Worst of 2008 At the Movies

In At the Movies, the much maligned review show, Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz recently named their worst movies of 2008. Perhaps not coincidentally, three of their picks--Twilight, Beverly Hills Chihuahua, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull--had Native subplots or themes.

These were probably the biggest films of the year with Native aspects. Yet Lyons and Mankiewicz not only picked them as the worst but specifically said Twilight and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull were the most disappointing. What does that tell you?

It tells me that Hollywood still isn't close to doing Native characters and stories right. That Hollywood is willing to exploit Native cultures for exotic "color" but not to study and understand them. That for all the talk of how liberal Hollywood, it's downright conservative when it comes to profiting off of people.

Of course, I should add that I gave Kingdom of the Crystal Skull a 7.5 and Vantage Point, another of Mankiewicz's picks, an 8.0. So you can't believe everything these critics say. I haven't seen many 2008 movies yet, but I'd say The Dark Knight is the most disappointing and 10,000 B.C. is the worst of the ones I've seen.

For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Movies.