“Hey, God’s laughing at us!”

If you ask me, there’s no greater way of branding a movie a failure than by including it in the annual FilmDrunk Worst Movies feature, but some more traditional people believe that the Razzies are actually the ultimate decider of cinematic disgust and scorn. Either way, it’s no secret that Hollywood produces some incredibly horrible movies each year, and many of them come from repeat offenders. Thankfully, the Razzies keep track of these miscreants and their horrible films so that we can hurl figurative feces in their direction each February.

The one glaring difference between my Worst Movies feature and the Razzies, though, is that while I have sworn to exclude Happy Madison films out of fairness to the other movies that were legitimately terrible, the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation thrives in its contempt for all things Adam Sandler. Sandler’s not alone, though, as the Razzies committee has quite a few recurring targets, and this year’s nominations are hardly going to shock you.

[Vince's Note: I hate the Razzies. The most impressive thing about the Razzies is that they've been around since 1981 and have yet to make a single interesting or ballsy nomination. I might respect them if I thought they actually watched a lot of movies and voted for their worst, but instead they just choose the movies that are most socially acceptable to hate and hope someone in the cast will show up to their dopey ceremony. What's the point?]

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After last year’s Worst Movies feature, I received feedback from some readers and Twitter folk about me possibly being “too negative” and “mean” when it came to criticizing films that I chose to watch for this annual hate crime report. Some people even pulled the “What movies have you written?” card, which is cheap because I can just turn around and ask what dog they’ve ever photoshopped a mustache on, and BOOM – argument over.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of films are made each year, and a lot of them are bad. That’s not just by my standards; that’s by the standards of the majority. I have never, in the several years that Vince has let me poison the quality of his website, proclaimed to be a critic. I am just a bro who likes watching movies, and I have a naïve innocence that lets me still believe that people in Hollywood care about making quality films. Then I watch Bucky Larson and that gullible side of me is shoved into a wood chipper.

So how, then, do I determine which of the many, many mainstream films that I have watched in 2012 are the absolute worst of the worst of the WORST? It’s a little pinch of common sense mixed with a dash of “Come on, that’s just f*cking awful”. But I also have some rules, and let’s review them now…

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The alien robots were always my favorite part of the board game

Maybe I’m going soft, but there are a lot of new movies hitting DVD this week, and quite a few of them are indies/low-budget/foreign films that actually look good, which is fortunate because the mainstream Hollywood fare is stuff like Battleship and Think Like A Man.  Don’t get me wrong, they don’t all look amazing, it’s just unusual to find so many that don’t look too bad. Probably has something to do with the sheer volume of new DVDs this week.  In fact, there are so many movies this week that I’m mostly featuring the ones that either look legitimately good or -regardless of quality- star somebody you’ve heard of -and just to give you an idea of just how wonderful this week is, I’ll even give a quick rundown of some of the new DVDs that I am NOT featuring.

The Featured DVDs:
Battleship
The Lucky One
Think Like A Man
The Pirates! Band Of Misfits
Darling Companion
L!fe Happens
A Beginner’s Guide To Endings
The Moth Diaries
Citizen Gangster
Blind Revenge
Monsieur Lazhar
The Heineken Kidnapping
The Viral Factor
Fist Of The Reich
Nate & Margaret
Apartment 143
Battleground
The Newest Pledge
Below Zero

The Not-Featured DVDs:

Starship Troopers: Invasion -Casper Van Dien executive produces this all-CGI flick, even though somebody else is voicing Johnny Rico.

I Am Gabriel -Dean Cain stars in this flick about a town that’s brought to Christ when a mysterious young boy shows up.  Is he the angel Gabriel?

Jersey Shore Shark Attack  -Dustin Rowles mocked this SyFy original over at Warming Glow, and they returned the favor by misspelling his name in the critics’ blurb on the box cover.

Blood Money -A martial arts flick starring Pitbull.  Yes, that Pitbull.

Lovely Molly -A partially found-footage flick from one of the directors of The Blair Witch Project.  I’m guessing he was the one responsible for all the sh*tty parts.

