Kurt D

It's not much in the way of actual criticism though. It's just an organization saying 'your performance was so shitty, we want to mock it publicly.'

Toby Dramit

It's all subjective. Same with the Oscars. There is no "Best" or "Most Shitty", only opinion.

I don't take the whole "awards thing" as seriously as others do. It's not sacrosanct to me. It is amusing to see people get bent out of shape over nominations, wins, and snubs, though. I think Ryan Kiera Armstrong will be just fine.

Kurt D

It's totally opinion, and Armstrong will likely be fine, but it probably hurt too. It's more about whether it is good for adults to fold minors into such a joke. Imagine if there were awards given out to kids for 'Crappiest Swimmer' at a swim meet or something.

Toby Dramit

While I don't agree with kids being picked on at all, I think one has to keep in mind that this wasn't a school play or a children's community performance at the local park here. She is a professional actor being paid to appear, along with other professional actors, in a major motion picture. Right or wrong, agree with it or not, criticism (like praise) comes with the territory. I'm sure that she had been made aware of this by her agent and her parents. This experience may just make her a stronger actor in the long run. Time will tell.

OldBoy

Stallone was not bad in Samaritan. That’s got to be a mistake

Decker

And I bet Bruce Willis is now even more motivated to beat progressive brain damage!

JeffTheAlpaca

Is it a good or bad thing if i saw all or most of the movies that got Razzie nominations?

I was the one person that saw Good Mourning and it was shit

Coral

Nominating a kid was dumb and they should've realized it right away and shot that idea down.

But other than that, I have no issues with the Razzies. It's not something to be taken seriously (neither is the Oscars). They're just calling out crap movies and performances like a movie reviewer would - except they're doing it in an awards fashion as a way to counter the self-important and self-congratulatory circle jerking Oscars.

It's hardly worth getting upset over.

~~ PAL ~~

Yeah this is for sure something not to be taken seriously. Just like there used to be a Darwin Award, ( or is it still going strong? no clue. ) which I used to see friends send out in mass email about people who did stupid stuff that ended up getting themselves killed. So some dudes did these annual posthumous awards thanking these winners for "thinning the herd" and "cleaning up the gene pool" for the rest of us. Essentially, we can either mourn these as tragedy since people died, or we could mock them for the way they went out...

Decker

There's absolutely no need for it. There's enough negativity in the world, and thanks to Rotten Tomatoes anyone can quickly see if a movie is shit or not. So in two years they caused a lot of pain to the family of Bruce Willis and to a twelve year old girl. And probably to many other actors as well. And to what end? To punch down to a movie that bombed? Is it still funny to anyone that you think Stallone and Schwarzenegger are bad actors?
Like I said it's garbage and the best thing to do is just ignore it and hope it fades away like it should.

Toby Dramit

As an actor, one can either take great offense at being nominated for a Razzie or laugh it off and not really care at all. The choice is theirs.

Take a deep breath, Decker ...

JeffTheAlpaca

I bet critics in newspapers and online and the social media universe are probably much harder with their criticisms compared to the Razzies.

Coral

They actually are. Reviewers don't just label a movie or performance one of the worst of the year, but they'll offer a long explanation as to why it's bad. I've read a lot of movie reviews that were merciless with their critiques on many aspects of the film. Even Roger Ebert wrote 2 books with the sole purpose of tearing down movies he hated, "Your Movie Sucks" and "I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie".

The Razzies are tame and more for fun compared to what movie reviewers do.
If you have a problem with the Razzies - then you should have a bigger problem with negative movie reviews.

Decker

Nope, not at all. Film Critics have a job, to honestly review movies and inform the public what is good and what isn't. They're independent and serve a general purpose, to steer the public towards good content and away from bad.
What purpose does the Razzies serve? Just mockery. That's it. A spoof on actual awards which celebrate excellence by handing out fake awards which target bad movies and performances. I thought they were pointless and trash before and the past two years they have really shown their asses. Here's an article from before the recent blunders.

