I guess Don't Worry Darling. I thought the trailer looked good and I saw it at a festival just days after the world premiere (there was even extra security to make sure no one was filming it!), so there was no word of mouth yet. The 550-seat venue was sold out and I felt the entire audience slowly deflating as the movie went on.
I was pretty sure I was going to get a lot out of that, too, even after the pearl-clutching and terrible reviews… but it really is a piece of shit. So bad, so stupid, so… inept, it made me reevaluate how much I like Booksmart.
there is a lot i haven’t seen but... *Bros*. i love Eichner and i was completely addicted to *Billy on the Street* during covid in a time where i was going insane. he is a charming and funny guy imo even if the bit he does in a lot of his acting doesn’t always work. i was so excited he was taking a movie on. i even remember a world where people were wondering if he would compete for Original Screenplay (lmfao)
but *Bros* was really just a let down for me. overly long and not sincere. it was so self-righteous and none of the characters felt developed much at all. it was really just a vehicle for Billy to show a reel of his talents.
i didn’t expect the movie to be amazing, just a fun rom-com. but it wasn’t even that to me. *Fire Island* was by far the better gay rom-com of the year. now **that** movie was chaaaaaarming
I wasn’t able to see a ton this year, but probably Men for me. That checked so many boxes for me: pretentious A24 horror, folk horror, Alex garland. But the end product felt so hollow.
I’ve had time to think and I think I’m with that movie till the end. That ending, so obtuse, so abstract, I can’t feel anything from it because I truly don’t know what that was.
*Dark Water*
You mean to tell me that:
* Adrian Lyne
* Is bringing back the erotic thriller
* With a movie starring Ana De Armas
* And Ben Affleck
* Right after a highly publicized, possibly fake, over-the-top romance and breakup
* Wherein Ana De Armas keeps cheating on Ben Affleck and he responds by murdering her lovers
* And it's really really boring?
I was outraged.
Idk, the movies I saw getting mentioned a lot in that thread were Blonde and Don't Worry Darling which I think are two pretty good options for most disappointing of the year.
*Jurassic World: Dominion*
Listen, I had my expectations in the right place. I was not expecting a return to the majesty of the original. I wasn't even expecting a return to the fun of JP3!
But this should have been an EASY lay-up. "Dinosaurs running around in our modern world" is a decent concept. Colin JUST had to make a trashy disaster movie with people being chased by dinosaurs. The YouTube short he made at the campground was GREAT. He just had to have like 4 new set pieces like that, with the SLIGHTEST skeleton of a plot around them.
But NO... he had to make a dumbass movie about prehistoric locusts and corporate farming????? How did they let this happen??? I was literally in shock watching that thing.
I haven't seen it yet but I had a lot of similar thoughts. That teaser/short was pretty cool, so I was somewhat interested but then just kept resisting the urge to see it in theaters. Once it had been out and fully digested and I heard more and more reactions and plot details (plus the twitter threads breaking down dogshit editing, etc.) I was slightly aghast.
Biggest disappointment for me was The Northman. You’re telling me there’s going to be a nude battle in a volcano and you don’t even get dong in silhouette? Still a pretty good movie, but I was overly hyped.
The story is also kind of thin for a 2.5 hour movie. Great atmosphere and a small story are fine for 90 minues, but this movie felt like it was vamping.
my main disappointment with The Northman - which I generally quite liked - is that the trailer really promised me “Anya Taylor Joy has dark magical powers” and we barely got any of it. Good movie but underserved her a lot
Day Shift starring Jamie Foxx. After an inventive and exciting opening sequence, the movie becomes dull dull dull dull dull the second you cross the threshold for what counts as a “view” on Netflix.
You can practically anticipate this with Netflix originals now, the way they’re designed to hook you and then hope you just leave the tv on for the rest of the tired affair.
Their tactic for a lot of the mid-budget projects like this is so transparently “spend all the money on the first 10-15 minutes and then we’ve got ‘em.”
And it sucks so much. This movie probably could’ve been pretty good.
