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Quickest Response By A Studio: Immediately upon returning to the office following the Big Trouble screening, there was a message from the Touchstone rep saying that the studio had decided to postpone the release of the picture -- an appreciated gesture that was quickly followed by other studios with sensitive-material movies. (By the way, Big Trouble now opens next month.)
Slowest Response By A Studio: In my initial review of Kate & Leopold, I wrote, "Incidentally, do the filmmakers not realize that a climactic plot twist means two of the characters earlier committed incest, or do they just not care?" I dropped that line before the next edition of the paper for one reason: That flaw is no longer in the movie. Apparently, right before opening but right after national critics' screenings, Miramax executives finally bothered to read the film's script and realized the error of their ways, forcing them to get hold of all existing prints and reloop the dialogue in order to alter the characters' relationship and void the taboo coupling. An awful lot of trouble for a movie that was still lousy.
Best Triple Play: OK, he was overshadowed by Robert Redford in Spy Game, but Brad Pitt continued to prove he's a versatile (and somewhat underrated) actor with his eccentric and highly enjoyable turns in Snatch, The Mexican and Ocean's Eleven.
Strike Three, You're Out!: Whoopi Goldberg for Rat Race, Kingdom Come and Monkeybone; Josh Hartnett for Pearl Harbor, O and Town & Country; Gene Hackman for Behind Enemy Lines, Heist and Heartbreakers; Jennifer Lopez for The Wedding Planner, Angel Eyes and not relinquishing her 15 minutes of fame.
Curse Of The Living Corpse: Woody Allen, for still casting himself as characters who are sex magnets for gorgeous younger women (in 2001's case, Charlize Theron in Curse of the Jade Scorpion). Runner-up: Burt Reynolds, looking frighteningly mummified in Driven.
Funniest Line In An Otherwise Bad Movie: "If I could go back in time, I'd want to meet Snoopy!" -- airhead extraordinaire Melody (Tara Reid) in Josie and the Pussycats. Runner-up: "I'll be as quiet as an ant pissing on cotton." -- one of the tough guys in Heist.
Most Unintentional Irony: The plot for Crocodile Dundee In Los Angeles centered around a studio notorious for producing shoddy sequels. . .uh, like this one.
Most Misplaced Ego: John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars. Kinda like saying Richard Nixon's Watergate or Adolph Hitler's Holocaust.
Best Accent: Renee Zellweger's British accent in Bridget Jones's Diary. Many Brits were livid when they initially heard this Texas native had been cast as their beloved literary heroine, but validation eventually came in the form of a $208 million international gross and, more pointedly, a Best Actress nomination from BAFTA (the British Oscars). Runner-up: Brad Pitt's unintelligible Irish ramblings in Snatch. Authentic? Who knows? Funny? For sure.
Worst Accent: Nicolas Cage's Italian accent in Captain Corelli's Mandolin. Hard to believe this guy's from Italian descent -- he's a Coppola, for chrissakes! Runner-up: Don Cheadle's feeble British attempt in Ocean's Eleven.
The Annie Hall Award For Best Date Movie: Amelie. Vive la France! Runners-up: Bridget Jones's Diary; A Knight's Tale; Shallow Hal.
Best Self-Contained Example Of Six Degrees Of Separation: Penelope Cruz makes Open Your Eyes with writer-director Alejandro Amenabar. Alejandro Amenabar makes The Others with Nicole Kidman. Nicole Kidman is formerly married to Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise co-stars in Open Your Eyes remake, Vanilla Sky, with Penelope Cruz.
Most Humiliating Moment Not Worth Any Size Paycheck: Two-time Oscar winner Sally Field, in full "white trash" mode, secretly wiping a sandwich under her armpits before handing it to her infirm husband (who had requested "extra salt") in Say It Isn't So. Runners-up: Rip Torn wiggling his bare white buttocks at Tom Green in Freddy Got Fingered; Kevin Spacey talking to the dog via "woof, woofs!" in K-Pax; Ray Liotta missing the top of his head during the silly climax of Hannibal; Sean Penn's entire performance in I Am Sam.
Best Makeup: Planet of the Apes.
Best Breakup: Tom Green and Drew Barrymore. Drew, honey, your embarrassing cameo in Freddy Got Fingered proved it was time to cut this retard loose.
The Much Ado About Nothing Award: Popular Spanish star Penelope Cruz was carefully being groomed by Hollywood as the Next Big Thing. But after stiff turns in Blow, Captain Corelli's Mandolin and Vanilla Sky, Cruz is mainly known stateside for the bad PR generated by her affair with Tom Cruise that began while the embers of his ill-fated marriage to Nicole Kidman were still warm. Runner-up: Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, which was supposed to revolutionize the animated field but instead lost a fortune for its backers (it grossed a paltry $32 million against a whopping $137 million budget).