JASON LIU/Daily Bruin
By Mary Williams
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
[email protected]
The world of over-hype is a funny thing, as this year’s
Bruin Choice Awards shows.
Entertainment-conscious UCLA students recently voted on such
intellectual and complicated categories as “The Suckiest Suck
that Ever Sucked” and “Worst Jesus Christ
Impersonator,” with fascinating results. In many cases, but
not always, hype paid off.
For example, the charming French film “Amelie”
yielded the landslide winner for “Coolest Female.”
Surrounded by a huge buzz, the film did amazingly well for an
import, and the quirky title character beat out popular actors
Natalie Portman, Reese Witherspoon, Halle Berry and Liv Tyler.
“Ocean’s Eleven,” a film seemingly constructed
entirely of hype, dominated “Coolest Male.” The Men of
“Ocean’s Eleven,” featuring the combined power of
Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Matt Damon and Don Cheadle (of course
don’t forget the cute little Chinese acrobat, Shaobo Qin),
was too much for runner-up Ewan McGregor to overcome. The Jedi
Knight did have more votes than comedic fat-man Jack Black,
lightning-foreheaded Harry Potter and SNLer Jimmy Fallon combined,
however.
The winner of “Too Cool for Orange County” came from
another hyped blockbuster film ““ “Lord of the
Rings.” Ian McKellen, who played the wizard Gandalf in the
film, dominated the category, proving to be much more too cool for
Orange County than “Iron Chef,” Icelandic band Sigur
Ros, Andy Warhol or “The Royal Tenenbaums” writing team
Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson.
Thoroughly hyped music act and former professional surfer Jack
Johnson was deemed Coolest Music Artist, beating out The Strokes
(and their own formidable amount of buzz), Mos Def, Bjork and,
rather shockingly, Garth Brooks.
The sudden popularity of malt beverages was the subject of
another category, in which lushes, er, readers, determined that
Smirnoff Ice was far and away the “Best New Malt
Beverage.”
But with hype always comes backlash. It wasn’t a good day
for Reality Anything, as that garnered the most votes for
“Suckiest Suck that Ever Sucked,” beating out the other
sucks: intentional misspelling of band names, rap rock and
sequels.
Scott Stapp, singer of Creed, also suffered from overexposure.
His posturing, hair, ridiculous gestures, religious references and
overzealous rock-star actions won him “Worst Jesus Christ
Impersonator,” over the Jesus Christ-looking singer from
Nickelback, the equally holier than thou, thy best friend, and thy
grandma Bono, the vegan’s messiah Moby and the ever dateable
Jesus.com guy.
Arnold Schwarzenegger appears to have finally worn out his
welcome. The actor (kind of) had the honor of winning “Needs
to Give Up,” edging out George Lucas and Aerosmith. Cher and
Paul McCartney were much less hated, even though their careers can
also be unequivocally said to be on the decline.
Annoying musician/actors/talentless moolies J. Lo and Ja Rule
have crossed the line between popularity and derision as well,
taking over the “Most Overplayed Song” category with
their hit “I’m Real.” No Doubt’s “Hey
Baby” made a strong showing in the category too, as did Kylie
Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out of My
Head.”
Of course, some categories had nothing to do with hype.
“Worst Stupid College Movie,” for example, was a battle
between a handful of mindless, stupid comedies. It was a close race
between “Van Wilder” and “Sorority Boys,”
with the former coming out on top. “How High,”
“Slackers” and “Orange County” were far
less (un)popular choices.
Enrique Iglesias was named the “Sexxxiest Person in an
Enrique Iglesias Video,” proving slightly sexier than tennis
player Anna Kournikova. Actresses Shannon Elizabeth and Jennifer
Love Hewitt have apparently lost all sex appeal, as their vote
counts were miniscule.
What readers did find sexy was “Behind Enemy Lines,”
or the film’s title, at least. As the winner of “Best
Porn Title,” the war movie beat out fellow films “Iron
Monkey,” “Joy Ride,” “Hardball” and
The Strokes album “Is This It?”
Henceforth, think wisely and ponder these award choices as
clearly definitive and indicative of the UCLA campus. Accept the
fact that awesome gay British actors are just out of place in
Orange County, that reality bites, that just because you’re
going “Higher” doesn’t mean it’s leading
the masses through the pearly gates, and that the next time you
watch a porn movie make sure you bring your machete and an AK
47.