The Last Airbender up for nine Razzies The nominations for the 31st Annual Razzie Awards are now available for the viewing pleasure of the long-suffering moviegoing public, and it seems likely that The Last Airbender and Twilight Saga: Eclipse are poised to take a righteous shoeing. The former is up for nine awards, including Worst Director, Worst Picture, Worst …
I don't think that bad parodies like 'Vampires Suck' should be in the list, as it detracts from the chance to give a serious kicking to utterly dreadful things like SITC2, which deserves taking out and burning, as a nasty, sexist, racist piece of crap.
The boy Kermode does a nice line in rants, but Vampires Suck did not get one. Just a telling off for being a waste of time.
I thought "(Avatar) The Last Airbender" was a light-hearted and vaguely original movie deserving of moderate praise but probably ultimate obscurity. On the other hand I found Avatar (the other one) to be a piece of badly stitched together, incoherently faux-mystic shit that I am glad I didn't end up paying to see.
At least I now know to just go and see "bad" movies and leave the "good" ones alone.
Sure the story was a little contrived, and the plot continuity was, in places, abysmal but the 3D and other visual effects were absolutely stunning.
Bearing in mind that the plot deficiencies are no worse than for your typical Hollywood film, then it is difficult to claim watching Avatar is the worst £10 ever spent, unless you have a film phobia and have never seen anything else at the pictures.
The entire film was abysmal, in a trite, sanctimonious forced way - a little contrived? Massively contrived. I got as far as her and the smurf bat in Papa smurf's magic tree and I had to turn it off otherwise I would have had to go out and collect a necklace of ears from random passers-by. That was an hour and a half in or something and it was still only half way. At least show us their smurf tits or something, god. damn.
When I first saw 6th Sense, I thought it was a very good movie. Not perfect (the scene in the car with his mother lays it on a little thick for my taste), but clever, imaginative, and pretty moving. Now when I see it I think, "well, there's the old 'whispering for no reason' trick," or, "there's the old 'the characters are so shocked that they can't move or speak for an oddly long period of time' crutch."
I feel like the razzies has been hijacked into "hate whatever is cool to hate" like being stuck in an elevator with a bunch of hipster 'Film and Media Studies' students. I mean, really? Airbender was ghastly 3d, it deserves that one. the rest of it feels like pile on SHAMBLEPANTS MOVIES R CRAP AMIRITE talk. I mean, Im not saying it was a great movie, but you're really kicking the point to death when there are so many other terrible movies last year;
Bullshit like; Buried, Skyline, Sex in the City (again? really?) and everything that Jennifer Aniston and Nicholas cage touched in the last year. I dont care if it launched last year. just... if they were involved with it, in any way, then it should be up there too. Also, wasnt there a Saw movie last year? The nutcracker; the only retelling of nutcracker you'll see without fucking ballet? or how about another one of those goddamned talking fucking dog movies? Cats versus dogs 2? Oh wait. terrible romance movies; Letters to juliet? How about 'The back up plan' ? How about every time nicholas fucking sparks puts pen to paper I am overcome by a homical fucking rage?
oh, and furry vengeance. Yeah. Brendon Fraser and funny animals. Yeah. that was 2010. I know, right. you thought you'd scabbed over that one.
@cameron : yeah, Avatar was a horrible example of editing telling a different story ands goes in my stack of movies-that-should-have-been-killer-but-someone-shit-the-bed (along with children of men, and Babylon AD) there was some really good content that ended up on the floor, and instead it came off like "The Smurfs do Dances With Wolves" merged with "Muppets Braveheart" its a shame it came out in 09, though ^_^
I need a drink. Oy.
Easily the worst movie of last year.
It's like someone had 1980s action movies explained to them through interpretive dance, then commissioned a script from a slumming chimp, got it directed by someone who might have trouble using a flip, lit by a blind man and the sound recorded through treacle.
Never have so many steroids been shot to so little effect.
I thought Eclipse didn't do too badly:
Twilight Saga: Eclipse (IMDb):
Budget: $65,000,000
Opening Weekend: $83,637,242 (USA) (4 July 2010) (4468 Screens)
Gross: $300,523,113 (USA) (17 October 2010)
The Last Airbender tanked heavily in comparison:
Budget: $150,000,000 (estimated)
Opening Weekend: $51,804,232 (USA) (4 July 2010) (3169 Screens)
Gross: $131,564,731 (USA) (19 September 2010)
So, I agree with the 'bender getting a serious Razzie; but Eclipse seems to have paid off it's budget in the opening weekend, and has gone on to make 4x it's budget in the gross earnings during it's running period...
