1. Mysteries Of Lisbon – Within seconds I knew this would be terrible. And that happens a lot. But combined with the knowledge that this movie is four hours and seventeen minutes long, that realization becomes insurmountable. You would have left. Most people would have left. There is over an hour of this movie that parking validation doesn’t even cover. Why wouldn’t I leave? I should have left. But then I wouldn’t know for certain that this monstrosity was in fact, the worst movie released in America in 2011.

I make that slightly awkward distinction because originally, Mysteries Of Lisbon was a mini series for Portuguese television. Which means there is at least an hour and a half I did not see. There is a part of me that wants to grant an exemption because of this. Like that hour and a half could have been great, or that watching it in one or two hour pieces on subsequent nights would have made it more tolerable. But then I remember how difficult it is to release any foreign language motion picture in this country, never mind one that is openly over four hours long and think about how many people had to watch and/or sign off on this happening and how theaters had to give up multiple screenings of, well, of anything else, just to fit this in. And it is frustrating. And angering. But it alone is not why Mysteries Of Lisbon is the worst movie, maybe even the worst thing, of 2011.

There is the acting, which is usually somewhat difficult to gauge when subtitles are involved, but you will have no trouble here. There are actors playing multiple characters and characters played by multiple actors. There are flashbacks within flashbacks within flashbacks that go so far back they end up in the French Revolution (which, it is worth noting, did not take place in Lisbon, like at all.) There are various unreliable narrators all basically doing their best Ancestry.com impressions. Because that’s what Mysteries Of Lisbon is about. A kid asks who his father is and is punished for doing so by being told the longest most boring story that never really answers his question because it maybe never even happened since he’s been in a coma the whole four hours and seventeen minutes you were sitting there like a moron.

Reason to watch it anyway: It made at least 70 critics’ top ten lists and was number one on ten of them. So some people don’t mind being told the most boring lie in the world.

2. Hobo With A Shotgun – This one I didn’t need even a few seconds of to know. It’s a lazy title and a joke premise (literally, it was born of a Grindhouse trailer contest) that begs for the sort of ironic laughter that is inevitably followed up by denials of the ironic enjoyment of anything. But out of an overdeveloped sense of fairness, I gave it more than a few seconds. And was rewarded with the titular Hobo arriving in a place called Hope Town. Bad enough, as this overtly foreshadows the fantasy politics that will serve as the “message” this movie will try to pretend it is transmitting. Hobo With A Shotgun doesn’t stop there though. The ‘Hope’ in the Hope Town sign is crossed out and ‘Scum’ is graffitied over it. So now you know what you are in for. An hour and a half of confusingly unimaginative humor that would barely interest a sixth grader.

 From the introductory beheading to the torching of a populated school bus to the exasperatingly awkward supernatural hitman team dispatched from nowhere towards the end, there’s nothing in this movie not designed to make you gawk in disbelief. It’s supposed to be so crazy, so outrageous, so outlandish, that you’ll be too busy reeling from the last crazy surprise to notice there’s no story, no joke and no point to any of it.

Hobo With A Shotgun is aggressively bad. There’s no way out of it. It wants to be bad. Why are you trying to take that away from it? This sort of thing has been rewarded before, so it can’t be blamed entirely for its behavior. But its been proven time and again that laughably terrible cannot be achieved on purpose. So either the makers of Hobo With A Shotgun really are inept or they are inept at appearing inept. Either way, they lose. And so do we.

Reason to watch it anyway: Rutger Hauer is kind of amazing. As said titular Hobo, he goes from lucid survivor to crazed lunatic protector with a zeal this movie does not deserve. He’s one of the most convincing crazy people you may ever see. Which makes sense, considering he is one in real life.

3. Brother’s Justice – After the insulting arrogance of I’m Still Here, you would assume another actor’s attempt at lampooning his own career couldn’t possibly be nearly as terrible. Especially one with an overwhelmingly more likeable subject than Joaquin Phoenix. Dax Shepard has been funny, even in things that otherwise were not, so a mockumentary about his quest to become an action star shouldn’t have been able to be so devoid of comedy that didn’t rely entirely on you thinking that the premise I just told you is uncompromisingly hilarious.Brother’s Justice is the proposed title of this theoretical action movie in which Dax will star. And all the friends he convinced to be in this movie have to pretend to be annoyed by his asking to be a part of this other fake movie. So much of the tiny run time (76 minutes) is just a series of the same scene. And Shepard wants to be the funny one while simultaneously serving as the butt of the joke, which is impossible. Which is maybe something someone would have figured out had anyone written anything beforehand. But every incarnation of that one scene is painfully improvised, mostly by people wholly unqualified, so none of it can go anywhere even if there had been somewhere to go in the first place.

Perhaps the worst part of Brother’s Justice is that it is trying to be a joke when most of us would love to see Dax Shepard in an action movie. Well, OK. That’s not the worst part. Not even close.

Reason to watch it anyway: Bradley Cooper and Michael Rosenbaum play themselves and are, like everyone in the movie and anyone watching it, annoyed with Dax’s antics. But they are the best at it. Which you will appreciate. Until you realize they were in on this too.

4. Beastly – When I first heard System Of A Down, I finally found I could identify with the adults who railed against rock n roll in its infancy. As music, it didn’t make any sense to me, but it was clear it was making sense to someone. I just had to accept that maybe I was going to be too old for certain things.

I had a similar feeling throughout the first few minutes of Beastly, as the high school aged characters speak to each other in a ridiculous code. I hated it, but I had to allow for things I was never meant to understand. As it progressed however, and these kids never stopped talking at all, code or no, it became more and more obvious that this was not a symptom of my aging. It wasn’t making sense to anyone. It was like if those parents found irrefutable proof that Elvis Presley’s gyrating hips really were turning their children into sex-crazed maniacs or that “Louie Louie” was actually a message from the devil.

Beastly is based on a novel that in turn is supposed to be an update of the Beauty & The Beast fairy tale. In order to achieve this in modern society however, it needs everyone to act like a complete moron and never question why a horribly handsome high school senior suddenly gets himself tattooed and pierced beyond recognition and then immediately wants to hide in his room under a hooded sweatshirt. It also needs a blindly loyal housekeeper, a literally blind tutor and an understandably distraught single father who has to ignore his inexplicably disfigured son in order to stay at work to afford an extra building in Manhattan where said hermit son suddenly needs to live. It also needs a witch. That part of the original they decided to keep.

It would also prefer it if you could act like a complete moron so you do not question what a “Green President” of a high school class is. Or why a girl who needs to hide from vengeful criminals can’t go on a school trip to a different continent but can hide in a stranger’s house a few blocks uptown. Or why the witch renegotiates her curse to help some people she doesn’t know without getting anything in return. Or how police are tricked by hilariously out of context crime scene photos. Or, based on the music choices, whether this is supposed to take place in 2006.

In writing this, I have moved Beastly up a spot or two in the order. I had almost forgotten how terrible it is. Nice try, Beastly.

Reason to watch it anyway: There is a scene in which Kyle/Hunter (Alex Pettyfer) gets so angry you will hurt yourself laughing at him try to act that way. I mean, if I had to pick just one thing.

5. Spork – The Sunset 5 was a wonderful theater that almost exclusively showed movies you’ve never heard of. I could walk to it. It had matinee prices in a city that doesn’t seem to believe in them. On Tuesdays, every show of the day was $7. It was old, but wasn’t in terrible shape and the clientele were not annoying phone-checking idiots. It closed in November and whenever I get sad about that, I remember it’s where I saw Spork. And I feel better.

 The title refers to the quasi-insult suffered by the dead-eyed protagonist who is a hermaphrodite. This fact barely comes up. It is just the sort of extreme this movie needs to go to in order to make any impact at all. It wants desperately for you to identify with this character who herself has no identity. She is a blank slate whose life has to be filled with hollow quirks in order to be at once interesting to us and off-putting to the other characters around her. She won’t accept that her dog and her mother are dead. There’s that aforementioned penis we are told she has. She really loves The Wiz. And based on the choices of the director, production designer and composer, she might not know what decade she lives in because this movie has been stricken with an awful case of the 80s.

She does absolutely nothing for awhile and then has to learn to dance in order to fill in for her injured friend in a competition even though pretty much everyone agrees she’s terrible at it and doesn’t seem to even want to do it. If you are thinking this sounds a lot like Napoleon Dynamite, you’re right, but it’s so much more annoying than that. If you’re thinking that sounds impossible, you’re right again, but somehow, Spork finds a way. At least, unlike Napoleon Dynamite, you won’t have to worry about “Vote for Tootsie Roll” T-shirts or an animated series that comes way too late. Because no one saw this. And without the Sunset 5, it may very well be that no one will ever be able to see anything like this again.

Reason to see it anyway: You’re probably into all those 80s things and like to pretend some kids somewhere are too. But they’re not. So stop it.

6. Sucker Punch – If at the end of this I told you everything you’d just read was a lie, something I made up and not a real movie, you’d probably be a little upset, whether or not you liked what you’d just read. If I told you right now that everything you are about to read was a lie, that I made up the movie and made up what I thought about it, you might be intrigued enough to keep reading, but you wouldn’t care that much. And how could you? It wouldn’t mean anything. If in the next paragraph I then told you that actually, I was lying to you now too, that you’re actually reading about the movie someone was watching in the movie I made up, you’d probably just say forget it. I hope you would anyway. Because that would be very stupid.

Plenty of movies have ended with someone awaking and realizing it was all a dream. Mostly to the groaning disapproval of audiences everywhere. But rarely does a movie tell you right up front, before you even buy your ticket, that none of what you are about to see will really be happening. And never before has such a movie also stated up front that not only will nothing you see be happening, but while you are watching the things that aren’t happening, someone will be imagining other not real things, which will take place in a world where anything is possible, there is no danger and Nazis are zombies. Because why wouldn’t they be? Someone is double making things up.There are so many other bad things about Sucker Punch, but they aren’t worth telling you about for, as I’ve tried to make clear (but totally understand if you didn’t get it), none of it matters since none of it happened. Twice.

It’s the end now where you might be hoping I will tell you I just made all of that up. Oh, how I wish it were so.

Reason to watch it anyway: It’s hard to tell anything with this movie, but it seems like Zack Snyder probably thinks he is making a commentary about how women are perceived in cinema and wants you to feel ashamed for watching the fetishistically costumed women he put in it. So not watching it because you are ashamed kind of lets him win. Even if you are ashamed for very different reasons than he (maybe) had in mind.

7. Green Lantern – VHS vs. Beta. Blu-Ray vs. HDDVD. Netflix vs. Blockbuster. Sometimes, there is only room for one victor in the fight for our attention. And in the case of movies based on the comic book characters put out by DC and Marvel, Marvel has decisively prevailed. And largely, that is due to just one singular event. The purely miserable experience that is watching Green Lantern.

If all you did was read the synopsis, you would have no trouble discerning why this was one of the worst movies of the year. It is ridiculous even by comic book movie standards. What you would have trouble discerning is how anyone ever thought it would be a good idea to commence emulating the Marvel model with this property. That has to be put aside. Because while yes, the idea was more than flawed to begin with, to ascribe all the awful things Green Lantern managed put on screen to that fact would be a disservice to the long, sad history bad ideas.

