THINGS I SAW IN 2006 THAT WERE REALLY, REALLY BAD

Here are the ten movies I saw in 2006 that were so repugnant, so foul, so sucked-ballsish, and so full-on poopy that I had to single them out for non-praise. May my soulful green eyes never fall on these abominations of cinema ever again.

My Bottom Ten of 2006

1. Firewall – Maybe not the worst movie of the year, but definitely the most heartbreaking. It’s never fun to see a hero degrade, and this film was no exception. Indy 4 should not happen. I repeat, SHOULD NOT. The only thing Harrison Ford should be fighting is his elevated AARP deductibles.

2. Basic Instinct 2– What would you rather see less, Britney Spears naked or Sharon Stone naked? It’s a harder choice than you think.

3. Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man’s Chest – Wooden, overly long, bloated to the gills with excess and surface frills, cloying in a way that no film has been since Oceans Twelve, completely unnecessary and just plain mediocre. And yet it broke box office records. I will now go put on my copy of Brick and shake uncontrollably in the fetal position.

4. Date Movie – The only film that can not be helped by pressing fast forward. Nothing could make this supreme POS end faster.

5. Ultraviolet – The most disappointing film of the year for me, as I love director Kurt Wimmer’s last film, Equilibrium, and because I read the script two years ago and absolutely dug the hell out of it.

6. The Last Kiss – A film that actively tries to break up you and your significant other. If you are currently in a couple I implore you not to watch this. Yes, Rachel Bilson is exceedingly hot. Yes, the soundtrack was good. Yes, the direction was solid and the acting commendable. But no, you are not allowed to see this. Go watch The Break-Up again. At least that film tried to make you laugh a bit (and offered you a soft-focus shot of Jen Aniston’s upper butt).

7. Running Scared – Paul Walker should really stick movies that feature him either riding in cars, snow dogs or Jessica Alba.

8. Lucky Number Slevin – All the goodwill Josh Hartnett generated from killing Alexis Bledel in Sin City is yoinked for making me sit through this strung out collection of nervous filmmaker tics, five years too late Tarantino riffs, and stunt casting that was the opposite of amusing. You know you’ve done something wrong when I’m bored of watching Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley and Bruce freaking Willis do their things. That’s a murderer’s row of awesomeness right there, and yet the movie focuses on Josh Hartnett in a bath towel. Seriously, what fourteen year old girl is watching this movie? So why are you pitching to that demographic? Inexplicable.

9. Poseidon – The very definition of studio tripe. Somebody wake me when Josh Lucas does anything at all worthy of his stature.

10. My Super Ex-Girlfriend – Either Quentin Tarantino is more of a genius than we thought, or Uma Thurman is a lot dumber than we think, because no other choice explains her decision to be in this movie. Underwritten, overwrought, poorly directed, shoddily edited, cheapo special effects (the shark throw not withstanding), and the only film so far to ruin the charms of Anna Faris. Oh, and P.S., you suck Luke Wilson. Do some sit-ups, cut your hair and learn to stop mumbling your lines.

Dis-Honorable Mention: When A Stranger Calls, Hostel, A Prairie Home Companion, Underworld: Evolution, Miami Vice, Superman Returns, and Failure To Launch

I’ll post my Top Ten of 2006 next week. I had wanted to post the list before the New Year but I hadn’t seen all the films I wanted to, and didn’t feel right making an incomplete list. However, in the interest of time and significance, I will make a last ditch push this week to try to see as many unseen 2006 movies as I can, so that you, my loyal readers, will have a true and complete list. Because I know how important it is to you all that I join the fat ton legion of online entertainment writers who post a Top Ten of 2006. I have to be a part of that kind of irrelevance.

Here’s what I still have left to see. Anything I should just skip?

World Trade Center, Little Miss Sunshine, Flags of our Fathers, Letters From Iwo Jima, The Black Dahlia, Marie Antionette, Running With Scissors, A Scanner Darkly, Catch A Fire, Fur, A Good Year, Come Early Morning, Happy Feet, Bobby, For Your Consideration, Blood Diamond, Pursuit of Happyness, We Are Marshall, The Good German and Shepherd, Children of Men, Dreamgirls, Notes on a Scandal, Miss Potter and Eragon (just kidding on that last one, I’m not ever seeing that POS)

Wow, that’s a pretty long list. Kinda makes me feel like I haven’t seen anything at all this year. At least I saw Rocky Balboa. Everything else is whatever.

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THINGS I AM DOING THAT ARE COOL AND ARE PROMOTING AND YOU MUST THEREFORE PAY STRICT ATTENTION TO (SERIOUSLY, THIS IS IMPORTANT)

If you haven’t noticed the PopLoad picture ad in the sidebar, now’s the time. Click on it, or on the one to the right, to be taken to the homepage of PopLoad, a live, interactive, streaming internet radio show. It’s produced by NowInLa.com, and those nice people have asked me to host the show. Every Monday and Wednesday from 8-9pm PST you can go to NowInLa.com and hear me expound on TV, stupid celebrities, inane Hollywood decisions and various other totally important areas of pop culture. Not only can you listen to the show online, but you can talk to me on a chat board while I host and post pictures and video. It’s a communal radio experience. Your posted thoughts and pictures and videos affect what we talk about. If I’m on a tangent about La Lohan’s latest coke-induced T-Mobile Sidekick opus, and you drop a Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon challenge on the board, I will stop everything to respond to the challenge. If you say something particularly witty I will make notice of it on the air. If you’ve ever wanted to rip me for something I wrote, here’s your chance (hint hint, Orlando Bloom fans). And if you become a great contributor online, I might even ask to interview you live on the air, via-phone.

