After enduring a six-year legal battle over 2011’s “Margaret,” writer/director Kenneth Lonergan was probably just happy to see his latest movie get a drama-free release, at least comparatively speaking. The subject of an intense bidding war earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, “Manchester by the Sea” will almost certainly go down as the most devastating, heart-wrenching drama of 2016. An incredibly moving, intimate and authentic story about a broken man who’s forced to confront his demons, “Manchester by the Sea” is the kind of movie that will absolutely wreck you emotionally, highlighted by an award-worthy performance from Casey Affleck that’s going to be difficult to beat come Oscars night.
Affleck stars as Lee Chandler, an unsociable handyman/janitor for an apartment complex in Boston who must return to his hometown of Manchester-by-the-Sea when his older brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) dies from a long-standing congenital heart problem. In addition to handling the funeral arrangements and other minutiae, Lee takes it upon himself to break the news to Joe’s 16-year-old son Patrick (Lucas Hedges), with whom he was once close to before a personal tragedy led him to flee the small fishing village for a life of solitude. But when Lee discovers that Joe has named him as Patrick’s sole guardian and custodian, it comes as a shock to both of them. Though Patrick would rather go live with his estranged mother (Gretchen Mol) than move away from his friends and established life in Manchester, Lee’s tragic past has made it impossible for him to remain in the town that has caused him so much pain.
Everyone has taken that soul-sucking job in order to pay the bills. And while we proles may tease them for living the glamorous life, actors probably take that job more often than anyone, since they never know when the next job is going to come. (Case in point: Michael Madsen told us that he categorizes the movies he’s made as “good,” “bad,” and “unwatchable.”) Putting this theory to the test, we scoured the filmographies of this year’s nominees in the acting categories, looking for movie titles that screamed ‘bad idea.,’ and we were not disappointed with what we found. Jesse Eisenberg, for example, did a TV movie called “Lightning: Fire from the Sky,” which will be the main feature at our next Bad Movie night. Here are ten other films that this year’s candidates would probably prefer remained unseen.
Colin Firth (Best Actor, “The King’s Speech”)
Movie: Femme Fatale (1991) IMDb rating: 4.6 The plot: An English artist-turned park ranger falls for and marries a stranger, only for her to disappear days later. As he learns more about his wife, he gets deeper and deeper into the Los Angeles underworld looking for clues that will lead him to her. Firth’s character: Joe Prince, the aforementioned artist/ranger. How bad is it?: You may not see the ending coming, but that is about the only thing this movie has going for it. Armed with one of the most awkward love scenes we’ve seen in ages, this movie does not gel on any level, using mental illness as a means of providing psychological depth, not to mention Acting!, with that last word ideally spoken like Jon Lovitz. Firth is actually passable here, given the material, and Danny Trejo pops up as a tattoo artist. But you can bet that when someone assembles a clip show of Firth’s finest moments, this movie will not make the cut.
Jeremy Renner (Best Supporting Actor, “The Town”)
Movie: National Lampoon’s Senior Trip (1995) IMDb rating: 4.9 The plot: A group of delinquent kids takes a bus trip to Washington D.C. to tell the President first-hand what is wrong with the education system, something a couple of corrupt politicians intend to exploit. Renner’s character: Mark “Dags” D’agostino, a slacker stoner. With pierced ears. How bad is it?: Put it this way: the first actor listed in the credits is Matt “Max Headroom” Frewer, and the movie’s few laughs come from Tommy Chong as the drug-addled bus driver. On the “National Lampoon” movie scale, this one lands somewhere in between “Class Reunion” and “Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj.”
