After taking almost 30 minutes to get from my work place to the Loews Theatre, waiting in line for more than 50 minutes and alternately groaning and cringing for another hour and a half, I am convinced that I have seen the worst movie of the year. Actually, to be more exact, "Young Adam" is probably the worst movie that I will have seen by the end of the year. It is such a boring, tedious, pretentious piece of shit that I walked out of the movie feeling the urge to stab someone in the eye. It's a good thing that I didn't have to pay to see the movie since it was a sneak preview.
Frankly, I expected to be more entertained by an NC-17 movie. Granted, it's not even one tenth as wretched as "Showgirls" in that even though I contemplated walking out during the middle of the movie, I suffered through the ending, curious to see how bad it would eventually get. Then again, "Showgirls" is so laughably horrendous that it is good in some ways, whereas "Young Adam" elicited nothing more than yawns from me.
Why is "Young Adam" so bad? Many many sex scenes that are just unbearable to watch. The characters do it in such a cold, ruthless way that they are not as much making love as they are punishing each other. They also have sex in the most uncomfortable ways. There is one scene in which Ewan McGregor takes some woman from behind in an alleyway in the dead of 50's gray, depressing Scottish winter while both remain fully clothed. An even worse scene shows McGregor dumping custard and a bunch of other random shit on his girlfriend and him fucking her from behind while she kneels on the ground crying!! I'm no prude but this movie really pushed my buttons. The only sex scene I can recall that is more miserable than the afore-mentioned ones takes place in "Enemy at the Gates," when Jude Law and Rachel Weisz, both of whom are clad in wretched, filthy Russian army uniforms, get it on in the middle of a battlefield while bullets from German snipers are whizzing by. Did I mention they do it next to their fallen comrades? I hope I've made it abundantly clear that one shouldn't go see "Young Adam" for the gratuitous sex scenes.
What else? The plot itself is just not compelling enough to keep me interested. Actually, there really isn't much of a plot other than a bunch of random, unpleasant sex scenes and shots of the characters smoking and looking gloomy loosely stringed together. You would think the movie would at least be somewhat interesting when it has a non-linear narrative as well as a murder. Instead, the narrative (which would have felt somewhat original if this movie had come out before "Pulp Fiction" and "Memento") just feels like a cheap gimmick used to mask the pointlessness of the entire movie. Nope, I just felt bored and annoyed when I wasn't laughing at the absurd situations in which the characters found themselves naked. The only funny moment came when someone in the audience let out this loud guffaw at a totally inappropriate moment. I think the guy laughed when one of the characters died or was getting abused or something. It was like a Sunday Flicks flashback.
Anyways, I will definitely be more careful about watching sneak previews from now on, even if they are free.
Frankly, I expected to be more entertained by an NC-17 movie. Granted, it's not even one tenth as wretched as "Showgirls" in that even though I contemplated walking out during the middle of the movie, I suffered through the ending, curious to see how bad it would eventually get. Then again, "Showgirls" is so laughably horrendous that it is good in some ways, whereas "Young Adam" elicited nothing more than yawns from me.
Why is "Young Adam" so bad? Many many sex scenes that are just unbearable to watch. The characters do it in such a cold, ruthless way that they are not as much making love as they are punishing each other. They also have sex in the most uncomfortable ways. There is one scene in which Ewan McGregor takes some woman from behind in an alleyway in the dead of 50's gray, depressing Scottish winter while both remain fully clothed. An even worse scene shows McGregor dumping custard and a bunch of other random shit on his girlfriend and him fucking her from behind while she kneels on the ground crying!! I'm no prude but this movie really pushed my buttons. The only sex scene I can recall that is more miserable than the afore-mentioned ones takes place in "Enemy at the Gates," when Jude Law and Rachel Weisz, both of whom are clad in wretched, filthy Russian army uniforms, get it on in the middle of a battlefield while bullets from German snipers are whizzing by. Did I mention they do it next to their fallen comrades? I hope I've made it abundantly clear that one shouldn't go see "Young Adam" for the gratuitous sex scenes.
What else? The plot itself is just not compelling enough to keep me interested. Actually, there really isn't much of a plot other than a bunch of random, unpleasant sex scenes and shots of the characters smoking and looking gloomy loosely stringed together. You would think the movie would at least be somewhat interesting when it has a non-linear narrative as well as a murder. Instead, the narrative (which would have felt somewhat original if this movie had come out before "Pulp Fiction" and "Memento") just feels like a cheap gimmick used to mask the pointlessness of the entire movie. Nope, I just felt bored and annoyed when I wasn't laughing at the absurd situations in which the characters found themselves naked. The only funny moment came when someone in the audience let out this loud guffaw at a totally inappropriate moment. I think the guy laughed when one of the characters died or was getting abused or something. It was like a Sunday Flicks flashback.
Anyways, I will definitely be more careful about watching sneak previews from now on, even if they are free.
posted by Gary at
12:53 AM
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