Hello everyone and welcome to New Year’s weekend.  2009 has come to an end, so you know what that means.  End of year lists!  Now, there are still two movies I need to see (THE LOVELY BONES and CRAZY HEART) before I post my best of the year.  That’ll be in a couple of weeks.  But I will share with you the very worst of 2009.

I’m not just going to pick on Studio films either.  Low budget independent films can be just as bad.  Alot of film critics seem to focus just on Hollywood.  But not me.  My list is more accurate because I will include every type of movie, and see the films that weren’t screened for press. Some critics (“cough” Colin “cough”) skip those.  I see everything!

There were plenty of stinkers this year.  So many in fact, that I could easily do the worst 50 films.  But I won’t be that cruel to you.  I’ll just post my bottom 10.  But before I do, here are some of the runner-ups that were awful enough that I still have to mention, in alphabetical order:  COLD SOULS, GENTLEMEN BRONCOS, LAND OF THE LOST, LAW ABIDING CITIZEN, LITTLE ASHES, THE MARC PEASE EXPERIENCE, THE PINK PANTHER 2, STREET FIGHTER: THE LEGEND OF CHUN-LI, THE STRIP, and TRANSYLMANIA.

Believe it or not, there were 10 movies that were worse than those.  Here goes….

The Film Geek’s Bottom 10 of 2009:

10. THE UNINVITED – Well, for one I’m not a fan of Elizabeth Banks.  And here she gives one of her worst performances (with the exception of MEET DAVE) as an evil stepmother.  There’s an M. Night-ish twist at the end, but it’s just stupid.  The dialogue is atrocious, the filmmaking is amateurish, and the movie is laughable.  I probably laughed more at this movie than most comedies this year.

9. NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: BATTLE OF THE SMITHSONIAN – If you ever wanted to find out what would happen if a director, some writers, a bunch of actors, and a buttload of film grips got to a film set and decide to not try at all, then look no further than this dull, uninspired, tired, and lifeless sequel to a mediocre film.  Every actor seems to be aimlessly improvising in every scene, and the movie falls flat on it’s face because of it.  Amy Adams tries to inject energy into the role, but it’s no use.  This gives family films a bad name.  I didn’t laugh once in this!

8. BETWEEN LOVE & GOODBYE – This low budget Indie about a gay musician falling in and out of love with another boy is heartbreakingly bad.  The intentions are good.  There needs to be more movies like this, but the execution is embarrassing.  The acting is worse than a middle school play, the filmmaking is like watching an eight year old direct with his camcorder, and the screenplay seems to have been written by someone with an IQ of 20.  It was really hard to sit through.

7. THE UNBORN – Did you ever want to see Gary Oldman (one of the best working actors today) not even try as a secondary character in a B-movie supernatural horror film?  Me neither!  David Goyer started off good as a screenwriter for the BLADE movies, but he can’t direct worth shit!  It’s like a bad American remake of a Japanese horror film, and this was supposedly an original story.

6. THE FINAL DESTINATION – I hate this series!  This is the worst running Horror film franchise!  No characters.  No Plot.  No killer.  Just unlikable douchebags dying in ridiculous random ways.  But in this one, the kills aren’t even good.  Horror films should not have CG blood and gore.  It should be done practically (preferably done by KNB).  This movie looked like shit!  At 81 minutes, this was a chore to sit through.

5. WHITEOUT – What should have been a white knuckle thriller turned out to be one of the most boring films of the year.  It was nice to see Tom Skerritt in a major movie again, but sad to see him wasted in this mind numbingly stupid film.  The production values were equivalent to a Sci-Fi Channel (not gonna use that lame new spelling) original.  I can’t believe this cheap looking movie got a theatrical release.

4. OLD DOGS – This is jaw droppingly bad!  It would’ve been more acceptable if this starred Tim Allen and Kevin James, but because John Travolta and Robin Williams are actually good actors, this was shocking and painful to watch.  Lots of moronic old-age jokes (and age-old jokes), drug jokes, and uninspired slapstick galore!  Oh yeah, and we get a cross-eyed Rita Wilson.  Thanks Hollywood!….. you fuckers!  There’s no way that anyone making this thought it was going to be a great movie.  It was made for pure financial reasons for everyone involved.  And with what is happening with the economy right now, this should be considered a crime!

3. THE OTHER MAN – This is the kind of movie that you would normally find on Cinemax at 3 in the morning… back in 1995.  A man trying to find his wife toys with the man she’s having an affair with.  It’s a laughably sleazy film with hammed up performances from Liam Neeson and Antonio Banderas.  This movie is a great example why Hollywood isn’t treating these guys seriously anymore.  I love these actors and it broke my heart as these two slum through this heavy handed drama.  Easily the worst work of both their careers.

2. CALL OF THE WILD – No, it’s not an adaptation of the famous Jack London story.  It’s about a grandfather who reads her the story, then finds a wolf, raises it, and then races it in a sled race.  This was in 3D!  And God knows why.  There was no reason for it, unless you think every bad movie on the Lifetime Channel needs to be in 3D.  I shouldn’t be that hard on the Lifetime Channel, cause this is much, much worst than that.  Every aspect of this production is shockingly amateurish.  Even one of my favorite actors, Christopher Lloyd, is horrible!  What happened to him?  He used to be so awesome!  Doc Brown, Judge Doom, Fester Adams?  Come on!  What the fuck happened to you?  This is a bad after school special that should have premiered on the small screen.  Better yet, not made at all!

1. THE YEAR ONE – The absolute worst film of the year.  Hollywood spent millions on this.  It’s a big budget comedy… without the comedy.  There’s lots of fart jokes, puke jokes, slime jokes, gay jokes, bestiality jokes, rape jokes, and pop culture references.  And none of them were funny.  Harold Ramis, who has been responsible for some of cinema’s classic comedies (CADDYSHACK and VACATION), miserably fails here.  Jack Black and Michael Cera wear bad wigs and act like themselves for the longest 100 minutes of my life.  I hated hated, hated, hated, HATED this movie!  This one needs to be shown at film schools across the world to show aspiring filmmakers how NOT to make a comedy.  This was just as bad, and probably even worse, than those awful parody films like DISASTER MOVIE and EPIC MOVIE.  But this one was isn’t as excusable since it has a known cast.  I would rather have my eyeballs fucked by a Triceratops than watch this again.

And those are the worst films of the year.  Do not watch unless you like to punish yourself.  Sometimes, out of curiosity, I love to watch a “good” bad movie.  My favorite bad movie this year was probably STREET FIGHTER: THE LEGEND OF CHUN LI.  I could watch that a few times and laugh my ass off.  But these bottom ten that I just presented you with are not even “good” bad.  They’re “BAD” bad!  Avoid at all costs!

That’s it for now!

Take care!

Be geeky!

Watch movies!

And Happy New Year!!!

Tags: JACK BLACK, poop, worst films, YEAR ONE

This post was written by Austin Kennedy, Thursday, December 31st, 2009 at 1:40 pm and is filed under Diversionary Tactics, Headlines, Musings, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.