1GF Presents: The 2nd Annual That's Not Cinema Awards

That's comforting.

Most Overrated Film of the Year

Yes, Tenet is still nominated.  Continue fucking off.

Becky:  Becky didn't exactly gain huge praise this year, but the fact that garnered any praise at all is just sad.  A lot of its positive reception relied on "It's exactly what a genre fan wants."  Bitch, if you think a genre fan wants movies like Becky, you don't understand genre fans, and practically every one that I have met has hated this movie.  While the film is shameless in its violence and gore, it's unlikeable protagonist and cruel tone destroys any sort of sense of fun it's going for.  While it's themes are noted and appreciated, the script is so underdone that it's nothing but a bare bones idea trying to flesh itself out with violence and hoping it wins points on that.  It's not what a genre fan wants.  It's what outsiders think we want based on limited understanding and without actual effort to get its premise right.

Freaky:  Freaky is a bit in the same boat as Becky, but luckily it's a much better movie.  The problem is it's just stale and not creative enough.  Vince Vaughn acting like a teenage girl might have been funny if it were 2002 and I were still in high school, but it's hard to find much joy in the body switching premise unless you think a tiny blonde girl killing people is edgy for some reason (please, I've seen every episode of Buffy, thank you).  Most called it hilarious (no, it isn't) and a lot of fun (not really, no).  The leads in the movie are good, but that's really all the praise I can place on it.  Freaky Friday has more edge to it that this lame movie.

The Old Guard: The Old Guard stirred up some praise toward the start of the pandemic for being a comic based action film during a film drought. Me thinks we were a little starved for content, because The Old Guard is a nothing movie that plays with some fun concepts but does little with them, offering action scenes that don't quite thrill and an overall boring storyline that leads us down into the depths of "Who gives a shit." It almost feels like Netflix should stop making action movies, because they clearly suck at it.

Sonic the Hedgehog: Sonic the Hedgehog is in many ways one of the shittiest movies of the year. It's that classic bullshit narrative of taking a fantasy character out of their fantasy world and putting them into reality because "relatable," I guess. I could give it something of a pass for being an okay children's movie, but the honest to god truth is that I don't want my kids watching a movie about a creepy hedgehog who looks in through some dude's bedroom window, makes him out to be a make-believe best friend, and then gets all bitchy about when he finds out the guy he's pretend friends with is moving away to start a career, because staying here with the creepy hedgehog who watches you fuck your girlfriend is more important. I'm starting to think this movie is unhealthy.

Tenet: A neat premise idea that was easy to convolute, and Christopher Nolan is all "Hold my beer" and finds ways to make it more confusing while actually presenting a simple plot within it. Tenet is a decent movie, but for Nolan it's a weak effort in his filmography. Most would find it easy to cite it as the best of the year because in some ways it feels like one of the only films of the year. But while I enjoyed the movie, for me, it's hardly a blip.

And the Marty goes to...

Most Underrated Film of the Year

So let's define what I consider to be underrated, this list is a group of films that saw negative reception but were mostly kicked around for little to no reason except being easy targets. Some would argue these films are the worst of the year, I would argue those who would label them as such are sheltered and wouldn't know a genuine bad movie if it bit them in the ass. To an extent one could argue a film like Birds of Prey belongs on this list due to review bombing from Snyder Cut dickheads accusing the film of being "woke" just because it has women in it. But reviews of the film were actually fairly kind outside of a few ranty YouTubers who thought Sonic the Hedgehog was a good movie for some stupid reason. These are the ones that I didn't feel I wasted time on, though others disagreed.

Artemis Fowl: Not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, but I keep thinking back to the movie I watched and reflecting on its 8% Rotten Tomatoes score and think "Really?" Part of my comprehension problem seems to be that I never read the Artemis Fowl book series. That came out a bit after my time and I'm certainly not going to catch up now that I'm in my 30's, but this movie seemed flawed but harmless to me. And while I'm not going to go up to bat too hard for this movie, one lens I find myself looking at this movie through is whether or not I would have liked this movie if I were ten years old. I probably would have, but I probably would have read the book too, so chances are I would have been furious if that was the case.

The Call of the Wild: This is one of the better received movies on this list, but it's also one I doubt many people bothered with because the CGI in the movie became a pretty hardcore meme. That being said, the narrative works well and Harrison Ford surprisingly commits to treating that guy in a green suit like a dog. People who are into schmaltzy, feels movies will have a good time with this movie, even if hardcore movie fans don't give a shit about it.

The New Mutants: There is little to say about this long delayed movie except it got bullied hard because of all that blood in the water. The movie is pretty watchable and even somewhat entertaining, even if it isn't the movie that would have magically saved the X-Men franchise. But any critic who says it's the worst when Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix are floating around doesn't deserve to be listened to.

Underwater: Underwater is a film inherited by Disney from Fox that they kind of drowned in January. And really, I don't think many dudebro genre fans were keen to see a deep sea Alien knockoff starring the chick from Twilight, when she couldn't even carry a reboot of Charlie's Angels. While not exactly misunderstood, I think Underwater probably deserved more people pointing in its direction than it got, because there is enough here that is interesting, and while it is a bit rapid and chaotic (likely intentionally so), it has good moments of excitement. Critics were pretty lukewarm about the film overall, but they should have been pushing harder for genre fans to give it a watch.

WW84: A very recent example of a film's underwhelming reception that snowballed from the good will of the previous (though no film will likely top the "fucking bullshit" feeling people had when they saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen), WW84 is a fairly warm and pleasant film experience that works well in a family setting, likely away from internet nerds who tend to get bitchy about details. While its definitely a letdown compared to the previous film, people I've watched it with all had positive things to say about it and after every viewing I remain largely firm in my "Good, not great" feeling. That there are people who don't enjoy it doesn't surprise me, but there needs to be more credit that's due that this film never quite received.

And the Marty goes to...

Wonder Woman's reception was divisive more than anything. The film has defenders, but there is a rotten RT score going against it and a middling Metacritic, while also getting review bombed for fun on IMDB. I'd compare it being underrated in the same sense I'd say Man of Steel is underrated. I can understand having qualms with that movie, but it's like...c'mon.

Compare what WW84 has going against it to, say, Tenet, which PG Cooper thinks is underrated for some reason. The movie has a pretty steady fresh RT score and a lot of people really like it. People can aggressively go at it, but they're definitely in a vocal minority in a sea of positivity.

It's a fact of life that people who are negative about something are always going to be louder than positive. That's why Neverending has a billion posts on record.

So you can copy the wikipedia summery as your review?

Of Tenet's many faults, too much exposition isn't one of them.

I still have no idea what happened.

Is that the Russian Mafia 50 Shades of Grey?

Charming.


I do actually have an idea for the two of us next time we get partnered up.

::1godzillafan returns to stage::

The time has come to name the next Hurts So Good nominee and we have an oh-so-special one for you this time.

It's just not a so-bad-it's good category unless Nicolas Cage gets a shout out, as his batshit performances has brought all of us so much joy throughout the years. And he gave us one of his finest this year, with a wacky take on both martial arts and alien invasion. Folks, if you want Cage going full blown scenery chewing while swinging a sword around, have we got a movie for you.

Please give a warm welcome to our next Hurts So Good nominee...

It's on Netflix. You're out of excuses.