There are a few moments that seem like the sort of thing you want in a bad movie. Despite the fact that he can create anything with this ring of his, Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) saves a falling helicopter with a giant version of a Hot Wheels race track playset. Hal simply gives up being a Green Lantern twice, once even though he knows that means the world will end. There are thousands of capable Green Lanterns who stay home while just three of them go help Hal fight the worst enemy they’ve ever seen (which itself is a yellow version of the giant ball of evil from The Fifth Element.) But these are fleeting and effectively smothered by one of the most boring and ugly movies to happen in long while.

Reason to watch it anyway: There are people out there that still say it was good and might even expect a sequel. You should be able to accurately describe to them why they are stupid.

8. Jack & Jill – In Funny People, there were a bunch of terrible-on-purpose allusions to movies Adam Sandler’s alter-ego George Simmons had starred in. Jack & Jill was not literally one of them, but you would have believed me if I’d said that it was. This not a terribly original thought. You might have said the same sort of thing when you tried not to look at the hideous billboards and bus ads.But because I actually went and watched Jack & Jill whereas you were too good or too smart or both for that, I can take this thought much further. Not only is the basic concept of Jack & Jill an unabashed frontal assault on our collective sense of humor (whether as Americans or as humans) it challenges the very notion of what we are willing to accept as the construct of a motion picture. It is an infinitely divisible entity. While there is some vague story holding it all together, any scene can be lifted out and watched by itself without needing any of the rest of the movie to make any more sense than it does as part of the whole. Any relevant plot point is yelled at you at some point if it becomes necessary. It is as if they made this entire movie just in case Funny People needed to show someone watching a George Simmons movie and wanted to make sure the audience would know exactly what was going on no matter what clip was chosen.

They were always comparatively stupid, but Adam Sandler used to make incredibly trail-blazing comedies within the confines of a studio system that quickly came to require his services. It’s difficult to remember that now. But he doesn’t seem as though he’s become complacent. He is certainly not giving us run of the mill nonsense. He seems to be heading in the opposite direction. Trying to find the point at which we will collectively say to him, “OK, we get that you’re making fun of us now. You can stop and get back to what you were doing.” You probably thought he reached that point with Grown-Ups. Or I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry. But if we didn’t get it after this, we’re never going to, and the joke’s going to be on him if he keeps it up.

Reason to watch it anyway: Al Pacino is pretty great and playing himself. He has the only arguably funny things to do and say, and most of that when he is on stage in his production of Richard III. In the final seconds of the movie, he turns to Adam Sandler and, speaking of the commercial that served as the laborious plot point throughout the rest of it, says “no one can ever see this.” He should have been talking about the whole of Jack & Jill and probably was.

9. Larry Crowne – The answer comes early on, in the writing credit. You will see the name Nia Vardalos along side Tom Hanks. The question won’t come until after the end credits, when you sit and remember all the times Tom Hanks has been funny and wonder how he managed to remove any of that from this movie he also directed.

Obviously though, Tom Hanks has to get most of the blame for this. It’s too unfunny and unfeeling and uninteresting to fall on any one person. Even if that one person has only done awful things.

 But maybe this pairing is all the explanation necessary. Because Larry Crowne is a study in contradiction. It wants us to go along with some ludicrous things, but it also wants to seem current and pertinent and real. It wants to give you the impression that Larry is facing some serious financial troubles, but doesn’t want you to worry about them too much because we’re having fun here. It doesn’t want you to worry that things are getting weird between Larry and the girl that gives up all of whatever is going on in her life to teach him how to live, but it does want you to believe that it makes sense that Larry likes his awful teacher and that she likes him back eventually when she’s not drunk and/or angry anymore.

It wasn’t so long ago that simply having Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts on a scooter would look like an ad for a movie everyone would see rather than what it did look like: an ad for some kind of Italian travel agency. And in that time, maybe a lame story devoid of anything resembling humor or drama would pass by unnoticed. I would like to believe though, that Larry Crowne is a timeless sort of terrible. One that could never be ignored, no matter how hard it seemed to try.

 Reason to watch it anyway: There’s this one hilarious scene where Larry buys a scooter at a garage sale but doesn’t know how it works so when he tries to drive it he crashes it instantly. But don’t worry. It still works fine and he doesn’t have to pay for all the stuff he breaks. You can also hear Tom Hanks pronounce my last name so wrong, even I wasn’t sure he was saying it.

10. Breaking Dawn Part 1 - None of the previous three volumes of this pandemic have made a worst list of mine. They were all very boring, and definitely terrible, just not terrible enough to be worth mentioning. In fact, they’d been improving marginally with each successful installment. The last one even had some almost watchable action scenes.

The little I’d heard about the plot in the novel upon which this one is based always seemed like it would make for an impossible movie to sell to a PG-13 audience. Or maybe any audience. And it turns out that might have been true. Because Breaking Dawn seems to blush at any sort of uncomfortable situation. Which in turn, makes the entire thing an uncomfortable situation. And that impotence leads to absolute inanity.

Perhaps it is assumed I will have a working knowledge of events coming in. But I never felt that way about any of the other entries in this series. But without that knowledge (and maybe even with it) there is just no way to piece together what is happening. Sure, the events are simple enough: a wedding, a honeymoon, a pregnancy, a birth. But that is not a story. That is just the recounting of a few weeks in life of Bella Swan (vampire-human hybrid babies grow fast.)

Bella (Kristen Stewart) wants to have sex again, but Edward (Robert Pattinson) thinks the tiny bruises he left the first time are too much and so they play chess a lot instead. Jacob (Taylor Lautner) hates everything Bella has done for two and a half movies, but cannot bear to not surround himself with his sworn enemies to be next to her even though it’s so awkward and weird whenever he is. Wolves are arguing over things they don’t really care about nor believe in. Vampires are standing around looking wistfully at the human in their midst. Brazilians are an intuitive indigenous people who don’t like vampires, but will clean up their broken beds at their impossible-to-get-to houses anyway. Then Bella is pregnant and there’s a lot of consternation about this, but all that leads to is a boring fight between wolves who have made up a reason to be angry and vampires whose strategy appears to be letting a wolf tackle and pin them and wait for someone to come and save them.

Then the baby is born in what is supposed to be a harrowing scene, but the only harrowing thing is what it is named.

Reason to watch it anyway: There are a lot of very weird things that you will never see in any other movie. Including a mid-credits sequence wherein Michael Sheen looks like he is about to tell us the movie is over and we can go home now. Also, Anna Kendrick is great for her two lines and it is so wonderful that she comes back and does this despite knowing she is so much better than any of it.

(Breaking Dawn was a very last minute entry, so since I already have it done, I’m going to leave number 11 unedited.)

10. 11. One Day – How bad could this be? Sure, it has a silly contrivance serving as a plot device (showing us only every July 15th throughout the life of this relationship) and an unbearably bland lead (Jim Sturgess) and an unhealthy charge to “tell it like it is.” But it’s still just a run of the mill romantic drama. Disposable at worst. So you would think.

 One Day wants to be the most depressing movie ever made. On paper, it seems like a treatise on missed opportunities and terrible timing. But in practice there isn’t one thing that ever feels true. Turns out, July 15^th is a mostly boring day where we are simply told about all the bad stuff that’s happened since the last July 15th. There’s nothing interesting in the dialog, nothing interesting in the story, nothing interesting in the camera work… it’s just an endurance test in dullness. And you will fail it.

Reason to watch it anyway – Count how many different accents Anne Hathaway uses as she tries to find the one she is supposed to have. Hint: you do not have enough fingers.

12.-15.

Drive Angry – What’s sad is this isn’t even the worst movie starring Nicolas Cage as someone who comes back from hell to protect people. What’s sadder than that is that the worse one has a sequel coming out.

Sympathy For Delicious – You shouldn’t have to know that this movie is about a paraplegic DJ who discovers he has supernatural healing powers to understand why it is one of the worst of the year. You just have to be able to read the title.

Spy Kids: All The Time In The World – Maybe this failure will finally get Robert Rodriguez to stop letting his children write his movies for him.

Insidious – Unkempt Darth Maul doesn’t make such a great horror villain. But Lin Shaye wearing a gas mask for no reason sure does make for a great horror heroine.

You might not even like those first few minutes. You might not like any of the minutes. But you will not be able to condemn this movie for any of the reasons you thought you would. Rubber is the epitome of this category.  Even without marketing making up your mind for you, you will more often than not enter into something (or choose not to enter into something) based on notions that you assume to be correct. Because so much of the time they are correct. Rubber is the movie that will constantly prove you wrong.

2. Midnight In Paris – On the way in to see and advanced screening of Larry Crowne, a woman on the escalator gushed about the new Woody Allen movie. She sounded crazy. Which was very very sad. I hadn’t even realized we’d reached the point where we not only weren’t watching new Woody Allen movies, we’d think anyone who told us we should was a mental patient on the lam.

A whimsical fantasy with a traditional romantic comedy at its core, Midnight In Paris is as close to Purple Rose Of Cairo Woody Allen, maybe even Love & Death Woody Allen, as we could have hoped to get even twenty years ago. To get it now defies not only the odds, but the only logical conclusion left to us after watching Scoop. And getting that kind of Woody Allen now should suffice, but he had to go and give us something as relevant as most anything he’s ever done. In a year when it seemed as if every corner of cinema was looking backward with awe (Hugo, The Artist, Super 8) or ambivalent irony (Drive, The Muppets) someone perennially guilty of this told us we should probably let all of that go.

3. Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes – With the avalanche of remakes and sequels and “reimaginings” being released, the odds are in favor of one or two surpassing expectations. Especially when those expectations are on a steady decline. So this surprise is not due exclusively to dulled hopes and poor marketing (though those helped), but rather to simply being blindsided by one of the best movies of the year.

You must have experienced the wake of the world’s realization of this. If you weren’t at least in the room when someone said Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes was great to someone who did not believe them, you might be by yourself more than I am, which is already far too much. And that might be the most surprising aspect of this movie, that it got pretty much everyone to agree, mostly begrudgingly, that it did right what we have come to expect no one could anymore: make a thoughtful, wrenching, tense, big budget, computer-generated, action-oriented success.

4. The Conspirator – Last time out, Robert Redford (the director) forced his politics to the fore (albeit in a surprisingly engaging and entertaining way.) I said then he was trying to be Thomas Paine for whatever year that was. He saw that such an approach was impractical and so employs the somewhat subtler Arthur Miller route here, making what amounts to The Crucible for 2011 (and with recent events, he may have been more prescient than even he thought.)

Again though, he does it with a kind of easy, confident presence – much like he used to project onscreen himself. Nothing stands out as particularly stylized (though the acting is largely impeccable as you might expect) allowing the whole to stand out unencumbered. Despite being a period piece and a courtroom drama, it manages not to feel exclusively like either of these. Neither does it feel like the History Channel production it easily could have (historical inaccuracies notwithstanding.)  The Conspirator delivers its topical message amidst a perfectly crafted story of a man reluctantly riling against immoveable forces. Unfortunately, it still failed miserably in getting people to see it.

5. Crazy, Stupid, Love – Again, hope wasn’t so low for this. It has a fairly impressive cast and an inviting (if generic) premise. But (also again) benefits from the lowered expectations the years of Valentine’s Day and Nancy Myers have effectively eroded.

This is not to say it isn’t one of the funniest and touching movies of the year. Just that it doesn’t do anything terribly original. But it does not have to. Steve Carrell and Ryan Gosling are beyond perfect together, allowing their suspiciously forced relationship to seem inevitable. The characters are so fully realized you can even come to terms with the inclusion of the wise-beyond-his-years kid (though that took me seeing it twice to achieve.) And each parcel of the story progresses so steadily and naturally that even the bizarre packaging that is finally revealed is a welcome bonus rather than an eye-rolling gimmick.

