The Love Guru awarded as 2008’s worst film

Los Angeles: Mike Myers really did lose his mojo in 2008. Myers and his comedy movie The Love Guru,” which won few fans at box offices, were named worst actor and worst picture of 2008 at the Razzie Awards on Saturday. The announcement came one day before the world’s top film honors, the Oscars, are given out in Hollywood.

The comedy featuring Myers as a spiritual healer was also given the Razzie for the worst screenplay of 2008.

The Canadian actor and the movie he spent years developing won gold spray-painted Raspberries at the awards ceremony created in 1980 to spoof the glitzy Academy Awards.

The Love Guru flopped in theaters with only $40.8 million in global ticket sales. That figure is a huge come-down after Myers’ three Austin Powers spoofs in which the comedian worked his spy character’s positive mojo to perfection, raking in a combined $675 million at global box offices.

Socialite Paris Hilton was the other big award-winner at the 29th annual Golden Raspberry Awards. Hilton won three trophies – worst actress and worst screen couple for her low-budget romantic comedy The Hottie & The Nottie as well as worst supporting actress for her role in the horror fantasy Repo! The Genetic Opera.

Some of 2008’s biggest blockbusters also got Razzies. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the highly anticipated fourth nstallment of the adventure franchise starring Harrison Ford, was declared the worst prequel, remake, rip-off or sequel.

Former James Bond star Pierce Brosnan was awarded the worst supporting actor for his singing turn in the ABBA tunes musical Mamma Mia!

The winners of the Razzies were determined by mailing ballots to 657 voters living in the United States and 19 foreign countries.

Few Raspberry winners collect their trophies but Oscar winning actress Halle Berry sportingly showed up four years ago to take home her prize for Catwoman.

Following is a list of 2008 Razzie winners –

• Worst picture: The Love Guru

• Worst Actor: Mike Myers, Worst Actress: Paris Hilton for The Hottie & The Nottie

• Worst Supporting actor: Pierce Brosnan for Mamma Mia!

• Worst Supporting actress: Paris Hilton for Repo! The Genetic Opera

• Worst Screen Couple: Paris Hilton with either Christine Lakin or Joel David Moore for The Hottie & The Nottie

• Worst Screenplay: The Love Guru by Mike Myers and Graham Gordy

• Worst Director: Uwe Boll for Tunnel Rats, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale and Postal

• Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

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Slumdog kids experience Oscar hysteria

Tanvi, the Mumbai girl who played teenager Latika in Slumdog Millionaire was all excited when she saw the sartorial finesse that awaited her in a plush Los Angels hotel.

Tanvi, along with the other Slumdog… kids, landed in Los Angeles for the much-awaited Oscar awards that will be held at the Kodak theatre.

“Tanvi’s measurements for the Oscar dress and the shoe size had been conveyed to the organizers well in advance.

When she tried them on she was much delighted as also the other kids who were treated similarly,” 13-year-old Tanvi’s mother, said Sharmila Lonkar.

“I spoke to her and she told me that the dress trial was given finishing touches and now the ‘Slumdog’ kids were looking forward to the award announcements hoping for the best”, she said.

Sharmila said the arrival of the kids aroused great interest among the American media, who gave them extensive coverage.

“The American media is more crazy about them (kids) than their Indian counterparts and their arrival was flashed all over,” she said.

Tanvi was accompanied by her father Ganesh. Her mother, would be watching the event from her residence in Borivali.

After the awards function, Tanvi and other children artistes would stay in US for two more days more for sight-seeing.

The trip would also include a visit to Disneyland, Sharmila said.

The kids have already paid a visit to the Universal
Studio in Hollywood, she said.

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Oscar would help do bigger things: Rahman

An Oscar award would be a “great honour” and help do “bigger things”, says Indian music maestro A R Rahman, a hot favourite to take home a trophy for his music in Slumdog Millionaire.

“It would be a great honour,” Rahman told the New York Times

in a telephonic interview from Los Angeles, where he was preparing to perform at the ceremony.

“It would help me to do bigger things.”

Asked to elaborate, Rahman named “some Western directors he would like to work with”. “Baz Luhrmann… Ridley Scott. I’m a big fan of Ridley.”

The Times notes Rahman is “one of the most prolific and successful film composers in India”. He has three nominations for Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire – best original score and best original song, for Jai Ho and O Saya, a collaboration with the Sri Lankan-British rapper M.I.A.

Rahman, 43, has already won a Golden Globe for best score for Slumdog Millionaire.

“I like to see a film and then start scoring it in my mind, while doing something unrelated,” the maestro said. “You just grasp a film and start working, and something unpredictable comes out from a third element. The mind, the more active it is, the more productive it is.”

Talking about his work on the most-talked about film of the recent times, Rahman said: “I kept three weeks aside. I moved to London and did the whole score there.”

David Novak, an ethnomusicologist at the Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University, said Rahman is “sort of the Peter Gabriel of the Indian film industry”.

“He shifted things from a simple East-West mode to a multicultural, global mode, where India and its regional musics are part of a palette of sound from around the world,” Novak added.

Andrew Lloyd Weber, who worked with the composer for the West End musical Bombay Dreams, said, “I’ve long been impressed by his talent, and I’m so pleased that Hollywood has recognized it.”

But Rahman said he was yet to prepare his Oscar acceptance speech ready as he was busy meeting various directors and record labels in Los Angeles.

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Bush declines hardware store job

A new look for the former president?

George W Bush has paid a jokey visit to a hardware store in Dallas, Texas, which offered him a job as a greeter.

The former US president entered the Elliott’s outlet with his security detail saying “I’m looking for a job”, store manager Andrea Bond said.

The owner of the Texas chain made the offer earlier this month in a letter published in a Dallas newspaper.

But despite not yet having a publisher for his memoirs, Mr Bush decided on reflection to turn the job down.

Equipped with a name tag reading “W”, Mr Bush spent an hour there with his secret service security detail, chatting to customers and doing a little shopping.

Employee discount

Described as part-time, the job would have left Mr Bush time to work on his presidential library and write about his two terms at the White House.

“We’re confident that your experience working in your own family business, as well as your people skills developed throughout years of meeting with foreign dignitaries would make you an excellent candidate for the position,” read the job offer, signed by Kyle Walters, president and CEO of Elliott’s Hardware.

“Furthermore, like you, many of our greeters are retired from the corporate world, so we’re sure you’ll have no trouble making new friends.”

The employment package also offered parking for his security detail and an employee discount.

“We think you’ll find working with us much less stressful than your last job,” the offer continued.

Mr Bush and his wife Laura moved into their new home in an expensive area of Dallas on Friday. They have kept their ranch at Crawford, Texas.

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