2007 wasn't a bad year for movies, but it wasn't exactly a good one. For every excellent movie there were at least ten awful ones, which is why most of the awards here are for the shittiest movies of the year - which works out for me, those are more fun to write. It was a pretty great year for television, but TV is so shitty by default that if even one percent of its total programming is excellent, it was a good year. You can find my full list of picks for TV and DVDs in the 2007 Favorites section. And of course, share your favorites in the comments. Now, the awards...


The It's About Fucking Time Award for DVD Re-Releases:
Blade Runner and Twin Peaks


Blade Runner is one of my favorite films of all time - a modern noir masterpiece and one of the most gorgeous-looking films ever made; so it was a particular travesty that the only DVD version of the film available was marred with dust and scratches, a horrendous encoding job, two-channel surround, and zero extras. It took longer than it should have, but the crimes of that awful DVD have been rectified with a fantastic five-disc set of the film's new "final cut." And it's even out in high-def on both HD DVD and Blu-ray - I have the HD DVD version and it looks and sounds absolutely incredible.


David Lynch's wonderfully weird Twin Peaks is one of the best things that's ever happened to television. I was only ten years old when the show premiered, but I watched the pilot episode and loved it, and became a devout pre-pubescent Twin Peaks fanatic. That probably says quite a lot about me, actually. Tragically, the show's DVD releases have been an absolute mess, with the first season DVD set lacking the crucial two hour pilot episode due to some weird rights issues. The only way to get the pilot on DVD was to order a sketchy import copy (which I did) and even then the quality was shit. Thankfully, everything seems to have been worked out and the entire series was finally released last year in its entirety as one "Definitive Gold Box" DVD set. If you like David Lynch, or anything strange and avant-garde, this is mandatory viewing. Sure, it gets a little messy at the end, but television has yet to produce anything as unique as this legendary show. Besides, it has creepy midgets, David Duchovny in drag, and a woman who talks to her pet log - how can you go wrong?


Best TV Show With a Ridiculous Premise That Somehow Works:
Dexter


Dexter is a dramedy about a forensics investigator for the Miami Police homicide department who's secretly a serial killer. Oh, but he only murders bad guys. And chops them up into pieces. Sounds terrible, doesn't it? Like a bad SNL skit. A bad recent SNL skit. Hell, maybe even a bad Mad TV skit. Anyway, the surprise is that somehow Dexter defies the odds and not only works but is immensely enjoyable, thanks to its careful balance between darkness and humor, but mostly thanks to how perfect Michael C Hall is as an emotionless but genuinely likable misfit who spends so much time pretending to be someone else that he starts to lose track of who he really is. 2007 was Dexter's second season, and it managed in many ways to surpass its fantastic first. If you've been yearning for a Patrick Bateman with a heart of gold, pick up the first season on DVD and enjoy.


Best Evidence That Against All Odds, Matt Damon Is A Badass:
The Bourne Ultimatum


James Bond. Dirty Harry. Jack Bauer. ...Matt Damon? Amazingly, yes. The Bourne movies are the coolest, smartest, darkest, most stylish action films in decades. The 2007 trilogy capper Ultimatum in particular is unapologetically un-Hollywood: There are no one-liners, no cheap romances, no CGI action sequences, no comic relief... In fact, by this third chapter, the series has gotten so bleak that I'm pretty sure there's not one single smile throughout the entire movie. Most importantly though, Matt Damon is a total badass, joining the aforementioned short list of impossibly cool Hollywood tough guys. If the words "Matt Damon" and "action movie" have understandably kept you from seeing these great films, you're really missing out.


Best Reason To Get an HDTV:
Planet Earth


See that picture? That's a giant fucking shark, leaping out of the water in super high frame rate slow motion, snatching a seal into its deadly jaws and ending an amazing battle that comprises one of Planet Earth's many highlights... Although to be fair, it's nothing compared to this epic shark battle.

