And the Worst Film of 2005?

Well, the worst one I actually saw in the theater.

It was a close call between King Kong and Elizabethtown, but I'll give the nod to Cameron Crowe's unmitigated disaster (Kong, after all, has its moments - more of a grand misstep than outright flop).

Every once in a while a filmmaker puts out a film so god-awful that it makes you re-examine his entire body of work. Elizabethtown had that effect on me. Shades of Say Anthing and Almost Famous are pumped up in Elizabethtown to such a degree that you start to think, "Maybe those movies kinda sucked too." Maybe I was living in some kind of delusional state and Crowe maninpulated me into believing in them. In Elizabethtown, everyone is so lost that he doesn't have anything to fall back on except grotesque manipulation. Crowe pimps every moment in this cheese-bomb with some gratuitously great song from my own personal soundtrack (okay, the dude has good taste in music), which quite nearly had me plugging my ears lest he ruin those songs for me. The soundtrack is, in fact, a surrogate for - like, I dunno - characters and dialogue and plot and stuff. Cameron Crowe now has the dubious distinction of nearly ruining the career of Susan Sarandon with a scene that, by itself, would be enough to sink the film.

But Crowe is generous enough to sprinkle some awfulness on everyone involved, notably the lead "actors" Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst (both setting their careers back a few years with this stinker). Bloom, in one of his few non-sword-wielding period roles, is particularly bad, though the blame should probably fall mostly to Crowe's ridiculous script and direction. Rightfully savaged by critics, Elizabethtown should be a death knell for Crowe, who seems to be on a cold streak with this and Vanilla Sky.

I suppose it's our heroes who fall the furthest in our estimation, and I've long counted Cameron Crowe among the most interesting filmmakers working today. But Elizabethtown is bad enough to blow that opinion to bits and hope that he does serious reflecting on just what the hell has happened to his career lately. A misfire every now and then is one thing, but when you take all your actors down with you, it might be time to reasses.