Vertical Limit (2000)

I saw this movie within a couple of years of its release and, somehow, I rated it a "B" back then. I'd love to be able to put myself back into the simple mindset of the girl who could like this piece of shit -- she must have had a handle on finding the positive.

Anyway, this is terribly stupid. I think a good 25% of the dialogue is coughing.

D

The Manitou (1978)

A woman discovers a fast-growing tumor on the back of her neck. The doctors schedule next-day surgery, so she goes to see old friend -- a low-rent fortune teller Harry played by Tony Curtis -- to have a roll in the hay. When the surgeon is supernaturally prevented from removing the tumor (which they now believe may contain a fetus), Harry gets to work on figuring out how to deal with it from a mystical perspective.

It is no-holds-barred bonkers. A jacked little person emerging from a neck womb is probably the fourth most wtf thing to occur, with laser-shooting boobs coming in just ahead. It's a mess, but Curtis seems to be having a hell of a time, which makes it worth the watch.

D

Much Ado About Nothing (2012)

You can't fault the dialogue. It's clever and it has worked for literally hundreds of years. But putting the words into the mouths of pretty people in the settings and hairstyles and clothing of the 2000s is wrongheaded, to say the least. And if that were the only problem with this, I might have been able to see past it -- but that's far from the only issue. I mean, the very first scene completely negates both the entire culture of chastity as well as the premise of mutual annoyance of the central couple for each other. What was that about?

Maybe it could've worked in a modern-day setting that deliberately refuses to evolve, perhaps a fundamentalist Mormon compound or in an Amish community, but a woman being put to death for an accusation of promiscuity is not traditional suburban behavior. The overall effect is complete affectation, including the choice to present in black and white. 🙄

D

The Running Man (2025)

Though I'm not a fan of the original film, the plot made a lot more sense. In the earlier film, Ben Richards was wrongfully convicted of a heinous crime, breaks out of prison, and -- once caught -- is forced onto "The Running Man" game show to either die or win his freedom and mountains of cash. In this one, Ben Richards is a hothead who can't keep a job so is struggling to make ends meet for his family. He willingly auditions to be on a game show for cash. Though "The Running Man" is the one he was hoping not to land on, he still knew it was a possibility. There's no railroading here

I don't know if the part is written wrong or if Glen Powell just plays it wrong, but I am absolutely positive that this doesn't work. Why would I root for a guy whose pride is jeopardizing his family? He's just an entitled asshole who happens to be poor. Some of the action sequences are fun, but I kind of hated Ben Richards and that ruined any chance that I would care if he lives or dies.

Final note: it took me 3 full weeks to finish watching this.

D

It Was Just an Accident (2025)

A mechanic immediately recognizes the man who comes into his shop for emergency repair. After imprisoning the man in his van, the mechanic reaches out to others to help confirm that the man he's abducted is the prison torturer he remembers. 

I don't know if this would've worked if it hadn't gotten so broad (a couple in full wedding garb tagging along, the mechanic taking his abductee's pregnant wife to the hospital, the constant necessary tipping/bribing at every single turn), but I know the impact of the story was muted by these attempts at comedy. I was bored and annoyed.

D

Anaconda (2025)

Jack Black and Paul Rudd as lifelong friends separately experiencing disillusionment in their careers deciding to revisit their love for the movie Anaconda by making a "spiritual sequel" together? Yes, yes, yes, yes!!

But then I actually saw the thing and it is an absolute nonsensical jumble. The acting abilities of Thandiwe Newton and Rudd seem to fly out of the window and into the realm of "desperate sitcom actors who know they've lost the studio crowd so are going broader and LOUDER in hopes that will win them back." But, as evidenced by Jack Black (giving it his all), it doesn't matter how seriously you take the material, when it's this shit there's no disguising it.

I don't even understand how a movie can be this terrible when it has these actors and this premise. Mind-blowingly disappointing.