BBC's magnificent nature series has garnered so much praise over the past year that it's almost pointless for me to bring it up here, but it's so good that if even one person reading this hasn't seen it yet and does so because of me, then it's all worth it. For the uninitiated, Planet Earth is an 11-part series, with each episode focusing on a different aspect of the planet. It's fascinating, well-narrated, and weaves in a subtle but important message about the impact our species has had on the earth - but the real star here is the cinematography. Without a doubt the most spectacular nature photography ever captured, Planet Earth will make your jaw sore from dropping so frequently. Everything was filmed with incredible high-def cameras, so this is a release that is great on DVD, but is utterly fucking spectacular on HD DVD or Blu-ray. You really haven't seen it until you've seen it in high-def. It's become the default show-off piece for my HD setup, and should be the first thing you pop in to make yourself feel better about all the money you spent on a new TV, a high-def player, HDMI cables, a receiver, etc. A remarkable achievement in documentary filmmaking, and if its quality is ever surpassed, it will doubtlessly be by the same group of talented filmmakers.


Funniest TV Show Nobody Watches:
30 Rock


A network comedy about a network comedy is, on paper, about as appealing to me as having my scrotum nailed to a wooden plank, but 30 Rock - about the antics behind the scenes of an SNL-type show - is one of the funniest things I've seen on TV in a long time. It won an Emmy for best comedy, but it only has about six viewers total. If you haven't seen it, give this show a chance, it has a great ensemble cast and some of the smartest writing this side of The Office. As much as it revels in absurdity, it's the little subtle moments that make 30 Rock genius, and if you don't catch them, chances are you aren't smart enough to get them. You wouldn't think it, but Alec Baldwin is fucking hilarious, by the way. The first season is out now on DVD, and the second season, which got even better, wraps up this month.


Best Interactive Movie:
Control


I call Control an interactive movie because it's so bleak and horrendously depressing that you want to participate in Ian Curtis's suicide at the film's end (if that was a spoiler, you're probably not someone who should see this movie anyway). Don't get me wrong - Control is a great movie, filmed beautifully and acted brilliantly - but don't make the mistake of inaugurating a fun Friday night with it, as I did. I and the friends I saw it with came out of the theatre ready to take up heroin, we were so bummed out. It's a strange and subtly brilliant film because during the first half, you find yourself thinking that maybe Ian Curtis was just a whiny teenager with the same inane problems as everyone else. Oh, he got married too young and got in a rock band and wanted some vajayjay on the side and it screwed up his life, boo the fuck hoo. It felt like it was stripping away the mystique behind someone as legendarily tortured as Curtis. And then, somehow, the film - and Sam Riley's fantastic performance - pulls you into his despair, and it doesn't matter anymore what the reasons for it were, just that it was insurmountably oppressive. And Christ, you really feel it, and eventually you can't wait for him to just fucking off himself and end the fucking misery already. If you have a history of emotional instability, put the suicide help line on speed dial before sitting down for this feel-good popcorn flick.


Coolest Marketing For A Movie Not Coming Our For Like A Billion Years:
The Dark Knight


Great teaser images, drool-worthy trailers, and strange alternate reality games (from the wizards at 42 Entertainment) promoting the incredible-looking Dark Knight movie have been swirling around for what seems like forever, despite the film still being another six months away. But I don't really have much to say about all that, I just wanted an excuse to post this genius mash-up of the audio from the Dark Knight trailer and video from the so-bad-it's-awesome 1966 Batman movie (thanks Rumas):




