And the *PHHBBTHTBHTPPHBTHTTT!!!* goes to...

Well, folks, January is almost over, and you know what that means. It’s almost February! And you know what that means.

“My annual Groundhog Day marathon?” No. “The real Groundhog Day?” Nope. Well, yes, but, no. “Something with groundhogs?” Close.

It’s awards season! The past year marked a pretty decent one in terms of cinema. Nowhere near the incredible celluloid boner that was 2007, but good nonetheless. Fancy people you’ve never heard of with jobs you’d love to have have been telling us what edited-together performances and pictures are the best and the brightest, the Queen Mother of these tellings being the Oscars on February 22nd. (Or, for some of you, 20 days after your Groundhog Day party.) Now, no awards season is perfect, and this year is no exception. In fact, there is one glaring omission that has really got my dander up. Although that may have something to do with all the stray cats I keep. (Don’t tell security.)

“What’s the dandery omission? No Best Picture for The Dark Knight?” No. “No Best Song for The Wrestler?” Nope. Well, yes, but, no. “No Best Foreign Film for Let the Right One In?” Close.

No Worst Movie for Faded Memories! (The “film” just barely deserves the italics that distinguish its movie status. It should have really been scrawled on the sheet with mud and a stick.) The day before the Oscars the Razzies are announced, highlighting the “C+ for Effort, F for Everything Else” movies of the past year. The quote films end quote up for the coveted Golden Raspberry are Disaster Movie, Meet the Spartans, The Happening, The Hottie and the Nottie, The Love Guru, and the deep breath-depleting In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale. All terrible movies, I have no doubt. But to leave Faded Memories off the list is a travesty.

Before the title sequence we’re told that Anne-Sophie Dutoit wrote the script when she was 14, then starred in and directed it when she was 16. Are we supposed to read this and automatically assume that if it’s thrown together in any type of coherent fashion it’s supposed to be good? Because that’s the fashion in which it was thrown. Like a senile old man hurling whiskey bottles at the TV.

“But Nick!" you might be saying, "This was made by a kid!” People give me the same argument when I tell them I don’t like Mozart, and I will tell you what I tell them: It shows. I wouldn’t be surprised if she developed the concept while still covered in placenta. I had to watch this thing over two sittings. Not because it’s hours and hours long, although it certainly feels like it. It’s just a painfully boring and awful movie. (Well, there are people speaking lines in front of a camera for about an hour and a half, so I assume it’s a movie.) Of course, it would seem much shorter if she hadn’t broken up every third word of the narration with a question mark. (“Sometimes? I wish I could just? Ride a comet? At the speed of light? To the end of our galaxy? And the beauty of it? Would be that? I’d never know? Where’d I stop? Or where I’d go.”)

Faded Memories follows the really hard teenage life of Cassandra. Cassandra lives with her aunt, Maggie May, who drags her around the country in a shitty camper chasing men she’s met online while opening beer bottles with her teeth. But then Cassandra meets Lucas, and boy is he cute! And understanding! And deep! Why, just listen to these deep things he says:

“Imagination is the greatest gift.”

It sure is! And let’s not forget:

“Art’s special. Know why? You can’t be right or wrong.”

Hey yeah! Cassandra joins in on the dialogue fun later when she gets to deeply know him on a deep:

“What are you like? What do you want to do with your life? What’s your passion?”

“I don’t know. I’ve always just been into unique towers. Their construction method, their history. Uh, like…”
“The tower of Pisa?”
“What are you psychic or something?”
“No, I just like history!”

Ugh.

The two fall in love, accepting the other for who he or she truly is. And isn’t that what every 16-year-old is looking for? But wait! Lucas’ Rebecca-de-Mornay-in-The Hand that Rocks the Cradle-mom wants him to date this rich girl so her rich family will pay for his father’s medical bills or something. And she’s having an affair with some guy. Oh, and did I mention the majority of this is in flashbacks because Cassandra went crazy and is in a mental institution writing “LUCAS” all over the walls?

I do have to applaud Ms. Dutoit’s productivity. Hell, I’ve never written, directed, and starred in a feature film, and I certainly never did it when I was 16 fucking years old. However, I’ve also never written, directed, and starred in an insufferable, steaming pile of awful. The budget was raised independently, so I can’t really get mad at Hollywood for making this (The Love Guru, on the other hand…). And Mr. and Mrs. Dutoit, I implore you for the love of all that is good and true, the next time your daughter hands you a script and says, “Can we make it huh can we can we??” use your powers for good instead of evil and throw the damn thing in the fire.

-- Nick Bailey, Senior Editor