Razzies 2010 Award Ceremony

The 30th edition of the notorious Razzie awards was being held at the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre in Hollywood.

The ceremony, which spoofs the Academy Award extravaganza offered its usual mix of dance numbers, singing and acerbic one-liners. While the event aims at gently mocking the Hollywood formula, whether it’s its films or its self-congratulary bash at the Kodack Theatre, it should be said that in the last 10 years I have been attending the ceremony, there hasn’t been much change: the ceremony is somewhat becoming the kind of cliché it is supposed to satirize, offering a succession of mostly tedious singing numbers and borrowing killer one-liners from obscure reviewers who are to film bashing what Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers is to film whoring.

This doesn’t mean that the event isn’t fun – quite the contrary as there are lots of laughs –and there wasn’t even a moment of sarcastic brilliance when, following Sandra’s Bullock’s win for worst actress, a Razzie cast member stormed the stage as Kanye West to tell us that Beyonce who was also nominated for worst actress deserved the prize.

While one of the screenwriters for the awful sci-fi pudding Battlefield Earth came to accept the prize for – well deserved – worst film of the decade award, giving a pretty amusing acceptance speech, the highlight of the night was of course the presence of Sandra Bullock who came to pick up her prize for worst actress.

Ms. Bullock’s speech proved however to be quite a blow to the Razzies’ respectability. The actress stated that the reason she won was most likely because she had said she would come to the show if she were winning; She also questioned the audience’s objectivity, stating that most of the voters probably hadn’t even seen the movie she was nominated for, All About Steve, even bringing a box of DVDs to give us a chance to finally watch it. The problem is that she was right about both points.

If the premise of the Razzies is somewhat to punish Hollywood for all the atrocities Tinseltown is bringing to our screens, it is also the bully creature from his founder, John Wilson. Rather than trying to be objective – at least the Academy makes an effort when it comes to voting – Mr. Wilson sends us his list of favorites every year, mostly based on his own taste and the reviews featured on RottenTomatoes, a site where critics are picked on quantity rather than quality. As a result, some actors/actresses, filmmakers and pictures are systematically lambasted every year, while others are left untouched. The other issue is that, as Ms. Bullock pointed out, lots of voters haven’t even seen the works of the people they are voting for – hopefully the media and industry people at least make an effort – and are just basing their choices on what Mr. Wilson suggestive ballot is telling them or just simply doing some bashing.

While Ms Bullock probably didn’t deserve her Razzie award – I’m not sure she deserved her oscar either – she was right to highlight the lack of fairness coming from the Razzie members. Hopefully, this will provide a chance for the Razzie foundation to revamp its process because we need it to be as sharp and objective as possible to effectively sanction Hollywood for its shameful sins.

Continue reading about the Razzies 2010 Award Ceremony by checking out the Razzie 2010 winners and nominations as well as our Razzies 2010 award videos ...