Bad Moms (Jon Lucas & Scott Moore, 2016)

0/10
This wasn't my choice to watch but wow this was putrid. Basically motherhood wish-fulfillment porn. Plot-wise, you know what to expect if you've ever seen an Apatow thing (this was written by The Hangover guys) - a bunch of like-minded characters, moms here, lash out at the restraints imposed upon them by society's expectations, decide to Go Wild, learn some lessons about moderation in the end, blah blah. Curiously, Bad Moms kicks off on a decidedly anti-feminist note - the central character Amy (played by Mila Kunis) has her life go completely off the rails when her husband leaves. This is even more interesting because Amy's husband, of course, is portrayed as an oblivious, do-nothing loser. So it's weird that him leaving is what sends her life spiraling into chaos.
So Amy joins up with 2 other moms who want to Go Wild - Kristen Bell playing the timid one and Kathryn Hahn playing the brassy one in roles you've seen before being played by Tina Fey and Amy Schumer - and we're treated to excruciatingly implausible scenes like Amy struggling to get laid at a bar because she doesn't know how to talk to men and can only talk about "mom stuff" like her kids' bathrooms habits. I will remind you that Amy is played by Mila Kunis, who could probably brand a swastika into her forehead and still go home with any number of men of her choosing.
The whole movie is like that, extremely tone-deaf and lacking in self-awareness. It doesn't care much beyond being obnoxious and hoping that some very deluded individuals will identify with its cartoon character protagonists.
Most of this ground was already covered well by Bridesmaids, or covered well enough by Sisters. It's cool that female ensemble comedies are an established thing and more prominent than ever but this does no favors at all to the genre.

The Hangover Part II (Todd Phillips, 2011)

0/10
I usually reserve zeroes for movies I truly despise, but I didn't despise this one...however, it was so free of content, I can't bring myself to give it any kind of score. By offering up the exact same movie as its predecessor, changing the location, and removing all of the humor, I wonder if Todd Phillips was going for some kind of commentary on the film industry and its constant demand for sequels/rehashes that don't need to exist. He's a pretty smart guy I'm sure, I can't believe he actually watched any reels of this one and thought anything remotely funny or original ever took place.

Insurgence (Group d'Action en Cinema Epopee, 2012)

0/10
A zero for content, and a zero for the fact that Insurgence isn't a movie. Rather, it's a collection of footage shot during the Quebec "Printemps Erable" student riots - no narration, no interviews, no context, just "as if you were there" footage from the left-wing Group d'Action en Cinema Epopee. This is little more than "protest porn" - shot by protestors for protestors who only have to flex the minimum amount of brain cells it takes to cheer at rocks being throw at cops, mocking Nazi salutes, and chanting "fuck la police" or "SSPVM".
Without delving too much into politics, I consider myself something of a moderate on the issue of the strike - while I agree with some of the issues the students raised, I was against the strike and especially against the means used to achieve their end. Quebec has a history of thinking more highly of itself than is warranted, and nowhere has that embarrassing sense of self-entitlement ever been more evident than when watching Insurgence - people wearing Canada Goose down jackets and clutching Louis Vuitton taking pictures of themselves next to riot cops with their iPhones for their new Facebook profile picture, without a clue in the world about what constitutes actual oppression, fascism, and Nazism.
It struck me watching the idiocy before my eyes that a right-wing group could have just as easily put out a documentary ridiculing the protesters - and they would have used the exact same footage found here.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Stephen Daldry, 2011)

