Sunday, February 22, 2015

A Ghoul Versus The 35th Annual Razzie Awards

Tonight are the 87th Academy Awards, in which the best and brightest of the film industry are honoured with the much coveted golden Oscar statues. The Golden Raspberry Awards are the antithesis of this as they honour the worst and the stupidest the industry churns out with cheaply made awards called the Razzies. Begun in 1981 by publicist John J.B. Wilson, they originally were held in the living room of his house but gradually grew in scope over the years until they commanded their own theater attended by hundreds. Even some of Hollywood's biggest stars have shown up to claim their awards, including Ben Affleck, Sandra Bullock, and Halle Berry.

As is the tradition, the Razzies are always held the night before the Oscars and thus the 35th annual show just went down yesterday. You may recall many, many moons ago I predicted the abominable Robocop remake was going to rack up the nominations in the same manner it racked up my complete disdain. I'm always a big enough zombie to admit when I was wrong, but even I was shocked at how wrong I was. Robocop didn't even score a SINGLE nomination, not even in Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off, Or Sequel. Fucking REALLY, Razzies? Did they not see that movie? The Razzies have always had a reputation for picking on what's really popular to hate, hence why Michael Bay and Adam Sandler always do quite well come award season, but to not even give Robocop acknowledgment of any kind? Pitiful. What did win for 2014?


Worst Picture
Saving Christmas (winner)
Left Behind
The Legend of Hercules
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Transformers: Age of Extinction

Worst Actor
Kirk Cameron for Saving Christmas (winner)
Nicolas Cage for Left Behind
Kellan Lutz for The Legend of Hercules
Adam Sandler for Blended
Seth MacFarlane for A Million Ways to Die in the West

Worst Actress
Cameron Diaz for The Other Woman and Sex Tape (winner)
Drew Barrymore for Blended
Female Adam Sandler for Tammy
Charlize Theron for A Million Ways to Die in the West
Gaia Weiss for The Legend of Hercules

Worst Supporting Actor
Kelsey Grammer for a fuckton of movies. He had a ROUGH year. (winner)
Mel Gibson for The Expendables 3
Shaquille O'Neal for Blended
Arnold Schwarzenegger for The Expendables 3
Kiefer Sutherland for Pompeii

Worst Supporting Actress
Megan Fox for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (winner)
Cameron Diaz for Annie
Nicola Peltz for Transformers: Age of Extinction
Bridgette Cameron Ridenour for Saving Christmas
Susan Sarandon for Tammy

Worst Screen Combo (this is usually the best category)
Kirk Cameron and his ego for Saving Christmas (winner)
Any two robots, actors, or robotic actors for Transformers: Age of Extinction
Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel for Sex Tape
Kellan Lutz and either his abs, his pecs, or his glutes for The Legend of Hercules
Seth MacFarlane and Charlize Theron for A Million Ways to Die in the West

Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off, Or Sequel
Annie (winner)
Atlas Shrugged Part III
The Legend of Hercules
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Transformers: Age of Extinction

Worst Director
Michael Bay for Transformers: Age of Extinction (winner)
Darren Doane for Saving Christmas
Renny Harlin for The Legend of Hercules
Jonathan Liebesman for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Seth MacFarlane for A Million Ways to Die in the West

Worst Screenplay
Saving Christmas by Darren Doane and Cheston Hervey (winner)
Left Behind by Paul LaLonde and John Patus
Sex Tape by Kate Angelo, Jason Segel, and Nicholas Stoller
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by Josh Appelbaum, Andre Nemec, and Evan Daugherty
Transformers: Age of Extinction by Ehren Kruger

Wow, one can definitely see some patterns emerge from that list. Although I've always thought the Razzies make more sense than the Oscars in that aspect, the most critically acclaimed movies SHOULD dominate all categories. I mean, a truly great movie isn't great based off the sole work of one person, all fields that came together to create it should get their respective shout outs like Silence of the Lambs did in 1992. Saving Christmas really needs no introduction if you even remotely follow movie news, it's the latest effort by... actor? Television personality? Kirk Cameron, a “faith-based comedy” that is all about putting the Christ back into Christmas! It was released on November 14, 2014 to a slew of horrible reviews, racking up an impressive ZERO percent on Rotten Tomatoes and has gone on to become the LOWEST RATED FILM on IMDB.com.

To be fair though, after his film came out Cameron took to Facebook to combat the negative reviews, blaming them all on “atheists and haters”, urging his fans to upvote the movie. This backfired as expected and the rating continued to sink to the point where I'm shocked it's not in the negatives, so one must take those zeros with a grain of salt as a fair percentage of the reviews are by people just spiting Cameron for his bravado. Not to say that I think the film is good, I've seen a few of his previous movies and they hurt me like a shotgun blast to the brain, but it likely isn't the worst movie of all time. I guess we'll find out when it hits home video, which I'm actually shocked it hasn't already.

Cameron Diaz racking up the nominations for her acting is no surprise, I can't say I've seen her in a film I enjoyed the past decade. She's one of those actresses that started off strong with quality roles in Feeling Minnesota, A Life Less Ordinary, and Vanilla Sky, then just started going downhill quick. It doesn't help she's done mostly comedies as of late, which have all been some of the worst examples of eliciting laughter from an audience you'll ever see. What Happens in Vegas, anyone? The Other Woman has gotten MASSIVE levels of hate to the point it'll probably be popping up on here soon, especially with the fact when I was doing my research for my review of Walk of Shame (which should have gotten a couple of Razzie nods itself) the two movies were compared to each other more often than not.

I did see Kelsey Grammer in the fourth Bayformers movie, and I didn't think he was THAT bad so his other roles in the Expendables 3, Legends of Oz, and Think Like a Man Too must have been ATROCIOUS. Think Like a Man TOO? God. Megan Fox FINALLY winning a Razzie was long overdue, she was TOTALLY ROBBED in 2010 and 2011 to the same level of Saving Private Ryan not winning the Oscar in 1999, so it's good to see justice has been served at long last. I've been putting off watching Ninja Turtles for as long as possible, but I may have to move it up my queue in lieu of her much deserved award.

I haven't seen Annie either, but it does sound like it deserved to win as it was a BEYOND pointless remake with some inexplicable updating. I have no desire to ever watch that one, so I'll just accept it's somehow worse than Age of Extinction. And speaking of that, congratulations to Michael Bay for winning his second Worst Director Razzie! I'm glad he was able to recover from his soul crushing defeat in 2012 when he should have won for Transformers: Dark of the Moon but lost to Dennis Dugan for Jack and Jill and Just Go With It. A two hundred million dollar clusterfuck of epic proportions should never lose to two Adam Sandler movies that barely even qualify as movies, just saying.

Of all the nominees on here, the one that caught my eye most was the Legend of Hercules. Starring Kellan Lutz of Twilight fame, this film sports a 3% on Rotten Tomatoes and has graced MANY “Worst of 2014” lists. I've been saving it for a Dueling Movies feature review with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson's own version of Hercules, but I think it's impressive number of nominations just shot it to the top of my list. Expect it in a few days unless it's the movie that finally does me in, but if the last few Andy Sidaris films or the Houses October Built couldn't do that job then nothing can!

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