That title’s still pretty dumb though.

6.-10.

Bill Cunningham New York – Because of the overbearing narrating directors or the suffocating desperate political messages so prevalent in documentaries these days, something like this seem quaint by comparison. And as such, destined for television. And that isn’t so terrible. But once in awhile, you can learn something about a fascinating person in a grander more entertaining way.

The Green Hornet – Any January release date has to give you pause. And it’s not as if any of these people (Gondry, Rogen, Moritz) have impeccable records. But the true surprise came of course from Jay Chou, who doesn’t need our country to be a star, but can have it anyway if he wants.

The Adjustment Bureau – Fate and divine plans and hats and doors and all-powerful beings that still have to answer to more powerful beings do not seem like parts of a poignant romantic drama hidden inside a sci-fi thriller. But they are.

Pom Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold – It would have been nice if someone other than aforementioned overbearing narrating director Morgan Spurlock made this, but the unfortunate truth is, no one else could have. This movie succeeds despite his ubiquitous presence. Which is surprising enough on its own. But it goes beyond to be one of the greatest tools of media literacy we never thought to ask for.

The Help – The billboards for this seemed like pathetic panhandlers. There was no way anyone was going to see whatever this terribly generic graphic was advertising. But soon word would spread that a brace of actresses were trying to out do each other and in the process fill up the Supporting Oscar ballot all by themselves.

1. Meek’s Cutoff –

2. Super 8 – We wanted too much.

We wanted something new. We wanted something old. We wanted something smart. We wanted something simple. We wanted to be satisfied both as children and as adults and for some reason, we really believed we would get everything we wanted. What really makes Super 8 so disappointing though, is not that it couldn’t deliver on these things it seemed to imply that it would, but that for a dazzling forty-five minutes or so, it did.

3. Rango – I was willing to blame the bombastic folly of Pirates 3 on a franchise spinning out of anyone’s control. Gore Verbinski was so good before that mess, it seemed only logical that he would return to such form once out from under it. And the way this trailer looked, just visually, that seemed to bear out. But the nonsense was all there again (albeit tempered by the fact that it was taking place in a cartoon world.) There are pieces of Rango that are incredible and should not be ignored, but too often it leans toward esoteric references rather than the story it doesn’t seem very dedicated to telling.

4. Thor – As a comic book character, Thor was never terribly interesting. Placing a God among men, even super men, seemed like an unnecessary tipping of the already tipped scales. So the strange part about Thor the movie, is that the character of Thor isn’t what failed them. In fact, they far surpassed any expectation in that realm, thanks largely to the performance of Chris Hemsworth. But then to fail so miserably at almost everything else seems all the more baffling.

5. Cowboys & Aliens – If we were not mired in this stifling and sickening climate of remakes and sequels, this would have stood out as the cloying studio marketing construct that it always was. But we are in that climate. And as such, Cowboys & Aliens seemed like a beacon of blockbuster originality. Add our newest and oldest working movie stars to the recipe and even if you somehow staved off the expectations, there just did not appear to be a way in which this could go as wrong as it did. What’s maybe even more surprising is that it wasn’t Harrison Ford that derailed it.

6.-10.

Rampart – All this movie had to do was not call its protagonist the most corrupt cop we’d ever seen in its advertising. Then it could have been shrugged off as an inept attempt to update a story that didn’t need updating.

The Artist – You made a silent movie in 2011? That sounds interesting. What’s it about? Oh, a silent movie star. OK. Seems a little lazy, don’t you– Oh, but you have a dog that does typical dog tricks? Well, that sounds like an Oscar then.

Drive – Did you win your staring contest with Ryan Gosling? I did not.

The Thing – This one is entirely my own fault. I should not have thought a movie waffling between remake and prequel could be good. Never mind one inherently overshadowed by its two classic predecessors. (But it was a pretyy good trailer.)

Unknown – Maybe Taken raised our collective expectations for a genre we’d all but written off. I don’t think we will be making that collective mistake again.

So I am enlisting your help this year. The awards posted here have always been an insular endeavor. And ultimately, they still will be. I’m not asking for votes, despite the fact that you will find what amounts to nominations. Your opinions are welcome, of course, but what I am truly after is what I am missing. If you do not see something listed among the nominees that ought to be, let me know. I don’t want to miss obvious things, even though that is inevitable.

While all nominees are legitimate choices, some may have been included as obfuscating filler. Some awards have clear winners and others depend on other subjective factors. So not every usual award will be included.

The Freddie Prinze, Jr. Award (For the best acting in the worst movie of the year – male):

- Rutger Hauer (Hobo With A Shotgun)

- Al Pacino (Jack & Jill)

- Stephen Dorff (Immortals)

- Peter Sarsgaard (Green Lantern)

The Dina Meyer Award (For the best acting in the worst movie of the year – female):

- Carrie Brownstein (Some Days Are Better Than Others)

- Anna Kendrick (Breaking Dawn Part 1)

- Amber Heard (Drive Angry)

- Bailee Madison (Just Go With It)

- Winona Ryder (The Dilemma)

The Anna Paquin Best Child Actor Award:

- Jessica Tyler Brown (Paranormal Activity 3)

- Devon Brochu (Hesher)

- Mélusine Mayance (Sarah’s Key)

- Asa Butterfield (Hugo)

The Nicolas Cage Uneven Performance Award (For the biggest gap in quality between two different performances in the same year):

- Nick Nolte (Arthur & Warrior)

- Anne Hathaway (One Day & Rio)

- Oscar Isaac (Sucker Punch and Drive)

- Alan Tudyk (Transformers: Dark Of The Moon and Tucker And Dale Vs. Evil)

The Peter Sellers Multiple Role Award:

- Mel Gibson (The Beaver)

- Miranda July (The Future)

- Adam Sandler (Jack & Jill)

- Helena Bonham-Carter (Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part 2)

The Sean Connery Best Cameo Award:

- Terry Gross (The Beaver)

- Adrian Brody (Midnight In Paris)

- Eva Mendes (Fast Five)

- Rebecca Romijn (X-Men First Class)

The Casey Affleck Worst Cameo Award:

- Andy Roddick (Just Go With It)

- John McEnroe (Jack & Jill)

- Russell Brand (Hop)

- Bill O’Reilly (Transformers: Dark Of The Moon)

- Joe Satriani (Moneyball)

- Ving Rhames (Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol)

The Alfred Hitchcock In Front of the Camera Award (For the least intrusive appearance by a movie’s own director(s)):

- Gavin O’Connor (Warrior)

- Paul Feig (Bridesmaids)

- Martin Scorsese (Hugo)

The Quentin Tarantino In Front of the Camera Award [For most intrusive – not to mention annoying – appearance by a movie’s own director(s)]:

- Ivan Reitman (No Strings Attached)

- James Gunn (Super)

- Cameron Crowe (Pearl Jam Twenty)

- Kenneth Lonergan (Margaret)

- David Palmer (Brother’s Justice)

The Martin Scorsese Best Use of a Song Award:

- Cameron Crowe [“Alive” by Pearl Jam (Pearl Jam Twenty)]

- Bennett Miller ["The Show" by Kerris Dorsey (Moneyball)]

- Miranda July ["Where Or When" by Peggy Lee and Benny Goodman (The Future)]

- Jason Reitman ["The Concept" by Teenage Fanclub (Young Adult)]

- Kevin MacDonald ["Angolan Women" by Three Angolan Women] (that can’t really be the name of the song, but that is what the soundtrack says)

The John Woo Best Shootout Award:

- James Gunn (Super)

- David Yates (Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part 2)

- John Michael McDonagh (The Guard)

- Justin Lin (Fast Five)

The French Connection Best Car Chase Award:

- Drive

- Fast Five

- Puss In Boots

- Rango

- Green Hornet

The They Live Best Non-Martial Arts Fight Award:

- Vin Diesel vs. The Rock (Fast Five)

- John Carroll Lynch vs. Steve Carrell vs. Ryan Gosling vs. Kevin Bacon (Crazy, Stupid, Love)

- Michael Shannon vs. Shea Whigham (Take Shelter)

- Helen Mirren vs. Jesper Christensen (The Debt)

- Vince Vaughn vs. Channing Tatum (The Dilemma)

The Cast of Nazis from Raiders of the Lost Ark Award (For worst performance of (an) actor(s) in scenes with special effects):

- Til Schweiger (The Three Musketeers)

- Milla Jovovich (The Three Musketeers)

- Sienna Guilroy (The Big Bang)

- Emily Browning (Sucker Punch)

- Evangeline Lily (Real Steel)

- Jason Lee (Alvin And The Chipmunks: Chipwrecked)

The Talking Pig Award (For the two movies most alike released in the same year):

- No Strings Attached and Friends With Benefits

- Attack The Block and Super 8

- Another Earth and Melancholia

- Season Of The Witch and The Black Death

- The Muppets and Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes

The Mulholland Falls Award (For movie that failed most miserably at being as shocking as it hoped to be):

- Insidious

- Rampart

- Martha Marcy Mae Marlene

- Margin Call

The Mulholland Falls Syndrome Award (For the biggest disappointment from the most promising ensemble cast):

- Killer Elite

- Cowboys & Aliens

- Tower Heist

The Cecil B. DeMille Award (For best portrayal of oneself):

- Sam Sheridan & Bryan Callen (Warrior)

- Jack Black (The Muppets)

- Al Pacino (Jack & Jill)

- Steve Coogan (The Trip)

- Dion Dimucci (A Little Help)

- David Hasselhoff (Hop)

The Godfather Best Sequel Award:

- Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2

- The Muppets

- Kung Fu Panda 2

- Puss In Boots

- Sherlock Holmes: Game Of Shadows

The Jaws Worst Sequel Award:

- Spy Kids: All The Time In The World

- The Hangover Part II

- Final Destination 5

- Transformers: Dark Of The Moon

- Breaking Dawn Part 1

The The Man Who Knew Too Much Best Remake Award:

- The Debt

- Arthur

- Footloose

- Straw Dogs

The Breathless Worst Remake Award:

- Conan The Barbarian

- Just Go With It

- Fright Night

- The Mechanic

The Kevin Costner Worst Accent Award:

- Joel Edgerton (Warrior)

- Anne Hathaway (One Day)

- Paul Bettany (Priest)

- Keira Knightley (A Dangerous Method)

- Leonardo DiCaprio (J. Edgar)

- Carla Gugino (Sucker Punch)

The Meryl Streep Award for Best Accent (Female):

- Jessica Chastain (The Help)

- Isla Fischer (Rango)

- Alison Pill (Midnight In Paris)

- Juno Temple (Dirty Girl)

The Jon Voight Award for Best Accent (Male):

- James MacAvoy (The Conspirator)

- Alan Tudyk (Tucker And Dale Vs. Evil)

- John C. Reilly (Cedar Rapids)

The Jon Voight Best Impression Award:

- Steve Coogan of Michael Caine (The Trip)

- Rob Brydon of Michael Caine (The Trip)

- Steve Coogan of Stephen Hawking (The Trip)

- Meryl Streep of Margaret Thatcher (The Iron Lady)

The Worst Impression Award:

- Jefferey Donovan of Robert Kennedy (J. Edgar)

- Abby Elliott of Drew Barrymore (No Strings Attached)

- Rob Brydon of Al Pacino (The Trip)

- Ryan Reynolds of Jason Bateman (The Change-Up)

The Lon Chaney Chameleon Award (for the most unrecognizable performance by an otherwise recognizable personality):

