NICK NUNZIATA'S WORST OF 2008

Stuff like The Razzies is entertaining enough for the people who don’t know much about movies. The folks who are content to pile up on the Gigli‘s of the world. I personally hate The Razzies. Most of the movies that make those kind of lists are ones most human being should know better than to see, or are projects that fail big by big people. Because nothing is more interesting than seeing someone fail on a huge scale. The stuff that should comprise anyone’s ‘worst’ list ought to be films that had no reason sucking. Stuff featuring actors, directed by directors, and written by writers. Though most of these films would probably be good candidates for a ‘worst of’ list, they won’t be on my list. Why?

I love myself, so I did not see the following movies:

• Madagascar 2: Escape 2 Africa – As a parent and the unproud owner of the original, I have seen the movie more than once and am absolved from ever having to be annoyed by those characters and bad art design ever again.
• Mamma Mia! – Because the only thing worst than ABBA is bad ABBA and no one has the rights to use the legendary Mr. Stellan Skarsgård and his amazing little ‘o’ over the ‘a’ so wantonly.
• The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian – Because I simply do not like the work of C.S. Lewis at all, and am not a fan of the first film. The Truth: He (Prince Caspian and his come hither glare) was so sexy on the poster I feared for my sexuality and inability to contain myself in the presence of such hot boyfuck.
• Four Christmases – I don’t find Vince Vaughn and Darkness from Legend a convincing couple.
• The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor – Because it looked like a Dreadmare and Rachel Weisz didn’t want me to see it so much she dropped out of the film for my safety.
• Beverly Hills Chihuahua – Because I didn’t want it to influence my script about Chihuahuas who go to Beverly Hills. I hear the stories are different from there but I wanted to stay on the safe side. Mine has the dogs converting to Scientology and building a sperm Ark, but whatever…
• High School Musical 3: Senior Year – So far I have been able to Lack Efron and I wouldn’t want to risk it.
• What Happens in Vegas – Everything I wanted to learn about Vegas I learned from Robert Urich. That said, I’ll see What Happens in Vega if the new Street Fighter flick is a success.
• 27 Dresses – Because I am offended by hypocritical Grey’s Anatomy cast members and limit the amount of dresses I can tolerate in one sitting to 19.
• Fool’s Gold – I am not interested in the financials of People Under the Stairs cast members.
• Step Up 2: The Streets – If they’d just called it SU2-DaStreetz I’d have been first in line.
• Saw V – I saw Saw and instantly realized that I never needed to seesaw again.
• The House Bunny – Hugh Laurie was a horrible Playmate.
• Made of Honor – I avoided this movie for all the reasons men don’t go into caves without gear.
• The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 – There were simply no plot threads I needed tying up from the original. What I am saying is that I am satiated with the Sisterhood’s initial voyage. I am content with their progress and therefore in no need of closure.
• Prom Night – Because unless this is the abbreviated adaptation of ROM: Spaceknight, who gives a flying moccasin?
• Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins – Because I saw Role Models and am allowed only one arbitrary Louis C.K. casting decision a year.
• Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns – Because Tyler Perry makes me want to be a better racist.
• Max Payne – Actually I want to see this movie. Somewhat desperately. But I didn’t and feel that it’s probably too good TO see. Great in fact. Unseen Max Payne is great.
• Meet the Spartans – I feel uncomfortable being introduced to this family without Simon Phoenix around to protect me.
• Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay – Because I’m older than 13 and don’t care about pot. Except Pol.
• First Sunday – I’m a hypocrite. I went to Fandango and ordered Friday night tickets to this on opening day only for it to dawn on me that they wouldn’t open Fist Sunday in mainstream movie houses. The misprinted tickets went unused.
• The Secret Life of Bees – I didn’t believe the buzz.
• Tyler Perry’s The Family that Preys – Why can’t Mr. Perry get stung by the laziness scorpion? Or get hit in the face by a rogue constellation?
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me six hundred times…
• Fireproof – I was too busy going to church. And frosting Kirk Cameron’s wife’s back with thrust dust.
• Delgo – If I want someone to toss something together in DeluxePaint II for the Amiga and hit the F12 key to animate it I’ll do it myself without Anne Bancroft’s dead voice, thanks.
• The Love Guru – That anyone paid to see this at all mystifies me.
• Space Chimps – There’s really no excuse for not seeing CGI starmonkeys.
• Superhero Movie – Because I have a horrible sense of humor, apparently.
• 
  Yes Man – Jim Carrey can’t say ‘No’? Fucking newsflash.

