The top six most overrated things from Hollywood and the pop culture uniiverse: 2008 edition

When I made my list of the 12 most overrated things in movies for 2007, I knew that I wanted to do this for each year following. Unfortunately, one way or another, I kept getting distracted, and instead of posting such a list during or shortly after Awards Season, I now find myself making my list at long last. This one is only half as long as the list for 2007. But does that mean that 2008 was a better year for film and pop culture than 2007? Not exactly. But regardless of which year was better or worse, 2008 somehow managed to provide fewer things worthy of being on this list. What are they? Some of the picks may surprise you, especially the first one. So, without further delay, here are:

The Top 6 Most Overrated Films, Performances, and Pop Culture Sensations of 2008:

6. The Dark Knight: I’ve said it before and I’ll gladly say it again: I love Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight”. The direction, the editing, the acting, the whole nine yards. So why would I put my recently decided favorite film of 2008 on this list? It comes down to one word: fanboys. Rabid, psychotic, blinded fanboys. It’s one thing to be really passionate about a film that you love. Why shouldn’t you be? But there are limits, and the hardcore Dark Knight fanboys crossed the line many times. Crime #1? Labeling the film as one of, if not THE greatest film/s EVER made. While I understand how this could be a person’s first reaction (it’s a larger than life, overwhelming movie), on closer inspection, the label of “One of the greatest EVER” is a bit much (though apparently that never bothered Ben Lyons…). If you want to call it one of your favorites, that’s fine, but when you immediately dismiss the countless other brilliant films from this decade alone, it’s easy to think that you’ve got a screw or two loose. Really, my only complaint is Bale’s Batman voice, but it’s still a complaint. No movie, not one, as hard as that is to believe, is perfect. There may not be glaring flaws, but rest assured, no matter how easy they may be to miss or ignore, in some way, they’re there. But the lowest moment of Dark Knight fandom actually wasn’t the superlative labels. Nope, it was the madness that ensued after it failed to snag a Best Picture nom. Now, in a way, I was right there with some of the crazies, but to claim that this one instance totally INVALIDATES the Oscars? The Joker himself would probably cackle and say “Why so serious?” at such lunacy. Plenty of great movies have gotten the shaft when it came to nomination time, and The Dark Knight just happens to be the latest member of that unfortunate circle. Even so, it still scored EIGHT nominations, and WON two of those, including Ledger’s richly deserved award. Instead of gritting their teeth and recognizing the remarkable achievement it was for a comic book movie to do THIS WELL in awards season, the hardcore wackos simply went overboard, trashing all of the best picture nominees, or at least going overboard in finding faults with them. Nothing suffered more than The Reader, which, in retrospect, was probably the film that got The Dark Knight’s spot, if we assume it got the sixth most votes from Academy voters, and while I don’t think The Reader should have been in the lineup, there are limits to how far one goes in trashing a film in blind rage. Instead of being supportive but also respectful, the fanboys gave the rest of us who loved The Dark Knight a bad name that we’re still trying to get rid of. It’s a level of chaos that the Joker himself would have been proud of…and that’s not a good thing.

5. The Disastrous Duo: Brad Pitt and Taraji P. Henson in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button": Okay, the word “disastrous” is a bit much, but I was in the mood for some alliteration. So why did I pick these two performances from one of the most unfortunately popular best picture nominees in recent years? Because they fell totally flat. Let’s start with Pitt. In my Inglourious Basterds review, I criticized Pitt for being cartoony and not blending into the movie. In Benjamin Button, it’s the exact opposite problem.Yes, Benjamin is supposed to be something of an “observer”; he doesn’t cause things to happen, things happen to and around him or people he knows. But even so, did Pitt have to be SO bland? He barely, if ever changed expressions (and the subtlety excuse won’t work here), transforming a protagonist saddled with a compelling psychological and physical dilemma into a central figure who, frankly, is rather boring. Not a good thing for a film that runs close to three hours. As for Ms. Henson, she actually gets a range of emotions to display, but there’s no nuance. This sort of role may have been acceptable in the days of “Gone with the Wind” and Butterfly McQueen, but in today’s world? Not so much. The worst part is when Benjamin returns home, to discover that Queenie is dead. It would have been meaningful, but we’re learning about the death of a cardboard cut out character and seeing the reactions of a bland protagonist. Not exactly movie magic. And yet somehow these two got nominations over the much better Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, and even Julia Ormond who barely had anything to do. Something is rotten in the land of Hollywood.

