Review: Movie 43

The year was 1991.  I had hopped on the train to Boston to enjoy a saturday with friends.  After a fine meal, we decided to see a movie at the Loews Copley Plaza (gone but not forgotten).  Someone insisted on seeing a movie I had never heard of called Drop Dead Fred and we all acquiesced.  I was basking in the glow of a perfect day away from school and thought nothing could ruin the moment.  Twenty minutes into the movie, I realized that I was horribly wrong.  There was one thing that could do just that…and I was now watching it.  As I walked out of the cinema some ninety minutes later I uttered these three words: “worst movie ever.”  In the two decades since, I may have echoed that sentiment a few times, but no movie has truly been able to seize that moniker from Drop Dead Fred.  All of that changed yesterday when I watched Movie 43, because it is indeed the “worst movie ever.”

Movie 43 is a collection of self-contained sketches directed by a collection of individuals featuring casts that are accomplished to varying degrees.  The comedic (and I use that word lightly) skits are tied together by a plotline featuring Dennis Quaid as a deranged screenwriter who desperately and forcibly pitches script ideas to a film executive (Greg Kinnear).  What ensues is a litany of asinine juvenile sketches that wouldn’t even be good enough for the SNL cutting room floor. 

Let’s cut to the chase.  Yes, it really is the worst movie I have ever seen and were it not for extreme boredom I probably would not have made it past the first twenty minutes.  However, what is most surprising about this movie is some of the names attached to it.  Some of that can be explained away by the fact that each actor’s awareness of the production was contained to their own respective sketches.  While that nugget absolves absolutely no one, it makes things a bit more palatable.   Peter Farrelly (There's Something About Mary, Kingpin) however has no such excuse as he championed this project from start to finish as a writer/producer/director.

So what makes it so bad?  The skit about an eligible bachelor with testicles on his neck (Hugh Jackman) would in most cases mark the low point for any film, but not in this one.  With sketches about coprophilia (Anna Faris), female menstruation (Chloe Grace Moretz), and rowdy birthday leprechauns, the film manages to reach new lows every time you think it could not possibly get any worse.  The experience of watching Movie 43 is best likened to following the real life exploits of Lindsay Lohan on TMZ.  It’s repulsive and disgusting yet demands attention because you just can’t help but wonder how far the once mighty can fall.  Rest assured, this film will plummet beneath whatever depths of idiocy you can fathom.

If I absolutely had to pick out a bright spot or two in the movie, I would single out real life couple Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts for their portrayal of a married couple who has opted to home school their son.  Likewise, Terrence Howard as the coach of an all black high basketball team stands slightly above the other sketches.  Sure, those two skits have moments where they pander to the lowest denominator in society, but there are also some genuinely funny punch lines that almost make you forget the shame and regret that mounts the longer you watch this movie.

To spend any more time discussing Movie 43 would be a disservice to myself and to the rest of humanity.  Before you clicked on this post, you were probably not inclined to watch this movie and hopefully, nothing I have written will in any way change your opinion.  There’s bad; then there’s terrible; and then there’s another level that you should completely avoid and this is one of those movies you should never watch…ever…under any circumstances.  In fact, should this DVD ever find its way into your life, you should treat it as you would the VHS tape from The Ring.  Break it; burn it; throw it in a well; whatever you need to do to make sure your eyes never see a single frame.  You’ve been warned.

Standout Performance: Everyone who passed on this movie.  

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Review: New Year's Eve

Let’s fast forward through the diatribe I typically express whenever I come across one of those ensemble cast movies that features half of Hollywood (Valentine’s Day, What to Expect When You Are Expecting).  Let’s just accept the fact that I think they are terrible, lack character development, and feature actors just mailing it in.  Having just seen the movie New Year’s Eve I can tell that I saw nothing in this movie that makes me feel otherwise. 

New Year’s Eve follows the lives of a bunch of people in New York City on New Year’s Eve battling the holidays, the elements, and the trite sentimentality that drives their respective matters of the heart.  Why director Garry Marshall – he of Pretty Woman, Beaches, and The Princess Diaries fame – keeps venturing into this genre is beyond me, but rather than completely dismiss the film as a complete write off, I am going to highlight the glorified vignettes and how they don’t work to varying degrees.

Ashton Kutcher and Lea Michele star in the “love in the elevator” portion of the movie and their collective performance plays like two high school drama students acting out a series of romantic clichés.  Not much better than that, is the “mending the fences” storyline as brought to life by Jon Bon Jovi and Katherine Heigl, though there is a thin layer of authenticity to this plot line as Heigl is asked to play a bitter and domineering woman and Bon Jovi a selfish self-centered musician.  On the opposite end of the authenticity spectrum is the performance of Josh Duhamel who plays the role of a cad that has come to grips with his own sentimentality and hopes to find a special someone that he once shared a moment with.  As to who that is, well it is a mystery easily solved about ten minutes into the movie.

Not to be upstaged in the unbelievablity department is the competition between two couples to have the first baby born in the new year for a monetary prize.  Is it unbelievable that this might happen in real life?  No - crazier things have been done in the real world for the almighty dollar.  It is in fact the performances of Seth Myers and Jessica Biel that are hard to fathom.  Myers delivers every other line with his hand-caught-in-the-cookie-jar expression from SNL: Weekend Update, and Biel has yet to master the ability to convince anyone that she can actually act. 

Then there is the arc shared by Michelle Pfeiffer and Zac Efron.  I was sure I would hate this one the most.  I cannot stress how overly contrived, incredibly cliché, and so overused the paradigm for their story line is, however it is still represents the most entertaining parts of the movie.  Effron is believable as a douchebag (obviously) bike messenger, but it is Michelle Pfeiffer who carries their story.  Of the one million characters in the movie, hers is the most sympathetic and the only one that seems to have any real depth despite the limited screen time.

As for the rest of the cast, Hilary Swank is there and fairly dour as she is charged with shouldering the gravitas of the movie.  Likewise Robert DeNiro, Abigail Breslin and Sarah Jessica Parker negotiate the mother-daughter relationship in ways that are not compelling.  Also appearing in the movie are Halle Berry, Common, Cary Elwes, Alyssa Milano (yes, apparently she still acts), Sofia Vergara, Carla Gugino, and so on and so forth and none of them do anything of significance to impact the movie one way or another.  As glorified extras, their presence actually breaks what little reality exist in the film as you find yourself thinking more about actor recognition rather than investing in the characters they are attempting to portray.

So I could sit here and tell you not to watch it (which is what I would suggest) but for the most part it probably won’t make much of a difference.  This is one of those movies that from the moment people first see the trailer, they instantly decide whether or not they are willing to invest their time and/or money on this project.  But if I can save even one person from this disaster, I will say it again: this is not a good movie.  It’s an exercise in quantity over quality so in lieu of one really good plotline you get five terribly weak ones.  The best recommendation I can make is to not only skip this movie, but to quit the genre altogether.

Standout Performance:  Michael Bloomberg and Ryan Seacrest.  They were asked to pay themselves.  It’s about as easy as acting can get.

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