Missed Film Opportunities of 2008

They just keep on getting weirder.

by John P. Meyer

If you were to print out the titles of all the films released over the course of the year 2008, pin it up on the bulletin board and let your right brain go to town (as I have done), you're likely to discover ways in which certain films on the list might easily have been thematically joined with others. (Alternatively, you could just use the blindfolded dart-throwing approach - though this would shirley prove far less elegant.)

And this year, for the first time since I began this wistful exercise in "what might have been," there may be good reason for such consolidation. You've probably noticed that the economy has gone to Hell, which affects the film industry just like any other: sales are down a whopping 1% (*GASP!*) over last year's (record) figures.

So it's well-and-truly time for producers to pool their resources in order to get more out of their filmmaking bucks. Which, had it been done in 2008, might have resulted in:

* The X-Files: I Want to Believe in Cloverfield - Mulder and Scully take up the curious case of thousands of bloggers who speculate for months over the type of monster that will lay waste to New York City.

* The Hottie and the Nottie: Zombie Strippers - Paris Hilton and her ugly friend fall victim to Vodun priests with a taste for pustules.

* Rambo: The Love Guru - Sly Stallone plays Dr. Ruth to a marginalized and disgruntled band of freedom fighters. Tagline: "Make love, not war."

* Space Chimps Meet Dave: No Intelligence Allowed - an animated Eddie Murphy tangles with a live-action Ben Stein, who has trouble telling the difference between what's real and what's been crafted by digital effects laboratories.

* Mamma Mia! The Miracle at St. Anna - it's an all singing, all dancing, all WWII action sequel to the Abba-scored original, this time done up as a Spike Lee joint. "Here I go again" means never having to say you're out of clips for the M-1.

* Nights in The Forbidden Kingdom of Rodanthe - In which "Rodanthe" stands in for the fetishistic practice of your choice. Jackie Chan ventures into NC-17 territory without a stunt double: pray it's a short.

* Frost/Nixon Make a Porno - and thank God they decided not to star in it.

* Nothing Like Milk for the Holidays Sean Penn appears as the ghost of Harvey "Leche" Milk, a distant cousin to the Rodriguez clan, who hangs around to haunt the proceedings well into the end credits.

* Gran Torino Death Race: Run, Fat Boy, Run - Clint Eastwood pops the clutch on a down-and-dirty actioner that's certain to drive couch potatoes to their treadmills.

* The Duchess on an Appaloosa - Keira Knightley as you've only dreamed of seeing her: bareback.

* Forgetting Sarah Marshall in 10,000 B.C. - as the result of a time machine accident, the Apatow ensemble and their wacky antics are transported to the distant past, where - amongst wooly mammoths and carnivorous ostriches - no one actually gives a flying f**k about Sarah Marshall.

* Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? In Bruges - OF COURSE! Why didn't we think of this earlier?

* Rachel Getting Married to Kit Kittredge: An American Girl - The love that dared not speak its name blossoms briefly into glorious bloom - and then came Proposition 8. DAMN YOU TO HELL, California social conservatives!

* Prom Night: Filth and Wisdom - when Bobby asks Madonna to the big dance, he gets more than he bargained for. It's the must-see slasher-porno of this or any other season.

* Tropic Thunder-Bolt - four words: white dog in blackface.

* Horton Hears Marley & Me - and gets off on it, the nasty wanker.

* Righteous Kill: Valkyrie - because who wouldn't kill Hitler if they had the chance? (O.K., I'll give you the Quakers.)

... and, finally:

* W.: Body of Lies - "Grasshopper, when you can snatch the low-hanging fruit from my hand, it will be time for you to leave."

Yep, it's about that time...