The Worst Pop Crap Of The Year...

As 2011 winds down, I am working away on my third annual Year's Best post... and by "working away" I mean eating licorice allsorts while watching Big Bang Theory marathons.

The collateral damage of this task is having to revisit the bottom-dwelling worst crap of the year. Okay writing this review is actually cheezy fun. Living through this stuff at the time, not so much...

TV - New
Pan AM: the premiere was gorgeous if undone by clunky story and acting, and it got worse... where's the glamour? the mystery? the suspense? Hey ABC, this was the replacement for Brothers & Sisters? Look at that show in its prime. then pack up your little blue stewardess bags and go home.
Dishonourable mention for the crappy runner up: the wooden Charlie's Angels reboot.

TV - Returning
Desperate Housewives - geez, I used to love this witty soap, now I don't even watch it.
Runner Up - Nancy Grace. Dancing With The Stars. Wardrobe Malfunction.

TV - Daytime
Anderson - CNN's cool geeky host Anderson Cooper goes daytime, hoping to be the next Oprah or Phil Donahue and produces a cheezy show that is Maury Povich at best. Booking Snooki in week one set the tone. Dressing up as icon Phil Donahue for Halloween just showed how big the gap between them is...

Music
This was an unremarkable year in music, so nothing really memorable on the terrible front. That being said, I was disappointed with Jann Arden's sleepy Uncover Me 2, the follow-up to her amazing first covers album, and by Beyonce'e latest, 4, especially the lame single Run the World (Girls) which rehashes everything she has done before.
Dishonourable mention: the horrible song by will.i.am featuring Jennifer Lopez and Mick Jagger – T.H.E. (The Hardest Ever)... I thought the radio was mashing up random sounds when I first heard it. Ugh.

Books
Malled - whiny reporter works retail and lives to whine about it.
Runner-Up: that Kardashian book. And no I didn't read it. I did browse through it at the bookstore. And I think I threw up a little inside my mouth.


Movies
The Green Hornet: forget the high profile Ryan Reynolds flop The Green Lantern from this summer, earlier in the year we had a miscast Seth Rogan opposite a bored looking Cameron Diaz in this insultingly shallow comic adventure that was neither funny nor adventurous.
Runner-Up: Oscar winner Ron Howard's The Dilemma with Vince Vaughan; putting aside its gay joke and mini-controversy, this supposed comedy drama failed on both counts as it spent two hours with unlikeable rich white folk whining about their lives.
Disclaimer -- I did not see Madonna's W.E., which we all know is bound to end up on lists like this...


Stage
We had fast trips to New York and to Vegas and saw shows in both, and much as I am a Cirque de Soleil fanatic, they struck out with their latest Viva Elvis; sure the dancing and production were top notch, but the story and narration were wonky and there was nothing Cirque about it... feels like cashing in on their amazing Beatles LOVE show.

Pop Culture Phenom
Everything Kardashian has gone on too long, too vapid, and is way too wide spread... reality TV shows, endorsements, marriage, divorce, books, magazine covers, clothing lines, sweatshops, commercials, fragrances, twitter, Dancing With The Stars, plastic surgery overload... everything Kardashian is everywhere. Make it stop! And oh yeah, I blame Ryan Seacrest. They should all just go away...