Outside of the In-Crowd – Goodbye 2009, Part 2: The worst of the decade

Courtney Enlow

Friends, you know me, I’m a glass-half-full-rose-colored-glasses kind of broad. And that, gentle reader, is why I’ve decided to devote two solid weeks to nothing but beauty and glory and sweet tender goodness.

This week is not that week.

In the interest of not bumming the shit out of you, I’ve made an executive decision to not include political things in this part. No 9/11, no recession, no Katrina, no Sarah Palin. Those horrid things all happened and I’m not here to pretend that these things don’t exist, but this is about snark and bullshitting, the things that make this country so great.

Without further adieu …

The Lists

The fashions I wish we could all take back

5. Studded belts

Picture it: Sicily, 1922 Chicago, 2004. I’m a young dewey-eyed college sophomore child, new to this “Windee City” as they call it. I’ve got my “Everyone Loves an Italian Girl” graphic tee, my Chucks and my mismatched hoodie, and I am ready to scene with the best of them. But there’s one item I’m missing, and I refuse to give in and sport it: the studded belt. Popularized by the emo tools of the early 2000s, the studded belt indicates that the wearer shops at Hot Topic (“puh, only for the buttons, gawd”) in secret and spent this time period with only Something Corporate to understand her. I mean, he did promise that if she were his punk rock princess, he’d be her garage band king. How could she turn it down?

4. Velour sweatsuits

This should really be expanded to include all Juicy suits and/or any brand of sweatpant featuring writing on the ass, but that would open it up to include the Victoria’s Secret Pink line, and that’s not what I aim for here, because I love that shit, and this is NOT about insulting things I like. I run this show and them’s the rules.

Velour is many things. Unflattering and uncomfortable are the two most important. Velour has that special thinness that highlights every thigh dimple just so. Also, it’s cheap and gets weirdly rubbed down. So you shouldn’t have been wearing it, and I hate being the one to have to tell you. Seven years too late, no less.

3. Ed Hardy / his knockoffs

Dear Christian Audigier,
You’re a toolbox assclown from Planet Doucheballs.
Love, Court

P.S. – Britney was friends with you when she was crazy. I blame you.

2. The trucker hat

Remember that part I said a few numbers back about this not being a venue for me to insult things I like? Well you’ll note that I made that present-tense, not past-tense. Had I made it past-tense, I would have been retconning the fact that I wore this trend out. Seriously. I loved trucker hats. A lot. I had a green and orange plaid one that I wore three or four times a week. I thought I looked amazing. I’m not 100 percent certain that I didn’t. That said, everyone else looked like a fratboy date rapist / stripper on her off-day, so I can only assume I did too.

1. Crocs

I don’t even know what to say to you people about the Crocs. If you’re wearing them and you’re not a nurse / small child, you have problems that I can’t help you with. You should probably go paddle-boarding in the Everglades, just to clear your head and think about some things.

The movies I wish we’d never seen *

* In the interest of fairness, this list will only include movies I’ve seen. Obviously Pluto Nash, Big Momma’s House, those Jessica Simpson movies, Old Dogs and The Ugly Truth would be listed if I’d seen them, but I love my eyeballs too much to do that.

5. Vulgar

This movie for some reason (Kevin Smith) has a sizeable cult following insisting that it’s a decent movie. They would be wrong. This is an ugly and badly written movie. I love Kevin Smith, and by proxy I love his pal, Steve-Dave himself, Bryan Johnson, but this movie was unbearable.

4. The Room

Okay, an explanation for its low ranking: anyone who’s seen The Room knows that it is absolutely one of the worst movies ever made. And not in the way that Transformers is one of the worst movies ever made. This is on par with Plan 9 and Manos. It’s truly a disaster in all that it attempts. Horrifically acted, abysmally written, laughably directed and to say that it was in any way edited would be an insult to the editing world.

All that said, it’s hilarious. It’s so joyous in its badness, and it’s not at all in on the joke. Tommy Wiseau can tell huge crowds that it was meant to be a comedy all he wants, and he’s totally lying and wrong, but that doesn’t change the fact that I laughed harder at The Room than I have at most actual comedy movies this decade. For that, while it deserves to be number one with a bullet, I cannot in good conscience list a film as the worst of the decade when I’ve watched it multiple times and it’s given me so much terrible joy. (The same can also be said for why Glitter isn’t on this list.)

3. Date Movie, Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans, Disaster Movie

Full disclosure, I’ve only seen Date Movie and part of Meet the Spartans. That was more than enough. Holy. Shit.

(I am literally taking deep calming breaths as I type this, because I don’t know how to yell-type.)

Friedberg. Seltzer. You dumb terrible fucks. Copying a scene from a film verbatim and adding a fart or having something drop on someone or adding weed or any other completely juvenile choice that you’ve made does not make a joke. Nothing you’ve done has ever been a joke. Ever. Adding a Juno and the Enchanted chick into a movie where they recite their lines from their movies and then get hit by stuff does not make parody. I hate you so much. I hope you die. I am not exaggerating. I wish a pox on your house and painful warts on your nethers. Good day, sirs.

2. Battlefield Earth

Okay, I really did actually see this movie. I haven’t the slightest idea what happened in it, but I did see it. It was really awful. I have nothing to say beyond that. I literally blocked it out of my mind … Bye now.

1. The Black Dahlia

The Black Dahlia. The worst movie of the decade according to me. And why, you ask?

This movie could have been great. It was based on a fascinating story, it had great actors attached (and Scarlett Johansson) and it was pretty beautiful. But holy crappy movie, it was awful. A plot that I couldn’t follow with breadcrumbs and a flashlight, acting that was almost impressively both wooden and over the top, and an ending that would make M. Night Shyamalan say “dude … really?” It was awful. I left that theater disgusted and pissed. Up your ass, Black Dahlia.

The music sensations that made us rip our ears off, Van Gogh-style, if Van Gogh was more badass

1. Guys, they gave Paris Hilton an album. That’s it. Nothing can top it, and a number two seems really distant.

Well that was it, the worst the decade had to offer. Next week, only the good and lovely shall shine through. Till then, my friends.

Courtney Enlow is a writer living in Chicago and working as a corporate shill to pay the bills. You can contact her at courtney@hobotrashcan.com.