Believe it or not, coming up with year-end best and worst lists is a lot harder than it appears. To do so, you have to look back at 52 weeks' worth of movies. There were more than 300 released in local theaters during that time.
And in the case of the worst, you have to revisit movies that caused you great pain the first time around. It's not always pleasant and sometimes pretty ugly. Though I suppose it is sort of cathartic to finally purge them from your system.
I'm not necessarily saying these are the 10 worst films of the year — or necessarily my 10 least favorite. But surveying the list of eligible films, these are 10 that really stood out. And not in a good way.
Also, I should note that any number of horror movies could have made this particular list — the "Hills Have Eyes" remake, "Hostel," "Saw II" and "Turistas" among them. In fact, you could make a worst-of compilation with just the horror duds that were released this year. But that's too easy.
I've listed them alphabetically, but they were equally excruciating.
ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL. The filmmaking team behind "Ghost World" made one of the most smug and off-putting comedies in recent memory. Who told them serial killers are funny?
DOOGAL. An animated film with so many flatulence jokes they should have called it "Fart Joke: The Movie."
JACKASS: NUMBER TWO. Like the first film, this "extreme-prank" documentary exploited human and animal cruelty. Shame on anyone who paid money to see it. And there were a lot of you.
LADY IN THE WATER. Oh, M. Night Shyamalan! It's time for you to try something else besides thriller fantasies and science-fiction. And stop reading your "The Sixth Sense" press clippings.
LARRY THE CABLE GUY: HEALTH INSPECTOR. Does anyone really think that charmless comedian Dan "Larry the Cable Guy" Whitney is funny?
MAN OF THE YEAR. It wasn't the political spoof that was advertised. It wasn't funny, either.
THE PINK PANTHER. Thanks to all the talented people involved, this was surely the most disappointing remake of the year — and maybe the worst.
WHAT THE BLEEP!?: DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE. The addition of 45 minutes of new-age gobbledygook and metaphysical hoo-hah only made this faux documentary more of a head-scratcher.
THE WILD. This shameless rip-off of the 2004 animated hit "Madagascar" showed just how low Disney's animation division has fallen.
ZOOM. Thanks to a lawsuit by Marvel Comics, this supposedly comic superhero movie nearly didn't get made. That should have been taken as a sign.
E-mail: jeff@desnews.com