In Honor of The Dark Knight III: Morgan Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption

Who doesn’t enjoy going to a nursing home and listening to old people ramble incoherently about how life was better before ipods and how much they miss Jim Crow laws? Come to think of it, who doesn’t enjoy getting repeatedly jabbed in the stomach with a rusty nail? Well thanks to The Shawshank Redemption, both of these feelings can be yours for the low, low price of your sanity and will to live. It is unsurprising that this movie is based on a work by Stephen King, because the entire time I watched I was hoping demons would devour my soul, as the prospect of eternal damnation would be a relief compared to having to sit through this film ever again. The emotional equivalent of watching tectonic plates shift in slow motion, The Shawshank Redemption is packed with exciting action like monotonous rants, vapid stares, monotonous rants, and vapid stares set to classical music. Did I mention the monotonous rants? There are a lot of those.

Tim Robbins celebrates being free of the torture of making this movie.

Morgan Freeman mumbles and bumbles through the movie, which is understandable considering that, at the age of 247, it’s difficult to stay awake, especially when he has to recite earth-shatteringly dull monologues every ten minutes. And Tim Robbins’ eyes are so glazed over it would take a jackhammer to break through, something I was hoping would happen during the movie. The rest of the characters are as two-dimensional as a piece of cardboard, and as interesting to watch. The Shawshank Redemption desperately wants to be emotionally manipulative garbage, but it just isn’t good enough to qualify, as it is impossible to care about these insipid characters. A vastly better film would have been watching Morgan Freeman have his tongue cut out, as it would have simultaneously solved two of the biggest problems: he would have talked less, and he would have shown any emotion. The only feeling that The Shawshank Redemption actually instilled in me was the desire to be brutally gang raped, as it couldn’t be a more horrible experience than watching this.

In Honor of The Dark Knight II: Christopher Nolan’s Memento

Christopher Nolan clearly wants to give himself a big pat on the back, as in his mind he is the cleverest little shit in the world. In response, I would like to give Mr. Nolan a big punch in the testicles as a way of sending him a message: if you take a shitty movie, and you make the entire thing go backwards, you don’t get a good movie. Never have I been more jealous of a mentally disabled person than I am of Leonard Shelby, who suffers from extreme short term memory loss. I am almost willing to carve open my skull with a hacksaw and start removing parts of my brain in hopes of forgetting that I ever saw Memento, possibly the stupidest movie ever made. Of course, if I had a hacksaw, I would be slowly torturing Christopher Nolan and everyone else who had a part in the creation of this terrible film.

He needs a tattoo that says “Don’t Make Shitty Movies!”

I will, however, give Nolan credit for one thing: having the courage to cast an actual mentally disabled person as the main character. Guy Pearce’s blank stare, which he wears almost the entire movie, is hypnotic, while simultaneously making me want to punch him in the face to see if he’ll notice. As for his two bumbling sidekicks? Carrie-Anne Moss clearly considers acting to be the transition between two facial expressions: glowering and smirking, while Joe Pantaliano contentedly grins like an idiot throughout the film, a wise choice considering that his character, like everything about this script, is idiotic. Making a movie backwards doesn’t hide the fact that most of your story is your main character talking on a phone, not actually doing anything, and doesn’t make it any easier to ignore the plot craters that riddle your script like machine gun fire. Maybe if somebody turned the machine gun around so it was facing Nolan, nobody would have ever needed to watch the most nonsensical film in history, and everyone would have had a lot more fun beating Christopher Nolan’s corpse with sticks. Now that’s something I’d want to watch.

In Honor of the Dark Knight I: Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain

Now let me set the record straight: I have nothing against gay people. I am a liberal and a strong proponent of gay marriage, so when I say that Brokeback Mountain makes me want to tear out and consume my own eyeballs, it is not driven by any prejudice or homophobia. No, I am only prejudiced against movies so intensely boring that I can feel my brain melting and pouring out of my ear as I watch them. When someone tells you that Brokeback Mountain is about cowboys fucking, they are referring to approximately thirty seconds of the film. The rest of it is cowboys staring off into space, cowboys grunting at each other, cowboys staring at sheep, cowboys staring off into space some more, and me snapping off my own fingers just to break up the monotony.

