Everyone – myself included – has written pieces about the Oscars. I will certainly be watching, and I will certainly be rooting for the Disgruntled Shepherd movie this Sunday night. But this Saturday, there is another important awards show in Hollywood honoring notable movies of 2005. The Golden Raspberry Awards are not as star-studded as the show that follows them, but they are just as valuable in giving credit where credit is due. Unlike the movies due to be thanked by the Academy on Sunday, I will not claim (or admit) to having seen all of the films nominated for Razzies, and so my goal here is to inform you of which nominees I want to “win,” if you can call it that. Without further ado, my Raspberry wish list. (Preferred winners are in bold.)
Worst Screenplay:
Bewitched*
Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
Dirty Love
The Dukes of Hazzard
Son of the Mask
Jenny McCarthy’s Dirty Love (yeah…she wrote a movie) is probably the worst of the bunch, but I want all of these awful movies to have a chance to suckle from the teat of the Golden Raspberry. The problem with Bewitched was not its acting: the paycheck-driven cast did what they could with the material. And Adam McKay, co-writer of Anchorman, crafted some scenes to fit the gifts of Ferrell. But, for all the talent involved (Kidman, Ferrell, Caine, MacLaine, Carrell, etc.), it was the words on the page that made this movie so painfully awful. Nora and Delia Ephron also brought us several Meg Ryan gems, back when she was attractive and perky, and Nicole Kidman is more fun to watch than Ryan ever was, but You’ve Got Mail and Anchorman do not a perfect match make. This is their brain-dead hate-child.
Worst Director:
John Asher, Dirty Love
Dr. Uwe Boll, Alone in the Dark*
Jay Chandrasekhar, The Dukes of Hazzard
Nora Ephron, Bewitched
Lawrence Guterman, Son of the Mask
Again, Dirty Love may well deserve this award, but if you know anything about Dr. Uwe Boll, you know he’s the biggest prick since Sleeping Beauty and the biggest hack since Halloween. Alone in the Dark was the masterpiece that cast Tara Reid as a young (sure) brilliant (excuse me?) anthropologist. Seriously. The plot doesn’t matter, because there is no sense to be made of it. But Boll deserves this award because of his insistence that his movies are so incredibly brilliant, and because of his penchant for harshly confronting unkind critics. He has also excreted House of the Dead and BloodRayne, after leaving his native Germany for these shores. Chandrasekhar was the auteur behind Super Troopers, and so I have faith he simply needed a new wing for his house. Guterman is talentless, but he specializes in family fare, and so it would seem he would have little chance to be harmful to me or to you. Ephron deserves the writing “award,” and we will get to Dirty Love. Regarding Dr. Boll, whose degree is in literature, someway, somehow, he has lined up more than five future projects, and my futile hope is that his confusing success may be stunted by a Razzie. Futile, indeed.
Worst Remake or Sequel:
Bewitched
Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
The Dukes of Hazzard
House of Wax*
Son of the Mask
Being a rebel award show, the Razzies fudge the rules sometimes. Hazzard was spawned from television, sure, but it’s not a remake or sequel of any other movie. In Justinland, it is thus disqualified. Deuce is one of those movies you know they should have made right after the first one, because the joke is more than a little stale after six years. Son of the Mask isn’t quite in the same vein, because a Mask sequel with Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz would probably not be on this list. So it seems the award will go to House of Wax, which committed one of the most egregious crimes of movie remakes by starting with a film starring Vincent Price… and turning it into one featuring Paris Hilton.
Worst Screen Couple:
Will Ferrell and Nicole Kidman, Bewitched
Jamie Kennedy and Anybody sharing the screen with him, Son of the Mask
Jenny McCarthy and Anyone dumb enough…., Dirty Love
Rob Schneider and his diapers, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo*
Jessica Simpson and her Daisy Dukes, The Dukes of Hazzard
I’m saving my venom for Dirty Love until the end. Of the other choices, Ferrell and Kidman aren’t the big issues with Bewitched, I happen to like the way Jessica Simpson’s tiny shorts fit her, and as much as I respect the Razzies, the “Anyone…” choices always seem like malicious and desperate choices to me. That leaves poor Rob Schneider… who must be just that to have agreed to suit up for this movie. Remember when he was funny?
