Awards Season 2022: Razzies Nominations

What's that I smell in the air? Could it possibly be the whiff of cinematic feculence? 

Ah yes, it's that time of year again when the Golden Raspberries seek to dishonour the worst films of the previous year. 

So here are the full nominations for the 42nd Annual Razzie Awards:

WORST PICTURE

Diana The Musical

Infinite

Karen

Space Jam: A New Legacy

The Woman In The Window

WORST ACTRESS

Amy Adams (The Woman In The Window)

Jeanna de Waal (Diana The Musical)

Megan Fox (Midnight In The Switchgrass)

Taryn Manning (Karen)

Ruby Rose (Vanquish)

WORST ACTOR

Scott Eastwood (Dangerous)

Roe Hartrampf (Diana The Musical)

LeBron James (Space Jam: A New Legacy)

Ben Platt (Dear Evan Hansen)

Mark Wahlberg (Infinite)

WORST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Ben Affleck (The Last Duel)

Nick Cannon (The Misfits)

Mel Gibson (Dangerous)

Gareth Keegan (Diana The Musical)

Jared Leto (House Of Gucci)

WORST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Amy Adams (Dear Evan Hansen)

Sophie Cookson (Infinite)

Erin Davie (Diana The Musical)

Judy Kaye (Diana The Musical)

Taryn Manning (Every Last One Of Them)

WORST SCREEN COUPLE

Any Klutzy Cast Member & Any Lamely Lyricized (or choreographed) Musical Number (Diana the Musical)

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

Jared Leto & Either His 17-Pound Latex Face, His Geeky Clothes or His Ridiculous Accent (House of Gucci)

Ben Platt & Any Other Character Who Acts Like Platt Singing 24-7 is Normal (Dear Evan Hansen)

Tom & Jerry (Tom & Jerry: The Movie)

WORST REMAKE, RIP-OFF or SEQUEL

Karen

Space Jam: A New Legacy

Tom & Jerry: The Movie

Twist

The Woman In The Window

WORST DIRECTOR

Christopher Ashley (Diana The Musical)

Stephen Chbosky (Dear Evan Hansen)

Coke Daniels (Karen)

Renny Harlin (The Misfits)

Joe Wright (The Woman In The Window)

WORST SCREENPLAY

Diana The Musical

Karen

The Misfits

Twist

The Woman In The Window

WORST PERFORMANCE BY BRUCE WILLIS IN A 2021 MOVIE

American Siege

Apex

Cosmic Sin

Deadlock

Fortress

Midnight In The Switchgrass

Out Of Death

Survive The Game

With a staggering nine nominations, Diana The Musical leads the pack with nine. Tone-deaf "thriller" Karen (about a hysterical racist white woman who terrorises her new Black neighbours) and Rear Window rip-off The Woman In The Window tie for second place with five apiece. 

Frankly, if any performance did belong on this list, it's Jared Leto. Whilst the whole of House Of Gucci is slightly "heightened", his performance comes from the Joe Dolce School of Acting and feels like it belongs in an entirely different film. It's jarring, annoying, and I genuinely don't understand why Ridley Scott didn't rein him in. 

There's also a very real possibility- although I really hope not- that we might be looking at Leto getting a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nod tomorrow (which will echo Glenn Close last year for her turn in Hillbilly Elegy).

A slightly dodgy claim to fame here: Infinite, which gets three nods, was partially filmed in Cardiff (with a section of Newport Road [a main road in the city centre] closed for several days in October 2019).  I have been meaning to check the film out, just for that scene, but I mightn't bother now...

Also, considering lockdowns and everything that went on, part of me is slightly impressed that Bruce Willis featured in enough cinematic crap to get his own category. 

As is tradition, the Razzies will be handed out the day before the Oscars, meaning that we'll see which of these stinkers walks away with the prizes on Saturday 26th March 2021. 

As is also tradition, I'll be posting my predictions for the main six categories for the 94th Academy Awards a little later today, ahead of the announcement tomorrow afternoon.

