By Daniel Archuleta
Managing Editor

DOWNTOWN For the best of the best there’s the Academy Awards. For gritty independent films that do a lot for a little there’s the Spirit Awards. Then, there’s the Razzies.

For the 28th year running, the Annual Golden Razzie Awards will shed light on movies that its voters believe should have never seen the light of day to begin with. Taking place the same weekend that the Oscars glam up Hollywood and the Independent Spirit Awards bring a little Tinseltown to Santa Monica Beach, the Razzies come to Downtown’s Magicopolis to honor the worst of the worst.

While “There Will Be Blood” and “Juno” highlight those other awards shows, gems like “I Know Who Killed Me” and “Norbit” top this year’s list of Razzie nominees. Eddie Murphy tallied a record five nominations for his various roles in a film that actually earned a nod from the Academy, but got zilch from the Spirit Awards. Lindsay Lohan earned the dubious honor of being nominated twice in the worst actress category for her dual roles in “I Know Who Killed Me,” a film that flopped at the box office and was universally panned by critics.

With the ballots counted and the winners determined, John Wilson, founder and head RAZZberry, has attempted to reach out to a pair of the major recipients to invite them to the ceremony. He isn’t holding his breath.

“I do make an effort to find a contact for the main winners. What I was told, the two big winners are not the kind of people that will show up and laugh about it,” he said. “Who knows, one of them might show up with a gun.”

Of course he was joking about the gun, but it’s rare for a Razzie winner to be gracious about winning the award.

“There have only been a handful of times when people actually embraced the situation and had a good time with it,” he added.

Wilson recalls the most memorable reaction by a winner with a chuckle and a heavy dose of levity. When 2003’s “Gigli” swept the Razzies, Wilson tried to get somebody from the cast to appear to collect the bushel of awards with little success.

“I did what I could to let Ben Affleck [one of the film’s leads] know that I wanted him to attend. The day after our ceremony he held a press conference saying he wasn’t invited,” Wilson recalled with a laugh.

A few days later, Affleck was scheduled to appear on CNN’s Larry King Live and Wilson made arrangements through a member of the Razzie Foundation who worked at the network to have King give the award to the actor during the broadcast. When King handed the golden statuette to Affleck, it broke into pieces in his hands. After his appearance, the actor left the remains of the award behind.

“I went back to CNN and retrieved it. It sold on eBay for so much money that it paid for the rent of the hall for next year’s ceremony,” Wilson said.

While Wilson would love another dust up to occur on that magnitude, he said this year’s ceremony should be relatively straight forward. Taking place this morning at Magicopolis, the Razzies will honor bad performances in 11 categories which includes honors for worst achievements in screenwriting, worst excuse for a horror movie, worst director and worst screen couple.

One of the most noteworthy and off-beat categories is worst remake or rip-off. Nominees include “Bratz,” “Epic Movie,” “I Know Who Killed Me” and “Who’s Your Caddy.”

The awards ceremony is regrettably not open to the general public with just voting members of the Razzie Foundation in attendance during the press conference. Wilson likes to cite that there are nine times as many people who vote for the Razzies than cast ballots for the Golden Globes. He said that people get caught up in the glitz of the Golden Globes show and forget that a relatively obscure group of people actually determine the winners. Wilson said it was fitting that the Golden Globes were relegated to handing out its awards during a humble press conference due to the writers strike.

“For once they were even lamer than we were and we’re trying to be lame,” he said.

daniela@smdp.com