The Worst Films and Performances of 2008

With the Oscars less than ten minutes away, I thought it was appropriate to honor the worst of the year before we spend all night talking about the best. Of the 86 films I've seen so far in 2008, here are the stinkiest films and performances.

The 10 Worst Films:

10. Tell No One (Guillaume Canet)
This so-called "Hitchcockian" thriller has none of the humor, interesting plot twists or thrilling, ambiguous villains that comprised some of Hitch's best work. Instead, all we get are some dumb clichés, an annoying lead and a 10 minute explanation of the whole film that is entirely false.
9. Frost/Nixon (Ron Howard)
What a complete waste of time. Ron, just because you have a good play and actors who have done these roles 100 times before doesn't mean you can just sit back and let the cameras roll for two hours.
8. 21 (Robert Luketic)
I knew the exact trajectory of the main character (played her by Jim Sturgess) from the first five minutes. The rest of the film didn't make me want to stick around.
7. Changeling (Clint Eastwood)
On the plus side, Changeling gives you more for your dollar (always a good thing during this recession) since there are six separate stories packed into one film. On the negative side, none of them are any good.
6. Mamma Mia! (Phyllida Lloyd)
I believe I've already said enough on this movie in the above review, so I'll leave you with a thought from my friend Christi, "ABBA should sue them for ruining their songs." She is so right.
5. Untraceable (Gregory Hoblit)
Diane Lane, you deserve much better than this lame "thriller" that was nothing more than a complete waste of time. I seriously can't remember a thing about this movie besides Lane and Joseph Cross.
4. Jumper (Doug Liman)
Jamie Bell and Rachel Bilson, you both deserve much better than this lame "action" movie and playing second fiddle to the incomparably bad Hayden Christensen.
3. Camp Rock (Matthew Diamond)
I honestly wasn't expecting much from Disney's latest made-for-TV movie, but this was so bad it made High School Musical look like Chicago. As I mentioned in the review, Vanessa Hudgens could have showed up and I would have been grateful for it.
2. Prom Night (Nelson McCormick)
One of the funniest movies of the year. Too bad it was supposed to be a horror movie.
1. The Wackness (Jonathan Levine)
I've racked my brain for awhile and I honestly can not think of one even slightly redeeming factor in this movie. Of the other movies I gave an F to, Camp Rock at least had those slightly amusing bickering scenes between Nick and Kevin and Prom Night had Brittany Snow and a couple of good laughs, but The Wackness has absolutely nothing. The overly quirky and "street" dialogue assaulted my ears like the Blitzkrieg, Ben Kingsley's overacting made me want to die everytime he tried to be hip and funny and the film's depiction of a teenager's sexual awakening was both overly pretentious and boorish.

The Worst Performances:

Worst Actor
Hayden Christensen, Jumper
---How do you make me hate you from the opening monologue?
Joe Jonas, Camp Rock
---You would think that as soon as they filmed that first scene in the limosine, where Joe can't even put the right emphasis on any of the lines, that the producers would have realized they picked the wrong Jonas Brother to star in this film.
Robert Pattinson, Twilight
---I will give him the benefit of the doubt on some of the dialogue because he was given some truly awful, but some of those facial expressions (especially during the scene where he first meets Bella in the science classroom) were hilarious when they should have been serious and/or scary.

The Loser:
Hayden Christensen

Worst Actress
Vanessa Hudgens, High School Musical 3: Senior Year
---You would think that after three films with the same character, she would finally learn how to not embarrass herself; you thought wrong. This is just as atrocious as anything in the first two films.
Angelina Jolie, Changeling
---An Oscar nomination for this phoned-in performance?! That is, if you call repeating the same three lines (all containing the phrase "MY son" in them) over and over again and smashing a plate against the wall.
Meryl Streep, Mamma Mia!
---The worst performance I've ever seen from the great Meryl. I've never seen her overact that much.

The Loser:
Meryl Streep

Worst Supporting Actor
Pierce Brosnan, Mamma Mia!
---Normally, when you cast a musical, you cast someone who can sing. Apparently someone missed this memo.
Colin Firth, Then She Found Me
---Not necessarily bad, but he's in a completely different film from Helen, Bette and Matthew.
Ben Kingsley, The Wackness
---This guy has an Oscar? What the hell?
Diego Luna, Milk
---He stands out among the cast. Unfortunately, it's not in a good way.
T.J. Miller, Cloverfield
---Shut the fuck up already and get eaten by that monster.

