People Can’t Believe The Razzies Nominated Ben Affleck For One Of His Best Performances

The Golden Raspberry Awards, aka the Razzies, may celebrate the worst in cinema, but sometimes they’re as unloved as the purported duds they try and mock. Did you know the first year, in 1980, they dissed Stanley Kubrick? They’ve come for a lot of future classics (such as The Shining). Other times their choices can seem simply lazy. So it was with this year’s nominations, which faux-fêted some obvious choices (Space Jam: A New Legacy, Ben Platt in Dear Evan Hansen) as well as some real obscurities (eight direct-to-streaming Bruce Willis movies).

Then there’s Ben Affleck getting a Worst Supporting Actor nom for The Last Duel. Affleck had a good 2020. He reunited with Jennifer Lopez. He’s an Oscar hopeful for The Tender Bar. The Last Duel, the first movie he’s co-written with Matt Damon since they won an Oscar for Good Will Hunting, may have tanked at the box office, but it’s already been reclaimed since dropping on HBO Max. What’s more, Affleck received some of the best reviews of his career for his turn as the peerlessly douchey count Pierre d’Alençon, whose unrepentant hedonism makes for much-needed comic relief.

Nobody told the Razzie voters that. Their inexplicable nomination suggests either they’re stuck in a past where Affleck is overly ubiquitous tabloid fodder or, worse, didn’t even see a turn described by Vulture’s Bilge Ebiri as “wonderfully skeezy,” the actor playing a “marvelously out-there creation who shouldn’t work at all and yet becomes an engine of uneasy delights.” Jersey Girl and Gigli were almost 20 years ago, Razzie people! We’ve all moved on!

When people saw the nomination, they couldn’t believe it — and they made sure people loved one of Affleck’s finest, funniest turns.

But it may not be as bad as that anyway. As of this writing, the Oscar nominations will be announced in the morning, and Affleck may find himself with one — maybe even for The Last Duel. It would be funnier still if he won.