So, stalking is funny now? Try telling that to Jodie Foster, a real-life victim of the crime.
As far as Hollywood is concerned, this creepy practice is apparently fair game as entertainment.
It was played for laughs this year in a Sandra Bullock comedy and to coax thrills in a glossy Fatal Attraction ripoff -- two movies that also belong on our annual 10 Worst movies list.
If there's one sure thing in Hollywood, it's that, sadly, such "What were they thinking?" movies still vastly outnumber award-worthy entries.
So why wait for Christmas for turkey when we can reflect on the ones Hollywood has been feeding us all year?
We're saving Hollywood's best for last (Dec. 27).
Meanwhile, here's this year's turkey trot ...
1 All About Steve. In one scene, Sandra Bullock's socially inept, motor-mouthed crossword puzzle creator whose extreme romantic obsession with a hunky TV cameraman (Bradley Cooper) induces more cringes than laughter brags that she can apologize in 17 languages. Just one would have sufficed for making a stunningly unfunny movie. Call it All About Sandra.
2 Land of the Lost. A lost cause. Not even Will Ferrell's genial lunacy could save this surreal, thuddingly dull and laughless comedy in which a disgraced scientist is sucked into a parallel universe inhabited by dinosaurs, primates and cheesy visual effects. This was such a lumbering mess it made you pine for the relative wit and sophistication of Stepbrothers.
3 Terminator Salvation. Audio clips of Christian Bale's infamous, F-bomb loaded meltdown targeting cinematographer Shane Hurlbut on set was more entertaining than a movie that was dull, soulless and story-challenged despite its mechanical explosions and ear-splitting soundscape as resistance fighter John Connor takes on Skynet and those killer cyborgs.
4 My Life in Ruins. My Big Fat Greek Wedding writer-star Nia Vardalos's movie career will be in ruins if she makes another stinker like this flimsy romantic comedy. Was it just me, or did Vardalos seem to be channelling Sarah Palin as a history professor? Her character takes a job as a tour guide in Athens, instantly endearing herself to a tour bus full of insulting stereotypes, including a slumming Richard Dreyfuss as a Jewish widower.
5 Bruno. Comic provocateur Sacha Baron Cohen's new mockumentary about a gay Austrian fashionista was no Borat, and most of its best gags were in the trailers. Where Cohen's over-the-top antics in Borat benefited from freshness, the gratuitously extreme humour here seemed desperately contrived and pointless, with his mean-spirited character prompting more cringes than hilarity.
6 Obsessed. Fatal Attraction this was not, and not just because this glossy retread lacked boiled bunnies or moral ambiguity. Borderline offensive, this ridiculously contrived thriller about a delusional temp (Ali Larter) who seduces and blackmails a happily married investment banker was rife with clichés, implausible developments and no credible payoff.
7 I Love You, Beth Cooper. It's hard to believe Chris Columbus directed this clumsy, joyless rehash of a Superbad wannabe in which a nerdy valedictorian professes his love for a sexy cheerleader (a drab Hayden Panettiere), who reveals her true self during an ensuing cliché-strewn adventure. Yeah, that could happen.
8 Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. Just when you thought Matthew McConaughey couldn't possibly star in a movie worse than Failure to Launch, along came this insipid A Christmas Carol clone in which a playboy fashion photographer re-evaluates his ways and reunites with his jilted ex-girlfriend (Jennifer Garner). The tragedy here was seeing Garner squander her talents in a thankless role, although she made up for it with a knockout performance in The Invention of Lying.
9 Jennifer's Body. Just in case you hadn't noticed, Megan Fox is hot -- and this teen horror comedy was not. Although the bodacious sexpot-du-jour has some fun as the bitchy, bloodthirsty high school hottie, her She-Devil allure wears as thin as Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody's quasi-hip dialogue, derivative storyline and brazen exploitativeness.
10 Post-Grad. Are you kidding me? That question often sprang to mind during this feeble comic misfire starring Alexis Bledel as a perky college grad who returns home to her eccentric family when her dreams of a publishing career don't pan out. Watching the great comedienne Carol Burnett squander her talents as a, wisecracking grandma on death's doorstep, and Michael Keaton playing Pop, a delusional luggage salesman, were among this snoozer's particularly painful moments.
