DAY 2 OF THE ONLY REAL OSCAR'S REVIEW:

WORST BIG NAME MOVIE:
- Alice in Wonderland – Alice is always a challenge because it has no real plot and is loaded with period references that have no bearing on the modern world. Faced with this challenge, Disney gave it the Hero with a Thousand Faces treatment. The magic of the original book is believed to have been accidentally locked in the supply shed for the Country Bear Vacation Hoedown.
- Edge of Darkness – When you’re as reviled as Mel Gibson has become and you insist on continuing to make movies, every line has to be a shot across the bow of anyone who dares question your talent. Instead, Gibson appears to have extended a withered olive branch on corporate greed. If he wants back in, he should just go ahead and make a reverential Holocaust movie. If not, he should take a page out of Brock Lesnar’s book and double down on being Hollywood’s renegade villain.
- Grown Ups – What if we got several slightly past-peak comedians together and they all decided to not be that funny for 2 hours? Somehow, no one’s flagging career arc was altered.
- Killers – This movie is an interesting experiment in what happens when you have nearly an hour of set-up for a movie that has no plot. Anyways, it was nice to see Tom Selleck’s mustache grimacing on the big screen again.
- Harry Potter Part 7 Part 1 – A gorgeous two hour picture book for vacationing in rural England. A brilliant time to cash in, knowing that it’s too late in the series to kill fan interest in the films with a dud. And oh what a dud. As the one person on earth who has never read a line written by J.K. Rowling, I assure you that as a stand alone movie, this was a disaster of Baron Von Munchausen proportions.

WINNER: Harry Potter Part 7 Part 1. (CAUTION: I was not able to view The Tourist for the purposes of this review. I’m told it’s a strong contestant.)

OUTRIGHT WORST MOVIE:
- I’m Still Here. Joaquin Phoenix memorably grew a beard and went all Fear & Loathing on Letterman, then announcing a move into rapping about 4 years after the shock humor of white guys rapping poorly stopped being funny. This is the sort of career move that makes Andy Kaufman’s 'wrestling women' idea look like Sinatra landing the supporting role in From Here to Eternity. Casey Affleck, circling the drain that his brother Ben recently escaped from, decided to make a semi-planned mockumentary. Put it all together and you have several hours of unwatchable footage of a blathering, coked out hobo bleeding money.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT:
- Dinner for Schmucks – If we learned one thing from The Cable Guy, it's that funny people can go too far and just be creepy. Dinner for Schmucks' creative team did not see The Cable Guy.
- The Expendables – I gave the preview a standing ovation. I had this idea plus Jackie Chan a decade ago. However, my version did not involve B movie action and no wit.
- The Fighter – For anyone who loves boxing, the Gatti-Ward fights are the definition of the sport at its best. So in making a movie about Mickey Ward, one might reasonably expect a climax with at least the first Gatti-Ward fight. Instead, I left the theater wondering if there was going to be a sequel.
- Knight & Day – Tom Cruise can do whatever he wants at this point in his career. But given his bizarre, extremely public mania, the creepy stalker spy movie idea is kind of like Michael Jackson writing a song about child abuse.
- Secretariat – The underlying rhythm of any pet movie is the animal. For dogs, it’s family. For cats, it’s mystery. In the case of horses, it’s the majesty of the animal. Instead, the horse of all horses spends very little time on camera while we receive a lesson in small business. The worst moment has to be the muted, lo-fi audio knock off of Chic Anderson’s epic, “Tremendous Machine,” call. Given how badly the endings to the year’s top sports movies were botched, it's no wonder LA still doesn't have a football team.

WINNER: The Expendables. Much like Joe Gibbs’ comeback, sometimes the game is too far past you to get caught up.