The Blueballs Award For Most Frustrating TV Show:
Lost


Lost... Oh, Lost. The first season of Lost was nothing short of spectacular. It was was so well-made, so well-written, so filled with weirdness and excitement and mystique, and you got this feeling that every little thing, every tiny detail of the show, had been meticulously planned out, and it was all leading up to some epic secret that would blow your fucking mind with how ingeniously it tied everything together. It was so good that it seemed almost too good to be true... And it was. In the show's second season, things started to get kind of weird. Like, the bad kind of weird. Asking a lot more questions but never giving any answers, you couldn't help but feel like the writers were stalling for time. Like maybe they'd planned a story that was two seasons long, and the show's unexpected success forced them to drag it out longer than they'd intended. Or worse yet, maybe they'd been making everything up as they went along. By the third season, watching Lost was like being on a date with a hot girl you've been seeing for a little while who acts like she's going to put out, but keeps resisting your advances. Through the whole thing you're sitting there with your hand on her knee watching some shitty movie on her couch, getting more and more frustrated by her lack of interest in taking her clothes off, and just when you're about to give up on it altogether, at the last minute she pulls you into a passionate five minute make out session, lets you kind of feel a tit for a second, and then abruptly says she has to get to sleep and sends you on your way, and suddenly all you can think about is the next date. Lost's third season had so many maddening low points - so many bang-your-head-against-the-wall moments of frustration and stupidity, that I wasn't going to come back for season four. I was totally over it. And then the glorious tease of a season finale came out of nowhere with all of the smart energy and intriguing story that had attracted me in the first place, and it let me feel just enough of its proverbial tit of secrets that dammit, I was hooked again. Seriously though, season four had really better put out, or I'm done for real this time, and I'll stick with fast, easy girls like 24.


Worst Vocal Performance By Two Non-Singers Miscast In A Musical:
Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter - Sweeney Todd


Dear Tim Burton,

I know you're married to Helena Bonham Carter, and I know you have a curious hard-on for Johnny Depp. That's all well and good, and they're fine actors, really. But maybe - and this is just a thought - maybe next time you make a musical about British people singing, you might want to find some British people who can actually sing. As crazy as it sounds, there are other actors out there.

Thanks and maybe try combing your hair occasionally,

Rob

P.S. I hate musicals - I fucking haaaaate musicals. So if I'm going to watch one, I'd better hear some fucking good singing, and Johnny Depp and especially Helena Bonham Carter are fucking terrible singers. Everyone walked out of that movie thinking "You know, Johnny Depp wasn't that bad of a singer!" It's a fucking musical, dipshits, it should have been great singing, not shitty singing that's passable because it's coming out of a beloved celebrity. And remember, that's after the vocals had been processed with the very best tuning software, like the same kind Britney Spears uses on everything she sings so as to not sound like a dying cow - so you can only imagine what the raw recordings sounded like. Eh, maybe I'm just still bitter about the nightmare that was Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. Oh, and Planet Of The Apes. And The Corpse Bride. Sorry, it was boring, and you know it.


Most Horrendously Over-Written Dialogue In A Critically Acclaimed Movie:
Juno


I know Juno is 2007's token indie darling, and despite genuinely wanting to like it, I thought it was staggeringly mediocre. Ellen Paige is a fantastic and adorable actress, and the movie has a sweet story and some nice moments, but its much-talked-about script - written by an ex-stripper/current blogger - is so retardedly over-written that it ruins the film. Juno's character speaks in an awkward combination of grammar too complex and witty for even the smartest sixteen year old, and invented slang words too idiotic for any sixteen year old. I was watching the movie thinking how it sounded like someone in their late '20's trying to write witty dialogue for teenagers, before I knew that it was in fact someone in their late '20's trying to write witty dialogue for teenagers. Juno's script, which is for some reason available online, is so nauseatingly hip that it even specifies which posters from the "Big Book Of Hipster Credibility" should be on Juno's bedroom wall: specifically The Damned, The Germs, The Stooges, Television, and Richard Hell. There is, however, nothing hip about the phrase "honest-to-blog," which is one of many verbal offenses that drag the movie down.

As a side note, I should probably have a separate award for the terrible fucking sing-song folk music that beleaguers the entire film and adds to its exhausting "look how indie we are" clamor for credibility. God damn I hate the Moldy fucking Peaches.


