As the official Alternate Ending Razzies Correspondent – a title that, I should be clear, is my fault, in case any of you were thinking of calling the Hazing Hotline – I felt it my solemn and serious duty to write a recap of the 42nd Golden Raspberry Awards. I have since learned yet again not to trust my feelings. The Razzies have become an ugly diseased bramble of cynical stupidity that no longer deserve whatever legitimacy or goodwill they might once have garnered. But I wrote this, so, um, here you go.
- Worst Picture: Diana: The Musical
Other Nominees: Infinite, Karen, Space Jam: A New Legacy, The Woman in the Window
Well, I can offer one massive Thank You Very Much For Your Service to the Razzies: I am not going to have to watch Space Jam: A New Legacy for Raspberry Picking until I run out of Worst Picture winners. On the other hand, this just feels unsporting. Diana isn’t even a real movie. It’s a telecast of a (yes, quite wretched) stage play. Make fun of the musical all you want – Lord knows I have done so – but most of the people involved in bringing its wretchedness to fruition are doing yeoman’s work. If the only ingredients a chef has been given to work with are high-fructose corn syrup and human feces, you can hardly blame him when he fails to produce a tasty meal. I did have Diana at the bottom of my own Worst list for the year, so I have limited standing to complain here, but 1) I acknowledged that it was entirely the fault of the source material, and 2) you don’t see me giving out awards for it.
Of the less famous nominees, I briefly attempted to see both Infinite and Karen, because both their premises suggested the possibility of transcendent, gender-reveal-party-gone-wrong-type badness (especially Karen, Jesus Christ). I turned off both when they turned out to be comatose slogs. That sampling strongly implies, in terms of entertainment value alone, that the Razzies did what they often do and gave their top “prize” to the best thing on their list.
We did see one significant step up from several previous years, which was a lack of goofy right-populist agitprop among the nominees for Worst Picture. While last year’s “winner” Absolute Proof was easily one of the worst movie-watching experiences barfed upon an unsuspecting public that year, it was also – much like Diana – not a “movie” in the sense that Space Jam: Still Not a Good Idea or Dear Evan Hansen are movies. Picking at it for its lack of cinematic flair feels like picking at Elizabeth Holmes for her hairdo. (Which does feel like it would be in character for the Razzies.)
- Worst Director: Christopher Ashley, Diana: The Musical
Other Nominees: Stephen Chbosky, Dear Evan Hansen; Coke Daniels, Karen; Renny Harlin, The Misfits; Joe Wright, The Woman in the Window
Much like Worst Picture, this just isn’t fair, as Christopher Ashley did a perfectly adequate job bringing to life a musical that, against God’s will, he was charged with bringing to life. Contrast this with Stephen Chbosky’s cinematic vandalism on display in the poorly blocked, poorly lit, and hideously edited Dear Evan Hansen. Try watching the movies you pick, Razzie voters, even if the organizers don’t make you.
On the other hand, covering past Razzie winners has taught me that behind almost every Razzie-winning director is a sad and sordid tale of how they had just about no control over the outcome of their project. Given what I know about the making of Dear Evan Hansen, I will be completely unsurprised when I learn this to be true of Chbosky. So I’m inclined to give all these folks the benefit of the doubt.
- Worst Actor: Lebron James as Himself, Space Jam: A New Legacy
Other Nominees: Scott Eastwood, Dangerous; Roe Hartrampf, Diana: The Musical; Ben Platt, Dear Even Hansen; Mark Wahlberg, Infinite.
Having not seen Space Jam: Because One Wasn’t Enough due to life being too short, I can’t really comment of James’s “performance.” I can comment, though, that I hate it when the Razzies give their awards to people appearing as themselves, because it usually translates to “appearance in a movie by a person we dislike.” On the other hand, given that LeBron is the star of Space Jam: Not Even a Good Soundtrack This Time, and given how painful he was to watch even in the endless trailers that got puked all over our screens for months, this instance of condemnation for an “as himself” appearance feels fully earned and correct. Stopped clock, blind squirrel, etc.
Coincidentally, Worst Actor would also have been the only category in which I’d have considered a win for Diana deserved. In a cast mostly comprised of talented professionals giving performances that range from “okay” all the way to “fine,” Roe Hartrampf stands out all the more for his whiny, vocally strained, unsympathetic Prince Charles. Which makes what happened in the next category even more annoying.