- Kelly McGillis (Stake Land)

- Brie Larson (Rampart)

- Glen Close (Albert Nobbs)

The Hamlet Best Production Within A Production Award:

- Controversy (Margaret)

- “The Case” (Super 8)

- “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (The Muppets)

- A German Affair (The Artist)

- Jungle Monster 4 (Alvin And The Chipmunks: Chipwrecked)

- The final Waverly Prep novel (Young Adult)

- JetBlue ad (Pom Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold)

The Rosemary’s Baby Creepiest Moment Award:

- Katie runs into Toby (Paranormal Activity 3)

- Hitching a ride (I Saw The Devil)

- Chad in the garage (Terri)

- The host of sexual innuendo directed toward Smurfette (The Smurfs)

- “Release Me” (Straw Dogs)

- Brandon & Sissy (Shame)

The Passenger 57 Award (for the plot most thoroughly ruined by its trailer):

- Unknown

- Warrior

- Dream House

- The Lincoln Lawyer

The Kevin Spacey Must Have the Best Agent Award (For appearing in the most top ten movies of the year):
-    Christopher Mintz-Plasse (How To Train Your Dragon & Kick-Ass)

The Marlon Wayans Award (for appearing in two or more of the worst movies of the same year]:
-    Christina Applegate (Cats & Dogs: The Revenge Of Kitty Galore & Going The Distance)

The Freddie Prinze, Jr. Award (For the best acting in the worst movie of the year – male):
-    Greg Kinnear (The Last Song)

The Dina Meyer Award (For the best acting in the worst movie of the year – female):
-    Zena Grey (My Soul To Take)

The Anna Paquin Best Child Actor Award:
-    Joey King (Ramona and Beezus)

The Nicolas Cage Uneven Performance Award (For the biggest gap in quality between two different performances in the same year):
-    Gerard Butler (How To Train Your Dragon & The Bounty Hunter)

The Peter Sellers Multiple Role Award:
-    Armie Hammer (The Social Network)

The Sean Connery Best Cameo Award:
-    Sugar Ray Leonard (The Fighter)

The Casey Affleck Worst Cameo Award:
-    John Lithgow (Leap Year)

The Alfred Hitchcock In Front of the Camera Award (For the least intrusive appearance by a movie’s own director(s)):
-    Todd Phillips (Due Date)

The Quentin Tarantino In Front of the Camera Award [For most intrusive – not to mention annoying – appearance by a movie’s own director(s)]:
-    Daryl Wein (Breaking Upwards)

The Drew Barrymore All Grown Up Award:
-    Joseph Mazzello (The Social Network)

The Martin Scorsese Best Use of a Song Award:
-    Lisa Cholodenko (“All I Want” by Annette Benning in The Kids Are All Right)

The Andy Garcia Best Shot Award:
-    Johnny Knoxville – golf ball squash (Jackass 3D)

The John Woo Best Shootout Award:
-    David Yates (Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part 1)

The French Connection Best Car Chase Award:
-    The Town

The They Live Best Non-Martial Arts Fight Award:
-    Kick-Ass (Kick-Ass vs. thugs)

The Die Hard 2 Icicle Award (for best use of an otherwise benevolent object as a weapon):
-    zip tie (Brooklyn’s Finest)

The Cast of Nazis from Raiders of the Lost Ark Award (For worst performance of (an) actor(s) in scenes with special effects):
-    Eric Balfour (Skyline)

The Talking Pig Award (For the two movies most alike released in the same year):
-    The Losers and The A-Team

The Mulholland Falls Award (For movie that failed most miserably at being as shocking as it hoped to be):
-    Get Low

The Mulholland Falls Syndrome Award (For the biggest disappointment from the most promising ensemble cast):
-    The Losers

The Tony Randall Award (For best portrayal of oneself):
-    Lars Ulrich (Get Him To The Greek)

The Godfather Best Sequel Award:
-    Toy Story 3

The Jaws Worst Sequel Award:
-    Sex And The City 2

The The Man Who Knew Too Much Best Remake Award:
-    Let Me In

The  Breathless Worst Remake Award:
-    A Nightmare On Elm Street

The Kevin Costner Worst Accent Award:
-    Cory Fernandez (Cop Out)

The Meryl Streep Award for Best Accent (Female):
-    Jacinda Barrett (Middle Men)

The Jon Voight Award for Best Accent (Male):
-    Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Faster)

The Jon Voight Best Impression Award:
-     Unidentified Troll 2 Fan of Connie McFarland as Holly in Troll 2 (Best Worst Movie)

The Worst Impression Award:
-    Adam G. Savani of Elvis Presley (Step Up 3D)

The Lon Chaney Chameleon Award (for the most unrecognizable performance by an otherwise recognizable personality):
-    Jason Isaacs (Green Zone)

The Hamlet Best Production Within A Production Award:
-    Swan Lake (Black Swan)

The “I’m Not The Bad Guy” Award (for the line so bad, it just had to be repeated):
-    “You lied to me.” (You Again)

The Rosemary’s Baby Creepiest Moment Award:
-    ceilings (Biutiful)

The Citizen Kane Unseen Ending Award:
-    Repo Men

The Passenger 57 Award (for the plot most thoroughly ruined by its trailer):
-    The King’s Speech

The Nightwatch Award (for the most heavily promoted movie never to grace us with its presence in a theater):
-    Client 9: The Rise And Fall Of Elliot Spitzer

It was a really good year, relatively speaking (which is the only way possible), and a lot of that seems due to a return to American classicism (even if three of the following movies were directed by the English and one of those movies is actually Canadian.)

1. The Social Network – This is the quintessential American story. The ruthlessness necessary to make any progress under capitalism and the expenditure of otherwise generally valued relationships in the process. That it has to do with the creation of Facebook only gives this timeless story a bit of superficial apposition. And, of course, while all of this helps, it does not necessarily make a movie the best one of the year.

An unmitigatedly unlikeable main character, legal procedures that never get past the deposition stage and a whole lot of typing. These are not things that should make a watchable movie, never mind a great one. But from the opening salvo of torrential dialogue, it is clear The Social Network will not be something with which you will ever be able to be bored.

It is all present and accounted for, the rise and the fall, the pitfalls of money, the choices between friend and fame. But they are woven together so expertly you might not notice. You’re given them all at once, so that it doesn’t matter that you’ve seen this story before, doesn’t matter that you know where it is going, because getting there is so engaging.

And going beyond that, every individual facet of this movie is near perfect. It’s barely a period piece, but the world does seem different. The score blends perfectly with the fluidity of the camera. Everything feels perfectly planned out and yet is so layered and, at times, chaotic. The dialogue almost annoyingly so. Aaron Sorkin is finally able to leave himself out of his script (even if he’s not out of the movie) and just do what no one ever questioned he could do as well or better than anyone else. The bookends of Mark’s relationship with Erica alone, the entire driving force behind everything that happens, are enough to make this one of the best movies of the year. But thankfully, there was a whole lot more in-between.

2. How To Train Your Dragon – It is disconcerting how many times recently the best action movie of the year has been animated. Maybe it is the only way to surprise us anymore. But even in being the best action movie of the year, How To Train Your Dragon goes a long way towards avoiding any action. There is a constant struggle against violence. Which is a great lesson, but one that has to get abandoned at some point under these circumstances. In this though, when it does, it doesn’t make the mistake of contradicting itself. It makes violence the only possible resolution, incorporating everything learned leading up to that point.

Best of all, there are ramifications to that inevitable avenue of resolution. One of them an irreversible, horrible consequence that is still staggering that it could happen in a kids’ movie. Without that ending this would still be one of the best movies of the year, but with it, it stands above (most of) the others. Which is ironic, considering…

3. Toy Story 3 – Saying this is now the greatest trilogy in cinema history isn’t really as superlative a statement as it seems to be. There is no other set that makes choosing a favorite among them so thoroughly impossible. And unnecessary.

An action-packed opening, a host of new fascinating characters, sustained gripping tension throughout and two wrenching endings in a row should make this a much more serious contender for Best Picture than it was. Pixar continues to prove that movies can appeal to everyone at once and that kids not only aren’t stupid, but they grow up, and there’s no reason to shy away from that like so many other movies (whether they are intended for kids or not) go to great lengths to do.

4. Kick-Ass – A lot of the entries among the recent flurry of comic book related movies have tried to ground their characters in the world with which most of us are familiar. Eventually, they all seem to run into the same problem: that chasm that exists between this world and the one in which such heroes exist and function. Most choose simply to ignore it. Kick-Ass is the only one that address that chasm.

Anchoring that delicate balance is someone who seems to be struggling to maintain a similar equilibrium with every role he takes. There’s a whole lot that goes right in Kick-Ass, but it’s unlikely any of it would have amounted to much if not for Nicolas Cage’s Big Daddy. Nic Cage has gone wrong so often lately it was getting hard to remember he could do things like this. But he is so completely out of his mind as the one person who seems to have this whole hero business figured out that it is now just as easy to forget all that stuff that was making us forget this (and then, of course, came Season Of The Witch.)

And yet somehow, Nicholas Cage is not what resonates. He is not the first thing that comes to mind when recollecting this movie. His training/rearing is the reason we can accept the trite wise-well-beyond-one’s-years nature of Hit Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz – who seems to making a career of such characters) who otherwise might have been the disconcerting fantasy some people purported her to be. He is everything that titular character Kick-Ass (Aaron Johnson) aspires to be when he puts on his costume. And of course his actions are behind the motivations of every other character, including Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong) who is one of the best villains to come along in a long while. He is as effortless in his mounting frustration with the ridiculousness of superheroes being behind his recent work troubles as he is with his turmoil over his son’s refusal to be left out of the family business. All of these things are more easily remembered after the fact, supported almost transparently by one (almost literally) unbelievable performance. If only the Academy took this sort of movie seriously.

And there’s no reason it shouldn’t. As much of a comedy as this movie is, the violence is not a joke. Kick-Ass is hurt terribly even in his messy victories. Hit Girl’s famous crowd favorite hallway slaughter is instantly followed by her getting brutally beaten by a man at least 30 years older than her. Even the opening is instantly turned into the sad fate of a mentally disturbed individual.  There are ramifications to violence is the point. It begets itself. And when the central question is why no one actually gets into this fantastical hero racket, that is one of the best answers.

5. Black Swan – It is difficult, when someone puts forth such an amazingly captivating performance, especially in a movie so myopically focused on their character, to separate it from the movie as a whole. In this case, I’m not sure it should be. Natalie Portman is incredible and deserved to win everything she did.  But everything else about Black Swan is nearly as incredible. The script is pretty simple, but concise and focused. There is the obvious parallel to the story of the ballet within the movie, but that is more of an influence than supposed coincidence. And as a portrait of a person losing her mind and the dubious hold on reality that comes along with that, it has no parallel at all.

Being purposefully unclear about what is happening and what is just imagined without much intention of ever clearing up definitively which is which is a tenuous position to put an entire movie. To avoid making it the primary thought on the audience’s mind when it is over (see: Inception) is even more impressive. Black Swan is an incredible update of the story from which it gets its name and of the classic workplace paranoia framework. All this with the added layer of actually seeing the world from the perspective of a person more disturbed than anyone could ever see from any other angle.

