All Posts – Page 72 – Smug Film (1/7/13

10 Movies Nobody Has Seen (Because Nobody Cares About Them)

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Sometime in the year 2000, I went to the movies, and I don’t even remember what I ended up seeing because one of the previews left such a profound mark on me that what followed has been erased from my memory. The preview was for Under the Tuscan Sun, and when it came on all I could think was, ”who the fuck would ever want to see this movie?”. That moment crystalized my understanding of the irrelevant.

The movies on this list are not famously bad like Plan 9 From Outer Space. And they’re not notorious flops like Ishtar and Bonfire of the Vanities. In fact, there’s nothing remotely memorable about them. They just sort of exist, but it’s hard to believe they do, because nobody talks about them. In a way, they’re much worse than awesomely bad triumphs like The Room and Troll 2, because those movies at least found an audience. These movies are so wholly uninteresting in every way that they aren’t even worth making fun of.

If you’ve seen any of the following movies, please let me know. You’ll be the first person ever to have seen them, and will be given an award as their respective patient zero.
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This Is The End: Hopefully, Yes

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The entire movie looks this goddamn ugly, albeit higher resolution. (Sorry, this was the best image I could find online that represented the actual look of it and wasn’t just production stills or whatever.)

This Is The End (2013)
Written and Directed by Evan Goldberg & Seth Rogen
107 min.

This film doesn’t need to exist.

I don’t mean that in a hyperbolic, insulting way. It’s completely true. This is an entirely superfluous film. And I’m sure those involved would agree, and giggle at the thought (especially the giggle-prone Rogen) and take pride in the fact that they made such a useless movie. But I’m not smiling, or laughing, or giggling.
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A Blank Stare Is Worth A Thousand Words

There’s a small moment in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation that’s stuck with me more than the rest of the movie (a movie which is little else besides small memorable moments). It’s the morning when Bill Murray’s character Bob is supposed to leave Tokyo, but he’s all tore up because he’s fallen for the young, idle Charlotte, who’ll stay in Tokyo after he’s gone. Whomever that group of Japanese suits is that’s been hauling from him from job to job wants a picture with him (because he’s a movie star I guess) so they all line up. But when they go to take the photo, Murray’s smile fades and his gaze wanders to watch Charlotte walk to the elevator. The look on his face is packed with enough longing and conflict and anguish to fill a sushi boat—yet his expression is pretty bare. It’s kind of a frown, but not exactly. He looks more tired than anything. It calls to mind the zombie mimicking instructions from Shaun of the Dead: “Vacant, with a hint of sadness. Like a drunk who’s lost a bet.” It’s also sad as hell. It’s not the realization that they’ll never see each other again that gets to me, it’s that damned stare.
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The 10 Nicest Movies Ever Made (If These Movies Don’t Make You Cry, You Have a Black Heart)

Field of Dreams. The undisputed king, for sure. But here’s ten other great ones.

It was a really tricky thing putting this together because they’re ranked on niceness, not goodness. Number two and number five are the best movies on the list. But they aren’t the nicest.

Niceness is even harder to define than coolness. Niceness is a warm and fuzzy feeling that a lot of art can generate. Probably the most popular example would be Norman Rockwell paintings. Niceness, like coolness, taps into our primal brains somewhere. We’re wired to feel it because it connects us to each other. But the problem with niceness is that it borders so heavily on cheese. Cheese done right is transcendent. But cheese done wrong is, well, cheesy.
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How Half.com Screwed Me Over (And Then Finally Made It Right)

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Tried to order this movie for my girlfriend, ended up with the most frustrating online shopping experience of my life.

6/19/13 Edit: This article was originally titled ‘How Half.com Screwed Me Over’. That was back when Half.com hadn’t refunded me. Finally, they did refund me. It was a long ordeal though, as you’ll see. I’m glad they finally made things right, but I will be an extremely cautious user of the site from now on. (I will of course never buy from get_importcds again, and you shouldn’t either.)

I’ve bought and sold hundreds of movies at Half.com, and I’ve been an eBay member since 1999, and a Half.com user since eBay purchased it in 2000 or so. I have a 100% positive feedback rating. I’m basically their ideal user. And yet, they have decided to screw me over when I needed them most.
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