During the year of 2008 there were certainly a handful of bona fide stinkers (One Missed Call, Disaster Movie, I'm looking at you) and yet I reserve my own personal wrath for this insulting clunker of a remake of the far superior film of the same name: The Women. Just saying the title makes me shudder; ditto my lingering contempt for all parties responsible, beginning with director Diane English, continuing on to the plasticized Meg Ryan-bot that we've come to see in recent years, and even trickling down to the film's A-list roster of supporting actresses (in a gimmick borrowed from the 1939 film, not a single male actor appears onscreen): Annette Bening, Jada Pinkett Smith, Carrie Fisher, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, Debi Mazar, Bette Midler, and even the incomparable Cloris Leachman, who somehow got herself mixed up in this mess.

What's The Women about? Ryan plays society maven and housewife Mary Haines (who, since it's 2008, must be given some measure of independent means and is therefore a fashion designer), who learns (thanks to the age old female practice of gossip) that her husband is cheating on her with a department store perfume girl (who, like young and attractive women are wont to do, is willfully gold-digging her way into marriage). Cat-fighting, moping, and more gossiping ensue in this critically-lambasted tale of womanhood and friendship that belies its own "woman power" message. Even with its handful of featurettes and deleted scenes, anyone who gifts The Women to the females in their family this holiday season will be doing their mother/daughter/girlfriend/wife/platonic female friend a huge disservice; stick with George Cukor's original version instead.