The Travers Take

Best & Worst

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Razzing the Year's Worst Movies

February 15, 2008 10:13 AM

Is Eddie Murphy, decked out in drag and a fatsuit (see photo), the year's worst actor in Norbit?

Is Lindsay Lohan, playing the dual roles of amnesiac and skeevy stripper (see photo), a lock for Worst Actress in I Know Who Killed Me?

Welcome to the Razzies, an organization founded in 1980 by John Wilson to mete out punishment to the movies that punished us. On Feb. 23rd, the day before the Oscars, the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation will once again stick it big time to Hollywood’s most egregious suckfests. The Razzie trophy aptly features a cluster of balls. As you know, the wussy Oscar statuette has no balls. Razzie winners rarely show up to accept their trophy, except for Tom Green who admirably appeared in 2002—with five feet of his own red carpet—to accept his due for Freddy Got Fingered.

What I admire most about the Razzies—I’m a long time voting member—is that the award only goes to the gloriously godawful. A movie is only Razzie worthy when its intrinsic worthlessness sinks to levels so low that the pain of watching it turns to pleasure.

You know what I’m saying. Webster’s defines the slang for raspberry as “a sound of derision or contempt, made by expelling air forcibly so as to vibrate the tongue between the lips.” So put your lips together and blow as we eyeball a few of this year’s nominees. By all means, feel free to add some of your own if you think a genuine baddie got away.

WORST PICTURE

Bratz

Daddy Day Camp

I Know Who Killed Me

I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry

Norbit

Norbit easily takes the racist, sexist cake for comedy. But I'd like to see a few of Hollywood's pompous Iraq war movies take a hit, especially Rendition.

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Football Movies: The Best & Worst

February 3, 2008 9:45 AM

Super Bowl Sunday is the right time to call Hollywood on its football record. Before moving on to the movies themselves, here are my picks for the actors who actually look like they could play football onscreen and those that definitely don't. Feel free to call a timeout.

BEST FORM ON THE FIELD

Burt Reynolds in The Longest Yard (1974) Reynolds actually played football in his native Florida and his skills show in this prison flick which has some of the best football action ever.

Nick Nolte in North Dallas Forty 1979 Nolte looks like he could take the abuse and the glory in this lively film version of Peter Gent's best-selling exposé of the NFL.

Jamie Foxx in Any Given Sunday 1999 Foxx captures the grit and the arrogance of a quarterback about to find NFL megastardom in Oliver Stone's over the top (when is Stone ever subtle?) but entertaining football epic.

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Best Movie Lines

January 31, 2008 3:57 PM

There are all kind of awards for movies, but none for the most memorable lines. Screw that. This may be one award that actually means something. I can't think of The Godfather without hearing, "I made him an offer he can't refuse." Movies that suck can also have lines that stick. The 2003 Bruce Willis clunker Tears of the Sun stays with me only for the moment when Navy SEAL Willis turns to his men like John Wayne reborn and says, "cowboy the fuck up."

So let's put the movies of 2007 to the test. What are the lines you'll never forget? Vote for the ones below or pick your own. I want names, and I want to rank them. Game on.

"I drink you milkshake—I drink it up!" —[Daniel Day-Lewis to Paul Dano in There Will Be Blood

"Call it, friendo." —Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men

"I am Shiva, the god death." —Tom Wilkinson going wacko on George Clooney in Michael Clayton

"Nobody has gotten a handjob in cargo pants since Nam." —Jonah Hill in Superbad

"If any of us gets laid tonight it's because of Eric Bana in Munich" —Seth Rogen on the Jewish self image in Knocked Up

"I'm already pregnant, so what other kind of shenanigans could I get into." —Ellen Page in Juno

(to a crucifix) "How does it feel?" —Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan in* I'm Not There*


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