The Golden Raspberry awards, Oscar’s cackling ugly sister, ought to be a bitchy corrective to awards season hyperbole, to take Hollywood down a peg or two, and identify the bizarrely overrated as well as the obviously catastrophic.
By these standards, the nominations this year are a sorry lot. Sure, the films are mostly sorry as well – I can’t see many critics sticking up for The Last Airbender or Sex and the City 2, even sheepishly. But it’s as if the shortlists have been compiled by a robot totting up the ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, not a jury of discerning and sentient humans with an ability to, you know, be entertaining. What else are the Razzies for?
Nominating both Twilight: Eclipse and Vampires Suck is a waste of at least one Worst Picture slot. They are the same movie, and Kristen Stewart, whom fulminating fanboys live to despise for reasons I don’t fathom, is trying her best. Jennifer Aniston is actually on redeemingly snappy form in The Bounty Hunter, whatever you think of the film or Gerard Butler. And the supporting actress category, as well as dopily chucking in Jessica Alba’s career-best performance in The Killer Inside Me, has declared a clonkingly malicious open season on bashing gay icons.
I suspect they think it’s hilarious automatically to nominate Barbra Streisand. Liza Minnelli is in Sex and the City 2 for all of two minutes, playing herself, and being perfect, if embarrassing, at doing so. Cher is actively great in Burlesque. Do any of them bother to watch the films? I get ever more dubious each year.
There’s only one of me, but I hereby declare who would get my vote in the main categories, going by the American release dates, staying Hollywood-centric, and doing it somewhat off the top of my head. I’m sure the penultimate one will get me lynched, particularly if anyone has indeed witnessed how amazingly terrible Billy Ray Cyrus is in The Spy Next Door.
Tim Robey's choices:
WORST PICTURE
Alice in Wonderland
WORST DIRECTOR
Jay Roach (Dinner for Schmucks)
WORST ACTRESS
Angelina Jolie (The Tourist)
WORST ACTOR
Harrison Ford (Morning Glory)
WORST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Gemma Arterton (Clash of the Titans)
WORST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Timothy Spall (The King’s Speech)
WORST SCREENPLAY (should probably be “least evidence a screenplay was actually used”)
Knight and Day
