The good news about 2009 was that it wasn’t as horrendous as some previous years. In fact, when the good films came to us, they were often truly great pieces of work sprinkled with decent efforts in between. Then of course you had those nuggets of crap that would get through the grinder and remind us that bad movies and filmmaking unfortunately still exists. It seemed for every two Hurt Lockers or Inglourious Basterds there was a Post-Grad or Year One that followed it. Or maybe this year, with all it’s great films, made the dookie stink even more than we’re used to. Instead of posting on my Twitter page ninety times a day about how much I don’t like these films, I’m going to take this opportunity to present the Ten Worst Films of 2009:

10. TAKING WOODSTOCK

Horrid, horrid, horrid doesn’t begin to describe this piece of donkey manure. When it’s not being anti-Semitic, the film pummels us with a useless plot about a completely unlikable lead while also not actually being about Woodstock itself. Ang Lee might say he was trying to be artful, but his real goal was punishing his audience for getting political about Brokeback Mountain and absolutely hating The Hulk. Congratulations sir, you’ve accomplished your revenge. The film also randomly goes into split-screen mode, for no reason other than just to do it. The trickery doesn’t serve the story, but it does serve the purpose of killing braincells.

9. POST-GRAD

Y’know what? I’m just going to go easy here and let a scene from Sin City describe how I felt after this atrocity against cinema:

8. YEAR ONE

This movie is legally retarded, even if it tries to tempt us by having Olivia Wilde in it. Michael Cera continues playing Timid Nerd and Jack Black plays Annoying Fat Guy, at least I assume those are their character names as I could care less to remember them. I’d also like to forget this pile of fly excrement that the once solid Harold Ramis bestowed upon us. It took at least three viewings of Ghostbusters to remind one self that Ramis still has some decency left in him, but this one really, really burns the soul. It also causes great worry for the upcoming Ghostbusters 3, as the screenwriters for this picture are rumored to be scripting it.

7. X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE

True, I knew going in this was going to poop the bed, and yes expectations for this where as low as you could possibly get. Then an interesting thing happened when the lights dimmed and this movie started for me. Instead of make an honest to goodness decent X-Men film, Gavin Hood made his intentions with this film clear, that he was out to achieve the impossible. Not content with renowned hack Brett Ratner making the worst X film, Hood and his team of clowns sully a franchise that was already reeling. Everyone involved with this film not named Hugh Jackman, Liev Schrieber (who sadly has two films make this list) and Ryan Reynolds needs serious jail time.

6. FAST & FURIOUS

I absolutely hate this franchise, even more than the dreaded Twilight Saga. This has to do with the fact the first film in this sorry, despicable franchise completely steals every beat from my favorite film of all-time and doesn’t even care that it’s doing so. This entry is the least offensive of all four films, and free looks at Jordana Brewster are always welcome which is what’s saving this movie from appearing higher. Regardless, it still has asinine writing, acting, and almost terrible directing. Almost terrible, because Justin Lin seems to at least be giving a modest effort. Shamefully, it won’t be going to a better, more original, less criminal franchise.

5. MISS MARCH

If you’re going to do a comedy about Playboy and the Playboy Mansion, you’d better show what made that magazine famous in the first place. Miss March fails at that, as it does to even evoke any sort of laughs out of anyone with fully functioning common sense. In fact, rumors are swirling that anyone who purchases this DVD or Blu-ray are asked if they’d like a complimentary pistol-whipping or clubbing with a baseball bat. Seventy-two percent of idiots who bought it chose pistol-whipping as it somehow makes them come to their senses about the piece of crap they’ll be injecting into their players.

4. I LOVE YOU, BETH COOPER

When a fellow critic is the funniest thing in the movie theater because of the comments he’s making, you know you’re in trouble. Normally, there’s an unwritten rule of critics not making comments during a picture, but dang it if I Love You, Beth Cooper just didn’t ask to be made fun of. One wonders if the film would have been more entertaining if they showed the IMAX version of Avatar on that ginormous forehead of hers, or how many times between takes Paul Rust poked her eye out with his nose. Director/Torture Master Chris Columbus said he wanted to make a “throwback John Hughes film” only failing to realize what made those watchable.

