'08 on Film? Please Pass The Duds

Al Pacino, in the thriller "88 Minutes," was described in this paper as "over-mannered and near-histrionic." Another critic compared the acclaimed actor's performance to a "festival of hair." According to the New York Post, the only suspense in the film -- about a forensic psychologist with less than an hour and a half to solve his own impending murder -- came from audiences wondering "until the very last minute whether this is the worst Al Pacino movie ever made."

Oh, I don't know about that. Does anyone other than me remember a little something called "Simone," a 2002 satire about a creatively blocked filmmaker so desperate that he creates a digital actress, who then becomes more famous than he?

I must admit that the presence on the list of one title in particular gave me a bit more schadenfreude than most. Who wouldn't have expected better of Ben Stein -- a guy who's known for being both smart ("Win Ben Stein's Money") and funny ("Ferris Bueller's Day Off") -- than the way he comes off, as narrator, in "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"? Here's what the Globe and Mail had to say about Stein's attack on a scientific orthodoxy that allows no room for consideration of the so-called intelligent design theory of creation. The film, which garnered a Tomatometer score of 10, is "an appallingly unscrupulous example of hack propaganda and it sucketh mightily. What's more, I didn't laugh once."

Not once? At Ben Stein? Something is seriously wrong.

Not quite as wrong, however, as "Fool's Gold," a nautical romantic comedy starring bickering ex-spouses Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson that the Philadelphia Inquirer dismissed as a "soggy mess." While it, too, earned a score of 10, its multiplex-ready marquee names gave "Fool's Gold" a slight edge over "Expelled," which was less widely reviewed.

But now, for the news you've all been waiting for.

The worst movie of the 2008 is -- drum roll, please -- "One Missed Call." Tomatometer score: 0.

That's right, zero, zippo, zilch.

How is that possible? And what do you mean you never heard of it? Surely someone out there liked this remake of a Japanese horror film, starring Shannyn Sossamon and (be still my heart) Edward Burns, about people who get creepy messages on their cellphones from their future doomed selves.

But maybe not. Among the film's kinder notices was the review by WaffleMovies.com, which called it a "turkey of a bomb of a debacle." The only thing missing, WaffleMovies said, was . . . Lindsay Lohan.