I know what you’re thinking, the film was a box office smash and if it weren’t for The Hangover, would be the surprise of the summer. But it seems that until now, none of the more sophisticated moviegoers saw the film or decided to speak up about it, because as I watched it a few days ago, I was shocked. My expectations were certainly low; I was expecting bad and got absolutely abysmal. When you go in expecting Sandra Bullock to act like Sandra Bullock, Ryan Reynolds to act like Ryan Reynolds, and all the other pieces to fall into place like the other 25 movies that Bullock is in that have nearly the same setup, and you instead get one of the worst directed, unfunniest studio romcoms in quite a while, and let’s not act like most studio romcoms are not usually crap anyway…I’m speechless. I read Glenn Kenny’s Some Came Running on occasion and the day after I watched this cinematic abortion, he said all the words I never thought of saying, but just bottling up inside with the rest of the abhorrent trash that befuddles my mind for days.

Glenn’s assessment, that if Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and this were the only two movies to come out in a year, The Proposal still would not be the funniest movie to come out that year, is correct. The thought I had in my mind but was finally confirmed by Glenn that all the “Alaska” backdrops were green-screen or worse, rear projection, much like a certain scene in Forgetting Sarah Marshall that almost ruined what is otherwise a really great comedy. I mean, look at the image at the top, which I stole directly from his blog. They couldn’t even light the damn thing right. Interior lighting on Reynolds’ face, while an Alaskan exterior is behind him. I know that budgets are typically kept low (I should really get to that), but there is no excuse for shooting on location or at least somewhere where you don’t have to go all Hitchcock on us, but without the charm.

Back to (I should really get to that), on the blog post, which you SHOULD Read here: (http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2009/10/hollywoods-latest-crisis-the-core-competencies.html), Greg Motolla, writer/director of Superbad, The Daytrippers, and my favorite film of 2008, Adventureland, wrote a fantastic comment regarding everything I talk about and what Glenn talks about far more eloquently, and also his experiences on making Adventureland and his upcoming film starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, an action comedy called Paul:

Along the lines of what Joel Gordon said above, I can tell you that in my experience there is an attitude at the big studios that comedies don’t need to be remotely cinematic. Comedies often get much shorter shooting schedules than other genres, with the expectation that its “master, closeup, closeup, call it a day”. I also recently got this note from an exec visiting the set: “We like brightly lit comedies at our studio” (which my dailies weren’t).

As an aside, I have a friend who worked in Thelma Schoonmaker’s editing room — Thelma liked to say: “matching is for pussies”.

Heartbreaking? You betcha.

I would run a more prominent Oscar campaign for Adventureland than Miramax would ever try to.

Turns out Julie Taymor’s The Tempest, the film Miramax had to rely on for the awards season as Stephen Frears’ Cheri didn’t pan out very well at all, is being delayed to 2010 because of visual effects issues and the fact that Taymor has this Spiderman: The Musical debacle on her hands. So now what? Well, I think I have an answer.

I know Miramax won’t try this, but they definitely should try an Adventureland push. Critical approval up the yin-yang and quite a lot of broad appeal. The push would most likely not work but I only say that because pushes for movies like that hardly happen, but hey, the last movie even remotely similar is In Bruges, with a high Tomatometer in the March-April release frame, serving as a really dark comedy. Sure, both films aren’t really alike, but on paper, they both fit a certain niche that won Colin Farrell a Globe last year. Just throwing that out there.

At least, there’s a push to be made for Kristen Stewart.

I’ve only seen three 2009 movies this month. That’s rather pitiful, I must admit, but I deal with it. Really only feel like I need to see District 9 and then I’ve gotten my quota of stuff worth seeing from 2009 out of the way except for the stuff I have no way to see at the moment, like Whatever Works. My order’s changed a little, and Inglourious Basterds and Julie & Julia aimed to commit some gangbusters on this list. After jump, you know what to do.

1. Adventureland dir. Greg Motolla
2. The Brothers Bloom dir. Rian Johnson
3. Moon dir. Duncan Jones
4. (500) Days of Summer dir. Marc Webb
5. Watchmen dir. Zack Snyder
6. Inglourious Basterds dir. Quentin Tarantino
7. Up dir. Pete Docter
8. Funny People dir. Judd Apatow
9. The Soloist dir. Joe Wright
10. Ponyo on a Cliff By the Sea dir. Hayao Miyazaki
11. Fanboys dir. Ryan Newman
12. Observe and Report dir. Jody Hill
13. The Girlfriend Experience dir. Steven Soderbergh
14. The Limits of Control dir. Jim Jarmusch
15. Drag Me to Hell dir. Sam Raimi
16. Julie & Julia dir. Nora Ephron
17. Broken Embraces dir. Pedro Almodovar
18. The Hangover dir. Todd Phillips
19. I Love You, Man dir. John Hamburg
20. The Hurt Locker dir. Kathyrn Bigelow
21. In the Loop dir. Armondo Iannucci
22. Phoebe in Wonderland dir. Daniel Barnz
23. Antichrist dir. Lars von Trier
24. Star Trek dir. J.J. Abrams
25. Public Enemies dir. Michael Mann
26. Bruno dir. Larry Charles
____________________________________
Rotten:
27. Orphan Jaume Collet-Serra
28. Whip It! dir. Drew Barrymore
29. Terminator Salvation dir. Joseph McGinty
30. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince dir. That Goddamn Sucker Fucker David Yates
31. Confessions of a Shopaholic dir. P.J. Hogan
32. Taken dir. Pierre Morel
33. Powder Blue dir. Timothy Linh Bui
34. The Obama Deception dir. Alex Jones
35. Obsessed dir. Steve Shill
36. The Pink Panther 2 dir. Harald Zwart
37. X-Men Origins: Wolverine dir. Gavin Hood
38. Bride Wars dir. Gary Winick
39. My Sister’s Keeper dir. Nick Cassavetes
40. Paul Blart: Mall Cop dir. Steve Carr
41. The Unborn dir. David S. Goyer
42. The Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience dir. Bruce Hendricks
43. Dragonball Evolution dir. James Wong
44. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen dir. Michael Bay
45. He’s Just Not That Into You dir. Ken Kwapis