Well, I ended up seeing Tintin on New Years Eve, after dinner and drinks with friends and deciding to keep it low key. The only movie we could collectively agree to was this.
Everything was in 3D ( DIE already?)...trailers, the buttload of commercials beforehand ("The 21") or whatever. Oh, yes..... the Star Wars saga re-released in 3d, with special emphasis on The Phantom Menace. When the trailer ended, I whispered to my friends "Now it'll be THREE times as crappy", but the rows in front and in back of me heard and at least they snickered in agreement. Oh, yeah, a re-release of Titanic in 3d as well.
Anyway, as far as the Tintin is concerned, it was a chore to sit through, at least it looked good. Sure, the motion-capture and cgi was beautiful to watch, but in the service of a story Frankensteined from three of the Tintin stories, and doing justice to none of them. Spielberg's usual Rube Goldbergesque slapstick scenes were VERY tiring to watch after awhile. The one showstopper scene in the African town that was all one continuous take, mixing a breaking dam and a high-speed chase through alleyways, up stairs, over roofs and balconies and along clotheslines was technically fantastic to watch, but that was it, really. No sense of danger, the characters came off flat.... It would be nice if it reveals the Tintin books to people and the beautiful art within them, and like I mentioned elsewhere, the charming animated series from about a decade ago....hopefully this movie doesn't turn anyone off from it. The actors were fine, there just wasn't any sense of...well, anything. Just a misfire. Ah, well....
As far as other worsts, I treated friends over Xmas weekend to The Star Wars Holiday Special. Their reactions were definitely:
A potential WORST: Feast your eyes and ears on
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, from 1978:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQf5Q9NQvhA
It's debatable whether the movie movie hamstrung or even ended careers, but it pretty much bankrupted the producer Robert Stigwood, and it's universally reviled; just look at it.... All I can think is that the cocaine must have been flowing like a river during the conceptualization of this. To be fair, a few of the song covers are nicely done, but the movie is an absolute train wreck of
Showgirls magnitude. It's all supposed to be light, but it gets queasy at times and painful to watch: Want to experience Donald Pleasance as a record mogul, complete in leisure suit with medallions, toupee and cowboy hat or George Burns both trying to sing (and even dance) lyrics to a Beatles song in the context of a Rock Opera strung loosely together from thirty Beatles songs?
Fascinating monstrosity.