To expand a little on the remarks below, I think part of why I hated this film so much also has to do with the fact that this came out right when I first acquired my own sources of income, and as a consequence this may have been the film that introduced me to the sensation of having thrown my own money into the toilet and then shat upon it, which I've since had too many times to count. But there's a paradox there, because if I had literally done that and filmed it, like the homeless man vomiting on the incest-puzzle, that would have ultimately been a more entertaining movie than Along Came Polly.
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Along Came Polly, June 14, 2010
Failure Rating: 14/10
This film makes it onto this list, I think because I hate it not only as a whole: I hate its every individual aspect as well. Watching this film is like watching a team of people who went to film school painstakingly assemble an intricate 1000-piece puzzle, if every piece was made out of failure, and the puzzle formed a picture of your parents having anal sex. And then a homeless man vomits on the finished product. Except that would have been a little entertaining: this is not.
I've hated Ben Stiller's movies ever since I abruptly realized that he has absolutely no talent as an actor or as a comedian. This hit me sometime after I saw Meet the Parents and thought it was great (because this was the first film of his I had ever seen); maybe around the time I finally got around to watching Reality Bites. He's not exactly unfunny, but I realized that his schtick is so predictable it makes watching him onscreen utterly pointless. Here's a trick: before watching a Ben Stiller comedy, read a three-word description of his character (take Dodegball: rich-asshole-bodybuilder), and think for a second about how Ben Stiller would play that role. Yes, that is exactly how it happens in the movie. Congratulations, now you don't need to see the movie! That'll just be $8.
Next, I utterly despise Jennifer Aniston, whose film career ever since Friends actually counts as a charitable institution for tax purposes. She is the most irrelevant celebrity in existence. She has not done a good or even memorable thing in her life, ever. No, seriously, not ever, and you can't even say that about Nia Vardalos. You think it took talent to play Rachel Green? I could never convincingly pine for David Schwimmer either, but that's why I've never tried acting for a living. Jennifer Aniston should have been put on an ice flow long ago (I've been given reason to believe Brad Pitt may have actually tried this...), but instead she still appears in movies so often that I've stopped questioning whether or not there's witchcraft involved and just started sleeping on a bed of wolfsbane.
This film's story is so uninspired that the fact that someone was paid to write the script almost makes me kiss the end of a shotgun every time it occurs to me. "Ben Stiller leads an ordinary life. Until one day a girl shows up who just turns his world upside down." I submit this for your consideration: we do not need any more movies about a girl who shows up and turns a guy's world upside down. This genre should have been nixed long before it became a genre. Everything that could possibly be said by these films has been fucking said, and said, and said to death. And then Along Came Polly (cue the fucking music and my death).
This movie also gave me the vague sense that I was watching an episode of Friends, and this pissed me off for several reasons: Friends involves Jennifer Aniston, whom I happen to hate; Friends is a TV show, and as such gets a pass for being a little dumb sometimes, because it's free and you can change the channel, and this is a movie; it also gave me a window into Along Came Polly's filmmaking process that compounded my hate for everyone involved.
You can tell the producers sat down and said "Okay, so we're locked into making a romantic comedy with Jennifer Aniston. No one's happy about it, but now at least I get my daughter's soul back. So let's just make this as painless as possible."
"You're thinking it should be a lot like an episode of Friends, right?"
"Right; because that's why people will come see this movie: because they liked Jennifer Aniston in Friends, and they want more of Rachel Green."
"But the thing is, Jennifer Aniston was never much of an actress, even when she's playing Rachel Green."
"I gotcha. Here's what we do: we'll make every character in the film a poorly concealed knock-off of a character from Friends. Ben Stiller will be a guy who's exactly like Ross; they'll have an actor friend who's exactly like Joey. Also, let's just reuse the 'list' storyline from season two without any embellishments whatsoever: that way Jenn won't even have to act!"
"God, this is fantastic blow."
"That's wolfsbane, Fredo. Enjoy that."
---
Along Came Polly, June 14, 2010
Failure Rating: 14/10
This film makes it onto this list, I think because I hate it not only as a whole: I hate its every individual aspect as well. Watching this film is like watching a team of people who went to film school painstakingly assemble an intricate 1000-piece puzzle, if every piece was made out of failure, and the puzzle formed a picture of your parents having anal sex. And then a homeless man vomits on the finished product. Except that would have been a little entertaining: this is not.
I've hated Ben Stiller's movies ever since I abruptly realized that he has absolutely no talent as an actor or as a comedian. This hit me sometime after I saw Meet the Parents and thought it was great (because this was the first film of his I had ever seen); maybe around the time I finally got around to watching Reality Bites. He's not exactly unfunny, but I realized that his schtick is so predictable it makes watching him onscreen utterly pointless. Here's a trick: before watching a Ben Stiller comedy, read a three-word description of his character (take Dodegball: rich-asshole-bodybuilder), and think for a second about how Ben Stiller would play that role. Yes, that is exactly how it happens in the movie. Congratulations, now you don't need to see the movie! That'll just be $8.
Next, I utterly despise Jennifer Aniston, whose film career ever since Friends actually counts as a charitable institution for tax purposes. She is the most irrelevant celebrity in existence. She has not done a good or even memorable thing in her life, ever. No, seriously, not ever, and you can't even say that about Nia Vardalos. You think it took talent to play Rachel Green? I could never convincingly pine for David Schwimmer either, but that's why I've never tried acting for a living. Jennifer Aniston should have been put on an ice flow long ago (I've been given reason to believe Brad Pitt may have actually tried this...), but instead she still appears in movies so often that I've stopped questioning whether or not there's witchcraft involved and just started sleeping on a bed of wolfsbane.
This film's story is so uninspired that the fact that someone was paid to write the script almost makes me kiss the end of a shotgun every time it occurs to me. "Ben Stiller leads an ordinary life. Until one day a girl shows up who just turns his world upside down." I submit this for your consideration: we do not need any more movies about a girl who shows up and turns a guy's world upside down. This genre should have been nixed long before it became a genre. Everything that could possibly be said by these films has been fucking said, and said, and said to death. And then Along Came Polly (cue the fucking music and my death).
This movie also gave me the vague sense that I was watching an episode of Friends, and this pissed me off for several reasons: Friends involves Jennifer Aniston, whom I happen to hate; Friends is a TV show, and as such gets a pass for being a little dumb sometimes, because it's free and you can change the channel, and this is a movie; it also gave me a window into Along Came Polly's filmmaking process that compounded my hate for everyone involved.
You can tell the producers sat down and said "Okay, so we're locked into making a romantic comedy with Jennifer Aniston. No one's happy about it, but now at least I get my daughter's soul back. So let's just make this as painless as possible."
"You're thinking it should be a lot like an episode of Friends, right?"
"Right; because that's why people will come see this movie: because they liked Jennifer Aniston in Friends, and they want more of Rachel Green."
"But the thing is, Jennifer Aniston was never much of an actress, even when she's playing Rachel Green."
"I gotcha. Here's what we do: we'll make every character in the film a poorly concealed knock-off of a character from Friends. Ben Stiller will be a guy who's exactly like Ross; they'll have an actor friend who's exactly like Joey. Also, let's just reuse the 'list' storyline from season two without any embellishments whatsoever: that way Jenn won't even have to act!"
"God, this is fantastic blow."
"That's wolfsbane, Fredo. Enjoy that."
