2004 may have been the Year of the Foxx (Jamie, that is) but 2005 has certainly turned out to be a breakout year for Terrence Howard. The versatile thespian received rave reviews for his powerful performances in a half-dozen feature films, most notably, Crash, Hustle & Flow, Animal and Four Brothers.

He also appeared in Get Rich or Die Tryin’ and The Salon, and a couple of made-for-TV movies, Lackawanna Blues and Their Eyes Were Watching God. Just like Jamie, he has a shot at landing Oscar nominations in both the lead (for Hustle & Flow) and supporting (for Crash) actor categories.

But Terrence wasn’t the only brother or sister in the industry to distinguish him or herself, so for better or worse. So without further ado, in the interest of celebrating excellence and of eradicating mediocrity in movies, permit me to present Blacktrospective 2005, an annual report card which shines a light on black overachievement and underachievement in cinema.


Best Black Films of 2005
1. Crash
2. Coach Carter
3. Hustle & Flow
4. Hitch
5. The Gospel
6. Four Brothers
7. G
8. The Reception
9. Guess Who
10. In the Mix


Documentaries
1. The Vanishing Black Male
2. Calypso Dreams
3. The Untold Story of Emmett Till
4. Emmanuel’s Gift
5. After Innocence
6. Darwin’s Nightmare
7. Aristide and the Endless Revolution
8. Congo: White King, Red Rubber, Black Death
9. Mad Hot Ballroom
10. The Swenkas


Best Actors
1. Terrence Howard (Crash, Animal, Hustle & Flow, Four Brothers)
2. Samuel L. Jackson (Coach Carter)
3. Clifton Powell (The Gospel)
4. Will Smith (Hitch)
5. Ving Rhames (Animal)
6. Larenz Tate (Crash)
7. Blair Underwood (G)
8. Boris Kodjoe (The Gospel)
9. Ludacris (Crash)
10. Bernie Mac (Guess Who)


Best Actresses
1. Thandie Newton (Crash)
2. Wanda Sykes (Monster-in-Law)
3. Taraji Henson (Hustle & Flow, Four Brothers, Animal)
4. Paula Jai Parker (Hustle & Flow, Animal)
5. Tamyra Gray (The Gospel)
6. Zoe Saldana (Guess Who)
7. Nona Gaye (The Gospel)
8. Wendy Raquel Robinson (Rebound)
9. Dianne Reeves (Good Night, and Good Luck)
10. Gabrielle Union (The Honeymooners)


Best Directors
1. Hisani Dubose (The Vanishing Black Male)
2. Thomas Carter (Coach Carter)
3. Keith Beauchamp (The Untold Story of Emmett Till)
4. Rob Hardy (The Gospel)
5. John Singleton (Four Brothers)
6. Christopher Scott Cherot (G)
7. Kevin Rodney Sullivan (Guess Who)
8. Angela Robinson (Herbie: Fully Loaded)
9. Tim Story (Fantastic Four)
10. Billie Woodruff (Beauty Shop)


Worst Movies
1. Get Rich or Die Tryin’
2. Roll Bounce
3. The Man
4. King’s Ransom
5. Death of a Dynasty


Worst Actors
1. 50 Cent (Get Rich or Die Tryin’)
2. The Rock (Be Cool)
3. Bow Wow (Roll Bounce)
4. Ice Cube (XXX 2, Are We There Yet?)
5. Chris Rock (The Longest Yard)


Worst Actresses
1. Tyler Perry (Diary of a Mad Black Woman)
2. Regina Hall (Miss Congeniality 2, King’s Ransom)
3. Rosario Dawson (Sin City)
4. Nia Long (Are We There Yet?)
5. Kimberly Elise (Diary of a Mad Black Woman)


Note: Thanks to fellow film critic Wilson Morales of BlackFilm.com for his very valuable assistance in researching this article, although all the lists strictly reflect the opinion of Kam Williams.

Aeon Flux
****
Charlize Theron as Spandex Assassin
in Futuristic, Female Empowerment Flick

According to conventional cinematic wisdom, it’s supposed to be a tip-off that a picture is a turkey when the studio doesn’t invite the critics to screen it in advance of its theatrical release. However, Aeon Flux, a live-action version of the short-lived MTV animated series of the same name, is one noteworthy exception to that general rule. Its mind-bending, sci-fi plotline is actually more engaging than that of your average futuristic adventure.

