The unwanted Razzies record set by Ben Stiller
For as long as there have been good films, which is a very long time indeed, there have been bad ones too.
For every Godfather there’s a 500 Days of Summer. For every Keanu in The Matrix, there’s a Keanu in Dracula. And for those terrible movies and acting performances, just as there are the Oscars, there are the Razzies, and boy, does Ben Stiller know about those.
Now, we should set out first that Ben Stiller is an absolute comedy hero, responsible for some of the funniest films of the past 20 years, and if that weren’t enough, he’s also doing unbelievable work directing the Apple TV+ show that you absolutely must watch, Severance.
But back in 2004, he managed to set something of a record when it came to the 24th Golden Raspberry Awards, which was that he somehow managed to land a record five nominations for ‘Worst Actor’ in a single year; a feat that was unheard of at the time. Now, a closer look will reveal that these nominations weren’t actually all merited; in fact, some of them were just downright silly. But they were given just the same.
Hollywood stars, at least the ones who can laugh at themselves, have something of a love/hate relationship with the Razzies. Going along with the fun can definitely show that you’re a decent sort with a sense of humour, as Halle Berry proved when she turned up to the 2005 awards to collect her gong for ‘Worst Actor’ for that year’s Catwoman, while brilliantly fake crying and clutching her Oscar for Monster’s Ball.
And it was a trick superbly repeated by Sandra Bullock five years later when she turned up to pick up her award for ‘Worst Actress’ for the film All About Steve, only to win ‘Best Actress’ for The Blind Side the very next night. While Bullock remains the only actor to win both a Razzie and an Oscar in the same year, Stiller can probably feel rightfully aggrieved to have amassed five nominations, especially when you consider the films that helped him to the haul.
That’s because of the movies nominated, two of them are historic comedies in the shape of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, and the frankly hilarious Dodgeball that starred Stiller alongside Vince Vaughn. Stiller is certainly excellent in the latter as gym owner White Goodman (“Here at Globo Gym, we’re better than you. And we know it,”) and is a big reason behind the movie being one you can watch and quote again and again. “Nobody makes me bleed my own blood!”
Although you can probably make a case for a couple of the other films, Along Came Polly, which is a barely passable Jennifer Aniston vehicle, and then Envy, which nobody really remembers, and in fact, we had to look it up to even find out what it was. Apparently, it starred Stiller and Jack Black and was the story of two best friends, one of whom gets rich for inventing a spray that vaporises dog mess. Wow. It has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 7% which tells you all you need to know, really.
The last Stiller film of the five, though, is Starsky and Hutch with Owen Wilson, which we remember as being better than Razzies-worthy, although to be honest, that’s probably only due to the cameo from Will Ferrell, where he sits in a living room screaming for meatloaf from his mother in a silk kimono.
Stiller has a hand in plenty of projects to make up for Envy anyway, with Dodgeball 2 on the way, in addition to yet another Meet the Fockers movie, and intriguingly an adaptation of the shockingly prescient Super Sad True Love Story, the 2010 book by Gary Shteyngart that’s set in a world that’s on the brink of economic collapse, in which teens are obsessed with social media and everyone is ultra-materialistic. Imagine!
