Up-and-coming director Alex Stapleton turned the camera onto the camp master in her film “Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel.”

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It follows Corman’s career – over half a century of cheap-as-dirt indie filmmaking – and the resulting 400-plus films that he created in that time. The film launched earlier this month, and Stapleton called BH recently for an interview about her film, Corman’s influence, and getting Jack Nicholson to cry on camera.

BH: Where does Roger Corman fit into the history of cinema?

Stapleton: I definitely think he’s part of the backbone of cinema. I think, creatively speaking as a filmmaker and director, he kind of helped – along with his compatriots – to birth the kind of blockbuster genre film experiences that we experience today that the studios are making.

I think Roger was definitely one of the pioneers in that movement. When you look at the movie “Avatar,” you look at the director and it’s James Cameron, and James Cameron [worked] under Roger Corman for years and… I think that James Cameron would probably tell you the same thing: that he learned a lot about how to put together a genre story by working for Roger.

I also think that as far as moments in cinema history, Roger has had a huge influence, specifically with the American new Hollywood movement, by finding and mentoring people like Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson, [and] Peter Bogdanovich, starting their careers but also giving them the idea – Peter Fonda, Denis Hopper and Jack Nicholson – giving them the idea to make the movie “Easy Rider,” which is a hybrid movie of Roger’s movies “The Trip” and “Wild Angels.”

“Easy Rider” was one of the… watershed points of movies that kind of changed the game in ’69. So I think Roger’s influence can be seen creatively and also in all the talent that he’s discovered. My movie kind of deals specifically with directors, writers and actors, but Roger also started the career of James Horner, the famous composer. The line of students was way too much to encompass in my film.

BH: Several directors that Corman influenced have gone on to be the big-budget movie-makers that – as Corman said in an interview in the film – he opposed, at least as a younger man. Do you know what his thoughts are on Cameron’s work or Scorsese’s “Hugo”? Because big budget films changed the way he operated and what it was like to see his films.

Stapleton: I think he does not think it’s completely wasteful when you do come up with a movie like “Avatar” where the money is in the effects and you can really trace the money. I think where he has the major problem is when you throw money like that into a romantic comedy where there’s a boy and a girl in a room for 90 minutes, or on the street arguing or talking about their love life, and they are on again/off again throughout the movie, and its like, “There you have it, that’s the end,” and that movie is $90 million. I think that’s when he’s like, “What the hell is going on here?”

BH: Can you talk about his dirt cheap filmmaking style?

Stapleton: I kind of look at his career in two phases. There’s Roger Corman as a director, and then there’s Roger Corman the producer. As a director, I know in one year he made eight movies as a director in one year, which is insane. As a producer when he had the Venice lumber yard he was churning out movies.

The Venice lumber yard was actually a stage, a production facility that he bought, and he had a working stage there and that stage was in operation 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so they would basically build sets … and they would basically have a revolving door with two crews, a daytime crew and a nighttime crew that would come in. The daytime crew would shoot and then they would leave and the nighttime crew would use the same exact set to make a completely different movie.

Then there was a series he did in the 90’s called the Bloodfist movies and that movie was reincarnated so many times (laughing). It was a movie when kickboxing was really big in the 90’s and it was kind of like a spin-off of the Jean-Claude Van Damme films. The first one is like a revenge film set in LA. And then Roger would go, “Let’s change the set and let’s set it in Europe.” It was like the same movie being remade over and over and over again, and I think the last one they did was set in space. And then he would depict the same movie and cast women in it instead of men. So he was definitely pumping out a lot of movies.

BH: It’s interesting that both your documentary “Outside In” and “Corman’s World” focus on underappreciated, independent artists who operate in a non-traditional way. And the Nike “Be True” campaign that you’re working on seems to have that theme as well.

Stapleton: Its interesting. I guess that’s what’s going on in my subconscious mind. I guess I have a tendency to tell the story of the underdog. I’m attracted to those stories. Actually, the title of “Comran’s world,” when I first got started with the movie, was called “The Underdog” because it was before he won the [honorary] Oscar. When I pitched him the idea, I sent him a track by Sly & The Family Stone called “Underdog” and I gave him this whole idea about how I was gonna shoot a trailer set to the song “Underdog.” (laughing) I don’t think he was too happy with that, because I don’t know if he views himself as the underdog.

But yeah I definitely like those stories. I probably feel like an underdog myself sometimes. Because I’m a woman and a black woman. There’s not a lot of black female directors, I guess, so maybe there’s some sort of connection I have to the underdog athlete or movie maker or whatever.

BH: So what are you working on now? I heard you have a Corman-esque picture of your own in the works.

Stapleton: I’m currently juggling two documentary projects. I’m doing a series profiling interesting women as part of the whole YouTube channel thing that has been started.

I have the “Outside In” project I’m working with Roger Gastman – he was the curator with the show art in the streets. We’re doing a television series, a six-part, one-hour series that’s going to trace the history of street art graffiti. So it’s expanded into a bigger project. And the Corman-esque movie is still in development. It is a science fiction intergalactic love story I guess you could call it. It takes place with an alien and an earthling. I’m really excited about that. It will be a quickie movie, but fun, with the old-school spirit of Corman movies from the late ’70s, early ’80s.

BH: Is there anything that you learned from Corman or making “Corman’s World” that you’ll incorporate into that film?

Stapleton: Yeah, I mean a couple of things. I never had a chance to go to film school. Making this documentary was kind of my film school-slash-graduate program all in one. I didn’t know how to do anything when I started, so it was definitely a film school for me from the ground up. Roger was like, “When you get started on your first narrative feature you can’t take five years to make that.” So I’m like, “Thanks, Roger. (laughing)”

BH: You got Jack Nicholson to cry on camera. What was that like?

Stapleton: It was the longest interview. It was the Holy Grail interview from day one, because he doesn’t do them. It took two years from the first letter that went out until I was actually sitting down with him. It lasted for hours. It was the longest interview I conducted, with the exception of Roger and his wife, spending time with them.

So it was amazing, and I think that at the end of the day, I was at the right place at the right time. He had a lot to say about Roger and to Roger, and I just happened to have a camera there and picked it up. It was very intimate. I always keep a very small crew size, so there were only two other people in the room besides myself and Jack, and I think he felt very comfortable. We had spent so many hours together by the end of it that he just got very emotional and worked up. So that’s what happened.

BH: Corman’s movies have always had a sort of B-movie feel, and that’s part of their charm. He obviously recognizes that his films are campy, but it seems to be the goal he’s embraced.

Stapleton: Oh yeah. I mean I think he is very, very aware. The only one really that has no camp at all, being “The Intruder,” if anyone said it was campy I think that would be very offensive to him. But beyond that, he’s not in denial that he puts camp all throughout his movies and has since the very beginning. And he loves it. It’s actually harder than one would think to pull it off in a good way, to pull off comedy and genre and slap it all together in an entertaining less-than-90-minute experience with no money, so (laughing) he’s the master at it.

