Wow, talk about a rough first six months of 2008. There is very little to love in year that has brought us so many bad films. There was a point this year I had given 13 films in a row a grade of “C+” or less, and only one of them (The Ruins) got a “C+”. Those aren’t good numbers folks. Of course some of those films (Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Baby Mama) received decent reviews from other folks, but that doesn’t change the fact that the first half of 2008 was EXTREMELY dismal.
Luckily summer arrived and brought us films such as Iron Man, Kung Fu Panda and WALL•E, but I will be covering the best of the first half of 2008 tomorrow. For now, let’s stick with the films that smelled the place up.
First, for the dishonorable mention. Here is a list of films that did not make it into my top ten worst films midway through 2008 in alphabetical order:
- 21
- 10,000 B.C.
- 88 Minutes
- Cassandra’s Dream
- The Foot Fist Way
- The Forbidden Kingdom
- Funny Games
- The Grand
- The Happening
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
- Jumper
- The Love Guru
- Prom Night
- The Signal
- Speed Racer
- Street Kings
- Untraceable
- Vantage Point
You see what I mean? The first six months of 2008 were so bad The Love Guru, Untraceable, Vantage Point, 88 Minutes and The Happening all didn’t make it into the top ten. However, I am sure if you catch me on a different day they just might, but outside of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and perhaps Speed Racer, I don’t plan on giving any of these films a second chance. (Even though I have already given Jumper about five chances in my inexplicable desire to bash it.)
So, with the preliminary crap out of the way. Let’s dig into my top ten worst films midway through 2008 and see what you have to say when it is all said and done…
This is a film I actually thought had a chance to be mildly entertaining. I am willing to give any film a chance, but when grandma starts wearing
Here is a movie I have heard far too many people actually giving a pass. This is an awful film on so many levels. I don’t care if Adam Sandler is mildly able to get across some kind of political agenda in a film about a douche bag hairdresser that fucks old women and uses humus for just about everything. It’s a bad movie, and like Made of Honor it doesn’t know when to stop with the same joke over, and over, and over again.
Deception is the pure example of a film that is not only hated by critics, but it actually appeared to be hated by Fox as well. For so long the titled changed back-and-forth on this one, from The List, to The Tourist and then finally releasing with the ambiguous and not-at-all obvious title Deception. It should have been called Three Actors Hurt Their Careers at Once instead, because that’s all it did.
Drillbit Taylor is the second, and not the last, comedy on the list, and where the others fell into the trap of using the same useless joke over and over again, Drillbit managed to change the punch line, but hardly ever did it actually hit home. In fact it is surprising how many unfunny jokes actually managed to make their way into this trash heap.
I’ll let Russell Brand from Forgetting Sarah Marshall explain this one. While the film he is describing isn’t exactly the same as One Missed Call it is close enough to get the point across:
