2012 Calvin Awards: Worst Picture

By Reagen Sulewski

February 15, 2012

We're just not sure who to thank in our acceptance speech!



Once upon a time, the Farrelly Brothers were kings of the comedy world. Of course, Clinton was still president at that point. Since There's Something About Mary, they've thrown bomb after bomb at us until we get to Hall Pass, our fourth place choice for worst film of the year. Aside from having a fairly reprehensible plot about infidelity, it's like someone took a CBS sitcom and stretched it out to feature length, with the most obvious, hackneyed jokes possible. Pot brownies? Really? It's 2012 and this still passes for daring comedy?

The run of terrible comedies continues with Your Highness, the medieval comedy from David Gordon Green. Once upon a time, Green was an indie darling who created films like All The Real Girls and George Washington. Then he stretched out with Pineapple Express, and we thought, okay, he's doing this to fund his indie projects, and it kind of works in spite of itself. But no, apparently this is the real David Gordon Green, and he wants to make lazy stoner films. It's like if Martin Scorsese followed up Raging Bull with a sequel to Porky's. I mean, what the hell?

Sixth spot represents some progress for Michael Bay, with Transformers: Dark of the Moon. All three of the Transformers films have found their way to our worst of the year list, though 2009's Revenge of the Fallen won outright, and 2007's original (I'm using that term loosely) was ninth. Toning down the ADHD editing just a smidge and ejecting the racist stereotypes, Bay's at least proving he can learn from mistakes. I mean, to a point. These films are still more of an ordeal to sit through than anything representing actual entertainment.

Seventh spot features another former BOP favorite in Kevin Smith with his horror comedy Red State, a film so poorly made that it makes you feel bad for religious fundamentalists, its ostensible target. They deserve a better movie where they can be villains. Smith is in the “taking shots at his critics” phase of his career, which could take him a while. While his amateurish direction was charming at one point and an interesting part of his Cinderella story, his refusal to even marginally improve that over the last 15 years has finally exhausted our patience.




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The “not a remake of Single White Female, we swear” Roommate was eighth, managing to waste both Minka Kelly and Leighton Meester in a hackneyed thriller, without even the promise of an R-rating to keep things interesting.

A three way tie for ninth place brought us back to comedy again with The Change-Up, a body switch comedy that thought more awful sex jokes were what the genre needed. I mean, it starts with a fountain that switches Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman when they both pee in it and just heads downwards from there.

Then we had some awful sci-fi in I Am Number Four, which represented the latest attempt to rip off the X-Men concept, as well as Hollywood's strange obsession with making Alex Pettyfer a star. Well, it worked with Channing Tatum, apparently, so you can't blame them for trying.

Also tied there was another of Ryan Reynolds' films, The Green Lantern, which strangled a franchise in its cradle. While it was handicapped in the first place by being about a hero who can be defeated by color, its execution of the premise even out-nerded the nerds, and some seriously creepy looking CGI did not help matters.

The ring of dishonor also has some space for the Beauty and the Beast reimagining Beastly (Pettyfer, again), the shameless Shakespeare hit piece Anonymous and the ridiculous hagiography of Justin Bieber: Never Say Never.

The Calvins: An Introduction
Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Album
Best Cast
Best Character
Best Director
Best Overlooked Film
Best Picture
Best Scene
Best Screenplay
Best Supporting Actor
Best Supporting Actress
Best TV Show
Best Use of Music
Best Videogame
Breakthrough Performance
Worst Performance
Worst Picture

Top 10
Position Film Total Points
1 Sucker Punch 110
2 Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son 104
3 Hangover Part II, The 76
4 Hall Pass 62
5 Your Highness 56
6 Transformers: Dark of the Moon 50
7 Red State 48
8 The Roommate 44
9 The Change-Up 42
10 (tie) Just Go With It 23




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