Another year at The Main Damie has come to a close, and that usually means that kicks off our wrap-up articles. To start off the 2015 Year End Reviews, I’m posting this 5 For Friday: The 5 Worst Films of 2015.
Now, of course, this should always be under the assumption that these are the worst films that I have seen, not necessarily a locked-in assessment of 2015 as a whole. I don’t get paid for this, so I don’t get to see enough movies to proclaim this as a definitive list, so I’m sure I missed some garbage. Here’s the 5 movies that I wish I could have skipped over.
5. The Longest Ride
Suffice it to say, Nicholas Sparks’ new outing finds its way onto this list, but I’m as surprised as you that something he’s written could be released in a year that contains at least four movies that are worse. Actually, I don’t hate The Longest Ride, but it’s not a good movie in any sense of any word.
Surprisingly, my wife isn’t all that into Nicholas Sparks’ catalogue of books and movies. What she is into, however, is horse riding and throughout the summer, we watched the local rodeo (Cowtown Rodeo) on television every week. We got into it, so this movie got to us around the perfect time for us to give it a shot. The main plot (up-and-coming bull rider falls for girl with dreams of the big city) could have been an easy 90 minute harmless movie with a couple of attractive and reasonably charismatic leads (Scott Eastwood and Britt Robertson), but it’s competes for time with a story of Alan Alda and his wife back when they were kids during World War II. Neither story gets enough time to make an impact and while the ending justifies devoting time to both, ultimately, you walk away feeling unfulfilled with both.
4. Tales of Halloween
Tales of Halloween is a super-boring anthology series centered on Halloween that I watched during 31 Days of Horror back in October. I don’t remember a single vignette. That’s all I need to say.
3. Pitch Perfect 2
There’s not really much to say about this movie. Pitch Perfect is actually not a bad movie. It’s fun, clever, and I’ll admit that Rebel Wilson makes me laugh. The second one is a misguided, long, follow up that seems to have forgotten the charm and fun and replaced it with just a twinge of mean-spiritedness and just very odd moments. Also, the German team totally gets robbed at the end (SPOILERS!)
2. 50 Shades of Grey
You have to work hard to have a movie with this much nudity so terrible. Or put no effort in at all, I can’t figure that one out. I spoke at great length already about my feelings toward this movie. We went into this movie, armed with only the morbid curiosity of figuring out what the big deal was all about. What we came out of it with is that we just watched the creepiest “romance” in film history. It’s not romantic, sexy, or heart-warming. Christian Grey is a bad person, an abusive partner, and probably wears the skin of his victims. But at least he has a private jet and a key to your apartment, right?
50 Shades of Grey starts with a chance meeting between Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey (ugh these goddamn names) and then leads to Grey stalking of Steele until they eventually fuck and dabble in some BDSM. You know the basics, but if you haven’t read the books or watched the movie, you’d probably be shocked to know that the movie has very little to do with the bondage that it advertises itself to be about, and it more contains a sadly abusive and manipulative relationship between an impossible rich and boring businessman and an impossibly naïve and naked college student. No joke: this film should come with a trigger warning.
1. The Ridiculous 6
Somebody: please put Adam Sandler out of his misery. The Ridiculous Six is just another step in the wrong direction for Adam Sandler, a guy that once had everybody anticipating his next comedy outing. For my generation, there’s no denying that Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, and The Wedding Singer are classics in terms of 90s comedy. The Ridiculous Six is a far reach from those movies, being slapped together by a guy that wears his misery all over his face. Adam: if you don’t want to be in movies any more, then just stop making them. We could do without them.
The film is, I guess, a play off The Magnificent Seven, and we see white-guy-raised-by-Natives Sandler banding together with his half brothers (all from different mothers) to save their dad from a gang of western ruffians. From there, we get childish Native American jokes (one squaw’s name is Never Wears Bra, because get it?), two scenes (TWO!) of a donkey having explosive diarrhea, and the most embarrassing role in Taylor Lautner’s career, and I’ve seen a few Twilight movies. At two excruciating hours, it’s a tough get-through from beginning to end and by the time Vanilla Ice shows up playing Mark Twain, you can’t help but realize that not a single joke in this mess has landed.
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