Mr. Write's Page

Years ago, I had a friend who was Oscar-obsessed. When the Academy Awards came on TV, he hosted an elaborate party and handed out paper ballots. He made his infamous pig-in-a-blanket appetizers. He flitted around the room, giddy with anticipation.

I’m a film fan, too, but in a far less obsessive way. My friend would be crushed to know that I purposely avoid Academy Awards broadcasts.

Movies are a hugely complex art form and an amazing entertainment experience. A good film is a marvelous thing. In fact, depending on how the wind blows and the planets align, even an awful potboiler can be enjoyable.

Recently, I ran across this tidbit of movie trivia: in 1988, Tom Cruise starred in Rain Man, the Oscar-winning Best Picture, and also in Cocktail, the Razzie-winning Worst Picture. An amazing feat.

For the record, the Razzies are the Golden Raspberry Awards, presented annually in recognition of the worst in film.

The Razzies were dreamed up in 1980 by Hollywood publicist John Wilson. The award consists of a golfball-size representation of a raspberry sitting on a Super 8MM film reel, spray-painted gold.

An Oscar statuette costs about $500 to make; Each Razzie is said to cost $4.97.

When I read about Mr. Cruise’s notable achievement in 1988, I got curious about other Razzie winners over the years. So I did the research.

Here is the list of the winners in the Worst Picture category, including the star(s) to jog your memory. Note that 1986 and 1990 resulted in a tie.

1980 — Can’t Stop the Music (The Village People, Bruce Jenner)
1981 — Mommie Dearest (Faye Dunaway)
1982 — Inchon (Lawrence Olivier)
1983 — The Lonely Lady (Pia Zadora)
1984 — Bolero (Bo Derek)
1985 — Rambo: First Blood Part II (Sylvester Stallone)
1986 — Howard the Duck (Tim Robbins)
1986 — Under the Cherry Moon (Prince)
1987 — Leonard Part 6 (Bill Cosby)
1988 — Cocktail (Tom Cruise)
1989 — Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (William Shatner et al)
1990 — The Adventures of Ford Fairlane (Andrew Dice Clay)
1990 — Ghosts Can’t Do It (Bo Derek)
1991 — Hudson Hawk (Bruce Willis)
1992 — Shining Through (Michael Douglas)
1993 — Indecent Proposal (Robert Redford, Demi Moore)
1994 — Color of Night (Bruce Willis)
1995 — Showgirls (Elizabeth Berkley)
1996 — Striptease (Demi Moore)
1997 — The Postman (Kevin Costner)
1998 — Burn Hollywood Burn (Ryan O’Neal)
1999 — Wild Wild West (Will Smith, Kevin Kline)
2000 — Battlefield Earth (John Travolta)
2001 — Freddy Got Fingered (Tom Green)
2002 — Swept Away (Madonna)
2003 — Gigli (Ben Affleck)
2004 — Catwoman (Halle Berry)
2005 — Dirty Love (Jenny McCarthy)
2006 — Basic Instinct 2 (Sharon Stone)
2007 — I Know Who Killed Me (Lindsay Lohan)
2008 — The Love Guru (Mike Myers)
2009 — Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Shia LaBeouf)
2010 — The Last Airbender (Noah Ringer)
2011 — Jack and Jill (Adam Sandler)

A truly spectacular group of stinkers. I’ve seen only four of them, and I swear I was ignorant of their true nature at the time. Honest.