The calendar changes at midnight on January 1, but it’s not the only moment to mark the end of one year and the start of the other. Some cultures observe the lunar new year about a month after 1/1. The Federal government budgeteers draw the line at the end of September.
And if you’re a movie fan, The Oscars are as good a moment as any: the last few awards contenders have usually hit streaming and/or physical media, and cinema-heads start prepping for the year to come. This year, the Academy Awards are scheduled for this Sunday, March 2, and I’ll be cramming in some 2024 content this week, including some mini-review roundups of films I just never got around to writing about. If I am sufficiently well-organized and -prepared, I’ll be dropping my B.A.D.S. end-of-year “awsard show” on Sunday.
Today, I’m looking at movies that got stinky reviews — all are rated a 2.7 or worse on Letterboxd (i.e. actively disliked), and all are underwater on one or both of critic or fan ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. None of these movies are awards contenders, but every now and again you’ll find a diamond in the rough.
Jackpot!
Paul Feig fills an important niche in the modern filmmaking landscape: mid-budget comedy film journeyman. Every movie he makes is the fullest version of itself, with production and casting and cinematography to fulfill its mission statement. The results are of wildly different tones and, frankly, appeal. But his calling is one that Hollywood has otherwise abandoned, and I like that he gets to make movies (more than I actually like most of his movies).
Jackpot! is his 2024 entry, and his mission statement here is to make a specific kind of film that does not get play anymore: The Jackie Chan family comedy-adventure like Rush Hour and Shanghai Noon. There’s a thin story, but the appeal is a hundred minutes of hand-to-hand-combat-focused comic mischief with likable celebrities. Here, it’s Awkwafina and John Cena, and the scenario is a dystopian lottery in which the lottery winners can be legally murdered through any means except gunplay until they claim their prize. It’s a mini-Purge crossed with Le Million.
Jackpot! was dumped to Amazon Prime and received atrocious reviews, and I sort of get the hate. It presents a ridiculous scenario at face value without introspection and proceeds to flail with relentless wacky physical hijinks. But it does scratch a specific, much-ignored itch, it’s happy to try and be funny without any deadpan or postmodern affectation, and the comic action is executed at a baseline watchability. I didn’t regret my 100 minutes.
Is It Good? Nearly Good (4/8)
Hot Frosty
The film’s title is doing incredible work in convincing people that this is weirder or edgier than it is. It’s just a Hallmark-like with a supernatural twist (I have no idea what percent of holiday romcoms have something supernatural in them, so this may or may not be radical). There are maybe three scenes that have a tame joke about old ladies being horny or contain suggested nudity, which, to be fair, is surely more than the usual Hallmark-like. But don’t be fooled, the reason this has entered the discourse more than any other soft-PG-rated wholesome streaming holiday romcom is that ingenious title. Like, it’s hard to imagine this getting any buzz if it was called “Miracle in Hope Springs” or “Snowy Love” or something.
But as far as Hallmark-likes go, this one is… fine. Lacey Chabert is perfect as a charming void of personality that these movies require. Dustin Milligan has fun playing a chiseled human Olaf from Frozen. The supporting cast is mostly funny and over-qualified (though there’s one lady who looks like Mary Steenburgen but is not in fact Mary Steenburgen… one Is It Good? point deducted).
The film works best when it’s about the two leads bouncing off each other, and it gets steadily worse the further it drifts from there. The plot about the police trying to arrest Jack/Frosty is a dull non-starter. Maybe if you squint you can see it as satiric of the over-purity of the Holiday Romcom Industrial Complex, but it didn’t do anything for me. Unfortunately, that plot thread becomes the focus of the climax, so I was more sour at the end of the film than I was at the midpoint.
But this is a cheerful and easygoing movie, frictionless to the point of brain rot, strangely down-the-middle given the marketing, and not a fraction as unhinged as the discourse would have you believe.
Is It Good? Not Very Good (3/8)
Unfrosted
It’s been awhile since a film has been as mercilessly shredded by the Internet’s filmheads in circles I follow as Unfrosted was upon its release. Even Madame Web people treated with an ironic appreciation, respect for a sinking ship. But Unfrosted was greeted with outright bile.
I’d like to introduce the haters to a genre of film known as “comedy.” It’s a movie whose main goal is to get its audience to laugh, typically through a set-up and punchline mechanism known as a “joke.”
I just can’t muster up too any resentment for a film that bothers to assemble this many jokes into its screenplay. Heck, a bunch of the jokes are even good! (Not all of them, by a long shot.) I welcome the silly riff on the bizpics (i.e. biopics about real businesses rather than real people) that dominated 2023: Air, BlackBerry, Tetris, etc.
Sure, Jerry Seinfeld delivers all of his jokes like this. (Imagine I said those last two words in the Seinfeld voice.) And much of the (huge) cast is a bunch of comedians ranging from the B-list to the, I dunno, J-list that have no idea what to do in front of a camera. But parts of it are disarmingly likable. Amusing, even. Unfrosted isn’t quite good, but it deserves some lovin’, or at least gentle apathy, as opposed to the critical bludgeoning it received.
Is It Good? Nearly Good (4/8)
Sweethearts
I wish I knew anyone who had actually seen this movie and reviewed it poorly so I could get into a fight about Sweethearts. To be fair to the haters, it has been poorly marketed. It’s a lot closer to Superbad than it is to your bland 2020s romcom streaming fare like The Other Zoey, but you wouldn’t guess that from the poster or logline.
I’m about to spoil Sweethearts, but it’s probably better to calibrate your expectations anyways: This is not even a romcom! It’s a platonicom. And it’s better off for it. Instead, it’s a free-flowing raunchy comedy with some nice moments of chemistry. The mildly subversive ending even manages to smartly deconstruct some friends-to-lovers tropes.
And what’s important is that it’s very funny. One of the funniest teen comedies of the past few years. It’s an unshackled, R-rated joke vessel with strong lead performances by Kieran Shipka and Nico Hiraga, shot just well enough that I wouldn’t mind watching it on a big screen. If you’re a hater, please sound off in the comments so we can engage in written fisticuffs. Hold me back!
Is It Good? Very Good (6/8)
Dan is the founder and head critic of The Goods. Follow Dan on Letterboxd. Join the Discord for updates and discussion.