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The Mean Gays Take Over The 44th Razzies® as Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey Sweeps For this year’s version of Tinseltown’s Most Notorious Trophy Derby, the 44th Annual Razzies® Awards co-founders John Wilson and Mo Murphy are daring something new. In a strategic partnership brokered by Evan Mirzai and his production banner House of M, viral comedic personalities The Mean Gays (Aaron Goldenberg & Jake Jonez) are set to host, write and produce this year's digital ceremony entitled THE MEAN GAYS TAKE OVER THE 44th RAZZIES®. The results of their efforts (and of the awards) are being unveiled on both the Razzie Channel and the Razzie Website on the now traditional date of “Oscar Eve,” Saturday, March 9. The big “winner” exists solely because the original author’s copyright on a beloved Children’s Literature character expired in 2023 – In other words, the film-makers could legally use someone else’s classic creation without even crediting them. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey answers the age old question “What does a bear do in the woods?” The film made money, off of their purported budget of $100,000. But, more to the point, it was a huge hit with Razzie voters. Pooh swept all five categories for which it was nominated: Picture, Director, Screenplay, Screen Couple and Remake/Rip-Off/Sequel. The Actor Razzie went to Oscar® winner Jon Voight for his “Lucky Charms leprechaun” Irish accent in Mercy. Megan Fox can add another pair of trophies to her mantle after taking both Actress (for Johnny & Clyde) and Supporting Actress (for Expend4bles) a rare Razzie feat. Sylvester Stallone further cemented his claim to being the Awl Time Razzie Cham-Peen with a victory as Supporting Actor. And the Razzie Redeemer Award, given to a past contender who has since gone on to better things, went to SAG/AFTRA President Fran Drescher, for her brilliant shepherding of the actors’ guild through a prolonged 2023 strike, with a highly successful conclusion. A complete list of all “winners” is included below and is also available online at Razzies.com. The Official 44th Razzie Winners Video can be watched on the RazzieChannel. Razzie® Socials: 44th GOLDEN RASPBERRY (RAZZIE®) AWARD “WINNERS” PICTURE Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey ACTOR Jon Voight / Mercy ACTRESS Megan Fox / Johnny & Clyde RAZZIE® REDEEMER AWARD 1998 Nominee and current SAG/AFTRA President Fran Drescher, for her brilliant shepherding of the actors’ guild through a prolonged 2023 strike with a successful conclusion. SUPPORTING ACTRESS Megan Fox / Expend4bles SUPPORTING ACTOR Sylvester Stallone / Expend4ables SCREEN COUPLE Pooh & Piglet as Blood-Thirsty Slasher/Killers (!) in Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey REMAKE, RIP-OFF or SEQUEL Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey DIRECTOR Rhys Frake-Waterfield / Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey SCREENPLAY Winnie the Pooh: Blood & Honey, Written by Rhys Frake-Waterfield ”WINS” per PICTURE Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey = 5 Expend4bles = 2 Johnny & Clyde, Mercy = 1 Each © 2024, Golden Raspberry (RAZZIE®) Awards, LLC CLICK HERE
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WHAT WENT HORRIBLY WRONG?Let’s Take A Peek into the House of Mouse! By John Wilson and Mo Murphy Almost as bad as DeSantis’ “I want to be king” campaign, is this year’s story of his nemesis. 2023 is the year Dizz-Knee turns 100 and there just won’t be that much to celebrate - if you take in a disastrous take-in or lack thereof at the box office. So, who moved the cheese? 2023 is the Disney company's centennial anniversary, and corporate honchos had hoped to spend this entire year celebrating a century of success. But things haven't exactly worked out that way. For the first time in its 100 year history, the once phenomenally profitable Walt Disney Pictures has suffered failure after failure at the box office.. The biggest problem is their focus on financial rather than create concerns, exemplified by their long-term practice of doing endless, uninspired live action remakes of titles from their animated classics vault, (which we like to think of as "Avarice in Wonderland"). This creatively lazy habit used to all-but-guarantee profits on each product, but between budget over-runs, critical drubbings and public disinterest, the days of "if we make it, they will come" may have come to an end. This year's big budget re-imagining (read" rip-off") Peter Pan and Wendy, like last year's Razzie winning Pinocchio reboot, went straight to streaming on Disney Plus. This Pan was widely panned, suffering an embarrassing 4.4 out of 10 User Rating at IMDb, and viewership was also lower than expected, never reaching any higher than 7th on any Streaming Title ratings services. At least its production budget was a mere $45 million. The highly touted (and excessively promoted) remake of Little Mermaid did get released to theatres