Welcome to "Ranked", a weekly series where I rank a franchise or filmography from worst to best and hand out assorted related superlatives. This week, I'm profiling the work of Judy Greer-whose latest project "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" releases in theaters on Thursday.
Judy Greer's Filmography Ranked:
26.Tommorowland (D-)
25.Adaptation (D-)
24.The 15:17 to Paris (D+)
23.The Village (D+)
22.Jeff, Who Lives at Home (C-)
21.War for the Planet of the Apes (C-)
20.The Wedding Planner (C)
19.The Hebrew Hammer (C+)
18.Wilson (C+)
17.Where'd You Go, Bernadette (B-)
16.13 Going on 30 (B-)
15.Love & Other Drugs (B-)
14.Uncle Frank (B)
13.Ant-Man and the Wasp (B)
12.Entourage (B)
11.Buffaloed (B)
10.Ant-Man (B)
9.Halloween Kills (B)
8.Jurassic World (B)
7.Grandma (B)
6.Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (B)
5.Our Souls at Night (B+)
4.Halloween (B+)
3.Three Kings (B+)
2.Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 (A)
1.The Descendants (A)
Top Dog: The Descendants (2011)
While The Descendants has kind of been relegated to minor status in the acclaimed filmography of Alexander Payne, it'll always be one of my favorites of his. The way that it goes about handling the collection of conflicting strong emotions that come with finding out a damaging secret about a loved one in the aftermath of a tragedy (in this case, the husband and two daughters of a woman in a coma following a boating accident discover that she's been having an affair) is really mature and honest, Payne knows when to play into the emotional elements of the family drama and when to add levity with a comedic moment and the deeply vulnerable performances from George Clooney and Shailene Woodley remain among the strongest they've ever committed to screen.
Bottom Feeder: Tomorrowland (2015)
Even after the phenomenal success of Pirates of the Carribean: The Curse of the Black Pearl 21 years ago, the bar for Disney films based on attractions from their amusement parks remains pretty low. There's just no universe where movie adaptations inspired by rides aimed to provide children with a few minutes of fleeting fun are shooting for the stars. Wherever the bar for these films is currently set at, Tomorrowland lands well below it. How modern animation legend Brad Bird went from making one of the standout entries in the Mission-Impossible entries in Ghost Protocol on his first foray into live action filmmaking to crashing and burning in spectacular fashion with this comically convoluted snoozer on his second go-round is the kind of head-scratcher that just doesn't compute no matter hard you try to make sense of it. Tomorrowland was such a failure creatively and finically that Bird may've even permanently retreated back to the world of animation (Incredibles 2 is the only film he's put out since and he's currently working on his longtime passion project Ray Gunn with Skydance), which would be a shame since he flashed a great feel for blockbuster filmmaking on Ghost Protocol and almost certainly would've made some cool stuff in the future.
Most Underrated: Our Souls at Night (2017)
This lovely film about two elderly widowed neighbors (Robert Redford, Jane Fonda) who agree to spend time with each other to combat their loneliness is one of the earliest cases of a Netflix original getting promptly buried by their stupid fucking algorithm before it was able to find an audience. It's a really moving drama that is powered by the beautiful work longtime collaborators Redford and Fonda do together to sell the tenderness and healing power of their unique relationship.
Most Overrated: Adaptation (2002)
Not even Nicolas Cage going beast mode in a dual role can do anything to help remove Adaptation's head from the deepest crevasses of its own ass. The movie's entire conceit of telling a story that's highbrow to start and lowbrow to finish is one of the smuggest creative choices I've ever seen a movie make and that alone is enough to make Adaptation an absolutely insufferable watch.
