Turd is the word

According to an old saying, you can’t polish a turd, but, as Hollywood studios have proven time and time again in 2010, you can spool it on a reel, project it at 24 frames per second and charge people $12 a head to watch it fly toward their face in unlifelike 3-D.

I have already officially denounced in these pages such affronts as The Expendables, Kick-Ass, Hot Tub Time Machine, Edge of Darkness, monotheism, Iron Man 2, Prince of Persia, Love & Distrust, artisan cheeses, The A-Team, The Last Airbender, the Turkish government, The Killer Inside Me and anything starring Jay Baruchel as a whiny nerd. Instead, I want to give one last flush to the bad movies that didn’t get dumped on enough: the silent but deadly stink bombs of 2010.

Howl: A depressingly literal view of Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, the role that James Franco was born to never play. With its leaden, class-project take on Ginsberg, the film implies that his life was defined by the interviews he gave and the pop-culture iconography he left behind. I hear the book was better.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo: If this singled-celled sampling of Swedish sado-porn was directed by Rob Cohen or Martin Campbell instead of someone named Niels Arden Oplev, it would have been dismissed as trash on sight. The film’s overriding message: Come to Sweden, get raped!

The Town: Are we this desperate for a decent heist movie? According to Rotten Tomatoes, 95 percent of critics blew kisses at this sludge, even though Ben Affleck would be more believable as a blue-collar math genius than a criminal mastermind. Affleck romancing the bank employee he took hostage the previous day without her realizing he’s the same guy is the single stupidest plot thread of the year.

Next week: more duds!