Can it get any worse for Hollywood's favorite tabloid couple?
In the same week that Jennifer Lopez confirmed that she had ended her stormy, high-profile engagement to Ben Affleck, Gigli -- the movie that sparked their off-screen romance -- gets the uncertain honor of leading the pack in nominations for the awards that celebrate the very worst of the American movie industry's annual output.
The nominations for the Golden Raspberry or Razzie awards for 2003, announced yesterday, included nine for Gigli, a mob comedy starring Affleck and Lopez that critics hated and audiences spurned.
The Cat in the Hat, a sometimes risque riff on the children's classic by Dr. Seuss, was just behind with eight Razzie nominations, including worst actor for Mike Myers for a performance award organizers called a "fur-ball hocking desecration."
Lopez and Affleck met on the set of Gigli in late 2001 and were engaged in November 2002.
Last September, the couple called off their supposedly secret wedding just days before it was to take place, citing a media invasion of their privacy.
The pair, who became known collectively as "Bennifer," have been seen together in public in the months since, although there have been widespread rumors that they were splitting up.
A spokesman for Lopez said that the actress-singer had ended her engagement to Affleck.
Lopez may be the front runner as last year's worst actress, but other star-crossed screen lovers also had a rough ride with critics and the Razzie judges.
Angelina Jolie, who chases romance to geopolitical hot spots in Beyond Borders, also scored a nomination, along with Kelly Clarkson who chases fellow American Idol Justin Guarini through an antic-filled Miami spring break in From Justin to Kelly.
Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz grabbed a dual dishonor with worst-actress nods for their high-kicking, crime-fighting return in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.
Sylvester Stallone, an evil, video-game mastermind set on global domination in Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, took his 30th Razzie nomination, more than any actor in the history of the awards, which spoof the Oscars, Hollywood's highest honors.
This year's Razzies will be given out on Feb. 28, a day before the Academy Awards.
The Razzie awards, which were launched in 1980 by writer John Wilson, offer winners a spray-painted raspberry atop a nest of Super 8 film although most awards go unclaimed by honorees.
Nine Taiwanese nervously stand on an observation platform at Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport. It’s 9:20am on March 27, 1968, and they are awaiting the arrival of Liu Wen-ching (柳文卿), who is about to be deported back to Taiwan where he faces possible execution for his independence activities. As he is removed from a minibus, a tenth activist, Dai Tian-chao (戴天昭), jumps out of his hiding place and attacks the immigration officials — the nine other activists in tow — while urging Liu to make a run for it. But he’s pinned to the ground. Amid the commotion, Liu tries to
A dozen excited 10-year-olds are bouncing in their chairs. The small classroom’s walls are lined with racks of wetsuits and water equipment, and decorated with posters of turtles. But the students’ eyes are trained on their teacher, Tseng Ching-ming, describing the currents and sea conditions at nearby Banana Bay, where they’ll soon be going. “Today you have one mission: to take off your equipment and float in the water,” he says. Some of the kids grin, nervously. They don’t know it, but the students from Kenting-Eluan elementary school on Taiwan’s southernmost point, are rare among their peers and predecessors. Despite most of
A pig’s head sits atop a shelf, tufts of blonde hair sprouting from its taut scalp. Opposite, its chalky, wrinkled heart glows red in a bubbling vat of liquid, locks of thick dark hair and teeth scattered below. A giant screen shows the pig draped in a hospital gown. Is it dead? A surgeon inserts human teeth implants, then hair implants — beautifying the horrifyingly human-like animal. Chang Chen-shen (張辰申) calls Incarnation Project: Deviation Lovers “a satirical self-criticism, a critique on the fact that throughout our lives we’ve been instilled with ideas and things that don’t belong to us.” Chang
Feb. 10 to Feb. 16 More than three decades after penning the iconic High Green Mountains (高山青), a frail Teng Yu-ping (鄧禹平) finally visited the verdant peaks and blue streams of Alishan described in the lyrics. Often mistaken as an indigenous folk song, it was actually created in 1949 by Chinese filmmakers while shooting a scene for the movie Happenings in Alishan (阿里山風雲) in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投), recounts director Chang Ying (張英) in the 1999 book, Chang Ying’s Contributions to Taiwanese Cinema and Theater (打鑼三響包得行: 張英對台灣影劇的貢獻). The team was meant to return to China after filming, but
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