The first quarter of 2009 has been a boon for the movie industry. Film likes Madea Goes to Jail, Fast and Furious, Taken, and Paul Blart: Mall Cop have made katrillions of dollars, giving reporters endless reasons to speculate that we’re avoiding the recession by flocking to the cineplex for some crappy entertainment.
And let’s be honest: No matter why we’re buying the tickets, most of the movies we’re seeing this year suck. Capital-S, bendable straw suck.
But we’ve gotta see something, right? I have friends who are part of an Embarrassing Movie Club, and I’m trekking out to Hannah Montana on Friday afternoon. (I’ll explain later.)
Even in a season of dreck, however, there are still choices to be made. Therefore, I’ve compiled a list of the seven least essential movies of the next seven weeks. Read about them here, forget about them later, and then just go see Taken again. Because that movie is never leaving theaters.
(And thanks to Tara for lending me this concept!)
The Seven Least Essential Movies of the Next Seven Weeks
(7) Obsessed (opening April 24)
The Plot: Idris Elba is married to Beyonce. They’re happy. Then Ali Larter starts flirting with him at his office, and she decides she’s in love. In a crazy way. This leads to a hair-pulling brawl between Ali Larter and Ms. Knowles. Somehow, Jerry O’Connell is involved.
Why It’s Inessential: This movie actually looks awesome. Like, it’s going to be so bad that you have to watch it over and over and over again, just for the part where Beyonce says, “I’ll show you crazy!”
But here’s the thing: It’s clearly a movie that needs to be seen at home, where rewinding and live reenactments are possible. Save your $12 and watch this in your pajamas, maybe as a double feature with Jennifer Lopez’s Enough.
For now, just watch the trailer:
(6) Angels & Demons (opening May 15)
The Plot: Dan Brown’s precursor to his novel The Da Vinci Code has its chronology shuffled so it can become a sequel to the film. Tom Hanks returns as Robert Langdon, a puzzle-solving smart guy who once again must finish Sudokus in order to stop a world crisis.
Why It’s Inessential: One Da Vinci Code was enough, especially since the movie was about half as exciting as the book, which in turn was about half as interesting as it was cracked up to be. Angels & Demons is guaranteed to have the stale taste of a sequel that’s been designed primarily to make money.
Also, no film can be essential when this is part of its Wikipedia plot summary: “Langdon discovers the Illuminati plan to kill four cardinals and destroy St. Peter’s Basilica with stolen antimatter during a papal conclave.”
That sentence has wonky grammar, but I’ll bet you six cryptexes that the actual plot is just as hard to follow. Sequel mentality says that if the first film was a twisty pretzel, the second film has to be even twistier, lest fans get bored because they actually comprehend what they’re seeing.
(5) Fighting (opening April 24)
The Plot: Channing Tatum plays a dude who hustles counterfeit goods on the streets until Terrence Howard shepherds him to the better life… of beating the shit out of people for money.
Why It’s Inessential: For one thing, every movie about an underdog fighter will always just be the latest version of Rocky, which means we already know the major plot points.
But hoariness is not a dealbreaker per se. The big problem here is Channing Tatum. We’ve already got current releases from Vin Diesel and Jason Statham to keep us in macho guy swagger, so why see an actor whose major credit is the dance movie Step Up?
Plus, Tatum co-stars in the upcoming G.I. Joe adaptation so why not skip Fighting and wait for the flick with cooler villains?
(4) 17 Again (opening April 17)
The Plot: Matthew Perry is disgruntled! Thank goodness a mysterious janitor helps him magically transform into his seventeen year-old self! And thank goodness his seventeen year-old self looks like Zac Efron! Cue the zany montages and touching lessons about growing up!
Why It’s Inessential: Seventeen Again. 18 Again. Vice Versa. Big. 13 Going on 30. Freaky Friday. The other Freaky Friday.
(3) Observe and Report (opening April 10)
The Plot: It’s that movie about a mall cop. No, not the one with the King of Queens. The other one.
Why It’s Inessential: I don’t care that this mall cop movie is the one with cool-guy cred. I don’t care that it was written and directed by the dude who made The Foot Fist Way, which is supposed to be rilly-rilly funny, and I don’t care that it stars Seth Rogen. The fact is, this is the second mall cop movie to arrive in the last three months, and therefore, it must be avoided. We do not need this shit to become a genre, y’all, or else we’re gonna get hit with Wanda Sykes in Victoria’s Secret Police and Eric Bana in the maudlin indie drama Food Court King.
(2) Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (opening May 1)
The Plot:In a romcom update of A Christmas Carol, Matthew McConaughey plays a bachelor who is visited by ghosts of his old girlfriends. Jennifer Garner shows up as his love interest.