• Twilight – Because I’m an adult and literate.
• 
  Mad Money – How did I avoid a THEATRICAL heist film starring the must-see triumvirate of Queen Latifah, Princess Di Keaton, and Court Body Thetan Jester Katie Holmes?

• 88 Minutes – Because that is simply too long to spend with Al Pacino’s hairstyle.
• 
  Bangkok Dangerous – I already saw one Bob Flanagan film.

• 
  Soul Men – They didn’t bother to include Calibos Thomas Howell for this sequel.

• 
  Cadillac Records – I couldn’t contain my goddamn yawns.

• 
  How She Move – As a fan of complete sentences I forced myself not to buy a ticket to this.

• 
  The Rocker – When it comes to my theatrical spending dollars, when it Rainn I poor.

That said, with 2008 being such a rancid year, I saw plenty of contenders. In fact, if Alexander and World Trade Center hadn’t prepared me for SoftStone Creamery, W. would have been at the top of this list. It didn’t evenmake my list of shitters, which is forehead-dropping [fuck jaws].

So, without further ado…

The Transporter 3 didn’t need to be very good to deserve to exist.The first one was a blast and the second one was watchable but there’s only so many times you can withdraw funds from the Hairless Driver ATM before the combination grows stale and we demand a new element. Like acting. Or less French people. Or for the film to inexplicably take place in space. Instead what we get is a poorly edited mishmash of similar shit with no personality and an hour and half’s worth of proof just how thin the Transporter conceit is. I love Jason Statham but this is carrion. Plus, they did away with the gay transporter possibility, and I always love it when men in Middle America idolize action heroes they don’t realize are gay. Like Conan and Dirty Harry. Paul Kersey and Daniel-san. Mickey Mouse and Mighty Joe Young. And Periwinkle “John” Pussybutthole.

Cut from the film: Other people buying Orangina products and being tossed around by the ensuing explosion science.

Performance of Hate: Everyone bitches about the girl (who does indeed suck marrow from Ed Asner’s femur but in her freckled defense was discovered in a grocery store and had no acting experience previous to this) but the real culprit is Prison Break alum Robert Knepper. He so poorly chews scenery that they found an undigested matte painting in his trailer commode. He’s really bad here, almost as bad as he is in The Day the Earth Stood Still. Almost as bad as when he drove to your house and shotgunned Aunt Daddy.

Now if it were Robert Tepper…

Would it help if the main character was gay: Absolutely.

If CHUD had a blurb on the box it’d be: “The only thing this movie will transport is Hiroshima’s radioactive tears directly into your mind’s eye.”

Vantage [Matthew Fox is the traitor!] Point had no fanfare. No one expected anything from it except 24 frames a second and synced audio. Still it was a letdown simply because it is bursting at the seams with talent and there’s that adage that posters with fragmented men tend to yield serious dramatic bounty. Ask Otto Preminger [Oujia Board neccessary]!

Dennis Quaid. Forrest Whitaker. Bruce McGill. James LeGros. Matthew Fox’s agent. William Hurt Sigourney Weaver by convincing her to be in this movie. There are a lot of decent folks in here, which makes it even sadder to see it unfold with absolutely no verve or juicy acting moments. It is a joyless affair and the twist [Matthew Fox is the traitor!] is lame.

The movie [Matthew Fox is the traitor!] should have at least been watchable as dumb, star-studded entertainment. But it’s not even as exciting as the director’s name.

And his name is Pete Travis! You are fucked.

Cut from the film: Forrest Whitaker sodomizing himself with his Oscar statuette while giggling at his bank statement after the Vantage Point check cleared.

Performance of Hate: There’s not even enough passion here to warrant hate. Just gentle and persistent snoozes as actor and audience unite in a narcoleptic bliss.

Would it help if the main character was gay: No, because Rip Van Winkle is known to be  a hit with the ladies.

If CHUD had a blurb on the box it’d be: “You might remember you saw Vantage Point if interrogated by a CIA legend.”

