Tag: When The Game Stands Tall

Welcome everyone to my first ever “Worst Films of 2014” list!

I have said before that for the most part, Worst Film lists are terrible. They usually end up having something completely average or regular bad on the top, just because people like to drink the internet hatorade. For instance, some people claimed The Lone Ranger was the worst movie of 2013. I thought it was exciting, or at least average/okay.

And as a reminder, 2013 also gave us such classics like Movie 43 and Scary Movie 5. Yeah. The Lone Ranger is clearly worse than those movies. Technically these things are opinions, but clearly opinions such as that can be wrong.

Either way. I didn’t see every movie that came out in 2014. I saw most of the ones that had a theatrical release. But there are a lot of movies that go straight to DVD or straight to VOD. Dozens every week. I didn’t get to see most of them, so this is the

WORST 15 MOVIES THAT I HAVE SEEN THAT CAME OUT IN 2014‘
Catchy title. Why 15? Because I had that many I wanted to hate on again. Also another note: All of the movies on this list were either rated 1 or 0 out of 4. Some 1s may be rated lower. Why? Well, when I rate normally, it is more first impressions/gut reaction. This list however had lots of reflection. The difference between dislike and hate is a fickle one, after all.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Winter’s Tale, Heaven Is For Real, Vampire Academy, Mr. Turner. They all just barely missed the list.

15) Leprechaun: Origins

First up is not only a horror, but a remake! Leprechaun: Origins is one of the few movies on this list that didn’t even make it to theaters. It got a straight VOD release in October, made by WWE Studios. Like all recent reboots, it decided it wanted to be dark and gritty.

And you know, get rid of any personality the strange as hell franchise had going for it. Instead of a leprechaun, we get some strange C.H.U.D. looking creature that took its scary cues from the raptors in Jurassic Park. It is boring, it is unoriginal, and it was a waste of internet space.

14) Moms’ Night Out

“Hey, this movie you are about to complain about probably wasn’t even meant for people like you. You’re not a mom!” Well, I have to admit I am not a mom. But Moms’ Night Out doesn’t seem to be made for moms either. It stereotypes and and gives us unoriginal and terrible caricatures of them.

The fact that it came out around Mother’s Day is just advertising. The idea of making my own mom watch this movie seems like a surefire way of making my mom hate me. I wouldn’t want my mom to think I think she needs to be doing housework all day. This film must have been made in the 1960’s, that is the only explanation.

13) Tammy

Being typecasted can be a good or a bad thing. I mean, it is good if it gets you roles and a steady paycheck, and it is great if it doesn’t make you seem like a terrible human being. But to be typecasted as an annoying friend? That can’t make people like you.

Tammy is a road trip movie with no real goals or focus. What is worse about the Tammy character is that Melissa McCarthy got to make this character herself and still put herself in that situation. We have seen her in other roles that have showed she has range, but this one is more of the same. An annoying amount of same.

12) Left Behind

While leading up to the creation of this list, I watched a lot of “supposed to be bad” movies to make sure I had a more complete feeling list. That is to say, I watched Sharknado 2 and it wasn’t bad enough for this list. But Left Behind and one other were bad enough to make the list, yet not have official reviews written for them yet! Expect them in the next week. 🙂

Either way, Left Behind is a sort of franchise reboot, but with more Cage and probably just as bad acting. The main plot point seems to be characters who realize what is going on, just to be badly cut to a different plot area, and then cut back and their idea be the wrong one. Over. And over. And over. In this movie universe, everyone is an idiot.

11) When The Game Stands Tall

There are sports movies, there are inspirational true story sport movies, and then there is this shit. Stretching the truth to tell a good message is one thing, but When The Game Stands Tall takes a relatively recent (ten ish years ago) story and decide to shit all over the facts and give us inspirational hogwash. Or at least it tries to be inspirational.

But who can really connect with the team that has won over a hundred games in a row and then they finally lose one? They manage to take a great story, keep about 10% of the truth, and give me 90% made up filler. Shit, they can’t even get the opponents and scores versus those opponents correctly. Please, get the fuck out of here.

