DB's Worst of 2011

We're at the end of the year and it's time to take stock of what we've seen. The good, the bad and the ugly.

Today I'm going to be looking at the bad and the ugly. These are films which for the most part never graced this website. As you know Unseen is primarily concerned with pointing out good films and the films on this list certainly aren't good. This list is the real bottom of the barrel. Sadly, I saw even more bad films in 2011 but I've forgotten them, The films are this list are different, these are the ones that burned their badness into my brain that I can't forget them. These are the films and film experiences that scarred me for life in 2011.

I'll keep my comments brief about each one lest you try and find these films.

I'd like to start off by saying that the worst experience of the film going year was probably Susan Orlean non-talk on Rin Tin Tin. It was a self surviving pointless waste of an evening that was almost all about the speaker and little on the advertised subject. The film that followed her talk, Clash of the Wolves, was enjoyable, Orleans talk wasn't.

MANDATE MISSION FROM GOD- The Best thing I can say is it's a poor supernatural action film.

KINTA-Horrible film with various martial artists playing near slaves working in a mine. When they ask for better conditions the mine owner decides to kill everyone instead. Some of them escape and plot revenge. Bad music, bad computer blood effects, just bad.

DREAMS OF JINSHA- worst film I've ever seen connected with the New York International Children's film festival. Its so bad that it colored every film after it and made me ponder if the festival as a whole lost it's way. Of all the films they've run since they started this is the first film I couldn't understand why they ran it.

GRAY MATTER, BOMBAY BEACH, and THE KITE - the three pretentious low points of this years otherwise excellent Tribeca Film Festival. The less said the better.

TUNNEL- A short film from The New York Asian Film Festival is 15 minutes I'll never get back. Its proof that sometimes a director will tell a story out of order simply so he can trick the audience into not beating him up.

UNCLE TOM'S CABIN- A classic American novel desecrated by a German producer. You will laugh at all the wrong places.

MISS BALA- Jaw droppingly stupid film is the Mexican entry for the Oscars. It makes no sense on any level. The film would stop dead if our heroine simply did the right thing at any point, or behaved in a rational way. I should have left early on but I stayed because each new twist left me even more incredulous than before...

Special Dishonorable Award goes to Brad Bird.
The director of Iron Giant sells his soul to Hollywood and makes one of the biggest most spectaular films of the year. Don't get me wrong it's got great action, but little else. The story exists purely to get to the set pieces. As soulful and full of humainty is Iron Giant, Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol is as dead and souless. How can some one who has created some the screens best characters turn around and make a film with no one that has any real personality? MI4 is one of the emptiest film experiences of the year.

As I said there were plenty of other bad films, some probably worse than these,but these are the ones that have stayed with me like a parasitic twin or an intestinal blockage. I'm sure that 2012 will reveal several losers to me, but I really hope not.

Okay Onward and upward with the good stuff starting on Monday.