The highly-stylized original, ostensibly inspired by Japanese anime, revolved around the surreal exploits of an amoral, sexually-ambiguous assassin whose motives and mating habits the show left utterly unexplained. Furthermore, the scantily-clad secret agent also perishes at the end of every TV episode, ala the character Kenny McCormick in Comedy Central’s South Park cartoons.

Charlize Theron as Aeon Flux

The movie, only loosely based on the source material, marks the sophomore offering from Karyn Kusama, whose first film, Girlfight, was another high-impact, female empowerment flick. Oscar-winner Charlize Theron (for Monster) manages to do a decent job in her action-heroine debut, here, despite the fact that she sustained a trampoline injury on the set less than a month into shooting on location in Berlin during August of 2004. The production had to be halted indefinitely till Theron’s return a couple of months later, at which juncture she was not allowed to do any more of her own stunt work.

This 25th Century morality play takes place inside the antiseptic city of Bregna, a walled-in, virtual utopia which contains what’s left of humanity since the devastating virus which has eliminated 99 percent of the world’s population since it’s outbreak about four hundred years earlier. On faith, the practically catatonic citizens of Bregna abide by the dictates of Trevor Goodchild (Narton Csokas), a benevolent despot who rules with an iron fist and an all-seeing dirigible-like contraption which floats over his kingdom.

But mixed amidst his blissfully-unaware subjects are the Monicans, a sect of insurgents, led by Handler (Frances McDormand), who have come to question whether Trevor really has their best interests at heart. The spandex-suited, generously-cleavaged Aeon is assigned to assassinate Trevor, with the assistance of her faithful, equally fetching protégé, Sithandra (Sophie Okonedo), a fembot programmed to kill without question.

Between their skimpy outfits and the equally-sparse, angular modernistic architecture around Bregna’s environs, Aeon Flux provides a visually stimulating experience from start to finish. And for all its early, otherworldly pretensions, it eventually settles down to relate a readily digestible, if implausible, cautionary tale, one laced with enough surprises to keep you engaged throughout.

Though sci-fi devotees might note that this description sounds a lot like that of The Island, this summer’s bells-and-whistles blockbuster from Michael Bay, rest assured that this movie’s twists and turns are unique and ultimately just as thought-provoking and satisfying. An impressive display of estrogen unleashed.

Rating: PG-13 for sexuality and sci-fi violence.
Running time: 95 minutes
Distributor: Paramount Pictures

Parke's Place
The Evan Parke Interview with Kam Williams

Born in Kingston, Jamaica on January 2, 1968, but raised in Brooklyn, Evan Dexter Parke was a senior majoring in economics at Cornell University when he decided to take his first course in theater. Bitten by the acting bug, Evan subsequently enrolled at the prestigious Yale School of Drama where he earned a Master’s degree before landing a recurring role on a couple of daytime soap operas in New York City, All My Children and As the World Turns.

Next, he headed to Hollywood where he graduated to prime-time TV, making appearances on such shows as Alias, One-on-One and Charmed. He made his big screen debut in 1999 in The Cider House Rules, following that up with stellar work in The Replacements, Planet of the Apes, and, more recently, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

Evan Parke

Here, he discusses his latest role as First Mate Hayes aboard the S.S. Venture, the Singapore-bound steamship which encounters King Kong on Skull Island.

KW: Why was I not surprised that, once again, the brother is the first to die in a horror flick?

EP: [Chuckles] Why were you not surprised?

KW: Yeah, it’s like a running joke to knock of the Black guy first.

EP: Actually, I wasn’t the first to die. I was one of the first. And I died for a good cause.

KW: Still, why was I not surprised at your early demise?

EP: Why were you not surprised?

KW: Yeah.

EP: You were not surprised, because you were not surprised. [Laughs]

KW: What interested you in the role?

EP: There was a method to my madness, when I found out about it. When I got the sheets for King Kong, I found out Peter Jackson was directing it, and I got excited. I get amped when it’s like one of the best people. I just go in there with everything. And the fact that it was a period piece excited me.

KW: What did you like about the script?

EP: There was no script, but it was King Kong with Peter Jackson of Lord of the Rings. And I love period pieces, because I did The Cider House Rules.

KW: How did you land the role?

EP: When I got the call to meet them at the Beverly Hills Hotel, I came in there clean, in a suit, because in my mind, I wanted to present a certain image. I came in to the audition prepared, of course. And I also had a reel, and the first thing on my reel was a period thing I’d done. I really wanted the opportunity to work with the best, and when it happened I was very grateful. But that was kind of my process.