10) Planes: Fire and Rescue

If I made a list like this last year, Planes would probably be number 1 out of principle alone. Now, less than a year after the first one, we have a sequel of a planned trilogy, where at least the third one isn’t coming out for awhile. Maybe they will work on making it decent.

Just like the first film, Planes: Fire and Rescue is completely lazy in its script department, features a main character who can be a dick, features racist stereotypes to make its characters, and has shitty animation. The type of film that doesn’t try to be good because it makes all its money back instantly in merchandise. The only thing better it has going for it is that at least it has a stronger female character. Just a bit.

9) Lucy

Luc Fucking Besson. This man has been ruining scripts for the last few years, either by writing them completely and directing them, or just adding his input. They are all the same, if I can describe them as terrible and featuring Europe in some way. 3 Days To Kill was terrible, but Lucy was even worse.

Lucy took an okay concept, made it extremely stupid (or dumbed down if you will) and turned the character into an unmoral boring “hero”. A hero who can really early on in the film alter reality in ways so that people don’t have to get hurt, but hurts them anyways. It ends with a slow motion gun fight where her “Friends” and other nice people die. For what? For no fucking reason other than the poorly put together plot.

8) Ouija

Ouija is my second horror film and last one on the list. That’s right! Ouija is the worst horror of the year! That probably isn’t fair, because out of all genres, I bet horror has the most straight to DVD/internet/indie release type of films, so there are probably a lot worse. But damn it, I didn’t see them.

Ouija is a board game company trying to get more people to by their board game. To do so, we get a PG-13 plot line that features some of the least innovative plot twists and scary situations known to man. You know, all about a board game. It is incredible how boring they made this movie. I’ve seen better Ouija board based plots in made for kids tv shows.

7) The Identical

The Identical is the second of the movies on this list that doesn’t have an official review yet. Why? Well, the movie came out the first week of September in theaters and was notable for basically being the only release that week. But I live in an area that frequently has pre-screenings, and they wouldn’t even bother with The Identical.

So I didn’t even bother with it til now, and I am glad to say I didn’t spend $10 on this trash. It is basically like a make believe Elvis story. But instead of Elvis, we have two Elvis looking mother fuckers separated at birth. One becoming a big star, the other being raised by a religious Ray Liotta with dreams of being a rock and roll star some day. The plot description alone should make you want to run away and read a book.

6) Sex Tape

We are getting closer to the bottom, so my hate for these movies will be stronger and stronger. Sex Tape this low makes it officially the worst comedy of the year for me. How bad was it? Well, I watched in theaters with a group of people. Not only did I not laugh, but I remember the theater being silent as well.

But to top it off, it was so boring that in my middle of the day Saturday show time, I fell asleep missing the last twenty or so minutes. Like, hardcore passed out. I never nap and I don’t sleep during movies. I didn’t just sleep during the ending. I slept through 100% of the credits. I was woken up when the lights in the theater were turned on and someone was cleaning up the mess. That’s how boring and un funny this comedy was.

5) God’s Not Dead

When I first saw a trailer for God’s Not Dead, I thought it was a joke trailer made for the lols. What? It was really coming out? Well, it was meant to be a very limited run type of thing, but because religious people went in droves to see it, it became wide release and I actually had to watch it.

Look, movies where some of the characters are dumb and bad at arguments. Sure. But not when the filmmakes are lazy, making terrible characters, in order to help convince millions of people how to argue badly. The main character is an awkward strawman who is just angry and terrible at arguing despite his PhDs. It’s side stories decide to also attack Islam (and make it seem violent), feature Duck Dynasty because they were popular for being anti-gay last year, and even make regular women seem to be the devil. It is the laziest Christian movie I have seen and doesn’t even attempt to raise any amount of intellectual discourse.

