1. The Breakfast Club
The stereotype. The stereotype. The stereotype. The stereotype. And, lest we forget, the stereotype. How did this movie become one of the most beloved films ever made about teenagers? Beats me. Frankly, I saw this film as a high-schooler and the character I sympathized with most was the dastardly principal, played by the bitterly funny Paul Gleason. Like him, I couldn’t stand spending any time with the principal characters.
In The Breakfast Club, the five stereotypes (Brian the brain, Andrew the jock, Claire the princess, Bender the criminal and Allison the basket case) must spend a Saturday together in detention. Throughout the day, they get to know each other’s secrets as they uncover the reasons why each were required to come to detention that day. It is an intriguing premise from the late great John Hughes, and the film is now universally revered for the way in which it “dissects” the respective stereotypes. It turns out that these five teenagers seem to have been negatively shaped from the attitudes of their parents; sadly, that’s as insightful as things get.
So does it offer a deep, intriguing, refreshing and realistic look at teenagers? Well, since I don’t recognize the attitudes and personalities of any of these characters personified within myself, my own friends or former high-school companions, not to me. So, contrary to the Simple Minds classic that plays over the end credits, I will gladly choose to forget this bunch.
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