So, because you all enjoyed that list so much, and because I apparently have a death wish, it’s time for another: The Top 10 Most Overrated Actors/Actresses of All Time.

Unlike last time, I will claim that these are objective facts, not subjective opinions, so that all my critics may have full liberty to attack me (To those same critics who claimed last time that I phrased my opinions in an “objective” manner, this is called being facetious. That means I’m kidding. Also, seriously? That was your criticism?).

Here are my criteria: are they considered great actors/actresses? If not, they can’t make the list (sorry, Rob Schneider). Are they actually great actors? If so, they can’t make the list (sorry, Laurence Olivier). Only those who are considered great actors but are not, in fact, great actors can make this list. Even then, I’m not claiming that these are bad actors unless I explicitly say that I am.

So, here we go. In the words of Han Solo, I’ve got a bad feeling about this …

10. George Clooney: Not a great actor. Not a good actor. Not really an actor. If you’ve ever seen a movie with Clooney where you didn’t say to yourself, “Hey, I’m watching George Clooney” every thirty seconds or so, you haven’t seen a George Clooney movie. You’re mixing him up with Kate Winslet. He’s a D actor. Dull in “Michael Clayton.” Dreary in “Up In The Air.” Dreadful in “Syriana.” Dismal in “Batman and Robin.” He’s not a low-rent Cary Grant. He’s an affordable-housing Robert Wagner.

9. Dustin Hoffman: He turned in some tremendous performances in his early days (most notably “Papillon,” “Kramer vs. Kramer,” and “Tootsie”), then became a caricature of himself. He has not done anything worthwhile since “Tootsie,” in fact. Even in his better performances, he is a bit too mannered for my taste, perhaps an effect of his method acting. Laurence Olivier thought the same thing. When they were working on “Marathon Man” together, Hoffman showed up on set after having not slept for several days in order to get “in character.” Olivier took one look at him and said, “Dear boy, it’s called acting.”

8. Spencer Tracy: He’s immensely likable on screen, but he’s not a great actor by any stretch of the imagination. Light comedy is his forte (watch the original “Father of the Bride” or “Adam’s Rib”), but he’s too stolid in heavy drama like “Bad Day at Black Rock.” He’s always Spencer Tracy, no matter what he’s in. That’s more a characteristic of older actors who were movie stars rather than actors (see John Wayne, Cary Grant, Clark Gable, etc.), but those actors are rarely listed among the best of all time. Tracy routinely is.

7. Katharine Hepburn: Overwrought, overhyped, and overblown. Hepburn is the same in virtually all of her films, save “The Rainmaker,” “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” and “On Golden Pond.” She tends to chew the scenery, and she never inhabits a part; she insists that the part inhabits her. Her films with Tracy are just as formulaic as Hope and Crosby (and no one ever called Hope and Crosby great actors). Many critics loved her because she wasn’t afraid to lose her femininity at the door, but that made her a hard actress to love onscreen.

6. Gregory Peck: Atticus Finch is supposed to have a Southern accent. Joseph Mengele is supposed to have a German accent. And characters are supposed to be different from each other. Philip Green in “Gentleman’s Agreement” is not supposed to be the same character as Joe Bradley in “Roman Holiday” or Captain Ahab in “Moby Dick.” Peck could not play pathos, could not play vulnerability, and could not play real anger. Like Tracy, the best word to describe him would be stolid.

5. Leonardo DiCaprio: He shows flashes of brilliance, then subsumes them in gigantic waves of mannerisms. When he burst onto the scene with “Titanic,” I thought he was going to be one of the great ones – for someone that age to turn in a performance that good in a movie that bad is worth noting. But watch him in “Gangs of New York,” and you find yourself laughing out loud at the notion that this whiny nobody is supposed to be the tough guy. Watch him in “The Man in the Iron Mask,” and he can’t even decide whether to pronounce Athos as “Aaathos” or “Aye-thos.” Watch him in “The Departed” – well, don’t bother to watch him in “The Departed.” Somebody has been whispering in his ear that great acting is about being showy. It isn’t. It’s about being subtle. We can only hope he heeds that warning before he ends up like Dustin Hoffman.

4. Bill Murray: Great in comedy (see “Tootsie” and “Groundhog Day”), laughably awful in everything else. He turned in what may be the single worst performance in the history of film in the remake of “The Razor’s Edge.” It is a wonder that the director of that film did not somehow mix up Murray and a block of wood during the shoot. It is unthinkable that he was nominated for an Academy Award for the most boring movie of all time, “Lost In Translation;” sitting around mumbling does not make for great acting. Here’s the thing about emotion on film; we should actually see it. I understand the idea of allowing things to simmer beneath the surface. But that doesn’t mean your performance style should invariably mirror a Tiki mask.

3. Tom Hanks: Bill Murray with a touch more emotion, Robin Williams with a touch less. Light comedy is fine (“Big”), everything else borders on the maudlin. “Castaway” is unintentionally hilarious (rent it and do bits on it), he’s a hole in the screen in “Saving Private Ryan,” and his performance in “Forrest Gump” is one-note. He’s not a bad actor, but he’s certainly not a great one. He is a great producer, though – for “Band of Brothers” alone, he should be enshrined among the best.

2. Meryl Streep: Undoubtedly I will be hung by my toenails for this pick. She is a marvel technically, but she’s always cold. I can’t think of a single film in which she has reached me emotionally. I always get the feeling while watching her movies that I’m watching a documentary about acting for a master class; I never get the feeling that her characters are real. On this one, I agree with Katharine Hepburn, who couldn’t stand Streep’s acting: “Click, click, click,” she once said, talking about the gears you can see turning inside Streep’s head.

1. Jack Nicholson: He sucks in everything. It’s that simple. Anyone who considers him a great actor ought to get his/her head examined. I understand that he’s a hero to the ‘60s generation because he did drugs and got murdered for psychedelic “freedom” in “Easy Rider.” That doesn’t excuse him for cursing film with his presence for the next forty years. He has no versatility whatsoever. He is always a cynical/menacing fellow with “reserves of depth” (unless he has no “reserves of depth”). He is the worst case of miscasting in movie history in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (McMurphy is supposed to be a huge red-headed Irishman, not a 5’10” counterculture weasel), a glaring problem in a film that is otherwise impeccably cast (Brad Dourif as Billy is one of the great overlooked performances in the annals of film). Nicholson over Peter Fonda in “1997″ is a cosmic injustice. He is boring, predictable, and what’s more, he’s pretentious and annoying. 12 Oscar nominations for this hack testifies to the idiocy of the Baby Boomer generation that made him famous.