Worst Performance By A Playstation Character In A Big-Budget Hollywood Movie:
The vampire people in I Am Legend


I look forward to the day when computer graphics look truly photorealistic all of the time, but that day is not today, and lazy filmmakers need to understand that. We've been suffering for years now with terrible, unrealistic effects that may be flashier and more versatile than the rubber masks and stop-motion animation of the past, but are less convincing because there's nothing physical there, and you can tell. It's understandable to use CGI when dinosaurs need to run around, but did the infected vampire people in I Am Legend really need to look like shitty video game characters? Certainly actors wearing make-up would have been a thousand times creepier and more convincing. The laughable results of the CGI close-ups sucked the fear and tension right out of an otherwise decent movie.


Most Ironic/Tragic Movie Merchandise Item:
Brawndo Energy Drink


I've sung the praises of Mike Judge's criminally unseen film Idiocracy many times, so I'll spare you another round for now. 2007 saw the film's DVD release, but it also saw one of the most bizarre and sadly fitting posthumous merchandise tie-ins in movie history.

Idiocracy is set 500 years in the future, where Americans have continued to be dumbed down to the point of retardation. They watch a reality TV show about a guy being kicked repeatedly in the balls, and they've replaced water entirely with a sports drink called Brawndo: The Thirst Mutilator, because the ads tell them "it's got electrolytes!" Nevermind that nobody knows what electrolytes even are. And yes, I'm still talking about a fictional future, but if you got confused for a second, that was part of the subtle genius of Judge's film: Its many satirical examples of a society dumbed down by pop culture and ad culture felt like a prediction for five years in the future, not five hundred. The epic and tragic irony, then, was that 21st Century Fox all but buried Idiocracy because test audiences "didn't get it." They are now, however, more than happy to put their money behind an actual energy drink named Brawndo: The Thirst Mutilator, turning a joke about the stupidity of Americans into an opportunity to profit off of the stupidity of Americans. Obviously if you've seen the movie, you'll get the joke, and you'll laugh at Brawndo's "it's got electrolytes!" slogan and masculotard advertising, and you might view Brawndo as a clever marketing gimmick for the year-old Idiocracy DVD, despite the fact that it's barely mentioned on the product's website. But that's ignoring the bigger picture, because if you're part of the 99.9 percent of the American population who hasn't seen the movie, Brawndo is just another legitimate beverage product, and its slogan is not a joke, but a selling point. It's a case of life profiting off of life imitating art imitating life that's so ridiculous it's hard to adequately process.


The Life Aquatic Award For Cinematic Pretension:
Grindhouse


There are precious few movies that I've actually walked out of. It takes a rare combination of impatience on my part and pretentiousness on the film's part to combine in a way that makes me realize I'm not going to suddenly start liking this movie, and my life would be better if I just left. That happened with The Life Aquatic, and I don't have the energy right now to argue with the legion of misguided hipsters who swear to that movie, but for me it represented a spectacular swan dive over the line of "quirky for the sake of being quirky" that Wes Anderson had been walking so carefully with his previous films. For that reason, I refused to see The Darjeeling Limited, as it appeared to be a continuation of that same grotesque aesthetic (I'll admit that I did download Anderson's free short film prequel to Darjeeling, only because Natalie Portman got naked in it. And yes, he even made that boring).

Anyway, the one film I walked out of this year was Grindhouse, the Rodriguez/Tarantino double feature that I was actually really excited about. However, about forty five minutes into Rodriquez's film Planet Terror, I realized two things: First, that the kitschy concept of recreating bad 70's exploitation films had worked a little too well, and now I was just watching a bad movie - which might be entertaining in the background on Cinemax on a Sunday afternoon, but not as a Friday night feature. And secondly, I realized that I was halfway through the first of two bad movies, it was already 10:00, and I had better things to do on a Friday night than sit through three and a half hours of good directors playing dress-up with '70's film stock. It felt like one of those painful Saturday Night Live skits that starts out funny and then seems to drag on way too long after it's beaten the joke to death. And that was the end of that. Goodbye, Grindhouse. I never did see Tarentino's half of the experiment, but I heard from friends who braved the whole ordeal that it made Planet Terror look like a masterpiece. The film was such a box office disaster that it was reformatted as two separate movies for overseas and DVD releases. Sometimes funny ideas are better left on paper, guys.


