U Got 2 Razz

Mississippi Fred McDowell couldn't have sung it any better . . . or worse.

Actually, the 2023 Golden Raspberry Award Foundation Awards were something of a wet blanket, largely because they mostly "honored" movies I didn't even know existed.  Diane Keaton in a fly-by-night comedy based on Rip Van Winkle?  A Netflix movie about Marilyn Monroe?  A stoner film directed by a rap-rocker?  A Marvel Comics movie about a superhero named Morbius?  Two remakes of Pinocchio, one of them a Disney remake of its own movie, that remake directed by Robert Zemeckis?  I cannot not tell a lie.  (Guillermo Del Toro's version of the Italian children's tale was not a subject for ridicule in this Razzie event.) 

But yes, there was a movie about Marilyn, Blonde, and it won for Worst Movie and Worst Screenplay, though none of its cast members were even nominated for Razzies.  Pete Davidson was actually up for worst actor and worst supporting actor for voicing Marmaduke in the cartoon movie of the same name and for his role in the stoner movie Good Mourning, respectively.  The latter picked a worst director award for Colson Baker, better known as "Machine Gun Kelly," and I understand why he goes by a pseudonym.  It's not because he raps.  Morbius picked up a Worst Actor award for Jared Lato and a Worst Supporting Actress award for Adria Arjona.    

The Worst Actress award went to the Razzies themselves, after causing a firestorm with, ironically, the nomination of 12-year-old Ryan Kiera Armstrong as the title character in a remake of Firestarter. The Razzie board admitted that to nominate a child actor just starting out on what could be a long career was in bad taste after a lot of people complained, and the faux pas thus spared Diane Keaton, one of the greatest rom-com actresses of all time (and possibly the greatest living rom-com actress since Myrna Loy died), of winning the Worst Actress award for Mack & Rita.  

As for Worst Supporting Actor, Tom Hanks won that for his apparently unconvincing portrayal of Colonel Tom Parker in the acclaimed movie Elvis, a rare example of a bad acting performance in a good movie in the style of Edward G. Robinson in The Ten Commandments.  Colin Farrell got a Razzie Redeemer award for his acclaimed performance in The Banshees of Inisherin.

But dammit!  I wanted to see nominations for movies I actually heard of, man!  I wanted to see negative accolades for pictures that were so monumentally bad that there was no way anyone could have not heard of them!  But as Hollywood almost never makes great movies anymore, I guess it's actually a good thing that no one makes monumentally horrid movies like Cleopatra, Heaven's Gate and the Sgt. Pepper movie anymore either.  A lot of Hollywood movies today range from bad to fair, but at least they are not so bad that they can take down whole studios, whole careers, or whole theater chains and streaming services.

By the way, when's Robert Zemeckis going to make a good movie again?