- Worst Actress: Jeanna de Waal as Princess Diana, Diana: The Musical
Other Nominees: Amy Adams, The Woman in the Window; Megan Fox, Midnight in the Switchgrass; Taryn Manning, Karen; Ruby Rose, Vanquish
Another undeserved “win” for Diana, and for much the same reason that Christopher Ashley’s Worst Director was undeserved. De Waal, like everyone else in this show, has an impossible task to accomplish, and hers is to sing the bulk of the show’s dreadful lyrics and emerge with her dignity intact. Her choice to play Diana as bored and detached from much of what’s going on around her was probably the best she could have managed for that particular goal.
Honestly, this category is full of actresses turning in quality work for projects that didn’t deserve it. Taryn Manning had a similar task, and made similar work of it, in the part of Karen that I managed to sit through. Poor Megan Fox was about the only person in Midnight in the Switchgrass who even attempted something resembling acting. I have not yet seen The Woman in the Window, but I would bet dollars to donuts that Amy Adams, an onscreen trooper if one ever existed, is stuck in a similar situation. Ruby Rose, on the other hand, should never have attempted to become an actress in the first place, and watching her attempt to play off Morgan Freeman was embarrassing for all three of us.
Ladies, the lesson here should be that when you accept a job working for idiots with cameras, you should either embrace it with wild abandon or sleepwalk your way through it the way the men around you are doing. Trying to carry its corpse by yourself will win you no thanks or friends, and might make you smell bad.
- Worst Supporting Actor: Jared Leto as PAOW-lo GOO-chee, House of Gucci
Other Nominees: Ben Affleck, The Last Duel; Nick Cannon, The Misfits; Mel Gibson, Dangerous; Gareth Keegan, Diana: The Musical.
This entire category made me furious. To me, the list of nominees exemplifies everything that is wrong and stupid about the Razzies. Ben Affleck in The Last Duel? Not only was Ben Affleck terrific in The Last Duel, Ben Affleck’s performance is just about the only thing every thinking person seems to agree was terrific in The Last Duel. Nick Cannon was singled out of several lousy performances in The Misfits because his past controversies make him easy to hate. Same with Mel Gibson and Dangerous. Come to think of it, same with Jared Leto and House of Gucci, even though Jared Leto’s hilarious, it’s-a-me-Mario turn as Aldo Gucci’s disappointing son was exactly what that movie needed to knock it down a few pegs. So this ends up being a list of “four actors we don’t like, plus one unknown stage actor who gave a perfectly serviceable performance in a dumb musical.”
In other words, congratulations on giving the Worst Supporting Actor Razzie to the single solitary good thing about House of Otherwise Boring Rich People.
- Worst Supporting Actress: Judy Kaye as Elizabeth I and Barbara Cartland, Diana: The Musical
Other Nominees: Amy Adams, Dear Evan Hansen; Sophie Cookson, Infinite; Erin Davie, Diana: The Musical; Taryn Manning, Every Last One of Them.
Please re-read the bulk of what I said about the Worst Actress category. Pour a special one out for Erin Davie, the victim of one of the most confusing stage roles I think I’ve ever seen, and another for Taryn Manning, a gifted actress who should really have better options than this.
- Worst Screen Combo: LeBron James & any Warner cartoon character (or Time-Warner product) he dribbles on, Space Jam: A New Legacy
Other Nominees: Any klutzy cast member & any lamely lyricized (or choreographed) musical number, Diana: The Musical; Jared Leto & either his 17-pound latex face, his geeky clothes or his ridiculous accent, House of Gucci; Ben Platt & any other character who acts like Platt singing 24/7 is normal, Dear Evan Hansen; Tom & Jerry, Tom & Jerry
The artist formerly known as Worst Screen Couple until the Razzie people decided the joke wasn’t lazy and contrived enough. What is even the point of this award? What is a “combo” to you, Razzies? Two or more carbon-based entities that appeared on film together for any length of time? Oh, nope, that’s too narrow, because half of these nominees didn’t involve anything concrete. Your “combos” also make you look stupid. “Ben Platt & any other character who acts like Platt singing 24/7 is normal” – do y’all understand what a musical is? Do y’all understand what a movie is? It’s also not “normal” for Tom Holland, Andrew Garfield, and Toby Maguire to waltz around on camera in ill-fitting spandex suits, yet I do not see Spider-Man: Who Asked For This among your nominees. (Dear Evan Hansen, by the way, can count itself lucky that Diana burst into the party late and drunk and removed it from everyone’s working memory.)