In the bonus features of the commemorative DVD release, Warren Beatty says that he made this film to combat America’s “inordinate fear of communism.”  But the majority of screen time dealing with politics involves those who don’t buy into it.  Eugene O’Neil, played cynically by Jack Nicholson, calls Bolshevism the “latest theocracy.”  Maureen Stapleton’s Emma Goldman early on recoils from the Soviet regime’s abuse of civil liberties.  Reed himself attacks the Bolsheviks for censoring his copy and looks on in horror as the Soviet Army marches by.

Beatty must have realized impassioned support of Leninism wouldn’t have played well with ’80s audiences.  Hence he drastically edits Reed’s political speech down to one word:  in answer to a Democrat’s question about what World War I is about, he says “profits.”  When asked by Louise Bryant what Reed’s views on politics are, Beatty avoids the all-night speech by fast-forwarding to morning, where Reed attempts to embrace Bryant.

What must have polled better to audiences was the sex element.  Why else use interviews with the apolitical Henry Miller (who criticized Orwell for even involving himself in Spain since all political efforts were doomed anyway)?  Or why include Rebecca West, whose only included reminiscence about Reed isn’t his commitment to the working class but his lines with women (“Aren’t you pagan enough?).  Beatty even gets his political classification wrong; he forgets when calling the film “the last gasp of the Old Left including me,” that he was born in 1937, when the Stalinist—not Leninist—Left was in high tide and  he came of age during the New Left period.
In fact, the New Left is what the film has been shaped around.  Comrades live in a communal Provincetown cottage and swap lovers.  Glora Steinem-style feminism has been anachronistically inserted when Beatty has Diane Keaton spend most of her screen time griping about no one taking her seriously as a writer.

There has always been controversy about whether Reed intellectually broke with the Bolsheviks before his death.  Beatty supports the break thesis but follows the familiar “dream-is-still-alive” theme of the left by having Reed, in the aftermath of an explosion, chasing the same type of wagon he did when he was in Villa’s Mexico.

Thus, Beatty’s film doesn’t combat an ideology, unless it is one of puritanism.

Best Description of ‘Quantum of Solace’ Yet

IMDB:

Roger Moore, who played James Bond longer than any other actor, has complained that the 007 franchise has suffered a decline in quality in recent years. In an interview with Varsity, the student newspaper at Cambridge University in England, Moore expressed admiration for Daniel Craig’s performance in the last Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, but he compared the movie itself to “a long disjointed commercial.”

A very long disjointed commercial.

NBC TV and Universal Film Struggle

LA Times:

The NBC broadcast network and the Los Angeles based Universal movie studio posted weak numbers for the quarter ended Sept. 30. The film studio underperformed at the box office, resulting in a 7.8% revenue decline compared with the third quarter of 2010.

Tepid ratings at NBC as well as increased spending for new prime-time programming added to the drag on NBCUniversal’s overall results. The broadcast TV division barely turned a profit.

Is the economy to blame? The product? Both?

Sony is looking at a billion-plus dollar loss, but that’s due in large part to sales of televisions, Blu-ray players and other electronic items.

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SCOTTDS’ EPIC LINK-TACULAR

FULL-LENGTH TRAILER FOR ‘AMERICAN REUNION‘

RANKED: TERRENCE MALICK FILMS FROM WORST TO BEST

AN INSIDE LOOK AT THE FILMING OF ‘THE HOBBIT‘

‘WALKING DEAD’ RATINGS DIP (BUT ARE STILL HUGE)

FOX RENEWS ‘THE X FACTOR’ FOR A SECOND SEASON

‘THE GOONIES’ VS. ‘THE MONSTER SQUAD’

NEW LINE PURCHASES ‘CATEGORY SIX,’ SCRIPT FOR “FOUND FOOTAGE” DISASTER FILM

TOM CRUISE TAKES ‘MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE’ TO NEW HEIGHTS

GUILLERMO DEL TORO PREPPING HIS NEXT ANIMATED FILM FOR DREAMWORKS

TERRENCE MALICK WILL SHOOT TWO NEW FILMS IN 2012

THE 10 MOST SHOCKING/CONTROVERSIAL MOVIES OF ALL TIME

J.K. ROWLING ADMITS SHE WAS THINKING OF KILLING OFF RON WEASLEY

A LOOK BACK AT THE FAILED 2000 SCI-FI ANIMATED FILM ‘TITAN A.E.‘

AMAZON VISITS PIXAR

AN ESSAY ON JEAN COCTEAU’S ‘ORPHEUS‘

5 REASONS ‘DARIA’ SHOULD COME BACK INSTEAD OF ‘BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD‘

A LOOK BACK AT THE DEVELOPMENT OF ‘SIX FEET UNDER‘

41 THINGS WE LEARNED FROM THE ‘HALLOWEEN’ COMMENTARY TRACK

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LAST NIGHT’S SCREENING

Over the past few days I’ve watched both the 1997 television miniseries version of “The Shining” and Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 theatrical film. I know this is heresy, but I think the miniseries is superior in every way. Better story, scarier, deeper characterizations, and — are you ready for this? Steven Weber’s performance is better than Jack Nicholson’s.

This isn’t Nicholson’s fault. He’s a brilliant actor who did up to a hundred takes for Kubrick that ran through every possible emotion. Therefore the performance is a creation of the director’s in the editing room, but it’s still an over-the-top performance that constantly takes you out of the film, especially the third act.

Weber, on the other hand, is completely believable, especially in the climactic confrontation scene with his young son where everything that’s come before emotionally culminates in this one scene. It’s a heartbreaking scene and, I think, a performance that deserves more attention.

Kubrick’s film is also somewhat stiff and stagy, especially in the opening scenes. Obviously, it’s beautifully filmed and contains a number of iconic moments, but it’s also distant (a Kubrick trademark) and episodic.

I await your scorn.

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--Please send tips/suggestions/requests/complaints to jnolte@breitbart.com

In William Strauss and Neil Howe’s Generations, the babies born 1925-1942 are classified as members of the “Silent Generation.” These were the kids who grew up during the crises of the Great Depression and World War II, entered young adulthood at the postwar high of the 1950s, and hit middle age during the cultural chaos of the late 1960s and ’70s. This life sequence puts them in Howe and Strauss’ “Adaptive” archetype, a recessive generation less populous in numbers than the ones before (the GI Generation) and after (the Baby Boomers.)

When this generation started making movies they transformed Hollywood. Peter Biskind’s 1998 book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and Rock ‘N Roll Generation Saved Hollywood lays out the popular narrative. The tail of the Silent Generation and the beginning of the Boomers (filmmakers born 1939-1946) put out major dramatic work that challenged the more bland conventions of mid ‘60s Hollywood cinema. The 1970s were the R-rated decade. Francis Ford Coppola made “The Godfather.” Martin Scorsese released “Mean Streets” and “Taxi Driver.” New serious actors like Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty, Jon Voight, and Robert De Niro delivered legendary performances. This was a film generation inspired by the French New Wave to treat movies as serious art.

