Monday, February 27, 2017

'Hillary's America' outstinks 'Batman v Superman' for Worst Picture of 2016


I promised I'd get to the Razzie winners this week at the end of 'Suicide Squad' vs. 'Deadpool' at the Razzies and Oscars.  It's time to keep that promise.  Take it away, Razzies!

Razzie Members from all over the world have cast their votes and the "winners" have been announced for the best of the worst.
The results make me happy.
I expect "Batman v. Superman" will win, but I am rooting for "Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party" instead.  That movie is my pick for worst political movie of the year.
That prediction and hope was for Worst Screenplay, which "Batman v Superman" actually won, making that sentence a successful prediction, but I am very happy that Dinesh D'Souza's attempt at a documentary beat out the one of the worst big-budget superhero flicks of the past year for Worst Picture, as well as D'Souza proving worse as himself than both Ben Affleck's Batman and Henry Cavill's Superman and worse than Zak Snyder as a director.  Finally, the movie's lead actress Becky Turner won Worst Actress for a total of four Razzies, tying "Batman v Superman."

Speaking of the Caped Crusader and Man of Steel, they were judged to be the worst combo in major Hollywood films last year.  It's the fault of the writing, but yes, the two deserved it.  They had really lousy chemistry on screen except when Wonder Woman was present, so she gets the credit.

As for the two remaining awards, allow me to brag.  First, my comments on Jesse Eisenberg being nominated for Worst Supporting Actor as Lex Luthor.
Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor was worse than Leto as Joker...My wife and I agreed he wasn't Lex Luthor, who should be colder and more openly calculating, but a more organized version of The Joker who had a goal beyond "watching the world burn."
While I expressed doubts that Eisenberg was worse than the supporting actors in "Zoolander 2," he did deserve the nomination and didn't say he wouldn't win.  I guess the "Zoolander 2" vote was split and Eisenberg's Luthor was that bad.

Next, my observation in 'Superman vs. Batman' buries 'Zootopia' in rubble that I repeated in Razzie nominations confirm my guesses as to worst speculative fiction movies of 2017.
"Dawn of Justice" may end up with the same kind of dubious distinction "Fifty Shades of Grey" earned--nominated for both an Oscar (Special Effects) and at least one Razzie (Worst Reboot/Ripoff/Sequel).
And it won Worst Reboot/Ripoff/Sequel.  I called it a year ago.

Finally, why were these movies considered terrible?  "Batman v Superman" was judged bad because didn't meet expectations, but the audience probably didn't have much in the way of expectations for D'Souza's hack job on Clinton, other than it being a hack job.  While it met those, which was enough to make it the biggest grossing documentary of the past year, it failed to meet every other standard for artistry and veracity.  At least D'Souza showed up to "own his bad," proving he has some sense of humor, but he doesn't seem realize it's not the Hollywood insiders who were voting, it's the fans.  Dude, Hollywood doesn't hate your movie, America hates your movie.

6 comments:

  1. the problems with Batman V. Superman were:

    1) poor handling of developing SUPERMAN's motivation for going after Batman.
    2) forcing in weird dream sequences to motivate Batman, rather than focus more on Wayne's obvious hatred for the destruction Supes left in his wake.
    3) Obvious setting up of Justice Leaguers without letting any of those characters interact more with the ongoing plot.
    4) Having "Martha" as a trigger word to freak Bruce.
    5) Missing out on setting up Selina/Talia as Bruce's lover (we get a brief glimpse of a woman in his bed: having Selina there to share dialog plot points to argue over Superman or the dreams he's having could have helped clarify a muddied plot)
    6) Terrible rebooting of Luthor as a sarcastic, jokey villain rather than a serious ironic threat to Superman.
    7) Not enough Lois and Clark.
    8) There should have been a scene or two where Superman runs into Diana while pursuing his Batman investigations, in order to bring those two together in order to complete the trinity of Supes/Bats/WW. It would have helped that orphaned punchline of "I thought she was with you."
    9) NOT ENOUGH WONDER WOMAN.
    10) Not having me as script editor, duh. ;)

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    1. Irrelevant and excessive links. Deleted. Merry Christmas!

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