The Worst of 2012: Movies
With the Razzies coming up, I felt I needed to also bring up what was the worst thing I saw over the course of 2012. Somehow, I dodged bad video games, anime (Deadman Wonderland is a contender for the 2013 “Worst of”), music, and television.
For the most part, movies I have seen that I scored a 0 or 1 were B-movies I went into intentionally, knowing they were B-movies. However, my friend talked me into seeing Project X with him.
You know there’s a problem when this is supposed to be the funniest scene in the film:
Project X was easily the most excruciating 87 minutes of my life. With the other movies I saw that I scored a 0 or 1, I could easily divert my attention away by surfing the Internet with the movie playing in the background as I was watching them while at home. However, I was stuck in a movie theater to see Project X.
Project X intended to be a found-footage comedy about a teen called Thomas who was talked into throwing the ultimate party at his house by his two extremely manipulative pals. All three hope for this to be their ticket to becoming the most popular kids at their high school which would in turn make them more popular with girls. From beginning to end, the movie was one mean-spirited mess. Contrary to what the movie intended, I wound up feeling sorry for the neighbors that were bothered by this extremely loud party, but were ultimately rendered unable to actually do anything about it thanks to cops that proved to somehow be dumber than JB. I was squirming in my seat as I took in images of bouncing boobs and upskirt shots of allegedly high school-age girls. All told, I haven’t laughed once for the movie’s entire duration.
The best part of the movie? It ends with all three leads coming back to school the next day having achieved their goal of becoming the most popular kids at school. Thomas even made a speech saying that despite having had his college fund burned away to repair his family’s house (which was predictably burned down) and almost losing the one girl that legitimately cared about him forever, he would gladly do it all over again. It was the opposite of growth as a character, and it also was a rare instance of me bearing witness to a movie’s message and genuinely being bothered by it. The movie ended with the main characters being rewarded for immoral, hurtful, and even criminal acts. To Thomas, it actually seemed like his future and someone who loves him were acceptable losses for this newly-found popularity.
I almost regret mentioning this movie again because it deserves to be a forgotten entry in the long history of film, despite how well it did at the box office. I’m still not happy knowing I dropped $11 to see it when I could have seen 21 Jump Street, which was playing in the next auditorium over and also agreed to be a legitimately funny movie. Like Saw 3D, Project X to me is yet another example of a cold, calculated Hollywood decision to greenlight a movie for no reason besides correctly predicting a lot of people will come out to see it.
Aaaaaaand this is me attempting to stay good on my NYR to visit my fellow bloggers more. Lol.
HAHAHAHA. Omg, that does look extremely terrible. Meh, I dislike when terrible movies also carry equally awful messages. =/
You should make a list of all the worst 2012 movies you’ve seen. I’d like to read that.
Will do! Most of them were actually of the “so bad they’re good” type movies though. For that reason, many of them are actually entertaining.
Yup. Project X earned number 2 on my Worst Films of 2012, with Lay the Favorite earning 1st. I hate how anyone can call this entertainment.
A very large part of the reason I am avoiding A Haunted House is because somehow I have this feeling in my gut that it’s going to be another Project X.
I’m pretty much alone on this, but I consider A Haunted House to be a smart slapstick comedy. I admittedly laughed a lot; it was a guilty pleasure. A Haunted House satirizes the found-footage formula so well, I couldn’t help but laugh my head off. I encourage you to give it a shot, perhaps wait for it on Netflix or something first.
I had my doubts mainly because of seeing the trailer, which was very long and trying to shove one unfunny joke after another in an attempt to convince to come out and see it. I’ll wait until the DVD/Netflix streaming release as I don’t care to part with $11 to see it. Even then, I need to be totally sure I don’t have something better to do for 90 minutes.
The trailers indeed makes the film look dumb. It is very dumb, but smart about it, if that makes any sense. The lame fart jokes and crap isn’t funny, but it does capture a near perfect parody of found-footage movies.