The inaugural YAWNIES

On the one hand, the privilege of going to the movies once a week to share our thoughts and responses with you can be an exhilarating and thought-provoking affair. On the other hand, here is the list (in alphabetical order) of the films that made it really hard going – the inaugural YAWNIES, published today in the Geraldton Guardian.

Green Zone
Hopes were high for Paul Greengrass’s (The Bourne … movies, United 93) ‘Iraq War film’. Fatally, Green Zone mistook floating a raft of opinions about the Iraq war for storytelling and paused for a moment as two great big pieces of anti-war propaganda crashed to the ground like 10-ton slabs of cement. Truly regrettable.

Law Abiding Citizen
Revenge dramas don’t come more predictable and self-indulgent than this. Complete with the worst line of dialogue in memory, this unapologetic mess of a film tried too hard to mean (and achieve) anything and ended up meaning (and achieving) nothing whatsoever. The result? Cinematic-flatlining.

Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief
Suffering from a serious case of Harry Potter envy, this bland offering struggled with the basics of storytelling and resulted in a boring, over-produced effort that had my companion opting for all the colour and movement of the cinema foyer instead. I couldn’t leave too because reviewers have to stay until the end. Talk about hard yards!

Skyline
No list of cinematic turkeys for 2010 would be complete without this dud – the worst movie of the year. Only distinctly morbid curiosity kept me in my seat – fascinated by just how cringe-inducingly bad a film script (and the acting of it) could be.

The Disappearance of Alice Creed
Poor Alice was kidnapped, bound, gagged, nearly suffocated and eventually handcuffed to an old oil heater in an abandoned warehouse. Gemma Arterton had the unenviable task of spending much of the movie handcuffed to a bed with a bag over her head in this grimy and morally suspect, handcuff-obsessed little flick.

The Killer Inside Me
Michael Winterbottom’s pretentious, nihilistic, exploitative, dead-end of a movie disappeared under a tidal wave of controversy. The violence against women (with which this film was pornographically-afflicted) wins the YAWNIE for the film that left the nastiest taste in the mouth all year.

The Last Exorcism
Director Stamm and screenplay writers Botko and Gurland had a great idea to make a film that was as fantastic as the films it was trying desperately hard to be: The Blair Witch Project (1999), Cloverfield (2008), The Exorcist (1973) and Rosemary’s Baby (1968). It wasn’t.

The Wolfman
This blustering adaptation of the 1941 Claude Raines and Bela Lugosi horror classic tripped over itself to end up being slightly less thrilling than receiving a postcard, and infinitely less horrifying than opening your bank statement. Or your phone bill. A complete failure at generating genuine tension, suspense, meaning or interest.

Up in the Air
This lithe, mercilessly fatuous, one-note romantic comedy starred the effervescent George Clooney. This wins a YAWNIE for being one of those well-made, precise Hollywood flicks that bathes in the excesses of its own conceit and leaves you, well, up in the air about what we were supposed to make of it all. Instantly forgettable.

The inaugural YAWNIES were commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.