No one’s deconstructed the Razzies yet? Well, off to work.

Hard to believe, but the Razzies, an awards group mocking the worst Hollywood has to offer (at least, ostensibly), has become an institution: Its founders announced their 26th annual nominees for 2005. Worst Picture nominees include “Son of the Mask” — which I’m pretty sure no one with a discernible IQ saw, but still managed to lead all Razzie comers with eight nominations — alongside “Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo,” “The Dukes of Hazzard,” “House of Wax” and “Dirty Love.” About all of which, here’s guessing, that earlier caveat could be applied. (Can you imagine film critics at screenings for these movies, realizing they could probably rob everyone else in the theater of their life savings simply through rudimentary card tricks — which obviously would not amount to a lot of cash, but still?)
All well and good, but this year, at least, it seems the Razzies’re shooting fish in a barrel. Of course those movies were crap aimed at subliterates (or even worse — has anybody even heard of the Jenny McCarthy movie “Dirty Love?”); they never aspired to anything but. So by that measure, at least, they’re actually successful. So why pick on them?
More interesting to me are movies that think they’re significant and yet are so misguided that you can only hope you can crawl out of the theater before you choke on your own vomit. For example: David Duchovny’s epicly pretentious “House of D,” the first movie of thousands I’ve seen in which I knew I would hate it based on the very first line of dialogue (or, more specifically, self-important voice-over narration). In case you wondered what, among so many other things, made this movie so particularly jaw-droppingly awful, here’s six words: Robin Williams plays a retarded janitor.
And that’s just one. I’m sure you sat through plenty you could add to the list.
Anyway, the point is, eviscerating “Son of Mask” et al doesn’t strike me as very interesting, and, I’m guessing, it doesn’t engage anyone else, either. So the Razzie folks decided to created some gratuitous categories involving tabloid stories to allow them to take some easy shots at Tom Cruise. Hey, Razzie folks — you review movies, not people’s life choices; let the pundits make fun of the idiots who misguidedly decide they’re experts on “issues.” And be guttier: Find higher-profile and more provocative movies to make fun of, rather than run-of-the-mill dreck that took their requisite knocks from professional critics way back when they were released.
By the way, is there an award for people who dump on people who dump on other people? Because, you know, there simply aren’t enough awards given out in Hollywood every year.

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