6. Gasland – There are times in Gasland, many of them even, where the frame includes both the subject and the director of this documentary on the natural gas industry in America. This is not because said director (Josh Fox) is making himself the star of his movie, a la Michael Moore. He too is holding a camera, thinking he is getting the shot that is going in the movie. He is just so ill-prepared for doing what he has set out to do, and so caught up in what is happening, that his footage is probably unusable. The fact is, it isn’t what he set out to do. This is an accident of a documentary and all the more relevant and satisfying because of that.

Josh Fox was just the owner of land the gas companies wanted. He received a letter just like hundreds of others did. Rather than trusting those companies and taking the money like they did though, he decided to investigate. When the phone failed him, he took a video camera to a place where it had already happened to see how it turned out. So we learn along with him, through his interviews and self-reflective narration and simplified graphics, what this whole process is and how it affects more than just the people whose property from which it originates.

You may have seen these effects on 60 Minutes or other such news programs, but that is showing you that it is happening to other people. News people are never talking about you. But Gasland not only takes you further into the fear and confusion of the people being directly impacted, it makes you one of them, just as Fox becomes one of them with every progressive step he takes in his journey.

Lighting tap water on fire is astonishing and even funny, but that gives way quickly to everything else that goes along with that. There are explosions and cancers and the fact that no one can drink the water in their house. People are sick. Children are malformed. And even if it weren’t already too late, nobody can move because a house without water isn’t worth all that much anymore. And yet the push of the movie is not for a fight to eradicate fracking, as the process of extracting natural gas fro the ground  is called, but rather simply for more information to be collected and shared. All throughout, the movie constantly returns to its thesis: that loopholes were created and then used by the natural gas companies that allow them to circumvent the evaluations to which any other industry would be and is subjected. And worse than any side effect of the gas-gathering process is the idea that this is allowed and even encouraged by our own government.

You sound like a crazy person suggesting such a thing, but this is why we have the 2nd Amendment. It’s not so you can teach your kids to hunt. It’s not so you can shoot the prowler who wouldn’t have broken into your house had he known you were home. It is so you can raise a militia when the government (or its appendages) starts killing your children. Again, this is not ever the point of Gasland. In fact it is almost infuriating how calm everyone seems to be given what the movie is showing you. I suppose they ought to be commended for their level-headedness, but if they are ever looking to respond the way they should, I am ready to enlist.

7. Please Give – Nicole Holocefer might be the best writer/director around today. She certainly seems to be the most consistent. Some might say too consistent. In that all her movies seem to contain the same insecure, guilt-ridden characters. That’s not entirely accurate, but I’m not sure it would even matter. Please Give is everything we wish Woody Allen was still able to give us. Vibrant new characters in old situations. They are funny, they are neurotic, they are overwhelmed with problems we only wish we had. But you never question their authenticity. Because relationships are the same no matter how much money you have (or give.)

This isn’t fair. I am cheating here. This is the only movie on this list about which enough for a book hasn’t been written. But Please Give is great and I’m going to watch it again when it comes on Netflix Watch Instantly in a few hours.  Which means when you read this, it’s already there, so you should be watching that instead of being here reading about it. Or not reading about it as the case seems to be.

8. The Fighter – Another American classic: the boxing movie. We should be over this by now, having seen every conceivable version of it. That this is a true story really shouldn’t make a difference. And it doesn’t. Boxing quickly becomes secondary to bafflingly impressive performances, even people from whom we’ve sort of come to expect them. And then tertiary to wrenchingly accurate portrayals of other familiar subjects like addiction, jealousy and family dynamics. Besides being painfully applicable to many things other than boxing, the title seems present only to remind us that at some point, there will, in fact, be boxing. And yet, even the boxing scenes stand out as very well done. Which is the most amazing aspect of The Fighter. Everything stands out. Which you would think would mean nothing would stand out. There doesn’t seem to be anything original happening, yet not one moment feels forced or false or forged.

Maybe the most surprising facet, though, is how funny it is. By no means is it a comedy, but the characters are so instantly knowable, they can fast become situational pawns of comedy. Early on, it may seem like they will be relying on the regional and era-specific attributes the true part of the story provides, but that quickly blends into the rest of the background world, so effortlessly realized, it’s only noticeable when towards the end, the documentary being made within the movie brings it to the forefront. Mark Wahlberg’s still somehow unappreciated ability combined with Christian Bale’s incredible embodiment of an unbelievable person combine for some of the funniest moments in any movie this year.

Of course, this is all just a symptom of the performances that are ubiquitous throughout. It’s possible it wouldn’t matter what the movie was actually about, this cast might have come up with the same sort of extraordinary result. They all may just be doing perfect impressions of the real people they represent, but they are those people. When during the credits, the real Eklund brothers are shown, it is completely unnecessary. Because we’ve already seen them.

9. 127 Hours – Plenty of great movies have been made about events to which we all know the ending (or should know anyway.) But they generally do not take place for the most part, in one stationary spot with just one stationary person. This movie really has no right being one of the best paced movies of the year. That it didn’t win Best Editing is almost as much of a shame as The King’s Speech winning Best Picture.

Much like Black Swan was a glimpse of a mind as it broke down under its own weight, this was of a mind as it broke down under the strain of the physical conditions with which it was beset. And, just as with Black Swan, James Franco has a whole lot to do with getting that across. For him to make talking to himself and talking directly at a camera he doesn’t really have an expectation of ever being found seem so natural, when everyone knows just what that should look and sound like, cannot get enough recognition. But again, like Black Swan, it takes a lot more than just a singular performance, even in a movie so obviously carried by one. A world was created in that crevasse, one that Aron Ralston wasn’t ever going to get out of. The singular event that is understandably the touchstone for describing or summarizing this story hangs there in front of you the whole time, but it is never distracting from the present. When it finally happens, the movie almost assumes you already know what’s going on, it backs off of it so much. And it can get away with that because of how captivating the rest of it is (and because you already know what happens.)

10. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World – It’s kind of a relief that this movie failed as thoroughly as it did at the box office. The last thing any of us want is to suffer through a decade of less-than-capable directors trying to imitate it. This one was dizzying enough. But even if your mind couldn’t sort it all out for you, you were still aware of the fact that your eyes were seeing something they hadn’t before. The way the scenes shift and blend in the first twenty minutes is like a concentrated language class, teaching you to take in information in a completely different way than you are used to. Without this crash course in how to speak Scott Pilgrim, you would not be able to accept what comes next.

But all of that means very little if there isn’t a genuinely good movie underneath it all. And sometimes it seems like that may not be the case. A lot of the comic on which this is based is a capricious undertaking, especially where the fighting is concerned, and the movie does not deviate from it enough, leaving you in a constant state of unease. And yes, that does parallel brilliantly with how Scott Pilgrim is meant to feel with all these lurking exes everywhere, but it’s difficult to make the connection until well after the fact. So it is not surprising (nor undeserving) that the movie puts far too many people off. But for something so intent on randomness and the apparent humor inherent in that, it certainly covers a lot of ground. It has no trouble leaving a superfluous character behind, but it never falters on its central concerns, and there are a few. Scott’s transformation from ignorantly self-centered to knowledgeably self-centered isn’t nearly as transcendental as what’s been going on around him. And that is where Scott Pilgrim vs. The World succeeds most thoroughly, the marriage of its romantic comedy underpinnings with the conceptual environment in which it exists. Both would be highly commendable on their own, but together they’ve created a seemingly singular event. I think I hope so anyway.

11.-15.

Brooklyn’s Finest – This is kind of like three American classic cop movies in one. Criss-crossing each other in a fantastically woven climax.

The Virginity Hit – There is no mystery as to why this is one of the most ineptly marketed movies of all time. It’s premise is basically finished within a half an hour. So it just keeps reinventing itself. You will never know where or why it will go next, making it probably the most realistic fake found footage feature there’s ever been. Never mind the funniest. Because that’d be too much alliteration.

Greenberg – Only such a perfectly presented self-involved character could make the “events” of this movie seem so noteworthy.

Repo Men – Like most things, you should have watched this before you knew anything about it. You probably still have that chance. It didn’t do very well.

True Grit – I’d still rather have seen The Coen Brothers write their own Western, but having an already great movie so closely remade yet brandishing their distinctive imprint seems equally as impressive.

1. The Last Airbender - Any amount of trust the public afforded M. Night Shaymalan in accordance with his efforts evaporated long ago. The people saddled with presenting the world with The Last Airbender surely felt burdened by his involvement and were reluctant to use him in any sort of advertising. Rather allowing the material and its following to speak for itself. This should have allowed M. Night to somewhat quietly re-establish himself as a director of movies rather than a name looming larger than the material he produced, which was an impossible weight to carry even before that material became The Lady In The Water. The fact that this movie was to be released in the coveted Independence Day (the holiday, not the movie) slot seemed to bear this out. The best movies may not always come out that week, but you’d have to believe there was a chance of it being the biggest or you wouldn’t bother, and that implies a certain standard, even if that standard sometimes seems quite low.

It is a mystery then, how The Last Airbender achieved this status. Simply being bad would be surprising enough, really, that a studio would allow its prized release slot to be compromised that way. But this goes so far beyond that. M. Night Shaymalan, for all his faults, at least made movies before this. The Happening is ridiculous to be sure, but replace the plants with aliens or zombies and you still have an entity with which you are familiar. The Last Airbender is an established commodity with fairly well-known characters and plot built in and yet he managed to present us with something rarely seen outside of Mystery Science Theater. It is not a movie anymore, but rather a series of images featuring awkwardly humanized versions of the animated characters they represent.

There’s a ton of fantasy world malarkey floating around and it might seem at first as if that is what is making everything not make any sense. And certainly it doesn’t help. But when the people known as Earthbenders need to be reminded that they can bend the Earth, it is difficult to let that stand as an excuse. In fact, that’s one of the only redeemable scenes in the whole movie and only marginally because of how laughable it is. At least it feels like it belongs on a screen. The rest of it goes by as if it were being made up on the spot by a three year old and then hazily created by a genius of computer animation. It’s like a fully realized cinematic Axe Cop, only the creator is a child of elemental hippies whose attention span and short-term memory were damaged irrevocably in the womb. It truly will not be the least bit surprising when it is reported that M. Night suffered brain damage in a car accident years ago and it is only now being diagnosed.

Reason To Watch It Anyway: I dare you. That’s your reason. There’s absolutely nothing that could possibly appeal to any sector of the human population so I know you won’t rise to the challenge.

2. Cats & Dogs: The Revenge Of Kitty Galore – I know. Obviously.

This is one of those sequels that, simply by existing, causes that hatred for your country and your species to boil up from wherever you keep it hidden most of the time. Actually watching it is really well beyond the point. Many times, while this going beyond results in boredom, it allows that hatred to dissipate. It is rare enough a movie can generate that kind of ire, never mind sustain it.

Maybe it is the broad and obvious pandering, evident in the title alone, that is so aggravating. You like cats and/or dogs, right? What are you? Somebody’s mean old neighbor who doesn’t like seeing anyone else have fun with their complacently loyal animal friends? Of course not, so you will love this. Those friends can talk now and shoot things and well, you saw the first one.

Maybe it is the constant consideration of all the awful things these actual animals had to go through to make this possible. And, of course, maybe it’s just me that can get this angry about a movie in which dead-eyed domesticated animals make incessant self-aware puns.

