(CNN) -- Mike Myers' "Love Guru" may speak of "yin and yang," but the Hollywood version of bad balanced by good might be the Razzies and the Oscars.

Mike Myers' "The Love Guru" was one of the year's biggest bombs.

The day before the Motion Picture Academy releases the Oscar nominations -- honoring the movie industry's best -- the Golden Raspberry Award foundation reveals nominations for the Razzies, which recognize the worst films of 2008.

And in 2008, Razzie founder and self-styled "Head Raspberry" John Wilson said, the bad seemed to outweigh the good among the 578 movies released.

"We are saying that it wasn't just the economy that tanked," Wilson said. "So did the quality of the movies being offered to those of us who don't have as much money to buy tickets."

"All of the voting was very close this year," he said. "There just was too much stuff to choose from."

The bumper crop of "putrid motion pictures" may be partly a result of last spring's writers' strike "when nobody was rewriting, polishing or improving anything and it was still getting filmed," Wilson said.

Bombs also happen when studios hedge their bets with high-priced stars by having them "do what worked before, coming back to same well."

Which brings us back to Myers' "Love Guru," which followed his hugely profitable "Austin Powers" franchise. Myers' portrayal of "a platitude-spouting mystic" leads the Razzie list for worst picture, Wilson said.

It may also have been the biggest box office bomb: the film, expected to be a summer hit, lost $30 million, he said.

Other worst picture nominees include "Disaster Movie" and "Meet the Spartans" -- both featuring the same writer-directors and essentially the same cast. The latter film "somehow managed to work references to Britney Spears into an ancient Spartan 'plot,' " Wilson said.

Also competing for the top dishonor is "The Happening," which Wilson described as "an eco-disaster tale whose 'villain' drew more guffaws than gasps," and Paris Hilton's "The Hottie and the Nottie," which earned three Razzie nominations overall.

"She really is neither a movie star or an actress," Wilson said of Hilton.

The movie -- for which Hilton was listed as executive producer -- sold only $27,000 in tickets but cost about $2 million to make.

Other Razzie nominees include actor-comedian Eddie Murphy, who received two nominations for "Meet Dave"; Oscar winner Al Pacino, who earned a Razzie nod for making "two rotten movies this year," in Wilson's words (he's referring to "88 Minutes" and "Righteous Kill"); and "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," which was singled out as "Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel." Despite the opinions of Wilson and the Razzie voters, it was the year's third-highest-grossing movie.

And a rare Razzie for "Worst Career Achievement" will go to "Bad Movie Uber-Meister" Uwe Boll for "In the Name of the King," Wilson said. The film, based on a video game, had a $60 million budget, yet brought in under $5 million at the box office, he said.

Wilson said he began the Razzies in 1981 as a counterpoint to the Oscars.

It takes guts to show up in person to accept a Razzie, but some notable actors have embraced the infamy, Wilson said.

Tom Green, who made "a horrible little thing called 'Freddy Got Fingered' " several years ago, "insisted that he made the film with the intent of sweeping the Razzie Awards," Wilson said.

Green showed up to accept his three awards with great enthusiasm, he said.

"At the end of the ceremony, he launched into a harmonica solo and we
What is a razzie award? who won the razzie? Who is Uwe Boll?
which recognize the worst films of 2008. Myers' "Bad Movie Uber-Meister"
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