Thursday, January 14, 2010

2009 Brown Swirly

What’s this, you say? Well, for every great move/game/tv show, there is an equally horrible entry into the genres. These, folks, are the chunks of corn in a big pile of crap.


Worst New TV Show of the Year
Let’s face it. TV executives are crazy. For every great idea, there are over a hundred bad ones and in some really horrible instances, the bad shows are the ones that get the most fanfare before they tailspin and die after really poor ratings during their premiere. Am I forgetting any really terrible shows that came out this year? Probably, but these are the ones that stick in my head like an annoying commercial jingle for a product I’ll never buy. Have I watched all of these shows? Nope. But I can tell you one thing, these shows sucked.

• Osbournes: Reloaded
• I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here
• Jersey Shore
• The Jay Leno Show
• HawthoRNe

And the Loser is…
Jersey Shore! The Jay Leno Show!

The Osbournes: Reloaded and I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here were saved further humiliation by being cancelled early. HawthoRNe was saved from the fact that TNT is calling for a Mulligan on their recent wave of bad new series. I almost gave the loss to Jersey Shore because it’s the biggest waste of time ever with unlikeable people and unlikeable situations (one of their male “actors” punched one of the females and that’s just not cool). But Jersey Shore wasn’t able to do what the Jay Leno Show did, which was bring down an entire network and recently damage the hopes and dreams of Conan O’Brien (in my opinion, just as bad as punching a woman in the face). The Jay Leno Show was a poor excuse to create a cheap show and display a willingness to take a hit in the ratings. Of course, NBC didn’t think about the backlash they’d get from their local affiliates and are now backtracking as fast as they can and are willing to trample over Conan O’Brien and his Tonight Show. Yeah, Jersey Shore is terrible, awful show, but they weren’t able to accomplish the new levels of suck that the Jay Leno Show did.


Biggest Movie Disappointment of the Year
Don’t confuse this with the worst movie category. These are the most disappointing. The trailers were amazing. The concepts were sure-hit fool-proof endeavors. The casting was done well. But then, they just fell flat. Funny movies were not funny. Action movies were funny for all the wrong reasons. And I’m left sitting in the movie theater, massaging my temples, as I try to repress my rage at the hours and money I’ve wasted. At least, bad movies always fail to hide their failures. These movies hurt me by making me think they were going to be good, but end up sucking like all of the other wastes of film.

GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Land of the Lost
Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen
Hulk Vs.
Year One

And the Loser is…
Year One!

GI Joe and Transformers 2 sucked, but I still bought them on Blu-ray for the simple fact that they still had kickass action sequences that needed to be seen in high definition. The great thing about Blu-ray and DVD is that I can easily skip the mind-numbingly bad parts with a press of a button. Another good thing is that it converts 2+ hour movies filled with vomit-inducing scenes into 30 minute snacks. Hulk Vs is on here because of the other half (Hulk Vs Thor). Not only is it painfully short, but it’s also completely muted. I was expecting an epic slugfest between the two strongest heroes in the Marvel Universe, but instead I get a wrestling match not even worthy for a local PBS affiliate. Of course, Hulk Vs Wolverine was a better half of the movie and saves it from infamy here. Land of the Lost made me laugh when I first saw a trailer for it during last year’s Super Bowl. But it sucked. Sucked. Sucked. Sucked… They should be grateful that even though Year One didn’t suck as much as Land of the Lost, I am more disappointed in Year One because a part of me knew Land of the Lost was going to bomb (I hate Chaka) and thus, had less ground to fall. Year One… how could it fail with Jack Black, Michael Cera, David Crane, Olivia Wilde, Oliver Platt, and Paul Rudd? It still boggles my mind. The trailer made me laugh my socks off, but then I realized the trailer displayed the only funny moments in the movie. The rest just fell flat. I almost wanted to buy the DVD and place it in the corner so it could think about what it did.