We No Longer Need the Tired Joke Known as the Razzie Awards

Please feel free to post any articles about why we no longer need any film criticism.

dex14

It's certainly not a surprise.

Coral

Film critics have a job to do, but do they have to bash a film within an inch of it's life? They could simply say why a film doesn't work and be done with it, but many don't - they make fun of how bad the film is by bashing every aspect in a cruel fashion. There are many youtube channels dedicated to that as well. Is that all ok?

Aren't the Razzies essentially doing the same thing - pointing out the bad films/performances? It's just doing it in an award setting - except for bad films instead of good.
Maybe movie reviews aren't needed - just let the people decide for themselves if there's something that might be worth watching - and let them decide if they like it or not afterwards.

So the article you posted is supposed to be the definitive reason why the Razzies shouldn't exist? I can point to articles that say Awards in general shouldn't exist - does that make it the right answer?

I personally don't care if all awards shows are gone (including the Oscars or Razzies). Life goes on either way.

Maybe if you don't like the Razzies, don't watch them or read about it? How does its existence effect your life?

Brian T

That piece makes valid points. I think the Razzies have been coasting for years on easy targets in, as he calls them, "vaguely defined categories", and especially doing so in an era where there's just far too much content being pumped out – from great to abominable -- to authoritatively compile a selection of the absolute "worst" nominees, let alone the absolute "best" nominees for things like the Oscars, Golden Globes, various Guild Awards, etc. Potentially 'worthy' films on both sides have always been "left out", and that's even more true today, likewise on both sides of the quality equation. Frankly, it's just too easy to fund and make a movie now. There's such an overwhelming amount of product being cranked out and consumed globally that ALL awards shows, everywhere, have grown less relevant with every passing year, and certainly their viewership stats back that up.

I'll say there are still cases to be made for film criticism, particularly the articulate, rational, professional kind -- in print and online -- written by people who are also trained writers and/or reporters (and therefore capable of writing about other things besides movies, and often do), and who aren't automatically prone to hyperbole or hyperventilation. In that regard, I think there's far less of a case to be made for the swirling toilet bowl of amateur "criticism" found padding out entries on IMDb, Amazon, Letterboxd, etc, and endless YouTube and social media channels. -- you know, the "I can't believe all the love/hate for this movie, so I'm going to spite-review those other obvious idiot reviewers and give it a 1-star or a 10-star rating, so there!" variety -- but unfortunately, those turds won't ever flush. But hey, it's a free country.

Still, the Razzies remain high-profile enough that nominating a child actor just seems unnecessary, regardless of whether Armstrong has thick skin. Not just for the reasons outlined by others here, but also because, as I just mentioned, there's such a gargantuan amount of cinema being made nowadays that there's bound to be even "worse", less professional performances by young actors out there, and in lower-quality productions than FIRESTARTER.

Personally, I think the nomination of those two 365 DAYS movies from Poland (!) is equally as revealing about the whole nature of the Razzies and awards ceremonies in general, and the impossibly large pool from which to make selections nowadays. Haven't seen them, won't watch them, and both the amateur and professional reviews leans heavily toward them being awful. Based on that criteria, Netflix productions and pickups alone could probably wholly populate a list of Razzie nominations three times as long as it is now. But as that Dallas Observer reporter suggests, is there even a point to it anymore?

rennervision

How DID the Razzies become so high profile? The videos I've seen of past events look like an office crew rented out a hotel conference room to host an annual sales meeting. It just doesn't look like something that should now be an American institution that the media reports on every year.

Coral

Yeah, the Razzies have their own dumb politics they follow. There are definitely worse movies out there than most of what they've nominated - but it's politics and business that make them pick on certain movies/actors. But it's not much different than the Oscars, who will nominate and award based on agenda, politics, reputation, etc. They only nominate based on a small pool of films they've seen - most of which are American-centric. There are so many great movies that aren't nominated because the Academy members don't watch them (and aren't even told to watch them probably). And we know a chunk of Academy members don't even watch all the films that are nominated in all the categories - yet they still vote (or have their friends or family pick for them).

