As we learned in our interview with founder John Wilson, the Razzies balloting process is hardly a tossed-off affair involving copious amounts of alcohol and a dartboard with M. Night Shyamalan's face on it. Rigid, pre-Christmas deadlines squeezed late write-in favorite The Spirit out of the race—but Hollywood produced enough steaming turds in 2008 to ensure the awards ceremony would be a gripping affair nonetheless.

The spoof-making team of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer are competing against themselves in the Worst Picture for 9/11 tie-in Disaster Movie and Meet the Spartans. Rounding out the category: M. Night Shyamalan's Attack of the Killer Ferns, Paris Hilton's The Hottie and the Nottie, Guru, and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, the latest videogame adaptation from the Cecil B. DeMille of bad, Uwe Boll.

In the acting categories, Chihuahua-mill-matron Hilton was a double-nominee for her starring work in Nottie and supporting work in Repo: The Genetic Opera, making her the Kate Winslet of this year's race. The stars of The Women — Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett Smith and Meg Ryan — share a nomination. Cameron Diaz earned two nominations: one as Worst Actress in What Happens in Vegas, and another as one-half of Worst Screen Couple for the same picture. Eddie Murphy, Al Pacino , Jessica Alba, Verne Troyer and even Academy Award winner Ben Kingsley (one of Guru's seven nominations) were also recognized for either knowing better, or not.

And in the Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off, or Sequel category, dark horse candidate Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull pulled a stunning upset, Razzie voters apparently agreeing with the South Park guys' assessment that the botched and completely unnecessary sequel amounted to a Spielberg/Lucas-perpetrated gang rape of a beloved screen icon.

Winners are announced Feb. 21. The full list of nominees follows:

WORST PICTURE

* Disaster Movie
* The Happening
* The Hottie and the Nottie
* In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
* The Love Guru
* Meet the Spartans

WORST ACTOR

* Larry the Cable Guy, Witless Protection
* Eddie Murphy, Meet Dave
* Mike Myers, The Love Guru
* Al Pacino, 88 Minutes and Righteous Kill
* Mark Wahlberg, The Happening and Max Payne

WORST ACTRESS

* Jessica Alba, The Eye and The Love Guru
* The cast of The Women (Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett-Smith and Meg Ryan)
* Cameron Diaz, What Happens in Vegas
* Paris Hilton, The Hottie and the Nottie
* Kate Hudson, Fools' Gold and My Best Friend's Girl

WORST SUPPORTING ACTOR

* Uwe Boll (as himself), Uwe Boll's Postal
* Pierce Brosnan, Mamma Mia!
* Ben Kingsley, The Love Guru and The Wackness
* Burt Reynolds, Deal and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
* Verne Troyer, The Love Guru and Uwe Boll's Postal

WORST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

* Carmen Electra, Disaster Movie and Meet the Spartans
* Paris Hilton, Repo: The Genetic Opera
* Kim Kardashian, Disaster Movie
* Jenny McCarthy, Witless Protection
* Leelee Sobieski, 88 Minutes and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale

WORST SCREEN COUPLE

* Uwe Boll and Any Actor, Camera or Screenplay
* Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher, What Happens in Vegas
* Paris Hilton and either Christin Lakin or Joel David Moore, The Hottie and the Nottie
* Larry the Cable Guy and Jenny McCarthy, Witless Protection
* Eddie Murphy and Eddie Murphy, Meet Dave

WORST PREQUEL, REMAKE, RIP-OFF OR SEQUEL

* The Day the Earth Blowed Up Real Good
* Disaster Movie and Meet the Spartans
* Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
* Speed Racer
* Star Wars: The Clone Wars

WORST DIRECTOR

* Uwe Boll, 1968: Tunnel Rats, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale and Uwe Boll's Postal
* Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, Disaster Movie and Meet the Spartans
* Tom Putnam, The Hottie and the Nottie
* Marco Schnabel, The Love Guru
* M. Night Shyamalan, The Happening

WORST SCREENPLAY

* Disaster Movie and Meet the Spartans
* The Happening
* The Hottie and the Nottie
* In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
* The Love Guru

WORST CAREER ACHIEVEMENT

* Uwe Boll

• 2008 Razzies

DEFAMER: So the nominees that emerged yesterday weren't official yet?
JOHN: What happened is we have press members on our mailing list, and this guy Larry Carroll from MTV's Movie Blog apparently misunderstood and thought that was a final list. And it kind of went viral for us.