4. "Wanted": I had a feeling that Wanted would develop a fanbase in the weeks after its release. After all, it plays like the mentally deficient offspring of Fight Club and the Matrix. So why is it on here? Because, astoundingly, the critics liked it too, which baffles me. Despite a few good, tongue in cheek scenes, everything else is either totally over the top or ridiculously DUMB and inconsistent (the Fraternity’s motto is that by ending one life, you can save 1000, yet they have no problem or deep regrets when one of their operations ends with a train falling into a VALLEY filled with civilians). Topping it all off? The 360-degree bullet. We knew from the trailer that the film would boast some physics-defying fire power, and some of it was actually pretty cool, but the final bullet just jumped the shark by so many miles, that it was hard not to pull a Homer Simpson and exclaim “D’oh!” For those who haven’t seen the movie, here’s what I’m talking about…(CLICK)

3. Angelina Jolie in "Changeling": Yup, she’s back folks. But what makes this worse than her work in A mighty Heart, is that this time she actually snagged a nomination! While the suffering mother role is one the Academy loves, why did it have to be this one? She cries, she screams, and she cries some more, made worse by those moments when the score starts playing to let us know what to feel. In the end it’s not a bad performance, but it’s just a rather hollow one. She can cry and scream all she wants, but if there’s no depth, then it’s not even worth the price of admission, let alone a free ticket to the Oscar ceremony.

2. Sean Penn in "Milk" (please don't kill me): This one took me a while to come to terms with. While I certainly didn’t think that Sean Penn was GREAT in Milk, I still thought he was good, and if you look back at my personal nominations for 08, he’s in my best actor roster. So why did I feel extremely miffed when he won the Oscar? Well, after locking myself into a Cave of Meditation (for 10 minutes…yeah, I’m deep) the lightbulb went off and I knew why: I felt like I could see Penn acting. For an actor who is often praised for “becoming” his characters, I found his work here to be distracting. Every little gesture, every vocal inflection, I felt like I was seeing a work in progress (and a mechanical work in progress at that). As a whole, the performance simply didn't flow together. Maybe if I see the film again in a year or two I’ll change my mind, but for now, I have to place Mr. Penn’s performance on this list. It’s distracting enough that I don’t have enough rage to direct at the spectacularly overrated supporting cast, or the film itself, which is saying something


And the number one offender from 2008 is....*drumroll*

1. The “Twilight” phenomenon: Why is this schlock so totally popular? Whether film or book, this thing is filled with stupidity. Now, I have no problem with people liking the books for what they are: silly, gooey, fluff. But when fans starting touting them as “the next Harry Potter,” the vein in my forehead starts to bulge, and it isn’t pretty. There are so many wonderfully witty articles dedicated to dissecting the silliness of this franchise, so I’ll try my best to condense some of their points. First: The Writing. Easily the underlying problem to just about everything else wrong with this series is Stephenie Meyer’s prose, which at times is exceedingly purple (though never as bad as Christopher Paolini’s Eragon series). Having skimmed a copy owned by some cousins (who like the books but acknowledge them for the fluff that they are) it seems that Ms. Meyer can’t go two pages without mentioning how Edward’s (the vampire love interest) eyes “smolder”. They smolder in gold and amber, and all variety of yellow based colors, which makes me think that Edward’s sockets are inhabited not by eyes, but by kaleidoscopes. Worse, in addition to bludgeoning her readers with the same empty adjectives, she likes to use more adjectives than necessary. To paraphrase one such overwrought passage, “He lay there perfectly still, his muscled bare torso sparkling like some unknown material: smooth and cold like marble, glittering like crystal.” No, that’s not overwrought at all. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that passage. You are a true artist with words Ms. Meyer. Cormac McCarthy doesn’t have sh*t on you.