Cardiff On Film

Cardiff is abuzz at the moment with news that a major thoroughfare in the city has been closed off to allow filming of a feature film. Mark Wahlberg's latest film Infinite has been able to close off a portion of Newport Road for a couple of days in order to film a car-chase sequence. 

Cardiff is becoming very well known as a filming location. Several big-budget TV shows (including Doctor Who, Torchwood, Sherlock, and Merlin) have utilised the city onscreen and films are starting to follow suit. 

Here are ten films that have been shot in the Welsh capital.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)

Opened in 1999, Cardiff's Millennium [now Principality] Stadium is one of Europe's finest sporting arenas (although I might be biased). It's hosted everything from international rugby fixtures and massive concerts, to speedway and monster trucks. Unsurprisingly, it's also in demand as a filming location. The second Kingsman film used the stadium as a holding ground for cages of those infected by Poppy's (Julianne Moore) deadly drugs.

28 Weeks Later (2007)

The Millennium Stadium also appeared in Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's sequel to 28 Days Later..., doubling for Wembley Stadium.

Yesterday (2019)

Danny Boyle's musical fantasy, in which aspiring musician Jack Malik (Himesh Patel) wakes up one day to find he's the only person on Earth that remembers the Beatles, also used the Principality Stadium as a venue for filming, during Ed Sheeran's record-breaking four-night residency there in June 2018 (Sheeran appears as "himself" in the film)

The Contractor (2007)

The former British Gas offices at Helmont House on Churchill Way (in Cardiff's city centre) have been used on TV a few times (in both Doctor Who and Torchwood), and are used in this Wesley Snipes action thriller. Tez used to work for British Gas and says it was an incredibly surreal day to look out of the window and see Wesley Snipes standing outside work doing fight choreography!

Sword Of The Valiant: The Legend Of Sir Gawain And The Green Knight (1984)

Cardiff has not one, but two castles, in the city: there's a large one in the centre of town (home to the Bute family) and there's a smaller one- Castell Coch [the Red Castle], known for its fairytale turrets- on the outskirts of the city at Tongwynlais. Both castles were used for this ripping tale of sword-and-sorcery starring Miles O'Keeffe as Sir Gawain and Sean Connery as the Green Knight. 

A Kiss Before Dying (1991)

Much like some of the other films on this list, you might not expect it to have a Welsh connection. The opening sequence to this crime drama, starring Matt Dillon as a murderous student and Sean Young as both his girlfriend and her twin sister, is set in a steel mill - and was filmed in Cardiff! 

Human Traffic (1999)

OK, so the film is actually set in Cardiff and isn't pretending to be anywhere else - but I couldn't leave it off the list. Justin Kerrigan's cult flick about five friends on a massive weekend features many of Cardiff's pubs and clubs (including the Philharmonic, Club X, Emporium, and what used to be the Firedrake and Firkin [and is now Gassy Jacks]) as their backdrops. 

Solomon & Gaenor (1999)

One of two Welsh-language films to date to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film (the other being Hedd Wyn, the 1992 biopic of the eponymous Welsh poet), this romantic drama set in 1911, about a young Jewish man (Ioan Gruffudd) and a young Welsh girl (Nia Roberts) who fall in love, was shot throughout Cardiff. 

Flick (2008)

A one-armed detective is on the track of a 1950s Teddy Boy who was murdered and has been brought back from the dead in the modern day and is out for revenge. Now I've got your attention... this is (believe it or not) the basic premise of David Howard's comedy-horror Flick. And as if this wasn't surreal enough, the one-armed detective is played by Faye Dunaway. Yes, that Faye Dunaway. The film was shot throughout South Wales, including Cardiff. 

Killer Elite (2011)

Dubai, Marrakech, Melbourne... Cardiff? The globetrotting cast of Killer Elite certainly got around! They filmed in the Welsh capital in July 2010, with stars Robert De Niro and Jason Statham seen filming on Windsor Place in the city centre. Filming also took place in the Pontcanna area of the city.