The summer blockbusters are wrapped for another year, and as we head into Oscar-hunting season, it seems a good time to take a look back at the year so far and tick off the films that will, most definitely, NOT be on any Academy member's list. (Or, god help us, they better not be!) We used our sister site Metacritic as our guide, so the list below shows the ten lowest-rated films of the last eight months, listed from bad to really, really bad. There are some films you might be surprised are not on the list (Transformers 2? G.I. Joe? Year One?), which really just means that...shudder...there are even worse films out there. The world may be moving forward, technology may be smarter, movie seats more comfortable, but dammit, bad cinema just won't go away.

10. Homecoming
Metascore: 21

College football star (Matt Long) lands fancy new girlfriend (Jessica Stroup) and brings her back to his poor Midwestern home town for Christmas. Footballer's wacko ex (Mischa Barton) kidnaps new girlfriend, and locks her up in rundown farmhouse. From director Morgan J. Freeman (not the actor...thank god...but the guy behind the insipid Desert Blue), it's a tale of class warfare, captivity horror (with too many shades of Misery for comfort), and plain old jealously. Barton signing on may be the only reason this dud got made; which is too bad because, as the New York Post wrote, "If we can agree on anything in this great divided land of ours, it's this: Mischa Barton can't act."

9. Spinning Into Butter
Metascore: 20
A morality tale about racism starring Sarah Jessica Parker as a dean of students at a New England college? We'll take Sex and the City reruns any day over this.

8. The Informers
Metascore: 20
It's the 1980s, the party crowd is coked out, and everyone's an asshole: sounds like Bret Easton Ellis! And it is, adapted from the Less Than Zero/American Psycho writer's short story collection. Roger Ebert liked it, writing "If The Informers doesn't sound to you like a pleasant time at the movies, you are right. It is often however repulsively fascinating." Others, however, were not so fascinated with the unpleasantness, using words like "absurdly vapid," "tedious," "knuckleheaded," and a "repulsive 80s flashback." (Wait..."knuckleheaded"?)

7. Downloading Nancy
Metascore: 19

An unhappy woman leaves her husband of 15 years and winds up in a violent relationship with another lost, lonely soul. Maria Bello may have given a brave performance, but the film wound up being "gimmicky," "pointless," "nasty," and, as the New York Post put it, "an icky S&M thriller."

6. I Hate Valentine's Day
Metascore: 17
Boy meets girl, girl has a strict 'five dates only' rule. But maybe this relationship will be different? Wake us up when you find out. No, wait, on the other hand, don't. (Funniest line goes to the New York Times: "Compared with this, [Nora] Ephron is Chekhov.")




5. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li
Metascore: 17
No one expected this live-action film adaptation of the Street Fighter games to be Citizen Kane, but when even "the rote fight scenes are a disappointment," you have to wonder what the hell the point was.




4. The Lodger
Metascore: 17
For this remake of an early (1927) Alfred Hitchcock thriller, about a landlady who suspects her new tenant is Jack the Ripper, director David Ondaatje (nephew of English Patient novelist Michael) sets the story on the Sunset Strip. Said the LA Times, "The biggest mystery is why Alfred Molina and Hope Davis agreed to be in this."





3. All About Steve
Metascore: 17
For some the fun ends at the mention of the film's star, Sandra Bullock. If you're still reading, you'll be disappointed to learn that fellow castmembers Thomas Haden Church, Bradley Cooper, and the hilarious Ken Jeong just don't bring enough to this story of a kooky crossword-puzzle writer gets all stalker-y on Hangover star Cooper. As Salon wrote: "Just when you think your jaw can't drop any lower in appalled amazement, comes a romantic comedy so lunkheaded and ill-conceived that it makes your average, idiotic Kate Hudson-Matthew McConaughey outing look like the reincarnation of Hepburn and Grant."




2. The Trouble with Romance
Metascore: 11
Set in an LA hotel, this rom-com showcases a different cruddy relationships in each room. Said the NY Daily News: "Ever fast-forward through a late-night cable romance just to get to the good parts? This amateurish relationship dramedy features all the stuff you'd skip, and nothing else."




1. Miss March
Metascore: 7
For those not brainwashed by the endless commercials for this dog, here's the recap. Dude wakes up from a coma to find his high-school sweetheart is now a Playboy model, and dude's best friend convinces him to road trip it out to California to reconnect and crash the Playboy Mansion. Sounds like a run-of-the-mill teen-sex comedy, but apparently it can't even achieve those lofty heights. As The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "The worst sex cartoon in Playboy's long history can't compete with the sheer vacuousness of this inane comedy." Where's Tom Green when you need him?