Worst Supporting Actress:
Carmen Electra, Dirty Love
Paris Hilton, House of Wax
Katie Holmes, Batman Begins
Ashlee Simpson, Undiscovered
Jessica Simpson, The Dukes of Hazzard*
Electra and Holmes were plenty awful, but the former’s movie will soon receive a thrashing, and the latter’s was too good to be ruined by her presence. (But she won’t be in the sequel.) I’m sure Ashlee was no better than her singing, but even though Jessica has more musical talent than her sister, she needs a Razzie for even trying to redo “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.” Besides, at least they killed Paris in her movie.
Worst Supporting Actor:
Hayden Christensen, SW III: Revenge of the Sith *
Alan Cumming, Son of the Mask
Bob Hoskins, Son of the Mask
Eugene Levy, Cheaper by the Dozen 2 & The Man
Burt Reynolds, The Dukes of Hazzard & The Longest Yard
Most of these men are simply talented actors slumming for paychecks. Few people expected much from The Man. But when you’re playing the pivotal role in the most beloved film series in the history of the medium, and you get two tries – and five years – to get it right, and you fail spectacularly like Scott McClellan trying to make the White House look good, then you deserve a Razzie. Lucas’s script didn’t help, but you can’t let Anakin’s transformation suffer because of it. Shame on you, Hayden. You’re more annoying than Jar-Jar.
Worst Actor:
Tom Cruise, War of the Worlds
Will Ferrell, Bewitched & Kicking and Screaming
Jamie Kennedy, Son of the Mask *
The Rock, Doom
Rob Schneider, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
The Cruise nomination is a result of the legitimate fatigue of this once-sane superstar. There were flaws in that movie, but they had more to do with the ending than the actors. Kicking and Screaming is not a good movie, but Ferrell succeeded much more so than he did in Bewitched, a turd which, as I said, is not his fault either. The fact that The Rock still goes by such a moniker makes him too laughable to be seriously awful, and Schneider’s earlier prize means this one goes to Kennedy who disappoints me for trying to fill the gigantic shoes of Jim Carrey. Steve Carell will attempt the same later this year with Evan Almighty, but with all respect to Kennedy, he’s no Carell either.
Worst Actress:
Jessica Alba, Fantastic Four & Into The Blue
Hilary Duff, Cheaper by the Dozen &The Perfect Man
Jennifer Lopez, Monster-in-Law
Jenny McCarthy, Dirty Love *
Tara Reid, Alone in the Dark
I used to like Jessica Alba when she was on Fox’s “Dark Angel.” I still like Jessica Alba. Jessica Alba can’t act. Hilary Duff needs a kick in the face for sucking up millions of dollars from innocent young people, Lopez has not been appealing on screen since she decided she was still, she was still “Jenny from the Block,” and Reid embarrasses herself enough on her own: she doesn’t need the help of a Razzie. That leaves McCarthy and Dirty Love….
Worst Picture:
Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
Dirty Love *
The Dukes of Hazzard
House of Wax
Son of the Mask
Imagine, if you will, a scene in a comedy where a woman, played by McCarthy, realizes she doesn’t have very much money while shopping at the market. Apparently, it’s about to be that time of the month. She’s in the tampon aisle, and her lack of funds causes her to choose the industrial-sized tampons. (Slippery slope, at this point, no?) After taking them off the wall, she realizes that, uh-oh, it’s period time RIGHT NOW, and she looks down to see, yes, blood on the floor. (We’re tumbling down that slope.) But wait, she has to find a bathroom to stop the flow. It’s occupied by a farting woman. Too bad for her, because now she’s bleeding all over the floor! This is not a short scene, mind you: she runs around the market for a minute and a half, finally slipping in a massive pool of her own blood – a pool so large she would have passed out or died – and falling on her idiotic ass. It is this scene, and others like it, that convinced me I will never, in my lifetime, see a movie worse than Dirty Love. Enjoy the show. (And go Brokeback.)