On Sunday, the Grammies aired highlighting the best movies of 2008 in a number of different categories.
In retrospect the Golden Raspberry Awards, more commonly referred to as the Razzies, aired the night before and awarded the worst movies of the year in a way that the Grammies could never do.
Awarding the top shelf poppycock since its first award 28 years ago, the Razzies were created to parallel the Grammies.
One of the top nominated movies of the year, Disaster Movie, received six nominations for “Razzies” and has two University students in its cast.
Jamey Whitley, a junior in the Department of Communication appeared in the 2008 flick as an extra.
In April a casting call went out on the acting web site bamcastingLA.com calling on extras for a new movie.
Whitley did not initially receive a callback, however one of his friends was selected and could not make the callback, so he took his place.
“Disaster Movie was made by the same guys that produced Meet the Spartans and the Scary Movie series.
Released on Aug 29, the movie grossed $14.2 million in its big screen run. However, the movie cost $20 million to make, claiming a $5.8 million dollar loss right from the start.
Also, the movie is ranked number two of the 100 worst movies of all time according to the Internet Movie Database with a 98 percent negative feedback rating.
Aaron Smith, a senior from Whitehouse, also took part in Disaster Movie as a stand in.
“I stood in for Devin Crittenden,” Smith said. “I was originally an extra, but the casting director saw me and made me a stand-in for Michael Cera in the Superbad portion of the movie.”
“We were in acting class together, and we met up at the casting call and have kept in touch,” Whitley said.
The pair really didn’t expect the movie to be that bad at first, that is until they found out that the biggest names in the movie happened to be Kim Kardashian and Alyssa Milano.
In her blog, Kardashian did not take the nominations with despair, but said “it’s an honor just to be nominated.”
“I thought that winning a Razzie was possible, but it really doesn’t matter,” Smith said. “It’s the experience that counts and really makes it enjoyable. The set is just like a place of business. I talked to Milano for a few minutes and discovered that she was a really down-to-earth person. However, an actor asked for her number and got thrown off of the set, and possibly even a sexual harassment lawsuit filed against him.”
“I know a guy that took the movie off of his resume because it turned out so bad,” said Whitley. “For me the movie is time in front of a camera, which everyone in the industry needs, however a some people are scared about what to be associated with.”
“We knew it was going to be pretty bad,” said Whitley. “But none of us thought it was going to be potentially six Razzies bad.”
In the end, Disaster Movie did not win any awards, to the relief of all of the actors in the cast.
By Kyle G. Horst Entertainment Editor
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