Oscar Nominated-screenwriter, award-winning mystery novelist, and now Pajamas Media CEO Roger L. Simon was a member of this clique. Born in 1943, Simon is like others born at the edges of generations, a blending of both appears in his re-titled memoir Turning Right at Hollywood and Vine, recently released in paperback with new material.

Part 1 of this series established the unique nature of the Hollywood Left with Ben Shapiro’s Primetime Propaganda. This West Coast socialist colony of wannabe revolutionaries is superficial and anti-intellectual in its politics. It’s this aspect of Hollywood leftism more than any other that destined Simon to one day escape.

Simon was a serious leftist and Turning Right establishes his credentials. The Civil Rights Movement was his first taste of activism. His second chapter describes a misadventure in 1966 when en route to integrate a segregated bathhouse in Myrtle Beach he encountered a racist Southern cop and severed his finger while changing a tire. Turning Right is filled with these narratives of the strange situations Simon’s leftist politics took him. One chapter recounts his journey through Red China, another his trip to the Soviet Union, another to Cuba. In one chapter Simon describes the KGB’s attempts to recruit him via a crime writers’ association front group. (Simon was the creator of the Moses Wine series of mystery novels, a hippie detective conceived long before the Coens dreamed of The Dude.)

This is a far deeper political experience than Simon’s Hollywood peers and in the hands of an award-winning novelist it makes for an infectious page-turner.

Simon did not have a Road-to-Damascus moment that pushed him to the Right. It was a slow surrender over the course of decades. He notes that by 1987 he was no longer a Marxist but still a man of the Left. During the 1990s the O.J. Simpson trial’s racial politics were another nudge. However, it was not until 9/11 that the Left’s disgraceful reaction pushed Simon to the edge and eventually overboard.

But did he emerge as a conservative?

I have often said that I’m uncomfortable being called a conservative—it’s so square—but these days I almost always find myself getting along more with conservatives on political issues—except for social ones, as you can tell.

On religion Simon identifies as an agnostic. His conservatism takes a similar open-minded, anti-ideological path:

What I am left with is a collection of ideas with which I have dabbled throughout my life, never fully discarding any of them, even though some are completely contradictory of others. I regard Marxism, Freudianism, libertarianism, laissez-faire capitalism, Zen Buddhism, Quaker pacifism, neoconservatism, neoliberalism, that whole galaxy of isms, as arrows in a quiver to be drawn at will, depending on the adversary or the necessities of the situation. That may sound dangerously close to yet another ism—cultural relativism—but I assure you it is not. I do think there is almost always a good and evil, a right and wrong—although often you have to look closely—and the relativist view of the world is at best lazy and at worst a stalking horse for fascism. Those arrows in my quiver are no more than an arsenal for helping me find that elusive truth. And perhaps for taking action. Sometimes one is not enough. Sometimes I don’t need or want any of them.

Such is the endowment that the Silent Generation of Hollywood Apostates: skepticism toward easy ideology and a celebration of serious thinking across the disciplines.

This is a different message than that of a solid Baby Boomer like the 1957-born David Mamet. In Part 3 of the Hollywood Revolt we’ll consider the lessons of Mamet’s exciting essay collection The Secret Knowledge.

Check out the new Chris Weitz-directed “A Better Life,” based on a screenplay written by Simon 20 years ago.

Mind you, they’re still charismatic and entertaining to watch, but in an almost clownish way. We now go to see them not to be wowed by their acting, but to be entertained by their chewing the scenery and hamming it up. Whereas in the past they lost themselves in a part, now their well-known, theatrically overblown personalities overwhelm everything else on screen.

Who are the worst offenders? My own Top 5 list was compiled with two ground rules: each candidate had to be alive (so James Dean and Marlon Brando each get a reprieve), and they have to have won at least one Academy Award for acting (which spares modern, less-laurelled hams such as Robert Downey Jr., Johnny Depp, Woody Allen, Jeff Goldblum and Mel Gibson.) Again, the following actors are not necessarily unpleasant to watch — raw charisma goes a long way — but they have become predictably one-note parodies of themselves.

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5. Tie: Christopher Walken/Robert De Niro

Best Supporting Actor: The Deer Hunter (1979 — Walken), The Godfather, Part II (1974 — De Niro)

Best Actor: Raging Bull (1981 — De Niro)

Insufferable Affectations: unblinking eyes (i.e., The Innsmouth Look), mouth hanging agape and licking lips like a parched salamander, creepy monotone dialogue delivery (Walken); incessant squinting, head cocking, aimless glancing around between lines (De Niro).

When every comedian is doing impressions of you and when Saturday Night Live builds entire skits out of mocking your instantly recognizable mannerisms and vocal intonations, you’ve perhaps become a bit too ossified in your acting range and delivery.

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4. Philip Seymour Hoffman

Best Actor: Capote (2005)

Insufferable Affectations: eternally constipated facial smile/grimace, slothful dialogue delivery, labored mouth-breathing.

Easily my least-favorite actor of the modern age, a sort of monstrous antithesis of everything that once made Hollywood classy, glamorous, and great. Whether mouth-kissing Mark Wahlberg in Boogie Nights (1997), rutting naked with poor Marisa Tomei in Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007), or channeling stomach-churning depression and illness in the incomprehensible and excruciatingly pretentious Synecdoche, New York (2008), he always seems to be hammering us in the solar plexus with premeditated attempts at disgust, ennui, and despair, levied against us for our own good in the name of Art. His winning an Oscar for Capote seemed a fitting capstone to arguably the single worst-ever year for the Academy Awards.

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3. Jack Nicholson

Best Actor: As Good As It Gets (1997), One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1976)

Best Supporting Actor: Terms of Endearment (1984)

Insufferable Affectations: Cheshire cat crap-eating grin, arched eyebrows, overblown temper tantrums.

When a young Christian Slater effortlessly channels you in a movie like Heathers, you know the shtick is worn out. And that was way back in 1989. Like most hams, his later career has been a steady stream of mostly forgettable movies, with few coming close to the fine pictures of his early days.

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2. Al Pacino

Best Actor: Scent of a Woman (1992)

Insufferable Affectations: flamboyant yelling, whiskey-soaked drawl, throwing arms and hands wide open when making points in ego-driven monologues.

I still remember the promo trailer in the theater for Carlito’s Way, where the studio started with a greatest-actor-of-all-time type audio medley of Pacino’s past performances. “Aaaaaaaaticaaaa! Aaaaaaaaaaaticaaaaa! . . . .I’d take a flaaaaaaaamethrower to this plaaaaace!” et cetera. What happened to the actor who made Michael Corleone such a measured, quiet, emotionally believable person in the first two Godfathers?

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1. Meryl Streep

Best Actress: Kramer vs. Kramer (1980), Sophie’s Choice (1983)

Insufferable Affectations: ostentatious accents, reading every line as I-M-P-O-R-T-A-N-T.