Worst Movie Performance of the Year
I am by no means an Oscar caliber actor and some of these nominees permanently poisoned their chances of ever being taken seriously in show business because of how grating and annoying their performances were this year.

• Megan Fox (Jennifer’s Body)
• Jorma Taccone (Chaka, Land of the Lost)
• Randy Quaid (General Hawk, GI Joe)
• Jamie Chung (Dragonball: Evolution)
• Channing Tatum (Duke, GI Joe)

And the Loser is…
Jorma Taccone!

I hate Chaka! But before I go into it, I’ll explain the others. Megan Fox is a hottie, there’s no denying that, but she’s crazy if she thought Jennifer’s Body was the best choice to rely on while burning her bridge with Michael Bay. Jamie Chung is another hottie that just rubbed me the wrong way in a movie filled with terrible sight gags and lack of respect for the source material. Channing Tatum and Randy Quaid were on opposite ends of suck in GI Joe. Tatum was doing his best, which is not very good. Quaid was phoning it in while counting the zeroes on his paycheck. Tatum couldn’t rely on multiple shirtless dance scenes to hide his flaws as an actor. Quaid was almost laughing at how ridiculous some of his lines are (and laughing at anyone who was watching the movie). And now to lambast Jorma Taccone’s Chaka. I hate Chaka. He was a stupid character on an even stupider television show. The amount of pain my mind, body, and soul (yes, it hurt my soul) had to endure during his every scene almost made me convulse and pass out, but I stayed conscious because of the fear of my head exploding if I woke up and Chaka might be the first thing I saw. Yeah, I hate Chaka.


Worst Movie of the Year
I’ll admit this now. I only saw one of these five movies, mainly because I accidentally moved one to the top of my Netflix queue and after watching it, because nothing was on TV that night, I wanted to go boil some water and pour it into my pant. Sure, some of these movies were targeted at people/kids in a demographic that I certainly don’t fit into, but that’s no excuse for creating these mindless, poorly crafted, piles of dung. I’m probably not the target audience for a Pixar film, but I enjoyed them all. I’m probably not in the mindset of people who make a Jennifer Aniston movie, but they don’t make me want to gouge my eyes out with a hacksaw and crowbar. For the other movies that I didn’t see, their trailers were more than enough to make me drink a cocktail of Pepto Bismol and aspirin.

• Twilight: New Moon
Aliens in the Attic
Dragonball: Evolution
Band Slam
Shorts

And the Loser is…
Twilight: New Moon! Dragonball: Evolution!

The quick hits from the almost losers:
Twilight: Bella is a ridiculous name. Vampires that only “glitter like gold” in the sunlight are ridiculous. Only saving grace is that they had Taylor Lautner from The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl. Oh yeah, and the books suck too.
Aliens in the Attic: You’re like a checklist of bad ideas. Annoying mascot character? Check. Shameless slapstick? Check. Disney B-list pop star? Check. Doris Roberts doing superhero stunts in slow motion? What the hell were you thinking?
Band Slam: Sa7m? Really? Unless this movie was going to end with Brad Pitt finding his wife’s head in a box, you don’t put “7” between characters just to be ironic or unique. That just makes you dumb.
Shorts: A poor attempt to milk whatever magic was left from the Spy Kids franchise only to realize there was never any magic to begin with.

And now for the loser:
Dragonball Evolution: With no respect for the source material, they created one of these worst movies I have ever seen. That’s right. I saw it and a little piece of me died inside. Mr. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Chow-Yun Fat couldn’t save this movie. My second favorite Buffy vampire, James Marsters couldn’t save this movie. Phantom of the Opera hottie Emmy Rossum couldn’t salvage this trainwreck. Not even a cameo from Ernie Hudson (of Ghostbusters fame) was able to stop the pain. Do yourself a favor. Don’t remember them for this failure; remember them for their better days. And if Netflix sends you this movie, just send it right back with an angry letter.

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