2008 wasn't a good year for film. Personally, I don't think there were any "great" films this year and there were only a handful of very good flicks. So what movies best defined the year that was?

The Happening: M. Night Shymalan's ode to b-movies was one of the worst movies of the year and part of me thinks that is exactly what he was going for. The performances were so bad that I had to believe that Night told people to act poorly. People can harp on Shymalan for this but he's hardly alone. More and more we are seeing people embrace the b-movie and actually aim for camp value over quality. Back in the day, filmmakers complained that the studios watered down their films. Now, the big name directors seem to be watering down their films themselves.

If you want to blame the studios for anything, look at the marketing. The selling point for The Happening was that it was the first R-rated feature from M. Night. Really? Did they think that was what America was waiting for? A raunchier Shymalan? Actually, the answer might be yes. More and more, we see films getting lauded for pushing the envelope in terms of violence or gratuitous blood. People are now sated by a few quality action scenes. They'll gladly overlook story issues, and some times convince themselves that things made sense, while being content if the movie had a few quality action scenes.

Death Race: Some people said this movie was a comment on society and reality TV but the real commentary was that this supposed indictment of modern TV is a remake of a film that was made before the dawn of reality TV. Like many films this year, Death Race might have been trying to say something but it wasn't saying anything new. Even Oscar-bait like Milk, W., and Frost/Nixon pulled their punches and gave us the stories we knew rather than trying to make a new statement. I still believe that a film about Harvey Milk's killer, Dan White, would have been more interesting than a rehash of the Milk story which was covered better in "The Times of Harvey Milk", the Oscar winning doc made in 1985. Although, if there was a film that pulled punches, it was...

The Dark Knight: I thought the close-up of the rat at the end of The Departed was nail on the head but that was downright subtle when compared to the tell, don't show approach of The Dark Knight. A lot of people loved the film and overlooked the script issues but this was a film that said nothing but had so many long-winded monologues that people could take whatever they wanted to out of it. The movie was explicitly vague. Some fans of The Dark Knight came unglued when a writer claimed that the film was actually a defense of George W. Bush but you could easily see the film like that. While many films in the future could take a darker approach because of this film, I think just as many will follow the lead and allude to current events while never actually taking a stand on any issues yet people will still act like it was somehow profound.

Hancock: Besides being a superhero movie, this is a film that featured style over substance. The movie had little to no story, was horribly structured, but made over 200 million. And you know what, I was entertained by it. I can't say for a number of other questionable fare like Wanted, Cloverfield, Eagle Eye, 10,000 BC, etc. but more and more, scripts are being eschewed while FX are taking the priority. This isn't exactly a new development but the studios are growing more brazen and making more and more films that are about as well written as "The Hills". One of the reasons this is a going trend is the growing money in overseas box office. A film like 10,000 BC might be stupid but it still translates into 174 million overseas. Special effects don't require subtitles.

Sex and the City: Be it Carrie Bradshaw, or Twlight, or High School Musical 3, the going recipe seems to be that films aimed towards the female audience require some sort of pre-fabricated package. While studios seem happy to throw out any piece of male-oriented crap like Eagle Eye, they don't seem confident in the ladies unless the property has shown popularity in the past.  "The Women" didn't exactly help things either, bombing after Nikki Finke's campaign for a wide release and being labeled by some critics as one of the worst movies of 2008.