Heath Ledger doing the world a favor by strangling Jake Gyllenhaal

If anybody had placed a bet on who the two least expressive actors in history are, I hope they had their money on Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. It’s possible that somebody cut Heath Ledger’s vocal chords before filming started, because his performance is a series of Neanderthal-like grunts and he can barely utter an entire sentence during this interminably long film. And Jake Gyllenhaal needs to take more acting lessons and less laughing gas if he ever wants to give a tolerable performance, but all I wanted to do was wipe that smirk off his face, preferably with a rag doused in sulfuric acid. Of course, that would have meant that something would have happened in this movie, and we can’t have that. Brokeback Mountain needed fewer superfluous shots of trees and more Ang Lee getting beaten with a sledge hammer, because his movie is the cinematic equivalent of getting an elephant tranquilizer shot into your eye: intense pain before the heavenly respite of sleep. Do yourself a favor, and skip straight to the sleep.

The Dark Knight Deserves a Jousting Lance to the Throat

I have been told that writing that Heath Ledger is lucky that he died before he ever had to sit through his last movie is too “offensive,” so I won’t. Suffice to say that had Ledger lived long enough to watch the 152 minutes of torture that is his last film, it’s likely we would be mourning his death anyway, because it’s practically impossible to sit through The Dark Knight without choking to death on your own tongue. If I had a superpower, it would be the ability to punch Christopher Nolan in the face until he realized that Batman is the most ridiculous superhero ever, and trying to take him seriously is the equivalent of making a holocaust film starring the teletubbies. Nolan apparently just figured out this really cool trick where you spin the camera in circles really fast and decided to use it in every scene, giving me yet another reason to feel like I was going to throw up while watching The Dark Knight.

"I'd rather die than do another one of these movies!"

Watching Christian Bale stumble around like an idiot for two and a half hours, half of the time the world’s foremost asshole and the other half inexplicably with a sore throat, helped me realize that there has never been a superhero that I have wanted to disembowel as much as him. I’m not sure how exactly Heath Ledger died, but it might have been from a helium overdose. He sounds like Tweety Bird, rambles incoherently, and is as intimidating a figure as Barney. Aaron Eckhart can shout as much as he wants, but it doesn’t change the fact that he has the emotional range of a toaster strudel. And unless you pay close attention, you might not have noticed that Maggie Gyllenhaal was even in this movie. Actually, Maggie Gyllenhaal might not have noticed either. As the anti-climactic action scenes piled up, I felt tempted to take up the Joker’s suggestion to chew on razor blades, just as a distraction from the excrement on screen. But as blissful as the temporary relief would be, feeling the scars on the insides of my cheeks for the rest of my life would serve as a reminder of the two and a half hours I wasted on this terrible movie.

Slam My Head into a Wall-E

I get it: I’m fat. I pollute the environment. I’m a terrible person and I should be killed for my sins against the planet. In fact, I would rather be killed for my sins than ever have to sit through Wall-E again. Pixar is known for grinding out the sentimental equivalent of sausage, unremarkable and barely digestible. But while they’ve mostly manipulated audiences with obtuse stories of cowardly fish and moronic superheroes, their approach with Wall-E is to guilt audiences into hating themselves; taking a cue from Happy Feet, it seeks to torture children by telling them that their mere existence makes the world worse.

Wall-E prays to God for a better movie.

