Awards Season 2022: Razzies Winners

The 42nd Golden Raspberry Awards have been given out. Here are all the "winners" from 2021's crop of cinematic crap:

Worst Picture: Diana The Musical

Worst Director: Christopher Ashley (Diana The Musical)

Worst Actor: LeBron James (Space Jam: A New Legacy)

Worst Actress: Jeanna de Waal (Diana The Musical)

Worst Supporting Actor: Jared Leto (House Of Gucci)

Worst Supporting Actress: Judy Kaye (Diana The Musical)

Worst Remake, Sequel Or Rip-Off: Space Jam: A New Legacy

Worst Screen Combo: LeBron James & Any Warner Cartoon Character (or Time-Warner product) He Dribbles on (Space Jam: A New Legacy)

Worst Screenplay: Diana The Musical

Worst Performance By Bruce Willis In A 2021 Movie: Cosmic Sin

Razzie Redeemer: Will Smith 

Diana The Musical sweeps the field with five wins, with Space Jam: A New Legacy winning three. 

Despite multiple nominations, tone-deaf race-based "horror" Karen, Rear Window rip-off The Woman In The Window, and cringy musical adaptation Dear Evan Hansen walk away with no awards. 

Also nominated for the Razzie Redeemer Award- given to a former Razzie nominee or winner who has come back from critical and/or commercial failure- which went to Will Smith (going from a four-time Razzie winner to a potential Oscar winner for his nuanced and powerful turn in Oscar drama King Richard) were Jamie Dornan (going from the Fifty Shades... debacle to critically-acclaimed drama Belfast) and Nicolas Cage (from being an eight-time Razzie nominee to his as a truffle hunter who goes in search of his kidnapped pig in Michael Sarnoski's Pig). 

Congratulations to all "winners"!

So, that just leaves the big one: the 94th Academy Awards. I'll be posting my predictions for who will win in six major categories tomorrow afternoon. 

Awards Season 2019: Razzies Nominations

And so, as is traditional now on the eve of the Oscar nominations, we come to one of the more lighthearted and less serious awards: the Golden Raspberrys (Razzies), dishonouring the worst in film in 2018. 

Here are the full nominations for the 39th Annual Razzie Awards 

WORST PICTURE

Gotti

The Happytime Murders

Holmes & Watson  

Robin Hood

Winchester 

WORST ACTRESS

Jennifer Garner (Peppermint)

Amber Heard (London Fields)

Melissa McCarthy (The Happytime Murders and Life of the Party)

Helen Mirren (Winchester)

Amanda Seyfried (The Clapper)  

WORST ACTOR

Johnny Depp (Voice Only) (Sherlock Gnomes)

Will Ferrell (Holmes & Watson)

John Travolta (Gotti)

Donald J. Trump (As Himself) (Death of a Nation and Fahrenheit 11/9)    

Bruce Willis (Death Wish)

WORST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Jamie Foxx (Robin Hood)

Ludacris (Voice Only) (Show Dogs)

Joel McHale (The Happytime Murders)

John C. Reilly (Holmes & Watson)

Justice Smith (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom) 

WORST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Kellyanne Conway (As Herself) (Fahrenheit 11/9)

Marcia Gay Harden (Fifty Shades Freed)

Kelly Preston (Gotti)

Jaz Sinclair (Slender Man)

Melania Trump (As Herself) (Fahrenheit 11/9)

WORST SCREEN COMBO

Any Two Actors or Puppets (Especially in Those Creepy Sex Scenes) (The Happytime Murders)

Johnny Depp & His Fast-Fading Film Career (Sherlock Gnomes)

Will Ferrell & John C. Reilly (Holmes & Watson)

Kelly Preston & John Travolta (Gotti)  

Donald J. Trump & His Self Perpetuating Pettiness (Death of a Nation & Fahrenheit 11/9)

WORST REMAKE, RIP-OFF or SEQUEL

Death of a Nation 

Death Wish

Holmes & Watson

The Meg 

Robin Hood  

WORST DIRECTOR

Etan Cohen (Holmes & Watson)

Kevin Connolly (Gotti)

James Foley (Fifty Shades Freed)

Brian Henson (The Happytime Murders)

The Spierig Brothers (Winchester)  

WORST SCREENPLAY

Death of a Nation

Fifty Shades Freed

Gotti

The Happytime Murders

Winchester

So it's a four-way tie between Gotti, Holmes & Watson, The Happytime Murders, and Death Of A Nation for most nominations (each with 6) 

Nothing for Venom. Nada. Zip. This surprises me. Joint-top nominations for The Happytime Murders? That does not surprise me. As for the other categories, everything seems pretty standard as the Razzies go. Slating for the Fifty Shades... films? Check. Raging contempt for Johnny Depp? Check.

