If there's anything better than watching good people win "nice" awards, it's hearing about bad people winning "nasty" ones.

Which, of course, is what makes the Stinker Awards so rewarding. Those wise guys from the Hastings Bad Cinema Society have been giving out Stinkers for 21 years, timing its 1998 festivities to coincide with this year's Academy Awards ceremonies.(Unlike the Oscars event, none of the Stinkers winners were on-hand -- obviously -- to receive their prizes.)

The Stinkers' big dishonoree this year was the alleged musical-comedy "Spice World," which nabbed awards for Worst Movie of 1998 and Worst Actress in a Lead Role or British Singing Group Pretending to Act.

As for the film that received the most Stinkers nominations, the horrible big-screen version of "The Avengers" garnered dishonors for Worst Sense of Direction (Jonathan Chechik) and Worst Resurrection of a TV Show.

But this year's Stinkers didn't mock only films that failed at the box office. The science-fiction thriller "Armageddon," which made more than $200 million in the United States alone, won three Stinkers: Worst Actor in a Lead Role (Bruce Willis), Worst On-Screen Couple (Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler) and Worst Screenplay for a Movie That Made More Than $100 Million (Using Hollywood Math).

Adam Sandler won the Stinker for Most Annoying Fake Accent for his Cajun role in the hit comedy, "The Waterboy."

"I think we are a celebrity publicist's worst nightmare," said Hastings society co-founder Mike Lancaster.

More than 100,000 ballots were sent out to celebrities, critics and Hasting society members, and voting was also conducted on the Stinkers Web site, www.thestinkers.com.

"We are the People's Choice of bad movies," Hastings society co-founder Ray Wright said. This isn't just a bunch of snooty, jaded movie critics voting; it's the people who had to shell out $7.50 for what turned out to be a bad movie. (The Stinkers are) the ultimate moviegoers revenge."

Meanwhile, the Stinkers' closest competitor, the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation www.razzies.com, revealed the winners of this year's Razzie awards over the weekend. Leading the pack were "Spice World" and "Armageddon."

While some of the Razzies' observations were equally piquant (specifically a reference to the Spice Girls as "a five-member girl group with the talent of one bad actress between them"), some of its awards left a lot to be desired. The Razzie for Worst Movie of 1998 went to "An Alan Smithee Film: Burn, Hollywood, Burn," a too-easy choice in light of other films released last year.

By the way, complete rundowns of the Stinkers and Razzies winners are available at their respective Web sites.

ALL RIGHT WITH OSCAR: Judging from the e-mail I received after Sunday's Academy Awards telecast, I'm guessing some readers thought I might be upset with this year's Oscar winners.

Wrong!

Actually, I couldn't be more delighted with my personal pick for 1998's best film, "Shakespeare in Love," winning Best Motion Picture honors. The same goes for Best Actor Oscar winner Roberto Benigni, whose wild antics were surely the highlight of the four-hour-plus program.

It's likely the e-mailers were basing their judgments on my Oscar predictions, which were published in last week's Weekend section. (I'd hasten to point out that those were predictions, not my choices.)

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And speaking of predictions, while it's true my picks weren't nearly as accurate as last year (when I managed to pick five winners out of the six major categories), I did OK. I correctly predicated Gwyneth Paltrow, Dame Judi Dench and Steven Spielberg.

In fact, counting four other "Sure Bets" from that article, I managed a respectable six of 10. Besides, anything has to be better than my horrid score (four-for-10 -- gulp!) in the first year I started predicting the winners.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "While you were watching this show, another century has gone by." -- Oscar telecast host Whoopi Goldberg, referring to the length of this year's Academy Awards ceremonies.

Deseret News movie critic Jeff Vice can be reached via e-mail at jeff@desnews.com

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