Mark Wahlberg in Transformers 4: Age of Extinction
BEST OF THE WORST
The high-volume action feature Transformers 4: Age of Extinction isn't likely to garner any Oscar nominations on Thursday morning, but it's already ahead of the bad-movie pack at the annual Golden Raspberry Awards.
BBC News reports that the fourth instalment in the lucrative Transformers film franchise leads this year's Razzie honours with seven ignominious nominations, including nods for Worst Picture and Worst Screenplay.
Transformers 4 also received a Worst Director nomination for franchise kingpin Michael Bay, who has been nominated in the same category on several previous occasions.
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci and dozens of massive, computer-generated robots, Transformers 4 was savaged by reviewers last summer – The Globe and Mail labelled it "one gigantic roboflop" – but went on to earn more than $1-billion (U.S.) at the box office. Plans are currently under way for a fifth movie, likely to be released in 2017.
Launched by publicist John J.B. Wilson in 1980, the Golden Raspberry Awards were created to recognize the worst cinema accomplishments of the previous 12 months. This year's awards will be handed out Feb. 27 at the Ricardo Montalban Theatre in Hollywood (not coincidentally, one day before the annual Academy Awards ceremony).
Coming in a close second to Transformers 4 for this year's Razzie honours was the faith-based comedy Saving Christmas, starring former ex-Growing Pains star Kirk Cameron, and the overblown adventure fantasy The Legend of Hercules, each with six nominations apiece.
Both Saving Christmas and Hercules are contenders in the Razzie Worst Film category, which also includes the action comedy Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (also produced by Michael Bay) and the widely panned thriller Left Behind, starring Nicolas Cage.
You can see the full list of Razzie nominations here.
Elsewhere, the Razzies voting committee notably recognized Cameron Diaz with two nominations for her acting work in the films Sex Tape and Annie.
Also up for Razzie honours is Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, whose comedic western A Million Ways to Die in the West earned him nominations for Worst Director and Worst Actor.
In the Worst Actor category, MacFarlane's competition consists of Hercules star Kellan Lutz, the aforementioned Cameron and Cage and perennial nominee Adam Sandler for the comedy Blended.
Sandler has been nominated in the Worst Actor category on 10 previous occasions and has been awarded the dubious honour three times.
TAKE TWO
Ben Affleck will reteam with Gone Girl director David Fincher for a remake of the classic Alfred Hitchcock feature Strangers On a Train. Warner Bros has confirmed plans for the reboot, which will work off a screenplay penned by Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn. In the original 1951 film, Farley Granger and Robert Walker play two strangers who meet on a train and strike up a deal to exchange murder schemes. The plot thickens when one of the men carries out the plan but the other does not. No word yet on who will star opposite Affleck in the remake.
Source: Variety
NO PROGRESS
When it comes to women working in movies, Hollywood has rewound the clock. A new report titled The Celluloid Ceiling has revealed that the percentage of women working as directors, producers, editors, writers and cinematographers on Hollywood-produced films currently stands at 17 per cent, which is the same percentage it was back in 1998. In the vocational breakdown of last year's top-grossing 250 movies, 93 per cent of the films were directed by men, while 78 per cent had no female editors and 79 per cent had no female writers. Worst of all, 96 per cent of Hollywood films were filmed with male cinematographers. "There is no evidence to support the notion of 'creeping incrementalism' or the idea that things get slightly better each and every year," said report author Dr. Martha Lauzen.
Source: Entertainment Weekly