Features

Earlier in the Manifesto’s Review of 2013, we looked at the unmemorable movies of the year. Those movies were lackluster not because they were bad but because they barely tried to be good; they were inoffensive and harmless, meaning there was no reason to remember them. This post will highlight the flip side of the coin and examine movies that actually strove to be good but flopped in their attempt. In a way, these are nobler pictures in that they’re failures of misguided ambition and strenuous effort rather than of complacent mediocrity. But they’re failures all the same. Read More

Philip Seymour Hoffman died yesterday at the age of 46. This is a tragedy. I say this, of course, at something of a distance—I never met the man, and I cannot pretend that the pain I feel at his passing can compare to that experienced by his family and friends, as well as the industry that knew and embraced him as an astonishing talent. Yet I am confident in stating that Hoffman’s death is a blow not only to those who knew him but to those who watched him. Thousands of fans in cinema, whether they be mainstream moviegoers or art-house cinephiles, have been deprived of a truly gifted artist, and I mourn Hoffman’s death both for the incredible actor he was and for the actor he never grew to be. I am a greedy, selfish movie fan, and it grieves me that I won’t be able to witness Hoffman’s career as it unfolds into his late period, to see how he adjusts and flourishes with age. I shudder to imagine the dozens of insular, nuanced performances he will never be able to provide. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. Read More

The Manifesto is counting down every theatrical release its proprietor watched in 2013. Today, we continue with our look at the least memorable movies of 2013. If you missed Part I, you can find it here.

Moving on to the remaining movies I’ve already forgotten: Read More

About a year ago, film critic Scott Tobias wrote a piece called “The ‘Gentleman’s F’ and the Scourge of Deliberate Mediocrity”. His thesis was that “bad movies are better than useless ones”, and while I don’t necessarily agree with his specific examples, I can see his overarching point. Bad movies may be horribly executed, but at least they’re distinctive and, in their own way, defiantly memorable. Useless movies, on the other hand, are bland, slothful, and scrupulously inoffensive. They’re rarely bad enough to induce anger, but neither are they good enough to inspire debate. They are simply consumed and then discarded, and to the extent that I remember them, it’s with the wistful knowledge that in watching them, I basically wasted two hours of my life.

And so, the following collective represents 2013’s Unmemorables: the Manifesto’s view of the least memorable movies of the year. None of these films is truly terrible—a few are even mildly enjoyable, at least in part—but they produced nothing in the way of an emotional response, be it love or loathing. I simply watched them, and then I forgot about them. And such ambivalence is, in its own quiet way, a more damning reaction than outright rage.

So here’s to the cinematic sinners who sinned by not trying. In alphabetical order: Read More

The greatest advantage of being an amateur movie critic rather than a professional is simple: I’m not forced to see movies that I don’t actually want to see. True, I dutifully attempt to see every movie nominated for an Oscar, which occasionally induces a sense of obligation (did I really Netflix a French animated film called A Cat in Paris?), but for the most part, I watch movies because I want to, not because I’m paid to. So, until the Mr. Provis of the technology generation bestows the Manifesto with his generosity and turns this wee blog into a for-profit enterprise (note to silent benefactors: I’m still available), I can continue to avoid the truly execrable pictures that litter the multiplex each year.

As a result, I can’t possibly pretend to author a list of the actual worst movies of 2013, as I exercised my discretion and passed on such supposed fiascos as The Big Wedding, Grown Ups 2, and Movie 43. I can, however, denigrate the small sampling of this year’s films that I actively disliked. Given my selectivity, it’s a predictably short list: As of this writing, I’ve seen 85 theatrical releases in 2013, and I only found the following eight to be genuinely contemptible. There’s assuredly more dross out there, but for now, you’ll have to settle for me warning you away from these wretched offerings. In no particular order: Read More