D

Final Prayer (2015)

I really didn't like this movie. It felt like every common complaint lodged against found footage movies bundled together and put on repeat. It's got everything:

• Flashlights that illuminate approximately 2 inches at a time
• Nauseatingly shaky camera work
• Unhelpful locals
• Vague religious/occult tone
• Dysfunctional group consisting of:

          * Idiot who regularly jeopardizes the mission due to ignorance
          * Superior know-it-all who is quickly in over their head
          * The one who "gets it" and behaves like a rational adult

I did wonder if this was where the idea for the (truly entertaining) TV show "Evil" came from, since it features a team employed by the Catholic church that validates or debunks reported miracles, possessions, and such. Or is this an actual "thing"?

D

Butterfly Kisses (2018)

Amateur documentarians decide to look into a local bogeyman. Legend has it that if you stare through a railroad bridge for a full hour without blinking, he'll appear at the far end. Then, every time you blink, he'll get a little bit closer until he's near enough to your face to tickle you with his eyelashes. 

Despite the fantastically natural "people on the street" interviews that sell us on the idea and the meta commentary about found footage/the convenience of the tapes falling into the hands of another filmmaker, there isn't enough here to keep it interesting through to the end. It leaves too many questions while also generating too little interest for me to really mind.

D

Happy Gilmore 2 (2025)

In the decade after accidentally killing his wife with a shanked ball, Happy has lost everything except for his now grown -- but mostly messy -- five kids. Now he has to return to golf and give up the bottle to make enough money to send his daughter to an exclusive Parisian dance school. He's got a lot of work to do to get himself sober and in golfing shape. There's also an obstacle in the way of all lovers of golf: a rich weirdo wants to upgrade the sport (by making it more like a live video game) and golfers themselves (by severing a ligament in their hip that will give them greater twistability). For some inexplicable reason, old-school golfers have to win a tournament to decide which version of golf will prevail. Yeah, it makes zero sense.

I don't know why they bothered with so much plot when this is all about nostalgia. It just feels overlong and too stuffed with cameos and convolution. To be fair: most of the guest stars throw themselves into the madness, which is pretty fun to watch but definitely doesn't balance the bloat.

D

Robots (2023)

Robots are everywhere in the near future, serving in menial roles. They mostly wear the same oddly offputting rubber masks so you know when you're dealing with one... unless you've got enough cash (or blackmail fodder) to force someone into making one that looks and behaves just like you do. Both Elaine and Charlie have these illegal robot doubles that they use to have sex with the rich assholes who buy them things (Elaine) and to wine and dine women to prime them for sex (Charlie). When wires get crossed, Charlie's bot and Elaine's bot meet up, copulate, fall in love, and then steal their owners' identities, which forces Charlie and Elaine to team up and find them.

It's a fun premise, but not a fun movie. It's all so tame.

D

Reptile (2023)

I watched this -- well, stared at it -- with my sister and both of us were pretty lost throughout. Characters would disappear, plotlines would get dropped, and it seemed to move at a snail's pace until the last act which felt unreasonably rushed. Though I was confused, I wasn't at all surprised at the who and why reveals. 

It was just a basic story wrapped up in confusing storytelling. Also, you have to watch JT try to act. No thanks.

D

The Guilty (2021)

Joe is an L.A. cop stuck on 9-1-1 duty pending his hearing for shooting a teen. He gets sucked into the drama of a caller: she's been abducted by her ex, her children are now at home alone, and she's scared. Joe goes into overdrive trying to force everyone to make this their number one priority, making a lot of assumptions and breaking a lot of rules and generally demonstrating why being a 9-1-1 operator is not an "anyone can do it" role.

Even if the script were decent, it would've been a challenge to care since all of the drama (except Joe's fits of pique) are off-camera. Since the script is threadbare, this winds up just being boring and ridiculous.

D

The Brutalist (2024)

The entire idea behind this must've been "Brutalist architect... so the movie should be brutally long and brutally tedious and ultimately plunge the audience into a brutal depth of despair!"

When you demand that I give up more than a fifth of my day to watch your film, it should go out of its way to keep me engaged. Instead, everything's obscured and secretive: the script played it so close to the vest that I was often unsure whether my inferences were the intended ones. For example, keeping the "why" for Toth's community center design choices a secret -- only to be revealed in an end-of-movie, way in the future speech -- was ridiculous.

I have nothing bad to say about the performances and I'm happy that those involved got recognition for their work, though.

