Worst of a bad bunch

Once again The Bug is proud to present its annual movie awards, The Buggsies, acknowledging outstanding achievements in a range of categories.
The Bug's movie critic DAVID POMERANIAN and a panel of expert judges have spent the past month sitting through re-screenings of all the local and overseas movies released since the start of 2004. Now their votes have been tallied and audited.
And so, the envelope please ...

The Barbra Streisand Do-It-Yourself Award For Trying Hard But Not Succeeding:
In a shock result, Ms Streisand herself won the award, mainly for her standout performance in an otherwise lacklustre Meet the Fockers.

Most Easily Unravelled Plot For A Thriller:
A tied effort going to The Rock's vengeance remake Walking Tall and Heath Ledger's confused religious mess, The Sin-Eater, which, while unpredictable, was so ponderous audiences eventually gave up caring where the plot was heading.

The Roger Moore Trophy For the Most Impressive Ham Act:
Tom Hank's shameless overacting as Professor Goldthwait Higginson Dorr in the thankfully underrated Coen brothers remake of The Ladykillers.

The John Howard PC Award For Sensitive Portrayal of Freaks, Fags and Fuck-Ups:
Paul Hogan and Michael Caton, reprising roles that would have been more comfortable in the 1970s in the utterly awful Strange Bedfellows.

Worst Male Actor Award:
Heath Ledger as the conflicted exorcist turning his back on a lifetime of abstinence and devotion to the Lord for a quick root with Shannyn Sossamon in The Sin-Eater or, more appropriately, The Shit-Eater.

Worst Female Actor Award:
Shawn and Marlon Wayans for their performances as FBI agents disguised as women in the pointless White Chicks.

Worst Director Award (to be known as the George Eliot Award from 2005):
George Eliot for his shameless (but admittedly self-funded) exercise in self-aggrandisement in The Crop.

Un-Funniest And Least Romantic Romantic Comedy:
At 113 minutes too long, Under the Tuscan Sun starring Diane Lane took bourgeois fantasies about fleeing Western responsibility to the simplicity of the Mediterranean just that little bit too far.

The Golden Beret Lifetime Achievement Award Recognising a Career Sparkling With Its Pretentiousness:
Takashi Shimizu for taking one good idea just that little bit too far with his fifth version of The Grudge.

Worst Villain On The Alan Rickman Scale:
All Peter Weller was missing was a moustache to twirl in sinister glee as the duplicitous Cardinal Driscoll in The Sin-Eater.

The Sean Connery Perpetual Trophy For The Least Likely Romantic Entanglement:
Renee Zellwegger and Colin Firth in Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason, the overblown sequel to Bridget Jones's Diary. Why Firth's sophisticated Darcy would continue to put up with Jones - a clutzy ditz prone to ridiculous histrionics - is a complete mystery to many. Why producers would remake the first film with the same actors, same plot and different locations is a little easier to understand, considering the mega-bucks they pulled in the first time.

Meryl Streep Perplexual Award For The Worst Accent:
South Park's Trey Parker for most of the voices (which sounded remarkably similar) in the action marionette flick Team America - World Police, especially the sibilant North Korean despot Kim Jong Il.

The John Wayne Memorial Rewriting History (or How A Single American Changes A Nation's Destiny) Award:
Judges allowed a special sub-classification under this category this year to allow the award to go to the environmental disaster flick The Day After Tomorrow for its shameless manipulation and outright abuse of scientific fact.

The Crony Award Recognising Producers And Directors Who Selflessly Offer Work To Mates Even Though It's Obvious The Film Won't Even Come Near To Breaking Even:
In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it season, George Eliot's The Crop sank without a trace despite being written, directed, produced and acted in by Eliot himself and threatening to take the careers of respected performers like Rhys Muldoon along with it.

The Gwyneth Paltrow/Shallow Hal Award Recognising A Skinny Woman Playing A Fat Woman Fantasising About Being A Slim Woman:
This year controversially awarded to the amply-proportioned Queen Latifah for her very dubious performance in the woeful remake of the French super-hit Taxi as Belle, a super-fit bicycle courier in Manhattan dreaming about becoming a cabbie.

The Harvey Keitel/Bad Lieutenant Award For The Most Erotic Portrayal Of A Hand-Job:
Judges were moved to tears, as was Robert Downey Jr in his performance as the psoriasis-racked crime-writer Dan Dark being ministered to by his selfless, ever-loving nurse, Katie Holmes in The Singing Detective.

The Pinocchio Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement In The Field of Wooden Acting:
This award was a dead heat between Clive Owen, for his performance as the title character in Jerry Bruckhemier's King Arthur - a better portrayal of an English football captain than the legendary leader - and the wooden club used by The Rock in Walking Tall, which had little trouble stealing every scene it was in.

The Gravelly Voice-Over Guy Award For Most Unintentionally Hilarious Soundbite In A Movie Trailer:
The completely unnecessary sequel Anacondas: The Search for the Blood Orchid and its bewilderingly serious final exchange of: "Are you telling me there's a snake orgy happening in the jungle?" - "Yeah."

The David Fincher Award For The Feature That Would Have Made An Interesting Short, But Then Took A Bizarre 90-Minute Detour:
The Forgotten, a Julianne Moore movie that headed into increasingly bizarre territory as the minutes ticked by, and quickly became its own title in the minds of audiences everywhere.