The Loser:
Ben Kingsley

Worst Supporting Actress
Malin Akerman, 27 Dresses
---Akerman was given a prime role (bitchy, whiny younger sister) in this slightly above average rom com and she completely ruins it. Over the top and just plain annoying.
Monique Coleman, High School Musical 3: Senior Year
---I never noticed before HSM3, but Coleman is quite an awful actress, isn't she? She only has a couple of lines and yet she completely butchers all of them.
Meghan Jette Martin, Camp Rock
---Also given a prime role (the "Regina George" of Camp Rock) and completely ruins. Makes all the wrong choices comedically and her "crying" scene is atrocious.
Thandie Newton, W.
---It's so out there and different from the rest of the ensemble that I'm not sure if it's the worst performance I've ever seen or a whole new way of acting being born.
Dame Julie Walters, Mamma Mia!
---Oh my God, the Wicked Witch of the West has come back to life! Run for your life! Argh, that cackle will haunt my dreams forever!

The Loser:
Dame Julie Walters

Endings Blog-a-thon: Billy Elliot's Completely Sucky Ending

We all know that a fantastic ending to a film can either make a medicore film great (Charlton Heston yelling "Soylent Green is people!" at the end of Soylent Green) or turn a great film into a classic (Gloria Swanson descending the stairs of her decaying Hollywood mansion and into madness in Sunset Boulevard, pictured left). The examples of these are numerous and I'm sure many will be thoroughly covered over at Valley Dreamin's Endings Blog-a-thon. What I'm going to talk about is a great film that is nearly ruined by an ending so shitty that I grumbled to everyone for the next week or so about how much I hated it. The film? Stephen Daldry's Billy Elliot.

I know I was probably the last person on the planet to see this movie a few months ago, so I'm sure that everyone is quite familiar with the central plot: a boy defies his working class background and macho father and brother by enrolling in a ballet class run by a gruff, no bullshit teacher. As with most films about people overcoming class boundaries (and since it is, to a certain extent, an inspirational teacher drama), I was quite taken with Billy Elliot. The film could have been total cheeseball inspiration but, thanks to Daldry and star Jamie Bell, it is anything but that. I was also extremely taken with the unusual relationship between Billy and his little gay friend Michael (which I briefly mentioned here); the part when Billy leaves Michael to head off to school broke my heart. If Billy Elliot had ended here, I would have loved the film a lot more. I was ready to give it an A-, but then that thing Daldry's calls an ending came on and I instantly downgraded it to a B.

First, let me describe the ending in case your memory's a little fuzzy. Billy's father and brother are rushing from the London subway to catch Billy in his big ballet production. They reach it in the nick of time and are settling into their seats when the brother realizes that they're sitting next to Michael (and someone were supposed to assume is his boyfriend?). They talk uncomfortably for a couple of seconds, Michael says something about "not missing this for the world" and then it cuts to backstage with a grown up Billy getting prepared to leap out on stage. And then it ends. Now let's analyze all of the ways this ending bites the big one.

• Where is Mrs. Wilkinson (Dame Julie Walters)? This is actually my biggest annoyance with this ending. Essentially, Billy Elliot is an inspirational teacher drama and, although I can accept the fact that it's trying to ignore the clichés of the subgenre, but sometimes we need those clichés. They're there for a reason and when we don't get them, we feel cheated. At the end of every inspirational teacher drama, we have to get the scene where the teacher sees that all of her hard work and sacrifice has paid off when the pupil realizes their dream. Without this moment, the rest of the film has basically been for nothing.
• We don't get the reaction shots from Billy's father, brother and Michael The film completely stops as soon as Billy takes the stage, so that doesn't give anytime to see what the three characters react to how amazing of a dancer Billy has become. Damnit, I just need to see the father tear up or something. Is that too much to ask Stephen Daldry?
• The inclusion of Michael This choice left me completely puzzled. Why would you include Michael in the scene and not Mrs. Wilkinson? His fond farewell to Billy just a few minutes ago- complete with a touching kiss- was perfect, non? Does he really need to be there at the performance? Anything Daldry is going to show would never live up to this earlier scene and what he does end up showing doesn't work at all. I can see that he's trying to show how Michael has grown up and become who he wanted to be, all thanks to Billy's courage, but it just seems totally unneccessary at this point. In all honesty, who cares about Michael's transformation; we want Billy.
• The awkward interaction between Billy's family and Michael Seriously, do Billy's father and brother think their going to catch the gay virus by having a simple conversation with Michael? Was it really that shocking to see him dressed up like Boy George and with another man? I mean, Michael was as flaming as a kid could be in a small, working class English village.

What makes this ending all the more horrible is the fact that they had the perfect ending beforehand and completely ruined it. The shots of Billy's family and Mrs. Wilkinson, stuck in their exact same situations with little chance of escaping, juxtaposed with Billy first arriving at the ballet academy, finally escaping his working class surroundings, subtly hit the message home. Add to that Michael and Billy's goodbye and it became absolutely perfect. This "real" ending feels tacked on and makes little sense in the context of the film or the subgenre.

For more wonderful entries on the endings on a multitude of different films, check out the main page of J.D.'s Endings Blog-a-thon over at Valley Dreamin'