In case anyone's wondering, Death Of A Nation is a 'docudrama' which- and I kid you not- compares the dramatic fracturing of the US over the presidency of Abraham Lincoln and the presidency of Donald Trump. A film which has the tagline: 'Can we save America a second time?' It's written and directed by 'documentarian' and convicted felon Dinesh D'Souza whose last film- Hillary's America: The Secret History Of The Democratic Party- did a massive hatchet job on Democrats in general and Clinton in particular and got similarly panned at the 2017 Razzies. Unsurprisingly, and with a depressing inevitability, D'Souza received a full pardon by Trump in 2018.  I look this shit up so you don't have to. You're welcome, random people of the Internet. 

The Razzies winners will be announced on Saturday February 23rd 2019 (ie. the day before the Oscars). 


Right, after all of this malarkey, it just leaves the big one: the 91st Academy Awards, whose nominations will be announced tomorrow (Tuesday 22nd January). I am still weighing up my predictions for the main six categories- several categories are wide open-  but I will post them later today (once I've actually made a decision). 

Sin City (2005)

Currently in cinemas is Sin City: A Dame To Kill For, the hotly-anticipated sequel to 2005's Sin City. This seems like a good time to go back to assess the original film.

Sin City is, on the very basic level, a comic book adaptation. Frank Miller wrote the Sin City graphic novels between 1991 and 2000 but- having had a negative experience of working in Hollywood (with his screenplays for RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3 being drastically altered)- Miller was not keen to release the film rights for any of his other comic books, for fear of the same thing happening again. 

Director Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi, From Dusk Til Dawn, The Faculty) was a huge fan of the comic-book series and wanted to make a film version of them- but wanted it to be a 'translation, not an adaptation', sticking very closely to the source material. Choosing a 3-page short story entitled 'The Customer Is Always Right' from the 1994 collection The Babe Wore Red And Other Stories, Rodriguez got actors Marley Shelton (The Customer) and Josh Hartnett (The Salesman) to perform against a green-screen then added the background scenery in digitally. Once filming was completed, Rodriguez flew Miller into Austin to see the finished result. Very happy with the end result, Miller agreed for several of his Sin City yarns to be adapted for the film. This 'proof of concept' footage acts as the opening scene of the film.

Josh Hartnett and Marley Shelton in 'The Customer Is Always Right'

The three yarns adapted for the film are 'That Yellow Bastard' (the Hartigan/Nancy storyline), 'The Hard Goodbye' (Marv's story) and 'The Big Fat Kill' (Dwight's tale), and the film takes the Pulp Fiction mode of having separate chapters but not necessarily seen in the proper chronological order. It is interesting to note there is no official screenwriting credit for the film, apart from noting they are based on Miller's graphic novels. That is because of Rodriguez' desire to translate Miller's work as closely as possible on-screen. Rodriguez and Miller worked very closely together, with Miller providing direction to the actors and Rodriguez using the original comic books as storyboards. Rodriguez felt both he and Miller should be credited as directors and, when the Directors Guild of America would not allow it, Rodriguez resigned from the DGA to allow the co-director credit to stand. Quentin Tarantino is credited as a Special Guest Director, for filming a scene in 'The Big Fat Kill' which sees Dwight (Clive Owen) imagining a conversation with Jackie Boy (Benicio del Toro) in his car, before being pulled over by the police.

Tarantino's scene

Along with Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow (2004), Sin City is one of the first films to be shot on a digital backlot. Whilst the majority of the film was shot on green-screen, using Sony HDC-950 high-definition digital cameras, there were several practical sets created, including Kadie's Bar (seen in all three stories) and Shellie's apartment (seen in 'The Big Fat Kill'). The film was initially shot in colour and then converted to black-and-white with colorisation of certain elements within a scene (the colour of someone's eyes or lips, a car, and so on). The end result is striking, stylish and not like anything that had come before it. The visual style of the film is absolutely sumptuous, the backgrounds beautifully rendered. The violence- and there is a lot of it, limbs flying round with abandon, blood splattering all over the place- is strikingly rendered in white (and yellow in one scene) which adds to the comic book feel of the piece. It would certainly be a different film if the bloodshed was rendered properly.

Nick Stahl as The Yellow Bastard

Performances are pretty good across the board, with Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke and Clive Owen giving solid lead performances as Hartigan, Marv, and Dwight respectively. Willis' performance is emotionally affecting- Hartigan feels like the last good man in a corrupt police force, fighting to save the young Nancy from the clutches of an abusive child molester. Rourke is great as Marv, a solid lump of a man with a bizarre streak of chivalry which leads him to track down the killers of a young woman who was kind to him. Owen oozes danger and charisma as Dwight, a criminal caught in the crossfire between the girls of Old Town and a corrupt cop. There's a great turn by Rosario Dawson as Gail, de facto leader of the girls of Old Town and a former flame of Dwight's. Jessica Alba is similarly strong as the grown-up Nancy who still remembers the man who saved her, whilst Rutger Hauer has a nice cameo as Cardinal Roark, whose misdemeanours lead him to a confrontation with Marv. 

