Top Ten Disappointments of 2001 & The Worst 5 Films Of The Year According To Harry

You see a lot of critics assembling ‘WORST OF THE YEAR’ lists, but frankly these lists don’t really mean anything to me. It is usually pretty easy to predict the worst films of the year… look for a Freddie Prinze Jr or a Video Game movie and place a bet. Pick a 3rd string Saturday Night Live comedian and stand back. Watch for the latest hot piece of teenage ass (male or female) and have them discover sex against their parents’ wishes and by winning the big dance contest they’ll understand that sex helped to secure her the moves necessary to win! Ahhh, terrible films… They rule. NOT.

To me, the far more important list is the top 10 disappointments in film. These may not be awful films, but they’re the movies that aspired to once be something in my eyes. Perhaps as a script, as a concept or a trailer… Sometimes the projects inspire by the talent connected. These are films that "coulda been a contender"

All 10 of these films have some wonderful elements, in all likelihood the completest in me buys these films on DVD, if only to add them to my collection of their directors’, actors’ or even special element creators’ DVD-ographies. I may be disappointed, but I'm curious to hear the filmmakers' commentaries, see the behind the scenes... find out what went wrong. Was it something they could have controlled or was it my own short-sightedness... Perhaps I brought a different film with me to the theater. Whatever the case many of these are among my favorite filmmakers. Ultimately I wanted more from them. Perhaps I'm greedy, but at the end of the day I just love these filmmakers so much that I want them to be the best they can be. In a lot of these cases elements along the way failed them. Sometimes the script, the casting, the studios and sometimes their own vision.

In all cases they are movies that ultimately disappointed me though. In a star rating, this would mean 2-3 stars when they all had the potential to be 4 star movies in my mind. Without further ado… Here ya go…

1. MONKEY BONE

I have never felt greater disappointment than when I walked out of the theater for MONKEY BONE. I love Henry Selick’s work like almost nothing on this planet. More than any other film, NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS stuff decorates and is felt throughout my house. And from time to time you find JAMES & THE GIANT PEACH stuff about.

I loved Sam Hamm’s screenplay for MONKEY BONE, and when I was asked to do a cameo in the film, I was ecstatic. To be in a Henry Selick film was as cool as it could ever get. My first choice would have been a voice of some stop-motion character that appeared for a little 3 second cameo… But I was to be in the real world.

I saw all the designs, the dreams and the sets for the film. It was a visual delight.

When I finally saw the movie, I loathed the film. It was as if all my dreams for the project were gut slit. There are moments that hint at what it could have been. Sure the vast majority of the problem was the lack of financing by Fox to render what was once called "DARK TOWN" in its full stop motion glory. Instead relying on truly unexpressive costumes.

Key sequences being removed altogether. The film being test screened and edited to death. Other than LORD OF THE RINGS, this was the film I was looking forward to most. The results could not have been more different.

I just hope that Henry can get another dream project off the ground and this time… Have a studio stand behind him and the script. The saddest end result of 2001 for me.

2. PEARL HARBOR

This wasn’t supposed to be a light weight film about a single action sequence. Michael Bay was setting out to make ‘one of the great war films’ and the result was in the end, quite mediocre. The main problem was the unfocused script that didn’t allow or develop strong central characters. By jumping from one side to the other, trying to hit on too many notes of PEARL HARBOR and the incidents that led up to it…. AND trying to develop the love triangle and all that… Well, the result was a film with characters that I just didn’t care for.

I really felt that Michael Bay was going to break out of his ‘reputation’ as a popcorn filmmaker with this one. That he would make a film that blew people away emotionally as well as visually.

Ultimately I found all of that in DARK BLUE WORLD, which should be playing in New York and Los Angeles right now, and elsewhere in the country later on.

3. GHOSTS OF MARS

Why is it that John Carpenter gets treated like shit by studios? I loved the script for this project, but when a director isn’t allowed to have a budget to fully realize his film. To get a great cast of actors to make that film.

Ultimately the problems with this movie fall upon the cast. Ice Cube is just too baby faced to be the toughest badass in the galaxy. Natasha Henstridge, while being quite lovely, just isn’t a central actress to build a movie around.

To me, this was like watching John Ford direct FORT APACHE starring Ronald Reagan and a supporting cast of Republic Pictures stock serial actors. It just felt wrong.

I love the score. I like the script. However, with the exception of Jason Statham and Clea DuVall I felt the film was completely miscast. Has some great Carpenter moments, but just didn’t come together for me.

4. SWORDFISH

After an audacious opening that tossed down the gauntlet in regards to pedestrian action/crime films and knocking me out. The film became a limp noodle with no hope of starch in sight.

After the bomb goes off, there is nothing left to see for 90% of the movie… ok, except Halle Berry’s berries.

How a film that could start off so badass could become so pedestrian is beyond me. Brutally disappointing.