4) America: Imagine The World Without Her

That’s right, a documentary! I felt patriotic with this review, watching it in theaters so that I could release it for July 4th! I liked the title, America: Imagine The World Without Her and thought it could go into some interesting subject matter. But no, it was all a ruse. I talk specifics in my actual review, but it is just such an awful piece of propaganda. I cannot believe it got put in theaters.

It features lies, un truths, and a whole lot of unnecessary (and way too early) campaigning for the 2016 election. Seriously. That is what this misleading title documentary turned into. Not only that, but it has some truths also early on to trick you and keep you on your toes. A documentary that should have its biased ass thrown in the trash.

3) I, Frankenstein

Here we go. The final three. And this one is a January release! January releases are known for being generally shitty. It is after the last two months of Oscar bait films. Films they don’t expect to do good and just hope to get back some of their investments. I, Frankenstein takes a beloved fictional character and makes him a whole new level of stupid.

I am a fan of Aaron Eckhart, I am, but first off, he made a terrible Frankenstein’s monster. Second off, this film is a CGI orgy of explosions and fight scenes, all of which are painful to watch. Third, we got a forced awkward romance. And finally, the plot. Oh the plot is full of holes, terrible fantasy lore and it looks like they just threw together a lot of different ideas to make it stick. The only good thing they had going for it was at least a unique choice of weapons and not the same old sword action movie.

2) Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return

For whatever reason, people are super into the Oz based movies right now. That shit is old and every once in awhile, someone tries to remake the lore or re-tell the story and outside of Wicked, the story is always terrible. This time we have Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return, an animated sequel to the classic tale, throwing more characters no one gives a shit at at us, with new songs and new tales.

Just kidding. Shit is shit is shit. What is funnier about this thing is that the makers believe there is some Hollywood conspiracy to make sure independent animated films cannot succeed. When in reality, they had shitty animation and a terrible terrible movie. That is why it didn’t make money. Shit, this movie took years to make and seemed like some sort of Ponzi Scheme in the end. Popular people to voice is does not a good movie make.

1) The Legend Of Hercules

Yay, number 1! The worst movie of the year in my eyes. Here is a check list of things going bad for The Legend of Hercules.

It came out in January.
It is a doppelganger film, but also the “rushed out to beat the other one and definitely far far worse” of the two. (Compared to just Hercules).
It is based on stories, and by that, I mean, Hercules is a character name and everyone else…? I don’t know if anyone is in his mythos. Every other plot point and character just seems generic and made up.
Terrible CGI.
Mostly just a love story and it seems like it wants to capture the Twilight crowd.
Kellan Lutz.

If you like Hercules, don’t see this movie. If you hate Hercules, don’t see this movie.

Thanks for reading! If you disagree with part of this list, let me know. If there is something I missed, let me know (but I probably saw it and reviewed it on this very site! Check out my thoughts). Next week? I will have a list of movies you should actually watch.

You know what sport has been unrepresented in film lately? Football. You might disagree with me.

First, let’s ignore all the bullshit smaller titles, the made for TV stuff, the documentaries. I will not accept The 5th Quarter, it was a straight to DVD thing basically.

Looking at only big releases, we had Draft Day this year which is more a generic sports-ish movie since it could have been almost word for word with any other sport and still work. Just change name of positions and teams and boom, all football elements gone. The Blind Side? That is a dramatic biography, not a football movie. That takes us all the way back to 2008 where we had The Longshots and Leatherheads. Yeah.

So a movie actually about the sport, with sport stuff going on hasn’t been out in a big release for awhile. When The Game Stands Tall is a true story, so it has that going for it at least.

Players wearing gear is one step above Draft Day already!

De La Salle High School is a Roman Catholic private high school in Concord, California. Close-ish to San Francisco. All men school, too. They never had a winning football season until they signed Bob Ladouceur (Jim Caviezel) in 1979. He then coached the team for decades, and starting in 1992, his teams had 12 years of undefeated seasons, leading to a 151 game winning streak. True story.