Of course, this guilt trip that will force countless children into years of therapy is cloaked behind an utterly pointless love story between fancy toasters. The title character, the last trash compacter left on Earth (thrilling, I know), is the equivalent of the kid with down-syndrome that everyone hopes will leave them alone. He is obsessed with the movie Hello Dolly!, a tool used by director Andrew Stanton to show the audience a different movie as a means of distracting us from how terrible this one is. It doesn’t work. Then he meets Eve, a bitch of such magnitude that she makes Hillary Clinton look like Mother Theresa. They go on an adventure so monumentally boring that you’ll thank Stanton for keeping the dialogue to a minimum as it will make the experience easier to sleep through. But there is nothing remotely tolerable about this movie, especially when it beats you over the head with its message. Unsurprisingly for Pixar, that happens to be the entire time, so you might not survive the concussion you get if you risk sitting through Wall-E.

Resisting the Overwhelming Desire to Maima Mia!

Considering that nobody has cared about ABBA in almost three decades, the idea that anybody would want to make a movie as an excuse to listen to their music is mystifying. However, as Mamma Mia! continued, I was less filled less with confusion and more with the urge to claw out my eyes. To call Mamma Mia! a bad movie does not begin to describe the hellish experience of watching people randomly breaking out into crappy 70s pop music. Actively avoiding plot and character development, Mamma Mia! fails on every level, wallowing in stupidity and featuring brainless characters, mindless dialogue, and nauseating cinematography. Anybody who tells you that setting a building on fire should be illegal has never been in a theater while watching this movie.

Meryl Streep uncontrollably vomiting after watching her own movie.

Somebody must have incriminating photos of Meryl Streep to blackmail her to be in this movie, but the effort was wasted. Her face looks like it’s about to fall off, she sings like a dying goat, and she was obviously improperly mixing tequila and valium during filming. Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, and Stellen Skarsgard were likely kidnapped drugged, and dropped on a deserted island, completely unaware that they were being filmed at all. As for budding star Amanda Seyfried, well, if you can get past the fact that her eyes take up three quarters of the screen, you might realize that she is actually in a coma, and is controlled by a complex series of wires the entire movie. But beyond the incompetent acting, I was infused with the urge to kill every time random Greek peasants broke out into song. Every character is detestable, and I was disappointed every time I saw one of the many cliffs on the Greek island with nobody hurling themselves from it. If I had been forced to sit through one more of Pierce Brosnan’s throaty, eardrum ripping ballads, I would have been looking for a cliff myself.

If You Wanted to Have Spikes Driven into Your Brain, You Loved Wanted

“Holy Shit!” will be your initial reaction for about thirty seconds of Wanted, the most insulting crapfest to grace screens in some time. Yeah, curving bullets are awesome, nobody can deny that, but the idea of making an entire movie off of one cool special effect is moronic. Of course, that would be true even if the movie didn’t have the most idiotic plot conceit ever devised, loaded with terrible dialogue spouted by vapid actors. A fine screenplay were it written by drunken seven year-olds, a writer with any self-respect would be embarrassed to have their name in the credits of this movie If I could curve bullets, I would shoot off the testicles of every writer of this junk so that they can experience a portion of the agony that I went through watching their retarded brainchild.

Me running down the cast of Wanted, none of whom deserve to live.

Is there a more ludicrous plot device in history than a magical weaving loom that tells you who to kill? I can’t think of one. How about the idea that high blood pressure gives you super powers? A schmorgasboard of idiocy congeals before your very eyes in Wanted, probably giving you brain tumors. James Macavoy is as convincing a badass hitman as Bambi would be, except far more bland. Angelina Jolie drags her freakishly large lips from scene to scene, trying to keep up with the absurd plot, but it’s clear she had no idea what the hell was going on. Can you blame her? As for Morgan Freeman, well it’s quite possible that he died during filming, I mean in the middle of a scene, and nobody noticed. Wanted exults in its mockery of logic and common sense, possibly even expecting the audience to enjoy being laughed at for two hours as nonsensical action scenes crawl past them. If there were a loom of fate, I can only assume that whoever decided to make this movie would be strapped to it, their insides being devoured by rabid hamsters. Anything less would not be a fitting punishment for unleashing Wanted on the world.

