Hollywood executives should be hi-fiveing each other this year for making as much money as they have – for so little effort. On the one hand, Hollywood’s first quarter box office returns have never been better than in the past few months.

All those lingering worries from 2005 about theatrical exhibition taking a back seat to DVD sales, premium cable and Internet piracy have finally been put to rest. People still want to see their favorite new films on the big screen.

It just turns out that the new films moviegoers have been flocking to are cinematic excrement. These movies insult one’s intelligence with witless dialogue, ham-boned acting, and below-TV-sitcom-level cinematography and lighting. Even worse, they infantilize their audience with endless bathroom humor, puerile sexual innuendo and ethnic stereotype baiting.

It’s as if Hollywood execs have been conducting an experiment, with audience members as their lab rats: how crappy a movie can we make and still have the American viewing public shell out millions of dollars to see it? Here are four of the worst (albeit financially successful) films that have disgraced the American cinematic landscape so far this year: