I USED TO LEECH my wallet via the pathetic kitsch practice of willingly attending bad movies. Now, praise heaven, Seattle Weekly routinely marches me into the intellectual playgrounds of visionaries like Steven Seagal and Martin Lawrence—for free! The only downside is that cherished “bad-in-a-good-way” flicks often decompose into the much more abundant “bad-in-a-bad-way” realm faster than Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
My selections for the year’s worst are deader than dirt or De Niro. They lack the innocuous dumb humor (Pootie Tang) and practically edible melodrama (Driven) that make two hours of hell almost tolerable.
1. Josie and the Pussycats Perhaps the most clueless, acrid send-up of consumer culture ever. Unintentionally decapitates itself with irony boomerang.
2. Hannibal Indefensible cash register sellout. So happily bereft of purpose that it quotes Silence of the Lambs every five minutes just to pass time.
3. Not Another Teen Movie Like watching fraternity brothers re-enact American Pie in between bong huffs. Made by and for the dumbest assholes in America.
4. Legally Blonde Dual winner for most inept plot and most laughable courtroom sequence. Big Daddy‘s “gifted” younger sister.
5. Better Than Sex Having pasty-faced Australian knobs pontificate about blow jobs directly into the camera wasn’t enough; the bastards had to add an omniscient cabbie. Independent cinema’s very worst.
6. Shallow Hal Let’s quietly pray that Jack Black will just waddle quietly into obscurity and stop bothering us.
7. John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars You’d think Ice Cube vs. 10,000 goth-vampire-cannibal-phantasm dudes would rule. Actually, no; I hope you wouldn’t.
8. Tomcats Only Not Another Teen Movie did more to promote women as sperm receptacles.
9. The Forsaken Add no. 7 to no. 8. Yet not quite worse than either due to the presence of Gregg Araki regular Jonathon Schaech. Araki is the worst filmmaker I am aware of. I won’t let his Trojan horse sneak up on me.
10. Freddy Got Fingered Cringe-per-minute ratio is off the charts, but the strangely gorgeous cheese sandwich- factory scene keeps it from the top of the plops.
