Let me just preface this by saying that I really like Brendan Fraser. I’ve long been a Brendan Fraser defender, I think he is at times an excellent actor and he’s done a lot of entertaining, sometimes even thoughtful work. Encino Man still cracks me up. He gives a surprisingly great performance in With Honors. The Mummy is the best Indiana Jones movie since the last actual Indiana Jones movie, and that’s due in no small part to Fraser. That does not however, mean he should get an award for making George of the Jungle… yet somehow that’s happening.

ShoWest is honoring Brendan Fraser, by giving him their award for “Distinguished Decade of Achievement in Film”, at this year’s ShoWest convention in Las Vegas. In particular, they cite Fraser’s work in The Mummy, George of the Jungle, Crash, and Gods and Monsters as making him worthy of this honor. Granted, that’s a pretty diverse body of work, but what’s the deal? Were the other 50 or so more deserving actors who ought to be in line in front of him unavailable or something?

Now granted, ShoWest is geared towards theater owners. So they’re not looking to honor people who bring in awards as much as they want to say thank you to people who’ve sold tickets. But even from that perspective, it’s hard to fathom why they’d pick Fraser. He’s great, but there are so many better. It’s a truly bizarre selection. Past winners included people like Laurence Fishburne, Drew Barrymore, Gwyneth Paltrow, Nicole Kidman, and Nicholas Cage. Ok, Paltrow’s an odd selection too, but the rest of those kind of make sense if you look at it from a theater owner’s perspective. But Fraser? Weirdest award ever.