Morgan P Salvo

Here are two marketing ploys that are really not working for me anymore: “Based on true facts” and “shot in real 3D.” I figured that James Cameron's role as producer and the 3D cinema magic would all but force Sanctum to deliver. It doesn't. I know I'm not known for being lavish with my praise, but this truly is one of the worst movies I have ever seen.
The waterlogged story involves an underwater cave-diving team on an expedition to explore New Guinea’s Esa-ala Cave, one of the least-accessible cave systems in the world. When a flash flood cuts off their exit, the team is caught in a life-or-death situation. With supplies dwindling, the divers must navigate a treacherous labyrinth to find a new escape route or die in the process.

It's not a good sign when an exorcism movie pulls down a PG-13 rating. This means the amount of blood and/or cursing is probably insufficient, especially for this overworked subgenre. Such is the case with The Rite, a vehicle for a demonic Anthony Hopkins who once again glints his eyes, rattles off cantankerous innuendoes and sinister wisecracks in heavy makeup as CGI-enhanced veins pop out of his skin. Think Hannibal Lecter, but even more possessed.
Billed as “based on true events,” this flick treads on thin demonic ice. Tired conventions abound, such as with the father-son (Rutger Hauer/Colin O'Donoghue) funeral home scene. Here, an attempt at creepiness is merely dull – peppered with generic horror movie lines like, “We live with dead people in our house, how much worse can it get?”

The Way Back is a grueling, stunningly photographed story of a group of prisoners who escape a Siberian gulag and walk… yes that's right, walk, 4,000 miles through five hostile countries to freedom in India. This sometimes-riveting film is grand scale entertainment though the tediousness of the trek is often disconcerting. Six-time Oscar nominated director Peter Weir (Truman Show, Dead Poets Society) returns to the screen after a seven-year absence with an epic yet by-the-numbers film adaptation of Slavomir Rawicz’s novel, The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom. The veracity of Rawicz's story has been challenged, so Weir and co-writer Keith Clarke try to address the authenticity by giving us the straight story.

The Green Hornet arrived after a ton of negative buzz in the notorious mid-January cinematic dead zone and raked it in as the biggest box office moneymaker of the week. Based on the 1930s radio show and 60’s TV series of the same name, The Green Hornet features Seth Rogen as Britt Reid, playboy heir to the publishing empire built by his father (Tom Wilkinson sleep-walking through his mean-old-dad routine). After dad croaks, party animal Reid inherits the newspaper company, teaming up with late dad’s assistant and eventual sidekick Kato (Chinese pop star Jay Chou) to become a masked crime-fighting team. Their mission: to rid Los Angeles of a local crime czar (Christoph Waltz). Green Hornet is yet another tongue-in-cheek costumed crime-fighter, but neither Iron Man nor Hancock sunk as low as Rogen's tubby icon of idiocy.

It’s taken almost two years for I Love You Phillip Morris to finally reach mainstream theaters. Premiering at Sundance in January 2009, the movie was a near casualty for nervous American distributors, but had a showing here at last year's BendFilm festival to glowing audience reviews. After lying dormant in cinematic limbo, you can rest assured that this flick is now out in all its screwed up glory, with Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor doing gay-for-pay in a crazy twist on romantic comedies.

This crazy trend to make 3D movies these days only pays off if… let me think… it has really cool freakin' 3D looking things popping out at you. The only thing popping out during Jack Black's insipid new movie Gulliver's Travels were my eyes in astonishment at how bland, generic and totally sluggish the entire flick was on every level.

True Grit version 2.0 opens on a dead body, with snow drizzling and a quote from the Old Testament dangling, “The wicked flee when none pursueth.” It's immediately clear that this film is more than just a remake of the 1969 John Wayne Western of the same name. This time around directors Joel and Ethan Coen were reverent to Charles Portis’ novel, telling the story from the young girl’s perspective. To do so, they re-teamed with No Country for Old Men producer Scott Rudin. The narrative centers on young Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) who enlists the services of “Rooster” Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to help her capture her father's killer. Accompanied by Texas Ranger Le Beouf (Matt Damon), the unlikely trio ventures forth hoping to either bring her father’s murderer to justice or kill him, whichever comes first.

The list can go on and on. Considering the onslaught of duds there really wasn't a lot of flicks vying for best movie category this year, which is why I compiled a list of the ten films I just absolutely hated.

1. Babies
Goo-goo dada. This is just a garbled batch of poorly made home movies in which only cuteness is documented. One can only take so much crying, peeing, grinning and crawling no matter what country they're from. For those of you smitten by babies, cuddle onward. But if you are one who is immune to the charms of, or perhaps even afraid of, babies – avoid this at all costs.

What's that you say? David O. Russell, the guy who directed Spanking the Monkey, Three Kings and I Heart Huckabees made a boxing movie? Yes it's true that the king of quirky has made a straightforward boxing pic based on a true story, fueled by performances of compelling grit and layered intensities, simply entitled The Fighter.