He Said: Worst of 2008

DREADED AND FEARED…

SAD TO RE-LIVE…

THE WORST FILMS OF 2008

I celebrated the best film’s of 2008, and I meant every word I said. There was a lot to love during the year.

But let’s face it—there was a lot of shit, too.

Here—in as little detail as possible, so I can I spare my readers (and especially myself) from continued pain and suffering—is a list of the year’s worst movies. With special added categories to boot…

The Bottom Ten (From Best[?] to Worst):

10. STOP-LOSS
The year’s saddest bad film because it was so well-meaning. Any film that attempts to expose the horrific military policy that has been employed during the Bush administration (and which will hopefully be corrected in the Obama administration) is admirable in principle. But the execution here is so dreadful, so over-the-top, so ham-fisted, that I walked out of the theater shaking my head.

9. THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL
Ick. To be honest, the title is not wrong—I stood (or sat) still during the movie. So still that I think I fell asleep for a little while there. I mean, I must have missed something if I couldn’t piece together what wooden Keanu Reeves had to do with unfortunate victim Jennifer Connolly…and that huge 50s-style spaceman dude? What the hell was all that? I think I missed something…or there is a piece missing from the filmmakers’ brains.

8. WANTED and UNTRACEABLE
Yes, this is a tie. First and foremost because I can do whatever the hell I want on this Worst List (!) Second, what makes both films so reprehensible is essentially the same thing: a lust for graphic bloodshed so intense that I felt like I was watching porn. Once was enough…but no, Hollywood had to greenlight two of these things.

7. THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN
Oh, boy. What a disaster. I hated every second of this ridiculous, pointless, soulless sequel to what was actually a strong first film. The action sequences are boring. The child actors are pretty bad. Prince Caspian himself is reprehensible. And the studio agrees—Disney has now opted out of the Narnia movies, leaving the entire enterprise in limbo. Bye, bye, Franchise.

6. DECEPTION
Part of me wonders why I even need to pick on a movie that was forced into theaters to make a quick buck, and then failed to even make that quick buck, and left good actors like Hugh Jackman, Ewan McGregor, and Michelle Williams hanging out to dry, and was basically so ridiculous that it was ignored. So I thought to myself, “should I really stick this on here to prolong the pain?” And then I remembered—this movie prolonged my pain. I think this was indeed the most incomprehensible movie of the year, a film so pointless that I wonder why it was even made in the first place. Then again, they still made Day the Earth Stood Still, too…

5. MAMMA MIA!
Mamma Mia!/What a piece of shit!/My, my, how did I not vomit?

Oh, yikes. I didn’t get to talk at length about this one when it opened back in July. I kept wanting to, but for some reason I could never bring myself to relive the horror. So here we go…this is the second-worst-directed film of the year (the first will appear later). There is an obvious visual transition that must take place when bringing a Broadway show to cinematic form, and Mamma Mia! is a prime example of how not to do it. The lighting is so harsh that I kept worrying that the heat would set the film’s transparently awful sound stages ablaze right in the middle of a scene. Pierce Brosnan reminded me of one of those crazy people who auditions for American Idol and you think, “Does this person really think they can sing?” Meryl Streep is so game that she throws herself into the performance…and the direction is so hapless and dreadful that she is hung out to dry—musical numbers go on and on with Streep frantically dancing all over the set with the camera just sitting stationary, following Streep’s manic movements. The film is visually static and ugly. Story-wise, it is obviously a complete joke. The fact that I still can’t the music out of my head is either a credit to the catchiness of ABBA’s music, or an acknowledgement that this film has cursed my soul. Not sure which.

4. MADE OF HONOR
Obviously, Patrick Dempsey has a death wish. Every successive film he headlines is made solely to piss me off, and take me one step closer to hurting him. In this film, Pretty Boy plays a womanizer (!) who reforms because he’s always secretly loved his best friend. Unfunny slapstick and hackneyed romance follows. Ick.

3. VANTAGE POINT
If there weren’t a surplus of horrifically awful motion pictures this year, Vantage Point would have been a shoo-in for the top spot. As it currently stands, it must settle for third place. Really, as brilliant as Alejandro Gonzalex Inarritu and Guillermo Arriaga are, they must be partially implicated for this catastrophe, since the film is essentially a rip-off of the style the two Mexican geniuses started with films like Amores Perros and especially Babel.

