The Smithee Awards Blog

"This is the end. My only friend, the end." Well, the last MM3 write-up, at any rate.

I could wax poetic on the unbroken string of travesty that extends from the first Worst Picture (Star Crash) to the most recent (Guns Of El Chupacabra link under the cut). But I won't. Instead I will get right to the rotten meat infesting this peanut-butter-Velveeta-and-bacon-on-Wonder-Bread sandwich:

( (Sorry if you're eating.) )


"It's over. It's finished. It's happened."

Or at least, it's all over but the voting. And the giant Pixy-Stix. And the nausea.

The people you are about to see are GUILTY. You, the audience, have borne witness to a multitude of crimes: over-acting, under-acting, mushy-mouthed dialogue, appallingly fake accents, and aggravated scenery chewing. Now you must decide which of these people is the most egregious offender. Which of these people is most deserving of the 3rd Mega Meta Award for Worst Acting?

2002 William Shatner in Incubus
2003 Catherine Walsh in Biohazard: The Alien Force
2004 Anna Nicole Smith in Skyscraper
2005 Jeff Hutchinson in Roller Blade
2006 Robert Z'dar in Guns of El Chupacabra

( You be the <strike>clicky</strike> judge! )

This isn't Wednesday. This entry is late. If I post every Wednesday, that means ... I'm following a pattern! But I don't. And I'm not.

There's just something about inanity. It's just so inane. You'll never catch me saying something inane. There's nothing quite as inane as inanity, boy howdy.

To the Smithee Awards definition (swiped adapted from the wonderful roleplaying game "It Came From The Late, Late, Late Show"), Inane Dialogue is as follows: Type A) Something that will soon be contradicted (e.g. "We're safe from the monsters here"), and Type B) Something incredibly obvious ( e.g. "Hey -- you're a woman!").

Otherwise known as ( clicky! )

...and remember, only you can prevent florist fliers!

Alright, alright, alright, here's the cover recap. Sheesh. And also, for those of you who have come to the awards in the past few years, Worst Cover is one of my favorite animated Smithee intros. There's something about the Portsmouth Symphonia that tickles my soul and brings tears to my eyes.

Anyhow, if you want to win worst cover, you can do so in a myriad of different ways. You can describe the movie you wanted to make and not the movie that is actually in the box (ET: An action pact adventure about one alien trying to take over the world and the Government Agent sworn to stop it!). Or you can tell the whole story on the cover so the watcher doesn't have to see the movie anymore (ET: A touching story of a stranded alien and the boy he befriends. Young Elliot has to hide his new alien friend from government officials until the alien can contact his people who show up and take him home.) You can even hire an artist and cover blurb writer, tell them vaguely what your film is about and let them have at it (ET: [line art picture of a small Alien looking thing and a young nondescript boy] Director Steven Spielberg [list all the movies Spielberg has done up to this point] brings you a tale of suspense and heartwarming friendship between a stranded alien and a lonely boy. [list Drew Barrymore ahead or even instead of Henry Thomas because Drew Barrymore has famous connections]. Enough babble, onto the nominations!

From the intrepid 2002 we bring you Hands of Steel
From the inspiring 2003 we bring you The Terror
From the dazzling 2004 we bring you Black Friday
From the reclusive 2005 we bring you The Monster that Challenged the World
From the terminal 2006 we bring you Ninja Queen Boxer

As if this intro wasn't long enough, I fear this category will be rather wordy. Fortunately, or not, most of them wont be my words since I'm typing the cover blurbits out. ( clicky? )

They may say it's never enough, but you and I, kittens, we know the truth. The B-filmmakers, our cinematic gurus -- they sometimes try to put one past us.

We know better. It does have to hurt to eat your cigarettes. The Imperial Battleship can't halt the flow of time. You aren't safe here, and more could possibly go wrong. And yes, you can go too far in the pursuit of an orgy of violence. It's more than enough.

But if you just can't get enough of clip descriptions, then ( ClickyClicky, kittens! )

When you're at the show – December 16 in Ann Arbor! -- and I'm handing you your balloting kit and collecting your votes, don't give me any shit, kittens. Because now I've got me some ideas.

Which beats a burst wine loaner any ol' day of the week.

We like to bill this one as "The Smithee Award that you wouldn't mind winning," although 1 of 2 people who have received physical Smithee trophies seemed pleased about it.

At any rate, these are supposed to go to the line with teh funny. And teh details are under ( teh clicky: )

...and when churches go bankrupt, they have to file Chapter 11 Verse 3. What's the HTML code for a rimshot?

Yeah, I know. This isn't Worst Cover but I'm much, much closer to having that one done. I almost remembered my paper notes even! But I didn't so instead, here's some acting stupid. I think this is one of the easiest categories to explain (well, other than LUtRtR) because it's one category that everyone gets. I mean, who hasn't hooted at the screen when Character A goes and does something that will surely end up badly? "Duuuuude, you've heard the rumors of Vampires and seen the mutilated corpses so just take the wooden stake and garlic already. And how about a buddy too and don't take the short cut across the graveyard in the middle of the night." Of course they don't listen, they never do, but this just means we get to nominate them for Acting Appropriately Stupid. I wonder how many AASs become Alases?

