No Love for Pease: Jason Schwartzman in "The Marc Pease Experience"

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The Lead's Film Columnist Dan Hudak Tells Us What DVDs to Avoid in 2010

By Dan Hudak // hudakonhollywood.com

I didn’t hate very many movies this year, but the ones I hated were cumulatively more wretched than any year I can remember. There were not one but two terrible mall cop movies, another Pink Panther mistake and enough terrible teen comedies to make me embarrassed to have once been a teen. Here now are the worst of the worst of 2009, in no particular order.

The biggest disappointment of the year was “Watchmen,” which had great hype leading up to its March opening, and then landed with a thud. It’s a dubious achievement that the movie went two full hours without making any sense, and by the time things started to come together it was over.

Another movie that offered too little too late was “The Uninvited.” I’m all for a good scare, but not even the clever ending could forgive “scares” that are blatantly telegraphed by the ringing of bells.

“Paul Blart: Mall Cop” and “Observe and Report” were similar, different and terrible for a variety of reasons. “Mall Cop” starred Kevin James as an inept loser mall security guard who does one stupid thing after another, but at least the movie had heart while being unfunny. In contrast, “Observe and Report” was about a bitter mall security guard (Seth Rogen) who wasn’t necessarily inept, but was so angry that the entire film had a nasty tone that inhibited the comedy from coming to life.

Poor Steve Martin. We like and respect him so much, yet to collect a big paycheck he has to do forced, tiresome material like “The Pink Panther 2.” As I wrote when the film was released last February, “when the movie ends you don’t leave the theater, you escape from it.”

Speaking of stars out of their league, Jessica Biel was completely lost in the 1920s-England set story “Easy Virtue,” but the real issue was the bland British humor and one-dimensional characters. Similarly, Hayden Panettiere could do nothing to save the teen comedy “I Love You, Beth Cooper,” which lacked originality, plot, reason, likeable characters, funny moments and decent acting.

“Fanboys,” the story of teen geeks (one of whom, no joke, is terminally ill) sneaking in to Skywalker Ranch in 1999 to see an early version “Star Wars: Episode I,” was on the shelf for a few years before getting a limited release last spring. It should’ve stayed on the shelf. This film was appealing to no one, and even alienates “Star Trek” fans who may have enjoyed the obsessive “Star Wars” ridiculousness.

Memo to animators: If you’re going to make a movie set in another world, at least make the creatures look appealing. The characters in both “Battle for Terra” and “9” looked like scrapes of manure peeled off the floor, and those were the good guys! Gloomy, brown animation isn’t friendly to the eye, and trite stories that go nowhere are friendly to no one.

The worst movie of 2009: “The Marc Pease Experience”
I wanted to punch Jason Schwartzman in the face when this movie was over. He plays Marc Pease, who is the single most annoying, grating, geeky, bitter, stupid, unpleasant, hostile and untalented character I can remember, and Schwartzman does nothing to make him likeable. Pease is a loser. Ben Stiller’s character is a loser. Everyone involved in this dreadful teen comedy should be ashamed of themselves.

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