There isn’t a more soullessly mannered and technique-driven actor working today. Every syllable, every movement is so calculated and consciously performed and projected that it feels more like an impression of the character than the character itself. Far from losing herself in a role, she always glows as bright as possible, ever shooting for that next acting accolade. I can’t think of a single movie where her presence seems calibrated to the story, where she’s an organic part of the movie’s tapestry. Like a diva on stage or a star basketball player hogging the ball, she always demands the spotlight. As a result, she has many individual awards but few if any enduring and beloved classics to her name.

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The following movies, each containing not one but two Top 5 hams in them, should be packaged in DVD cases made out of rye bread:

Doubt (2008 — Streep and Hoffman), Angels in America (2003 — Streep and Pacino), Ironweed (1987 — Streep and Nicholson), Heartburn (1986 — Streep and Nicholson), Heat (1995 — Pacino and De Niro), The Godfather Part II (1974 — Pacino and De Niro, mitigated by the fact that they don’t appear together on screen and both are still in their pre-ham prime), Righteous Kill (2008 — Pacino and De Niro), Scent of a Woman (1992 — Pacino and Hoffman), Gigli (2003 — Pacino and Walken).

And there’s one movie sporting the unholy intersection of an astonishing three members from this list, which must make it the cataclysmic thermonuclear ham movie of all time: The Deer Hunter (Streep, De Niro, Walken).

Since coming up with this countdown idea, this particular question has consumed my days and nights to the point that what was going to be a Top 31 list is now a Top 25. But then a revelation struck: Who cares? And for the record, that happens to be my favorite revelation.

So what we have here is nothing more than a daily countdown – one film at a time (with a few cheats) – of my favorite scary movies to watch during the season of Halloween. As good as they are, as suspenseful as they are, films such as “Jaws” and serial killer procedurals just don’t qualify. In my mind there’s a certain kind of horror perfect for this time of year when the wind’s cold, the leaves turn brown, and the sky is overcast. Yes, I live in L.A. where the season only change from rush hour to not, but in my own mind I’m twelve years old, living in the Midwest, and my parents have let me stay up way past my bedtime because “Shock Theatre” is on…

#25: The Blair Witch Project (1999)

The concept is genius. We’re watching the found footage of three college students who went into the Maryland woods to investigate an urban legend and never came back. From the start, the premise tells us something awful has happened, which immediately puts a knot in your stomach that only increases as the tightly wound 81 minutes unspool. Most impressive, however, is how well the final moments pay off. Even though the legend’s been fully explained, the ultimate fate of our three protagonists is still a shocker that keeps you frozen in place through most of the closing credits.

Made for $60,000, this phenom went on to gross over $140 million, and that record success had nothing to do with the then unique Internet hype at the time.  We go to the movies – especially horror movies – to experience something and “Blair Witch” is quite the experience – a stripped down, brilliantly edited chiller so intense that at times you’re tempted to shut it off and take a break.

The best test of a horror film is how well the scares hold up on repeat viewings and every few years or so “Blair” remains just as unsettling as ever. The movie’s so good in fact that I’ve forgiven it for the travesty that was the sequel and for whatever part it played in starting the truly evil trend of the shaky-cam. Shot using video and 16MM black and white, the wobbly, poorly framed cinematography actually adds considerably to the experience, as does the amateur acting.

Another test of a horror movie’s effectiveness is whether or not the scares stay with you long after the lights come up. Back when we lived in North Carolina, almost daily the wife and I took a three-mile walk in the woods after work. Not so long after seeing “Blair” for the first time, we were a mile from the car when night hit.

Trust me, the scares lingered. 

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What Didn’t Make the Countdown:  The Shining (1980)

There’s a lot to admire in Stanley Kubrick’s loose adaptation of Stephen King’s absolutely terrific novel of the same name. The story of an alcoholic writer (Jack Nicholson) who eventually loses what’s left of his marbles at a secluded, snowed-in Colorado hotel and then decides to chop his son and wife into pieces has a number of memorable scenes and even a few very real scares. Overall, however, the movie’s a bit of a slog. Granted, a beautifully shot and at times hypnotic slog, but after you’re familiar with the story beats, the only reason for a repeat viewing is to admire the cinematography and the many iconic moments.

In my opinion, the biggest mistake Kubrick made was introducing Nicholson’s character as creepy and off-balance even before the family arrives at the hotel. The heart of King’s story was watching a flawed man, who wanted to use this last-chance caretaker job as a way to better himself, slowly descend into madness. For this reason and a few others, the 1997 television version of “The Shining” starring Steven Weber and Rebecca De Mornay is far more satisfying.

Castro undoubtedly knew plenty about Mss’ Campbell and Moss–but probably not from reading Vogue, Elle or Cosmo.  

“My job was to bug their hotel rooms,” disclosed high-ranking Cuban intelligence defector Delfin Fernandez, “with both cameras and listening devices.

“When word came down that models Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss were coming to Cuba the order was a routine one: 24-hour-a-day vigilance. Then we got a PRIORITY alert, recalls Fernandez, “because there was a rumor that they would be sharing a room with Leonardo DiCaprio. The rumor set off a flurry of activity and we set up the most sophisticated devices we had.” 

“Delfin Fernandez has not only met some of the most famous men in the world,” says a story in the London Daily Mirror about the Cuban intelligence defector, “he’s also spied on them and been witness to some of their most innermost secrets.”

“Fidel Castro is a source of inspiration for me!” gushed Campbell while concluding her “press conference.”It is a great pleasure to be in Cuba. I’ve really enjoyed myself, and I plan to come back!” 

“Fidel Castro is a genius!” said Jack Nicholson after a visit with El Lider Maximo that same year. “We spoke about everything,” the actor rhapsodized. “Castro is a humanist. Cuba is simply a paradise!” 

“The American actor Jack Nicholson was another celebrity who was bugged and taped thoroughly during his stay in Havana’s Hotel Meliá Cohiba,” revealed Fernandez, the man in charge of the bugging. “We bugged his room thoroughly. Most people have no idea they are being watched while they are in Cuba. But their personal activities are filmed under orders from Castro himself.” 

Interestingly (and tragically) The ECPAT Network – (End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism) in a study titled Child Prostitution and Sex Tourism in Cuba,” reports that:  ”In Cuba, the link between tourism and prostitution is perhaps more direct than in any other country that hosts sex tourists.”  Such is the desperation of the brutalized and impoverished residents of a nation that prior to the glorious Castro/Che revolution enjoyed a higher per capita income than Japan and half the nations of Europe and who welcomed more immigrants (primarily from Europe) per-capita than the U.S. Prior to the glorious Communist liberation people were as desperate to enter Cuba as they are now to escape. 

