As crews began unwrapping their rain-soaked stands and bleachers for the Oscar ceremony Saturday night, there was another, smaller ceremony being held only a block away at Ignited Spaces. There, on the 11th floor, 34th Annual Razzie Awards were handed out. While it wasn’t as elaborate a showcase as the Academy Awards and no celebrities showed up this year, the event did feature musical numbers, plenty of jokes and many award presentations. Most gags involved chastising the nominees for not, “owning their bad.” In all, it entertained the media and numerous guests present.
The Golden Raspberry Award Foundation was founded in 1980 to give out awards to the poorest movies of the year. Previous Worst Movie winners have included Showgirls, Battlefield Earth, Catwoman, Gigli, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and most recently Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 2. How do the Razzie members come to their decisions? It’s exactly like the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences. There’s a nomination voting process among members. Another ballot condenses and whittles the ten or more front runners down to five final nominees in each of the ten award categories. A final online vote that encompasses the somewhere in the neighborhood of 650 reps determines who has won the dubious honor and a $4.97 dollar Razzie trophy.
For those interested in becoming voting Razzie members, it’s a simple enough process and open to anyone. Go to the razzie.com website, pay your dues (approximately $40 dollars annually) and you can cast your own vote. Since everyone can vote, it does seem that some of the larger, more accessible films seen by the most constituents tend to win. Having said that, the film that took this year’s top prize bombed at the box office and certainly was an appropriate choice. Here are all of this year’s Razzie award winners.
WORST PICTURE
Movie 43
WORST ACTOR
Jaden Smith – After Earth
WORST ACTRESS
Tyler Perry (In Drag) – A Madea Christmas
WORST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Will Smith – After Earth
WORST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Kim Kardashian – Tyler Perry’s Temptation
WORST DIRECTOR
The 13 People Who Directed Movie 43
WORST SCREENPLAY
Movie 43 (Written by 19 “Screenwriters”)
WORST SCREEN COMBO
Jaden Smith & Will Smith – After Earth
WORST REMAKE/RIP-OFF or SEQUEL
The Lone Ranger
For a list of all of the original nominees, click here. In the end, it was an especially big night for Movie 43 and After Earth, both of which took home 3 trophies. Do you think that the Razzie voters made the right call?
There you have it. Check back for a full rundown of Oscar Winners!