This week, all anyone can talk about is the Academy Awards and, namely, who’s going to win them. The folks at The Daily Beast have even gone so far as to put together a handy guide for actors looking to win an Oscar. And while we find that as interesting as the next crabby film elitist, we’re even more fascinated by the misfits — the actors, directors and movies that never seem to get their due at these frustratingly middlebrow awards. That’s why we’ve compiled a guide of our own. After the jump, we list 10 ways not to win an Oscar.
ArtsBeat has tipped us off to the fact that thanks to The Blind Side and The Proposal, which grossed more than $500 million last year — and in spite of the mullet-wig disaster that was All About Steve — Sandra Bullock has been named the top box-office draw of 2009 by movie theater executives. To put this in perspective, the illustrious Meryl Streep made this year’s list at number 7, and the last woman to win top honors was Julia Roberts back in 1999, the year of Runaway Bride and Notting Hill.
Transformers 2 may no longer be the worst movie of the year/decade. All About Steve, a film starring Sandra Bullock and Bradley Cooper, has just received the royal poo-poo from Rotten Tomatoes – a 2 percent critic rating. That’s out of 100. The plot goes something like this: Sandra Bullock is a weird crossword-puzzlin’ babe who falls in love with Bradley Cooper, a goon cameraman who is just not that into her.
Somewhere along the way, this ended up as “easily one of the worst movies of the year (if not the decade), there is not one redeeming quality to All About Steve, an offensive film morally, socially, and to the institution of comedy.” Film critic Peter Sobczynski bleakly sums up the Rotten Tomatoes onslaught nicely: “Let me put it this way — this is easily the single worst film that Sandra Bullock has been involved with and bear in mind, I have seen Speed 2.” To put this all into perspective, we’ve whipped up a handy dandy Shame-O-Meter after the jump. Read More »
We hate to say it, but it looks like the eight month delay (Eight months! Drat you Warner Bros.) may have been a good idea — Harry Potter dominated the weekend, with the largest world-wide opening of any film. Ever. And some of that money was ours. This week’s other newby, (500) Days of Summer debuted in twelfth place, which may not make our list, but considering that it only opened in 27 locations and is expanding, we expect to see it up here very soon. We’re so happy for Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Read More »
To absolutely no one’s surprise, Bruno opened in the number one slot this weekend, but signs may not be so good for its future. Transformers:RotF fell to third place under the consistent Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. The only other new offering of the week, I Love You, Beth Cooper, came in a weak seventh place. Sadly, we didn’t even know it had come out yet. Read More »
Do we even have to say it? Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen made huge, heaping, robot-turned-dump-truck-loads of money this weekend and made Michael Bay a very happy man. Despite claims of racism, the movie raked in $112M, which, added to the $89.2M it made earlier in the week, gave it the second largest five day opening of all time — right behind The Dark Knight. And to top it off, assuming that the movie passes the $300m mark — and unless all of the copies of it spontaneously explode, it will — Shia LaBeouf will become the first star ever to appear in $300M films three summers in a row. Not bad for a guy who’s in love with his mother. Read More »
Our favorite rom-com star, Sandra Bullock, was back in her element this weekend, helping The Proposal take the top slot, knocking back stiff competition from The Hangover,UP and The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. The other newbie of the week, Year One, premiered in a mediocre fourth place — looks like nobody is buying the prehistoric comedy trend. Even if it does involve Michael Cera in a loincloth. Read More »