“Famous Americans are the priority objectives of Castro’s intelligence,” reports Fernandez. “When the celebrity visitors arrived at the Hotels Nacional, Meliá Habana and Meliá Cohiba, we already had their rooms completely bugged with sophisticated taping equipment. But not just the rooms, we’d also follow the visitors around, sometimes we covered them 24 hours a day. They had no idea we were tailing them.” 

“Socialism works. I think Cuba might prove that” (Chevy Chase). 

“Castro is very selfless and moral, one of the world’s wisest men” (Oliver Stone). 

“If you believe in freedom, if you believe in justice, if you believe in democracy, you have no choice but to support Fidel Castro!” (Harry Belafonte). 

“It was an experience of a lifetime to sit only a few feet away from him (Castro)” Kevin Costner. 

“The eight most important hours of my life,” (Stephen Spielberg describing his dinner with Castro, as reported in the Wall Street Journal.) 

Famous Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar was a special target for this bugging but nothing of value came of it for Castro. “Everybody already knows I’m a maricon!” Almodovar laughed at Castro’s blackmailers. “So go right ahead! Knock yourselves out!” 

“Fidel Castro is a special connoisseur of these tapings and videos,” says Fernandez, “especially of the really famous.” And not even his closest “friends” are safe from this bugging. The best example is his longtime Castro “friend” Nobel Prize novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez. In what appeared as a touching act of generosity and friendship, Castro gave his friend “Gabo” his very own (stolen) mansion in Havana. 

“We had remodeled it right before,” recalls Fernandez, “and we installed more cables for bugging devices than for the normal electrical appliances. We taped everything. Fidel doesn’t trust anyone.” 

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Castro’s top intelligence people would gather for the screenings of these tapes almost like Hollywood types for an upcoming movie, reports Fernandez. “Hummmm, these scenes are more scandalous than anything in any of her movies!” Fernandez recalls a top intelligence officer chortling while watching the nighttime cavortings of a famous Spanish actress. “Now, it really seems to me, compañeros,” the Castro intimate snickered as he looked around the room, “that this señorita should be making more respectful comments about our regime, right?” 

Turns out, however, that at least one visiting dignitary foiled Castro’s intelligence. On his visit to Cuba in 1998, Pope John Paul’s assistants discovered and removed several bugging devices from his Holiness’ hotel room. Perhaps Castro had a grudge against the Papacy?

Most don’t recall, but on January 3rd, 1962, Pope John XXIII ex-communicated Fidel Castro from the Catholic Church. 

An estimated 65,000 Castroite Cubans infest Venezuela. Essentially they run that nation’s entire Ministry of the Interior (secret police/intelligence, etc.) along with many top military commands along with Chavez’ entire retinue of bodyguards (Hugo trusts Castro’s “specialists” more than he trusts his own countrymen for such a vital function.) So overbearing has become the Castroite occupation of Venezuela that Chavez’ longtime crony, Ramón Carrizalez, who served as Venezuelan Vice president and Minister of Defense, resigned in protest two weeks ago.   

Just last year, by the way, GQ magazine commissioned their new ace reporter, Naomi Campbell, to interview Hugo Chavez, probably Fidel Castro’s closest foreign “friend” nowadays. According to some sources the interview escalated to matters not purely professional.

Makes you wonder what film screenings Fidel and his Stalinist cronies might be chortling and snickering over lately.

The idea for this series originated with the fine film blogger Self-Styled Siren and the New York Post’s Lou Lumenick. Self-Styled Siren explains how it came about here.

Marlene Dietrich, The Scarlett Empress, 1934.

First up, Josef von Sternberg’s—real name Jonas Sternberg—The Scarlett Empress, 1934, starring Marlene Dietrich as Catherine The Great. Catherine was born to an obscure noblemen of the tiny and dirt poor realm of Anhalt-Zerbst. She was brilliant, precocious and, ah, not too attractive.

Hollywood being Hollywood—thank heavens—rewrites and recasts history in a big way. Marlene Dietrich first appears as an innocent young girl, all blond ringlets—very Shirley Temple. It’s great seeing Dietrich do a virgin: she pouts and poses, melding innocence and nymphomania.

When asked what she would like to be when she grows up, Dietrich sighs: “I want to be a toe dancer.” The real Catherine at age fourteen announced: “I want to be a philosopher.” And she wrote a long treatise to back up her ambitions.

The Scarlett Empress is a deliriously romantic view of Tsarist Russia. It’s von Sternberg letting loose with unbridled glamor mixed with string doses of sado-masochism. Scenes of Tsarist torture verge on soft-core porn, naked women being whipped, and Dietrich wielding a whip with vicious joy. It’s exotic escapist fare for Depression-era audiences that holds up beautifully in post-modern times. If you think Avatar is dazzling—I vote for migraine inducing—take a look at The Scarlett Empress. The Gothic sets are jaw dropping, with heavy, twenty foot doorways that can only be opened by a dozen people.

This is Hollywood myth making at its best, or worst. Catherine the Great becomes the tale of an innocent who is forced to marry a troll—Sam Jaffe as Peter, eyes bulging like a gargoyle. Finding herself at war with a wicked and corrupt court, she uses sex and brains to triumph over evil.

In short, Hollywood burnishes Tsarist Russia into a romantic fairy tale. There are no starving peasants. Stud Cossacks parade in fabulous uniforms, never committing anti-Jewish pogroms. It’s an insular royal world that Hollywood views with deep sympathy.

The Scarlett Empress is also about fur. Never in any movie have I seen so many fur capes, fur coats, fur hats, fur blankets, and fur gloves. The costumes by the uncredited Travis Banton are brilliant. Banton, unlike say Adrian, was not that interested in silhouette. Banton emphasized shape and texture, creating complex layers of surface detail.

Here’s my suggestion: Grab your local PETA member, sit them down and screen The Scarlett Empress.

Watch the madness unfold.

John Barrymore and his brother Lionel Barrymore square off in Rasputin and the Empress, 1934.

Speaking of madness, the next film Rasputin and the Empress, 1934, focuses once again on monarchist Russia, this time with Rasputin the mad monk at the center of court intrigue.

Rasputin, a Russian mystic and healer, strongly influenced the latter days of the Russian Tsar Nicholas II, his wife the Tsaritsa Alexandra, and their only son the Tsarevich Alexei, who suffered from haemophilia.

As with The Scarlett Empress, the Russian monarchy is viewed with affection and sympathy. John Barrymore plays Prince Paul Chegodieff, who sounds suspiciously like an American Jeffersonian. Ethel Barrymore plays the Tsarina with admirable restraint. Worried sick over her beloved son’s frail condition, she allows Rasputin, Lionel Barrymore—this is the only film in which all three Barrymore’s appeared together—to “heal” Czarevitch Alexis ‘Aloysha’, the young prince. Rasputin, as envisioned by screenwriter Charles MaCarthur, is a sort of new age guru who uses hypnotism and solemn religious pronouncements to weasel his way into the royal court.