It may be just as easy to dismiss this as being for kids and kids alone, of course (that you can dismiss a child’s development like that is cause for concern, but there’s not time for that here.) This is not just dangerously passive though, it ignores the fact that the movie wasn’t made by children. The adults that made it want to appeal to other adults (just look at the ridiculous part of the title that comes after the colon), even if they have to do it subtly or subversively. Maybe especially if they have to do it that way. They think that they are achieving this to some extent. That is both shocking and terrible. But worse, they failed at their primary goal of appealing children as well. The first movie was an embarrassing failure of a pretty good concept, but it made enough money to make someone think this sequel was a great idea. No one wanted to see this. Especially the people who found themselves in the theater actually trying to.

Reason To Watch It Anyway: There’s a cameo by the villain of the first movie in a Silence Of The Lambs parody (kids love those) that, like everything else Cats & Dogs related, fails to live up to the good idea that is clearly just below the surface, but is the only time no one in the audience was planning their escape during the entire thing.

3. My Soul To Take – This is the one. This is the kind of thing that might get played at midnight at that theater that eventually gets sick of running Rocky Horror and/or The Room. And it deserves that honor. You cannot achieve this on purpose. Sometimes, it takes completely botching your first attempt to make a movie and then only reshooting half of it, so some characters look so shockingly different than they did in a previous scene you miss what’s happening to said character because you are trying to figure out how and why she was a brooding girl with wild feathered hair five minutes ago but now she is a sunny Jesus lover in a ponytail. Or why everyone was friends before and now they are punching each other according to the orders of someone we haven’t seen yet and is named Fang.

Other times, it takes not deciding who the killer is while you are shooting so that you can decide later on. This way, everyone is a suspect and can act accordingly whenever the need arises. There are so many red herrings that you cannot possibly guess confidently who the killer is. The movie will change your mind in no time.  Which would be wonderful if the movie knew who the killer was and was keeping it from you. But as it stands, it might have less of an idea than you do.

My Soul To Take does not rest on its laurels though. It follows both these paths and blazes a few more of its own. It is quite the mess its made of itself. It has everything. Dramatic reveals that don’t and never could amount to anything. Long confusing stares in the mirror. Abusive stepfathers who get killed offscreen. And finally, a bizarrely specific obsession with the California Condor (the movie seems to take a break once in awhile for PSAs on the animal) that serves as the basis for the laughably bulky and ridiculous-looking costume the killer will (occasionally) use to disguise his (or her?) identity, but has nothing to do with most of the characters who might be the killer nor with the Riverton Ripper, the killer whose soul is supposedly on the run now that some sort of made up ritual was not performed at the outset.

It’s a beautiful mess. And it’s in 3D for no reason.

Reason To Watch It Anyway: I believe I’ve already plead my case. But beyond that, there are two legitimately funny performances somehow turned in by Zena Grey and Emily Meade. The former making her aforementioned stock religious zealot character a smitten and cheery high school kid instead of the naive Jesus nut it usually turns out to be. The latter is a selfish teenager lost in her own myopic world until her brother needs her to become the typical horror heroine on his behalf. She sort of becomes the lead in the last twenty minutes, which is weird, but welcome.

4. The Last Song – Miley Cyrus is a terrible actor. Everyone knows this. Even, I have to believe, people who consider themselves her fans. And her pouting and sneering depiction of a disgruntled teenager forced to live with her awesome father in his awesome beach house certainly is something to behold. Her performance alone is enough to put most movies in consideration for this and any other such list. But The Last Song was doomed before Disney forced their princess on this poor director.

Adaptations of Nicholas Sparks novels are all the same, sure, but there’s something distinct about them as a whole, even if whatever it is never can shine through the dullness. The Last Song seems like Nicholas Sparks fan fiction. Or like all his novels were programmed into a computer and it calculated their most likely successor. It out dulls even the worst Sparks adaptation (which, before this, was Message In A Bottle, if you were wondering.) There’s barely anything distinctive enough to describe. Ronnie (Miley Cyrus) meets a guy (Liam Hemsworth) by bumping into him, hates him for no reason until she sees that he cares about something (turtles), then loves him for no reason. Ronnie’s new best friend thinks she’s after her boyfriend even though they can’t make it any more obvious that she has nothing to do with it. Ronnie is arrested for shoplifting (that she didn’t even do!) and she might as well have murdered someone the way everyone is reacting. And of course, she’s been ignoring the piano for years but is still amazingly good at it without any effort.
Like all Nicholas Sparks adaptations, there’s barely any drama. Seems like most of the interesting stuff already happened and people are only now barely talking about those things in reluctant hushed tones. People getting wet can be the cap on the worst day ever or the way people show they are care free and happy. They have secrets that aren’t worth keeping. And there isn’t a problem in the world staring at the ocean for awhile won’t cure. It would be the genre ripest for parody if this movie didn’t basically already do just that.

Reason To Watch It Anyway: There is all that pouting and sneering. It’s pretty funny. But you can get enough of it from these pictures, I bet. Of course, you might be a Nicholas Sparks completist, in which case, you asked for this.

5. Bitch Slap -

- “This needs to stop. You are making bad movies on purpose now. We get enough of them by accident. We do not need you thinking it’s cute to hire (sort of) pretty people who can’t act and making them (sort of) fight with each other in hyperstylized but hypocomprehensible action scenes.”

- “But look at the title. It’s obviously all a joke. Can’t you take a joke? Look, one of them is a lesbian.”

- “Yeah, that’s stupid.”

- “It’s exploitation! Like the 70′s!”

- “Those movies were jokes?”

- “No, but they’re funny now.

- “So what’s going to be funny forty years from now?”

- “Still this, probably.”

Reason To Watch It Anyway: One actress plays a lesbian. Another actress plays a pretend lesbian. See if you can tell the difference.

6. A Nightmare On Elm Street – It wasn’t until just before this came out that I finally saw the original. So it’s not as if I have any sort of attachment to it that this remake was in danger of treading upon. In fact, it was shocking how incredibly terrible the original is.

I don’t need to tell you (and yet I am) that a lot of horror movies have been remade lately. The idea being that the sequels were getting so unwieldy that it became time to just start over. Things were so folded in on themselves, they were becoming their own joke. However, the way to remedy this and get scary again is not to invent anything new, but rather to “get back to basics” with an even darker retelling of the original story. Maybe include some stuff that was too much for the MPAA back then (but not too much of that stuff, because it still needs to be PG-13 or there won’t be any money for unwieldy sequels.)  Generally, these “reimaginings” are bad, but forgettable. They fail to realize how the thing they are remaking changed the parameters of the genre and that even a supposedly edgier version of the same story isn’t going to have a fraction of the same sort of impact. But in the end, how wrong could they go, really, when they have such a specific blueprint to follow?

A Nightmare On Elm Street, the one from 1984, isn’t very good. So following that blueprint wasn’t the greatest idea to begin with. But incredibly, this new (old) Nightmare makes the old (old) Nightmare seem like the classic it is thought to be in certain circles. Kids are still dying in their dreams, but there’s not a whole lot of time spent figuring that out. It’s pretty much just decided upon as fact, and while not believed by any adults (even later, in the face of incontrovertible evidence) is accepted readily by any teenager who wants an excuse to stay up late and look harried. Freddy is Fred now. All grown up. And scarier too because this time he sounds (and looks, even, with that hat) like Jackie Earle Haley from Watchmen and acts like Jackie Earle Haley from Little Children. Or maybe not. It’s a mystery, you see, what all these children who are dying in their sleep have in common besides dying in their sleep, which no one believes, and having gone to school together, which is something of which all their parents are acutely aware and are somehow still ignoring and lying about. But even after that mystery has been solved, by a mother actually telling her child she was molested by the creepy, possibly retarded guy who was allowed to live in the basement of a nursery school, we are still meant to not be sure. The two remaining molestees must still go over to the since and still abandoned nursery school and discover what the police could not. And yet still the mystery isn’t completely solved until Fred(dy) appears and tells them. All this mystery in a movie where characters have dreams that happen to be exactly what happened when they were too young to remember what they were not even around for in the first place, namely the revenge taken by the parents on this pre-school Quasimoto who is so meek and tortured you are maybe supposed to feel sorry for him getting burned alive and want him to kill the parents I think? That’s the real mystery. For me anyway. You probably thought it would be how this movie got made or something like that, but that is not a mystery at all, is it America, who gave this movie more of its money than any four of the originals put together?

Reason To Watch It Anyway: Rooney Mara is so completely, unabashedly bored with everything going on (and understandably so) that you will have a hard time deciding whether she is drugging herself in order to endure the shooting schedule or making some kind of bold, actor-as-audience choice in her role.

7. Sex And The City 2 – People who say things like “the city is a character” about this (or anything else) are pretty dumb, but when “city” is in the title of the thing, it is a little strange to have it not take place in that city. Obviously, that is not really the problem, but the change of venue does lead to a lot of them. There are a lot of socio-economic implications to sending these spoiled characters to a place seemingly untouched by the financial crisis so they can continue to behave the way to which we’ve become accustomed without any of the guilt and/or backlash that would come with doing so in the same environment we are used to. Again though, while insulting, that is not what makes for a bad movie.

First there is the forcing together of two incompatible characters, I suppose for the purposes of a ridiculous, interminable, Deerhunter-like marital scene that ends with a bizarre production of Liza Minelli singing “Put A Ring On It.” Which, if it was ever going to be funny, only has a shelf life of twenty seconds of screen time. It gets at least six times that long. Then the relationship (and apartment!) that drove the entire first movie (and maybe a lot of the series) is in trouble. This is theoretically a great idea, that the fairy tale ending everyone wanted and received may have seemed great, but like anything else, succumbs to the weight of time. (Never mind that it’s only been two years.) But the deterioration is so invented, so wrong-headed, I was sure that in the end, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) would realize she was overreacting and that nothing was really ever wrong and maybe she would have to change a little even because that’s what people do. And that would have gone a long way in covering up the myriad other faults of the movie. When none of this happened though, when she decides staying away from her marriage and hiding in her old apartment (that she hasn’t used in two years) is the right thing to do and expects the audience to be on her side, all because her husband (Chris Noth) did something nice based on a moment they shared, it highlights those other faults. This movie really expects us to be blinded by the opulence and nostalgia and go along with whatever it puts forth. Suddenly, the fact that they all take separate SUVs in a convoy to their Abu Dhabi destinations isn’t meant as any kind of commentary. The bad review Carrie receives really was supposed to seem like a valid reason to run to Aidan (John Corbett) and not just kind of a lame excuse to do whatever she felt like doing. We’re probably supposed to believe that the bad review wasn’t even deserved, that Carrie can do no wrong, and that she is just so torn and don’t we feel sorry for her.

Maybe worst of all though is the “climax” that honestly hinges on the idea that someone left her passport in the souk and if they don’t get it back in like a few hours, they are going to have to fly home… in coach. (Even now I feel as though I have to make sure you know that this is not ever meant to be a joke. It really is the source of tension that drives the last bit of action. It isn’t going to seem possible no matter how many times I say it, I suppose.) Never mind how that is insulting to pretty much everyone in the world, including Carrie’s personal servant at the hotel who has a wife in another country that he never gets to see, but it’s just a really terrible ending to a movie. Even if that was something anyone would think was the worst possible scenario in such a situation, shouldn’t, after however many years this story has been going on, the stakes have been raised just a little higher than that?

I really thought I couldn’t hate the popularity of this show any more than I did when it was at its height. But this, even though it was poorly received even by most of its loyal fan base, has made it so much worse.

Reason To Watch It Anyway: For all its faults, it does have some really important things to say about traditional Islamic culture, specifically that it is dumb and should be more American.