“We’re in the spirit world now, asshole!” – Dirty Steve, Young Guns

The Spirit is to its source material as a pinball machine is to a woman’s right to govern her own meat locker. It is a tool of injustice, mercilessly bonered and thrusting forward with impunity. Frank Miller for all his talent as a writer and artist between birth and like 2000, hasn’t really delivered anything of much significance in recent memory aside from a directorial share with Robert Rodriguez on Sin City, a movie most of us like but with many asterisks.

The Spirit is Sin City only less subtle. Think about that a while. Then realize that Will Eisner’s incarnation of the character is timeless, original, and sly. Then imagine your parents covered in spiders, falling off buildings and hurtling towards flame pits filled with spikes and NASCAR drivers chugging Mountain Dew Code Red.

This is a vanity project that went horribly bad. So was Action Jackson.

Cut from the film: Any instance where an executive said “no” to writer/director/supervirus Frank Miller.

Performance of Hate: Samuel L. Jackson would make Samuel L. Bronkowitz blush as a guy with “eight of everything”. Except performance inhibitors.

Would it help if the main character was gay: It Macht help, but we’ll never know.

If CHUD had a blurb on the box it’d be: “Your city will scream for a dirigible to crash land onto Frank Milller as samurai warriors rappel out onto his face and hair with malicious intent.”

Eagle Eye features two talented, attractive, and engaging leads and a very solid director in D.J. Caruso (AKA: the fresh crime scene prince) but still manages to insult the intelligence of its audience as well as the intelligence of the Deliverance banjo child.

It attacks with wanton tech wizardry, hoping fond memories of Enemy of the State (which I have none of) will carry its audience to a special place before realizing how obnoxious and trite it is. Shia LeBeouf is his typical electric self here, doing all within his power to keep the film moving and he almost pulls it off. There’s so much going on and it’s so polished, it’s almost allowable to accept the idea of a bitchy computer trying to kick Earth’s ass.

At the end of the day it’s just bone-numbing fluff with all the sizzle money can buy. Too bad.

Marc Singer and William Sadler are in it and it’s still bonkerballs.

Cut from the film: Shia killing a spider on Michelle Monaghan’s tit only to have the evidence vanish.

Performance of Hate: Whomever’s TI-99 played the computerized bitchvoice.

Would it help if the main character was gay: Nope.

If CHUD had a blurb on the box it’d be: “Eagle Perineum is more like it!”

21 was a massive hit. So was The Escape Club’s Wild Wild West.

Jim Sturgess stars as boring, a brilliant student who is recruited by Kevin Spacey to be boring in Las Vegas but stereotype happens and boring turns the tables on Kevin Spacey before learning a life lesson with his ethnically diverse friends, allowing boring to bland ever after.

Cut from the film: Racism. Believe you me you’ll get tired of people playing African-Americanjack.

Performance of Hate: Aaron Yoo, playing Asian Comic Relief Template Six.

Would it help if the main character was gay: It’d help keep the tweens in the audience from being so annoying. They really like Jim Sturgess because of Across the Universe, which ironically is where his charisma is.

If CHUD had a blurb on the box it’d be: “Ricky Jay would take his deck of cards and fill you with 52 slash wounds from across the room if you choose to see this movie.”

Speed Racer is beloved by some people, but barefoot genius Sting has told us that “the Russians love their children too” so that love might be unjust, unfounded, and seriously Red. Well we know it’s a vibrant shade of red because it’s fucking Speed Racer, the technicolor yawn come to life.

Some folks have said that this film is a misunderstood masterpiece that will be remembered fondly in twenty years and to that I say that in twenty years nano-aphids are going to live off our white blood cells as we bake in a greenhouse effected shitbox so it won’t matter. It sure ain’t good NOW!

It’s ambitious and technically well-done and there are moments of manic intelligence but the Wachowski Bros. simply lost their way with this migraine-inducing mess of color and blurred cartoon oddness.

Hey, but the monkey’s the least annoying part, which is a miracle.

Plus, let’s face it: Speed Racer the cartoon was poop.

Cut from the film: The autumn color palette.

Performance of Hate: Christina Ricci’s forehead wrangler.

Would it help if the main character was gay: No.

If CHUD had a blurb on the box it’d be: “Here’s that Jacob’s Ladder Vietnam drug death you always wanted.”

Get Smart is a remake of a television show so why am I surprised it’s so shitty?