5. A.I.

While this also made my list of favorite films of 2001, it also makes my list as most disappointing films of 2001.

This is about far more than just the last 15 minutes of the movie. I have watched the film repeatedly and the film is crippled in many places. Beginning with the parents in the film. Terribly miscast. Horribly written and performed. They didn’t feel like real parents… or even people. There was no warmth there, no convincing humanity.

The design for the film goes from brilliant to shockingly MEGAFORCE-y. The greatest problem in the film is how safe it feels. How they never really push or drive an audience to horror.

You need look no further than BATTLE ROYALE to see a great social satire told in the classic Spielberg fashion. Everything that Steven lost is in that film. All the bite of a CLOCKWORK ORANGE is in that film. All the danger and poignancy that is missing in this film… is there.

God, I wish this had been a great great film for me. I like the movie for Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law and Teddy. I’m now praying that Steven doesn’t cut the balls off of MINORITY REPORT.

6. ALI

The pictures of Will Smith’s physical transformation, the reports about Voight from the set. The reviews from some of the long lead critics had my hopes soaring.

Ultimately I got a musical with intermittent biographical information easily culled from cursory knowledge of Ali’s life.

Anytime I walk into a Michael Mann film, I expect the very best. I expect a great story with great characters and a visual panache that is rarely matched by anyone. Instead I got a badly shot music video with a lot of posing.

Had the film been more focused on ALI’s character, who he was… not who he wanted us to think he was, but what was behind that mouth. What was in that head. Instead, the film never dares to take a hard look into the life of ALI. We never delve any further than the typical ESPN profile.

That just isn’t enough from a filmmaker or Michael Mann’s caliber.

7. OCEAN’S ELEVEN

I didn’t go into this wanting a poignant film. I knew this was supposed to just be a fun movie. A movie about the coolest guys in the world coming into Vegas and taking it for all the people that lost their dreams there.

I walked into this wanting to feel characters as alive as in OUT OF SIGHT or THE LIMEY. I wanted to see interaction like in PULP FICTION or RESERVOIR DOGS. I wanted to look at this film and walk out of the theater screaming at people off the street, "OCEAN’S ELEVEN IS THE COOLEST FUCKING FILM EVER!!!"

Instead I walked out slightly bored. The further I got from the film, the madder I got. I wanted this film to be the coolest Vegas flick ever.

It didn’t come within a continent of VIVA LAS VEGAS or SWINGERS. Hell it wasn’t even a pimple on the ass of MACHINE GUN McCAIN. In the end it might technically be a better film than the original OCEAN’S ELEVEN, but that wasn’t fucking rocket science tough to do.

For me, the movie was un-fun.

8. FROM HELL

I adore Alan Moore’s original graphic novel. I love the Hughes Brothers’ aesthetic. Johnny Depp is one of my favorite working actors. Ian Holm is a god to me. I adore and lust after Heather Graham with all the adoration and lust that I had for Barbara Steele.

The sets were amazing when I visited. Heather looked lovely to me in person as a redhead. The victims’ bodies were magnificent.

Ultimately, at the end of the day the film just didn’t work all the way for me. I think it was the trying to make this film a mystery. That wasn’t what FROM HELL was about. This wasn’t the JFK of JACK THE RIPPER movies.

The movie played out for me like JFK if you were trying to keep the audience in suspense as to which guy was Lee Harvey Oswald and not the brilliance on focusing on the confusion of the conspiracy or lack there of.

Ultimately it is a beautiful film. Absolutely beautiful. I like quite a bit of it, but at the end of the day I was disappointed.

9. PLANET OF THE APES

I loved Rick Baker’s make up. Glenn Shadix and Tim Roth were awesome. Some of the visuals were as stunning as just about anything that Tim Burton did.

However, at the film never was any more involving than Rick Baker’s brilliant make-up. Which is enough for me to get the DVD, but not enough for me to love it. So much of the film looked like bad interior studio sets. The story and characters were uninvolving. I just wish Burton had had an extra year of pre-production and script development. Time to really have made it 100% Tim Burton’s reimagining. Oh well.

10. GANGS OF NEW YORK

What? Well, in a lot of ways the biggest disappointment of 2001 was Miramax and Martin Scorsese’s decision to push this film well into 2002 allegedly to "honor and respect the events of September 11th" ARGH!

This has been Scorsese’s dream project for years. It is ready. It is finished. And it has ZERO to do with September 11th.

Ok, I admit it… I’m dying to see this film. I have high hopes for it and can’t stand not having seen it yet.

Then here are the 5 worst films I saw this year in order of pain inflicted upon me. I hate these movies. Hate them with great disdain. They are wood alcohol for the eyes… they burn…

1. TOMB RAIDER

2. DRIVEN

3. JOE DIRT

4. VALENTINE

5. CORKY ROMANO