The last time we heard from Grantland’s Chief RazzieWatcher, Dan Kois, the announcement of the Razzies nominations — in which Adam Sandler garnered a record-breaking 11 nods — had caused him serious cardiac issues. He has still not recovered, and we can only imagine what further debilitating infarctions were visited upon our Guru after last night’s (insanely scheduled) announcement of the Razzies winners. Defying all conventional logic, and proudly besting a long history of cinematic shame, Adam Sandler’s Jack and Jill somehow, someway won every Razzie possible. The complete sweep! It’s never been done — and, dare I say, may never be done again. So complete was Jack and Jill’s domination that Sandler even managed to win twice in some categories. Just look at this roll call of perfect terribleness:
One of the running gimmicks of last night's Oscars was talking-head interviews with a bunch of actors getting really earnest about the magic of the movies and stuff. It bordered on the self-serious (Steve Carell: “What makes a person laugh? What makes a person cry? What makes a person feel anything?”), but for the most part was a nice way for actors to geek out over other actors: Reese Witherspoon sang the praises of Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell in Overboard, Gabourey Sidibe got real about Daniel Day-Lewis as “a freaking alcoholic with one foot." And then there was Adam Sandler. When it came time for him to speak, he did not say, “I like making movies because I get to hang out with my friends, make a lot of money, and make dick jokes.” He said this: “I’m eventually trying to, one day, tell the truth. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get there, but I’m slowly letting pieces of myself out there and then maybe by the time I’m 85, I’ll look back and say, ‘All right, that about sums it up.’”
Last night John Wilson of the the Golden Raspberry Foundation shook up awards season something fierce -- and in the process demonstrated why he’s the canniest awards-show producer in America! Just one day before the Razzie nominations were due to be announced, Wilson proclaimed that the Razzie Awards will be pushed back five weeks. Nominations will now be released on February 25, and the awards themselves will now take place on April Fools’ Day, April 1.
Holy Effing Ess!!! It is only four days until the 2012 Golden Raspberry nominations are released in Hollywood, California! Even as we write, Head RAZZberry John Wilson is collecting ballots (including our own!) and tallying votes for the world’s greatest and most important awards show. You know what that means: It’s time for our final predictions.
A lot has changed since we made our first forecast way back in July. Back then we had a bottom five of The Hangover Part II, Jack and Jill, Real Steel, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1, and Zookeeper — but at that point, only two of those movies had even come out. How many of those stinkers made it into our final predictions? Read on and see!
With Golden Raspberry ballots out to voting members and the nominations less than a week away, stars’ Razzie hopes rest with one man: bearded impresario John Wilson, who started the Razzies 31 years ago and has been running them ever since. Wilson was gracious enough to take time out of his incredibly busy schedule to talk to RazzieWatch. After we finished hyperventilating, we did a darn good job interviewing our only personal lifelong hero!!!!!!
You knew Twilight was going to earn boatloads this weekend. But how did films not starring vampires do? Terrible. Below, your Top Five movies.
1. Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (weekend: $139.5 million) Breaking Dawn couldn't quite top the Twilight franchise's previous biggest debut (New Moon opened to $142.8 million in 2009), but it did set the record for best-ever North American first weekend for a movie in which a vampire delivers a demon baby via C-section with his own teeth (discounting inflation). Eighty percent of Dawn's audience was female, which is less than we might have guessed.
2. Happy Feet Two (weekend: $22 million)
Despite a voice cast that includes Matt Damon and Brad Pitt, and a boost from 3D tickets, this dancing-penguins sequel (budget: $135 million) opened to half of what the 2006 original did — and next weekend, families will presumably opt for The Muppets. Happy Feet Three: probably not happening.
It's Friday and Hollywood has disgorged another batch of movies into multiplexes. Which will reign supreme and why? Below, our predictions for the Top 5 films at this weekend's box office.
1. Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1
Critics say it's terrible, but that won't matter to the fanatical, unshowered hordes who've been camped out in front of theaters for a week without access to bathrooms or Rotten Tomatoes. The plots of previous Twilight movies have mostly revolved around Edward and Bella gazing boringly into each others' dead eyes. But Breaking Dawn features a wedding, a sex scene, and a womb-shredding demon baby, so tracking indicates its first-weekend gross to hit triple-digit Harry Potter numbers.
Well, Razzie lovers, things just got interesting, didn’t they?
All year, we’ve been disappointed by the movies we thought might be Razzie contenders. Transformers: Dark of the Moon? Coulda been worse. Rise of the Planet of the Apes? Frustratingly good. J. Edgar? Despised by some, not all. It’s enough to make veteran Razzie gurus like ourselves throw their hands to the sky and cry, “Why? Why must we suffer so? For God’s sake, can’t someone in Hollywood make a shitty movie that everyone hates?”