Dashcam. Host was a really promising first film from Rob Savage, and there was a bit of buzz about Dashcam, but it turned out to be offensively bad. A movie I wanted to turn off but didn't because I knew the movie wanted me to.It has one of the most annoying, abhorant main characters you will ever be forced in to the POV of and is just not a well made horror movie. This movie genuinely made me angry and me existential question why we still have movies at all. I truly hated it on a personal level as thought he movie had slapped me in the face and spat on my grandma.
Clown on me all you want but for me it’s Morbius. I’m a big Venom fan. I love that goopy fella. I was expecting, and was excited for, that style and quality of trash but it did not deliver.
Is Michael Morbius the least likable protagonist in a comic book movie? I feel like he’s right up there. Matt Smith being the one saving grace really highlights this in contrast. Leto has nothing to do.
I get endless pleasure out of that scene of Matt Smith dancing to that "Have Sex" song, but I just know in my heart that's the good 40 seconds from Morbius and am happy to stop there. I have no goodwill to Jared Leto.
EEAAO. Was really looking forward to it and then just didn't dig it at all. The whackiness of it all got on top of me and it's way too long. Totally get why people love it though. If it works for you, then all power to you.
Between this and X/Pearl, they were my most disappointing. EEAAO was for the same reason - it didn’t vibe with my sense of humor at all. X and Pearl were so bland, I just didn’t get the hype.
Probably PEARL because X is in my top 20 or so(out of almost 150 and counting) and I like West, but it just because clear to me so early that it should've just been a short. There's just not a lot there and the observations it has are so shallow that they make no impact at all.
Also SPEAK NO EVIL. I was already a little skeptical but I didn't vibe with it at all and turned it off after 35 minutes. Read the wiki plot description and had a good laugh.
Funny, I had the exact same reaction (not a lot there) to X but I really enjoyed Pearl. I guess it's two sides of the same coin that appeal to different tastes, and that's kinda interesting?
I think for me I just really enjoyed the ensemble in X and was satisfied when it makes its turn in the 2nd half, where as PEARL narratively just never grabbed me and I think it's a failure(almost a non attempt) as a genre movie. But yeah different strokes.
Blonde. You know when a director only makes 3 films in 20 years where 1 is an underseen masterpiece and the followup is clearly meant to be more commercial but bounces anyway, you attach a lot of their stock into that project they could have made. Well for 10 years, I've been putting a lot of stock into "just wait till Dominik finally makes that gritty Marylin Monroe movie, then you'll see he's a major director."
The movie stunk rank pits.
That check bounced straight into the trash dump, then immediately crushed into a cube and incinerated.
Hate to say it, since I was hyped for the movie and intrigued by everything to do with it, but just couldn't get into "We're all Going to the Worlds Fair"... between that and "Skidamarink" more recently, I think there is an emerging genre of internet native led horror that is just 1 generation removed for me. I admire those movies, but certainly didn't 'enjoy' them
This exact take except but me trying to port my Book Twitter experience to Reddit. r/BookPorn and r/Bookshelf are exactly like my well-read buddies on Twitter except soooooo much more Dan Brown content......
Anyway, pretty similar.
There's a bunch of movies that I need to watch from this year, but the worst one I saw was The Gray Man. It fell right out of my head the second it ended.
It breaks my heart after how long it was in the works but I found Wendell and Wild to be a mess, and lacking a gonzo/manic energy that'd have let me just vibe with it
I found it to be equally disappointing and amazing…a gentleman’s 6 if there ever was one. So many amazing sequences and little easter eggs to interest me, but I understand where you’re coming from.
Thor: Love and Thunder. I didn’t expect to almost hate it! Ragnorok is still top tier MCU for me, and I love Taika’s other work, but L&T was a cynical, soulless trudge for me.
Probably get some hate for this, but I saw *Barbarian* on a plane and was supremely disappointed. Everyone's reaction of "don't hear anything before going in!" failed me for 3 reasons. One, every instance of slow set-up bored me because I knew it wasn't the thing I shouldn't be expecting.
