Worst of 2020 - End of Year Report

So for all the shite that occurred in 2020, the films I saw weren't all that bad, just very bland or disappointing. The good certainly outweighed the bad. But here are the 10 worst films I had the displeasure of seeing last year. Don't be afraid but please do avoid.

10. The Gentlemen (2019)

Guy Ritchie's body of work has really declined since, well, since the beginning. This is a pale echo of his best days, when geezerism was at its most endearing (if you swing that way). I have a kind of sad feeling that Ritchie's legs have gone, that the best days are well behind him. Even Hugh Grant playing nicely against type and Colin Farrell, hamming up the Oirish, can't salvage this.

9. The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)

So it seems Bowie was human after all; fallible, imperfect. This film was a real disappointment, hovering around my radar for many years, I finally saw it last year and well, ponderous and dull probably sum it up for me. Let's call it a minor glitch in the Bowie Matrix.

8. Mary Poppins Returns (2018)

The first on the list that I can blame on the kids. Emily Blunt toils heroically with the simpering material but can't lift the twee mess from anything other than failed, post-Disney vacuity.

7. Digby: The Biggest Dog in the World (1973)

Another attempt to feed the kids some quality entertainment, this sadly didn't pass muster. Building a film around a dog the size of a diplodocus but neglecting any humour, peril or human character development has turned poor old Digby into a damp squib.

6. Men in Black: International (2019)

A tired, worn-out franchise, unable to be saved by his-Thorness, Chris Hemsworth, though the cast turn the charm dial up as far as it will go. Same old story, nothing to see here. Move on folks.

5. Hotel Transylvania (2012)

Some coked-up movie executive must have green lit this on the premise alone - "Hey dudes, what if the monsters were actually the heroes. Get it? WE'RE the real monsters. It's frickin' awesome, right?" Has the whiff of Sandler about it and the awful musical number at the end just cranked up the vomitometer.

4. Rampage (2018)

The Rock. Massive animals. Piss-weak gags. Cut and paste storyline. In fact, I've forgotten most of this 'film'. I don't know, maybe that's what the kids want these days. I'll be in my nostalgia vault if anyone needs me.

3. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)

Another Guy Ritchie offering, one which makes number 10 on this list look like Snatch. So very boring, with a wooden lead (Charlie Hunnam) and a handful of better actors wasting their time and ours. Who would have thought that giving old British mythology the Ritchie treatment would have produced such a steaming pile? Every-fucking-body, that's who.

2. Honest Thief (2020)

Why? Why was this made? Aside from Liam Neeson, who is still a likeable screen presence (though he seems to be doing everything he can to undermine that), this film is packed with bog-average no-names. And that's not the worst of it. Atomic dullness permeates the screen, 'action' scenes fizzle like wet socks, lines are read like out-takes from some dodgy 80s TV soap. Cripes, it's bloody awful.

1. Shrek 2 (2004)

Ok, I didn't care much for the first Shrek and I only watched this to satisfy the kids (those pesky kids are responsible for FOUR of the films in this list! Won't someone think of the children!?). Shrek 2 is full of post-90s drivel aimed at kids, but through a nudge-nudge, wink-wink prism of borderline smut. Now, I'm not averse to smut, don't get me wrong, but wedged into a PG cartoon? No thanks. The supposed jokes are crap, the voice work is annoying, the animation is headache inducing and the music is wincingly shite, even the Cave and Bowie stuff. It's not often I have to physically massage out a full facial sneer after a film. Fuck off Shrek, you big green twat.

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Ghost Cat Anzu (Me & Kid)

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Bird

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The Wolves Always Come at Night

My first taste of the Perth Festival schedule for the coming season was a 'hybrid' film called The Wolves Always Come at Night , directed by Gabrielle Brady. The term 'hybrid' really just seems to mean tweaking the traditional methods of documentary production, in this case, adding some clearly set-up shots and situations, but also, calling on the subjects to help in the writing process. This film is about a family of goat farmers in Mongolia whose difficult existence is made even harder by an unforeseen event that forces them to relocate to the city. The family are led by mother, Zaya Dashzeveg and father, Davaa Dagvasuren, and Brady made the film with their input in mind. She says; Our intention was that Davaa and Zaya have agency within the making of their own story. So, in working together as co-writers, we were able to shape the story together. They would share ideas for what could be filmed and I would translate this into the cinematic language for the film. It...