KW: How did you feel about the depiction of the menacing aborigines in this movie?

EP: If you’re asking me about their ethnicity, the intention was for them to be obscure. So, they weren’t real people. They were just a creation of some indigenous people who were inbred and had not seen anyone else. There’s no one on the planet anyone should be able to connect them to. They were a very obscure, imagined, created, fictional group. And they were meant to be menacing.

KW: Were you worried that some people might find them offensive?

EP: We did have that discussion, and that was taken into consideration, because this was based on the 1933 version. That’s why it was all done in such a way that this obscure tribe was created. The movie wasn’t targeting any people.

KW: What was Peter Jackson like?

EP: Working with Peter on the set was great, but you have to understand the environment that was created for each one of us while we were there. Not just the actors, but even the crew. We had a great team. When you’re talking about leadership, everything flows from the top down. In the organization of this film, everything went well. You found every race and creed, and people were a priority. That supportive environment he created was the catalyst for us to create and give the audience what you experience when you sit down and see King Kong. So, working with him was more than just the acting and the images.

KW: Why do you think he decided to remake King Kong?

EP: It was Peter’s childhood dream to make this movie, so he was very invested in it.

KW: Did you always stick to the script or were you encouraged to improvise?

EP: Some days, you’d walk in and Peter would give you something new to help you nail what you were looking for. It was like, "Oh, okay, that works."

KW: How was it working in front of a blue screen?

EP: I liked how that opened up so much room for play. I found myself going back to my acting school notes from Acting 101, "given circumstances," "imaging," and stuff like that. It was a lot of fun because that’s where you really get tested and challenged in your craft, when you don’t have anything there, and you have to create it, and it has to impact you.

KW: What did you think of Naomi Watts’s performance?

EP: She’s a trooper, because that role is physical. She’s not a big woman. I have the utmost respect for her because she gives it her all, and you see it.

King Kong
**
Lackluster, Labored Remake Little More
Than Three-Hour Endurance Test

Maybe it was a bad idea to give Peter Jackson all those Oscars for Lord of the Rings, because it seems only to have emboldened the gifted New Zealander to mount another interminable, special effects-driven spectacular which devotes too much attention to computer-generated enhancement at the expense of plot, dialogue, motivation, and character development. Unfortunately, while this faithful remake of King Kong easily overshadows the original in terms of technical wizardry, it still suffers from the same limitations in terms of its storyline, which is where the 1933 classic really could have used an overhaul.

This version features Oscar-nominee Naomi Watts (for 21 Grams) in scream queen Fay Wray’s role as aspiring actress Ann Darrow. The typecast Watts has previously played this sort of struggling thespian a few times before, most notably in Mulholland Drive and Ellie Parker.

King Kong

Oscar-winner Adrien Brody (for The Pianist) co-stars as scriptwriter Jack Driscoll, Ann’s love interest, while Jack Black provides a little comic relief as maniacal moviemaker Carl Denham. You need plenty of sacrificial lamb in any high-attrition horror flick, so rounding out the ensemble cast are Kyle Chandler as self-assured actor Bruce Baxter, Thomas Kretschmann as Captain Englehorn, Evan Parke as first mate Hayes, Jamie "Billy Elliot" Bell as cabin boy Jimmy, Lobo Chan as Choy, and Andy Serkis doing double-duty both as Lumpy the Cook and as Kong himself.

Set during The Great Depression, the adventure unfolds against the backdrop of a bustling New York City blessed with a decidedly Art Deco décor at every turn. After the obligatory tone-setting opening, we find Ann dancing in a vaudeville chorus line, blissfully unaware that she is about to lose her job.

Then, after the theater closes unexpectedly, she is left with no legitimate means of support and contemplates compromising her values by stripping in a burlesque show. But Ann is saved by a fortuitous encounter with Carl, a slippery character who gets the gullible girl to sign on as the leading lady in his action flick about to be shot in the Far East. Similarly, the fledgling filmmaker tricks Jack to board the ominously-christened S.S. Venture. In fact, not even the stoked steamship’s motley crew is aware of Carl’s true intentions, namely, to search for the ruins of a primitive civilization said to be located on an uncharted island somewhere in the South Seas.