3. ALL ABOUT STEVE

Sandra, oh Sandra. While I didn’t hate it, The Proposal wasn’t my cup of tea but I could understand the appeal of yet another romantic comedy with a suave Ryan Reynolds, so our relationship wasn’t damaged. Then came wind of the terrible accent in a film about a Baltimore Raven in The Blind Side and that’s when problems between us started. And then came this marvel of idiocy, and we were through. This movie is the epitome of everything wrong with comedy, and lets women know it’s ok to stalk a man, even if he’s on the job. Reportedly it was shelved for two years and only saw release when Bradley Cooper’s The Hangover generated good buzz. This is one side-effect that should have stayed forgotten.

2. THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON

Pass. Just, pass.

1. JENNIFER’S BODY

Forget that this film is a pure girl power movie, and forget that there were outcries it wasn’t popular because of it. This is just a piss-poorly made film that absolutely deserves to be called the worst film of 2009. This is the one that finally exposes Diablo Cody for the terrible writer that she is and while New Moon promotes domestic abuse, Cody takes it one step further and proclaims that date rape is a wonderful thing and all women should aspire for that. Add to that the horrendous dialoge the film tries to pass off as ‘chic’ coupled with the outright stupidity of almost every plot point and this is a film that doesn’t even want to redeem itself. It’s perfectly content with being the suckfest that it is as it thinks it’s the cool kid on the block. You’re not, as you’re uncompromising douche who needs to just run away from cinema as far as you can.

But wait, there’s actually a film that’s so crappy it’s actually worse than the ten films I’ve listed. It’s just recently been released, which kind of defeats the old proverb “save the best for last.” I present to you…

Does it count because it was direct-to-video? Who cares, but somehow Wrong Turn 3 managed to be decent. This…wow. I don’t think there’s any word in the human, xenomorph, or Na’vi dictionary that describe how horrendous this movie is. Action is poorly framed, the acting just doesn’t exist, and the plot rips off Die Hard just as bad as Fast and the Furious sullied Point Break. Anyone who thinks Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen or Land of the Lost is the worst experience known to man has yet to encounter this piece to terrible. Argue with me if you will about what shouldn’t and should be on here, but let’s all agree this trash needs to be taken out and burned.

And that concludes it. Hopefully none of you had to suffer as much as I did this year, and let’s hope 2010 doesn’t bring us anything nearly as horrid. As usual, tell me how wrong I am below.

As an added bonus, who can guess how many 20th Century Fox films made this list? I don’t have a vendetta against them, but they need to fire Tom Rothman and stop putting out crap year after year.

In a not-so-surprising turn of events this past weekend, Race to Witch Mountain breezed past the grim Watchmen.

Dwayne Johnson is even surprised Witch Mountain is on top.

Race To Witch Mountain, held up by Disney and starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson managed to come up on top with an estimated $25 Million. The Disney induced remake stars Johnson as a cab driver who picks up a couple of strange kids and gets greatly entangled in their chase away from the government and back to their spaceship. Being an overly friendly Disney kids movie, I did not see any sort of problem that it would rake in a fair amount of bank.

As for Watchmen fans, the worry continues to settle on in. Despite their slot as number 2 in this weekend’s box office, the Zack Snyder film only managed to scrape in $18 Million, already doing a lot less than what its expected to have made. With the bad word of mouth from the general public who I say saw it and didn’t understand it, the odds of this monster making its budget back does not look to be in their favor.

Finishing up with the last two releases, The Last House On The Left reeled in some audience members as it strongly held onto the third spot with $14.6 Million. Although the fates did not look kindly upon Miss March, the playboy bunny injected story that barely managed to squeeze itself into the top ten. Below are the weekend tallies.

Weekend Box Office (March 13-15) )

1. Race To Witch Mountain ($25 Million)
2. Watchmen ($18 Million)
3. Last House On The Left ($14.6 Million)
4. Taken ($6.6 Million)
5. Madea Goes To Jail ($5.1 Million)
6. Slumdog Millionaire ($5 Million)
7. Paul Blart: Mall Cop ($3.1 Million)
8. Just Not That Into You ($2.9 Million)
9. Coraline ($2.6 Million)
10. Miss March ($2.3 Million)

To sum up Miss March, it would be like this: the trailer is the film. Literally almost every good joke is used in the trailer which is the Cliff Notes version of the film. What’s not shown is all the gross potty jokes that would only find a home in an R-rated trailer. It should be no surprise, the film has an atrocious script that relies way too much on the potty jokes to be funny. Even the funniest bit in the film involves a part of a horse’s nether regions and works only because Craig Robinson is the best thing about the film.

