JCC I Are The Internets and Rylo Ken Present:

The Worst Filmed Entertainment of 2017 Panel Discussion

For the nth year in a row, 2017 was the year of sequels and reboots and remanifestations and extended universes. The U.S. box office suffered for its lack of originality, but this isn’t a box office thread, nor is this a movie thread. This is a thread about terrible filmed entertainment across the extruded entertainment multiverse. Netflix, Hulu, movie theaters, Amazon Prime, etc. Possibly even network and cable television. I don’t have time for all these streams, but I know bad entertainment when I see it, and this year has brought us some of the very worst.

My short list:

Worst Filmed Entertainment of 2017

The Defenders/Iron fist (Netflix). You may remember me as a rabid hater of such Marvel movies as Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3, Mandrake the Magician, Thors 1, 2, and 3, Avengers 2, etc., but I was a reluctant fan of early Netflix Marvel. Jessica Jones and season one of Daredevil floated my boat, but no Netflix Marvel since then has been much good, with the whole project apparently in any case soon to be defunct as Disney seeks vertical re-integration. For whatever the reason, the MarvelNetflixaverse veered headlong off a high cliff, under the influence, brakes failing, with Iron Fist and the Defenders combusting grotesquely in the fiery explosion that followed. I’ve wasted a lot of time on Netflix, but never before with this magnitude of rueful regret.

Little Evil (Netflix). I’m just throwing this one in there because no reason. I like Evangeline Lilly, I like Adam Scott, I like Clancy Brown, I like horror, I like comedy and I like the idea of horror-comedy. No one and nothing work out here though. I wish the entire cast nothing but success in all future endeavors, but please fire your agents.

Castlevania (Netflix). I never would have watched this if I didn’t have somewhat fondish memories of playing some version of Castlevania on some version of a Nintendo Gameboy with my oldest son at some point in the past whenever it was that people played games on Nintendo Gameboys. This production somehow perfectly captures the feeling of watching a low tech, barely animated intro to a Nintendo Gameboy game, only without the anticipation of eventually getting to a fun part that qualifies as entertainment.

Ghost in the Shell. The absolute best part of this utterly stupid movie is the heroic effort it makes to be 99.99% sure that no one walks away without first knowing what "Ghost in the Shell" means. From what I learned, the "ghost" is the preserved organic intellect/self-awareness/unfettered volition of the protagonist, whereas the "shell" is her corporate-owned cyborg body. If I understood correctly, and the movie got out the chalkboards and PowerPoints to make sure I did, the main character’s "ghost" is "in" the "shell". Thank you, bad movie. I think I get it now.

Wonder Woman. Substandard writing even by superhero movie standards. Halfhearted stabs at occasional comic relief. Cookie cutter supporting characters. A rotten-to-the-core not to mention tedious and predictable bait and switch from the second most to easily most laughable villain of 21st century comic book superhero movies. So little respect for the intelligence of U.S. audiences that the writers felt it necessary to make World War I German soldiers indistinguishable from Nazis. A crass, cynical propaganda campaign to make people feel obligated to like the movie. Yes, it’s Wonder Woman, landslide winner of the coveted 2017 Fooling Most of the People, Most of the Time Award. I promise you, when you revisit this high budget catastrophe in a few years, you're going to PM me and tell me I was right all along. I agree in advance not to gloat much.

Life. Uniformly terrible in almost every possible way.

The Young Pope (HBO). Sweet jesus holy mother of god and all the martyred saints, I'm all for going after organized religion and institutionalized “godly” public figures, but not like this, with so little finesse. It's almost Trumpesque in its overweening lack of sophistication.



Next up: an individual who has seen more terrible movies this year than anyone I know: I Are The Internets. Obviously I don’t have to tell any of you that The Internets are the undisputed king of bad content.

I Are The Internets , across all media, spanning the year to date, what is the worst filmed entertainment you’ve seen?

Top 10 maybe? Anone else, please jump in with your list.

 

I complained about WWI Germans being Nazis before it was cool.

 

Yeah, but I just saw that 2.5 hour slog over Thanksgiving so my hate is fresh and easy to win the approval of.

 

The Young Pope is weird as **** and I guess I'm still not sure what to think about it, but the trailers did a terrible job of portraying what it was about as demonstrated by that comic.

 

I would love to see that version of the Young Pope.

 

I really tried watching The Young Pope , I managed 3 eps , I wonder if anyone got to the end .

 

It ends like any other long form narrative - the real Catholicism was the friends we made along the way.

 

Transformers: The Last Knight should be on everyone's list for 2017.

 

If only anyone had actually seen it.

 

lol i can't imagine why anyone would have watched it. "surely michael bay's fifth transformers film can't be as terrible as the first four".

edit: jinx

 

Yes, I did not see it, nor have I seen Justice League. This is one reason I asked I Are The Internets to partner on this thread.

 

Life had some good bits, I thought. It was a mostly serviceable genre piece. It had a couple of really disturbing death scenes. The scene where the woman is trapped in her own astronaut suit as it fills with water was pretty harrowing. And I liked the first death because it was also pretty gross.

Worst movie I saw this year was absolutely The Bye Bye Man which I have waxed poetic about at GREAT length elsewhere. It's one of the dumbest movies I've ever seen. And it wasn't even stupid enough to be funny; it was just stupid. Also, this totally trash animated movie called Loving Vincent that is supposedly a "tribute" to Vincent Van Gogh . . . I haven't written a full review of it it, so I'm not going to go into full depth yet, but suffice it to say that it is, in point of fact, a piece of true hackwork. And I saw Passengers this year, but I think it was actually a 2016 release. Anyway, it was dire. Only other really bad film of note that I saw this year was xXx: The Return of Xander Cage and it wasn't really in the same class as those three. It had pleasures (read: Nina Dobrev) for certain, even if it was pretty bad at the end of the day.

 

That's the point. You didn't have to see the film to know it's would be bad and thus should be on everyone's list.

 

Eh, at the risk of taking this way too seriously, I think precedent is a valid criterion for not bothering to engage with something but not for inclusion on "worst of" lists. That requires exposure. Horrible, horrible exposure.

 

Oh, another point in Life's favor. The theater I saw it in inexplicably allowed a bulldog entrance to the theater, so I saw the movie sitting only five seats away from a bulldog. Check & mate.

 

What did the Bulldog think of Life?

 

I have happily not seen anything listed here, but I always enjoy a good superhero movie slagging.
Double win.

 

Yeah, that what usually happens with threads and lists like this. So, carry on.

 

is this like some ancient by-law where a bulldog is legally required to watch each new film for approval ?

 

Is this that crazy movie with a random T-rex dinosaur scene in it?

 

Life is a poor man's remake of "Green Slime from Outer Space," featuring Jake Gyllenhaal being chased around a space station by cgi killer kelp.