With over three hours to fill, Peter Jackson takes his sweet time arriving at scary Skull Island. So, expect to be checking your watch and dozing off a lot during the interminable build-up. And unless you’re the type of cine-snob that enjoys clever homages to other movies, you’d also best brace yourself to be annoyed by endless allusions to Titanic, Tarzan, E.T., Moby Dick, The Seven Year Itch, Beauty and the Beast, The Jazz Singer, Heart of Darkness, The African Queen, Jurassic Park, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Passion of the Christ, The Lord of the Rings and King Kong versus Godzilla, to name a few.

For instance, when a Nestle’s chocolate bar is extended as a conversational ice breaker, it is oh so reminiscent of how Henry lured E.T. home with a trail of Reese’s Pieces. It’s bad enough that a prominent ad placement would arrive at a very dramatic moment, but it’s worse when that scene is itself just an unimaginative rip-off. A bona fide blockbuster ought to have more going for it than clever references to other pictures.

Another faux pas of the film involves its ridiculous reliance on a blue screen. This resulted in take-after-take of wide-eyed actors, especially Mr. Black, captured with the look of utter bewilderment of someone obviously playing against invisible creatures and sets that had to be added later via the magic of digital technology.

Since the original King Kong was shot during less enlightened times, one might reasonably expect the current characterization of the aborigines the expedition encounters on Skull Island to reflect the tolerance called for in these days of diversity and multi-culturalism. But no, this picture’s natives, played by actors of every ethnicity but in blackface, are presented every bit as uncivilized as previously, as wild savages more challenging to tame than Kong.

Overall, this lackluster cure for insomnia might have been more palatable without so many distracting digressions and pared down to a manageable ninety minutes or so. As is, by the time the monkey business you’re waiting for finally arrives, it’s so anti-climactic don’t be surprised to find yourself impatient for the famous Empire State Building finale that’s still over an hour away.

Zzzz… Zzzz… Zzzz…

Rating: PG-13 for frightening images and disturbing horror violence)
Running time: 187 minutes
Distributor: Universal Pictures

Syriana
***
Over-Plotted Political Potboiler
Ultimately Unsatisfying

George Clooney gets an A for effort for taking a steep salary cut before gaining an unflattering 30 pounds to make this timely political potboiler, especially since his ill-advised decision to handle his own stunts would backfire badly. For the staging of a fight scene on the set left the dedicated actor crippled by excruciating back pain and severe headaches for which he underwent a couple of corrective spinal surgeries.

So, one would hope that Clooney’s commitment above and beyond the call of duty would result in a movie masterpiece which matched his level of devotion to the project. But unfortunately, despite all the early Oscar consideration buzz presently surrounding Syriana, the film fails to measure up to its hype.

Syriana

What makes this overly-ambitious espionage thriller even more of a disappointment is the fact that it was written and directed by Stephen Gaghan, 2001’s Academy Award-winner for his spellbinding script adaptation of the equally-elliptical Traffic. That examination of the international drug trade had lots of loose ends which eventually resolved themselves rather satisfactorily. This less expertly crafted adventure, on the other hand, is a scatter-plotted brain overload likely to have you scratching your head as you exit up the aisle.

For one can’t help but feel cheated after closely following a convoluted fact pattern for over two hours only to realize that you still can’t fit the pieces of the confounding, cinematic jigsaw puzzle together. In this instance, don’t be surprised to find yourself wondering whether you might have missed a critical clue and therefore be tempted to try a second screening to comprehend it all fully.

Whether the result of a design flaw or a deliberate cinematic contrivance, Syriana’s confusion is further exacerbated by the cumbersome cast of shallow characters who inhabit the murky waters of this hyper-kinetic Persian Gulf oil saga of greed and corruption. From inscrutable Arab sheiks to back-stabbing double-agents to misguided Muslim fanatics to shady lobbyists to bungling bureaucrats to crooked captains of industry, the dizzyingly paced production never pauses long enough to imbue these simplistically drawn archetypes with enough depth to allow the audience to invest in them emotionally.

So, instead of sorting out the good guys from the bad, Syriana stays thickly saturated from start to finish with insinuation and innuendo, pretentiously taking on an air of self-importance which presumes for itself a never earned level of sophistication. Shot primarily on some visually-striking locations around the Middle East, the film weaves a complicated web of intrigue revolving around the ruthless competition for control of the region’s oil industry.

