It's awards season. Critical organizations have already started giving out their annual "best of" accolades (including some to movies that weren't even screened by the organization in question), and your very own Houston Film Critics Society will be presenting their awards on January 4.
But none of that explains why this is -- for me -- the Most Wonderful Time of the Year. The holiday season is also when I present my list of the year's worst flicks. I realize it's a little premature (let's just say calling The Secret Life of Walter Mitty "this year's Forrest Gump" does it no favors in my book), but 11+ months gives us a depressingly healthy sampling.
So without further ado; here are your Worst Movies of 2013.
In one sense, it's comforting that it took me some time to think of ten *bad* movies from 2013. In another, that just meant the vast majority of films I saw were so mediocre they didn't make much of an impression either way.
The key phrase here being "films I saw." I largely get to choose what movies I write up for Reviews for the Easily Distracted, so I avoided some obvious stinkers like RIPD, The Host, Gangster Squad, or The Fifth Estate, to name a few. Unfortunately, it appears I'm also something of a masochist. Hence, the following list.
For your reading pleasure, a snippet from my review (if applicable) is included. Enjoy?
So Kang (don't blame me, I voted for Kodos) is actually an extremist and not an "official" rep of the DPRK. Fine. That still doesn't explain how he's capable of flying an unidentified C-130 half a mile from the White House without getting blown to atoms, or why supposedly well-trained Secret Service agents would stream out of a door en masse so a waiting .50 caliber machine gun could mow them down, or why Academy Award winners Morgan Freeman and Melissa Leo (as the Secretary of Defense) agreed to appear in this in the first place.
9. The Counselor
If the cast hadn't included Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt, and Javier Bardem or the screenplay hadn't been penned by Cormac McCarthy, of No Country For Old Men and The Road fame, this probably wouldn't have been as big a disappointment. At least we have Cameron Diaz doing her best Tawny Kitaen impersonation.
8. Broken City
Broken City is one of those rare movies that tells you straightaway where the story is going and then refuses to deviate in any fashion. At no point during the film was there a shred of doubt in my mind about where things would end up. Admittedly, there were some minor character tweaks that may have raised an eyebrow or two, but this is possibly the least intellectually challenging movie I've seen since That's My Boy.
