12 months, 10 really awful flicks

By Desson Thomson
Washington Post

I could never see my way into a new year without saluting — in a humble, vicious way — the previous year's masterworks in idiocy. As always, the competition for this list was intimidating.

1. "She Hate Me." Spike Lee's altitudinous self-confidence has given us such great films as "She's Gotta Have It" and "Do the Right Thing." But this Serious Movie lacked what Ernest Hemingway once termed the necessary gift for a writer: "a built-in, shockproof (guess the word) detector."

2. "Catwoman." I thought cats always landed on their feet, until I saw Halle Berry's performance as the feline superhero.

3. "The Alamo." Forget it.

4. "Surviving Christmas." Another year, another Ben Affleck turkey. I already have a special spot for him on next year's list. I can't imagine he'll let me down.

5. "Wimbledon." This romance between aging tennis pro Paul Bettany and the up-and-coming ingenue Kirsten Dunst was a prolonged double fault.

6. "Silver City." John Sayles is like the little girl with the curl. When he's good, he's very, very good. But when he's bad, he's horrid. This satire about a doofus Colorado gubernatorial candidate and his evil backers was horridissimo. (Editor's note: This film has not opened in Honolulu; it will be screened at the Doris Duke Theatre, Honolulu Academy of Arts, Jan. 20-25.)

7. "The Village." M. Night Shyamalan's downward spiral from "The Sixth Sense" to this misbegotten mystery thriller is the kind of free fall that would render the most battle-tested of F-15 pilots unconscious.

8. "Thunderbirds." This revamping of a cult British marionette TV show of the 1960s into live-action with American teen-agers had one telling similarity with the original: The actors were, indeed, wooden puppets.

9. "De-Lovely." This was meant to be a teary-eyed tribute, in which an aging Cole Porter (Kevin Kline) looks back over his de-lovelier earlier years with long-suffering wife, Linda Lee. But in the end, it's about Kline remembering scenes in the movie when he didn't have to wear old-man makeup.

10. "Raise Your Voice." Sure, there are those who don't think of Hilary Duff as a corporate package of cheesy mediocrity. I envy their bliss.