At the point of departure, we find CIA Agent Bob Barnes (Clooney) in Iran where a bungled covert operation leaves a rocket launcher in the wrong hands. In a neighboring, oil rich country we witness the simmering tensions between Prince Nasir (Alexander Siddig) and his brother, Prince Meshal (Akbar Kurtha), over which of them will ascend to the throne upon the impending demise of their aging, infirm father. Barnes’s next assignment is to assassinate Nasir, a reformist who has recently approved a deal assigning lucrative drilling rights to China. The U.S. wants Nasir taken out, because his Western-oriented sibling would be more amenable to business as usual, namely, placing American interests above that of his own people.

Then there’s energy analyst Bryan Woodman (Matt Damon) who must confront an ethical dilemma after his young son dies in a tragic accident during a party thrown by Nasir. Should he accept the blood money ostensibly offered to make amends, or will that come with strings attached?

Meanwhile, back in the U.S., high-powered attorney Bennett Holiday (Jeffrey Wright) has been hired to induce the Justice Department to approve the acquisition of Killen, a relatively small Texas oil firm, by Connex, a massive conglomerate. Connex wants Killen, which somehow landed permission to drill in the coveted fields of Kazakhstan, even though the company is currently under investigation by the government for unscrupulous practices.

Once the merger is approved, Connex plans to downsize and lay off many migrant workers from Pakistan. But will the unemployed’s disillusionment, diminished dreams and free time combine to make them easy recruits for the jihad movement?

While Syriana is certainly effective in its effort to illustrate the interconnectedness of the world economy in the oil game, its overarching failing rests in its presenting the players in too impersonal a fashion. In the absence of an understanding of anyone’s deeper motivations, we are expected to agree, by implication, with the flip, superficial suggestion that it’s all about the oil.

Politically-paranoid, if well-intentioned, this disjointed message movie doesn’t really do much more than indict the usual suspects.

Rating: R for profanity and graphic violence.
Running time: 126 minutes
Studio: Warner Brothers

The Boys of Baraka
*
Kenya as Alternative to Mean
Streets of Baltimore

After Born into Brothels won an Academy Award for Best Documentary, it was only a matter of time before the imitators came along. That film chronicled the efforts of a couple of fledgling filmmakers to improve the lot of some Calcutta street urchins whose mothers were all prostitutes.

Conveniently borrowing Born into Brothels’s reliance on the letter "B" for alliteration, Boys of Baraka follows similar efforts to save about 20 adolescent underachievers from Baltimore by shipping them off to an experimental, academically-oriented school located in rural Kenya. I hesitate to review this film at all, because it frequently struck false notes, though presenting itself as a documentary.

Boys of Baraka

Scene after scene seems staged, starting with the recruitment sales pitch delivered in the auditorium of a ghetto-based middle school where we witness a counselor attempting to scare 12 year-olds into the study abroad program by inappropriately suggesting that they have only three prospects in life: prison, a casket, or a high school diploma.

In another equally unlikely tableau, we see the mother of two applicants worrying that if only one of her sons is accepted, the child left behind will grow up to be a killer. Throughout this highly-exploitative production, the children appear to be playing to the camera in a rather unnatural manner, as if they’ve been coached prior to filming.

I even suspect that scenes which were supposedly shot before the students left for Africa were actually re-enactments made after their return. Worst of all is the picture’s overall suggestion that because the Baltimore schools are failing Black youths, these boys would be better off in Africa, away from their families and in the care of non-native Whites for two school years, boarding at an institution without most modern conveniences.

Sorry, but Boys of Baraka is a disingenuous docu-drama which fudges the truth in service of an infuriating, self-serving agenda, namely, accolades and awards for the film itself, and at the expense of accuracy or improving the lot of the young souls sacrificed in the process.

Rating: Unrated
Running time: 84 minutes
Distributor: ThinkFilm

Walk the Line
**
Johnny Cash Bio-Pic Appealing
Revisionist History

Fresh on the heels of the success of Ray, here comes another warts-and-all bio-pic based on the life of an American musical legend. If you remember that Jamie Foxx tour de force, Ray Charles was portrayed as the son of a sharecropper who had been deeply scarred by the death of a brother at an early age. The movie intimates that this was the reason why he became addicted to drugs and turned into a womanizer who cheated on his wife with his back-up singer and others.

Similarly, Walk the Line revolves around Johnny Cash never quite recovering from his sibling’s perishing in an unfortunate childhood accident. What the movie doesn’t let you know is that he did have another brother and two sisters. Also, the film implies that he was the son of struggling sharecroppers, when, in fact, his parents were farm owners who benefited from government subsidies.