As for the "critics", lets take a look at the top films that they deemed awesome (from listphobia)
Inception (LOVED this movie btw)
Budget: $160,000,000 (estimated)
Opening Weekend: $62,785,337 (USA) (18 July 2010) (3792 Screens)
Gross: $292,568,851 (USA) (2 January 2011)
Profit: not even double the budget. Opening weekend took in less than Eclipse, and not much more than Airbender you will note...
Toy Story 3
Budget: $200,000,000 (estimated)
Opening Weekend: $110,307,189 (USA) (20 June 2010) (4028 Screens)
Gross: $414,806,932 (USA) (21 November 2010)
This is more like it. Opening weekend HUGE, Gross over double the budget. Big bucks to make only double though..
I have to say, my faith in critics? Not so much. They had some taste back in the 60's till the early 90's; after which they couldn't tell their arse from their elbow any more..
I disagree that a film's takings are related to the quality.
A new Twilight was always going to do well due to the hype and fandom; Inception, however, was a new franchise so didn't have initial momentum.
One of my favourite films is Gattaca, which is reported to not even have made back its own budget - hard to tell with Hollywood accounting, but it certainly wasn't a "smash" in this sense.
But the issue is, there must be a measure to determine whether it was good or not that does not rely on personal feelings getting in the way. Simply saying "I didn't like it" does not cut it; because if I like something but you don't, it simply means we do not share the same sentiment.
Second, I would agree with you on Inception for the first weekend; but not overall performance. It has brought in a lot but only by spending a lot. Take Avatar for example: POOR performance on first weekend ($4m) showing just how little the public thought of the hype; but overall the highest grossing ever, reaching near $1bn.
So, no; it does not need fandom and hype but it DOES need to be spectacular.
box office reciepts generally, and opening weekend especially, only reflect how good a job the marketing guys have done.
I for example started watching the recent version of "alice in wonderland" - ths 6th best movie of all time (well, after 1977) ,being a fan of the inesimable Mr Depp, and having enjoyed the book immensley as a child.
However, after about 3 weeks (okay 20 mins) I felt compelled to turn the smouldering pile of chud off, lest I chew off my own arm to aleviate the tedium.
Had I been stupid enough to venture into a cinema to see this film, in it's opening week, i would have certainly left before the film was over.
Yet my admission would still have counted toward making it 'the 6th best film ever made' (eat your heart out kane and casblanca!)
the sooner movie charts go the same way as music charts the better.
As someone already mentioned cinema takings are really only a question of how good the marketing of a movie is. The perfect example of this is Shawshank Redemption, a movie that lists in almost everyone i knows top 10. However, it was a major flop in the cinemas and even didnt get a cinema release in some places, would that mean its a bad film? Of course not.
Also taking your suggestion of using cinema revenue over production cost as a measure of the greatness of a film - then The Blair Witch Project would be the greatest film of all time. Which i dont think any of us think would be true. (i hope not anyway!)
Everyone will have a different idea about what is a good movie and what isnt. I personally cant stand chick flicks, but that doesnt mean theyre necessarily bad movies. Just that i dont want to watch them. If theyre well shot, then theyre probably still good films, just not something i would watch. The Razzies try and find those films which quite frankly ARE bad, and which the Razzie folk believe no one could possibly like (at least without large quantities of hallucinogenic substances).
Good luck to em, i say! :)
I just wanted to take Iglethal's comment further.
I get really annoyed when it became "news" that a film (Avatar) has taken the most box office cash ever.
I'm sure it can't just be me who pays more for a cinema ticket now than they used to? In London, cheap cinemas are £10 a ticket, compared to the £4 of 10/15 years ago.
I hear McDonalds claims to have served over a millionty billionty eleventy burgers, and I hear they make good money, so... Im guessing they put out a fabulous product which is the very zenith of burgerkind?
Oh, right. Cheap predictable shit is what the proles want. Which explains why Michael Bay manages to get away doing robots with lips without being shot in the face and left in the woods.
The film wasn't terrible, it just wasn't good. The pace was too slow and the characters were bland compared to their colourful personalities in the series. And the acting is awful. And the fighting is cringeworthy. A real shame, and I can't see them making the other two books into films, which is a good thing.
Re: The Last Airbender.
I watched the animated series with my son (12). The 'toon is actually very good and tells an intelligent story populated with well-drawn (in all senses) characters. It has all the themes - love, betrayal, revenge, redemption - and was an outstanding series. Certainly good enough to hold this adult's attention.
At my son's prompting, I later saw the film. Oh dear!
