FOOTE PRINTS
No Oscar for these bombs:
Foote’s worst films of 2011
By John Foote/The Scugog Standard

Let me begin by saying that I know the Twilight fans out there will be angry with me for including that latest mess of a vampire love story on my list of the 10 worst films of the past year. I don’t care.
_The latest film in the series, Breaking Dawn - Part One, was directed by Oscar winner Bill Condon so I expected something at least entertaining. Nope. Got nothing. Does anyone really care about Bella and Edward?
_I hope Twilight fans recognize that there are two super hero films on the list as well. This should help to soothe the blow to their fragile admiration of the series, which is based on Stephanie Meyers’ incredibly successful books. Yes, it got young people reading again, but they haven’t made the best films in movie theatres.
_What angers me most about a bad movie is that Hollywood doesn’t care! It picks your pocket for $12 and laughs all the way to the bank. Sure if there’s a great deal of money invested it hurts, but it will make up for the loss in foreign sales, merchandising or DVD sales. At the end of the day, it breaks even, but you are out 12 bucks and the two hours you wasted watching the film. That’s what burns me.
_I don’t pay to see movies, but I will never get back the time they have taken from me - and bad movies have taken a good chunk of my life. Millions upon millions are spent making these bad films, while gifted young artists struggle to patch together a film paid for with mom’s and dad’s credit cards, shot on digital video and edited in the garage.
_Why not throw some of those millions to the up-and-comers and give them a chance, rather than put us through yet another year like this past one?
_Seriously, 2011 will go down in the annals of film history as a year lacking in great movies and sadly abundant - hell, overflowing with - rotten films. Here they are, the 10 worst, and we are scraping the bottom of the barrel. These are films that have no right to be as bad as they are because a great deal of money went into their making.

1. THE GREEN LANTERN. Based on a Marvel comic with Ryan Reynolds as the reluctant hero, this one was simply dreadful, from the plot (about as deep as the paper on which it was written) to the cardboard acting and pedestrian direction. Horrible filmmaking ... and yet it cost in excess of $150 million. Where did the money go? And the story? Insultingly bad.

2. NO STRINGS ATTACHED. So this is how Natalie Portman followed up her Oscar winning turn in Black Swan (2010)? A pathetic excuse of a film with sex buddies Ashton Kutcher and Portman who, of course, fall in love. The film was as predictable as it was hopeless, and I’m being kind. Can anyone out there explain to me how Kutcher still has a career? Portman has made great films, given great performances, won an Oscar and will do again ... but not him. So why is he still working?

3. TRESPASS. Two Oscar winning actors - Nicolas Cage and Nicole Kidman - and a director who can get the job done (Joel Schumacher), yet what we get is a film so terrible that it was on DVD three weeks after its theatrical release. Cage looks bored and deeply worried what this might do to his wilting career, while Kidman simply looks violated.

4. BREAKING DAWN - PART ONE. Why did they cast Kristen Stewart as Bella when she has one expression for every emotion? Seriously, the girl never changes the look on her face or raises her voice. For most of this one she is in the throes of childbirth - vampire birth - but God it seemed to take forever for that creature to emerge. It was painful watch. The movie, that is, not the birth. And Oscar winner Bill Condon directed this one....

5. JACK AND JILL. What’s worse than a bad Adam Sandler performance? Two of them. And this one features just that, with Sandler as his own twin sister. This one is just a dumb idea executed in a dumber film. What’s really sad is that they cast Al Pacino, the once great Al Pacino, and he actually accepted the role of the sister’s love interest. How low can Pacino go? Now we know. It doesn’t get any lower than this my friends.

6. THOR. The second terrible super hero film of the year was this mess about the Mighty God of Thunder. I liked the comics when I was a kid and enjoyed the animated series, but as an adult (or big kid at the movies) I really hated this movie. Chris Hemsworth is all bluster and ego as Thor and never goes beyond that one note he establishes at the outset of the film. And who’s along for the ride? Natalie Portman ... again.

7. YOUR HIGHNESS. This film gives Portman the bad hat trick of the year. What was the gifted actress thinking when agreeing to be in three turkeys? Honestly.

8. ZOOKEEPER. The only character I am comfortable watching talk to animals is Tarzan. Period. You know you’re in trouble when they make a movie in which the zookeeper can hear the animals talk back to him. God. It didn’t work for Dr. Doolittle (1967) - why would it work today for someone else? This one is actually insulting it’s so awful.

9. THE DARKEST HOUR. This hopelessly lame alien invasion flick is laughable when you start piecing together the continuity error howlers. Giggle as a bus speeds through the streets of Moscow for miles, only to come right back to where it started, as though on a loop. Guffaw as thousands are tossed into the water as a building collapses - all but the heroine, who lands on dry land so the idiot here can rescue her. Wow.

10. NEW YEAR’S EVE. It doesn’t matter how many big stars you cram into a film, without a script or story of any kind they are cast adrift. This time, even the once great, now laughable Robert de Niro is in on the mess. Was the torture of Valentine’s Day not enough? And again, Ashton Kutcher.... Geez Louise....