in which Jeffry slams a movie that he just watched....
Before we begin, we need a bit of background here.
In Januray 2005, Kyle was here visiting me in Oz. During his visit, we subjected ourselves to two of the worst performances of any sort (live or recorded) that I think either of us has ever seen. They were truly awful. I won't go into full details here, but I'll provide you with the basics here.
1) First night that we were in Brisbane (we'd stopped in LA and NZ on the way, so that getting to Brisbane had taken a week from when we'd left Maryland), we went to see Lemony Snicket's Unfortunate Series of Events, on the recommendation of my new housemate, The Wookie. Later I would learn that the The Wookie has some of the worst taste in entertainment of any human I've ever met. This was not in my general scope of knowledge at the time, however.
It turns out that the very first in a long series of unfortunate events in that movie is the part where you, the movie-goer, purchase yourself a ticket to see the movie. The second one is where you sit down and actually attempt to watch the movie. It was boring. It was long. Watching it really was a most unpleasent series of events. Actually, I don't think I ever took any entertainment advice from The Wookie after that. Moving along...
2) While in Sydney, we really wanted to see a show at the Sydney Opera House, because honestly, how many chances to do that do you get? I've gotten several, but I live here, so that's SLIGHTLY different. Anyway, we got tickets to see the show that looked like the best option of what was on offer. As a bonus, it was being shown in the big symphony/opera room, which is an ultra-nifty venue in and of itself.
Kyle tells this part of the story much better, so I'll just sum up. It was described as a new and innovative modern dance show. What it was in fact was the staged equivelent of watching paint dry.
The only real up-shot of this was that it gave Kyle and I numerous inside jokes relating back to it and just how awful it was (and how we could manufacture a BETTER modern dance show based sheerly on random ideas of our's).
About a year after that visit (well, a year and a half, I guess, I'm not sure the exact date of this next part), I rented Superman Returns on a whim. I'd heard it wasn't great, but I figured it was worth checking it out on rental. The movie was 2 and a half hours, and the rental cost me 3 AUD.
By the time it finished, I wanted 5 hours and 6 AUD returned to me. The movie had one interesting acting sequence at the start. Beyond that, there was no redeeming it, not even Kevin Spacey and Parker Posey playing the villains. It was just truly awful. The script was terrible, as were the pacing, directing, and acting. The movie would best have been used as a source of fertilizer.
Ok, so, have you got all of that? That's all preface. I'm about to tell you that I've actually just finished watching something WORSE.
I mean, at least in all 3 cases previous, I could sit around with a friend and make fun of the material (Kyle for the first two and my flatmate Sharm for Superman Shouldn't Have Bothered Coming Back). Even if I'd been watching with another friend, this next one is truly beyond redeeming.
It gets worse, though. According to over 3000 votes on www.imdb.com, this movie is worth an 8.3 out of 10.
...Yeah, maybe in opposite land.
Seriously, though, follow the link at the end of this, and you'll see that I'm not making this up.
First off, let's talk lead actors. The movie stars Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck (the younger brother of Ben Affleck) in its lead spots. Now, already, this seems like a promising set up. Brad Pitt usually acts quite well and has a tendancy to sort of smoothly glide and charm his way through any movie he shows up in. Now, I'll admit, I've only seen Casey Affleck in the Ocean's movies. Thing is, I've always found his charecter in them (Virgil Malloy) quite amsuing, just as light comedy relief. Besides, he and Brad Pitt were in the Ocean's movies together, so I figured that familiarity would lend itself to good on-screen performances.
If you haven't quite figured out which movie I'm talking about, here it is: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
I'm not even sure if Mystery Science Theatre 3000, were it still around, could save this thing. It is 2 hours and 40 minutes of slow, painfully slow, boredom punctuated ever so often with small doses of sheer gruesomeness. It isn't even really gruesome with a purpose or for a charecter you really identify with (because believe me, I didn't find myself cheering for either James or Ford). I'd say the dialogue was terrible, but there wasn't even much of what could qualify as proper dialogue for the first 20-30 minutes. There was a bit, but only barely. What was there stank like a sulfur pit.
Really the only redeeming point of the entire movie was the narration, which would come in and out now and again. That wasn't bad. But as soon as the acting was the focus again, it just went downhill (more like down-cliff) at mach 4. The worst bit wasn't just that it was boring or pointlessly gruesome. It was 2 hours and forty minutes of very slowly paced boring and gruesome. I hate not seeing the end of a movie I've started, and I hate not finishing something I've paid money to see (thankfully, I only paid 6.50 AUD as a student). Those were really the ONLY things that kept me from leaving early.
And for those who don't believe what I was saying about its www.imdb.com rating, here's the link:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443680/
So yay! I've now subjected myself to something WORSE than Superman Returns, Lemony Snicket, or whatever that show in Sydney was called. This may be the worst performance I've ever seen. If it isn't, it's really close. I like watching movies, and I tend not to walk out of even a mediocre movie thinking it was a waste of my time. Tonight, I walked out going "well, that was most truly awful."
I cannot recommend strongly enough that anyone reading this not see The Assassination of Jesse James... I'm not even sure it's worth the time it took you to read this review (and you're getting the benefit of this review for free!).