So what was it, if not a list of nominees?
When we send out our nominating ballots, we also send out a list of suggested nominees—only because if you don't steer it somehow, you just get no consensus with as many people as we have voting. Those are likely nominees when the final ballots are tabulated and the actual nominations are announced on the 21st, but those are not the official nominees.

Are there any dark horses that could still emerge?
I'm assuming you're talking about The Spirit, which is getting a lot of write-in votes. One of the things that's happened ever since the Oscars jumped their show a month ahead is that we have to get our material out the week of Christmas, and anything that comes out on Christmas or later is not likely to make it out onto our ballot. [...] With Tom Cruise (in the Christmas-released Valkyrie), someone asked, "Well, how can Tom Cruise be on there if The Spirit wasn't?" And with Tom Cruise, the advance buzz was really awful. Although apparently the movie isn't that bad, so it'll be interesting to see if he does or does not get a nomination.

Well, one big star vehicle that seems to have supplanted Valkyrie as far as public ire is Seven Pounds, which a poll of critics recently voted the year's worst.
You know, I've seen that. It's weird, and it's an odd concept for a movie, but it's not quite to the standards of what we would consider for a Razzie. At least until the jellyfish part, which definitely belongs on the "nuke the fridge" list. Up to that point, it's a reasonably reputable movie, though I should admit that it also is getting write-in votes for screenplay. I don't think Will Smith is getting many votes for that, he's getting them for Hancock.

So what criteria do you consider for Worst Picture?
We look at box office—and big box office doesn't protect you from being Razzie-nominated—we look at the Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes, we pay attention to what's being said on the forum of our website. We look at the track record of the people involved. Like Uwe Boll—the guy over at Rope of Silicon was saying "duh." Well yeah, "duh"—it's the same thing as Meryl Streep getting an Oscar nomination! Uwe Boll is just as shitty a director as Meryl Streep is a terrific actress. They're kind of mirrors of one another, and nobody attacks the Academy for nominating Meryl Streep. Uwe's Boll's Postal...if you've seen it, you have my sympathies. I actually have, and it's right up there with Freddy Got Fingered as just an inexcusable, tasteless, unfunny, "why did anyone give this person money" movie. And Freddy Got Fingered is the only Worst Picture winner that I've actually hated.

Has there ever been any overlap with Oscar bait? One of our editors suggested Revolutionary Road this year...
Three times, I believe, the exact same thing has been nominated for a Razzie and an Oscar. And in all three cases, it didn't win either. The best known one is probably Amy Irving as Barbra Streisand's wife in Yentl, who was nominated as both Best and Worst Supporting Actress. I'm trying to remember if the song from Con Air, "How Do I Live," that also may have been nominated for both.

Well there are so many terrible Oscar-nominated songs! That's probably the category that deserves the most overlap.
We actually had a Worst Song category for years, and we had a lot of fun with it. Generally speaking, though, if a song gets a Razzie nomination it's probably one that won't get played a lot on the radio. Although I guess "I Want Your Sex" from Beverly Hills Cop II did win a Razzie!

So what do you think are the top frontrunners this year?
I don't think I agree with our members or the public about The Love Guru. I thought that it was stupid, but I didn't find it offensive. Still, it looks like it has the inside track to get nominated all over the place. I know that when this list went viral yesterday, a lot of the public was disturbed that we had bothered to nominate Rambo. Personally, I think Rambo was a violent, pointless, ill-conceived, badly-written, horribly-acted, badly-edited piece of crap.

Tell us how you really feel!
Eddie Murphy has the highest-profile box office bomb of the year in Meet Dave. I will be curious to see how many nominations—not if it will get nominated, but how many—it will get. He swept three characters at last year's awards, so I'm sure he'll end up with some. The one I'm hoping gets a lot of nominations is Postal. The real enigma about Uwe Boll is not why he exists but why he continues to make movies! Who needs the tax loss so bad that they can spend $50 or $60 million on these movies? I can't wrap my head around it.

