By Teddy Durgin
tedfilm@aol.com

OK, before we really move on with 2002, let's take a last look back at the year just ended and appreciate the NOT-so-fine works of cinema that the movie biz gave us. I take my annual 10 Worst list as seriously as my 10 Best list. This is my last chance to warn you, my beloved subscribers, to please stay away from these duds. And, let's face it, this is my last chance at revenge against a group of movies that took nearly a day from my life in the past year.

In the words of Christopher Walken from True Romance right before he kills Dennis Hopper: "I'm in a vendetta kind of mood!"

So, again without much fanfare, I humbly give you my picks for the 10 Worst Films of 2001, along with a few special potshots at the end:

1) Freddy Got Fingered -- I want to sue director and star Tom Green in a court of law for the mental anguish he inflicted upon me with this film. "Fingered" was basically a 90-minute "What's grosser than gross" joke with no punchline, no point, no wit, and no soul whatsoever. It features the most dehumanizing scene I have ever seen in a studio-released motion picture: It involves Tom Green delivering a baby by ripping the infant out of a screaming mother's womb, then biting through the umbilical cord with his teeth, then twirling the crying child around the delivery room by the bloody cord as the mother continues to cry out. Then, Green has this vomit-inducing tender moment where he tenderly cradles the baby and gives it to the new mother. This movie was an abortion.

2) Joe Dirt -- David Spade now has the career that he used to make fun of a decade ago during his great Hollywood Minute segments on Saturday Night Live. His orphaned Joe Dirt character was supposed to be this comic white-trash hero of the nation's trailer parks. Instead, he was nothing more than box-office repellent as "Dirt" quickly and rightfully was buried by other, better spring films.

3) Lara Croft: Tomb Raider -- This is everything big-budget Hollywood action extravaganzas are criticized for year after year. All mindless mayhem, and no heart. No snappy dialogue. No interesting characters. No plot! It was just a bunch of people traveling from place to place looking for two artifacts on opposite ends of the globe. When they aren't on motorcycles or in helicopters or on dog sleds, they're shooting at each other with guns or kicking and punching each other in the face, chest, and groin. I wanted to join them.

4) Saving Silverman -- Jason Biggs, Steven Zahn, and Jack Black star as three twentysomethings who have dedicated their lives to being Neil Diamond fans and can't understand why they are viewed as losers by the rest of the world. They even have their own Diamond cover band, playing Sweet Caroline and Love on the Rocks for the befuddled masses in parks and shopping malls, all the while dressed as Neil Diamond. Amazingly, no physical harm comes to them whatsoever during these public performances. When Biggs meets the woman of his dreams (Amanda Peet) and she seeks to (rightfully) change him, Zahn and Black kidnap her so they can have their friend back. Beyond pointless, director Dennis Dugan never achieved the mix of zanyness and warmth his picture so badly needed.

5) Driven -- Aside from the great race-car chase through downtown Chicago that I mentioned in my "Best" article earlier in the week, man did this film stink! Horribly written by Sylvester Stallone and even more horribly acted by Stallone and a cast of moussed-up dummies, this film caused nearly every critic in America to pull out every groan-inducing automotive clichi in the book for their reviews: "Stallone Crashes and Burns," "Driven Runs Off the Road," and my personal favorite "Ready, Set, NO!"

6) Someone Like You -- This Ashley Judd dud had the "Double Jeopardy" star playing a woman who comes up with this inane "Men Are Bulls/Women Are Cows" theory that ridiculously gets embraced by the entire country as this revelatory piece of empowering, feminine wisdom. It was nonsense. The filmmakers didn't even have the guts to stick with the original title, "Animal Husbandry," and chose the almost completely unmemorable "Someone Like You." Men are bulls? Women are cows? Ugh! They should have called it "Raging Bullcrap."

7) Summer Catch -- Freddie Prinze Jr. plays an aspiring major league baseball pitcher, who could be a star if he could just control his temper, restore his confidence, and get that one big break. Ugh! They should have called it "Bullcrap Durham."

8) Head Over Heels -- Freddie Prinze Jr. plays a big-city Mr. Perfect who could be a killer if his hot neighbor could just get the proof she needs. The only problem is she is attracted to the doe-eyed beefcake. Ugh! They should have called it ... aw, why pile on?

9) Shallow Hal -- I have ZERO problem calling out other movie reviewers. Not when they put movies like this on their TEN BEST LISTS FOR 2001! That is just what Richard Roeper of "Ebert and Roeper" did, and I still can't believe it. Stanley Roper could do a better job reviewing films. I digress. In Shallow Hal, Jack Black stars as a guy who only dates supermodels who is then hypnotized so that he sees overweight women and other people with physical imperfections as Perfect 10s. Can we please have a new HBO series called "Project Redlight" that stops garbage like this from being made?!

10) Monkeybone -- Finally, we have this ambitious mess about a comic-book artist who slips into a coma and is taken over by his monkey alter ego. The film played like Tim Burton on crack with its "Beetlejuiced" glimpses of the Afterlife that ultimately went nowhere slow.

DISHONORABLE MENTION (in order of disdain): Corky Romano, The Musketeer, and Town and Country.

TWO MOVIES I HAVE THANKFULLY NOT SEEN: 1) Glitter, which featured the big-screen debut of that shrieking nutball Mariah Carey; and 2) Pootie Tang, even Chris Rock looked embarrassed in the trailers for this film!

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM OF 2001: Planet of the Apes

WORST SEQUEL: Scary Movie 2

MOST EMBARRASSING PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR: Rip Torn, who at one point in "Freddy Got Fingered" actually pulled down his pants and
screamed at his son (Tom Green) to have sex with him.

FLAT-OUT WORST ACTRESS: Estella Warren, whose vacant runway stares ridiculously tried to pass for subtlety in Driven and Planet of the Apes.

ODDEST CAMEO: The Elephant Man in From Hell.

THE SHUT THE HELL UP AWARD goes to: Gwyneth Paltrow for referring to Shallow Hal in one published interview as a "love letter to overweight people."

EXTRA LOUD GROANS GO TO: any movie ad that quotes Larry King; the traveling testicle in Tomcats; Chris Elliot's hand in Scary Movie 2; Marlon Brando in a bathrobe in The Score; the terrible first 20 minutes of Rat Race; Marisa Tomei, virtually disappearing in the second half of In the Bedroom; Alan Cumming and Parker Posey for slumming in Josie and the Pussycats; Billy Bob Thornton for turning down a front-seat favor from Scarlett Johansson in The Man Who Wasn't There; and Steven Spielberg for never asking the question, "Would grieving parents really want an android son who would never age?"

ONE FINAL QUESTION: Was I dreaming or did they really make a sequel to The Silence of the Lambs WITHOUT Jodie Foster and director Jonathan Demme?!

I had such high hopes.