Walk The Line

For some reason, Hollywood has a need to turn every biography into that familiar Horatio Alger story in which some down-on-his-luck loser overcomes the odds to achieve the American Dream. So, here, we get no hint that Johnny was a college grad. Instead, we see his carefully-cultivated "Man in Black" outlaw image, including a misleading depiction of him in prison, since he only actually spent one night behind bars in his entire life.

Walk the Line takes its title from "I Walk the Line," one of Cash’s best known songs, which also served as the title of a 1970 flick which featured several of his songs on the soundtrack. If you want to hear Johnny’s trademark baritone, then you might want to rent that picture, because this one has Joaquin Phoenix starring and doing all the singing. And while Joaquin might be able to hold his own in karaoke contest, his voice simply doesn’t measure up to that of the legend he’s attempting to impersonate.

In this regard, Walk the Line is reminiscent of Beyond the Sea, a vanity pic in which actor/writer/director Kevin Spacey did an equally mediocre Bobby Darin impression. But at least those renditions were from the best of the Bobby Darin songbook. Walk the Line has just a couple of recognizable hits in it, the title track and Ring of Fire.

So, you’re sitting there the whole time waiting for memorable ditties which never arrive, like Boy Name Sue, Ghost Riders in the Sky, Man in Black, and the recently-ubiquitous I Been Everywhere. No, instead we’re expected to be buy into the idea that Johnny was in love with June Carter (Reese Witherspoon) since first hearing her on the radio at the age of 10. So, it all builds up to a phony-baloney off into the sunset ending based on the notion that these two adulterers finally found each other and immortal bliss by breaking up each other’s marriages and undoubtedly wrecking the home lives of their children.

At least Jamie Foxx had the sense to lip-synch.

Rating: PG-13 for profanity, ethnic slurs, mature themes, and a depiction of drug dependency.
Running time: 136 minutes
Studio: 20th Century Fox

The 10 Worst List of 2005
A Cranky Critic Gets Revenge

Taking seriously my oath to lead the fight against mediocrity in movies, it’s once again time for me to vent about all those infuriating flicks which irritated me the most over the past 12 months. Looking back at 2005, one can’t help but note that the year was marred by three distinct genres of awful films: the ethnically-insensitive teensploit (ala Pretty Persuasion, Dirty Love, Underclassman and Get Rich or Die Tryin’), the audience insulting "take-the-money-and-run" sequel (ala xXx 2, Miss Congeniality 2, Son of the Mask and Be Cool), and the shameless infomercial (ala Dukes of Hazzard and Are We There Yet?).

Some contenders were only disappointing enough to earn honorable mention, such as the way too long King Kong, or other wretched remakes like The Amityville Horror and The Longest Yard. The same could be said of the ill-advised buddy pairings of Samuel L. Jackson and Eugene Levy in The Man and of Jet Li and Morgan Freeman in Unleashed.

Ignoring foreign films, since dreadful foreign films are just for foreigners, allow me to invite a torrent of patriotic hate mail as I scrape the bottom of the cinema barrel to indict the most atrocious movies made in America.

10. xXx 2

Why this silly sequel was even referred to as xXx 2 is beyond the ken of this critic, because it fails to resemble the original in terms of feel, tone, dialogue, cinematography, special effects, anything. Plus Vin Diesel was replaced in the title role by Ice Cube who extends his streak of bombs to five in a row and counting.

Here, the first’s visually-captivating cinematography has been replaced by a parade of tortoise-like military hardware and custom cars fresh from a ghetto fabulous chop shop. Nothing is more boring than watching out-of-date army vehicles lumbering aimlessly around Washington, DC, except maybe hearing Cube utter corny lines like, "Tonight, the safety of the Free World is in the hands of a bunch of hustlers and thieves!"

The State of the Union? xXxcruciating!

9. Miss Congeniality 2

Five years ago, Sandra Bullock resurrected her sagging career with the surprisingly delightful Miss Congeniality, a hilarious, tomboy-out-of-water adventure where she played an FBI agent undercover as a beauty pageant contestant. Sandra’s back for Congeniality 2, a sleep-inducing bore in which all of the jokes fall flat.

