Which Easy Targets Did The Razzies Pick This Year?

Every year The Golden Raspberry Awards (a.k.a. “The Razzies”) try to capitalize on the media swarm surrounding the Academy Awards by announcing their nominations for the worst films and performances of the year, one day before the Oscars nominate the best. It’s a cheap shot of pranksterism, and that’s pretty fitting, because The Razzies are all about cheap shots.

This year is no exception: with only a handful of exceptions, The Razzies have only seen fit to nominate the most infamous movies of the year, and not necessarily the worst. It’s popular to talk smack about Fifty Shades of Grey and Jupiter Ascending, so of course they’re nominated for Worst Picture. Never mind that lower profile films like the Roland Emmerich’s laughable Stonewall and the despicable erotic thriller The Loft are even worse, or that The Human Centipede 3 came out this year and made us all want to vomit. (Weirder still, Human Centipede director Tom Six WAS nominated, which means the voters actually saw his movie and still somehow thought that it was better than Pixels.)

The Razzies have such a reputation for firing off shots at easy targets that it’s actually surprising to see some high profile bombs fail to make their list. Cameron Crowe got no end of grief from his confusing melodrama mishmash Aloha, and yet the ambitious film from a former Oscar winner is completely absent from the list of Razzie Awards nominations. Every critic on the planet also seemed to recoil in horror from Get Hard, and that repellant and homophobic comedy didn’t make the cut either.

Universal Pictures

Related: 13 Times The Razzies Got It Wrong

And it just wouldn’t be The Razzies unless at least a few arguably good films got nominated. Jennifer Lopez gets a Worst Actress nomination for The Boy Next Door, which isn’t fair because A) that movie knew exactly how cheesy it was, meaning her cheesy performance is actually, by definition, “good” (or at least appropriate for the material), and B) both Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara were just terrible in Hot Pursuit.

What’s more, the criminally underrated Jupiter Ascending received multiple nominations, including one for Eddie Redmayne, whose fabulously over the top villain performance isn’t functionally all that different from Gary Oldman’s acclaimed turn in Leon: The Professional. But whatever. It’s fun to hate on Jupiter Ascending right now. Give it time. The tide will turn.

The complete list of Razzie nominations are below. The “winners” will be announced on February 27, the day before the Oscars.

 

WORST PICTURE

Fantastic Four

Fifty Shades of Grey

Jupiter Ascending

Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2

Pixels

WORST ACTOR

Johnny Depp, Mortdecai

Jamie Dornan, Fifty Shades of Grey

Kevin James, Paul Blart Mall Cop 2

Adam Sandler, The Cobbler and Pixels

Channing Tatum, Jupiter Ascending

WORST ACTRESS

Katherine Heigl, Home Sweet Hell

Dakota Johnson, Fifty Shades of Grey

Mila Kunis, Jupiter Ascending

Jennifer Lopez, The Boy Next Door

Gwyneth Paltrow, Mortdecai

WORST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Chevy Chase, Hot Tub Time Machine 2 and Vacation

Josh Gad, Pixels and The Wedding Ringer

Kevin James, Pixels

Jason Lee, Alvin & The Chipmunks: Road Chip

Eddie Redmayne, Jupiter Ascending

WORST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting, Alvin & The Chipmunks: Road Chip and The Wedding Ringer

Rooney Mara, Pan

Michelle Monaghan, Pixels

Julianne Moore, Seventh Son

Amanda Seyfried, Love the Coopers and Pan

WORST REMAKE/RIP-OFF/SEQUEL

Alvin & The Chipmunks: Road Chip

Fantastic Four

Hot Tub Time Machine 2

Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence)

Paul Blart Mall Cop 2

WORST SCREEN COMBO

All Four “Fantastics,” Fantastic Four

Johnny Depp and His Glued-On Moustache, Mortdecai

Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson, Fifty Shades of Grey

Kevin James and EITHER His Segue OR His Glued-On Moustache, Paul Blart Mall Cop 2

Adam Sandler and Any Pair of Shoes, The Cobbler

WORST DIRECTOR

Andy Fickman, Paul Blart Mall Cop 2

Tom Six, Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence)

Sam Taylor-Johnson, Fifty Shades of Grey

Josh Trank, Fantastic Four

Andy and Lana Wachowski, Jupiter Ascending

WORST SCREENPLAY

Fantastic Four (screenplay by Simon Kinberg, Jeremy Slater and Josh Trank, Based on the Marvel comic book by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby)

Fifty Shades of Grey (screenplay by Kelly Marcel, Based on the Novel by E.L. James)

Jupiter Ascending (written by Andy and Lana Wachowski)

Paul Blart Mall Cop 2 (screenplay by Kevin James & Nick Bakay)

Pixels (screenplay by Tim Herlihy and Timothy Dowling, Story by Herlihy, Based on a Work by Patrick Jean)

RAZZIE REDEEMER AWARD

Elizabeth Banks (RAZZIE “Winner” for MOVIE 47, Multiple Hit Movies This Year)

M. Night Shyamalan (Perennial RAZZIE nominee & “winner,” director of The Visit)

Will Smith (For following up After Earth with Concussion)

Sylvester Stallone (All-Time RAZZIE Champ, award contender for Creed)

Top Photo: Universal Pictures

William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.

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