Mickey Rourke as Marv

The film was shown at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival and was in competition for the Palme d'Or. Whilst it did not win, Rodriguez was awarded the Technical Grand Prize for the film's visual style. It grossed $29.1 million in its opening weekend in the US and took $158.7 million at the box-office worldwide. Reviews were, as you might expect, mixed. Whilst Roger Ebert called it 'uncompromising and extreme... and brilliant' (giving it 4 out of 4) and another reviewer stating 'Really, there will be no reason for anyone to make a comic-book film ever again', other reviews lingered on the 'murder, torture, decapitation, rape, and misogyny.' It is not a film for the fainthearted or the easily offended. It is a relentlessly macho film, a gritty throwback to the film noir style of the 1940s where men were men and women were either virgins or whores. There's a lot of female flesh on show but there's also a refreshing streak of unapologetic female sexuality (seen in Gail and the girls of Old Town). 

Sin City is hailed by some as a modern classic and its place in the evolution of film-making is undeniable. It's gritty, gory, stylish, visceral and one hell of a ride. But does A Dame To Kill For live up to it? We'll be sharing our thoughts on the film in an upcoming programme.

Tez

Programme 28: Die Hard Special

Programme 28 is here!

In this Die Hard special, Rhys takes a look back at this twenty-five year old film franchise (doesn't that make you pause for thought?) before delivering his verdict on the fifth film. But was it A Good Day To Die Hard?

Enjoy!

Review: Looper (UK Cert 15)

Looper’s premise is this: in the not-too-distant future (how many times have we heard that?) time travel is invented, but it’s outlawed almost immediately. Getting rid of a body in the future is near to impossible – so organised crime sets up the Loopers. Loopers are hit-men  but they are 30 years in the past, before time travel is invented- the future mafia send the victims back in time and the Looper takes care of them and their body in the past. But what happens when your next victim is your future self?

Now this premise intrigued me when I saw the trailer- I asked myself, how are they going to pull that off well, especially when you’re jumping around timelines and raising questions like, the future me will know everything I’m doing… or have done? It’s a great idea, great concept and a new twist on a sci-fi great – time travel. I thought. Unfortunately what you get is a mess of a film. It flitters along at a dull pace, taking far too long to set up a world to only then fail to deliver an exciting story and resolution.

The film stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis and Emily Blunt. Levitt does his best with what he’s got, basically having to imitate a young Willis – under some freaky make up that augments his face to make him look like a young Bruce Willis. Unfortunately, Mr Levitt, relying on the make-up for the role doesn't work. Bruce Willis has never been so clearly taking the paycheck than here – he emotes his feelings of anguish by touching his forehead and looking longingly at his past self – but it just is such a lazy performance. Emily Blunt gives a great performance in a terrible film, her dialogue as a mother who was estranged from her son is just unbelievable – who talks like this? I know – no one does.

I could happily dissect just why this film is so bad – but to do so without spoilers is a nightmare! So to just simply say that this film’s style pallet is eclectic, its grasp of human behaviour is a joke, its plot has more holes than a sieve and the ending of this film is so ridiculous that it actually creates more issues than I can count!

Avoid.

Rating: 1 out of 5

Rhys 

Review: The Cold Light Of Day (UK cert 12A)

I went and saw this on a free Sunday evening, the cinema was half empty and I didn’t know what to expect. From the trailer, I thought I was in for a run-of-the-mill thriller.

How wrong was I! What we have here is a very well-executed espionage thriller with what could have easily been a very simple premise. Our hero Will Shaw (played by Henry Cavill) is suddenly thrown into a spy game. His family is kidnapped while on holiday in Spain and he discovers his father (Bruce Willis) is and has been a spy for all of Will's life. Will must track down his family while avoiding the cat and mouse of various factions out for their own game.

The web of spy games here is so well written- without using spoilers. This film, like I said, could have been a very simple tale: family kidnapped, hero runs around action scene by action scene getting closer, while being used as a puppet in a spy game. But what this film manages to do is, at every key plot point the story takes a twist and not a twist where you the viewer screams “oh come on!” No. This film keeps the twists very believable and even a film buff like myself wasn’t sure who was telling Will the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth (It's hard to talk plot with this film)

The pace, direction, editing, music and cinematography comes together superbly here, which is not surprising when you see the credits and realise it's very much a European movie (and it shows). After various films I've watched the last few months, it is a refreshing change to actually see a film well crafted and well written

The actors involved give brilliant performances. Sigourney Weaver plays a real, believable, strong female character and Bruce Willis as ever is on form. But my real reason for wanting to see this film was Henry Cavill (the actor will be seen next summer in Superman: Man Of Steel). He was a fantastic, believable, focused and= when needed- vulnerable leading man. He will make an amazing Clark Kent and I, for one, am now so excited about Man Of Steel.

This film, however, is well worth a watch – it's a seat-of-your-pants action adventure with (most importantly) a well written script and characters with depth. Enjoy.

Rating: 4 out 5

Rhys