No Accounting For Taste: Worst Movies of 2008?

Listening to WTOP radio on the way in to work a little while ago to catch the weather report, I caught Joe Barber’s summary of 2008’s movies. He hinted at his top movies of the year, and listed the three worst movies of the year. Apparently Joe Barber is WTOP’s Entertainment Editor, and has terrible taste in movies.

Let’s stop to think about some of the worst movies of 2008 before we look at Joe’s list. 2008 gave us the second lowest-rated movie of all time on IMDB, Disaster Movie. It has a 1.4 out of 10 on IMDB. Here’s a quote from a review by Peter Sobczynski at eFilmCritic:

…I was witnessing not just one of the worst movies ever made but one of the worst things ever created by human hands—the kind of sexist, racist, homophobic and humor-free craptacular that is so ugly, unpleasant and devoid of laughs that the notion of releasing a film with such a title on the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is actually one of the least offensive things about it.

2008 also gave us Paris Hilton in The Hottie and the Nottie. I know everyone was surprised when Paris Hilton was supposed to be the “hottie,” but nobody was surprised when the movie sucked. It has a 1.7 out of 10 on IMDB, and is #17 on their worst movies of all time list (for comparison, Glitter is #40, Manos: Hands of Fate is #27, and From Justin to Kelly is #24, so The Hottie and the Nottie is worse than all of those.) A few choice words from James Berardinelli:

Every February it seems there’s something like The Hottie & the Nottie – a cinematic excursion so horrific that it’s an insult to bad movies to call it a bad movie.

[...]

It’s hard to imagine that professionals with a clue about what they are doing could arrive at such an abortion of a motion picture.

[...]

The Hottie & the Nottie contains several comedic sequences that are about as funny as the anal rape scene in The War Zone.

Richard Roeper says, “It is excruciatingly, painfully, horribly, terribly awful.” So, in conclusion, a bad movie.

2008 had something that I missed completely called Witless Protection, starring Larry The Cable Guy, who’s apparently had several movie by now. Brian Orndof writes:

“Witless Protection” is disgusting, racist, clueless, sexist, charmless, unfunny, infantile, mean-spirited, amateurish, and insulting…. I’m all for silly comedies, but these Larry The Cable Guy movies aren’t just harmless giggles anymore. These are seriously diseased, bottom-feeding motion pictures constructed to reduce intelligence and further this bizarre obsession certain communities of Americans have to proudly display their unwashed idiocy, as though it was a golden badge of honor.

2008 also gave us Beverly Hills Chihuahua (“anyone who goes to a talking-dog movie without being prepared to step in poop deserves to ruin his shoes”) and Eddie Murphy’s Meet Dave. And let’s not forget that Uwe Boll’s Postal, which was released in 2007, didn’t make it to American movie screens until 2008, so it should be in the running.

Anyway, that was a long bit of intro, huh? Back to WTOP’s Joe Barber, and what he thought were the three worst movies of 2008:

#3: Cloverfield. “If this didn’t give you motion sickness, the quality of the film should have given you motion sickness.” I know some people didn’t like this, even though I am a fan of it, but the third worst film of the year? Worse than all those movies I listed above? A well-above-average 7.5 on IMDB, and 77% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, and you’re picking it as one of the worst of the year? Wow.

#2: Step Brothers. I haven’t seen this, so all I can go on is the critics and the public. IMDB has it at 6.8, which is good. Rotten Tomatoes says 55% of the reviews are positive. Obviously not a ringing endorsement, but with that many positive reviews it’s hard to make the case that it’s worse than The Hottie and the Nottie.

#1: Forgetting Sarah Marshall. “Easily the most forgettable film of this year.” Wow. Just, wow. I thought this was probably the funniest film of 2008. I know I’m not the only one who thought it was excellent, since it has an outstanding 85% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. He can’t really think it’s the most forgettable film of the year, what with the Dracula puppet musicals and all the hilarity, right? Obviously he’s lying to make a forced reference to the films title, much like his claim that Cloverfield is so crappy that it would give you motion sickness even if it didn’t have so much handheld camerawork. But it’s just mind-boggling that Joe Barber really believes that Forgetting Sarah Marshall is the worst film of the year.

And I was so blown away by his horrible taste in movies, I just had to type all this stuff up. Thanks a lot, Joe Barber, you made me wear out my fingertips in useless typing. At least now I’ll know to ignore any movie recommendations he ever makes, ever again.