Academy Award-winning actor Sir Ben Kingsley showed questionable judgment by taking on the role of Guru Tugginmyupudha in Mike Myers' critical and commercial flop The Love Guru. (Paramount Pictures)

At this time of year, when countless best-of lists start to appear, it’s important to remember that the entertainment world isn’t all sunshine and lollipops. Darkness often rears its ugly head, in the form of inflated egos, moronic scripts and puerile reality shows. It’s the yin and yang of pop culture: for every quality film like Milk there has to be a loathsome product like The Happening. Here’s a sampling of the most embarrassing, weird and just plain horrible moments of 2008.

If you wanna be my lover… oh, screw it

Amid rumours of renewed friction, the Spice Girls prematurely scrap their reunion tour after a Toronto show on Feb. 26.

Dude, the Blur-Oasis spat ended, like, 10 years ago

Daniel Sullivan, 47, of Pickering, Ont., is charged with assault after attacking Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher during a performance of (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? at Toronto’s Virgin Festival in September.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper plays an electric baby grand piano at the airport upon his arrival in St. John's, N.L., on Sept. 13, 2008. (Tom Hanson/Canadian Press)

Plus, there are all those time-consuming “rich galas” to attend

Trying to establish his artistic cred in the run-up to the federal election on Oct. 14, Prime Minister Stephen Harper tells the Globe and Mail about his obsessive creative temperament: “I’ve played piano, I’ve sung a bit, I used to write poetry. I’ve always found with these kinds of things that they draw me in and I can’t let them go. I find it difficult to do it just on the side.”

It’s hip-hop slang for “You’re fired”

On his Apprentice-style reality show, The Money and the Power, rapper 50 Cent dismisses unsuccessful candidates with the harsh tagline, “Get the f--- out of here.”

But not as painful as our memories of Mitsou’s last album

In an open letter to Paul McCartney, artist Luc Archambault criticizes the decision to have the ex-Beatle play a concert on the Plains of Abraham for Quebec City’s 400^th birthday. Writes Archambault, “The presence of your English-language music on the most majestic part of Battlefields Park, as beautiful as it might be, can’t help but bring back painful memories of our Conquest.”

Fair enough — but would you mind passing along this copy of the White Album for Paul to sign?

Former Beatle Ringo Starr posts a video on his website, saying that after Oct. 20, he will no longer sign autographs for fans who write to him. Despite repeating the hippie phrase “peace and love” several times, the drummer seems surprisingly hostile.

Wannabe country singer Bobby Brown poses at the 2008 CMT Awards on April 14, 2008 in Nashville, Tenn. (Evan Agostini/Associated Press)

Next week, Tiffani-Amber Thiessen describes her Method acting on Saved by the Bell

Charlie Sheen discusses his work on the inane sitcom Two and a Half Men during an interview with James Lipton on Inside the Actors Studio.

Whitney Houston, we have a problem

Bobby Brown makes an unsuccessful attempt to reinvent himself as a country singer on the CMT reality show, Gone Country. In one episode, while sleepwalking, he mistakes the bedroom for the bathroom.

Funny, I don’t remember Chaplin directing a lame comedy about Eastern spirituality

In the critical and commercial flop The Love Guru, Sir Ben Kingsley had a small role as the cross-eyed Guru Tugginmypudha. While promoting the film, Kingsley says that working with Mike Myers “is just a little like working with Charlie Chaplin must have been.”

Broadly redefining the meaning of “new” and “kids”

After disbanding in 1994, boy band New Kids on the Block stages a reunion tour.

Broadly redefining the meaning of “reunion tour”

Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones announces that the band plans to tour in 2009, despite lead singer Robert Plant’s decision not to participate. Oh, and the fact that original drummer John Bonham is still dead.

Lin Miaoke, the nine-year-old Chinese girl who lip-synched at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. (Xinhua, Zhou Liang/Xinhua/Associated Press)

Don’t worry, kid, I doubt people will be watching anyway

Chen Qigang, the music director for the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, admits that nine-year-old Lin Miaoke lip-synched Ode to the Motherland during the multimedia spectacle, using audio of seven-year-old Yang Peiyi, who wasn’t considered cute enough to appear on television. “The reason for this is that we must put our country’s interest first. We had to make that choice. It was fair both for Lin Miaoke and Yang Peiyi,” says Qigang. “We combined the perfect voice and the perfect performance.”

If the Federation and Klingons can get along, why can’t these two?

Claiming he hadn’t been invited to George Takei’s wedding, William Shatner unleashes an online attack on his fellow Star Trek cast member: “There’s such a sickness there, it’s so painfully obvious that there’s a psychosis there, I don’t know what his original thing about me was, I have no idea.” Takei says that Shatner had been invited, but didn’t respond.

This year’s winner in the Most Desperate Baldwin sweepstakes

Miley Cyrus tells actor Stephen Baldwin that if he gets a Hannah Montana tattoo, he can make a cameo appearance on her show. Baldwin now has a tattoo on his upper bicep that says “HM.” No word yet on that cameo.

Not a winning formula, but a formula nonetheless

In April, Al Pacino receives some of the worst reviews of his career for 88 Minutes, directed by Jon Avnet. Five months later, he’s panned once again for Righteous Kill, also directed by Avnet.

Republicans would call it “consolidating your base”

Shortly after revisiting his boxer-with-a-heart-of-gold role in Rocky Balboa, Sylvester Stallone has another go at playing John Rambo, the Vietnam vet with anger-management issues.

Paris Hilton, left, and Christine Lakin star in The Hottie & the Nottie. (Summit Entertainment)

Now playing at the Beijing multiplex: Young People Hugging

Canadian sex comedy Young People F---ing becomes the flashpoint in a heated debate about Bill C-10, and the possibility that tax credits could be denied to filmmakers if the federal Heritage Department deems their subject matter offensive. Director David Cronenberg observes, “It sounds like something they do in Beijing.”

The problem with film critics today is they’re just so wishy-washy

The Village Voice describes the Paris Hilton vehicle The Hottie and the Nottie as “crass, shrill, disingenuous, tawdry, mean-spirited, vulgar, idiotic, boring, slapdash, half-assed, and very, very, unfunny.”

Greig Dymond writes about the arts for CBCNews.ca.