MOST UNNECESSARY SEQUEL:
- Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore – Couldn’t this have gone straight to video?
- Little Fockers – After you make one bad sequel, you stop.
- Saw VII – Saw came out in 2004. We have not had a Saw-less year since. Saw 3D was actually billed “The Final Chapter”. Can this madness be stopped?
- Step Up 3D – The unintended consequence of the 3D phenomenon was that every bad movie with a worse sequel had an excuse to make number 3.
- Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps – This wasn’t a bad idea, or even a bad movie. But the ending, with a redeemed Michael Douglas, kills the whole concept. This movie screams for a, “There Will Be Blood” ending – Gecko back on top, remorseless and enthroned, drinking Shia's milk shake. Instead, money goes to sleep in a tidy, focus-group tested, cliché-Hollywood crib.

WINNER: Little Fockers. I think this movie was made only because someone thought the title was funny.

MOST SURPRISINGLY WATCHABLE:
- Fighting
- Karate Kid
- MacGruber
- Predators
- She’s Out of My League
WINNER: Predators. I was sure this franchise was dead and buried. Who knew that Adrien the Kissing Bandit could resurrect it?

BEST LINE TO QUOTE WITHOUT REMORSE:
“We push ourselves, we work around the clock.” “I ALREADY WORK AROUND THE CLOCK!”
– Extraordinary Measures

RUNNER UP: “What’s your number? I find most guys on Wall Street have a specific number in mind of how much they make before they walk away.” “More.”
– Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

BEST TWIST:
- The Book of Eli
- Inception
- The Other Guys
- Salt
- Shutter Island
WINNER: The Book of Eli. Inception and Salt are nothing but twist, so you can’t pin down that big twist at the end. Shutter Island has you waiting for the twist all movie long. The Other Guys throws the twist at you at the beginning (and it’s damn good). The Book of Eli gets the twist right – you never see it coming.

WILDLY OVERPLAYED CLICHÉ OF THE YEAR:

- Hot girl/old lady as ninja action star. In the 90’s, feminism finally began sniping at the walls of action films, questioning the time-honored damsel-in-distress story line. The result was an early generation of avante guard female actions stars - Sarah Connor, anything with Gina Davis - large or buff women who looked like they could plausibly kick ass, but still lost a fight on occasion. Slowly the plots were rewritten to make the damsel kick ass of her own accord. A few creative cinematographers hit on the now standard sexual image of a little hot girl toting a big gun. Here we are, 2010, uzi-ed with one 80-pound waif after another foisted on us as the second coming of Bruce Lee. Perhaps a rundown of the more implausible action moments from this year to demonstrate the scope of the problem:
o Mia Wasikowska slays the Jabberwocke in Alice in Wonderland
o Thekla Reuten as ace assassin in The American
o Mila Kunis as incorrigible tough girl in The Book of Eli
o Gemma Arterton kicking ridiculous classical ass in Clash of the Titans AND Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
o Every computer animation movie
o Scarlet Johanssen randomly takes on a room full of bad guys in Iron Man 2 because, oh by the way, she's also a super hero.
o Zoe Saldana fires guns that weigh more than she does in The Losers
o Whatever was going on in Resident Evil
o That Scott Pilgrim thing has a lot of ninja girls...and super mario coins.
o Maid Marion is reinvented as Legolas in Robin Hood
o Angelina can beat up anyone anytime anywhere in any movie

It’s not that I disapprove of strong female characters – there can be ninja girls thrown in with damsels in equal measure. My concern is more the believability. We rightfully demand that male action stars look like they can beat people up. The same should be true for girls. I am sure that there are females in this world who can kick my ass. I cannot be convinced that Scarlet Johanssen is one of them.

The nadir of this phenomenon is in the movie Red, in which the lovely Helen Mirren is pawned off on us as the world’s greatest assassin. At the movie’s climax, Mirren is filmed gingerly prancing away from a gunfight…we are told this is sprinting. It’s not Ms. Mirren’s fault that she cannot move much faster than an inch-worm. Perhaps the gunmen were too busy laughing to take aim. My point is, when the script says "sprints away from gunfight," part of the acting is looking like you can sprint.