Why It’s Inessential: Doesn’t this sound like a movie that would be on a show like Extras? As in, it’s such a ridiculously lazy and insulting idea to turn A Christmas Carol into a romantic comedy starring Matthew McConaughey that it could only be broached on a vicious satire about Hollywood’s brainless cynicism. And yet… no. It’s really happening. The only thing that keeps this movie from reeking of the condemned factory where it was obviously assembled is the fact that Kate Hudson isn’t in it. But I’ll bet you six million dollars that she was offered Jennifer Garner’s part.
In fact, this movie looks so terrible that I almost feel compelled to see it. What will it be like? Will my eyeballs melt? Will I get seduced by its cultish power? Will I rush out to buy a copy of Fool’s Gold?
(1) The Soloist (opening April 24)
The Plot: Robert Downey, Jr. is a jerkwad reporter whose solipsistic world gets rocked after he befriends a homeless, schizophrenic musician played by Jamie Foxx.
Why It’s Inessential: Have you seen the trailer?
See what I mean?
But let’s do a close read: At about 1:57, the line “I’ve never loved anything the way he loves music!” is followed by the line “Being his friend will carry you home!”
In other words, The Soloist is yet another movie in which a marginalized character teaches a miserable “normal person” about what love, life, and happiness really mean. It’s the same damned primitivism that we Westerners have been concocting for years. Whether it’s a noble Native American, a “magical” black character, or a saintly deaf kid, the majority culture just loooves to create Others who can embody the honorable simplicity we believe we’ve lost as we’ve acquired more technology, power, and wealth.
And that is so messed up. I’ve been thinking about this for years, and I still can’t decide who’s more demeaned by this attitude. On one hand, it completely objectifies minorities. When mentally functional people see “wisdom” in schizophrenic people, for instance, we aren’t seeing them as people at all, but as symbols of something we think we’re missing in our own lives. We’re narcissistically turning them into playthings… into shimmering trinkets that can reflect back our own insecurity. And if schizophrenic people comfort us when they’re in these roles, then we’re encouraged to keep seeing them that way. Why perceive them as fellow humans when seeing them as objects makes us feel better?
But we in the majority are just as diminished by that attitude, because it keeps us from addressing our problems. If our culture is depriving us of something, we should be changing the it, not fetishizing people that we think are outside it.
13 responses so far ↓
1 K. // Apr 6, 2009 at 10:00 am
I will not see five of these movies under any circumstances. Idris Elba is sex on legs, but I’m still not spending $12 to see Obsessed. Top of the Netflix queue, though, because it looks hilarious. And Jerry O’Connell must have a great agent who has the power to remove that hotel sitcom abomination from … the face of the earth, I guess.
The Soloist … I read the book, and it doesn’t have the Magical Negro subtext (which, as a black woman, I try to avoid – I quite like Will Smith, but no Bagger Vance, thanks). Nathaniel Ayers is, at the core, a pretty sick man, and he has good days and bad ones. Lopez keeps trying to “fix” Ayers, and sometimes it works, but more often it doesn’t. I particularly liked how Ayers goes to speak to actual doctors versed in schizophrenia, because he realizes he’s in over his head a bit. The book ends on a hopeful note, but I thought that I could easily see Ayers still playing on the street afterward.
2 Bdanger // Apr 6, 2009 at 10:42 am
I might just spend my money to see Obsessed on a rainy Saturday for the sake of Beyonce’s crazy eyes on the big screen. I am actively avoiding Angels and Demons. The book was awful and the plot is totally unbelievable (the helicopter! the devil’s advocate!), which I am sure will be worse in the film version. I won’t even watch it on HBO.
3 Mark Blankenship // Apr 6, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Hey Kara,
I’m glad to hear that the book for The Soloist doesn’t have the Magical Black Man thing going on. I haven’t read it, and I haven’t seen the movie, so my entire response here is based on the oleaginous trailer. But it’s definitely giving me the “mystical power of the disabled” vibe.
But watch me be totally wrong and end up loving the movie, right?
4 ferretrick // Apr 6, 2009 at 1:52 pm
I predict that, 10 years from now, Zac Efron jumping ship on the Footloose remake will be remembered as one of the smartest career moves by an actor of this time. If its awful, it kills your career-if its great, everybody just compares you to Kevin Bacon.
But, let me get this straight-he’s proving he’s got more range than musicals by appearing in a formulaic comedy with the fading superstar of a defunct sitcom? Big improvement there, Zac.
5 Casey // Apr 6, 2009 at 5:05 pm
I am so torn about seeing The Soloist. First, completely agree with your brilliant point, Mark, that the idea that minority/disabled/disadvantaged characters are put on earth to teach the more fortunate a lesson is reprehensible on many levels. Also reprehensible on many levels? Jamie Foxx’s “acting”. HOWEVER, the movie also stars Robert Downey Jr., who I will watch in anything. Seriously. He could star in a live action remake of The Care Bears Movie and I would see it with glee. Actually, has anyone suggested this project to him? He’d do it – he’s a lunatic.