Most Insultingly Vapid New Game Show:
Temptation


With the epic stupidity that is Deal Or No Deal continuing to be an unequivocal success in America, inane game shows are already a depressing example of what qualifies as entertainment to the drooling masses. The other day I accidentally caught a bit of a new show that I think ups the ante: Temptation. I am appalled at how retarded this show is. Equal parts consumerist orgy and celebration of low-brow pop culture, Temptation "tempts" its contestants with products they can exchange for points earned by answering trivia questions that would seem to reward whoever has numbed their brain with the most hours of E! and VH1. The show adds an infomercial twist by "tempting" viewers with "incredible deals" on featured products, which you can call in and order via 1-800 numbers, or on its website seenontemptation.com. You can feel yourself getting stupider as you witness the whole affair - but I'll let it speak for itself:



For the worst of two worlds, here is a selection of mongoloid American Idol contestants duking it out on a special "celebrity" edition of the show.


The Rob Schneider Please, Please, Please Stop Acting Award:
Jamie Kennedy & Eddie Murphy


Eddie Murphy used to be really funny. Jamie Kennedy has never once, even for a second, been funny. Both of them are responsible for two of the worst movies of 2007: Norbit and Kickin' It Old School, respectively. Now, mind you, I haven't exactly seen either of these movies in their entirety, but why would I have? If you can't tell from the trailers alone that these are insulting abominations of celluloid, then you should probably think about killing yourself. Beyond that, the respective three percent and nine percent ratings awarded on Rotten Tomatoes by the brave movie critics who have to see these movies should give you a pretty good indication of the quality of film you're dealing with. Still, I'm not one to just listen to what everyone else is saying, so I found some devoted Youtube nerds with worryingly poor taste who took some time off from never getting laid to assemble the highlights of both of these films into easier-but-still-difficult to watch clips. First up is Norbit, a movie so insulting and embarrassing I almost don't want to talk about it at all, lest I contribute to any collective memory of its existence whatsoever. And if you think this five minute summary is painful, imagine watching the entire 90 minute movie:



Yes, that astoundingly racist Japanese caricature at the beginning is in fact Eddie Murphy, desperate to repeat his Dr. Doolittle character actor success. Mr. Murphy, it's time to stop. Please, please just stop, before you leave any more skid marks on your once respectable career.

As for Jamie Kennedy, whose entire career is a skid mark, he must have discovered an extra inch left below the bar he lowered when he made Malibu's Most Wanted, and figured he could squeeze another wet turd of a movie in there. Here is one very lonely YouTube user's compilation of the apparent funniest moments from said wet turd:



I was so offended that an actual person could find this movie funny enough to compile these clips (Jamie Kennedy has posted his own clip of the film here, and it's no less painful), that I was going to post a video response with my picks for the funniest moments in Kickin' It Old School, but YouTube wouldn't let me upload nothing.

Anyway, apparently undeterred by Kickin' It Old School's massive commercial and critical failure, Mr. Kennedy has insisted on continuing to take on new film roles. His upcoming offenses against good taste include Extreme Movie and Spring Break '83, in which he plays a character named "Ballzack." The latter is apparently still filming, so if any aspiring young snipers out there are reading this, you might still be able to assassinate him in time to halt the movie's production.



The Uwe Boll Please, Please, Please Stop Making Movies Award:
Joel Schumacher and Michael Bay