In a nutshell, a bunch of respected actors prance around as if they know what’s going on in this wannabe-mind-blowing international intrigue plot. It only gets funnier as it goes along…

2. THE WOMEN
Now this is the worst-directed film of the year. What a horrible year for female directors…to be honest, there really isn’t ever a good year for female directors, but what a raw deal when two of the year’s worst films—Mamma Mia! and this horrific pile of garbage masquerading as a “Celebration of Women”—came from female directors. And the thing is, I don’t blame the directors. I blame the studios in Hollywood who seem to relegate female directors to “Chick Flicks,” most of which have no business being made, and nearly all of which wouldn’t be enjoyed by any intelligent woman I know. It’s a wonder an intelligent film made by women and about women, like Frozen River, could be made at all, let alone garner two Oscar nominations.

The only reason a studio tapped a woman to direct The Women is because that woman is Diane English, former TV producer extraordinaire, who once created Murphy Brown. But she cannot direct a film. Plain and simple. Not that she has great material to work with, either…the screenplay here is a hodge-podge of rotten female stereotypes so thick that I couldn’t bring myself to care on ounce about any one of them. Meg Ryan...boring. Annette Bening…desperate. Eva Mendes…catty. Debra Messing…annoying. I am not describing the performances of the actors, mind you, but the roles they are given to play. It’s shameful. The only sign of life in the whole film is Jada Pinkett Smith’s sassy gay character, but therein lies yet another cliché…plus she is only given 10 minutes of screen time (or less), thereby ensuring that the film is only remotely watchable for a mere 1/20th of its running time.

I’ve gone on way too long here. I shouldn’t have. Forgive me.

1. THE HAPPENING
Was there ever really any doubt? I mean, come on…there may not be another film to match this level of utter atrocity for another decade. Let us pray that there isn’t.

I pitched an idea to my two boys for a fun spoof movie we could make called The Occurrence. It would consist of the boys, their sister, and their friends running around acting like idiots, pretending that the wind was the lethal villain. That was our spoof idea…and it is also the exact plot of The Happening. Really. That’s all that happens. It’s enough to make a person want to kill himself. Oh, wait, that happens in the movie, too. Maybe the characters are onto something…

The only reason M. Night Shyamalan has a another film on the way is because he was already contracted to direct it before The Happening was released. The only reason he may still get to work in Hollywood after that is because his next film, The Last Airbender, is an anime adaptation that will be beloved by geeks. It’s different enough from the usual M. Night bullshit that it might save the dude’s ass.

We’ll see…but what we won’t see is another original M. Night Shyamalan film for at least another three or four years. And for that, I am thankful.

SPECIAL HORRIBLE MENTION
GRAN TORINO
It deserves a spot on this list, but I just wasn’t sure where to put it. Maybe it would go between Made of Honor and Vantage Point. Not sure. But whatever the case, it deserves its own space here.

I’m not sure Clint Eastwood has made a worse film. The Oscar talk surrounding his lead performance was a complete joke. Eastwood has dedicated this portion of his directorial career to remind audiences that even though he is a craggy old white guy who made a living off revenge pictures and westerns, that he has a Liberal Conscience He Wants to Present to the World. And that’s okay. It worked well in Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby. It did not work very well in Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima. It was mildly annoying in Changeling. And it is downright arrogant in Gran Torino. It’s a movie where Eastwood gets to play Dirty Racist Harry, but have him turn over a new leaf in the end. It’s a movie that celebrates manly violence and revenge, but also wants to shove a sanctimonious anti-violent message down our throats. It’s a film where the script is Forgiveness-By-The-Numbers, the acting is nearly universally atrocious, and the only indication that this was indeed a Clint Eastwood film is the masturbatory love of dark, shadowy compositions.

Oh, and by the way, Eastwood sings the theme song at the end. Yep.

RUNNERS-UP
Oh, they came so close…here they are, separated into special categories.

AWFUL COMEDIES
The worst comedy of the year was probably:
MY BEST FRIEND’S GIRL, which was so terrible that I actually felt like it was even a waste Dane Cook’s comic talent. Amazing.
The rest, in alphabetical order:
DRILLBIT TAYLOR
FOOL’S GOLD
THE FOOT FIST WAY,which started with utter brilliance and then tanked in the most astonishing way
HAMLET 2
WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS

TERRIBLE EXCUSES FOR FAMILY FILMS
NIM’S ISLAND
JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH IN 3-D
THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES

WORTHLESS HORROR
THE EYE
PROM NIGHT
…And there would have been more, but even I refuse to watch some stuff.