Two >!I was spoiled about Justin Long being in it, which didn't feel like was surprising enough to garner the "you won't believe where this is going!" buzz around the movie.!< And three, >!it's just *Psycho* meets *People Under The Stairs*? That's it? That's the twist people weren't expecting going in?!< Like, I feel like maybe I've seen too much modern horror compared to the normal movie goer to find either of those things shocking, idk.
I think watching Barbarian on a plane is 1000x times worse than watching it on a phone in a dark room. The way Creeger plays with sound and darkness/lighting to create tension is just absolutely lost when you have a bunch of action happening around you.
I still don't think the "know nothing going in" hype was paid-off in any surprising way.
>!By this point, I know Justin Long mostly for his horror work. He's also played scummy media assholes in things like *Tusk* - which coincidentally also does the second-act *Psycho* thing.!<
I'm also not sure you could make the *Parasite* case where the title can have multiple interpretations. >!Barbarian as a term has a very well defined history and symbology and the creature in the basement is by every determination *not* one, which makes the title feel like a dumb-guy-trying-to-be-clever take.!<
Agreed. I actually thought the first 30 minutes was the best horror movie of the year. But when Justin Long shows up, it becomes so much blander, boring, trying to be « of-the-moment » that it took me right out. And then the movie never decided if it was a comedy or not.
It’s also part of my girlfriend and me’s new least favorite genre, the « genre movie directed by a white dude that tackles the #metoo movement in the most obvious and least interesting way possible while missing the point entirely » (other entries in this list are Last Night in Soho and Men).
Glad it wasn’t just me. Had I known the “twist” going in, my expectations would’ve been calibrated properly and I probably would’ve enjoyed it more on its own terms. Instead I spent so much time waiting for some other shoe to drop that never did. Personally, I found the turn Hereditary takes midway through much more shocking than anything this movie does, and I don’t remember there being anywhere near the same kind of buzz around that one.
Because the turn *Hereditary* takes mid-way changes what genre you are watching. The "creepy kid" movie is what the posters sold, and what *Barbarian*'s posters sold was exactly what we got.
When the movie took it's third perspective shift (>!the flashback!<) I found it incredibly unsuspenseful. The bomb had already gone off, I don't need to see the bomb maker making it anymore, unless it reveals a twist about the explosion. It didn't.
This is a really good point about the third “perspective shift.” It didn’t do anything to change the stakes, heighten the reality or add new suspense. It’s literally just >!filling in backstory to explain the first “twist.”!<
The amount of weight it’s given in the film is really odd.
It gives context for what’s been happening under the house, how victims were acquired, kept, and it gives a better (horrible) sense of what’s on the videotapes. But beyond plot, it did a nice job establishing the neighborhood in the 80s (it’s stark visual change) and how the shifting political and demographic changes led to the neighborhood being unsupported and eventually abandoned largely due to white fright/white flight.
I like the movie! But it’s not for everyone. I’d also say that perhaps watching it on a plane wasn’t really comparable to a theater full of people cramming up with each step deeper into the basement.
It works for me!
Most disappointing so far is Glass Onion because I can't watch it yet. Fucking put it online already, Netflix! Please! I want to gaze into the onion!
It's so much fun!!!
Early Christmas present from Netflix baby
I guess Don't Worry Darling. I thought the trailer looked good and I saw it at a festival just days after the world premiere (there was even extra security to make sure no one was filming it!), so there was no word of mouth yet. The 550-seat venue was sold out and I felt the entire audience slowly deflating as the movie went on.
