The Stupidest Movies of 2011

This was my snap review of Robots! in 3D.

Since I don't get paid to write about movies like many of the people I associate with, I have absolutely no obligation to see every film that comes out which allows me to curate my moviegoing decisions pretty well. Still, something will often slip through the cracks or my morbid curiosity will get the better of me so I always have a solid list of stinkers each year. Here are the movies that insulted my intelligence the most in 2011, presented in alphabetical odor order.

Digital comics are a good thing

I’ve been mulling over the big DC Comics announcement from yesterday and bemoaning a lot of things this presents from a storytelling standpoint (what will happen to Dick Grayson and all of the development Grant Morrison has given him? will there still be a Justice League International book?).  This has distracted me, and surely others, from considering the impact of the other half of that announcement - that DC Comics will be releasing their comics in a digital format the same day as the print editions are released

Brian Michael Bendis tweeted yesterday that it would kill local comic book shops.  That’s nonsense. It's simply a method to help facilitate a wider audience to have access to comics.

13 Year Old Me would have loved it.  In the wee town of Olean, NY, there’s a pretty tiny store that allegedly sells comics, but they really don’t get much in stock.  For example, when DC flagship event Blackest Night happened, I stopped in during my trip home for Christmastime to see if they had an issue and the guy working there had no clue what I was talking about.  The same goes with the frequency of theatrical releases becoming more readily available through video-on-demand while in theaters - Olean's movie theater would never play any arthouse films, and the closest theater that would is an hour and a half drive.  If technology like this prevents anyone in similar cultural dead zones from having to deal with a lack of access to things they're passionate about, I’m all for it.

Of course, Adult Me loves having a tangible product in his hands and is a compulsive collector of DVD's and comics. And since I live in a city where I can buy every comic that comes out each week, I’ll still be at my local comic book store every Wednesday. I know I’m not the only one.

I’d Really Like to See…Christopher Nolan Direct a Western

This originally appeared as part of Zoom In Online's weekly "I'd Really Like to See..." blog series on January 29, 2009... so don't expect this to mention Inception.

In his relatively short film career, Christopher Nolan has proven that he’s among the best filmmakers working today. He slowly gained notoriety for completely changing the way we look at film structure and the reliable narrator with Memento and in less than a decade of work he's helmed one of the biggest motion pictures of all time. While Nolan’s films typically share some similarities tonally and thematically, he’s proven he's admirably adept at directing a wide range of genres, from intimate thrillers such as Memento to big budget summer spectacles such as The Dark Knight. Taking into consideration his versatility and the characteristics seen in Nolan’s films, I’d like to see one of my favorite filmmakers diversify a bit further and take on one of my favorite, mostly forgotten genres: the Western.

I’d Really Like to See…A ‘King of Kong’ Feature Film

This originally appeared as part of Zoom In Online's weekly "I'd Really Like to See..." blog series on March 26, 2009.


Documentaries often have a stigma for being dry and boring. Although reality programs pass themselves off as a form of the documentary medium, they’re overly stylized, mostly scripted and forged to bring more entertainment value to the piece. Unfortunately, this often prevents people from giving docs a chance to open them up to worlds, often quirky, unbeknownst to them.

My personal favorite documentary is one that completely shatters these stereotypes of documentaries. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters peers into the world of competitive Donkey Kong. While the concept seems silly and does not seem like a compelling subject for a documentary - there is, after all, a whole world ripe with socially, politically, emotionally relevant topics waiting to be discovered - the characters and their interactions turn out to be absolutely riveting.