There's no real point to the Razzies anymore, but the same could be said about the Oscars or many other things.
If/when people stop caring about the Razzies, it'll go away. Otherwise - it'll just exist and people are free to follow or not. It's not worth being angry over.

Yea, I wondered that myself. Not sure how it got as popular as it did.
But we can thank some "big name" actors for giving it more publicity by showing up (Bullock, Halle Berry, etc.). They had some fun with it and aren't taking it seriously.

Brian T

I think they were just first out of the gate to make an actual ceremony out of it, such as it is. Movie critics have produced year-end 'best' and 'worst' lists for decades, but 40 years ago nobody had yet thought to marry that concept to an actual ceremony. And just prior to that, the highest-profile 'worst films' presentation was probably The Golden Turkey Awards book, by the Medved brothers (the less said about Michael Medved, the better, but it was a fun read at the time, as was the sequel book). And back then, people didn't have 24/7 access to everything everywhere (all at once!) like they do now, so you could be forgiven for thinking the Golden Raspberry nominees really were the worst picks out there. Now we know there's quantifiably way more "worst" to pick from than there ever was back then. And way more "best" too, which further emphasizes the pointlessness of award shows.

Definitely no award ceremony is worth getting angry over, but I do think there are times when some push-back is necessary if these things are going to be with us for a while yet, and the Razzies singling out one child actor in a well-populated field that often produces unpolished performers and performances that could arguably be worse than hers was worthy of scorn, and I'm glad they axed it. Beyond that, this years nominees are more meaningless to me than ever, personally, with a lot of films I wouldn't bother with even if consensus said they were great. I mean, the cinema du Machine Gun Kelly is an actual thing? Please. I have to admit, in decades past, there were many Raspberry nominees and winners that ended up being worthy of at least watching once just to witness their sheer folly, in part because of their 'bomb' status being enhanced by the awards (stuff like INCHON, THE LONELY LADY, LEONARD PART 6, MAC AND ME, SHOWGIRLS, etc).

GatorDeb

I don't remember there being outrage over Jake Lloyd.

Brian T

Different times, sadly, but thankfully he had a thick skin about the relentless and near-universal critical drubbing and personal bullying he received for that role and went on to a rich and rewarding film career and other successes in life.

GatorDeb

For anyone who didn't follow up on him, that's sarcasm (which you can gather from your post was intentional).

Brian T

Perhaps a little outrage toward the Raspberries back then would've represented taking a stand and not joining the choir for easy laughs.

Decker

It's completely intellectually dishonest to compare the Razzies to critic reviews or to the Oscars. The Oscars are actually extremely important to the film industry. They are literally movies' biggest night. They are still watched by more viewers than any other entertainment special on TV, even with declining ratings, and they are watched all over the world. Even just the nominations have the ability to really increase the profile and viewings of a movie.
The Oscars are voted on by a group of less than 10,000 increasingly diverse men and women who work in the Movie Industry and are well respected and established. The Razzies are voted on by anyone with $40 to spend and some time to kill.

Ask yourself this about Critics :
Can they be intentionally cruel and cutting? : Sure they can
Is their sole reason for existence to mock and denigrate? : No, of course not
Are they essential for the continued success of the movie industry : Yes they are.

Now the Oscars :
Can they be intentionally cruel and cutting? : I don't think so. Maybe?
Is their sole reason for existence to mock and denigrate? : No, just the opposite. They are to celebrate the very best of the industry.
Are they essential for the continued success of the movie industry : Pretty much. Many movies are green lit with hopes of getting Oscar recognition, whether they actually get it (Elvis) or not (Babylon).

Now you do the Razzies.