Enough speculation, on to nomination!
2002 brought you Raptor
2003 brought you Planet of the Vampires
2004 brought you Parasite
2005 brought you The Angry Red Planet
2006 brought you Slaughter
( clicky for info blurbits! )

When a problem is solved through no effort of the character(s), that's a Deus Ex Machina. It's usually a lazy-screenwriter device for dealing with an otherwise-intractable problem, although sometimes it's more trouble to explain than it's worth. Occasionally it's as simple as "Dear God, please help my brother," and God does! Deus Ex Machina, after all, does refer to the convention where God comes down from the machine and helps the characters in the play sort out their troubles. Miraculous survival? It's in there. One of the cops being a conspiracy nut and deciding to help the heroes instead of his partner? It's in there. Ground beef and real tomatoes? It's probably in there as well, somewhere behind the ( clicky for size porpoises )

...they are usually larger than dolphins.

Yikes. Thursday. I blame Worst Cover in that I was mostly set up to cover Cover buuuut I never got my ducks in a row or my e-notes and my paper notes in one place and now it's Thursday. So instead: SF/X (Worst Special Effect). Do I have to explain? Does the "special effect" leave most everything to be desired? Do strings show? Is it obviously a dummy/model/superimposed? Could a 4th grader do better? Then it should be nominated for this category.
( clicky for the bad )

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio. A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. 'Tis a pity that large-breasted stripper killed him by stuffing ice cubes down his ( clicky )


To explain the title, this is the 10th of 19 category recaps (the middle one), but the category is the 5th sequentially. And the second alphabetically, but I fail to see how that's relevant.

I have no idea what order I'm doing these categories in but the randomness is amusing me greatly. And also, they say a picture is worth a thousand words but I don't exactly have pictures. Words, on the other hand, I have plenty of. Plenty! So let's get on with the monsterin!

( Clicky the click! )

It's time for the Megameta flashback to get it on. Or at least flash you, in a 'Clips Gone Wild' sort of montage. Yes, kittens, it's time to look back at "LET'S UP THE RATING TO 'R'".

( Clicky, if you're over 18. Or under 18, but your parents aren't watching. )

Kittens, it's going to be a hard -- err, I mean difficult -- decision. But I have faith in the Smithee voters to determine whose titillation will reign supreme.

Plastic tubes and pots and pans
Bits and pieces and
Magic from the hand
Were makin
Worst Science.

Movies get nominated for worst science when they either spout a scientific theory every second grader knows to be false (Blue light waves cancel out the normal visible light waves and render people invisible!) or spout some impressively brain hurty techno babble (the giga-infractulator should boost us past 70 cingtarses). MegaMeta3 will be bringing you science gone horribly wrong or impossibly babbled from the following movies:

Mesa of Lost Women (2002)
Dead Fire (2003)
Within the Rock (2004)
Death Machine (2005)
Circuitry Man II: Plughead Reloaded (2006)

( clickervate the tolink button for more )

There comes a time / when we heed a certain call / when the world / must come / together / and mock.

"Wanna Run That By Me Again?" is the category for a bit of dialogue which is so nonsensical, contradictory, or uncertain that the response of the viewer/listener is to stop, shake the head, and say, "Do you want to run that by me again?"

For five prime examples, ( clicky here HERE HERE!!! )

Just imagine what we could have done with federal funding!

Holy Moley! Is it Wednesday already? When did that happen? Oi! Well I guess it's time for another Smithee Awards MegaMeta3 Category Recap. Of doom. Let's see...we've done WHAT?!!, Whoops, MLP, Oblivious...let's chunk into Crummiest Ending then! I don't think I need to explain the category do I? I didn't think so. Onto the nominees!

( clicky the click )

It was a difficult decision whether to do Category 4 (Let's Up The Rating To Boobs 'R') or this one. But I picked this one because I couldn't even think of another situation where I might use the stunning "Soul Vengeance" userpic.

Discussion of movies coming, so ( clicky here )

And above all else, remember that Vegemite is supposed to be spread incredibly thin. Because it has a very intense flavor. Of evil.

Hey Smithee Campers! It's time for another MegaMeta Category recap. It's also time for me to totally apologize for not having said a blurbit about What?! so I'll sort of remedy that here. What?! is defined as "Things that make it into the movie that were obviously intended to be there. For whatever reason." I actually added the last part, but they are bits of the movie that make you go "Huh?" and then rewind the tape/DVD just to make sure you didn't misunderstand what was happening. Most often than not, you didn't and rewinding it once or a bazillion times fails to shed any more light on the particular weirdness.

Whoops!, on the other hand, is stuff that made it into the movie that really shouldn't have. At least if you had a competent continuity director it wouldn't have. Buuuuuuut as we've come to expect from a lot of these movies, they just don't care enough to send the very best. Crew members visible in the scene? Whatever, keep rolling. Props popping in and out? Whatever, keep rolling. Change in film stock? Keep rolling.

( Onto the contenders! )

Yes, it is that time once again. The time when nouns are nouns, verbs are verbs, and dangling participles dress up like gerunds and stalk their prey among the abattoirs of talk radio. It's Smithee time!

Today I will be recapping the winners of the Oblivious category from years 11-15, so if you wish to keep these memories repressed, by no means ( clicky for more )

I certainly have no idea which one I'm voting for. And under no circumstances are you to eat the Squishy Ninjas.

Hello Smitheeites. I thought I'd do a little MegaMeta refresher for y'all since it's been what...five years since you've seen some of these clips and judging by the Origins crowd, y'all aren't remembering back further than Chupa! : Cabra!. So I thought I'd take this time before the A2 showing of the MegaMetas to review your options.
( The one y'all have been talking about )