I don’t rightly know but I still hate the fuck out of this movie. Steve Carell should have been a good choice for the role of Agent Maxwell Smart, what with his ability to be self effacing and nerdy cool. Alan Arkin is as great today as he was in 1979. The Rock is strong and he has a winning smile. Anne Hathaway has big brown eyes and nice tits, so there’s that skill of hers.

Hard to believe the movie sucked.

Cut from the film: Don Adams reaching towards his hidden coffinphone for relief.

Performance of Hate: David Koechner, surprisingly. Also, Lindsay Hollister as fat dance partner.

Would it help if the main character was gay: Absolutely not.

If CHUD had a blurb on the box it’d be: “Mist it by that much, and by that I mean that Maxwell Smart should shoot everyone around him including his son before realizing he didn’t need to.”

The Happening is becoming a bit of comedy counterprogramming thanks to folks like Devin and Pazuzu but it doesn’t change the fact that the movie is a battering ram of stupid fired right towards our brainballs by M. Nightterrors Shyamalan.

M. Night is batshit! Mother Nature is on her period! Why is John Leguizamo in this movie!

There is no excuse for this movie about plants and wind hating us and making us lie down in front of lawnmowers.

If ever there was a lesson in how power corrupts, the last four films of Philadelphia’s finest citizen this side of Ted Bundy should suffice. This one takes the cake, though. Unless the cake is vegan and then the cake would take us all! But not outright. The vegan cake would make us kill ourselves by blowing a little hateful wind our way.

We’ve pissed the world off and the world is getting revenge in the dumbest way it can!

I think the real plants of the world downloaded this film off a torrent and said “fuck it”, vowing to let us run our own cursed course into the soil. I mean, why waste their green energy?

Cut from the film: The origin story where we discover that the plants hacked their sister to ribbons before being sent to a botanical garden before escaping during an electrical storm.

Performance of Hate: Everyone who has have ever seen or been in the film.

Would it help if the main character was gay: That’s the twist. These are fagplants.

If CHUD had a blurb on the box it’d be: “Call on line two. It’s the plants, and they say FUCK YOU.”

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has been discussed ad nauseam (hey, some real Latin) here on CHUD.com so I’ll keep it simple.

This film arrived on the crime scene where our childhood’s bruised and rectally hewn form lie whimpering and, seeing no remaining sign of the Star Wars prequels, loosened its belt buckle and plunged its already ripened cock into our already gaping new abyss and adding to the already frowning dead inner child we once were caretakers of.

That we didn’t feel the sting due to the already massive trauma by its predacessor doesn’t make the violation any less repugnant.

Cut from the film: The beating, pulsing heart of adventure and the nostalgic love of yesteryear. And our innocence and delight.

Performance of Hate: Karen Allen. She ought to be hit with a mirror on Katanga’s boat.

Would it help if the main character was gay: No, but Harrison Ford does wear an earring!

If CHUD had a blurb on the box it’d be: “George Lucas is prejudiced against space aliens but it’s perfectly fine if they’re interdimensional aliens but has no clue that if you talk to an alien it means the same fucking thing.”

Sex and the City is long, ugly, and unwieldy. Like James Woods, if you ask Sean Young. Huge Otik from what I’ve heard.

The film is also misshapen and unfunny and lacks the bite and satiric value of the television show, which is fine if it’s a one-hour episode but unfair to man and machine at two and a half fucking hours. Girlish screams and explosive diarrhea are fine in the privacy of your own home, but unacceptable in mainstream cinema and this film is as guilty as Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb when it comes to ruining the souls of the accommodating.

Worse yet is that it was some sort of divining rod for housewives the world over, which is direct opposition to the former divining rod for housewives, MEN. Sipping martinis, talking about shopping, and discussing Oprah’s latest million dollar fatkill is a reality scarier than another term under Bush.

But it sorta is one.

Cut from the film: THEY USED EVERY ONE OF THE SIX BILLION FEET OF FILM THEY SHOT.

Performance of Hate: ALL.

Would it help if the main character was gay: Would we notice?

If CHUD had a blurb on the box it’d be: “Have sex with this city and die a disappointing AIDS death.”

Dishonorable Mention: Be Kind Rewind, Step Brothers, The Bank Job, Hancock, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Jumper, Righteous Kill, The Strangers, Role Models, 10,000 B.C.

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