8. Killers – When a movie is predicated on one piece of information not being expressed, or even investigated at all, it can’t ever be a positive indicator. And when the movie is populated with so many people who are supposed to be experts at their super-secret spy jobs, it becomes all the more glaring and unignorable. But if this alleged comedy was the least bit funny or fun or even not excruciatingly inert for even three straight seconds, it might have gotten away with it. At least to the point of not being one of the worst movies of the year.
It is probably the most frustrating movie on this list. It’s not a terribly original idea, a woman finding out her husband is an assassin, but it’s a good one and despite all the grinding boredom going on, it seemed like the movie could break out of it at any moment and salvage what was left of itself. And every time, the opportunity passes, unfulfilled. It seems pretty easy and correct to blame Ashton Kutcher, who is employing his Zach Braff-serious voice which incredibly, is worse than his screechy wacky delivery he typically employs for things that are supposed to be comedies. But everyone else, while maybe not as boring, is just as bad. Katherine Heigel is ridiculous as a stuttering mess who is somehow the one girl in the world to get Ashton Kutcher’s attention. For the longest time, it really does seem like he is pretending to like her for some mission that he is on. And when it turns out that he has a very good reason to do just that, it is only more frustrating that he never was pretending. He is just an idiot.

In the end though, blame can not be assigned to just one thing or one person. Far too much went wrong. But even that is not accurate, really. Because it feels more like nothing went right. Saying that it went wrong implies that they ever had the right thing in mind.

Reason To Watch It Anyway: Catherine O’Hara is a drunk, you guys. She makes giant pitchers of alcoholic punch and man oh man does she not care what you think about that. The fact that alcohol exists is hilarious!

9. Morning Glory – Sometimes the measure of a bad movie is how much you want it to end, even before there’s any indication it ever will. Others, it’s how weirdly incompetent it is – you kind of want it to keep going because you never know where it might take you (and neither, it seems, does it.) It’s pretty rare that these two forces can be fused together into one movie.

Morning Glory appeared harmless enough. Rachel McAdams seems like she’d make a great harried workaholic. Better than current market-cornerer Katherine Heigel does anyway. And to be surrounded by people who have done great things (Jeff Goldblum, Patrick Wilson) just maybe not lately (Diane Keaton, John Pankow, Harrison Ford) only indicated a potential to elevate this  otherwise subservient genre. At the very least, it should have gone unnoticed. A barely perceptible blip resulting in questioning looks at the information bar when years from now Encore tells you Rachel McAdams was in a movie with Harrison Ford.

It still might get those looks, but not because it’s the least bit forgettable. This movie is a headless chicken that somehow got out of the yard. It will be dead soon, and so isn’t worth chasing, but it’s going to be meandering and weird in the meantime and long linger in the memory anyone unfortunate enough to glimpse it. It’s as if the director (Roger Michell, maybe) quit the production after a day or two and the economy drove everyone involved to just pretend nothing had happened so they could keep working. There are scenes that contradict what happened in the previous one, nebulous deadlines having to do with TV ratings that couldn’t possibly be gathered in the time allotted and full minutes of actors seemingly having no idea what they are supposed to be doing or saying but not letting that stop them. Mike Pomeroy (Harrison Ford) is so grumbly and unintelligible you’ll wonder if maybe he had a stroke he didn’t tell anyone about. Colleen Peck (Diane Keaton) is uselessly harping and probably bi-polar, but not on purpose mind you, it’s just that no one was paying enough attention to keep her character consistent. Topping it all off, Becky (Rachel McAdams) has little to nothing to do with her show achieving those nebulous numbers it’s been after. None of her ideas work out, yet we are supposed to believe The Today Show, her dream job, is courting her. In fact, she’s interviewing for said dream job at the very moment the blind-luck on-air mistake that puts her show on the map occurs. She could not have had less to do with it. In fact, it’s a tiny bit suspect that she would have skipped out on her show for this interview in the first place. The Today Show really needs a better Human Resources department.

Reason To Watch It Anyway: You might have to. Because there is no way I could have adequately related to you how strange this otherwise relentlessly pedestrian movie is. I mean, yeah, don’t do it to yourself, it’s incredibly tedious, but on the other hand it may never happen again.

10. I’m Still Here – It’s difficult to separate the surrounding nonsense with what is actually on screen. We were never given the chance to watch this without the knowledge that none of it was real. Except that, in pretending that it was for so long, it sort of became real. And you can easily get stuck in a loop arguing the merits of that. A pointless, boring loop. But none of it excuses what is on screen.  Even if it had turned out that this really was a portrait of a supposed artist (Joaquin Phoenix) in a supposed self-destructive descent, it was an extremely poor portrayal of it.
First, there is the obvious hubris that we will care about such a thing, that a rich actor was having a crisis of fame, but that isn’t so unfounded. We didn’t, and thanks to everyone for that, but lesser subjects have been proven to be commodities they would not have been expected to be. There is also the hubris in the assumption that we will all be starting from a base of knowledge about the material that only the most vociferous fans could have been in actuality. But I suppose someone so self-involved is unlikely to notice such a thing. What it comes down to then isn’t the failure of conception it might seem to be on the surface, but rather a failure of each and every basic tenet of filmmaking.

There is the look of it, amateur and largely unseeable, which is a crime documentaries have been given undue immunity from in recent times. But this isn’t a documentary, and so that excuse, flimsy to begin with, becomes obsolete. There is no goal, stated or otherwise, and so we are just expected to follow this scattershot production as it follows an even more entropic mess of a subject. This might be fine cut up in the frenetic bits composing a 22 minute reality program, but is tedious at best in this format. And then there is the conceit of it, the driving mechanism, barely adhered to and all the worse for knowing it was the backbone of this manufactured scenario. I suppose it is meant to be a sort of reverse-Borat, in that Phoenix is using his celebrity to produce scenes in which people react to his invented insanity. But in absolutely every case, the other person comes off as the more rational, even compassionate person, serving only to make you hate Phoenix even more, especially since you know it wasn’t necessary for anyone to suffer through it. Finally, in the interest of thorough disappointment, the movie is bookended with self-indulgent memories of Joaquin’s childhood escapes to Costa Rica with his father, an infinitely more engrossing subject, one you wish the movie was able to see over its current study’s ego.

I’m Still Here seems like an ambitious project on the face of it, risky even, if it wasn’t so lazy. It fails grossly enough within the confines of its excruciating 107 minute runtime, but it went above and beyond, not content with the immuration of a theater, and ruined itself even further by confessing its cinematic sins before anyone got a chance to judge them for themselves. Perhaps the first time a movie has done extra credit work to get on this list.

Reason To Watch It Anyway: It is weird that it exists. But the knowledge that it does serves that end well enough. There is a scene in which Ben Stiller seems like the most patient person on Earth, waiting through a tantrum complete with oddly specific and yet still erroneous memories of There’s Something About Mary.

10.-15.
Going The Distance – It’s tempting to move this up a slot because there is so much to say about this shockingly inept attempt at a bunch of mainstream actors improvising their way through a mainstream movie and considering that bucking the system.

When In Rome – Kristen Bell’s post-Veronica Mars career seems to consist of her reviving the lost art of silent movie acting and/or portraying an alien who is trying valiantly to assimilate into her new found culture. (See also: You Again)

Vampires Suck – I usually conveniently miss these Friedberg/Seltzer productions (Epic Movie, Date Movie, Meet The Spartans) so this seems like a forgone conclusion and is really just stealing a spot from something else that would normally deserve it. (You’re welcome, Leap Year.)

Breaking Upwards – Never have the literally translated facts ever stood so forcefully in the way of a good story.

Warrior’s Way - Much like the aforementioned Bitch Slap, it seems like this movie is bad on purpose in between action scenes it is trying (and failing) to actually do well.

But from the first psuedo-wise rambling words out of Vincent D’Onofrio’s mouth, it is clear that no matter how many times the story you were about to be told has been told, you were ready to watch it again.

Anton Fuqua has a career full of movies that shouldn’t be as good as they are (excepting his first, The Replacement Killers, which should have been much better than it was), and are largely overlooked because of it. He’s never done anything terribly original and yet he infuses these very familiar stories with a distinct tension that originates in a stalwart adherence to reality, even when that might be the dull choice.

Brooklyn’s Finest revels in its dull moments. It wants you to feel those as much as it does when all its elements collide and it can’t help but explode. And you do. You want everyone to win, even though from the beginning it is clear not everyone can. Even though by the end, it is clear no one will.

2. Repo Men – First and foremost, there’s that title and it’s implication that it has anything at all to do with one of the worst retroactively-loved movies of all time, 1984′s Repo Man.  Even confirming the two had nothing in common served as little comfort. Because there was still this weird plot of organ repossession, being presented with as much seriousness as a dystopian sci-fi movie could muster. And then, perhaps the most damning harbinger of all… narration. Remy (Jude Law) is writing a book about what happened to him. Maybe the worst device in movie history. Things did not look good.

First there was the effortless banter between long time friends and colleagues Remy and Jake (Forest Whitaker) to begin to turn the tide. Then a motivated and unevil “villain” in boss Frank (Liev Schreiber) lent credence to this supposed not-so-distant future. A subdued emotional scene of organ repossession that goes wrong sets everything in motion and from then on Repo Men is a decidedly efficient thriller, even if the central plot device is still unavoidably strange and off-putting. The surprising turn though comes from how it devolves, very gradually and expertly spiraling into insanity. People start to act like no one possibly could, to do things that, while not unheard of in a movie reality, are at direct opposition of what this particular movie has set forth as its own parameters. It becomes a fantasy land, going out of its way to find a satisfying ending. Which sounds pretty terrible, I guess, but it comes at you so slowly you can’t help but go along with it for most of its duration. Only at its most ridiculous does it start to show its seams and allow you to question how this could all be happening.  And that is when it answers you.

3. She’s Out Of My League - Despite its slightly better-than-average cast, the trailer for this didn’t manage to seem any different than any other similarly-themed thing there’s ever been. In fact, it might have made it seem worse than that. And at first, except for said cast, there didn’t seem to be much elevating it from that status. There’s the same strangling self-involvement of the main character as he sucks everyone around him into a vortex of introspection. There’s the same misunderstandings that lead to needlessly embarrassing situations.  There’s even the obligatory scene designed to make the audience cover their eyes while they laugh at what they are only sort of watching.

But as it progresses, these things are spun into positives. That introspection turns out to be Kirk’s (Jay Baruchel) major problem. Those misunderstandings are just symptoms of more serious trouble plaguing the central relationship. Even that supposed-to-be cringe-inducing scene is just an extreme example of Devon’s (Nate Torrance) unwavering loyalty to Kirk.

Ultimately, She’s Out Of My League is only about one thing. But it manages to delve into every corner of that idea, allowing every scene to relate to it in a new and more complicated way. It isn’t on this list because it’s funnier than any of its like-minded competition, but because it takes itself more seriously than it probably should have and somehow turns that into its greatest asset.

4. RED – Take any individual piece of RED (Bruce Willis’ whispery, reluctant superhero, Mary Louise-Parker’s wide-eyed confusion, Morgan Freeman’s elegance, John Malkovich’s lunacy, Helen Mirren’s effervescence) and you would assume you had seen any and every possible variation of it before. But that’s the point, isn’t it?  These are people with long histories of being awesome and rather than inundate you with stupid flashbacks or dumb conversations by awed secondary characters, you just apply what you already know to them and let them get on with things.  And they do get on with things.  There are giant guns and amazing physical feats, of course, though not all exactly what you might expect.  The action is more straight forward than a lot of movies can seem to manage at this point and immeasurably better for it. But it’s how funny everyone is that’s the true surprise.  Not that any of these people have never been so before, obviously, it’s just that the way RED was advertised, it seemed like a pretty timid offering that would rely mostly on the idea that Helen Mirren with a machine gun was funny in and of itself.  But it goes way beyond that.