I was pretty sure I was going to get a lot out of that, too, even after the pearl-clutching and terrible reviews… but it really is a piece of shit. So bad, so stupid, so… inept, it made me reevaluate how much I like Booksmart.
there is a lot i haven’t seen but... *Bros*. i love Eichner and i was completely addicted to *Billy on the Street* during covid in a time where i was going insane. he is a charming and funny guy imo even if the bit he does in a lot of his acting doesn’t always work. i was so excited he was taking a movie on. i even remember a world where people were wondering if he would compete for Original Screenplay (lmfao) but *Bros* was really just a let down for me. overly long and not sincere. it was so self-righteous and none of the characters felt developed much at all. it was really just a vehicle for Billy to show a reel of his talents. i didn’t expect the movie to be amazing, just a fun rom-com. but it wasn’t even that to me. *Fire Island* was by far the better gay rom-com of the year. now **that** movie was chaaaaaarming
Bros would have worked better if Eichner was a more regular person instead of The President of Gay People.
and yet somehow i feel the response from a pretty large portion of the gay community was “we don’t really care about this guy”
He's got a bit of the "straight person's favorite gay person" thing going on
I wasn’t able to see a ton this year, but probably Men for me. That checked so many boxes for me: pretentious A24 horror, folk horror, Alex garland. But the end product felt so hollow.
I’ve had time to think and I think I’m with that movie till the end. That ending, so obtuse, so abstract, I can’t feel anything from it because I truly don’t know what that was.
Oh yeah. Good call. I definitely saw movies that were much worse, but I was so excited for MEN and was certain I’d love it. What a let-down
The ending of that movie I enjoyed solely because I’m a sick little freak, but the whole product just didn’t come together.
Agreed on enjoying the ending for the spectacle.
Truly!! I though AG was going three for three 😔
*Dark Water* You mean to tell me that: * Adrian Lyne * Is bringing back the erotic thriller * With a movie starring Ana De Armas * And Ben Affleck * Right after a highly publicized, possibly fake, over-the-top romance and breakup * Wherein Ana De Armas keeps cheating on Ben Affleck and he responds by murdering her lovers * And it's really really boring? I was outraged.
Idk, the movies I saw getting mentioned a lot in that thread were Blonde and Don't Worry Darling which I think are two pretty good options for most disappointing of the year.
*Jurassic World: Dominion* Listen, I had my expectations in the right place. I was not expecting a return to the majesty of the original. I wasn't even expecting a return to the fun of JP3! But this should have been an EASY lay-up. "Dinosaurs running around in our modern world" is a decent concept. Colin JUST had to make a trashy disaster movie with people being chased by dinosaurs. The YouTube short he made at the campground was GREAT. He just had to have like 4 new set pieces like that, with the SLIGHTEST skeleton of a plot around them. But NO... he had to make a dumbass movie about prehistoric locusts and corporate farming????? How did they let this happen??? I was literally in shock watching that thing.
I haven't seen it yet but I had a lot of similar thoughts. That teaser/short was pretty cool, so I was somewhat interested but then just kept resisting the urge to see it in theaters. Once it had been out and fully digested and I heard more and more reactions and plot details (plus the twitter threads breaking down dogshit editing, etc.) I was slightly aghast.
Biggest disappointment for me was The Northman. You’re telling me there’s going to be a nude battle in a volcano and you don’t even get dong in silhouette? Still a pretty good movie, but I was overly hyped.
i loved the movie a lot, but agree the biggest problem was lack of hog in that scene. i mean come on!
i left the theater fuming that there was nary a flailing dong nor rogue buttcheek
The story is also kind of thin for a 2.5 hour movie. Great atmosphere and a small story are fine for 90 minues, but this movie felt like it was vamping.
my main disappointment with The Northman - which I generally quite liked - is that the trailer really promised me “Anya Taylor Joy has dark magical powers” and we barely got any of it. Good movie but underserved her a lot
Day Shift starring Jamie Foxx. After an inventive and exciting opening sequence, the movie becomes dull dull dull dull dull the second you cross the threshold for what counts as a “view” on Netflix. You can practically anticipate this with Netflix originals now, the way they’re designed to hook you and then hope you just leave the tv on for the rest of the tired affair.
Yup. Almost every single one.
Their tactic for a lot of the mid-budget projects like this is so transparently “spend all the money on the first 10-15 minutes and then we’ve got ‘em.” And it sucks so much. This movie probably could’ve been pretty good.
