I Like My Expectations Low

The Hurt Locker won best Picture this year, and for that reason I will probably never see it. Okay, also because it doesn't really interest me, but also because of the Oscar. Because pretty much everytime I see a best Picture winner that I hadn't seen before the Oscars were awarded, I hate it. Crash? Blech. A Beautiful Mind? Barf. The English Patient? Gag me. (the one exception to this rule is Slumdog Millionaire which I saw after it won, and still loved. Because it was awesome). I'm sure that a lot of this is based on the fact that these movies never really appealed to me in the first place or I would have seen them before hand, but also, if they win, they should be so super awesome that they triumph over personal taste and preference at least a little. Maybe I never love them, but I should at least be able to recognize why they won; why they were considered the very best film released all year. Being an Oscar winner gives the movie prestige, and as such I fully expect it to amaze me. Which of course means I'm almost always disappointed.

On the other hand, you can pretty much always get me to watch anything that got bad reviews. Is there a movie that might have slightly appealed to me before it was released and totally trashed in the reviews? I will still totally see it. Because how bad can it really be? And honestly, I find that I usually end up enjoying these movies just fine - low expectations lead to a decent time at the movies in my book. If I'm expecting the movie to be awful, I'm usually pleasantly surprised.

Plus, it is always fun to hold any new bad movie up against the benchmark - Ghost Rider.

Have you seen Ghost Rider? You must. I don't care if you don't want to, I don't care if you aren't interested in throwing two hours of your life away on a terrible flick - YOU MUST SEE IT. There must be a ruler against all future bad movies can be measured; and Ghost Rider is it. the absolute worst movie I have ever seen - the writing is bad, the acting is bad, the effects are bad, the directing is bad. The whole thing is a giant clusterfuck of ineptitude, laziness and failure to such a degree that it is really quite impressive. Expecially given the caliber and scope of people involved. This is not The Room (considered by Hollywood to be the actual true worst film ever made), done by unknowns with no budget. Ghost Rider is big budget with big names - it should not suck this hard.

With all that said, this weekend we rented The Box. When it first came out i thought it looked interesting - you are given a box with a button. If you press the button, someone you don't know will be killed, and you will get a million dollars. Neat premise. And then it came out. And got straight F reviews across the board. Universally panned and reviled. well, now I must see what the big deal was. How bad could it possibly be?

The answer is not that bad at all. The idea is still good - interesting and if handled well could have been really provocative about exploring the human condition. Especially with the twist-ish at the end - could have raised some really interesting questions and discussion. And while they missed the mark on making as truly clever and intellectual a thriller as they could have, they didn't completely fail.

Was there some subplot that was unecessary? Yes. Were there scenes that seemed as though they were meant to explain, but instead didn't relate to anything at all and only mdae it more confusing? Yes. Were the characters in those scenes never introduced so you didn't know who the heck they were or how they related to the plot? Yes. Were there times where we went to a new scene and the main character was somewhere totally new with no explanation as to how or why they got there? Heck yes.

Did you spend the whole movie finally feeling you were getting the hang of it only to have some random unrelated scene confuse you all over again? Yes. Did you spend the whole movie wanting to beat someone over the head for making you watch it? No.

It is hard to pinpoint just exactly who dropped the ball here. The script and acting were pretty hacky, but in themselves probably not totally at fault. the director certainly has some explaining to do, and I'm sure the editor could take some of the blame for the continuity jumps. But all in all it was certainly not as bad as everyone made it out to be. Or maybe that was just the low expectations talking.

Don't get me wrong, it was pretty bad. But it was no Ghost Rider.