Problem #2: Sparkling vampires. I’m sorry, I think my brain just malfunctioned. Surely I’m getting something wrong. Hmm…nope. I’m not. The vampires, when hit by sunlight, instead of reeling in pain, SPARKLE. And this is somehow supposed to make Edward darkly alluring? Because he sparkles? What exactly is so intimidating or alluring about a man who sparkles? Common knowledge would seem to indicate that if a man sparkles and does nothing to change it, he probably isn’t interested in girls. Girls…that reminds me… Problem #3, the Protagonist: Bella Swan. First problem, she’s a classic Gary Stu (or in her case, Mary Sue). So what’s a Stu/Sue? It’s a lead character that is either A) a vague idealized version of the author, or B) a character so blank and uninteresting and lacking in identity that desperate readers can transfer themselves onto this bland canvas, instead of learning about a defined, multidimensional, interesting character. Bella Swan’s (Bella swan…Beautiful Swan…GET IT?) most interesting trait? She’s “adorably” klutzy. That’s it. Other than that, she’s kind of a bore, and a pretentious one at that: “The reading list [for school] was fairly basic: Bronte, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, I’d read them all already.” And though she describes herself as being plain, awkward, and shy, she becomes the most sought after girl in school after what feels like a week. It only gets better. In the second book (New Moon), Edward feels that he needs to leave after an incident where his brother tries to attack Bella after being attracted to the smell of her blood when she gets a paper cut. So what happens when dear perfect sparkling Edward leaves? Bella’s whole life unravels. I’m not exaggerating. At some point she tries riding a motorcycle off a cliff, all because some guy who sparkles left her. And then, to get out of having to write scenes that explore the mental state of her protagonist, Ms. Meyer “cleverly” has pages written with only the name of a month. Bella is so distraught, that a month goes by without anything of remote importance because OH NOES, MY SPARKLY BOYFRIEND IS GONE!! Y’know instead of focusing on school (although she probably doesn’t need to try in school because she’s sooooooooo intellectual) or trying to make new friends (again, based on what’s been said earlier, this shouldn’t be hard), she just sulks around. Really Ms. Meyer, are you serious? This is supposed to be your protagonist, someone who’s supposed to be something of a role model for tween girls, and yet you’re saying that if your boyfriend leaves you should just give up on life? How is this remotely healthy? You’ve basically just set feminism back a century or two. Hell, Jane Austen wrote more progressive female leads back in her day.
But the one moment in this unfortunately popular series that tops them all in awfulness comes in the fourth book. Having finally been married, Bella and Edward finally get horizontal with each other, and she becomes pregnant with his human/vampire spawn. First off, if the vampires’ bodily fluids have all be replaced with their “venom”, how can the sparkly one impregnate Bella? Even better, the spawn grows so fast that Bella begins showing after barely 3 weeks, and is ready to pop a few weeks after that. Oh, wait, we’re not even close to the “best” part, because nothing…NOTHING can compare to the insanity that arrives when Bella has to give birth. The spawn has gotten so big that as it’s coming out it breaks Bella’s ribs and pelvis, and even threatens to kill Bella. So what does good ole’ McSparkles do? He runs over and uses his fangs to help get the baby out. Let me repeat. He uses his FANGS to help give birth. Bloody, pelvis-shattering, torn-flesh-including, birth that basically amounts to an oral C-section. Y’know…for TWEENS!
So at the end of the day, the most popular literary phenomenon for tween girls is a story about a bland, weak, backwards girl who falls in love with a guy who has taken relationship advice from the Abusive Guy’s Handbook, and falls apart when he leaves, even if it’s for her own good? And making it worse, in the same year that the film version of “Twilight” descended upon us, a much better vampire flick “Let the Right One In” only raked in a few million dollars at most, and is now being faced with the ultimate insult: an English language big budget remake. Is sparkling the future of vampires? Bela Lugosi is rolling over in his grave. I won’t post any direct clips from “Twlight”. Instead, I’ll let the geniuses at Rifftrax do it for me. I’ve seen this video several times and I crack up each time; that “Twin Peaks” reference is sheer brilliance.