It’s gonna be a great show and fantastic companion to TheJay.com. I hope you all tune in and I look forward to talking to you on the boards. Thanks for listening.

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THINGS TO LOOK AT THIS WEEK

• I’m glad to live in a world where Conan O’Brien is allowed to give birth to a glorious idea called HornyManatee.com.

• Now this is an Aaron Sorkin show I can REALLY get behind.

• After his full-on tuttleness in The Departed I’ll follow Mark Wahlberg anywhere. This looks like a good place to start.

• This is a really interesting idea. I’ll figure out mine and post it next week.

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THINGS I DON’T KNOW

• I don’t know why all the guests on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson always seem to be great friends with the genial Scottish host (and therefore having much more fun than normally goes on over at Leno or Letterman), but I like it just the same. Back you cheeky monkeys! Hee.

• I’m not entirely sure that Ben Stiller didn’t sell his soul to the comedy devil many years back so that he could hypnotize the world with his ape-like facial features and spastic, wild-eyed neuroses tantrums. And even though I can’t prove it, I think he’s responsible for some evil reverse-karma going around. How else can you explain James Brown dying on the same day that Night at the Museum opened number one at the box office? It was Stiller’s yearly talent sacrifice to the comedy devil. Let’s pray he doesn’t make another Meet the Parents sequel, my Mom would be devastated that he took Rod Stewart before the man could record his eleventy-billionth American rock standards record.

• I can’t quite put my finger on why Dane Cook is so successful, whilst David Cross is still a fringe comedian, but I think it has something to do with the majority of America being supremely stupid.

• I don’t know why I suddenly hate Zach Braff and all that he stands for, but who am I to question my dramatic emotional pop culture mood swings? I think it’s possible he enrages me so much because he makes movies where he gets to make out with the hottest brunettes in show business but spends the other 89 minutes and 24 seconds whining about it. Plus, Best Week Ever totally agrees with me.

• I don’t know why it took me so long to find Arrested Development, but by GOB am I glad I finally did. The Bluth family and their wacky dysfunction cracks my shit up something fierce. Great writing, superb acting (the best cast on television since Seinfeld), and a pitch perfect satire of corporate shenanigans. If Jason Bateman’s new movie didn’t happen to star Zach Braff (who gets to whine about making out with Amanda Peet this time… though he may have a point), I might be inclined to say nice things about it and even shill out the kaysh to see it on the big screen. That’s how loyal I have become to the cast of Arrested Development. I’ve started watching Ellen since she’s currently lady-banging Lindsay Bluth (my favorite part of the show is how dismissive she is with her guests when their interview is over. It’s like you can feel how much she hates being a product shill. Leno could learn a lot from here. Though not the dancing.). AD has even made me a fan of Ron Howard, something A Beautiful Mind tried so hard to stop.

• The show is so good I’m actually sad that I only have five more episodes left to watch in the series. Now I’ll have to go back to watching stupid Scrubs, with stupid Zach Braff (who’s been spending this season whining about being with Elizabeth Banks. Will this guy’s pussiness never cease?). I hate my obsessive need too watch an entire show’s run on DVD in the shortest amount of time possible. Damn my need to finish things!

• Here’s a clip of the greatness of Arrested Development. Cue “The Final Countdown”.

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THINGS I DO FOR MY FRIENDS

• Your welcome, Mike Galvez.

• If anyone has a copy of this poster, my boy Tim will pay real money for it.

• This is what I got my best friend for Hanukkah. Am I a friend, or what? Come On!

• By the way, this is quite possibly the best game ever invented by humans. I implore you to play this game. Not only can you play as Rocky as he fights his way through the series, but you can also play Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang and Ivan Drago in career mode. Apollo sports a hugemongous afro, Clubber fights in the ghetto, and Drago fights in a Russian pipe factory. It. Is. Awesome.

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THINGS I RESOLVE TO DO

Since those glorious bastards at BestWeekEver.tv got there first, I won’t be running my planned “Celebrity New Year’s Resolutions” post. But I do have a few personal pop culture-related resolutions I’d like to share with you.

• I resolve to watch all unseen Steven Spielberg movies. The list includes: Empire of the Sun, 1941, Sugarland Express, and the interminable second half of Amistad.

• I resolve to makes fun of Lindsay Lohan less, and Reese Witherspoon more.

• I resolve to do a panty check before I leave the house, in honor of the patron saint of internet celebrivagitude, Britney Spears.

• I resolve to see 150 movies in theaters this year. And hopefully at least two of them will star the totally tuttle Isla Fisher (a.k.a. the crazy chick from Wedding Crashers)

• I resolve to launch “Movie ObscuriTees”, my long in-development line of pop culture-influenced T-shirts. More on this as the year develops.

• I resolve to watch every episode of Battlestar Galactica. I have never seen even five minutes of one episode, and apparently that makes me an asshole of a geek. So I’m gonna get right on that.

• I resolve to post at least one extended piece on the rise and fall of the mighty (and currently orca fat) Val Kilmer. (who should not, I repeat, NOT, make Real Genius 2. I’m not kidding about this. I will hunt you down and sock you in the nuts if you ruin the legacy of that great 80’s flick. I will be your fucking Huckleberry.)

• I resolve to reduce my MySpace.com time by half.

• I resolve to post a sequel to my Keanu Reeves piece titled “Ben Affleck is NOT a Tool, And I Can Prove It”.

• I resolve to post more, and on time.

… just kidding on that last one. We all know that’s never going to happen.

Happy New Year, everybody! Stick around in 2007, I’m just getting warmed up…

Bangarang!