If you look at Joel Schumacher's list of directorial credits, you'll see that he's made mostly mediocre, forgettable films. He's even made one film I think is great, the classic urban angst movie Falling Down. But like a light house warning you of danger, there is one big, glaring beacon of horror on his resume, and its name is Batman. Specifically, the ridiculously campy Batman Forever and its infinitely more offensive follow-up, Batman & Robin. The latter is one of the worst movies ever made, ever, largely because it misinterprets an iconic character on such an epic scale. Yes, this is the man who took Tim Burton's dark, quirky Batman and replaced him with a corny, colorful throwback to the closeted, spandexed, cartoon heroics of the 1960's TV show - and for that, I could never forgive him, even if he were to make the next Citizen Kane. Thankfully, that's not going to happen, as his contribution to 2007 proved to be one of its undisputed lowlights: The Number 23. . Yep, that movie with Jim Carrey in an unlikely role as a troubled psychopath. I think Jim Carrey's a great actor, with a lot more range than he's given credit for, but no one could have pulled a winning performance out of the stink that is that movie's script, especially with Shitmacher at the helm. But you can't exactly pity Carry - he was part of the Batman Forever trainwreck, so he should have known better than to hop aboard the Shitmacher Express again. The only good thing about The Number 23 is the ammo it provides me for my long-running argument that Schitmacher belongs in the top tier of terrible film directors, and should never be allowed to work ever again.

Next up is Michael Bay, who brought us the bloated, over-the-top computer-generated epic Transformers. Now, a lot of people - even amongst the discerning hardcore nerd crowd - really liked Transformers. They thought it was fun and exciting and about the best anyone could do with material as inherently ridiculous as warring alien robots who disguise themselves as automobiles. And maybe it was, but that doesn't excuse how terrible of a movie it was. If you think I'm crazy, I'm guessing you've only seen Transformers once. In the theatres, probably. It was fun, huh? I know, I was there. I was there opening night. I saw it in one of my all-time favorite theatres, Seattle's gorgeously-remodeled Cinerama, with my two favorite people in the world and a packed house of excited nerds who laughed and cheered throughout, and damned if I didn't have a great time. It was retarded, and over-the-top to the point of absurdity, but that was what made it fun. It was so ridiculous that it was awesome, and the sensory overload of giant robots, huge explosions, hot girls, fast cars, and dumb one-liners was an absolute blast.

Then, I saw Transformers again. I saw it months later, in an empty theatre on a rainy Sunday afternoon in some boring town in England, on account of having nothing else to do with a couple friends who hadn't seen it yet. The second viewing was nothing short of painful. Free of the excitement of opening night, I was forced to actually watch the movie as a movie, and realize it was fucking awful in a way that only the tasteless, bloated ego of Michael Bay could achieve. The script was so completely God-awful... Every single shot had to be stupidly dramatic - always a crane shot, turning or zooming around its subject... There was apparently no editor, because scene after scene dragged on to uncomfortable lengths... And suddenly, the painful memories of Pearl Harbor and Armageddon and all the other suffering I'd endured over the years at the hands of Mr. Bay came rushing back, and I was renewed with fresh hatred for his awful, awful movies and his stupid, stupid face. If you've only seen Transformers once and you enjoyed it, I urge you to never see it again, lest you be beaten down with a painful dose of reality. By making Transformers, Michael Bay has joined Schumacher, Brett Ratner, and Uwe Boll in my elite group of directors who have ruined perfectly good properties with terrible films.


Worst Movie Of The Year That's Obviously A Terrible Movie:
Epic Movie


I'd like to say that there's no form of comedy lower than the movie parody genre, but then I remember that Mel Brooks and Leslie Nielsen did it pretty well in their day. In recent years, however, the moderate success of Scary Movie has paved the way for a slew of parody films which get worse and worse with each entry. 2007's embarrassing contribution is Epic Movie, a film so shitty that it needs to be acknowledged, but so shitty that it's barely worth mentioning. This is a movie that brings no joy with its shittiness. It's not so bad it's good, it's not bad in a way that pisses you off or makes you cringe or laugh... it's just.... bad. It's a movie that seems to think that by simply referencing better movies, it will be funny - nevermind that the parodies, if you can call them that, are devoid of any humor whatsoever. And with an impressive Tomatometer rating of two percent, you can be assured I'm not the only one who feels this way. But if you still need proof, here are the losers of YouTube once again bringing you the "best" moments of this disgusting waste of a film - skip ahead to the "pirate rap" if you feel like instantly losing a few IQ points:



Sadly, the retards of America awarded this film with $40 million at the box office, and another $25 million in video rentals, so it's likely you won't see the end of this ghastly series for a long time. In fact, 2008 will bring us Extreme Movie, apparently making fun of teen sex comedies. It's not helmed by the same auteurs who made Epic Movie, but it does have Jamie Kennedy in it, so I can promise you it will suck unprecedented amounts of balls.


