This year I’ve decided I’m not going to write a “Worst of 2009” list. What’s the point? If you must you can visit the review archives for 2009, sort by grade and find my reviews of Fanboys, The Last House on the Left, All About Steve and I Love You Beth Cooper and then fill in six of your choosing from the “D” section and be done with it. Instead, I’m going back to what I’ve done only one other time and going to take a look back at the films that ended up disappointing me on one lever or another.
This way I don’t have to talk about The Marc Pease Experience or Bride Wars. Year One and Whiteout don’t need further dicussion and neither does G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra of Fighting. Instead I can add a few titles that actually earned as high as a “B” rating from me when I reviewed them. After all, expectations are the thing that hold the most power over your final opinion.
Before I get to my list of ten I first wanted to make sure to cover one film that just missed the list, John Hillcoat’s The Road. This was a film I covered to a great degree on this site and went from “highly anticipating” to simply “wanting to see,” just to see how it turned out. Trailers and consistent delays of the release date all but destroyed my expectations and as it turned out the film never managed to move me anymore than I assumed it would. This is the reason it didn’t make my final list of ten seeing how it didn’t necessarily disappoint me as much as it ultimately lived up to my lowered expectations. However, it is one of the few films from this year I am still anticipating a second viewing in hopes it may change my opinion. We’ll see.
Now, for the ten. And remember, these are the most disappointing, not a worst of list — an important distinction.