But the start of the 2004 season had changes. Their conference was tired of them destroying them, so they limited the De La Salle Spartans to only 5 games of league play, making them look elsewhere for opponents, where only the best of the best would accept. And wouldn’t you know it? While playing their first game of the season against the Washington state champion Bellevue Wolverines, they lost 39-20, breaking their record.

Heartache. Depression. Sadness. What are they going to do? Well, apparently lose their second game too, but at least it was a closer game.

Can the coach turn it around? Especially before game three, against the biggest meanest school in California, in 100 degree heat? And can they also get back into a championship winning team? Maybe?

What about side stories? WE GOT YOUR SIDE STORIES.

Like Chris Ryan (Alexander Ludwig), a running back, going for the California state record for TDs in a high school career. Only needs like 36 this year and has a whole lot of dad (Clancy Brown) pressure. Or the friendship between Cam (Ser-Darius Blain) and T.K. (Stephan James), of where they are going to go to college, and how there is a lot of death in their lives, and how one of them totally dies.

Can Tayshon (Jessie Usher) stop having a superstar attitude and work with the team? Can lovable Beaser (Joe Massingill) do…good at stuff? Will Arturo (Matthew Frias) ever get to play and feel important? How about Coach’s wife (Laura Dern), can she nag even more? And will his son (Matthew Daddario) get to have a good senior season with his dad as his coach?

AND WHAT ABOUT THE ASSISTANT COACH (Michael Chiklis)? WHAT ABOUT HIM HUH?

The most impressive part of this movie was getting Michael Chiklis to look like a cross between Jason Alexander and Wayne Knight.

From my estimations, 87.3333%, repeating of course, of this movie is completely made up. What? Something based around a definitely true event is fake? Well, let’s go into spoiler territory. You don’t care, you probably won’t watch this movie.

For sure, there was a Bob Ladouceur. The streak was 151 games and it was De La Salle high school. The dates of most of the stuff they mention work out. There was a T.K. and a Cam and one of them died. His son was a player in their first losing game. Everything else is just made up and fabricated drama.

For instance? Chris Ryan was not a real player. There was no one ever on their team working on beating this TD record for high school and it definitely didn’t come down to the final championship game. What really irked me and made me knew that this couldn’t possibly be real is that the coach, for their final drive, winning by a lot, let the players call the shots. They get down to the 1 yard line with about a minute left. And Chris becomes the QB, and takes a knee, three times. That’s because his dad beat him and wanted the record more than the son, and he thought the game should be about the team and not his record. Also because Jesus.

I knew there was no way that could have happened, it would have been everywhere on the news. The second tipoff was that at the end of the movie, they only did the “And here they are now!” screen for the coach, no one else. The other real players were either dead or failed at college ball, basically. So I had to look it up.

Then I found out they also made up the arrogant wide receiver on their team. Okay. Whatever. His plot sucked anyways. Most of the plot was the random death, the dad abuser/TD count, and the game winnings.

But then those fuckers even made up how they did that season. Literally the easiest part of a sports movie to get right. They got their first loss right and score. Sure. The second loss right after? Wrong team and wrong score. Made it seem like they were close. Then in real life they tied, they finally won in their first league game a ridiculous 49-0 versus a shitty private school team. The movie said they played the best team in California, had all of these problems, that team had a 100 player roster versus their like, 40 guys, and over 100 degree heat. They said they barely won that, then went on to win the rest of the season.

THEY DIDN’T EVEN WIN OUT THE REST OF THAT SEASON, WHAT THE FUCK? They had another tie and another loss.

They changed even the fundamental basics of their story, the easiest thing to get right, the records/schedule/score?

Outside of that, this is a huge First World Problems movie. Oh boo hoo, you guys are all sad because you lost a game after a bunch of guys before you never lost? Get the fuck over yourselves.

An inspirational sports movie has an underdog, a rag tag team, a group of losers, coming together to win over all. This one takes a bunch of winners, has them lose two games, and then go back to winning a bunch. Get the fuck out of here.

And it is a shame. If they kept to the real story, this would have been a decent movie. Because the football scenes were pretty interesting and shot really well.

1 out of 4.