6 Mark Blankenship // Apr 6, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Casey — If a live action version of The Care Bears gets released, can we please go see it together? If Robert Downey, Jr. says no, then I’m sure they can at least cast Judi Dench and Geoffrey Rush.
7 Molly // Apr 8, 2009 at 2:35 pm
I just don’t understand how Obsessed is not Fatal Attraction, and how they’re not being sued for it.
8 Mark Blankenship // Apr 8, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Molly, what are you talking about? Fatal Attraction features a pretty white woman who fixates on a white businessman and terrorizes his family. Obsessed features a pretty white woman who fixates on a black businessman and terrorizes his family.
Totally different.
9 Lynne // Apr 13, 2009 at 12:36 am
Have you just seen too many of the ‘Soloist’ type movies, Mark or were they always just offensive to you? Now I am tracing back through some of the movies I’ve seen in that vein, like ‘Molly’, ‘Nell’, ‘Charley’, ‘Gideon’, ‘Radio’ (hello…all first name titles – what’s the significance I wonder?). But here’s my take, I enjoy these movies. I don’t mind being reminded of certain things i.e., (choking on this first statement) simple pleasures in life are the most rewarding, getting outside your own head and problems and helping someone else reach their potential and dreams is life-changing, simplifying your life and spending actual ‘face’ time with people is a worthy goal, etc. At best it might jerk me out of a mood of self pity or some other temporary funk. Whether or not I get off my butt and do something to change it is another matter…sometimes yes, usually no. But when it is ‘yes’, it can be sweet.
From the trailer, I think I’d like to see it and Downey seldom disappoints. Also, I’ll be interested to see if Foxx can bring something to his character that isn’t dripping in unnecessary sentimentality. Thanks for a good rundown.
10 Mark Blankenship // Apr 13, 2009 at 1:45 am
Hey Lynne — This type of movie is often a turn-off for me. I did like “Nell,” though, because I like watching Jodie Foster do just about anything, and I like “Of Mice and Men”—in novel, play, and movie form—because the “simple” character actually makes some huge mistakes, which makes him more complex.
When it’s time for a cookie-cutter “lesson” movie, I tend to gravitate toward the “someone’s dying and now we must appreciate our lives together” genre. It has the same basic effect that you described — reminding me to get off my butt, seize the day, be grateful for what’s in front of me, etc. I’m especially a sucker for movies where a character is about to die and has a last, emotional farewell with a loved one that doesn’t quite result in sobbing. Like in “Terms of Endearment,” when Debra Winger clearly wants to cry all over her little boy, but she doesn’t. Whoo! Gets me every time!
11 Lynne // Apr 13, 2009 at 11:25 am
Oh gosh, that’s one I thought of when I read your other post on what you like to see in movies (and not). My most beloved sister died from CF at the age of 37 back in 1987 . I both love and hate movies with sunken-faced, young women in hospital beds slowly stepping into their coffins, as it were. It’s so great when they have another, comedic story line as in this one with Jack Nicholson and Shirley MacLaine.
Jodie Foster is such a masterful actress…that scene in Silence of the Lambs, (you probably know the one I mean), where she describes to Lechter why she ran away from the farm, and his reaction to it. I think they should use that scene in acting schools to teach people how to vividly convey the passion of such life-altering events. Did you know that they had planned to visually recreate the entire farm story so that is what we would be seeing while she was speaking? And then, when they saw the raw emotions of the scene, they decided that was all they needed….couldn’t top it. At least, that is what I heard. I didn’t actually confirm it.
12 Lynne // Apr 13, 2009 at 11:28 am
What did you think about the classic ‘One Flew Over…..” Another one of my favorites that I love (and hate) to watch. Also, Nicholson’s performance is another one for the training schools.
13 Rae // May 5, 2009 at 1:23 pm
I see your point about The Soloist and have absolutely no intention of seeing it in the movie theaters, especially now that I’ve heard several reports that it’s NOT GOOD. However, I must admit seeing Ayers and Lopez talking about their friendship on 60 Minutes did make me consider it. But… do I really need to see the fictionalized versions of them when I’ve already seen the real people and their interaction? I think not.
I also must admit I went to see 17 Again last weekend and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Granted, I’d say everyone’s fine waiting for the DVD and we only went as a treat for my friend’s 8 year old (who is in LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE with Zac Efron).
I’m torn about Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. The promos are so bad. But I adore Jennifer Garner. Why does she always pick these second-rate romcoms?!
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