Tucker (Trevor Moore) and Eugene (Zach Cregger) are best friends and (as usual) seemingly the total opposite of each other. Eugene is the prude and Tucker is the sleep-with-anything-that-moves type, who has a huge obsession with Playboy. Eugene’s girlfriend Cindi (Raquel Alessi) thinks they’re ready to get it on and plans to do so on prom night. On said night, Eugene gets the jitters so Tucker tries to calm him by getting him super drunk. Well, Eugene stumbles down a flight of stairs into a basement and has a toolbox and shelf fall on top of him putting him in a four-year coma. He awakens to Tucker (fate worse than death) and to find out his girlfriend is now a Playboy Bunny. The two decide to embark on a quest to “win her back” for Eugune and for Tucker to live out his lifelong dream of being at the Playboy Mansion.

There are so many problems with this movie not even a real-life brain surgeon could fix them. Let’s start with the most annoying, Trevor Moore as Tucker Cleigh. He reaches Jar Jar Binks levels of annoyance and then eclipses that Gungan asshole. It was as if Trevor watched Episode I as part of his character prep. He’s supposed to be the character with all the laughs but instead you’re wishing Eugene was the one with the bat beating Tucker over, and over, and over until he cannot move or breathe. Never once is he funny or even chuckle-worthy. His character is every single “annoying friend” cliché in the book and Moore doesn’t even attempt to do anything with him other than make him worse than he needs to be. This is a definite Razzie contender for Worst Performance.

It’s clear that in Cindi and Eugene’s relationship, Cindi wears the pants given the bitching and whining Eugene does. His attire for most of the film is a tuxedo shirt that has a woman’s bikini and body on both sides and a pink Foxy hoodie that fits him really well. Every one of his scenes is “Tucker, don’t do this” or “I can’t believe we’re in this again Tucker”. You could almost replace all his lines with a baby crying and get the same effect. Raquel Alessi does essentially what’s asked of her which is to look hot and strut it. I have to point out that the film is called Miss March yet we never see her puppies. Yeah, she’s the centerfold but we only see her covered up by white sheets. The same can be said about their relationship as the film is about these two characters getting together. Eugene travels to the Mansion to finally get with Cindi…and we don’t see it. It’s like The Dark Knight ending with Batman and Joker ready to face off and we cut to credits. In that case, the movie is essentially about nothing with no pay off.

The only semi-redeeming thing is Craig Robinson as Horsedick.MPEG, a rapper who blows up thanks to the wonderful power of the internet. I feel no shame in spoiling the best part which involves Horsedick.MPEG filming a music video called “I Want You to Suck My Dick While I Fuck You In The Ass.” Robinson stole the show in Zack and Miri Make a Porno and here he’s fighting against the film. He’s trying to elevate the material to funny but what’s around him is so bad he only does so much. In fact, the ending sort of ruins his character with a lame joke about his own private parts.

I mentioned earlier that the film relies way too heavily on potty jokes and it’s true. Every joke in the film involves either sex, lesbians, or excrement and all try too hard to be funny. There’s a gag about Eugene waking up from his coma and having to move his bowels every time he gets stressed. It was incredibly flat and outright gross the first time it’s in the film, but they don’t care and treat us to it later on. The other attempt at the funny involves Tucker’s girlfriend Candance, who has epilepsy. She’s stabbed in the face with a fork when she bites Tucker’s junk, and tells her brother who you’d think is a FBI Agent? Nope. Police officer even? No, her brother is of all things, a fireman and as the movie tries to tell us, “Firemen are crazy.” The movie isn’t concerned about accomplishing a goal (like Cindi and Eugene getting together) or livng up to its name (only ONE pair of tits is shown in a film endorsed by Playboy) but in throwing lame joke after lame joke at us and hoping it works.

I’ve never watched “The Whitest Kids U Know” but I can say this film didn’t do much to persuade me. It tries too hard to be funny, crude, and doesn’t even try to care about its main plot and can’t even live up to the company that’s sponsoring it by the lack of tittilage. In fact, this is the first time a film actually reached out from the screen, formed a fist and played conga on my body. Words can’t describe how bad it is, and not even “horribafuckus” defines how awful this film is. Give it a few years and this will be a form of torture in some countries.

Rating: ½☆☆☆☆