Highlights of 2009 (well, sort of) and the elusive zero-star rating
2009 film highlights!
Worst hair dye job: Liam Neeson's jet-black locks while he played an ex-government agent in "Taken."
Best White Savior movie: "The Blind Side," in which a white family led by Sandra Bullock rescues a homeless black high school student and puts him on the path to success and a career in professional football.
Runner-up: "Avatar," James Cameron's $300 million testimonial to the greatness of a white human male who not only saves the indigenous species of humanoids on the planet Pandora, he becomes one of them and protects them from his former comrades. Call it "Dances With Avatars."
Best Female Running Naked From a Mad Slasher: The brave Betsy Rue, who takes off in full-run mode while in the buff during an extended chase scene in "My Bloody Valentine 3-D." And we mean extended.
Most Intelligent Thing Said in the "G-Force" Script: "Men are like savings bonds. They take too long to mature." - Penélope Cruz.
The Cruelest Cuts: One and a half minutes of sex scenes and sexual references were clipped from Sacha Baron Cohen's naughty comedy "Bruno" before it could be released in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The cut version still carried a "15" rating, barring anyone younger than 15 from attending.
Greatest disappointment: The lackluster, blunt-edged horror film "Jennifer's Body," the second movie penned by former stripper suburban native Diablo Cody, who shot to the top of her new profession by winning the screenwriting Oscar for Jason Reitman's "Juno."
Final Words From Ben Lyons As Co-host of "At the Movies" Before He Was Abruptly Canned: "And until next week, as always, we'll be At The Movies."
Coens decoded
Join me and film historian (and James Bond 007 novelist) Raymond Benson as Dann & Raymond's Movie Club examines the strange and compelling movies of those odd and interesting Coen brothers, Ethan and Joel. Clips from all of their movies will be shown, from "Blood Simple" (1984) to "A Serious Man" (2009). It's called "O Coens, Where Art Thou?" It's free to the public starting at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Schaumburg Township District Library, 130 S. Roselle Road, Schaumburg. Call (847) 985-4000 or go to www.stdl.org.
Zero-star ratings?
Hey, Dann: We just read your review out in Lake County about the newest "Alvin and the Chipmunks" movie. Don't worry, we thought your review was right on, but it left us all wondering. Have you ever given zero stars to a movie? From the way it was written, it sounds like the Chipmunks deserved zero stars, but you still gave it one star. So, have you said, "No way! No stars!" and, if you have, what was it? - Lee Filas
Dear Lee: I am very stingy with flatline zero-star ratings. To earn zero stars, a motion picture must be morally bankrupt, ethically compromised, or be so abysmally devoid of imagination and creativity as to be an abomination to the art form. A zero-star rating is nothing to be taken lightly.
I handed out many of those ratings during the 1980s after theaters became deluged with mad slasher films, cheap imitators of "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th." Movies featuring mysterious masked slashers who slaughter promiscuous young people in a conveniently remote location received many zero stars from me. They were terribly written, horribly acted and badly directed by people who simply and flairlessly replicated the brainless plot devices of the most creatively stillborn genre in the history of movies.
I have not given a zero-star review in a long time, but if I had to choose the most recent close call, it would have to be "Did You Hear About the Morgans?" - Dann