and does rank among the year's highest grossers. But with an estimated production budget of $250 million (and a commensurate promotional cost as well) it never quite captured the public's imagination as the animated original did, and the eventual profit from this Mermaid will be little indeed. Additional box office disappointments include the animated Elemental, which cost about $200 million, and has barely generated $150 million in box office (meaning massive losses). Disney was also behind what may be the biggest box office bomb of 2023, the fifth film in the Raiders franchise, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. With a budget of $300 million, and a total gross barely exceeding that, Dial simply excited almost no one, and looks doomed to be a major contributing factor in Disney being awash in red ink. Add in the recent DOA debut of their second live action version of Haunted Mansion (which opened to a scary $24 million against a cost of $150 million -- then plummeted 73% for Friday of its second weekend). Current industry estimates (and an extensive article in the current issue of Forbes magazine) have Disney looking at a potential shortfall by year's end of...more than a billion dollars(!). And the near future doesn't look likely to be much brighter. Disney is the unfair target of a homophobic boycott fomented by Florida governor (and charisma-free GOP candidate) Ron de Santis, and, like the rest of the industry, Disney has seen production ground to a virtual standstill by the double whammy of simultaneous strikes by both SAG and the WGA. And with the company's main mascot, Mickey Mouse, about to lose its status as a trademarked image, their reputation as an industry leader in both merchandising and synergy may be in jeopardy as well. If Disney continues on their downward trajectory they've been on so far this year, they could set a Razzie precedent: Winning the first ever Barry L Bumstead award (for box office underachievement) that won't gone to an individual movie title...but to an entire movie studio! 43rd RAZZIES® and 95th OSCARS® CALENDARS
Friday, February 17, 2023 – 43rd Razzie Final Ballot materials e-mailed to All Current Voting Razzie Members February 17-February 26, 2023 – Final Ballot Voting open to Members Saturday, March 11, 2023 – 43rd Razzie Awards “Winners” announced Sunday, March 12, 2023 – 95th Academy Award ceremonies by John Wilson One of the most controversial choices our voting members ever made happened our very first year, when our scrappy bad-film society was less than 50 people. At that time, we nominated ten contenders for five top categories, including Worst Director. Among the ten contenders as 1980's Worst Director was Stanley Kubrick for The Shining, a film that is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. Even though Kubrick wound up "losing" to Robert Greenwald for XANADU, we still get "called on the carpet" for that nomination by movie buffs and cineastes four decades later.
Kubrick wound up being nominated in part because a significant number of our voting members that year had actually read Stephen King's novel, and were looking forward to seeing the book translated to the screen. I personally still consider the novel a far superior tale of terror to what Kubrick did with the source material. There were as well several extremely memorable "visual moments" in the book that I (and many a King reader) looked forward to seeing realized on film – including a scene where the intertwined snakes pattern of the hotel carpet came to life, slithering under the characters' feet, and the climactic sequence in which Jack Nicholson's character, armed with an axe, pursued his son through a topiary maze and those inanimate creatures suddenly (and chillingly) gave chase. Difficult as it may have been to bring such moments to the screen in pre-CGI 1980, in many a reader's mind, they were integral to what made King's novel such a scary read. And our voters apparently concurred: If you weren't going to bother including those scenes, don't call your film The Shining... I should also point out that we are not alone in our less-than-favorable opinion of Kubrick's film – Stephen King himself, who says he was never contacted directly by Kubrick during the production of The Shining, later expressed his dissatisfaction by comparing the film version to "a shiny new Cadillac convertible...with no engine in it." In fact, King was so displeased with Kubrick's movie that he agreed to write and oversee a three-night miniseries adaptation of his novel in 1997. But if you want the genuine experience of Stephen King's The Shining, we recommend that you go back to the source material, and read the novel yourself. You'll have a far more intense, terrifying and goose-bump-inducing good time than any dramatized version can deliver. And you may finally understand why revered director Kubrick deserved to make our very first list of ten Worst Director nominees 40 years ago... Rambo V: Last Blood vs Downton Abbey - Talk about whiplash!