Penumbra -Devil worshipers trying to raise the antichrist (I’m assuming) during a solar eclipse. Actually looks pretty decent.

Area 407 -Found footage Jurassic Park.  So, basically a preview of Jurassic Park 4.

Apocalypse of the Dead -Zombies, of course.

One Hour To Die: You Have All Been Poisoned -Approximate running time: 80 minutes.

Shark Week -For those who like their SyFy reality rip-offs more like Survivor and less like, well, Jersey Shore.

Rewind -Irish thriller.  I got nothin’.

Neverlost -Can’t find my notes about this one.

Sex Money And You Already Know 2 -The first one sucked.

Holy crap, that’s a lot of detail for ‘not-featured’ flicks.  Just imagine what’s in store for you if you keep reading about the featured DVDs. (And don’t worry, I do take the time to poop on a few of ‘em.  I know you like that sort of thing.)  If you’re already tired of all of this, at least hit up the Netflix page by following the link here. Read the rest of this entry »

"Say, William, is this one of those 'Blockbusters' the servants have been on about? It's quite fun. Might we also sample some popped corn? I overheard my stable boy Roderick speak of it and it sounds quite droll."

In one of the most shocking stories of the summer, Men in Black 3 was NOT a humongous bomb. It took $55 million over the three-day weekend (the way openings are normally calculated) and $70 million including the holiday. It was less attended than Men in Black II and cost estimates ran as high as $250 just to make, and up to $375 when you factor in marketing. But it’s already earned $203 million worldwide, so it looks like Jaden won’t have to start pawning his sneakers with his own picture on them just yet. Darn.

For the three-day weekend, MIB 3 opened to an estimated $55 million, which is Will Smith’s third-highest Friday-Sunday debut ever behind I Am Legend ($77.2 million) and Hancock ($62.6 million). That’s not really an apples-to-apples statistic, though, given how many of Mr. Smith’s bigger movies didn’t opened on Friday. For example, Men in Black II opened on a Wednesday and earned $54.9 million through its first three days in theaters. For the four-day weekend, MIB 3 made $70 million, which is a bit lower than Men in Black II‘s $73.4 million four-day total. Adjusting for 10 years of ticket price inflation and 3D ticket prices, MIB 3‘s initial attendance was significantly lower than that of Men in Black II. [BoxOfficeMojo]

Ho hum. Other stuff that happened:

• Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, opening in four theaters over the weekend, broke the record for per-screen average, averaging $130,752 per theater for $669K total. My review is embargoed until later this week, but I can tell you this: it’s got a lot of plaid. Like, A LOT of plaid.

• The Avengers crossed $500 million domestically, crossing the mark in a record-breaking 23 days. It’s expected to pass The Dark Knight today and move into the third of all time, in terms of domestic box office. I just hope all this success doesn’t go to Joss Whedon’s freakishly large head.

• Battleship took another battle-shit (see what I did there???), dropping 46% in its second weekend. It lags even John Carter through the same point. Which seems fair, because at least John Carter was kinda good.

Box Office Top Ten and Fantasy Summer Box Office standings after the jump:

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This is one of those internet creations I see and think, “Dammit, why didn’t I think of that?” Those jerks at Vulture beat me to the idea I should’ve had, compiling every line of dialog spoken by Rihanna in Battleship. I still haven’t seen it, but judging by the trailer, Rihanna plays a classic “Magic Negro whose grandpappy foretold of aliens” character. Plus, there’s some gruff expository stuff thrown in there, because Michelle Rodriguez wasn’t in there to deliver it like she normally is in these types of movies.

• “What’s wrong with you, drama queen?”

• “Get up princess! Come on!”

• “Typical”

• “Shut up. Shut up.”

• “Oh, this gon’ be sweet. He hates the man.”

• “You go mess with him and see what happens!”

• “Chicken!”

• “Kentucky Fried Chicken!”

• “You look like Colonel Sanders, actually.”

• “Yo Saunders, ever been in a department run by some kind of Donald Trump/Mike Tyson mutant combo?”

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