6. SO HAPPY TOGETHER
Another non-comedy, this time about a paranoid neat-freak pre-med student who believes his sloppy roommate is trying to destroy is life. The films wants to be “The Odd Couple” on speed, but the only ones who get fried are the viewers sitting through this mercifully short mess.
STATUS: Limited festival and non-theatrical screenings.
7. (tie) SHORT EYES and SANS SOLEIL
The year’s worst revivals were these patience-fraying old films. The former is a turgid 1977 prison drama, based on the overrated and rarely revived Miguel Piñero drama, featuring some of the hammiest acting and overreaching dialogue put on film. The latter is Chris Marker’s incoherent and pretentious 1982 travelogue that comments on Japanese and African cultures, albeit with sneering intellectual condescension. With scores of great old films lying in archives and vaults, why in the world were these time-wasters dusted off?
STATUS: In limited theatrical and non-theatrical engagements, most likely on DVD in 2004.
8. NOBODY’S PERFECT
You can say that again! More unfunny shenanigans, this time involving a group of pretty but emotionally immature gay New Yorkers who play musical beds. Okay, you queens, back in the closet with the whole bunch of you!
STATUS: Limited festival screenings.
9. THEY WOULD LOVE YOU IN FRANCE
The French may have dubious tastes in movies, but even the weirdest Gallic cinephile would have problems accepting this clumsy, terminally self-absorbed non-comedy about whiny L.A. show biz wannabes. The navel-gazing here is so powerful that it makes Henry Jaglom’s films look like the Oliver Stone canon in comparison. We’ll take a Merlot and a Jerry Lewis comedy instead.
STATUS:
Limited festival screenings.
10. DEPRIVATION
With its sloppy hand-held cinematography and hack-chop editing, this film about a strained reunion between childhood friends is the most nausea-inspiring visual experience imaginable. Note to the filmmakers: buy a tripod and don’t study editing by watching MTV, please?
STATUS: Limited festival screenings.
DISHONORABLE MENTION:
Baghdad Bob (a very boring rerun of the outlandish press conference statements made by Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf, Saddam Hussein’s Information Minister, in the early days of the invasion of Iraq); Bad Girl (snooze-inducing documentary on pornography which is 99.9% talk and 0.1% tease); Lady of the Lake (a cheaply made student film, told with crude puppets, about a gay teen’s unlikely loss of virginity); and Buck Nelson Presents: Lifting the Cloak of Mystery Off Rock Drumming (a joke-free parody of music instructional videos).
