We’re obviously planning a Best of 2008 list and even a Worst of 2008 list, but it never really occurred to us to do the more nuanced, Most Disappointing of 2008 list until we saw Spoutblog‘s list (they crazy about “Che,” let’s leave it at that). Films that disappointed, yes, this is a very subjective list. A lot of people are picking up on the Most Disappointed meme, but some seem to have a strange ideas of what “most disappointed” means. To us, it’s a film you had high hopes and high expectations from, not a film that you saw and didn’t like so much or you thought could have been executed much better (there’s a distinct difference). We digress…, but as usual, high expectations are a bitch.
Most Disappointing Films of 2008
“Pineapple Express” – Hopes were high, high for Judd Apatow’s big summer movie directed by one of our favorite indie auteurs, David Gordon Green. Perhaps too high. A stoner movie with Seth Rogen and James Franco, with the Apatow crew in hand? We couldn’t have relished it more, but overall the movie was funny, but just OK, and didn’t make us really howl as we hoped. All and all, it’s mostly forgotten.
“Synecdoche, New York” – Perhaps it’s because we read the super amusing and heady script in advance and then treated to such a dense and dour experience of a film or perhaps because we were sort of dazzled and winded by the film at first, but now it doesn’t really leave a dent, but Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut failed to leave a lasting, longtail impression on us. Never has a film sort of felt us so elevated and thrown initially and then cold and resonant-less months later. The tortoise always wins the race obviously and maybe it’ll take a second viewing, but as of right now it’s lost that. It probably didn’t help that expectations were high, but truthfully, its the script. Those lines can’t help but become incredibly depressing and bleak when spoken through the mouths of actors, but in the screenplay much of it is darkly comedic.
“W”
Oliver Stone’s George W. Bush biopic could have been amazing sharp satire and was a deliciously arch read, but the movie had an indentity crisis and didn’t seem sure if it was comedy or drama and neither played that strongly. Josh Brolin probably has no shot at a Best Actor nomination and if he does happen to receive one, it’s only because it’s a very average year. “W” had no real bite or much bark and while fairly entertaining initially, it became too even handed (to Stone’s credit), to say much of anything.
“Be Kind Rewind”
Michel Gondry is a tricky figure. He’s an amazing visual artist, but his narrative films are spotty. Still, his work has been so innovative in the past, the very mention of his name builds expectations. We liked, “The Science Of Sleep” more than most people seemed to, but we sort of knew something with Jack Black and Mos Def wouldn’t be particularly amazing. Still we hoped, but ‘Rewind’ didn’t deliver. Though we will say that final last act was really charismatic and endearing even if the film overall wasn’t anything special.
“Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist”
We should have seen the writing on the wall for this one. It’s another The Shins of Indie Movies flick, an emo twee, indie flick. Why did we expect anything at all from this you ask in disbelief?? Well, because of the cast Michael Cera and Kat Dennings (both charismatic young actors) and mostly because of the director Peter Sollet, who helmed the very winning and intimate, “Raising Victor Vargas.” ‘Infinite Playlist’ had none of the sensitive and honest touches of that story and jumped feet first into the silly hipster indie film genre with a subpar John Hughes-ness/rom-com lite feeling. You’ll never fool us again (probably…).
“The Fist Foot Way”
As early as February, it looked like a safe bet that Danny R. McBride would be the break-out comedy star of 2008. At that time he had upcoming roles in “Tropic Thunder,” “Pineapple Express”, “Drillbit Taylor” (that’s two Apatow projects) and he seemed poised to leap out of the comedy pack and he certainly did. His performances overall were breakout roles, especially in his scene-stealing turns in “Pineapple Express.” However, he had his own film, “The Foot Fist Way,” that comedy insiders were raving about, including Will Ferrell and Adam McKay who went on to executive produce the film and find it a proper release after a 2006 Sundance screening. The Apatow gang, people like Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill were also raving about McBride and ‘Foot Fist Way,’ but the film arrived with a resounding dud and was aggressively mediocre. The idea would have made a fantastic 20-minute short, but even at a brisk 80-some minutes the one-trick-pony jokes totally overstayed their welcome. Maybe McBride is just a better supporting player. Either way, it seems to have given him and director Jody Hill Hollywood careers so maybe that’s all that mattered.
Ok Sorta, Not Really… (To go against our criteria a little…) What We Hoped Might Be Ok…
“Rock N’ Rolla”
Ok, you’d be a sucker to expect much here and to be fair we weren’t, Guy Ritchie is a bit of an overrated director, but “Snatch” and “Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels” are extremely derivative, they’re also immaculately crafted and super enjoyable guilty pleasure-ish crime films. So we were tentatively hoping for something from Ritchie, especially since he was going off two back-to-back bombs (“Swept Away” and “Revolver”), but nope, this 4th-go round at the stylish crime caper was one too many times to the same well with even less impressive results. Basically we were hoping for Guy Ritchie to do something mildly interesting for once, but no dice.
Most Overhyped Films Of 2008 – Sundance 2008 is like that time you got really drunk and hooked up with that less than desirable girl or guy who seemed like a good idea at the time. The list of films lauded that weekend now seem like that walk of shame and regret.
“American Teen”
People flipped for the Nanette Burstein-directed documentary at Sundance, but the flick wasn’t much more incisive or revelatory than an episode of “The Hills” or at best, the days when “The Real World” was actually a fairly decent show (in the very beginning when the concept of “reality TV” was pioneering). It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t surely wasn’t genius. The last act was especially winning, but sometimes we think the altitudes in Utah cut the circulation off to some people’s brains.
“Choke”
Another ok, decent and sometimes savagely funny film, that overall was…harmless, fine, mostly enjoyable, but Christ almighty did it get a lot of uproarious praise from geek bloggers and real journos alike (Entertainment Weekly are guilty of overhype here). Performances are fine and the script is ok, but its clearly a first film. Director Clark Gregg is a really nice guy, but the crux of the film – the element that makes you suspend your disbelief – is the idea that being saved from choking, is so undershot and undersold, one can’t but help but shake their head. Not a terrible film by any means, but nothing to write home to mom about or make such a gigantic fuss over either. We assume a lot of those Sundance parties lead to drinking before screenings.
“The Wackness”
We kind of liked the hip-hop coming of age story by Jonathan Levine, but it’s pretty damn, woe-is-me emo tribulations that pretty much any self-involved teenager goes through and it’s pretty lowest com-denom in that nature. We’ve all been there and we’ve all experienced it, but yeah, we had diaries too, but we’re not about to publish them either. “The Wackness” is entertaining and there’s elements of it that we really liked (the score by David Torn and the cinematography at times had a nice Sofia Coppola-ish vibe), but at the same time, this film didn’t seem totally assured of what it wanted to be (teen comedy or sad sack bildungsroman tale?). A fun film, but nothing that we’d own on DVD or even put in our Top 20 films of the year. Make no mistake, people get too excited when they see things first and during the exciting vibe of a film festival. Trust no one.
“Cloverfield” was definitely over-hyped to retarded levels, but it wasn’t the abortion we expected and at least entertaining so a brief mention is all it gets. One Playlist member was also disappointed by “Righteous Kill,” but we have to say, we know that was going to be ass from minute one cause Pacino and DeNiro have been phoning it in for some time now. Plus 50 Cent was in it and he’s the worst. If we did a most-overrated list, “Rachel Getting Married” would be up there, but we can’t put it in Most Disappointed because we didn’t really expect an exorbitant amount from it.