Tom Hanks, ‘Morbius’ and ‘Blonde’ dominate the ‘deliciously awful’ 2023 Razzie Awards
The Golden Raspberry Awards have announced their 2023 winners, and for the first time in history, the Razzies awarded themselves.
The satirical awards show honoring the worst of the worst in cinema has taken place just prior to the Academy Awards for more than four decades. Each Razzie Award is given out with a pithy quote from an unsavory review, and this year’s batch — unlike the films they hailed from — did not disappoint.
The 43rd Razzies kicked off Friday by awarding Tom Hanks the worst supporting actor trophy for what IndieWire called his “deliciously awful ... Kentucky-fried gold member” performance in Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis.” (The Times described his turn as music impresario Col. Tom Parker as a career worst and a “rare misstep” for the beloved actor.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH3xhHSlyjQ
Although “Elvis” was nominated for eight Oscars at the 95th Academy Awards, including lead actor and best picture, it took home none on Sunday night. Nor was Hanks, a two-time Oscar winner for “Philadelphia” and “Forrest Gump,” among the 2023 supporting-actor Oscar nominees.
In the “worst screen combo” category, Hanks — paired with his “Latex-Laden Face (and Ludicrous Accent)” — scored another Razzie. The Hollywood Reporter characterized the portrayal as “a creepy beady-eyed lech peering out from under a mountain of latex.” “Blonde” was also nominated in the worst screen combo category, pairing writer-director “Andrew Dominik & His Issues with Women” as another problematic duo.
The Razzies retracted an award for Worst Performance by Bruce Willis after news the ‘Die Hard’ actor was diagnosed with aphasia, a cognitive disorder.
The worst remake/rip-off/sequel award went to Disney’s “Pinocchio,” also starring Hanks as puppet-maker Geppetto, for what the Hollywood Reporter called “just another widget in Disney’s remake ‘em all agenda.” Meanwhile, “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” won the Oscar for animated feature on Sunday. Director Robert Zemeckis’ live-action remake was released a month prior on Disney+ but did not receive any Oscar nominations.
Sony Pictures’ comic flick “Morbius” also led the wins, scoring two Golden Raspberry Awards. Its titular star, Jared Leto, won the dubious honor of worst actor for what the Irish Times described as “taking a silly role absurdly seriously.” And his co-star Adria Arjona was named worst supporting actress for her “barely lukewarm” performance in the same film, per Peter Travers of ABC.
According to A Trip to the Movies, Andrew Dominik’s Marilyn Monroe biopic “Blonde” was “deplorable, misogynistic and exploitative,” earning it the Razzie for worst screenplay. It also took home the big award for worst picture, with the Atlanta Reporter calling it “a showy exercise in exploitation and fallacious storytelling” while reviewer Jorge Rivera Rubio dubbed it “trauma porn.”
Ana de Armas was nominated for an Oscar for lead actress for her role as Monroe in “Blonde,” but the prize went to Michelle Yeoh for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”
And for the first time in Razzie Awards history, the spoof awards show recognized itself among the worst for its blunder earlier this year. The Razzies caught a fair amount of flack for nominating 12-year-old “Firestarter” actor Ryan Kiera Armstrong for worst actress. The Razzies committee publicly apologized and changed the rules, imposing age restrictions for worst performance nominees, before replacing Armstrong’s name with their own on the ballot.
The Razzies take back their worst-actress nomination of ‘Firestarter’ star Ryan Kiera Armstrong after facing backlash for nominating a child actor.
“For nominating someone who should not have been considered, a blunder that was put through the blender, and pulverized from one corner of the internet to the other and all media in between, instead of handing out a worst actress statuette this year, we’re giving this Razzie, to the Razzies. ... Well, what can we say? We earned this Razzie,” the group said in the winners announcement video.
Also deemed “the worst” were freshman directors Colson Baker (Machine Gun Kelly) and Derek Ryan Smith (Mod Sun), for their directing of the stoner comedy “Good Mourning,” which they both also starred in.
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