4. A Good Year - Ridley Scott
20th Century FoxThere is only one appropriate response to the likes of A Good Year: "What the f*ck is this?" And so for some reason that is yet to be explained, Ridley Scott (of Gladiator fame) and Russell Crowe (of Gladiator fame) decided to jet to France and make the "most generic romantic comedy movie ever," presumably as a way of implementing a vacation in their work schedules. The resulting film is so bland and so passive that it's a wonder that anybody ever bothered using the script for anything other than as something to put a coffee mug on. So why do we feel let down by this? Mostly, because A Good Year doesn't feel at all like a Ridley Scott vehicle nor a Russell Crowe film. There is the truest sense of apathy lingering around this project, as Crowe attempts to seduce Marion Cotillard against a variety of backdrops straight out of a holiday brochure. The dialogue, the setting and the storyline are so vanilla that there's no way in hell that Scott felt personally attached to the project, and just wanted to relax in the sun and get paid. For a director of "auteur" status, that's rather disappointing.