This time out, the cast has been expanded to include new characters played by Diederich Bader as an effeminate hair stylist, and Regina King as an inexplicably bitchy sidekick. Confusingly-scripted and sloppily-edited, and without a scintilla of chemistry, this mess could not possibly have fared well in test marketing with focus groups. But that didn't stop the studio from foisting it on an unsuspecting public

8. Be Cool

Ten years after Get Shorty, John Travolta belatedly reprises his colorful role as mobster Chili Palmer in another adaptation of an Elmore Leonard best-seller. Regrettably, this sorry excuse for a sequel is marred by constant commercials, free-flowing profanity, gratuitous violence, endless ethnic slurs, sexual preference insults, and unchallenged misogyny. Repeatedly, gays are referred to as faggots and queers, women as bitches and whores, Jews as Shylocks, Italians as guineas and wops, etcetera.

The bulk of the blame for this fiasco must go to its director, Felix Gary Gray. It reflects the future of cinema which is rapidly changing from an art medium to an advertising medium, in this instance celebrating materialism and consumerism via the cultural values of bling-obsessed gangsta rap.

Among its incessant ads were prominent product placements for Domino's Pizza, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Fila, Dairy Queen, Toyota, Ford, Staples, MTV, Billboard Magazine, Budweiser, Porsche, Stolichnaya Vodka, and Snap-On Tools, to name a few.

I'd rather spend two hours having bone marrow extracted.

7. Son of the Mask

Who would ever consider doing a sequel of The Mask if they had to replace Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz with Jamie Kennedy and Traylor Howard? How bad was Son of the Mask? Walk out and demand your money back bad. When not repeating the best scenes of the original, this sophomoric, special effects-driven overindulgence in scatology focuses on feces, fart, urine stream and projectile vomit jokes.

Its lame excuse for a storyline reads like this. Impotent Tim (Kennedy), a struggling artist, is married to hot-to-trot Tonya (Howard), a successful career woman who is ready to start a family. She's so impatient, in fact, that she has threatened to "make a baby with a neighbor," if her hubby doesn't get his act together. How tasteless.

Equally offensive is Tim's behavior after being transformed by the odd-looking green artifact that their pet dog had dug out of the ground and dragged into the house. Though rejuvenated by the mask, he decides to visit a singles bar instead of showing any interest in his already aroused spouse. Creepy at every turn, at the cost of 90 precious minutes of my life I can never get back.

6. Dukes of Hazzard

The unabashedly moronic television series upon which this movie was based is be best remembered for the General Lee, a Dodge Charger with a Confederate Flag emblazoned on its roof, and for Daisy Duke, a dumb blonde who ran around in tight, cut-off blue jeans carefully-designed to expose the bottom of her buttocks.

This adaptation, which stars Jessica Simpson, doesn’t bother to attempt to elevate the original material, except for its politically-correct explanation for the presence of the controversial flag in. Believe it or not, the Duke family is totally unaware of the existence of the offensive symbol until a black woman yells, "Nice roof, redneck!" at them while sitting at a stoplight.

Not recommended unless you enjoy watching ads for Levi’s, Gumout, Shell Gasoline, Sony Playstation, Castrrol, BF Goodrich, Yahoo, Coke, Ford, Miller Beer, Schlitz Beer, Lowenbrau Beer, Hooters, Stanley Tools, Marlboro, Autolite, Tabasco Sauce and Beefeater Gin. Or dialogue is designed to reinforce the stereotype of the Southerner as retarded. Just think of countless characters rattling off lines worthy of redneck comedian Jeff Foxworthy like, "That might be worth putting my pants on for," and "This is a great place to take a crap."

Hillbilly Heaven, if you want to go there.

5. Are We There Yet?

This two-hour Lincoln Navigator commercial with Ice Cube and Nia Long masquerades as fun-filled family fare when it’s just another extended Ford ad aimed at an African-American audience. Suffering through a shameless sales pitch might not have been so bad if the rest of the picture had had any redeeming qualities.

The dialogue is jive gibberish and crass, the PG rating notwithstanding. Consider what transpires in the scene where Nia’s kids’ elderly babysitter propositions Cube. The 70+ geriatric, played by Nichelle Nichols, throws herself at her boss’ beau, boasting that she is better in bed than his girlfriend. A disgusting, dysfunctional family comedy that should have been titled "Are We Over Yet?"

4. Get Rich or Die Tryin'

Is 50 Cent the Second Coming of Christ, as suggested by the pose he adopted in ads for his unapologetically gruesome screen debut? The poster featured the gangsta’ rapper, arms extended in a pose similar to that of Jesus on the cross, except that he is holding a gun in one hand, a microphone in the other.

