Sometimes we can be so cruel. Luckily, our cruelty means glorious entertainment for you, dear listeners.
Every year, William “Bibbs” Bibbiani and I – the hard-working co-hosts of CraveOnline’s own B-Movies Podcast – make a little wager over who can predict more Oscar winners. This year it was a pretty close race, as William correctly predicted 14 of the 24 winners, whilst this poor sap guessed a mere 12. Close or not, though, I have lost. If you listened to our special Pre-Oscars episode, then you know the stakes: The loser has to, with honesty and sincerity, record a full-length commentary track for the film they themselves declared to be the worst film of 2014. This was an idea contributed by my wife, who is most assuredly trying to kill me.
I left things a bit open, however, as I had declared every film released in the month of January 2014 to be the worst. It was a month that included such grating and horrid hits as The Nut Job, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, The Legend of Hercules, and the execrable Labor Day. The actual film selection had to be left in the capable (and often sadistic) hands of Señor Bibbiani.
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The final selection, as you can now see, is Stuart Beattie’s rock stupid monster mash adventure I, Frankenstein. On a pleasant afternoon, Bibbs forced me to sit indoors and talk at length – and as intelligently as possible – about this gooftastic and sloppy hunk of genre idiocy. Not to feel left out, Bibbs joined me just to watch me squirm, and to throw in his own commentary on why this movie is so bad (for the record, Bibbs didn’t hate the movie as much as me, but he still thinks it’s pretty damn stupid).
There were some interesting things to say about I, Frankenstein, it turns out. In the commentary we discuss how mythmaking can drown storytelling, about how “cool” can come to trump actual content, and the strange intensity of Aaron Eckhart’s performance. We marvel over the bad special effects, point out the multiple plot errors (the villain’s plan makes no sense whatsoever), giggle at the awful dialogue (“You’ll kill it!” “It’s already dead!”) and even try to briefly touch on angelic lore. Perhaps by the end, we’ll have unpacked this horrid film. All I can say is that I’ve had to watch this awful movie three times now, and you would do well to listen in and get a little taste of my pain.
Enjoy, friends. I did it so you’ll never have to. Don’t forget to subscribe to The B-Movies Podcast on iTunes for more free movie reviews, exclusive interviews and commentary tracks. Follow us on Twitter at @BMoviesPodcast and follow your hosts on Twitter at @WitneySeibold and @WilliamBibbiani.
Witney Seibold is a contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