By Mo Murphy Just try it. Try watching the assaulting/insulting Rambo: Last Blood and then relax and take in something at the other end of the spectrum: Downton Abbey as a double feature! It’s like eating an artery-plugging, brain-clogging, heart-stopping junk food meal and then having a tangy, yet sweet healthy sorbet to cleanse one's filthy palette afterwards. Basically, it's a trip to polar opposite worlds. First, even if you’re in a cozy theater with reclining seats and you've brought your blanket and pillow, Rambo (number-whatever) is still a nightmare. Sylvester Stallone (now 73) sits heavily atop a horse on the big screen feigning the Marlboro Man, but looking more like Mr. Potato Head, although less animated. Even the mare is irritated by having to play a part in this. It’s not about ageism or looks, I'll get back to that. It’s about not growing up. It’s about not letting go of an image that maybe worked a long time ago when killing immigrants wasn't a popular sport in this country. It’s about not being irresponsible with a central message. This movie-maker must think he has a built in-audience he can use to line his pockets in anticipation of his eventual retirement. That audience is dwindling, God only hopes, Or perhaps the opioid crisis has taken a bigger chunk of our nation than I thought. Possibly Stallone believes the crap he's conveying. That makes him a disgruntled old bigot who should be sent to pasture - without his violent toys. Why? Well, as for the film itself, we're sucker-punched by a weak, regurgitated plot with embarrassing '80's-esq dialogue and stiff performances (mainly from the old action-doll himself.) Mostly, I feel sorry for the supporting cast who had to be a part of this ... and of course the horse. It's the same old idiotic one-man army who's found a new enemy across a border (with no walls.) This time he's seeking revenge for the kidnapping and killing of his beloved niece (didn't see that coming!) The druggy, rapist, non-human beings on the other side of the border (with no walls) get their comeuppance in the only way this non-creative movie-maker knows how to do it: Kill people in fun and funny (?) ways. Hey, let’s bring it on and get our zombie-nation pissed off at a pseudo enemy then blast them to smithereens! How responsible. How smart. Oh, and if you really want to be entertained look for the fence, er, I mean wall metaphors in this piece of … On the other hand, even if the theater is cold and you are sitting nose to nose with the screen because well, you snuck in … there is Downton Abbey. What a complete joy to fall into and get lost in a simple plot (the king and queen are coming for dinner) and wonderful subplots with rich characters, even though many are poor. And the humor – God thank you for allowing us to laugh with them instead of at them (as was the case with Rambo 5.) And old? Maggie Smith (now only 84) is the most delicious well rounded, animated – merely sitting or standing - of them all. Take that, Sylvester Stallone. Every time she opens her mouth, you hold your breath, listen and laugh with Smith's wit, cunning and knowing glances. How delectable … the writing, the delivery, the sheer joy. Every scene catapults us into the middle of this country home’s chaotic drama without exposition (being told through dialogue what the “f” is happening.) We catch on quickly even if we don’t know the backstory or haven’t watched the series and get taken for a wonderful ride and then thank our lucky stars there is still a reason to go to the movies: Witty writing, beautiful cinematography, editing you don’t notice, a thematic score that sweeps you through all the emotions (not the manipulative thump, thump music of the other film) and performances that are worthy of Oscar consideration. If I could articulate the difference about how I felt after watching each movie: Rambo: Last Blood and Downton Abbey – I'd suggest you try it for yourself. It’s quite a cultural experience. But please pay to see the latter, we don’t want to encourage the first, Just give Rambo V the award it's gunning for - The Razzie! That Dead Horse Rides Again |
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