Martial arts fantasy flick The Last Airbender has swept the board at the pre-Oscar Razzie awards for the worst movies of 2010, while Sex and the City 2 also won one of the dubious honours.
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Airbender, a box office hit but a critical miss, took the Golden Raspberry for worst movie, worst director, worst screenplay and worst supporting actor, as well as the useful new category of Worst Eye-Gouging Mis-Use of 3D.
Director M. Night Shyamalan, described as a "repeat offender" at the annual spoof eve-of-Oscars awards, could take some comfort as he failed to win Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel, for which he was also nominated.
"It's this kind of movie that makes you think that the producers had the Razzies in mind when they did it," said John Wilson, founder of the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation, which has handed out the Razzies since 1981.
The movie tells the story of Aang, a young successor to a long line of Avatars, who must put his childhood ways aside and stop the Fire Nation from enslaving the Water, Earth and Air nations.
Shyamalan "re-imagined the faux-anime TV series The Last Airbender into a jumbled, jump-cut mess of a movie that fans of the TV show hated even more than critics did", Razzie organisers said.
Someone must have liked it though, as the summer 2010 movie has so far taken nearly $US320 million at the box office around the world, according to the Box Office Mojo movie tracking website.
Sex and the City 2 - which has earned $US290 million - earned worst ensemble Razzie, as well as the worst actress award, jointly bestowed on the stars Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristin Davis, Kim Cattrall and Cynthia Nixon.
Worst actor went to Ashton Kutcher, for his performance in two films: Killers and Valentine's Day, while the unfortunate Jessica Alba won worst supporting actress for four movies she appeared in last year: The Killer Inside Me, Little Fockers, Machete and Valentine's Day.
The Razzies winners were announced on the eve of the Academy Awards, the climax of Hollywood's annual awards season.
British historical drama The King's Speech is the frontrunner, although others vying for Oscars glory include Facebook movie The Social Network, ballet thriller Black Swan, and classic Western remake True Grit.
Nominees for the Razzies rarely turn up to claim their awards at the spoof pre-Oscars event - this year was no exception at the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre in Los Angeles.
Actress Halle Berry turned up in 2005, and Sanda Bullock gamely appeared last year, handing out DVD copies of her offending performance in box office flop All About Steve.
The following day she won best actress Oscar for her role in Blind Side.
While the Oscars winners are voted on by the nearly 6000 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Razzies are chosen by 637 voters in 46 US states, and 17 other countries, organisers say.
Unlike the prestigious gold-plated Oscar statuettes handed out on Sunday evening, the Razzie trophy is in the form of a raspberry, roughly the size of a golf ball, sprayed with gold paint and nestled on a reel of old Super 8 film.
It has an estimated value of $US5.
AFP