Worst Movie Of The Year That Should Have Known Better:
Spider-Man 3


I grew up on Spider-Man comics, so I was pleasantly surprised when Sam Raimi adapted the series with style and care in the first Spider-Man movie. For anyone who complained that it was too light and colorful and corny, go back and read the comics - Spider-Man had the goofiest dialogue of any superhero comic, and even his darkest adventures were PG fare. The film captured that dorky essence wonderfully without ever dragging it into Batman & Robin camp territory, so it felt a bit awkward when the whole middle part of Spider-Man 2 bogged down with Peter Parker's internal misery. Still, a couple great action scenes with a wonderfully-realized Doctor Octopus pretty much made up for it, and it was a decent sequel. In Spider-Man 3, however, Spidey's emo angst was overwhelming - dreadfully boring and downright embarrassing. Spidey 3 is a movie that has to stew for a while before you're ready to accept just how much it sucked. Instead of trying to convey my feelings again, I'll just quote myself from six months ago: "Spider-Man 3 sucked a wet slimy ballsack. Walking out of the cinema my initial reaction was 'eh, that was pretty mediocre,' but the more I thought about it, the more I realized what a steaming turd of disappointment it actually was. Thanks to Peter Parker's whiney emo doucheness, I had to spend ninety percent of the movie looking at giant, horrifying close-ups of Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst's weird shitty faces contorted and crying (it's not just me - they are getting strangely uglier, right?), and the other ten percent lamenting how the coolest Spidey villain of all time now has the face and voice of the dweeb from That '70's Show." Indeed, Spidey 3 is an absolute mess, but its biggest crime is the potential ruined in Raimi's under-developed, underwhelming incarnation of Venom. Raimi's mistake is obsessively focusing on Parker's personal life as the character's primary conflict, which never convinces us that Spidey is battling any threats more serious than retarded relationship drama. In the next movie, how about letting Spider-Man save the city for a change, instead of just his whiny, lipless girlfriend?

Just for the memories, here's Spidey 3's most cringe-inducing scene:




The Demonbaby Embarrassing New Low In Movies Award For 2007:
Bratz: The Movie


Bad parents around the world have allowed the revolting Bratz dolls to become hugely successful amongst young girls, despite the fact that the slutty dolls encourage the very worst of what any impressionable little girl could aspire to be: A brainless, bitchy, materialistic whore. So the toy line's expansion into a well-promoted movie was particularly disheartening, and although I obviously didn't see it, I can safely give it this award based on what it represents, and the potential damage it can do to an entire generation of young people. I'll let some of the poor souls who did see the movie weigh in on it: "An excruciatingly inane high-school comedy inspired by a line of sexually suggestive dolls aimed at 9-year-olds." "For all its blather about 'letting your spirit soar,' it's really about furthering an MTV-defined version of cool, which means too many clothes, too little education, and too much money." "Shrill and shallow to putrid extremes... one of the most blatantly offensive movies ever to be aimed at young audiences."

The real message here is that parents - the ones ultimately responsible for letting their kids be exposed to this kind of filth - need to understand the abhorrent, artificial culture that's being peddled to their daughters. I'll once again quote myself, from a 2006 rant about Bratz dolls: "It's basically warming [little girls] up to start watching MTV and have their morals and intelligence beaten to a bloody pulp by the mindless, abhorrent filth MTV shoves down the throats of impressionable 14 year olds. The bottom line is that if you are a parent and you buy 'bling bling' dolls for your little girl, you're a fucking shitty parent. There is not one single thing about these toys that even remotely on any level encourages intelligence or creativity. All it does is provide kids with a very tangible goal of growing up to be vacant, shitty, wastes of oxygen." And all the same, I'm confident, can be said for the movie.