Contrary to unpopular opinion, I’m actually not the smartest man in the world. Don’t get me wrong, my intelligence is still astounding (my exquisite vocabulary is a superfluously ostentatious example). However, I’m still humanly flawed. For every insightful dissertation I make, I’m bound to make one irritating eff-up (last week, it was confusing Kevin Smith with Kevin James. Now I’m minus a finger).
As too are a number of my movie predictions. Sometimes, I welcome my wrongness. Some of the greatest pleasures in life spawn from spontaneity. Others can ferment in the puss-spewing clusters of hell. However, if there’s anything the internet loves more than lolcats, it’s telling complete strangers they’re wrong (YouTube especially).
So join me as I self-troll through this year’s film-related list of stuff I got wrong.
“Thor will suck!”
I like to think my reasoning was sound for this prediction. During filming, there had been rumours of Anthony Hopkins losing his nut over how terrible of an actor Home and Away vet Chris Hemsworth was. Not a good start.
Next, there was the probability that out of the lengthy string of superhero films to have come out over the short period, one of them was destined to fail. Given how outlandish the premise of Thor was, it seemed the most likely to fail (that wooden spoon unfortunately went to Green Lantern).
Lastly, there was the trailer. It wasn’t a particularly bad trailer, it just seemed vacant, mediocre, a quality slightly higher than ‘lame.’ With the odds stacked against it, I had a feeling in my stomach that Thor was going to suck.
Reality: it was the best superhero movie this year
Thor punched me in the stomach and caused that feeling to rise to my throat, making me puke out a rainbow in praise of this film’s awesomeness. Yes folks, Thor is better than Captain America, The Green Hornet and The Green Lantern. I never saw that coming.
How dumb was I?
Hiding-drugs-in-my-shoe-during-a-trip-to-Indonesia dumb
“Cars 2 should be fun.”
The first Cars may not have been the juggernaut of quality people were hoping, but it still had its charm, humour and broad sense of enjoyment in check. I didn’t expect Cars 2 to venture any further, but I thought at least it’d get the three basics in check. I mean hell, its Pixar; they should be able to achieve that in their sleep, right?
Reality: Cars 2 wasn’t fun.
I like to think I’m a fairly forgivable movie viewer. Given Pixar’s childhood-defining filmography, I was willing to give them even more leeway. However, I caved in during the first half hour of Cars 2, a colossal disappointment that fared no better than a Disney straight-to-video sequel, choosing to eclipse any intelligence the espionage plot had with Mater being an intolerable dumbass.
How dumb was I?
Using-a-cellphone-at-a-petrol-station dumb
“I’ll hate The Tree of Life”
I haven’t seen a single Terrence Malick flick (though there’s only four to choose from), so I never built an opinion on the guy. From what I knew, he was “a visual poet,” which told me to be cautious. Now I love it when a film sends a hearty “Up yours!” to the face of convention, but not when it comes to comprehension. This is what I feared from The Tree Of Life.
Another warning sign came in the form of the negative crowd reaction at Cannes. People booed. I bought the false hint.
Reality: I loved it
The film flirts with pretentiousness on so many occasions and yet (for the most part) it expresses its ideas beautifully. It’s not a perfect film (the pacing and general structure can be a darn frustration), but it’s one that affected me on a number of levels.
Or maybe I just want to seem super smart by posing like I “got” it.
Though, by saying I didn’t hate in order to feel intelligent, I would still be unintelligent for saying that I would hate it when I didn’t. In which case, I’m likely to confuse myself when writing this sentence.
…
Meh. Either way, I didn’t hate it.
How dumb was I?
Making-an-event-on-Facebook-and-leaving-public-invite-on dumb
“The ending to HP will make me cry, or at least not look incredibly awkward.”
You won’t see me chiselling my forehead into a crooked lightning bolt to express my undying gratitude to the Potter franchise, but the series has been hanging around for half my life. Though I was never big on the first few entries, the franchise gradually won me over. Then, with part 1 of The Deathly Hallows, my interest hit the apex.
It’s like having a casual neighbour you’ve only just begun to know, only to have them move out. Sure, sometimes their loud music kept you up at night and they never did return your copy of Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story for SEGA Mega Drive (I’m still waiting Tim), but their company has only added to your life and it’ll be sad to see them go.
I was ready to shed a tear during our final goodbye to what has been a damn fine franchise of films.
Reality: Ron in a fat suit
Cue sad trombone.
After a gruelling battle which claimed many lives, we haphazardly leap a decade or so where aging miraculously stopped. As adults, the effects work that was done to make them seem older is laughable: Ron’s pillow stomach, Harry’s facial hair that barely counts as stubble, Hermione’s… well… nothing. The scene plays out awkwardly. Then, the credits.
I wasn’t crying. I wasn’t sad. I was just sitting there giving out an awkward giggle like everyone else in the cinema. Didn’t see that reaction coming.
How dumb was I?
Leaving-the-kitchen-window-open-when-you-leave-the-house dumb
“The first trailer to TDKR will be amazing!”
If you still don’t know why people were excited to get their first glimpse of The Dark Knight Rises, then you probably never saw The Dark Knight.
And if you never saw The Dark Knight, then let me be the first to say “Hey, welcome to Flicks. We’re a movie website.”
Reality: “WTF was that?”
We get a messed-up looking Commissioner Gordon trying to say something with a collapsed lung. I’d tell you what that was if only I knew. Repeat viewing only furthers the ambiguity.
We also get the faintest of shots of Tom Hardy as Bane: front-on face shot and an intimidating shoulder blade.
Littered in between is the admittedly still amazing image of the bat symbol amongst the collapsing buildings as well as some captions telling us how amazing the film will be.
It kinda makes vigorously firm excitement go a tad limp. But most of us can rest easy confident that the trilogy-capper will blow our bat nipples away.
How dumb was I?
Tongue-stuck-to-a-frozen-pole dumb
“Transformers 3 will be awesome ‘cause Michael Bay learned his lesson from Transformers 2.”
When the trailer hit for Dark of the Moon, I was so excited. Within the minute or so of footage we got, it seemed as if Michael Bay really got it.
“Screw idiotically convoluted plots,” I imagined him saying. “Let’s just do a straightforward film and blow the audience’s balls off with some testicle-ripping CG for 2 hours.”
Bay also acknowledged the plethora of faults with Revenge of the Fallen, immediately dropping the laughably offensive Skids and Mudflap. It seemed like he was really taking the criticisms under consideration.
“Wow,” I said to myself. “Michael Bay’s really learned his lesson. This third movie’s gonna be awesome!”
Reality: it wasn’t awesome
So it seemed like he just stopped taking in feedback after firing Megan Fox, because all the main problems persist in Dark of the Moon. Granted, the third is a hell of an improvement over the second, but that’s like saying a brain-damaged quadriplegic is a hell of an improvement over a rotting corpse.
Transformers 3 is not a good film, riddled with irritating Bay humour, characters devoid of any practical sense, some subplot about Sam trying to get a job that goes nowhere, a cameo from John Malkovich that grows more embarrassing by the minute and more screen time for Ken Jeong’s “Asian gangsta” routine than should ever be allowed.
Yes, the last quarter is the fantastic spectacle the trailer showed, but it’s not enough to forgive 2 hours of absolute shit.
How dumb was I?
