The Driftwood #44: The Trash Vortex (April Fools’ Edition)

You’ve reached the place where all the bad, but oh-so-satisfying entertainment exists. Here, in the Trash Vortex, we provide you with only the trashiest, most bingeworthy recommendations. It’s a dark hole you won’t escape!

“We Have that Movie at Home”: The Worst of the Worst

When pressed about what to include in this particular issue, I was lost. Is it simply enough to include straight-up trash? Should we include movies that are actually … good? Heaven forbid. What’s more interesting are the films that afterward, the biggest April Fools’ prank was bothering to see them at all. The difference between our usual Trash Vortex picks and these films is the difference between fast food, let’s say, and chugging boiling fryer oil or diving headfirst into an ice-cold river—a test of endurance rather than anything potentially enjoyable.

Godzilla: Final Wars (2004)

Recent entries to the Godzilla franchise, like 2023’s Minus Zero, give the impression that it can’t and shouldn’t veer into extravagant, over-the-top blockbuster schlock. This ignores the fact that some 33 Toho movies and the appeal of watching a giant lizard punch another giant lizard do not an introspective movie make. This specifically—the 50th-anniversary film—focuses on celebrating everything the franchise has built up regardless of narrative and emotional whiplash because, dang it, this is for the fans.

It’s about the rubber suits, the hordes of iconic kaiju, and, frankly put, insane storylines involving alien invaders, mutants, Godzilla’s son, and an overabundance of the letter because it’s cool, bro.

The Last Airbender (2010)

The key to a good April Fools’ prank is breaking a set expectation: turn a corner straight into a Saran-wrapped doorway, insert a “Gotcha!” note inside an empty iPhone case, and so on.

Maybe that’s what Nickelodeon was intending when they made this movie.

Live-action adaptations aren’t new, nor is it surprising when they’re bad. It arguably comes with the territory; stilted dialogue and underacting, bad CGI, the works. It’s just that the original show of the same name is such a landmark in children’s entertainment and storytelling that the film’s missteps stick out all the more. Most egregious of these is its whitewashing of the original’s Asian-led cast and comprising the antagonistic Fire Nation of dark-skinned South Asians.

It’s a film that, the more one’s familiar with the original source material, only serves to make the viewer ever angrier—angry with the lack of cultural sensitivity, and angry that potential fans might conflate the film’s quality to the original and never give the show a chance.

The original anime, Avatar: The Last Airbender, is currently on Netflix. This terrible 2010 film is streaming for free on Sling TV, MGM+. and Paramount+ (still too much money). And Netflix came out with a live-action version earlier this year that has excellent reviews and has been renewed for seasons two and three.