Are we going to see any love for M. Night Shyamalan this year?
It looks like it has the possibility, but if there's anything he's learned from the multiple Razzies that Lady in the Water won years ago, it's that casting yourself as a Jesus-like character in your own movie doesn't go over well. At least he isn't in The Happening. That was one that was a lot of fun to see with people when it first opened, because the audience doesn't know you're going to find out that it's bush—but not the President!—that's responsible for Armageddon. That twist he does in all his movies was particularly dunderheaded in this one. And I'm normally an admirer of Betty Buckley, but of all the elements in this movie that I hope get nominated, Betty Buckley as a crazy old lady who crashes her head through a window and screams at Mark Wahlberg is high on my list. That definitely deserves some attention from us!

PREVIOUSLY: Razzie Nominations Serve A Shocking Snub To 'The Spirit'

We'd had high expectations that no film could surpass The Spirit's unimpeachable Razzie campaign, which featured a 15% fresh Tomatometer rating, a viral "For Your Consideration" ad, and Samuel L. Jackson in a series of fur coats and Nazi costumes. And yet! MTV writer Larry Carroll got his hands on the official Razzie ballot, and The Spirit warranted nary a nom (even in the sure-lock "Most Excessive Use of Chiaroscuro" category, somehow, The Hottie and the Nottie squeaked by).

Here's a sampling of the contenders:

Worst Picture:
Speed Racer, Disaster Movie and Meet the Spartans, The Day the Earth Stood Still, High School Musical 3, The Hottie & The Nottie, Dungeon Siege, The Love Guru, Postal, Rambo, The Happening, Meet Dave, Witless Protection

Worst Actor:
Zac Efron, Dane Cook, Larry the Cable Guy, Eddie Murphy, Al Pacino, Keanu Reeves, Sylvester Stallone, Tom Cruise (Valkyrie), Will Ferrell, Ashton Kutcher, Mike Myers, Adam Sandler, Mark Wahlberg

Worst Actress:
Paris Hilton, Jessica Alba, The cast of The Women, Camilla Belle, Cameron Diaz, Kate Hudson, Diane Keaton, Jennifer Connelly, Zooey Deschanel, Vanessa Hudgens, Eva Longoria-Parker, Reese Witherspoon

Worst Director:
Uwe Boll, Scott Derrickson, Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer, Tom Putnam, Marco Schnabel, Sylvester Stallone, Jon Avnet, Diane English, Roland Emmerich, Brian Robbins, Kenny Ortega, M. Night Shyamalan

Fingers crossed, Manoj!

• 2008 ‘Razzies’ Nominees Include Indy 4, Paris Hilton And Tom Cruise - How Would You Vote? [MTV]

· Not enough tragic celebrity-offspring-death news for one day? The coroner's findings say Dr. Dre's son died of a heroin and morphine overdose.
· Resolution encouragement: Ricky Gervais thinks people who get gastric bypasses and lap band surgery (hey—that's us!) are "lazy fucking fat pigs" who should "stop eating, get off your arse and go for a run."
· This year-in-review quiz from today's LAT was extremely entertaining.
· The latest fake-memoir to pull the wool over Oprah's eyes has inspired this slideshow of famous literary hoaxes. We always had our suspicions about Misha, but our desire to believe there might have really existed a Holocaust-surviving weregirl trumped all rational thought.

Post-pregnancy depression isn't to blame for her suddenly slutty new image, nor are rifts in her marriage to Chris Martin. Not even regret over naming her kids after fruits and religious leaders led her to this female version of a mid-life crisis. The reason? Paltrow only recently realized something the rest of the world has known for quite some time: "People came over to watch me in the film Emma and I was like, 'Oh. My. God. I'm the worst actress ever.'" But Gwyneth really shouldn't be that hard on herself. Sure, she won an Oscar for weeping in a rowboat, and can certainly provoke emotion from us in varied performances (mainly discomfort and the need to squirm in our seats whenever she begins to fake-cry), but she should at least treat herself to a viewing of that stripper movie Lindsay Lohan won a Razzie for. That way she can safely remove that "ever" from her pity-me quotes in the future.

[Photo credit: Faded Youth]

• GWYNETH PALTROW DOES 'GQ' [Faded Youth]