For more than four decades there has been one event during Hollywood’s awards season that has been all about poking fun at bad films and performances.
The Golden Raspberry Awards – an Oscars parody better known as the Razzies – has savaged some of the world’s biggest stars, including Tom Cruise, Sylvester Stallone, Sandra Bullock, John Travolta and Madonna.
A worst film winner at the Razzies: Halle Berry in Catwoman.Credit:Warner
American publicist John Wilson started them as a joke after wondering, on the way home from a double feature of the Village People pseudo biopic Can’t Stop The Music and the Olivia Newton-John musical Xanadu in 1980, whether there were awards for awful movies.
The following year he held a ceremony in his living room alcove to award the Razzie for worst film to Can’t Stop The Music in a stacked field that included Xanadu, adventure film Raise The Titanic, the Don Adams comedy The Nude Bomb, the Neil Diamond version of The Jazz Singer, slasher film Friday the 13th and the Al Pacino thriller Cruising.
Diamond was named worst actor and Brooke Shields, then just 15, was worst actress for Blue Lagoon.
In subsequent decades of Hollywood excess and cynicism, the Razzies had fun at the expense of cinematic misfires and under-achievements, usually the day before the Oscars.
John Travolta in Battlefield Earth, which won the year’s worst movie at the Razzies in 2001.Credit:REUTERS/Pierre Vinet/Franchise Pictures/
Legendary worst film winners have included Travolta’s Scientology-inspired Battlefield Earth, the pulpy Showgirls, the Ben Affleck-Jennifer Lopez romcom Gigli, the Adam Sandler comedy Jack and Jill, the musical disaster Cats and, last year, Netflix’s Diana The Musical.
Named the year’s worst actor and actress have been such big names as Tom Cruise (The Mummy), Sylvester Stallone (four wins including Rambo III), Eddie Murphy (Norbit), Kevin Costner (The Postman), the four Sex and the City stars (Sex and the City 2), Sandra Bullock (All About Steve), Halle Berry (Catwoman) and Madonna (five wins including Swept Away).
Bullock and Berry had enough of a sense of humour to accept their awards in person.
Compared to the seriousness of the Oscars, the Razzies were often a breath of fresh air. But the wit has been sadly drying up and they now go too often for cheap shots on easy targets.
The Razzies sparked an outcry last month when 12-year-old Ryan Kiera Armstrong was nominated as worst actress for horror film Firestarter. Drew Barrymore, star of the 1984 version of the film, called it child bullying.
Wilson apologised, rescinded Armstrong’s nomination and decided that anyone under 18 would not be considered for future awards.
There was no mention of taking back Shields’ award for Blue Lagoon four decades ago. Or other child actors who have been nominated including Jake Lloyd (The Phantom Menace) and Jaden Smith (After Earth).
Razzie nomination revoked: Ryan Kiera Armstrong in Firestarter.Credit:Universal
Leading the nominations this year is Blonde, Andrew Dominik’s darkly troubling take on Marilyn Monroe’s life. It’s up for eight awards including worst picture, director and screen couple for both “Dominik and his issues with women” and “both real-life characters in the fallacious White House bedroom scene”.
Blonde had many detractors who thought it was a travesty to portray a feminist icon as such a damaged soul with no agency over her life and career. But there is no doubt Dominik was aiming for art in a disturbing portrait of how Hollywood – America, in fact – betrayed one of its biggest stars.
While Ana de Armas has been nominated for best actress at the Oscars for the role, the film has already been roundly trashed. Why add to the pile-on?
There was another cheap shot with Tom Hanks being nominated for worst supporting actor and worst screen couple for him and his “latex-laden face (and ludicrous accent)” in Elvis.
Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck are shown on a screen during the 24th Golden Raspberry Awards in 2004. Gigli won worst picture.Credit:AP
Hanks’ other nomination was deserved – worst actor for playing Geppetto in Disney’s dire Pinocchio. But his Colonel Tom Parker was deliberately grotesque – an ugly behind-the-scenes manipulator of the performer he steered to fame.
In the last 12 months, the Razzies have rescinded two other awards. A day after Bruce Willis’ family revealed he had been diagnosed with aphasia, the organisers revoked his award for “worst performance by Bruce Willis in a 2021 movie”.
“If someone’s medical condition is a factor in their decision-making and/or their performance, we acknowledge that it is not appropriate to give them a Razzie,” they said.
They also rescinded a 1980 nomination for Shelley Duvall in The Shining. “We have since discovered that Duvall’s performance was impacted by Stanley Kubrick’s treatment of her throughout the production,” they said.
Times have moved on – with the pandemic and the changing economics of filmmaking – since the Razzies was an antidote to dumb studio decision-making and movie star vanity.
Finding an audience for a film is brutally tough, as Warner Bros Discovery showed when it decided to not even release Batgirl last year.
A cardboard cutout of Madonna accepts the award for worst actress for Swept Away at the 23rd Razzie Awards in 2003.Credit:AP Photo/Rene Macura
There is one “worst film” nomination that, sight unseen, sounds like it deserves mocking this year – the stoner comedy Good Mourning, which was co-written, co-directed and stars Machine Gun Kelly (Colson Baker).
He plays a movie star who has to choose between pursuing his one true love and landing a life-changing role. Reviewers damned it as “a joke-free endeavour”, “a thinly sketched film” and “a flat odyssey through slapstick hijinks”. After so many missteps and cheap shots, the Razzies now feel much the same.
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