0/10
I tried to watch this one with an open mind, but it felt like the movie was fighting me the entire way. Starting with the protagonist Oscar, who may be the most irritating character since Jar Jar Binks and I say that with no hyperbole whatsoever. Oscar lost his dad in the 9/11 attacks and according to the movie, this is all we need to feel unending sympathy for him - despite the fact that he's obnoxious, rude, and downright unlikeable in almost every scene he's in. Losing a parent is tragic, but when it's used as lazy screenwriting shorthand, its impact is greatly diminished. One starts to wonder why Oscar deserved such a great dad in the first place.
But that's par for the course in a movie where no one acts like a human being, save maybe for Oscar's charming/dorky dad, played by Tom Hanks. The rest are a compilation of screen writing clichés, either with quirks that are supposed to be somehow endearing, or devoid of logic altogether (the explanation for why Oscar's mom lets her 12 year old son traipse around New York either by himself or in the company of a mute recluse is truly mindboggling and hilarious).
The movie's use of the 9/11 attacks to wrench an emotional response out of viewers is manipulative, but generally inoffensive for most of the running time...until at the very end, after Oscar finally comes to terms with the fact that his father is gone and won't be coming back and this is something that he'll have to live with (reflecting indeed the lives of many children who lost their parents in the attacks, a rare moment of realistic human feeling in the film). Immediately after coming to this conclusion he finds a note his father had hidden all along for him, congratulating and confirming his pride in and love for his son, providing him with a measure of closure that virtually no child who actually is in Oscar's situation ever benefitted from. It's cheap, cloying, and downright offensive, and makes an already bad movie that much more worthy of contempt.

The Wicker Tree (Robin Hardy, 2010)

0/10
These revistitation projects never work, but you always hold a little sliver of hope that the director won't totally embarass or cheapen his previous work. Robin Hardy's sequel to the Wicker Man is just disastrous on every single level. I would posit that it's actually worse than the Nick Cage Wicker Man remake because at least that one was hilarious. The film bears so little in common (thematically, stylistically, etc) with the Wicker Man I wanted to stay for the director Q&A and ask him if he'd ever seen his original film.
The less I say about this POS, the better. The characters are completely ludicrous, the plot is barely existent, the music (sing-a-longs, more like) are pathetic compared to the original, the constant jabs at religion are childish, the comedy is ill-conceived and lands with a thud, and there isn't a single ounce of anything creepy or haunting or remotely similar to the atmosphere of the original. Even if you don't compare it to the Wicker Man and consider it on its own, it's got less than nothing going for it. Just depressing.

The Blind Side (John Lee Hancock, 2009)

0/10
Certainly the most putrid movie I've seen all year, and it's down there among the worst I've ever seen. That this is supposedly one of the ten Best Pictures of the year is so mindboggling and so unfathomable I can only reason that politics or payola are playing a role. And Sandra Bullock's performance is decent, serviceable, functional, what have you...but Best Actress? No, sorry.

I'm not sure how close to its source The Blind Side is but it's a non-stop string of clichés and morals assaulting the viewer with the subtly of a sledgehammer, and there's such an abhorrent amount of smug, self-congratulatory white guilt catharsis that my stomach was almost in knots watching it I was so embarassed. The conflict in this movie lasts for about 4 minutes and equals little more than a brief argument. Every scene is wrapped up with such neat, predictable rigour it turns laughable after the first hour. The logic being used is unbelievable on any level (glaring example: scouts from colleges clamour to sign Michael Oher based, from what we see, of a DVD shot, burned, and sent out to high schools across the U.S. by his 8-year old adopted little brother. I'm not kidding when I say this sequence lasts about 20 seconds, and then bam the scouts are at his next game falling over themselves to offer him a scholarship). Something I thought would turn out to be a pivotal plot point involving a car crash is laughed off by the characters so nonchalantly and dismissed so quickly, I can't even comprehend the logic of including it.

As some kind of Disney sports movie like The Mighty Ducks or something, The Blind Side would at least be passable or more forgiveable for its blithe idiocy, gigantic leaps in logic, stereotypical characters and everything-turns-out-OK plot...but Best Picture? BEST PICTURE? Is this a joke? How? What planet am I on? Jesus Christ I get worked up just thinking it. Even my movie-going companion, usually more lenient in her criticism than I, hated it to its core.

But it was still better than Inglourious Basterds.

Haha nah just kidding, it was worse. Way, wayyy, wayyyyy worse.