Five Movies I Wouldn’t Watch Again, Even With A Gun To My Head

In other words, I wasn’t terribly fond of the experience.

The five counter-classics are:

*Dear John

I wanted to write a letter to the screen saying, “Make this drippy romance stop!!!”

*The Tree of Wooden Clogs

A slow, placid, impenetrable foreign film about peasants, this won raves from the patronizingly pretentious. I usually don’t advocate the cutting down of trees, but in this case, I was rooting for the buzz saw!

*Magnolia

This sweeping imitation of Short Cuts was hardly without merit, but as its 188 minutes droned on, I wasn’t sure I’d ever get out of there alive. When Tom Cruise got raves for a barely inspired supporting turn, I knew people had gone daft from sitting there that long.

*I Hate Valentine’s Day

I hate to pile it onto Nia Vardalos after the failure of Larry Crowne, which she co-wrote, but this one was vile — clichéd, unfunny, and slow, and she smiled in every single frame!

*Everything Must Go

This one got mystifyingly good reviews, but Will Ferrell couldn’t quite pull off the story of a dumped guy living on his lawn, especially since the direction was slack and the whole thing felt as bargain-basement as the belongings he was selling.

Agreed?