Thrashin' (1986)

Corey is a meathead who has two things going for him: his physique and his skateboard skillz. His friends -- aka the "Ramp Locals" -- run afoul of the L.A. group "The Daggers" when they come to town to participate in a pool competition and the gnarliest downhill board race THE L.A. MASSACRE. The Daggers take an instant dislike to Corey because he's a threat competition-wise and he's got eyes for Chrissy, who turns out to be the sister of Tommy Hook, leader of The Daggers.

The skating sequences makes this almost watchable. Almost.

D-

If I Had Legs I'd Kick You (2025)

What's going on in Linda's life is just way too much. Her no-name daughter's nutrition is managed with an at-home feeding tube because she won't eat enough by mouth, her therapist is less than supportive, her own patients are a handful, no-name's doctors won't continue to treat no-name if her no-way weight goals aren't met, she's basically a single parent as her husband's job rarely brings him home and when he calls he only adds more stress, and now she's moved into a low-rent motel room with no-name because her own home's ceiling caved in. What she's dealing with would be enough to send most people over the edge. 

BUT all of that would've been enough (and probably way more affecting) without the distracting camera work. We spend so much time so close to Linda's face that I felt smothered by her grimaces. We never see the daughter's face, which reduces her to a constant whine of need -- so much so that when Linda would leave her alone in that sketch motel for hours at a time, I didn't spare a thought for the kid. Maybe that was the point? I don't know, but I hated everyone in this fucking movie except A$AP Rocky as the drug-procuring, ceiling hole verifying, resentful babysitting quasi-friend.

D-

Emilia Perez (2024)

I'm pretty sure this is a weird experiment perpetrated by the awards system to see if heaping accolades on a pile of trash will work on the audience in a "The Emperor's New Clothes" way. Well, let me join the chorus of those who can see this for what it is.

It's a musical, but the songs are so hyper-specific that they can't be used outside of this story (they're also whatever the opposite of "catchy" is).  The character at the center is a cartel leader who transitions to being a woman, which apparently means she has also transitioned from bad hombre to benevolent nurturer. But, make no mistake! She can still turn scary when it looks like she may lose the children she didn't see for four years after traumatizing them with her "death" and their banishment to snowy Switzerland.

What an embarrassing mess.

D-

Hot Frosty (2024)

Snow sculpture comes to life after a widow drapes a scarf around its neck. It's so dumb. And I'm not just talking about the movie itself, in which the town doctor invokes "magic" as an explanation more than once. I'm talking about Jack (aka Hot Frosty) who is played less as "born yesterday" and more "held back four or five grades."

Lacks charm and, ironically, magic.

D-

Where's Poppa? (1970)

A bachelor lawyer hires a new, young, in-home carer for his senile mother. Though he and the nurse fall instantaneously in love, the mother's rude shenanigans threaten to drive her away. The jokes have aged poorly: for example, there's an especially cringey one about a man-on-man rape resulting in romance. But the worst thing about the movie is that it's just terribly unfunny.

D-

Terminal (2018)

I am not a fan of dark, grimy, near-future nonsense movies in general and this one is no exception. It's got a lot of twists, turns, fake-outs, and convoluted backstory but it adds up to nothing but a waste of an hour and a half.

D-

65 (2023)

We wanted something exciting, fun, and brainless. This only delivered the last wish on the list.

At least now I know that Adam Driver can't do everything.

D-

Women Talking (2022)

For a movie about an American religious community in 2010 that operates as though women are nothing but property without rights -- even when some of its members have been arrested for raping women and girls after rendering them unconscious -- this was crazy boring.

The conversation and ideas presented didn't feel in any way natural. Even if this had been set in the 1700s, the women ran from "too trusting" to "too forward-thinking." Most of the women (and girls) seemed to possess modern-day understanding while still holding fast to the belief that what the men told them was true. How could they believe the elders who told them they wouldn't go to heaven if they didn't forgive the rapists while also holding the knowledge that these same elders blamed imagination and demons for their bruised and bleeding bodies?

I hated this so much. It was reductive and infuriating.