D

That Christmas (2024)

There's way too much going on here. We've got a lonely kid dealing with a fresh divorce and his sad/overworked mom who isn't shy about making sure her son is aware that his dad ran away with a 25-year old. There's a guy getting married on Christmas eve to a woman with a bunch of kids (I think? Maybe they weren't all hers), but anyway the kids aren't invited to the wedding for some reason. We've also got twins, one of whom is an anxiety-ridden goody-goody and the other who's a troublemaking "look at me"-type. And the lighthouse-keeper's mom is dying in a nursing home and the mean teacher is secretly grieving. Meanwhile, Santa's figuring out the best gifts for them all while his single reindeer complains.

My son recommended this to us as "good for a sweet cry," but the only thing I could find worth crying about here was the wasted time and movies that didn't get made because talented artists were busy making this crappy jumble. If the focus had simply been tightened to be on the twins and giving the revelations there a chance to breathe, this could've been something worthy of my tears.

D

Cursed Friends (2022)

After receiving a "predict the future" activity book while trick-or-treating, four kids fill it out together. Twentyish years later, they all happen to be together on Halloween and discover the long-lost book -- and now the predictions are coming true.

This felt like one of those K-Mart kids' movie knock-offs: disappointing but also "off" enough to be weirdly watchable. The murder and orgy club subplots, however, make this resolutely inappropriate for children.

D

Luz: The Flower of Evil (2021)

"El Senor," his adult daughter, and two other women live together. As the spiritual leader of a small mountain community, he has proclaimed several different boys to be Jesus. Each child in the string of Messiahs has been shackled in an outdoor pen, where he proceeded to die from exposure. But there's a new Jesus in the pen... certainly El Senor's gotten it right this time?

I have to admit that it sounds like a cool and scary premise, but it's just a mess. Other than the color-saturated hyper-real cinematography (absolutely beautiful), there's no worth to this ugly and nonsensical story.

D

Mister America (2019)

After representing himself in a mass murder trial which resulted in a hung jury, Tim Heidecker decides to run to unseat the San Bernardino District Attorney who prosecuted him. He's not a resident, he's not a lawyer, he hasn't done his due diligence to even get on the ballot, and he's got no political experience. But he's got a film crew following him around and a woman who believes in him (and, more crucially, foots the bills).

I had no idea what was going on here, so I did a little research. Heidecker has this whole web of shows and media -- including the "On Cinema" podcast mentioned in the movie -- and this character has evolved from that. Maybe if I had been in the know I might've liked this a bit? Based on how unfunny my ignorant self found every bit of what I saw, I doubt it's likely, but I'm willing to consider it a possibility.

D

Wish (2023)

The story: there's a land created by a powerful wizard. When residents turn 18, they "give" their greatest wish to the king (forgetting what it was in the process, which makes them a little less "them"). Then, periodically, he gathers everyone together and grants one of the wishes in a kind of wish lottery -- only there's no chance about it as he's deciding which are safe to grant, i.e. which have no possibility of challenging his authority. Asha, the resident spunky not-yet-18 girl, wishes on a star and the star comes out of the sky to help, which pisses off the wizard because he's got a monopoly on magic. There's way more story and it only gets more convoluted. What child could understand the plot? What non-child would want to watch this? Who the hell is this movie for?

Generally, the songs would be the saving grace in this type of head-scratching animated movie but that's not the case here. They're unnecessarily complex and Dubose makes sure the phrasing isn't easy to sing along with (even if the lyrics were more easily accessible). It's just such a messy bore.

D

Freelance (2023)

Cena is ex-special forces toiling away in a desk job and on the brink of divorce. He agrees to handle a personal security job for a reporter (Alison Brie) traveling to interview a dictator, but things go sideways pretty quickly.

This is clearly going for the fun danger of movies like "The Lost City," but it falls completely flat. The casting -- though good -- can neither save the limp script nor make us forgive the poor green screen effects.

D

Confess, Fletch (2022)

"Jon Hamm is no Chevy Chase" is such a weird sentence, but it applies here. But, even if Hamm mugged convincingly enough to grab some laughs, the script is a mess. The jokes are lazy and the mystery's a bit too twisty to easily follow. A complete waste of time and film.

D