A Fistful of Who Cares? (Matt's Picks)

    With the release of this week’s Larry Crowne, we’re talking about movies we couldn’t give two craps about.  Without further ado, my list:

5.  Friday Night Lights (and Varsity Blues, We Are Marshal, Any Given Sunday, Radio and any other movie dealing with football, other than Leatherheads):  I’m not much for sports, and sport related movies tend to do very little for me.  But even taking that into account, I really, really don’t like football and really, really don’t care about any given movie about the game.  Even Leatherheads took me some effort to put in the DVD player, in spite of my Clooney love and fascination with the time period (which was what finally won me over). 

Thank goodness.  Another 'inspirational' speech.

4.  Anything else from Michael Bay:  His ‘Team of Misfits who must come together in order to walk away from explosions with flags waving in the background while some flippin’ awful Nickleback-type music is piped in’ style of film making has now officially surpassed my BS threshold.  I stick by my assessment that he is Uwe Boll with a budget.  He is everything I don’t like about post-Aliens James Cameron.  Incapable of crafting even the most basic of film elements (character and plot), he is reduced to CG-charged explosions, hammy dialog, and gratuitous, lingering shots of young women’s butts in tight pants.  All of those things can be A-OK in the hands of a director with a modicum of heart or soul.  Bay seems to have neither.  His best moment seems to be the commercial lampooning his love of all things ‘AWESOME!’  For me, like his predecessor in soulless cinema, James Cameron, Bay is over. 

Mark Wahlberg is wearing a hat!

3.  Kiki’s Delivery Service (and any other Hayao Miyazaki film I haven’t already suffered through):  Miyazaki pretty much makes the same movie over and over, and is called a genius for it.  No shock when you look at how shockingly repetitive anime is in general, but Miyazaki takes the cake.  Even when adapting other people’s work (like with Howl’s Moving Castle), he just twists and bends it until it’s another version of the stories he keeps telling, featuring all the same characters from the last one.  Blah. 

Hi.  Remember me from every other anime you've ever seen?

2.  Paranormal Activity:  I’m high strung.  It doesn’t take much to make me jump (loud noise, walking up behind me, touching me, etc.) so a movie that has lots of sudden, loud noises is going to make me jump.  But will it scare me?  No.  Ghost stories, as a rule, are very boring to me.  Rivaled only by possession stories in the horror genre.  Oh, no, there’s something in that room.  Did you hear/feel/see that?  Oh no, what was that?  …Turns out, it was just me snoring.  Add to my already sleepy reaction to the subject matter my general distaste for ‘found footage’ films and you’ve got a recipe for Matt tuning out completely. 

I paid how much for a ticket to this!?  NOOOOO!!!

1.  Annie Hall:  There are two people in the movie industry that I straight-up don’t care about.  Woody Allen and Diane Keaton.  There has never been a moment in my whole life where I thought me watching this movie would be a good idea.  Honestly, this could pretty much extend to any film in either person’s body of work (The Godfather and The Imposters being the only two exceptions I can think of). 

-Matt