Have you ever been excited for a new movie? Album? TV Show? Event? And then it turns out to be completely overblown or worse, absolute trash? Yeah, me too. These are the Top 8 of the Aughts. Why top 8? Because I like to give myself 20% off.
8: Y2K: I'm sure everyone remembers this. 'Y2K is coming!' We're all going back to the dark ages!' The only ones who benefited from this overblown nonsense were manual can opener manufacturers and gun stores. At the time it was considered a great relief but looking back Y2K would have spared us all from a fate much worse than becoming unwillingly Amish (see Cook, Dane.)
7: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: My hopes for this movie were pretty diminished once I read Shia The Beef would be playing Indy's son but I never would have thought that be the least of this movie's problems. The Indy franchise is one of the few examples where a movie trilogy has 3 good movies. And they had to ruin it with this fraudulent cash in. Character development was non-existent, the effects were bad and Indy 4 commits the biggest offense: IT'S UNBEARABLY BORING!
6: Spiderman 3: Speaking of sequels that should never have been we move on to Spiderman 3. I'll admit that I never cared for the first movie. It felt too cartoonish for me and The Green Goblin's suit looked ridiculous. However S2 was a great improvement even if it told the same story. I had hopes for part three. Raimi was showing an understanding of the characters and I was excited to see Venom. Instead we got jazz piano, Eric Forman, and Kirsten Dunst serenading us to the credits. An obvious example of actors and a director fulfilling their contractual obligations.
5: Windows Vista: The hype for Vista was enormous. Better file communications, updated, flashy interface, resource friendly, etc. In reality it made Windows ME look like Windows NT. Once reviews of this operating system starting hitting magazines and websites people were immediately turned off. Not necessarily the general public but IT professionals, prompting their business clients not to make the switch and to stick with XP. Microsoft has since made up for it with Windows 7 but that doesn't change the massive hit in credibility Microsoft took with this horrible, resource hogging abomination.
4: Guns N' Roses - Chinese Democracy: 15 YEARS?!? 15 YEARS?!? And this is what we get? This pile of dung was more urban myth than music project. I'd grown tired of Axl Rose and his antics years ago but when I heard this was actually being released I became interested. More than a decade and $10 million in the making should result in a pretty good album that would be a throwback to the hair metal days of the 80s. Instead we get a few decent guitar licks with a slew of over produced crap. The lyrics are self indulgent. The ballads are big, bloated and dumb. And those are the high points. At least Dr. Pepper didn't make any silly bets about the release. Oh wait....
3: The Philadelphia Eagles: There are reasons why Eagles fans are notorious for being mean spirited and angry. They are the Chicago Cubs of football. The team hasn't won a championship since 1960. They have been through decades of incompetent ownership and management. Once Andy Reid took over the team and drafted Donovan McNabb fans revolted. The popular opinion was that Ricky Williams should have been drafted. As McNabb turned out to the best choice of the two it turned out to be not enough. The Eagles won several division titles, made playoff runs though out the decade earning trips to 5 NFC titles games.......to lose 4 of them. The lone Super Bowl appearance was the most heart wrenching with the Eagles losing by 3. Even post-McNabb the Eagles are still their same choking selves losing 3 games in a row at home to close out the 2010-2011 season.
2: Heroes (NBC): There have been some great science fiction shows (Star Trek, The X-Files) and some not so great (Manimal, Cleopatra 2525.) The fact that sci-fi has traditionally held a smaller but more devoted fan base than other genres has usually led to TV shows being either syndicated or aired on smaller cable networks. Which was why I was completely caught off guard when I saw the first tv spot for NBC's Heroes. A sci fi show with real production value? On prime time? Sign me up. What resulted was an amazing first season with many intertwined story arcs, well developed characters, great mystery and an open ended, bittersweet resolution. Then Season 2 was announced. I'm willing to cut the hastily written resolution some slack due to the writers' strike but there is no excuse for the rapid decline of this promising show. Character motivations were changed from episode to episode. Writers left and returned. The pacing became so inconsistent that I wasn't sure I was watching the same show. The last straw for viewers was in Season 4 when a semi-lesbian story line was introduced between two college roommates. Thankfully the show was put out of its misery in 2008. I can only imagine the respect this series would have retained if they quit after the first season and release a movie or two to tie up the loose ends. A classic example of less is more.
1: TNA Wrestling: I know I'm going to catch a bunch of flak but I'm a sucker for wrestling. I always have been and probably always will be. When I heard of a new company being launched in 2002 I was pumped. WCW and ECW had gone out of business. WWE(F) was in a funk with every segment being dominated by HHH. Japanese wrestling was in a downturn and there were no independent promotions operating near where I live. TNA began as a weekly PPV show that lasted for two hours. I let a lot slide initially: A tag team of wrestling penises, an interview segment with a dwarf masturbating in a trash can, Jeff Jarrett main eventing the show. Then the unbelievable happened: it got better. With an influx of young, hungry talent and the new found backing of Panda energy TNA seemed to have the best aspects of ECW and WCW, great wrestlers and a strong financial backer. Unfortunately they also have the worst aspects of ECW and WCW, horrible financial decision making and even worse people in creative. Professional wrestling is a funny business. Much in the way of pro sports coaches (Turner, Norv) and politicians (O'Malley, Martin) it is very possible to fail up. That is exactly what has happened to TNA in hiring (and continuing to employ) Vince Russo, Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan. These three men are responsible for bankrupting World Championship Wrestling and their reward is being given control of another company. TNA is like the new girl in school. She's flashy. She's different. Then when you get to know her you're completely disgusted. Stay tuned for more TNA ineptitude. I'm sure it won't be long before I have more to complain about regarding these nincompoops.
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