What was once a mildly amusing gag has grown old and desperate. Of course, that describes everything about the Razzies, so I suppose it’s perfect. Screw you very much for making me think about LeBron James “dribbling on” Time Warner properties. No further comment.
- Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off, or Sequel: Space Jam: A New Legacy
Other Nominees: Karen (inadvertent remake of Cruella); Tom & Jerry; Twist (rap remake [actually adaptation] of Oliver Twist); The Woman in the Window (rip-off of Rear Window)
I mean, nobody’s going to argue with Space Jam: Nostalgia Bait for Millenials Trapped at Home, but come now, Razzies. You’re telling me that in a year that gave us Amazon’s Cinderella, Sing 2, Peter Rabbit 2, and Cruella itself, the best you could do was an “inadvertent remake” and not understanding the difference between a remake and an adaptation? Pitiful.
- Worst Screenplay: Diana: The Musical
Other Nominees: Karen, The Misfits, Twist, The Woman in the Window.
All right, Razzies, I’ll let you have this one. While the book of a musical is not, in fact, a screenplay, the book and lyrics for Diana are the reason everything that touched it turned to crap. Therefore, had you not given this one to Diana, it would have been a serious miscarriage of justice.
- Worst Performance by Bruce Willis in a 2021 Movie: Cosmic Sin (RESCINDED)
Other Nominees: American Siege, Apex, Deadlock, Fortress, Midnight in the Switchgrass, Out of Death, Survive the Game (ALL RESCINDED)
JUST KIDDING, it turns out. When Willis’s family first announced that he was retiring from acting due to being diagnosed with aphasia, the Razzies…at first refused to rescind the category, saying that Willis’s reps “should have done a better job of protecting his legacy.” They relented after they got dragged on the Twitters. Not being cruel for no good reason was the right thing to do here. It has the added benefit of saving me from having to opine on a bunch of Bruce Willis movies that I didn’t see, because why on earth would I have, and why would I now? I wish him the best in his retirement, and I hope he at least had some fun in his prolific final year in front of the camera.
- Razzie Redeemer Award: Will Smith, King Richard
Other Nominees: Nicolas Cage, Pig; Jamie Dornan, Belfast.
Well, that aged well!
I kid, I kid. Will Smith’s behavior at the Oscars has no bearing on his talent, his performances, or his worthiness of the Razzies’ attempt to be nice. On the other hand, he just wasn’t that great in King Richard, one of my least favorite movies of the year. He did good honest work looking and sounding a lot like Richard Williams, but that was the long and short of it. Second of all, Nicolas Cage doesn’t need your “redemption” and never has. It’s not his fault you don’t recognize a True Artist when one is prancing around in a bear costume punching ladies like there’s no tomorrow right in front of your eyes. As for Jamie Dornan, he sure is an actor on whom I have very few opinions, and I do not see this changing in the near or distant future.
In another of their occasional half-hearted attempts to be a force for good, the Razzies have started issuing retractions. Co-founders John J.B. Wilson and Mo Murphy officially took back their nomination of Shelley Duvall for Worst Supporting Actress in The Shining from the ceremony’s inaugural year, citing “extenuating circumstances” and “Kubrick’s treatment of her throughout the production.” This is silly. A lot of people on a lot of movie sets have treated each other like crap through the years, and while that should never be condoned, we all have better ways to spend our time than combing through joke awards shows of old looking for ways to retroactively purify them. What’s done is done. If Murphy and Wilson are going to rescind Duvall’s nomination, they should do so because Duvall’s performance was outstanding.
If the Razzies are serious about decreasing the negativity that emanates from and surrounds them (don’t worry, they’re not), the best way to do that would be to fully re-commit to the bit. Be a real awards show. Celebrate the joys of trash cinema. Honor the artists who throw themselves headlong into deadly scripts and doomed vanity projects, reputation be damned. Be the change you want to see in the world.
Mandy Albert teaches high school English and watches movies – mostly bad, occasionally good – in the psychedelic swamplands of South Florida. She is especially fond of 1970s horror and high-sincerity, low-talent vanity projects. You can listen to her and her husband talk about Star Trek: Enterprise on their podcast At Least There’s a Dog!