The Smarmy Carny

The Golden
Raspberry Award

The Golden Raspberry Award Foundation has been giving out Razzies for 25 years now. If you're not already familiar with the Razzies, it's basically the anti-Oscar, handing out awards for the worst-of-the-worst in film. In the first 24 years, they have "honored" such great films as Battlefield Earth, Leonard: Part 6, The Postman, Freddy Got Fingered, and most recently, Gigli. They tend to favor musicians-turned-actress like Madonna, Britney Spears, Mariah Carey, and the Spice Girls. This year, Catwoman seems to be the favorite nominee.

Year after year, I take the time to look at their website and search for the nominee list. You'd think that there would be an easily visible "View the nominee list here" link somewhere, but instead you have to spot it in a list of the eight hottest topics. No big deal, since the results are always worth the effort.

Unfortunately, the Foundation showed their true colors this year when they released their nominees for 2004. In stereotypical Hollywood fashion, someone decided to mix politics with the entertainment industry. Allow me to quote directly from their nominee press release (original emphasis used):

. . . one of several political figures garnering RAZZIE nods this year, President George W. Bush as himself in FAHRENHEIT 9/11, for which performance he is also nominating as Worst Screen Couple paired with either Condoleeza Rice and/or His Pet Goat. For their appearances in FAHRENHEIT, both Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld got Supporting nominations. And California's current governor Ah-Nuld Schwarzenegger is also nominated as Worst Supporting Actor for his cameo as "Prince Hapi" in Worst Remake contender AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS. "The Uber-Nator" is also one of the contenders for a Special Commemorative RAZZIE as one of five Worst RAZZIE "Losers" of The First 25 Years — eligibility for which was determined by having amassed the most nominations over the years without ever actually "winning" a statuette.

The Razzies in general are quite fun, but this is clearly a political statement from the nominators. John Wilson, the Razzies' founder, is quoted as having said that "It wasn't Mr. Moore's editing, it's the raw footage of these people just making fools of themselves." Even if you buy into the propaganda behind Fahrenheit 9/11, we have a direct admission that the awards were given for them "just making fools of themselves." If this is how you interpret this footage, then clearly this is not acting. How can you receive a "Worst Actor" award without even acting in a movie? Fahrenheit 9/11 shows archive footage, not acting. If these nominations can be made, what about all of the horrible characters interviewed in other documentaries? Why have they been left out for so long? I don't know anything about Wilson or the others responsible for the nominations, but all of these thoughts lead me to believe that these nominations are merely an attempt for a leftist retaliation for the loss in the 2000 and 2004 elections.

Additionally, I have a gripe with the other Fahrenheit 9/11 nomination, as it shows a true lack of originality. The nomination is Britney Spears. This nomination is also not for acting, but for an interview. She was in the movie for only a few seconds. I'm not sure why they decided to nominate Spears, but it boils down to this: Either she was nominated because she dared to utter a pro-Bush sentiment, or because the Razzie people needed to fit Spears in somehow and did an IMDB search to find out where she had appeared, or both.

I hate to say it, but the Razzies have lost credibility with me now. I'm afraid they've fallen below even the MTV Movie Awards in my book.

This year's Razzie goes out to the Razzies.

This article has been re-posted at Idle Idols, the site for the funniest American Idol auditions.

The only episodes of American Idol that I watch (or half-watch, to be accurate) are the audition episodes. Psychodiva Mary Roche (aka Mary Guilbeaux and sometimes written "Mary Roche") was the final contestant shown on last night's show. Basically she acted a little strange (a bit Canadian, if you ask me) and did some standard awful singing, self-described as "pop rock meets broadway meets jazz and R&B". The judges then hand it over to Simon to explain to her that she is one of the worst they have ever heard. This prompted Mary to later say "The fact that they said that . . . that doesn't make me want to pursue any kind of singing career." I really don't think she understands that this really was their goal.
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Rhymes with "Tax Laud"

Remember: when you win a million dollars in front of 59 million people on the most popular reality show of all time, you might not try to keep that money a secret. If anyone is paying attention, it's the IRS.

The Smoking Gun released this document, in which the IRS claims that Richard Hatch not only failed to claim his Survivor million in 2000, but also did not report $321,000 in 2001. Whoops.

Any time someone wins a large sum from a game show, lottery, etc., I immediately figure out roughly what they have won after taxes. With a million dollars, can't you afford a decent accountant?

This all makes me curious about how often winners of large sums of money fail to report their large winnings on their taxes. I can't imagine how it wouldn't cross your mind during tax time. I remember biting my nails one year over $2 that I won on a free Bingo website. You'd hope that Jeopardy winners and the like would be intelligent enough to claim the winnings, but the lottery is the complete opposite. Not only do you need zero intelligence to win, I think that it's more likely that people playing the lottery regularly are more likely to lack that certain je ne sais quoi regarding financial intelligence. Lotto winners are the neanderthals of winners. I don't expect them to last a year with a million dollars, and many of them don't.

The odd thing is that reality show winners, for the most part, are neither of these two categories per se. Reality shows get a bad rap from the general public, and so do reality show contestants, for the most part. Most of these generalizations are formed by some of these half-baked reality shows that crop up. Still, even though Survivor has its fair share of losers, one has to be at least half-sane and half-brained in order to win. (Note: Of course, I could be wrong. I don't actually watch Survivor. *cough*) I did see enough of Richard Hatch to believe him to be someone with a properly functioning brain.

Crunch!"

I just wonder what the problem is. Lack of foresight? Awful accounting? Greed? The world may never know how many dollars it takes to get to the tax fraud center of a Survivor Pop.

Numa Numa Dance

I know I'm a bit late to this particular internet phenomenon, but I figured it was worth sharing anyway, since many have never seen this . . .

If you haven't seen the "Numa Numa Dance" (a.k.a. "Mya Mya," "Mya Hee, Mya Haa," "Hilarious Dude Lip Syncing," and many other things) video yet, you simply must take the time to watch it. It's basically a guy (Gary Brolsma) lip-syncing to a song titled Dragosta Din Tei by O-Zone.

You can watch the video here. I suggest clicking "View without subtitles" to see the best version in all its glory. You can also watch a larger version of the same video here, but that version also has dumb pictures interspersed throughout the video. I prefer to watch the weird guy the entire way through, thank you very much.

Uber-Update: Watch the New Numa Dance, too!

Update: I decided to add this link, since some people apparently want the info. Read the Dragosta Din Tei lyrics in both Romanian and English. If you're interested in buying the song, grab the single at Amazon. This import single includes the Original Romanian Version, the Original Italina Version, the Dj Ross Radio Mix, the Dj Ross Extended Remix, and the Unu In The Dub Mix. What more could you possibly want?