It deserves to win all of those Razzies. Unintelligible plot, poor acting, poor effects. I had difficulty working out what was going on even with the advantage of having seen the animated series. No standalone viewer would have had a clue!
Actually does deserve to be on the list because it was as slow and bad as the films it took the piss out of.
The main actress does a *fantastic* Mary-Sue (sorry, I mean Bella) Swan impersonation, to the point where "Vampires Suck" is a close contender for being actually as painful to watch as "Eclipse"
It's difficult to express just how much damage and pain Shyamalan caused to not just hardcore fans of Avatar but to the casual fans as well. Watching the movie is akin to seeing The Lord of the Rings being interpreted by the Teletubbies and the cast of HollyOaks. On the Eastenders Set.
Not a single shred of character was preserved. All the cast looked like they were from a Bollywood dance act and even worse was the racist stereotypes cut from the film but on DVD. Shyamalan was criticised about this before filming began but ignored it.
Add to that the fact that they filmed almost twice as much as shown at the cinema which Shyamalan is saving for the next sequel.
This wasnt a mauling. It was a wholesale slaughter of the series. The last Airbender IMHO is the best animated series of the decade and I would at least recommend seeing the 3 books(Seasons) to appreciate the depth and story that Shyamalan decided to ignore.
I'm not sure where you get the "kid's show" part from.
Animated != Childrens show any more than Family Guy is.
The point is that taken as a whole over three seasons it consistently presents strong writing / character development and humour/ drama in a balanced and considered manner.The plot evolves and grows over time. Some important characters die and there is not always a happy ending. It puts most movies to shame. I would see "Zuko Alone" episode if you want a good example.
However everyone has different taste so no bad if it doesnt appeal to you. I myself cannot see any humour in Family Guy / American Dad, but I do not begrudge anyone who does.
I was only a casual fan of the TV series, but enjoyed it more than I had any right to enjoy a kids' show. It was one of those rare things that could be enjoyed by kids and adults alike, with consistently strong scripts, fun characters and enough genuine humour that anyone could appreciate it.
Despite not having seen every episode I'm pretty sure I watched more of it than M Night did. He seems to written the film using Wikipedia's season plot synopsis as a screenplay. Exposition, some things happen, more exposition; all the humour, characterization and moral undertones that anyone actually watching the original couldn't fail to pick up on are missing.
It's certainly not the worst film of the year but it's pretty close. What really irks me is the shameless pillaging of one of the few great kids' shows of this generation. I imagine younger fans probably felt the way I'd feel if I discovered Uwe Boll had secured the rights to a big-budget Mysterious Cities of Gold.
Actually watched "Airbender at the weekend (at the behest of the kids, I might add). Absolutely shocking. Probably the worst film I have seen in the last 10 years. Its 7% rating on Rotten Tomatoes is richly deserved.
Wooden acting, awful, muddled, plot, those ridiculous choreographed tai chi-esque "fight" sequences that would look more at home in a music video, the absurd casting and stupid dialogue.
When one of the bad guys exclaimed (something like) "Watch out, she's a bender" I nearly spat out the sandwich I was currently eating.
Some movies are so bad they are actually good, in a comic sort of way. Airbender is just unmitigated dirge.
Apparently is the first of a trilogy. Here's to hoping the studio sees sense and cancels the remaining episodes.
"When one of the bad guys exclaimed (something like) "Watch out, she's a bender" I nearly spat out the sandwich I was currently eating."
that the term bender doesn't mean the same thing in the US as in the UK, certainly a few of the lines in futurama can't have been intentional!
You didn't happen to see "The A-Team".
Aside from the the tank scene, it wasn't that good. At least "The Expendables" had some good fight scenes.
My g.f. and I tend to disagree on the short-comings of J.C.'s "Avatar". Seems I have a penchant for blue chicks that over-rides how bad the movie really was. I'm not the only one, since The Big Bang Theory has even pointed it out.
Don't know about the others... "Biker chicks in zombie town" holds my vote for worst movie ever (a T&A movie without the T&A), quickly followed by "Fargo" because the killers weren't killing the main characters fast enough.
I quite enjoyed it. It didn't take itself seriously and was good fun to watch.
I won't watch Jame Cameron's Avatar on principle. Unobtainium. My friends bought it on DVD and thankfully they haven't put it on when I've been round yet because it's 3hrs long. We watched Beethoven instead last time Avatar was suggested and I liked it (though my preference was Mr Bean's Holiday - brilliant from the minute Bean gets slapped by kid.)
The more I hear about Jack Black's Gulliver, the more disappointed I get. It's an important story, but I thought Ted Danson's portrayal was a bit pretentious and I was looking forward to something more hep for the modern times.
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