Before Oscars, it's anti-Oscars time

The dubious Golden Raspberry dishonours, affectionately known as the Razzie awards, are now in their 29th year and never seem to lack worthy candidates.

This year, the favourite for Razzie notoriety is the grossly overrated Canadian comedy star Mike Myers, who has a leading seven nominations for his truly awful movie The Love Guru.

The movie was a worthy successor to the crude and unimaginative Austin Powers series, and got its just deserves at box offices, where it was one of the year's most notable flops.

The film bomb was judged to be so bad by the hardened Razzie nominators that they chose it to compete in all the major categories including acting dishonours for Myers, Verne Troyer, Jessica Alba and even Oscar-winner Ben Kingsley.

But The Love Guru has plenty of competition. Also featuring highly on the list of nominees was Paris Hilton, whose every screen moment seemed to yield a Razzie nod. She was nominated for worst actress for the classic comedy The Hottie and the Nottie, worst supporting actress for Repo: The Genetic Opera and as one-half of the year's worst screen couple together with both Hottie costar Christine Lakin or Joel David Moore.

Hottie will compete for worst movie with The Love Guru, The Happening, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale and Meet the Spartans.

Beside Myers, the worst-actor nominees include Eddie Murphy for Meet Dave, Al Pacino for both 88 Minutes and Righteous Kill, and Mark Wahlberg, who also scored a double nomination for The Happening and Max Payne.

No less than nine women are vying for worst actress, thanks to an ensemble nomination for the cast of The Women, which featured Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett-Smith and Meg Ryan. The other nominees are Cameron Diaz (What Happens in Vegas), Kate Hudson (Fool's Gold and My Best Friend's Girl), Alba and Hilton.

The biggest winner might turn out to be German director Uwe Boll, who will be the recipient of the worst career achievement for such timeless gems as the Bloodrayne series, Alone in the Dark and House of the Dead.

Boll, who specialises in adapting video games to movies was also nominated as worst supporting actor for Postal and 1968: Tunnel Rats, while his In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale is up for the worst-movie award.

Alone among cinematic auteurs, he seems to actually regard being the recipient of a Razzie with the honour it deserves, and even apologised in an online interview that he would be unable to attend in person to accept the prize.

"I will be filming out in South Africa, so I cannot be there in person," he said.

Asked whether anyone else might deserve the worst career achievement more than him, he was indignant: "No one, only me," he answered.

Film fans may have other opinions, but at least with the Razzies they can do something about it. The Golden Raspberry allows anyone to vote - as long as they prove that they care enough to pay a $25 registration fee.