The new movie “Madame Web” has achieved a new high as far as an idea, story, and screenplay that are so bad, there should be a documentary created just to try and figure out why garbage this horrendous was ever created and then greenlighted into a motion picture that costs millions of dollars to produce.

Madame Web stars Dakota Johnson as Cassandra Webb, in a role that could represent some level of complete career suicide. Anyone who would read this terrible screenplay, written by no less than 4 screenwriters and take this role anyway, has to wonder about either their decision-making ability or reading comprehension. There is no contiguous, or understandable story anywhere within this mess of two hours. This very bad movie just jumps from one scene to the next scene, without any rhyme or reason. 

The entire premise about a woman in 1973 bitten by a spider while pregnant giving her unborn child the ability to see a few minutes into the future – steals from Spiderman and the series of Final Destination movies – that were about cheating death and later death getting its revenge. Within the first 30 minutes, any viewer of this disaster no longer cares about what is going on or even why, and are all just waiting for this nightmare of bad movie-making to be over. The only reason to see this amazingly bad film is to be stunned at just how bad it all is.

This film also stars rising young actresses, Isabela Merced, Sydney Sweeney and Celeste O’Connor – in three roles that imply future female super-hero-spider movies that given this movie accident will never happen.

One of the best reviews I have seen so far about this amazingly bad film is from critic Kevin Maher: “In its sheer mind-boggling awfulness, it represents the death of the superhero genre, the burning of the superhero genre to the ground and then the returning in the middle of the night to piss on the superhero genre’s ashes.“

The IMDB rating for this mess is 3.8 and the Rotten Tomatoes rating of 13% is not low enough, with my rating a 0% because there is absolutely nothing worth seeing within these two hours. One of the worst movies I have ever seen. 

The new movie “Argylle” could be an example of a screenwriter, writing himself into a corner that did not work, and then the new movie “Argylle” could be an example of a screenwriter, writing himself into a corner that did not work, and then trying to create an insane ending and explanation to rescue the screenplay that mutated into ridiculous and illogical. There are reasons why screenwriting has always been considered the world’s most difficult art form.

The premise of this new film, starring Bryce Dallas Howard as Elly Conway, who is a famous author of a series of related spy novels that happen to have way too much in common with real life. From this idea, there is a 2-hour film attempting to explain how something like this could ever happen, and unfortunately the whole premise never works. Most especially the ending, which is very poorly done and is both stupid and way too crazy.

This film stars Sam Rockwell as Aidan Wilde, who is a spy who tries to help Elly Conway. Other characters who are introduced as fantasies of Elly Conway (another idea that did not work) are Henry Cavill as Argylle and John Cena as Wyatt who appear mostly at the beginning of this film. There are some pretty decent CGI special effects throughout this film, but they that also include Elly’s GGI cat – which does not look that much like a real cat. Considering the action scenes that include the cat in this movie, the director correctly thought that it would be too dangerous to use a real cat – one of the few correct decisions in this movie.

Bryan Cranston as an CIA director and Catherine O’Hara, also appear in this movie, and their respective roles are another part of what is wrong with this entire story and ultimately their parts in this production also do not work.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for Argylle are a correct and very low 35% mainly because this is not a good movie on any level. I agree with the low ratings and do not recommend this film. This one is a very big miss.

The good news is that Oppenheimer has been winning every Best Picture award so far so the odds of another insane Oscar debacle like last year’s disaster “Everything Everywhere All At Once” happening again this year is highly unlikely. “Barbie” and the horrendous “Poor Things” are nominated for best picture, rather than “Air”, which was released in April. This is downright ridiculous, but very typical of the insane voting for the Oscars in recent years. In my opinion, Air is by far the best picture this year. Emma Stone will most likely win best actress for the terrible Poor Things, because she has won most of the previous Best Actress awards. Unfortunately, this means that Annette Benning or Lily Gladstone will not win and they are far more deserving and are in good movies, not the mess that Poor Things is. Life is unfair, especially when it comes to winning awards.

Best Picture

American Fiction
Anatomy of a Fall
Barbie
The Holdovers
Killers of the Flower Moon
Maestro
Oppenheimer
Past Lives
Poor Things
The Zone of Interest

Best Actress

Annette Bening, Nyad
Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall
Carey Mulligan, Maestro
Emma Stone, Poor Things

Best Actor

Bradley Cooper, Maestro
Colman Domingo, Rustin
Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction

Best Supporting Actress

Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer
Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple
America Ferrera, Barbie
Jodie Foster, Nyad
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers

Best Supporting Actor

Sterling K. Brown, American Fiction
Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon
Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer
Ryan Gosling, Barbie
Mark Ruffalo, Poor Things

Best Director

Justine Triet, Anatomy of a Fall
Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon
Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things
Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest

Best Original Screenplay

Anatomy of a Fall
The Holdovers
Maestro
May December
Past Lives

Best Adapted Screenplay

American Fiction
Barbie
Oppenheimer
Poor Things
The Zone of Interest

Best Original Song

“The Fire Inside,” Flamin’ Hot
“I’m Just Ken,” Barbie
“It Never Went Away,” American Symphony
“Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People),” Killers of the Flower Moon
“What Was I Made For?” Barbie

Best Cinematography

El Conde
Killers of the Flower Moon
Maestro
Oppenheimer
Poor Things

Best Original Score

American Fiction
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Killers of the Flower Moon
Oppenheimer
Poor Things

Best Editing

Anatomy of a Fall
The Holdovers
Killers of the Flower Moon
Oppenheimer
Poor Things

Best Production Design

Barbie
Killers of the Flower Moon
Napoleon
Oppenheimer
Poor Things

Best Costume Design

Barbie
Killers of the Flower Moon
Napoleon
Oppenheimer
Poor Things

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

Golda
Maestro
Oppenheimer
Poor Things
Society of the Snow

Best Sound

The Creator
Maestro
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Oppenheimer
The Zone of Interest

Best Visual Effects

The Creator
Godzilla Minus One
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Napoleon

Best Animated Feature

The Boy and the Heron
Elemental
Nimona
Robot Dreams
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Best Animated Short

Letter to a Pig
Ninety-Five Senses
Our Uniform
Pachyderme
War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko

Best Live-Action Short

The After
Invincible
Knight of Fortune
Red, White and Blue
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

Best Documentary Feature

Bobi Wine: The People’s President
The Eternal Memory
Four Daughters
To Kill a Tiger
20 Days in Mariupol

Best Documentary Short

The ABCs of Book Banning
The Barber of Little Rock
Island in Between
The Last Repair Shop
Nǎi Nai and Wài Pó