It’s fun watching Lionel Barrymore tug at his long beard and yup, once again we get the bulging eyeballs.

Naturally, the Tsar is a sweetheart. He might be weak and indecisive, but says the film, he means well. In fact, right before he’s murdered by the Bolsheviks, Nicholas urges that the Duma adopt his ideas for Democratic reform. There is no sense that Nicholas was a vicious anti-Semite who sanctioned murderous pogroms. He was also something of a momma’s boy and by all accounts not too bright.

Rasputin and the Empress does not dazzle like The Scarlett Empress—though Lionel and John chew the scenery like mad—but thematically the two films are blood brothers, which only goes to show that Hollywood myth making is unusually regimented.

We skip ahead to 1949. The Red Danube is the story of a Russian ballerina, Janet Leigh, who is being forced to repatriate from Vienna to Russia. Walter Pidgeon is the British officer assigned to cooperate with the Russian Communists in the repatriation process. Peter Lawford, Pidgeon’s military aide, falls in love with Leigh and, of course, is caught between duty and love.

This is a deeply flawed, but fascinating movie. The narrative does not shy away from the genuine horror of those who know that they face torture and murder when they return to Stalin’s Russia. And yet there are dopey scenes—mostly involving the lovely Angela Landsbury—that are designed to change the tone of the movie as if to say: Look, people might be committing suicide rather than return to Communist Russia, but hey, lighten up.

The Red Danube emphasizes the fact that the Russian Communists were a bunch of totalitarian thugs and murderers. Notable is the emphasis on religion. Ethel Barrymore plays Mother Auxilia, a Mother Superior who is the relentless conscience of the film. It’s a refreshing take on post World War II Cold War political intrigue and in spite of the film’s whiplash tone, I found myself deeply moved by the tragic romance at the heart of The Red Danube.

Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton and Warren Beatty, stylish in Reds, 1981.

The Shadows of Russia series bounces to Reds, 1981. Over three hours long, Reds was the last American movie with an intermission.

I DVR’d this epic and I’m here to confess that I took several unofficial intermissions.

Look, I don’t expect Hollywood movies to be faithful to history. That’s not what we do. But gee, somewhere along the way there should be some perspective.

David Lean already used the Russian revolution as the canvas for an epic romance. But Lean’s Dr. Zhivago was anti-Communist, as was the novel, a powerful indictment of Communist rule.

Warren Beatty takes Socialists, Communists, Feminists, the, um, lovable, lyrical left, stirs them into one huge pot and comes out with a triumphant Bolshevism. Okay, they’re not as Beatty’s idealistic John Reed envisions, but as he patiently explains to anarchist-kvetch Emma Goldman, Maureen Stapleton: “This is just the beginning.”

Reds is an old-fashioned romance. Beatty plays John  Reed, a Harvard educated radical who has an affair and finally marries Louise Bryant, Diane Keaton, a bohemian-feminist-leftist artist.

At the core, Reds is about an attractive two-career, bi-coastal couple and their desperate attempts to make their relationship work.

Reed hangs with anarchist-scold Emma Goldman, organizes and orates for the Industrial Workers of the World, while Bryant jealously tags along all the while complaining that nobody takes her work seriously.

It’s all a very 1980’s zeitgeist.

Uncredited work on the script was done by veterans Robert Towne and Elaine May.

May’s lighter touch is most evident in the scenes where Beatty and Keaton play political versions of Tracy-Hepburn comedies: the ambitious female coupled with the sympathetic but unconsciously paternalistic male.

The first half of the film concerns Reed and Bryant as they try to work out personal and professional rules. Keaton is at turns shrill, ditzy and sexually opportunistic. Keaton’s scenes with Jack Nicholson’s cynical playwrite Eugene O’Neill are particularly sharp as Nicholson expresses contempt for middle class radicals. It’s a nice touch and one can’t help but admire Beatty’s, um, dialectical self-criticism.

But in the second half of the film, as Reed is stuck in Russia and Bryant treks across the vast snow-covered tundra to reunite with him, the narrative loses focus. We get snooze-inducing scenes that involve the Soviet Comintern and the split between the Communist Labor Party and the Communist Party.

Reds is in love with the flawed nobility of Reed, Bryant and Goldman. Naturally, Beatty never alludes to the murderous Bolshevik purges of Mensheviks and politically suspect peasants. And—here we go again—absent is the malignant Jew-hatred and pogroms that have always been at the service of international Communism. In the one big scene where Reed angrily confronts his Soviet masters the motivating force is a political officer who rewrites one of Reed’s dispatches.

Talk about Commie chutzpah.

Reds is lovely to behold, the muted tones and artfully layered schmattes are all very Ralph Lauren. In fact, as I was watching the film my wife would, occasionally look up from her work—she’s a real person with a real job, a psychologist, in contrast to yours truly, a Hollywood screenwriter—and deliver her cinematic analysis: “Stupid movie—but love Keaton’s hats.”

Ultimately, the message of Reds is: forget Stalin’s murder of 50 million people. Forget the government created famines. Forget the gulags. Forget the almost unfathomable misery unleashed by Communism.

They meant well.

© Robert J. Avrech

This countdown of movies – all but one of which was nominated for at least a couple of Oscars – is not a list of the worst movies of the last decade.  Instead, it counts down ten notable cinematic critical darlings that simply do not hold up over time.  They are not necessarily awful films – though some are transcendentally terrible – and many have good performances, memorable scenes or even a classic character or two.  But overall, the effect of watching them again today is similar to what you might experience at your high school reunion when you see how that sexy cheerleader you once dated is now a bloated wildebeest with a tat on her meaty hock reading “Hope and Change.”  You just shake your head, asking yourself, “Man, what was I thinking?”

10.  The Departed (2006):  This Martin Scorsese film is not terrible.  It’s just not as great as everyone – including the Academy, which named it “Best Picture” and Scorsese “Best Director” – wants to believe.  You get the distinct impression that after overlooking Scorsese for real masterpieces like Goodfellas and Taxi Driver, the Academy and the critics made an unspoken pact to see that he finally got recognized for something.  Sadly, there’s no disputing that The Departed is at the tail end of the Scorsese pantheon.  Its tangled, implausible plot relies completely on characters making consistently poor decisions and being blind to the obvious. Leonardo DiCaprio is too pretty and too whiny as the twitchy protagonist.  Jack Nicholson competently chews the scenery but just seems bored with the whole thing.  Matt Damon, who is from Boston, is unconvincing as someone from Boston.  While Scorsese’s use of a Drop Kick Murphy’s tune deserves props, The Departed is waaaaaaaaay too long, and the “romantic” scenes between DiCaprio and Vera Farmiga bring the action to a flying stop.  Rent Casino instead.