Audrey

This Perth Fest entry is a very black comedy with a large splosh of Muriel's Wedding about it. Ronnie Lipsick (Jackie Van Beek) has high hopes for her daughter Audrey (Josephine Blazier) to succeed as an actress. Ronnie had some of her own fame years before in Australian TV and is now stage-mothering Audrey to within an inch of her life. But Audrey is a proper arsehole to everyone, including her sister with cerebral palsy, Norah (Hannah Diviney), and her romantically conflicted father, Cormack (Jeremy Lindsay Taylor), so when Audrey's melodramatic antics see her slide off the roof of the house and into a coma, the family have mixed feelings about the situation. Ronnie incongruously decides to pose as Audrey in order to be accepted onto the acting course she had her signed up for. Nobody seems to notice, Norah begins to be more accepted by Audrey's friends (and boyfriend), and Cormack turns his meekness around, reinvigorating his sex life with Ronnie. The family feel guilty...

The Monk and the Gun

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Timestalker

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Merchant Ivory

Here's the first of a few films I'm planning to catch at the British Film Festival so I'll attempt to keep the reviews relatively brief. This a documentary directed by Stephen Soucy about the legendary filmmaking team, Merchant Ivory Productions. The formidable ensemble consisted of producer Ismail Merchant, director James Ivory, writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, and composer Richard Robbins. After meeting in 1961, Ivory and Merchant started a fruitful partnership, both professionally and romantically. The film shows us their somewhat ramshackle early films, made in India, moving on to marginally more assured productions in the US, and finally to the English period dramas they became known for in the 80s and onwards. Together, they made over 40 films, some absolute gems among them. A Room with a View , Howard's End , and The Remains of the Day are probably their best, though you could throw in Heat and Dust , Maurice , and The Golden Bowl as very strong examples of their...

Lee

Biopics are tough to get right. For every Lawrence of Arabia , there's a Diana , for every Raging Bull , there's an Ali . The film Lee shines some natural light of the life of renowned war photographer Lee Miller, played by Kate Winslet. She gives it full welly in this - physically and emotionally nude, with camouflage painted boobs, close-ups with no make-up, moles, wrinkles, rage and tears. It's very much the kind of 'brave' performance that the Academy loves to reward. The film starts with Miller crustily answering questions to a young man in 1977, and as she remembers things from her past, we head to flashback territory. It seems a fairly cack-handed framing device until we realise why it's happening. A modicum of research reveals that the film is a pretty accurate retelling of Miller's life - first her carefree bohemian days in pre-WW2 France (including her intro to future hubby, Roland Penrose, played by Alexander Skarsgård), then how she started with...

Gladiator II

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Sand Land (Me) (Kids)

Popped down to Palace cinema in the city for a packed screening of Sand Land , part of the Japanese Film Festival Australia . Created by Akira Toriyama (of Dragon Ball fame), this started as a manga book series in 2000. It seems this film was made slightly before, or at the same time as a TV series covering similar ground. That ground being a Mad Max style wasteland where the water supply is controlled and sold by a rotund King (Chafûrin). An old, local sherriff, Rao (Kazuhiro Yamaji), suspects there's a source of water in the desert a few days drive away and so decides to investigate. Knowing he'll need help, he approaches the gang of demons who live nearby. The demons chosen to accompany Rao are the keen Beelzebub (Mutsumi Tamura) and the less enthused Thief (Chô). The trio head off but are soon beset by issues, including enormous sand snakes, marauding punks and the King's military units. As their vehicles tyres were punctured by said punks, Rao commandeers a tank, set...

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