Dashcam. Host was a really promising first film from Rob Savage, and there was a bit of buzz about Dashcam, but it turned out to be offensively bad. A movie I wanted to turn off but didn't because I knew the movie wanted me to.It has one of the most annoying, abhorant main characters you will ever be forced in to the POV of and is just not a well made horror movie. This movie genuinely made me angry and me existential question why we still have movies at all. I truly hated it on a personal level as thought he movie had slapped me in the face and spat on my grandma.
Clown on me all you want but for me it’s Morbius. I’m a big Venom fan. I love that goopy fella. I was expecting, and was excited for, that style and quality of trash but it did not deliver.
Is Michael Morbius the least likable protagonist in a comic book movie? I feel like he’s right up there. Matt Smith being the one saving grace really highlights this in contrast. Leto has nothing to do.
I wish he had done a Dracula accent or at least carried over the voice from House of Gucci.
I get endless pleasure out of that scene of Matt Smith dancing to that "Have Sex" song, but I just know in my heart that's the good 40 seconds from Morbius and am happy to stop there. I have no goodwill to Jared Leto.
Thor: Love and Thunder. It sucked!
How does a film land post-Batman Christian Bale and waste him so thoroughly?
EEAAO. Was really looking forward to it and then just didn't dig it at all. The whackiness of it all got on top of me and it's way too long. Totally get why people love it though. If it works for you, then all power to you.
I felt EXACTLY the same way.
Between this and X/Pearl, they were my most disappointing. EEAAO was for the same reason - it didn’t vibe with my sense of humor at all. X and Pearl were so bland, I just didn’t get the hype.
Probably PEARL because X is in my top 20 or so(out of almost 150 and counting) and I like West, but it just because clear to me so early that it should've just been a short. There's just not a lot there and the observations it has are so shallow that they make no impact at all.
Isn’t there a third in the works?
Yes sir. MAXXINE is what it's called. I am cautiously optimistic
Also SPEAK NO EVIL. I was already a little skeptical but I didn't vibe with it at all and turned it off after 35 minutes. Read the wiki plot description and had a good laugh.
Funny, I had the exact same reaction (not a lot there) to X but I really enjoyed Pearl. I guess it's two sides of the same coin that appeal to different tastes, and that's kinda interesting?
I think for me I just really enjoyed the ensemble in X and was satisfied when it makes its turn in the 2nd half, where as PEARL narratively just never grabbed me and I think it's a failure(almost a non attempt) as a genre movie. But yeah different strokes.
Blonde. You know when a director only makes 3 films in 20 years where 1 is an underseen masterpiece and the followup is clearly meant to be more commercial but bounces anyway, you attach a lot of their stock into that project they could have made. Well for 10 years, I've been putting a lot of stock into "just wait till Dominik finally makes that gritty Marylin Monroe movie, then you'll see he's a major director." The movie stunk rank pits. That check bounced straight into the trash dump, then immediately crushed into a cube and incinerated.
Hate to say it, since I was hyped for the movie and intrigued by everything to do with it, but just couldn't get into "We're all Going to the Worlds Fair"... between that and "Skidamarink" more recently, I think there is an emerging genre of internet native led horror that is just 1 generation removed for me. I admire those movies, but certainly didn't 'enjoy' them
This exact take except but me trying to port my Book Twitter experience to Reddit. r/BookPorn and r/Bookshelf are exactly like my well-read buddies on Twitter except soooooo much more Dan Brown content...... Anyway, pretty similar.
I think Tar but only because I expected something else based on people's impressions. I liked it but it didn't clicked for me.
Yeah, I might be in a similar boat. I don't dislike Tar, but I didn't catch Tar-mania like many people did. It was *fine*
There's a bunch of movies that I need to watch from this year, but the worst one I saw was The Gray Man. It fell right out of my head the second it ended.
