The Winner: On the same airline flight, I watched the two worst films that I saw in all of 2010, Leap Year and The Tooth Fairy. I had always thought that I could watch the talented and adorable Amy Adams in anything, but the wretchedly written Leap Year proved me wrong. The Tooth Fairy is remarkable as an especially execrable comedy in a year of bad comedies.
Runner-up: Down the row from me at a preview showing of The Town (NOT a bad film), a woman had brought her three-year-old son so he could view the armed robberies, abduction, murders, head shattering battery by rifle butt, spraying AK-47s, the two scenes of sexual intercourse and the threatened rape. Oh, and how about the castration by pistol shot? And the car torchings – do you really want your three-year old to learn how to set your car on fire?
Note: I don’t have a Worst Ten Movie list because, unlike professional critics, I don’t have to see every movie. I do see 75-100 new movies each year, but I try REALLY, REALLY HARD to avoid the bad movies. So my worst movie going experience is always either 1) on an airline flight when I see a movie that I normally wouldn’t; 2) a hyped art film that disastrously falls on its face and/or really pisses me off (The White Ribbon); or 3) something I find on cable TV while channel surfing (Paul Blart: Mall Cop). But usually, the culprit finds its way aboard a long airline flight.