Madea's Witness Protection (Tyler Perry, 2012, USA)

As painful as Diary of a Mad Black Woman was, I thought for some reason that this movie would outlandishly bad enough to be entertaining, but I guess I don't feel like that was the case. The acting is beyond dreadful, which may or may not have to do with the script of the editing or I don't even know, but this film might contain the worst performances by Tom Arnold or Denise Richards to be caught on film, if you can believe it. Some of the characters are sort of likeable, but the dialogue is so grating, it's hard to feel at ease at any moment in the film. I guess nobody goes into these Tyler Perry movies thinking they'll be any good, but you always want to believe that something this popular has some kind of redeeming quality.
I guess the real problem is that the whole things feels very amateurish, from the plot to the dialogue to the performances. It all feels sort of thrown together, like they made the whole movie in two weeks.
F

Ted (Seth McFarlane, 2012, USA)

That this cinematic atrocity has earned almost a half a billion dollars already and critical approval around the world will likely be a source of despair for me at many points throughout the rest of my days. Seriously, I'm starting to wonder if the only thing that separates man from monkeys is an aversion to feces. I sort of suspected that this movie would be what it ended up being, but I guess part of me thought the presence of quasi-respectable actors like Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis might indicate that it would pleasantly surprise me. Oh god, how it was worse than I could have imagined.

I think I chuckled twice in the hour and forty-five minutes this film ate up of my life. Once when a fat kid was called Susan Boyle, and once when the fat kid was punched in the face and Joan Crawford was invoked. Beyond that, it's just a lot of really stupid humor that would seem best suited to boys who are technically too young to watch this movie. Seriously, it's a lot of jokes about retarded people, fat people, women as sex objects, and hitting bongs. I am a stranger in a strange land.
F (for fuck this shit.)
Edit: I forgot about the scene with Giovanni Ribisi dancing in front of the television. In context it's stupid, but taken on its own, it's weirdly delicious. In fact, I guess I'd say that creepy ass Giovanni Ribisi is probably the only reason to watch the movie, though it would be a long walk for a short drink of water, if we're being honest here, which of course we are, because we're friends like that.

Fuckload of Scotch Tape (Julian Grant, 2012, USA)

I saw this movie yesterday at the Chicago International Film Festival because it was local and because it was described as a neo-noir musical. What it actually is is a nihilistic trainwreck which is so overloaded with bad voiceover that the excessive misogyny and homophobia in the film is almost moot. It seems to fit in with that whole genre of white male resentment films, which I confess to never having felt particularly sympathetic toward. Anyway, the music was okay, but repetitive. The lead actor was appealing in it. He made a loathesome character seem almost sympathetic. I think I saw him on the train the next night. He looked like a skinhead, but who knows. Anyway, I'm glad that Mr. Grant has gotten his film to premiere at this film festival, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone I know. F+

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

This movie is worse than I thought it would be.
Apparently the screenwriter wrote this screenplay BEFORE writing Forrest Gump, which explains why it's even worse than that. The whole thing seems amateurish. Like a bunch of kids playing make-believe.
I'm not surprised that neither the director nor the writer read the seven page story before adapting the premise (said the director).
It almost seems like a rough draft for Forrest Gump. Which is sad.

Two hours and twenty minutes into this movie there is no redeeming quality that I have discovered.
It's poorly written and manipulative and plays like a parody of itself. Like a spoof that nobody's laughing at.
I even think the acting is bad. Even that woman nominated for best supporting actress gives a kind of silly performance.
Even Cate Blanchett gives an unfortunate performance.

God, this writing is dreadful. There is no character development. The plot just goes from one manipulation to another, without any transition. F-