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9.  Little Miss Sunshine (2006):  Yuck.  It was hardly the original, groundbreaking comedy that it was made out to be – and hardly a rightful Best Picture nominee.  It’s really just an intermittently amusing road movie – very intermittently.  We’ve seen a million versions of Alan Arkin’s potty-mouthed grandpa.  Whoa, an old guy who swears and engages in debauchery – mind-blowing!  Particularly annoying is the character played by Greg Kinnear, the father who is so stupid he actually believes in the American Dream.  That drew plenty of guffaws from the hipsters, as did the up-tight, repressed know-nothing characters during the climax who were actually dismayed at the sight of a six-year old doing a modified striptease to “Super Freak.”  Yeah, take that fathers who care about their families and people who disapprove of kids acting like little tramps.   Unpleasant, smug, and unfunny – these are hardly the qualities of a great comedy.

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8.  In the Bedroom (2001):  In the Bedroom is a ponderous, slooooooow, glacially paced talkfest that somehow earned five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.  It was hailed as uniquely moving, and that was true.  In fact, about half-way through it, I moved directly to the exit.  I admit that it was probably immature of me to yell to the remaining audience members that, “This sucks – I’m outta here!”  On the other hand, perhaps it makes me a fearless truth teller who refuses to allow society’s conventions to silence his patriotic dissent.  You be the judge – but whatever you do, don’t squander irreplaceable hours of your life on this train wreck.

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7.  Children of Men (2006):  No one can argue that this confused, depressing sci-fi flick about a dystopian future without children is not a technical marvel.  It is, as its Academy Award nominations recognized.  But it is also an intellectually bankrupt, confused mish-mash of hazy leftist tropes, green preachiness and hackneyed Hollywood clichés.  Apparently people stopped being able to breed because of capitalism or something – who knows?  And while you might think this would be the ultimate fantasy for the climate change scammers and other Earth First/Humans Last types, consistency is hardly Children of Men’s strong suit.  All people are bad, except the illegal immigrants flooding England, who are good.  And so are the terrorists, sometimes, but no one else is.  Here’s my advice:  If you have to watch the stupid thing, do it with the sound off and speed through the talky parts to get to the action set pieces.  You’ll thank me.

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6.  Mystic River (2003):   Mystic River is painfully slow and it’s so calculatedly actor-y, with hammy portrayals by Sean Penn and Tim Robbins, that you feel like Jon Lovitz’s Master Thespian should show up to yell “Acting!”  You half expect Sean and Tim to break the forth wall to announce “And scene!”  Look, their politics are terrible, but their commie preoccupations are nothing compared to these awful performances.  Overwrought acting and the grim, melodramatic story together made for one of the decade’s least pleasant film-going experiences.  See it with someone you dislike.

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5.  No Country for Old Men (2007):  Yeah, I know most everyone loves it and that it won Best Picture.  Yeah, I know Cormac McCarthy, who wrote the novel, is supposed to be America’s greatest literary treasure.  Well, I hated the book and the movie and wish I could get back the hours I wasted on them. The plot makes little sense, and it’s propelled forward only by having Josh Brolin’s character do the absolute stupidest thing at each decision point.  Brolin and Tommy Lee Jones both portray rural characters not as real human beings but as some sort of weird Hollywood image of what normal people are like.  Javier Bardem as the killer is initially interesting, but he suffers from Chronic Indestructibility Syndrome – the fact that he can’t be stopped kept me from caring that he wasn’t.  There are also gaping holes in the story where important events happen, but we don’t see them – just like in the book.  I suppose that it’s some sort of hip literary statement to tell a story by not telling it.  I guess I’m just one of those bourgeoisie knuckledraggers who demands his stories be coherent, interesting and actually told.

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4.  Superbad (2007):  This tiresome teen comedy got no Oscar nods, but it did earn an 87% fresh rating on Rottentomatoes.com.  I don’t know why.  Other than the amusing McLovin character, this was a pale imitation of truly subversive teen films like Fast Times at Ridgemont High, yet it was hailed as some sort of cutting edge, revolutionary experiment in pushing boundaries.  And it did – of good taste, but without the laughs to justify the crassness.  Ridgemont dared to show its emotionally stunted, direction-less heroine seek out an abortion because she had no parental or social influences that provided her other options.  It made a powerful comment on the spiritual emptiness of a whole generation of affluent kids.  In contrast, the timid Superbad focuses on its lame protagonists’ efforts to buy-up beer and makes tampon jokes.  Edgy.  Superbad shows that if you expect nothing from your movies, you will get it.

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3.  Crash (2004):  I have to admit that I did not see this Best Picture winner.  When I first saw the trailer, the needle on my Liberal Sanctimony Detector went into the red.  No thanks.  So, allow me instead to quote a long-time friend’s assessment.  Crash is “an abomination.”  It belongs not on a list of the Top Ten Overrated Films of the Last Decade but “on the list of the Ten Worst Movies of All Time.”  Note that my friend is a proud liberal, so perhaps this provides some hope that those of us on both sides of our polarized American polity can come together once again on common ground, united in a shared contempt for Crash.

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2.  Pan’s Labyrinth (2006):  A bloody fairy tale set during the Spanish Civil War – how can that go wrong?  Where does one start on why this over-praised disaster is so lousy?  Well, there’s the child-like innocence of the communist guerrillas who are the heroes of the piece.   As anyone who knows anything about the Spanish Civil War knows, the reds spent a lot less time bravely trying to save little girls than butchering one another for insufficient political reliability.  How about the story?  Well, I still have no clue what it was about.  There’s a little girl, a mean fascist, some monsters, and then most everyone dies.  Like so many others of these over-praised films, Pan’s Labyrinth is boring, confused and generally unpleasant, and I wish there was a way to unsee it.

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1.  Lost In Translation (2003):  Sometimes you walk out of a movie and you know that it has, at some level, changed you.  Well, my life was measurably changed for the worse because I saw this film.  Watching it caused me physical, psychic and spiritual pain.  You haven’t been bored until you’ve been Lost In Translation bored.  Still, there are three good things about Lost in Translation.  First, Bill Murray is funny in one, or maybe two scenes.  Second, they use the awesome song “Just Like Honey” by the Jesus and Mary Chain on the soundtrack.  Third, it eventually ends.  Lost in Translation is just a terrible movie – dull, pretentious, and morally bankrupt.  Scarlett Johansson, whose ambition is apparently to prove that Winona Ryder is not the worst actress in human history, plays an immature, narcissistic, spoiled brat who whines her way through a trip to Japan.  Naturally, she is our heroine.  The problem is that the movie seems to think ScarJo’s character is awesome, and that the real problem is people keeping their commitments, fulfilling their responsibilities and forgoing transitory gratification.  Yeah, they sure called our society’s big problem – too many people not acting like selfish twits. 

Perhaps you have fond memories of one or more of these films.  Perhaps you recall enjoying, even loving the experience of seeing it back when it first came out.  Well, don’t take my word for it.  Put it on your Netflix queue.  Pop it into the DVD player.  But just remember – you were warned.