Riding a tsunami of critical disapproval into theaters this weekend is Jack and Jill, in which Adam Sandler stars as twin siblings of both sexes. Predictably, Sandler's performances have gone unheralded by critics. Al Pacino, though — who plays an exaggerated version of himself who falls in love with Jill while being wooed by ad executive Jack to star in a Dunkin' Donuts commercial — has really distinguished himself. In fact, these are probably Pacino's best reviews in a decade. Below, a sampling of the acclaim.
It's Friday and Hollywood has disgorged another batch of movies into multiplexes. Which will reign supreme and why? Below, our predictions for the Top 5 films at this weekend's box office.
5. J. Edgar
Leonardo DiCaprio puts on a rubbery old-guy mask and even less plausible accent to play the titular FBI director in Clint Eastwood's latest biopic, which expands nationally today. Eastwood's movies usually do better when the director is in front of the camera, but Edgar has made an impressive $53,000 in limited release since Wednesday, plus what else do your parents have to do this weekend?
Or, rather, will it be a supporting vampire, or a supporting werewolf? With its plentiful stock of wolfcake and bloodsuckers, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 is a bonanza for a category that’s often among the Razzies’ most predictable. Due to a fluke of scheduling, though, the name-brand Supporting Actors the Razzies typically love — Burt Reynolds, Marlon Wayans, Verne Troyer, Jon Voight, and (of course) Rob Schneider — have zero movies due to be released in 2011. That means some fresh Razzie meat come January 23!
Will Jackson Rathbone follow up his shocking Razzie win last year with another nomination? Might Taylor Lautner have better luck in Supporting Actor than he did in Worst Actor last year, when he lost to Ashton Kutcher? What about Kellan Lutz as vampire Emmett, the most bloodless of the bunch? Or Michael Sheen as Aro, who seems prepared to devour the scenery like so many shrieking coeds? Or Jamie Campbell Bower, who … uh … we can’t remember who “Caius” is. At any rate, they’re all front-runners, so let’s put them there.
Every week, Grantland's staff watches all 200 million videos on YouTube and picks their favorites.
Bill Simmons: Leftover Mailbag question from Ahmad in Chicago: "The sex scene between Walt and Skyler on last week's episode of Breaking Bad was the least sexy sex scene I've ever seen. What's your favorite 'least sexy' sex scene?"
Let's take it up a notch: What about a favorite "least sexy" 10-minute YouTube clip? I've never seen Moment by Moment in its entirety, just this 10-minute montage clip that accurately captures one of the single biggest bombs of the 1970s. Why did Travolta choose THIS MOVIE, of all movies, as his 1978 follow-up to Saturday Night Fever? I don't know. What possessed a studio exec to suggest, "Let's make a moody/erotic/weighty romance about an older woman falling for a younger man, only we'll cast John Travolta and Lily Tomlin as the leads, give them similar haircuts and really freak people out?" Actually, I know the answer there: Cocaine. Tons and tons of cocaine. (Fine, I'm guessing. You come up with a better explanation.) I beg you to waste 10 minutes watching this clip. It will fly by after the glorious first 90 seconds, which feature porn music in the intro, a bra-less Tomlin pretending to be a sexually frustrated Beverly Hills housewife, Travolta's come-on line, "I did valet parking for you at that big beach party you had a few months back," Travolta's revealing that his name is "Vic Sunset" (and his nickname was "Strip"), and such horrific acting that all copies of this film have apparently been destroyed because I have NEVER seen it on cable. Tomlin didn't officially come out of the closet until 2001, although you could make a pretty strong case that she did during this movie (directed by her real-life partner, Jane Wagner, by the way). Travolta's career survived, at least for a few years, although it really should have ended after the hot tub scene at 4:45. Only the Moment by Moment movie poster came out a winner: Its tagline was "The only thing they have in common … is each other." That's a great point. Literally, it was the only thing they had in common: the fact that the other person also happened to be in the room. Try to find me a stiffer on-screen couple. You will fail.
What do Stanley Kubrick, John Huston, Sylvester Stallone, and Prince have in common? They’ve all been nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Director! The Razzies have always prided themselves on nominating a mix of directors for the industry’s biggest prize. Sure, actors (Kevin Costner, Dan Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy) who step behind the camera are always favorites. But the Razzies voters seem to enjoy taking auteurs and top-notch pros down a peg, as well; by RazzieWatch’s count, 14 directors have been nominated for the Oscar for Best Director and the Razzie for Worst Director.
While George C. Scott might beg to differ, the trailer for Jack and Jill, Adam Sandler’s latest high-concept excuse for him to hang out with his buddies farce has confirmed what we’ve long suspected: Comic cross-dressing is back, baby! Sure, none of the other contenders appear to reach the awesomeful heights (or lows) of Sandler’s Linda Richman: The Movie, but they certainly suggest a transv— er, trend.
