The Oscars attempt (emphasis on the word, “attempt”) to recognize cinemas greatest achievements each year. The Razzies, on the other hand,  recognize cinema’s greatest underachievements each year.

After seeing the nominees for this year’s Razzie Awards, I’m beginning to think that the Razzie judges need to be given jobs on the Oscar selection committee. Maybe then the Oscar noms would be a little bit more spot-on.

Here are the 2008 Razzie Award nominees for your viewing displeasure.

Short version: Max Payne starts out promising but eventually begins to unravel, only to end in an awful mess.

Screen Rant reviews Max Payne

Mark Wahlberg plays Max Payne, a cop who’s wife and child were murdered and who subsequently becomes an obsessed outcast in the police department. Eventually he teams up with Mona Sax (played by Mila Kunis) in a quest to track down the killer.

Two movies that follow angry men with guns each have their own new websites up this week: Punisher: War Zone and Max Payne.

PunisherWarZoneMovie.com

The first, Punisher: War Zone, is entirely made in Flash and it looks and animates as if it were straight from a video game. Because it is Flash intensive, it takes a little while to load at first, even on broadband.

…Not like it mattered to me much, I’m old enough to rent a car if I want to!

However, it looks as though Warner Bros. is going for the big $tacks this October when Max Payne comes out. Trailers for the film have shown that  it’s none too short on bullets and mayhem; hmmm… you think the studio cashed in a favor with the MPAA to get Max Payne the rating they wanted?

Now the theater doors are wide open to all the teenage boys who have memorized the Max Payne video games line for line; the 18-40 boys club that loves a good shoot-em-up flick; girls who love to gaze at Mark Wahlberg for two hours; and the unfortunate ladies who get dragged along to the theater by their man.

If you’re keeping track, or looking for any tidbits, the much anticipated translation of the Ubisoft game, Prince of Persia, has reportedly started filming on the 16th of September.

As we’ve noted previously, Jake Gyllenhaal of Brokeback Mountain fame, stars in Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. Also starring in the flick are Gemma Arterton, Sir Ben Kingsley, Alfred Molina and Toby Kebbell.

There’s a brand new (and probably final) trailer out for Max Payne starring Mark Wahlberg. It’s very cool looking and stylish, but neither of the trailers we’ve seen so far give us too much of what the actual movie will be like when it’s not in slo-mo with things flying through the air.

Coming Soon is reporting that 20th Century Fox (boo, leave Watchmen alone!) will be releasing the first trailer for Dragonball before Max Payne, which hits theaters on October 17, (and looks pretty good judging by its trailer!)

While you wait for October 17 to roll around and deliver the first real impression of whether or not Dragonball will flop, take a look at the new pics which have hit the Web, and let us know your first impressions.

This post will be updated continuously during the panel.

For the Fox panel Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connolly and director Scott Derrickson are on hand to talk about The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Derrickson directed the most excellent Emily Rose. He touched on the concerns over remaking a classic film and how much he enjoys and respects the original. He thinks it’s a good idea to revisit the concept using modern day issues.

Dark Horizons scored some hi-res posters from Comic-Con for Max Payne and The Day the Earth Stood Still. Based on the Max Payne trailer, it’s too soon to draw any conclusions on whether the film will be good or not, although after his performance in The Happening, I’m not exactly excited to see Mark Whalberg in a leading role again.

I’m not a video game guy (believe it or not) so when a movie is being produced based on a game I come to the table “clean,” with no preconceived notions. Well… other than assuming that the movie will be awful, as seems to be the case pretty much without exception when it comes to movies based on video games.