What were your favorite bad movies from 2015? Do the Razzies need to become fresh again? Or are they OK the way they are? http://thefederalist.com/2016/01/29/how-to-make-the-razzies-fun-again/ How To Make The Razzies Fun Again The annual skewering of bad movies has gone off course. Allow me to intervene with my own picks and reasons we need a Razzies refresh. Brad Slager By Brad Slager JANUARY 29, 2016 There is no enjoyment in the pre-Oscars debates about who should not have been nominated, what titles were overlooked, and how white all the nominees appear. It is an irritant when codgers in a bar hold these quorums about retired baseball players, and it becomes intolerable when sober millennials do the same over serious titles they insist be called films. Given my unstilted attitude towards the entertainment industry and my affinity for horrid movies, it is exceedingly fair to say I have a masochistic bent regarding Hollywood releases. I have accepted my corrupted cultural taste, but have become dissatisfied with a dependable source of revelry: the annual Razzie Awards, also called the Golden Raspberry Awards. Once considered the high-water mark of the low-tide movies, this rundown of the run-down releases in theaters has in recent years delivered diminishing returns. This year was not very different. Many titles I had pegged as worst of the year made the cut in some fashion. Pan and The Boy Next Door were surprises with some acting nods. I was pleased Channing Tatums turn as a space-boots-wearing albino hybrid human-wolf alien in Jupiter Ascending was recognized, and in a just world Josh Trank would be a lock as Worst Director for the ways he mangled Fantastic Four. Mind the Gaping Omissions But yes (sounding exactly like those latte-sipping film school hipsters), I see glaring omissions from the list. The laughably serious Chappie has no recognition. The painfully shrill comedy Hot Pursuit garnered zero nods, while the biggest crime of all is that Jem And The Holograms is nowhere to be found! Along with the exclusions, we meet some of the usual ham-fisted humor in the Worst Screen Combo category: The committee relies overly on hitting broad targets and plucking low-hanging raspberries. Johnny Depp, and his glued-on mustache Kevin James, and his Segue scooter Adam Sandler, and any pair of shoes My conflicted reaction has become the norm with The Razzies in recent years. At once I am excited at the tabulation of last years septic cinema, then unimpressed with the selections and omissions while enduring groan-inducing gags and puns. The committee relies overly on hitting broad targets and plucking low-hanging raspberries. Grandstanding nominations are common, and many selections feel less an acknowledgment of poor content than cagily generated for press releases. (Oscar-caliber actors get skewered! Adam Sandler gets TEN nominations!) If the point is to note bad releases and thus hold Hollywood accountable, more examples would fulfill that goal, rather than beating a few titles like a piñata. Past the Freshness Date For those not steeped in bad film history, The Razzies kicked off more than three decades ago in the living room of current director John J.B. Wilson. He and a group of friends staged a mock awards show between themselves, springing somewhat from Michael Medveds Golden Turkey Awards, created years earlier. Wilson parlayed that novelty into an annual event serving as prologue to the Oscars, a counterpoint to that pompous carnival. But a desire to make sweeping statements with the nominations has blunted this cathartic merriment. Part of the problem with these awards is they have grown in scope over the years but have not grown up. Frequently you are subjected to humor that seems parked in Wilsons 1980s living room. The Transformers films being referred to as Trannies: 3 is just one wry example.