Hellboy 2 Makes Me Envious of Those Actually in Hell

There have never been such monumentally irritating and hateable characters ever to grace a screen as those that fill every minute of the supremely obnoxious Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. Director Guillermo del Toro still hasn’t come down from the hard on he got during Pan’s Labyrinth, and believes that his jizz is magic. Hellboy 2 is loaded with del Toro jizz but is utterly lacking in likeable characters, a compelling plot, or actors that don’t suck. This movie is the special effects equivalent of a cum shot on your face: yeah, it sounds cool, but actually it’s really unpleasant and you want it to be over as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, you can’t wipe Hellboy 2 away with a t-shirt, but God I wanted to try.

Hellboy uses giant guns to compensate for his... shortcomings

Ron Perlman is that jock you always hated in high school and now thinks he’s hot shit as a used-car salesman, but he’s just an alcoholic asshole with a beer gut. Why would you want to root for him in a movie? This movie might be tolerable if it took its title literally, and was two hours of Ron Perlman being tortured and set on fire. Selma Blair is clearly only good at making out with girls on screen, and any time she’s asked to actually act, she makes me vomit all over myself. If she were hot enough to be in porn this wouldn’t be a problem, but right now she’s just wasting oxygen. Hellboy 2 is overloaded with moronic villains battling even stupider heroes; if these characters were any dumber they’d spend the entire movie walking into walls and buying lottery tickets. But nothing compares to the villain’s sister, who, although they don’t mention it, I’m pretty sure is supposed to be retarded, as that is the only way this movie makes sense. Guillermo del Toro clearly hates women, babies, and humanity in general, or why else would he make this atrocious crap. When he dies, he will go to hell, and he will be forced to watch Showgirls on repeat for his crimes against humanity.

Stab Me in the Face and the City

In 1919, we gave women the right to vote, and frankly, after watching Sex and the City, I can’t figure out why. After watching four of the most irritating and moronic women in the world drool over shoes and throw themselves at men because they’re old and desperate, I’m starting to understand why women weren’t allowed out of the kitchen for centuries. I spent most of the film wishing that at some point during their numerous sexual exploits at least one of these women had died of AIDS. I normally support AIDS research, but in any of these cases I would be rooting for the virus, if only to shorten my own agony.

The girls celebrate their labotomies

I’m not saying that all women should be forced to stay indoors at all times, but if I were to make a list of those that should, Sarah Jessica Parker would be at the top. I’m just waiting for whatever demon snakes are writhing in the skin under her neck to burst out and rid the world of her. Never has there been a more hateable character than the vapid Carrie Bradshaw, who alternates between sobbing over Mr. Big and orgasming over Prada purses. I’m only thankful for the no-nudity clause in Parker’s contract that saved my retinas from spontaneously combusting. She and the three clichés—if they were dwarves they would be called Slutty, Prudey, and Dykey—wander aimlessly for a coma-inducing 148 minutes, spouting stupidity at every chance and crying into their cosmopolitans. If anyone wants to know why the terrorists hate us, you only need to sit through Sex and the City. Of course, I would rather go on a Jihad than have to watch this movie ever again.

I Hate Movies!

My name is Tom Houseman. I have studied film for a number of years, written screenplays, made short films and videos, and see over a hundred films a year. Recently, I came to a conclusion: I hate movies. All movies. Big studio films, little indie flicks, experimental, landscape, everything. I hate student films, amateur films, new films and classic films. If you’ve made a film, and I’ve seen it, I hate it. If I haven’t seen it, I’ll hate it as soon as I get around to it. I even hate my own films.

So I decided to make this blog to spread the word that all movies are crap, to convince everyone that it isn’t worth your time, energy, or money, to sit through any movie that has ever been made. I will post reviews whenever I see a movie, explaining to you why this movie is awful. No matter how good you think a movie might be, I assure that it is actually a piece of trash, not fit for human eyes. Enjoy!