Sadly, the message delivered by Get Rich or Die Tryin' isn’t any deeper than that. The is a rather unremarkable example of the ghetto fabulous genre, including all the staples, such as the gratuitous scene of skinny, scantily-clad sisters with cannonball implants inexplicably standing around counting stacks of ill-gotten cash in the back room of a seedy-looking drug den.

When not promoting misogyny, Get Rich turns its attention to ethnic intolerance via a profusion of Latino and black slurs. The script is also given to spouting fortune cookie-sounding rules of survival, like "Show no love. Love will get you killed." And that asinine aphorism is subsequently affirmed by dialogue like, "I [f-worded] her. Then I killed her." An irresponsible vanity vehicle by a rapper already riddled with bullet holes and still ready to die for the sins of the Hip-Hop Generation.

3. Underclassman

I think this movie might have been made before, but it was funny and called Beverly Hills Cop. This rip-off features Nick Cannon as another trash-talking, renegade cop. The primary problem with the picture, however, is not that it’s a thinly-veiled remake, but that Cannon is neither a consummate comedian, nor does he have half the charm of his predecessor. As a result, his every attempt to entertain us falls flat.

For instance, when he seems more like a pedophile than a player in the scene where he picks up a couple of underaged white girls and then has his way with them in a sexual position he refers to as "a reverse Oreo." When not degrading females, Tracy devotes most of his efforts to behaving like a self-hating black man. Speaking in English-butchering Ebonics, he constantly equates being African-American with the most backwards, debased and degenerate behavior. For example, he this is how he explains his being a high school dropout. "School ain’t never been my thing. It always seemed to get in the way of being a man."

The picture was directed by Marcos Siega, who has the distinction of being the first director to land two movies on my 10 Worst List (see Pretty Persuasion, below). It’s disheartening that a man with so much hate in his heart finds a platform and financial backing for his relentlessly offensive trash.

2. Pretty Persuasion

I’m sure Arabs have taken it on the chin in Hollywood over the years, being victims of stereotypes which have unfairly presented them in a negative light. However, that still doesn’t mean that undoing that damage ought to involve making an unabashedly anti-Semitic adventure.

But that appears to be the only explanation for Marcos Siega’s (see Underclassmen, above) Pretty Persuasion, a teen angst adventure which depicts Jews worse than the Stepin’ Fetchin flicks did blacks back in the Forties, if that’s possible. Set in Beverly Hills, it follows the assorted exploits of a trio of 15 year-old girls.

But consider the reaction of the father of one of them upon learning that his daughter is going to star as Anne Frank in the school play. "Jew broad, right?" Or his rationalizing his admitted hatred of Jews with, "There is a big difference between bona fide racism and just speaking the truth, which is what I’m doing here."

In yet another scene, his equally hateful daughter accosts a classmate with, "At least my dad isn’t a money-grubbing Jew Shyster who lets criminals go free." It seems almost evil, when such intolerance is being demonstrated by the character also playing Anne Frank.

Because of its anti-Semitic message, Pretty Persuasion is particularly dangerous since it undoubtedly wormed its way into many an impressionable young mind by simultaneously trading in gross-out humor and shocking displays of lesbianism, masturbation, bestiality and oral favors.

1. Dirty Love

The very worst of the worst. Because "blondes-of-the-moment" don’t enjoy a very long shelf life in Hollywood, they often end up desperate enough to make a movie like Dirty Love. This romantic comedy revolves around the response of a photographer (Jenny McCarthy) to catching her super-model boyfriend (Victor Webster) in bed with another woman.

But it is the just-jilted woma’s best friend, Michelle, as played by Carmen Electra, who made this movie so disturbing. Repeatedly, this "wigger" behaves like the coarsest type of wannabe imaginable, from sporting gaudy gold jewelry to wearing a blouse which asks, "Got hos?"

Her dialogue is no better, as it suggests that black people are retarded, immoral and hopelessly profane. For instance, she greets men with, "What up, dick?" Adopting a bad black accent, she says "thang" instead of "thing" and substitutes "sumpin’" for "something."

She "keeps it real," real stupid, by tossing around lines like, "This s*it don’t never be starting on time," "I ain’t got no money," "That’s real dope," "She’s a crazy white bitch," and "Don’t nobody want to smell that," referring to a woman’s private parts. I suppose this ninety-minute minstrel show was Carmen’s way of getting even with ex-husband Dennis Rodman for dumping her.