5. Babies – This really was a great trailer.

So it shouldn’t be able to make this list. But there was very little indication Babies would be any more than a trumped up YouTube clip. What’s most surprising, I guess, is that it isn’t any more than that. Just as that fragment of a home movie on the internet is an unadulterated view into the life of that cat that attacks itself in a mirror, Babies is as true a documentary as such a thing can be. There is no famous-voiced narrator, no expert interviews, no intrusive director, no meaningful dialogue at all. It really is just brilliantly photographed evidence that babies exist all over the place. You wouldn’t think we needed that sort of proof, but you’ll be happy to have it nonetheless.

6.-10.

The Greatest - Clunky grief cliches abound, but when they come up against the serene fragility of Carey Mulligan‘s Rose, they are instantly transformed into graceful portrayals of people in a largely unknowable situation.

Devil - M. Night Shyalaman should probably have directed this instead of The Last Airbender. But thank goodness he didn’t. Someone finally remembered that it doesn’t really matter who is killing everyone as long as everyone is acting like a real person might when everyone around them is being killed.

Prince Of Persia – Proof that Mike Newell should have directed all the Harry Potter movies. You may think you know going in that it will be boring and won’t make any sense and that Jake Gyllenhaal’s accent is going to be weird, and you won’t be wrong about any of that, but there’s not a minute of it that allows you think about it.

Shrek Forever After – There are still some things you have to wince to get through, but overall as funny as the second one and more thoughtful than all the others combined.

Green Zone – What looks like a thinly-veiled Bourne movie turns out to be a kind of amazing war-noir more relevant than The Hurt Locker ever hoped to be.

2. Predators – There’s only ever been one good movie with a Predator in it. And after so much time filled with paled attempts at resurrecting a franchise that probably should never have become one in the first place, that we still have a collective response to the mere presence of this… thing… is quite a testament to its inherent appeal. But the idea of Predators went beyond the basic promise of a new Predator movie.  It even went beyond the promise of a return to its origins (jungle, traps, ensemble with guns, no capital A Aliens) without being just a carbon copy of that prototype. Predators, minus the Predators, might have been exciting enough. A team of killers fighting for their lives against something they don’t understand doesn’t necessarily sound like it needs an established commodity to bring people to it. But with mostly dull or completely botched action scenes, unimpressive reveals, pointless twists and a weird alien caste struggle subplot doubling as deus ex machina, there could never be enough Predators available to save it.

3. Hot Tub Time Machine – We’ve spent more than twenty years waiting for John Cusack to do something (anything) akin to the movies for which we ostensibly love him. It’s not that we want only that from him or don’t appreciate the need for an actor to not get stuck in the potential mire of his youth. We’ve just wondered why he couldn’t continue to bridge the gap between Say Anything… and Better Off Dead. For every Rob Gordon couldn’t we have some neo-Hoops McCann? Was that asking too much of one man? Regardless of the answer to that, this looked like it could be it. Yes, there was the return to the 80′s aspect of it, but it was his return to the wild abandon of that time that mattered, not the setting of it. Yet beyond the nonsense plot device described in the very title, there’s little of that involved. Especially from Cusack himself, who is relegated to a role that might as well be any other one he’s had in the past ten years. His “romance” with an oddly off-putting Lizzy Caplan is bizarrely without chemistry or relevance. It’s so bland and unexplained, you sort of begin to suspect it is going to turn out Lizzy Caplan’s April is some sort of Timecop out to teach him a lesson. But that’d be too interesting. Ultimately, the movie relies too heavily, almost exclusively, on a persistently and aggressively annoying Rob Cordry and the setting I just said didn’t matter.

4. It’s Kind Of A Funny Story - A mental ward comedy from the makers of Half Nelson and Sugar isn’t exactly the most sweepingly marketable commodity, but it seemed like an amazing confluence of things that could only go right. Zach Galifinakis, Lauren Graham, Jim Gaffigan and the kid from The Winner confirmed this suspicion. And to top it off, Morgan Murphy’s response to a picture of a beaver in the trailer got stuck in my head like I can only assume Justin Beiber songs get stuck in other people’s. So it was thoroughly and consistently stunning when nothing about this movie went right. There was none of the careful realism of the directors’ previous credits. None of the devastating cruelness of the world around characters who somehow manage to be funny within it. Not even enough of the latter to make the apathetic title accurate. And so it just becomes any other well-produced (relatively) low-budget movie that says it’s a comedy but should really be more honest with itself.

5. Iron Man 2 - A lot of surprisingly good (or great, as was the case with the first Iron Man) movies have a very difficult time living up to newfound expectations the second time out. But most of the time, they come from very humble beginnings and, it seems, need that environment to thrive. But in absolutely no sense has Iron Man ever been humble. There would be no expectation of a sequel that was not present the first time around. There was no labor of love quality in danger of being erased by budget or scope. If anything, Iron Man 2 should have been able to keep everything that worked in its predecessor and improve on its flaws. But not only did it succumb to many of those same flaws (Iron Man has an awkward climactic fight with another machine-enhanced man), it couldn’t even seem to reclaim its hold of what it did right. Had this been the first installment, we’d have shrugged it off, maybe even praised it mildly for rising above other recent terrible superhero movies. Certainly the cast alone would grant it that. But in the context of the first one, which sideswiped even the most optimistic of moviegoers, it seems like a long way to have fallen. No one appears to have clear reasons for doing much of what they do beyond getting the movie to its next (mostly) dull action scene (and there aren’t even that many of those.) The inclusion of extraneous Marvel characters only manages to give us the sense that this is just a placeholder, to keep us interested until they can put something bigger together. Even Robert Downey, Jr. seems somewhat muted, at least in comparison to his revelatory performance in the original. You can forget these things for brief periods, like while Happy (Jon Faverau) rams his car into a somehow conscious and mobile Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) or while Tony Stark inadvertently reveals to Pepper (Gwenyth Paltrow) that he’s been fighting some vague disease related to his power source. Or any time Sam Rockwell is onscreen. But looking back on it, even immediately, you cease to be impressed, and are left with a twinge of doubt concerning the the upcoming slate of Marvel universe movies.

6.-10.

Get Low – When a movie takes its time leading up to a singular moment, especially a revelation given in a monologue, it gives itself a near-impossible burden. Get Low does not come close to carrying it.

Grown Ups - Very few of the potentially funny people in this movie have been relevant in quite some time, but there’s no excuse for this. It’s been said (a lot) that this was just five famous friends who wanted to take a vacation together. But that would have been (a lot) funnier.

Paper Man - Olivia Thirlby making soup is the most interesting thing in this movie about a writer who talks to an imaginary superhero friend. And Ryan Reynolds’ trial run as said superhero does not bode well for any forthcoming actual runs he may have up his ring finger.

From Paris With Love - It really did seem possible that (director) Pierre Sorel was going to do for John Travolta what (with Taken) he did for Liam Neeson. Then you see John Travolta in a fight scene and realize that maybe Liam Neeson didn’t have nearly as far to go.

Jackass 3D - Finally, Jackass becomes what its ignorant detractors think it is. A haphazard collection of falling, hitting and bodily-fluid drinking. Even Steve-O appears to be forcing himself through the motions.

The Marlon Wayans Award (for appearing in the most worst movies of the same year):
-    Rita Wilson (My Life In Ruins & Old Dogs)

The Freddie Prinze, Jr. Award (For the best acting in the worst movie of the year – male):
-    Kerr Smith (My Bloody Valentine 3D)

The Dina Meyer Award (For the best acting in the worst movie of the year – female):
-    Laura Breckenridge (Let Them Chirp Awhile)

The Anna Paquin Best Child Actor Award:
-    Elle Fanning (Phoebe In Wonderland)

The Nicholas Cage Uneven Performance Award (For the biggest gap in quality between two different performances in the same year):
-    Megan Fox (Transformers & Jennifer’s Body)

The Peter Sellers Multiple Role Award:
-    Sam Rockwell (Moon)

The Sean Connery Best Cameo Award:
-    Edward Norton (The Invention Of Lying)

The Casey Affleck Worst Cameo Award:
-    David Bowie (Bandslam)

The Alfred Hitchcock In Front of the Camera Award (For the least intrusive appearance by a movie’s own director(s)):
-    Drew Barrymore (Whip It)

The Quentin Tarantino In Front of the Camera Award [For most intrusive – not to mention annoying – appearance by a movie’s own director(s)]:
-    Mike Judge (Extract)

The Drew Barrymore All Grown Up Award:
-    Anna Chlumsky (In The Loop)

The Martin Scorsese Best Use of a Song Award:
-    Carlos Saldanha – “Alone Again (Naturally)” by Chad Fischer (Ice Age 3D)

The Andy Garcia Impossible Shot Award:
-    Gerard Butler vomits into a gas tank (Gamer)

The John Woo Best Shootout Award:
-    Wes Anderson (The Fantastic Mr. Fox)

The French Connection Best Car Chase Award:
-    G.I. Joe

The They Live Best Non-Martial Arts Fight Award:
-    Vin Diesel vs. Paul Walker (Fast & Furious)

The Cast of Nazis from Raiders of the Lost Ark Award (For worst performance of (an) actor(s) in scenes with special effects):
-    The cast of The Final Destination

The Talking Pig Award (For the two movies most alike released in the same year):
-    Paul Blart Mall Cop, Observe And Report and Gigante

The Mulholland Falls Award (For movie that failed most miserably at being as shocking as it hoped to be):
-    Food, Inc.

The Mulholland Falls Syndrome Award (For the biggest disappointment from the most promising ensemble cast):
-    Year One

The Cecil B. DeMille Award (For best portrayal of oneself):
-    Bill Murray (Zombieland)

The Godfather Best Sequel Award:
-    Star Trek

The Jaws Worst Sequel Award:
-    Halloween II

The The Man Who Knew Too Much Best Remake Award:
-    The Last House On The Left

The  Breathless Worst Remake Award:
-    Friday The 13th

The Kevin Costner Worst Accent Award:
-    Gerard Butler (Gamer, Law Abiding Citizen & The Ugly Truth)

The Meryl Streep Award for Best Accent (Female):
-    Dakota Fanning (Coraline)

The Jon Voight Award for Best Accent (Male):
-    Sascha Baron Cohen (Bruno)

The Jon Voight Best Impression Award:
-    Meryl Streep of Julia Child (Julie & Julia)

The Worst Impression Award:
-    Dan Fogelman of Ian McDiarmid as Emperor Palpatine (Fanboys)

The Gary Oldman Chameleon Award (for the most unrecognizable performance by an otherwise recognizable personality):
-    Ray Stevenson (Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant)

The Hamlet Award (for the best production within a production):
-    www.thisistheend.com (2012)

The “I’m Not The Bad Guy” Award (for the line so bad, it just had to be repeated):
-    “Hi.” (The Time Traveler’s Wife)

The Rosemary’s Baby Creepiest Moment Award:
-    Buttons (Coraline)

The Citizen Kane Unseen Ending Award:
-    G-Force

The Passenger 57 Award (for the plot most thoroughly ruined by its trailer):
-    The Answer Man

The Nightwatch Award (for the most heavily promoted movie never to grace us with its presence in a theater):
-    The Boys Are Back