D-

Bullet Train (2022)

A bunch of assassins are on the same bullet train, looking for the same case full of money, and getting in each other's way. There's a kid in a hospital with a threat hanging over him, a poisonous snake, a bunch of references to Thomas the Tank Engine and... and... and... just too much to keep track of. I wouldn't have minded that so much if the action was interesting or fun, but it's not. I was confused and angry, but mostly bored.

Spared from an "F" rating only because a few of the action scenes were cool (even though they were somehow less believable than those in the Fast & the Furious franchise).

D-

The Green Knight (2021)

Gawain, nephew to the king, battles the green knight to prove his bravery. A year later, he must journey to the green knight and receive the same wound he inflicted on the knight.

And that bit of information, imparted in the first 15 minutes of the movie, is about the last time I felt like I possessed solid understanding of what was happening. It was a muddled mess.

D-

Deep Water (2022)

Rich, retired tech guy is married to a shameless cheater. But man is she hot, so he puts up with it. Or does he? I mean, it's pretty weird that her boyfriends keep disappearing or winding up dead.

Whatever. If this movie went a little further, a little more camp, it could've been hilariously bad, turning it into a guilty pleasure. Instead, it's just terrible.

D-

Hell House LLC (2016)

A "found footage" movie covering a tragedy on opening night of a Haunted House event. The videos show the team readying an abandoned-inn venue for their tour. It's a creepy place and they're freaking themselves out... but there are also too many caught-on-video weirdnesses to be ignored. And yet, somehow the show-runner does ignore them.

Low-budget, inexplicable nonsense.

D-

Twice-Told Tales (1963)

Three short films based on stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne and all starring Vincent Price. The first is about enteral youth, the second is doomed love, and the third is a family curse spanning more than a century. None are worth the time and the sets look like they were put together for a pretty decent high school play.

D-

What Keeps You Alive (2018)

Married couple Jackie and Jules are celebrating their first anniversary by spending the "weekend" (though I counted at least 5 nights) at the secluded lake house Jackie inherited from her family. Jackie shows her true colors by pushing Jules off a cliff, but Jules survives and makes so many dumb decisions that, honestly, I could not in good conscience root for her.

The scenery is pretty.

D-

Hillbilly Elegy (2020)

Trashy family manages to produce a kid who makes it to Yale law school, mostly due to the determination of his grandmother. Since his mother's an addict, someone had to step in to make sure he got a chance. When his mother ODs, he's called back from school to help find her a rehab facility.

This is lazy sentimental pablum about an unremarkable family situation. I think you'd probably have a hard time finding an ivy league classroom without at least one scholarship kid who could tell stories similar and worse than this one. 

D-

The Vast of Night (2020)

In 1950s New Mexico, Everett is a smug DJ for the local radio station and Fay is, perhaps, the most careless switchboard operator in history. When she hears a weird frequency on one of her lines, she calls up Everett who requests people with information call the station.

It's just a super-cheap aliens movie. It's a lot of manic talking and zero payoff.

D-

The Little Hours (2017)

A young servant who had been carrying on an affair with his master's wife must flee when he's found out. He winds up working at a convent as a deaf-mute, but his handicap doesn't deter the horny group of nuns at all.

Weirdly unfunny and -- despite full frontal nudity -- unerotic.

D-

The Vault (2017)

A squabbling team of robbers hold up a bank & get a bit more than they bargained for. A schlocky waste of time with a twist that is obvious from the minute you hear "1982" and have context for Franco's facial hair and sideburns.

D-

Joker (2019)

If this movie were just about a damaged guy with a rare disorder and delusions of talent, would anyone be praising it? Or would that clear the smoke and allow the masses to see that this is an over-the-top fetishization of misery? Slap the name "Joker" on a marquee and people lose their collective shit lining up to praise this tortured piece of cinematic ugliness and drudgery. I don't think it's honest.

D-

Four Christmases (2008)

Happy couple with no plans for marriage or family and no interest in visiting their own screwed-up families for Christmas feel forced to do so when their lie about doing charity work over the holidays gets found out. Since both sets of families are divorced, that means four different places to visit.

And boy. By the end of the first visit, if I were the woman I would've been suspecting that maybe the guy I'm with isn't all that great. By the end of the third, I'd have been sure of it. But, of course, that ain't what happens. Ugh. This one was painfully unfunny.

D-