Hotel Chevalier

Hotel Chevalier (2007) – A redundant and completely unnecessary prologue to The Darjeeling Limited. 4

The Darjeeling Limited

The Darjeeling Limited (2007) – Yet another high quality pretentious, purposeless angsty drama/unfunny comedy from Wes Anderson about unsympathetically sad people. 4

The Major and the Minor

The Major and the Minor (1942) – It’s silly in kind of a dumb way, given the absurd premise and the flimsy script, but Ginger Rogers carries it off well enough. 5

The Gumball Rally

The Gumball Rally (1976) – Not funny and not the slightest bit interesting. 4

Time Runner

Time Runner (1993) – Thoroughly and boringly poor. 3

The Naked Spur

The Naked Spur (1953) – It’s one of those characters-in-conflict films that tries to be a microcosm of human nature, but it’s hampered by the fact that Jimmy Stewart always gets the girl without regard for how improbable, contrived, or deleterious to the script it might be. 5

Invictus

Invictus (2009) – Just like you’d expect, it’s a feel-good, socially relevant film with a bloated, glitzy, cheese-ridden screenplay; but you’d also expect that Morgan Freeman could do a better accent, and you’d certainly expect that Clint Eastwood would have done a better job putting this film together. 6

The Ghosts of Christmas Eve

The Ghosts of Christmas Eve (1999) – A perfectly good Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert intermingled with unnecessary actors. 7

It’s Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown

It’s Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown (1992) – Outside of exceedingly rare flashes of intelligence, it’s a disjointed hodgepodge of lame gags. 5

Saturday Night Live: The Best of Christopher Walken

Saturday Night Live: The Best of Christopher Walken – Only marginally better than your average SNL material; this one is just “More Cowbell” plus mostly a bunch of dumb, lewd skits. 5

A Charlie Brown Christmas

 

A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) – Funny (both intentionally and inadvertently), with a refreshingly overt Gospel message. 7

Tell No One

Tell No One (2006) – Ridiculously implausible; French Dustin Hoffman does a nice job, though. 5

The Stunt Man

The Stunt Man (1980) – It’s an interesting piece of metafiction, but the story doesn’t always hold up; the music is silly and repetitive; Steve Railsback is no leading man, but O’Toole carries it – he’s intense. 6

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) – Since it doesn’t seem to aspire to be much more than a fun action movie, it’s mostly a success, even though it gets pretty silly at times and has some inexcusably bad special effects. 6

Out of Time

Out of Time (2003) – They don’t come any more clumsy, contrived or predictable than this one; it takes Denzel to generate the least bit of sympathy for the lead character. 4

Queen Christina

Queen Christina (1933) – It diverges substantially from historical record, and it’s hard to imagine too many people mistaking Greta Garbo for a young man; the story’s a tad hackneyed, but it has some snappy dialogue; it’s nice to see a strong, well-rounded female protagonist in such an old film. 6

The Shopworn Angel

The Shopworn Angel (1938) – Not only do Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan make a rather unbelievable couple in this one, there’s no reason we should root for this bumpkin other than that he’s getting shipped out; the specter of death hovers over this entire film, and it’s still trite pro-war propaganda. 5

The Big Lebowski

The Big Lebowski (1998) – It’s imaginative, sure, but it’s mostly about stupid people doing stupid things while weird people do weird things, and it really isn’t that funny; the “clever” dialogue is repetitious and wears thin; the film has an impressive attention to detail, but it’s too prone to wandering and it just fizzles out at the end. 6

Veritas, Prince of Truth

Veritas, Prince of Truth (2007) – So “family friendly” still means “extremely cheesy,” but it does have its occasional moments, and it’s sometimes enjoyably bad; for a movie called “Veritas,” the good guys do a lot of lying; it’s also pro-underage horse racing (and race fixing); does Veritas have autism or Tourette’s or what? and this kid’s Power Ranger mom (who is, incidentally, looking hotter than ever) named him after what, a Klingon? 4

Ozone

Ozone (1995) – A disaster on almost every level; yes, it’s low budget, but that doesn’t excuse most of this trainwreck. 2

Absence of Malice

Absence of Malice (1981) – Of no great interest save perhaps to those with a particular enthusiasm for mass media law. 5

Robin and Marian

Robin and Marian (1976) – It takes a leisurely, thoughtful approach, but it could have used a better story; it looks good and it has a phenomenal cast. 6

The Visitors

The Visitors (1993) – No doubt something is lost in translation, but it’s still fairly entertaining; it’s completely over the top in any language. 6

Waltz with Bashir

Waltz with Bashir (2008) – It wanders back and forth between the poignant and the boring; the style is good but the narrative is often redundant to the visuals; it may actually have worked better as a live-action film. 5

Battle for Terra

Battle for Terra (2007) – The message of peace is spoiled by the film’s tendency to ignore things like pacing, subtlety (the warmongering general looks just like W., for crying out loud), the laws of physics, and common sense in general; it’s protagonized by yet another of the blatantly irresponsible youngsters that infest kids’ movies these days. 4

Dance, Girl, Dance

Dance, Girl, Dance (1940) – On the whole, rather satisfying; odds are you’ve never seen Lucille Ball like this before. 6

If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium

If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (1969) – Entertaining but not funny; oh, but Americans really act like this. 6

Monsters vs Aliens

Monsters vs Aliens (2009) – It’s something of a chore to get through, even for fans of the genres that it doesn’t do a very good job of spoofing. 4

Afro Samurai

Afro Samurai (2007) – The pinnacle of style over substance – it’s got all the old clichés and some really horrendous dialogue, and just about every non-fighting or non-flashback scene is worthless – the fights are great, it has a solid back story, and it’s got stylized bloody action at its best (for what that’s worth); I never thought I’d say this, but The RZA does a good job. 6

Defiance

Defiance (2008) – Explores, albeit inadvertently, the partial inhumanization of a group of people who had already, to a great extent, abandoned their moral teachings; on the whole, though, it doesn’t do much. 5

Knights of the Round Table

Knights of the Round Table (1953) – It cobbles together its own story, it’s a little cheesy and it has a cowboy Lancelot, but it’s colorful and entertaining and it has some fine dialogue. 6

Sword of the Beast

Sword of the Beast (1965) – Too many characters and not enough purpose. 5

The Secret Invasion

The Secret Invasion (1964) – A brave but slow-starting and somewhat unengaging Dirty Dozen progenitor. 6

Fire and Ice

Fire and Ice (1983) – You’d think that with all Bakshi’s focus on adult cartoons, just once he’d come up with a story intelligent enough for adults – this is a generic 80’s barbarian movie set in a land before pants with some bad voice acting and an antagonist too effeminate to take seriously. 3

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009) – It’s frequently dumb, and we really could have done without the freaking Jonas Brothers, but it makes good use of the premise, there are some truly wonderful moments, and Hank Azaria carries the film. 6

The Tingler

The Tingler (1959) – Ham-fisted; preposterous, even for Vincent Price; but what great effects – you can barely see the string! 3

Zotz!

Zotz! (1962) – Poston does a nice job; it’s tolerably silly, but only just. 6

The Court Jester

The Court Jester (1955) – It’s fun, and it’s got some nice choreography; Danny Kaye is very impressive; if only the story had a little better pace. 6