Los Angeles:

Tom Cruise and Jennifer J Lo were united in shame when they topped the list of worst actor nominees in Hollywood’s annual spoof of the Oscars, the Razzie Awards.

The pair joined a string of tired remakes and movie sequels led by the comedy adventure Son of the Mask, which won eight nods when the 26th annual Razzie shortlist was unveiled.

Cruise picked up a total of three nominations, as worst actor of 2005 in War of the Worlds, and two in a new category, that of ‘Most tiresome tabloid targets’.

It was a disastrous year for Hollywood, according to the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation, which has dishonoured Hollywood’s good and great for nearly three decades. The number of bad remakes and sequels “points out Hollywood’s total creative bankruptcy,” it said.

Narrowing the worst picture nominees down to just five films posed an unprecedented challenge, the foundation said, although Son of the Mask, a sequel to Jim Carrey’s The Mask, was the clear frontrunner. Son earned nominations for worst picture, worst remake or sequel, worst actor for Jamie Kennedy, worst supporting actors for both Alan Cumming and Bob Hoskins, worst director for Lawrence Gutterman and worst screenplay.

Lopez, a Razzie favourite following her “triumph” for 2003’s Gigli, is vying for what the foundation called the “di-stink-tion” as worst actress for her part as a beleaguered bride in Monster-in-Law. She is up against two double nominees, starlet Jessica Alba for both The Fantastic Four and Into the Blue, and Hilary Duff for Cheaper by the Dozen 2 and The Perfect Man.

Cruise and Holmes were singled out especially for nominations as the most tiresome tabloid targets of 2005, combined together with “Oprah Winfrey’s Couch, The Eiffel Tower and Tom’s Baby” — references to when the two caused a firestorm with their engagement, pregnancy and Cru-ise made a spectacle of himself by leaping on Winfrey’s sofa during a show as he expressed his love for Holmes.

The winners of the Razzie dishonours will be announced in Los Angeles on March 4. But unlike the Oscar winners, who reap golden stauettes, the unlucky winners of the Razzies seldom show up to claim their gold spray-painted plastic raspberries, which organisers say are worth as much as $4.97 dollars.