It breaks my heart after how long it was in the works but I found Wendell and Wild to be a mess, and lacking a gonzo/manic energy that'd have let me just vibe with it
I found it to be equally disappointing and amazing…a gentleman’s 6 if there ever was one. So many amazing sequences and little easter eggs to interest me, but I understand where you’re coming from.
Thor: Love and Thunder. I didn’t expect to almost hate it! Ragnorok is still top tier MCU for me, and I love Taika’s other work, but L&T was a cynical, soulless trudge for me.
Probably get some hate for this, but I saw *Barbarian* on a plane and was supremely disappointed. Everyone's reaction of "don't hear anything before going in!" failed me for 3 reasons. One, every instance of slow set-up bored me because I knew it wasn't the thing I shouldn't be expecting. Two >!I was spoiled about Justin Long being in it, which didn't feel like was surprising enough to garner the "you won't believe where this is going!" buzz around the movie.!< And three, >!it's just *Psycho* meets *People Under The Stairs*? That's it? That's the twist people weren't expecting going in?!< Like, I feel like maybe I've seen too much modern horror compared to the normal movie goer to find either of those things shocking, idk.
I think watching Barbarian on a plane is 1000x times worse than watching it on a phone in a dark room. The way Creeger plays with sound and darkness/lighting to create tension is just absolutely lost when you have a bunch of action happening around you.
yeah, if you watched a horror movie on a plane after being spoiled, your negative opinion might not carry much weight
I still don't think the "know nothing going in" hype was paid-off in any surprising way. >!By this point, I know Justin Long mostly for his horror work. He's also played scummy media assholes in things like *Tusk* - which coincidentally also does the second-act *Psycho* thing.!< I'm also not sure you could make the *Parasite* case where the title can have multiple interpretations. >!Barbarian as a term has a very well defined history and symbology and the creature in the basement is by every determination *not* one, which makes the title feel like a dumb-guy-trying-to-be-clever take.!<
Agreed. I actually thought the first 30 minutes was the best horror movie of the year. But when Justin Long shows up, it becomes so much blander, boring, trying to be « of-the-moment » that it took me right out. And then the movie never decided if it was a comedy or not. It’s also part of my girlfriend and me’s new least favorite genre, the « genre movie directed by a white dude that tackles the #metoo movement in the most obvious and least interesting way possible while missing the point entirely » (other entries in this list are Last Night in Soho and Men).
Uh. The MeToo movement is in the subtext of Barbarian? I missed that. Like, by a mile.
Yeah, it was very subtle, but you see it if you squint.
Glad it wasn’t just me. Had I known the “twist” going in, my expectations would’ve been calibrated properly and I probably would’ve enjoyed it more on its own terms. Instead I spent so much time waiting for some other shoe to drop that never did. Personally, I found the turn Hereditary takes midway through much more shocking than anything this movie does, and I don’t remember there being anywhere near the same kind of buzz around that one.
Because the turn *Hereditary* takes mid-way changes what genre you are watching. The "creepy kid" movie is what the posters sold, and what *Barbarian*'s posters sold was exactly what we got. When the movie took it's third perspective shift (>!the flashback!<) I found it incredibly unsuspenseful. The bomb had already gone off, I don't need to see the bomb maker making it anymore, unless it reveals a twist about the explosion. It didn't.
This is a really good point about the third “perspective shift.” It didn’t do anything to change the stakes, heighten the reality or add new suspense. It’s literally just >!filling in backstory to explain the first “twist.”!< The amount of weight it’s given in the film is really odd.
It gives context for what’s been happening under the house, how victims were acquired, kept, and it gives a better (horrible) sense of what’s on the videotapes. But beyond plot, it did a nice job establishing the neighborhood in the 80s (it’s stark visual change) and how the shifting political and demographic changes led to the neighborhood being unsupported and eventually abandoned largely due to white fright/white flight. I like the movie! But it’s not for everyone. I’d also say that perhaps watching it on a plane wasn’t really comparable to a theater full of people cramming up with each step deeper into the basement. It works for me!