2010 Recap (aka I've Done This for Three Years Now?)

Billy Curtis Award: Traditionally, we honor our little-person-of-the-year first, and that isn't changing this year. What is changing is the name of the award. I've decided to name it after the late great Billy Curtis, the first recipient of the Little Person of the Year Award.

This year, we had Tony Cox as the criminal elf in Bad Santa, a significant role that nevertheless didn't get his name on the poster. Harry Earles was fantastic as the little guy in The Unholy Three, and R2-D2 himself Kenny Baker had a short (ha ha) appearance in The Elephant Man. Billy Curtis himself had a very small (ha ha) part in The Incredible Shrinking Man, but there was really only one little guy who could win the award this year. Herve Villechaize wins for his work in both Forbidden Zone as King Fausto of the Sixth Dimension and Nick Nack in The Man with the Golden Gun.

Most Incredible Achievement in the History of Movies: Me, mo-fos! I watched 137 movies in a row with the word "man" in the title. How this isn't newsworthy is beyond me.

Biggest "No!" Moment: Harvey Kietel's little Harvey in Bad Lieutenant.

Best Animated Movie: Lots of good ones! I loved Ponyo and The Princess and the Frog. I loved The Fantastic Mr. Fox and Toy Story 3 even more. My Neighbor Totoro is great despite what some of my readers think, but I'd already seen that. The award goes to the frequently funny and frequently touching Mary and Max.

Worst Caveman Movie: For whatever reason, I saw an above-average amount of cave people movies this year. Themroc wasn't bad, and One Million Years B.C., although not very entertaining, wasn't the most terrible. In a normal year, Teenage Caveman (5/20) would probably win, but I saw The Wild Women of Wongo (3/20) this year. But not even that captures the Worst Caveman Movie of the Year Award! Nope, that has to be the dreadful Eegah (2/20) with Richard Kiel (Jaws in the Bond movie) as the 7'2" titular character. If I had an opposite of a Billy Curtis Award, he'd likely get it.

Shane-Movies Blog Buzzword of the Year: Reader Cory's favorite--Delightful? My most overused word--Titular? I couldn't pass up dickfart, introduced by reader Larst when he posed as an Anonymous to leave a comment for the Orphan entry. Dickfart didn't linger, but it still left a mark.

Favorite Comments of the Year: Speaking of my four-and-a-half readers (Man, I really wanted to get that up to five-and-a-half this year!), they leave me lots of delightful comments.

My favorites:
Anonymous: "Your must be jealous of orphan because its popular and you only got like two people reading of your blog! lmao!"
Kairow: "If 250 movies were southbound on a train going 25.4 mph, while the cast of Harry Potter and Tea Leoni are traveling northbound at 25.4 kilometers per hour, in a semi driven by Kris Kristofferson's nipples, which train would arrive at the end of this topic of discussion first? (P.S. Nipples are unshaven. You must show your work to get credit.)"
Barry: "Karen Allen looked like she had eaten Short Round right before filming."
Kairow (again): "I will be honest, child rape never crossed my mind during Totoro."
Cory: "Your theory and take are wrong." Or "What the hell is thmilsde?"
Larst: "I need to wash your lack of taste out of my brain."

Documentary of the Year: The fascinating Big River Man beats out a lot of good ones. Watching Martin Strel lose his mind in the 4th Dimension is as fun as it gets. Even Dylan gave that movie a 20/20. Other contenders: My Winnipeg by shane-movies favorite Guy Maddin, Marjoe about that child preacher, and Touching the Void, recommended by Cory. Oh, and I liked seeing those bugs in Besieged Fortress.

Favorite Word from a Musical: "Shipoopi!" R.I.P. Buddy Hackett.

Most Depressing Movie: The Devil, Probably. And Dear Zachary. Thanks for those, Cory and Larst. Most Depressing Movie Experience (an entirely different thing) was Meet Me in St. Louis. See below for the reason why.

Best Sound Effect: The blippity blurping sounds from Alec Guinness's series of beakers in The Man in the White Suit, a sound effect cleverly pinched by Wes Anderson for The Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Most Offensive Child Actor of the Year: Good God! I still can't, to borrow Larst's lingo, wash the taste of Margaret O'Brien from Meet Me in St. Louis out of my brain! Also offensive: Bonita Granville from These Three, Tommy Bupp from It's a Gift, Hallie Kate Eisenberg (Uggh! I hate that family!) from Bicentennial Man, and Julie Herrod from Wait Until Dark. Three of those were recommended by Cory. I don't know what that means.

Recommender of the Year: Cory, despite those movies with the offensive child actors! Six 18/20's and ten 17/20's? Holy cow! That's some terrific recommending!

Best Movie with At Least One Scene Featuring Sharon Tate in a Bathtub: The Fearless Vampire Hunters

My Most Outrageous Claim of the Year: "I could have written [the screenplay for Home Alone 2] with nothing more than the screenplay for Home Alone 1, ten bottles of white-out, a pencil, and forty-five minutes."

Best Puppet: Ventriloquist dummy in Dead of Night.

Most Santo Moment: 1) Santo rips off his opponent's mask in Santo vs. the Vampire Women. 2) Almost every scene in Santo and Blue Demon Against the Monsters. Trying to pick a favorite Santo moment would likely cause the world to implode.

Best Appearance by a Wrestler Not Named Santo: Plan Nine "actor" Tor Johnson was in The Man on the Flying Trapeze.

Best Movie Moment Featuring at Least One Nipple (New Category): Richard Harris suspended by his in A Man Called Horse or the faux-nipples in The Man with the Golden Gun?

Best Groucho Line: "There's something Corrupt going on around my pants" from Go West.

Best Bird: The penguins from The Man Who Came to Dinner.

Most Inspiring Movie Quote of the Year: "There is an endless supply of white men, but there have always been a limited number of human beings." I've always loved that quote from Little Big Man. "Funny is a person trying to smile without teeth" is great. So is "Where are you taking me, Homo?" on a title card, not spoken. Mystery Train's "At the time of his death, if he were on Jupiter, Elvis would have weighed six hundred and forty-eight pounds" is great. But I have to give this award to The Pistol: The Birth of a Legend for the words "Pete, watching you makes me want to dream." Listening to the dialogue in that movie made me want to bleed from the ears.

Best Monster: Oh, boy. The Incredible Melting Man from the movie of the same title was nice and gooey. The seductive Wasp Woman was easily the sexiest monster of the year. That little guy who just stood around in that Santo movie or the Cyclops or Dracula, a vampire not afraid to strike a pose, in the same movie? The Goatman, another monster I got to see with Kairow. Does the cymbal monkey in Toy Story 3 count? The Mighty Peking Man? I'm still just happy a movie called Manster exists, and that scene where the guy's starting to turn into a monster and an eyeball appears on his shoulder is one of the best things I've seen all year! That creature in Corman's The Creature from the Haunted Sea sure was goofy, and I liked those giant stars with an eye in the Japanese sci-fi weirdness that was Warning from Space. No, I've got to give the Best Monster award to Teenagers from Space for the terrifying shadows of lobsters. Can't figure out how to make a big scary lobster thing? Don't have a budget? Nothing to worry about, makers of Teenagers from Space! Just use a lobster shadow!

Favorite Moment that Made Me Want Wish My Grandfather Was Still Alive So I Could Share It with Him: Watching the jungle girl climb up and down the tree in The Mighty Peking Man. That old dickfart would have loved that scene!

Best Musical Moment: That part near the end of Honkeytonk Man with Marty Robbins almost made me cry. The beatboxers in Forbidden Zone (and a hell of a lot more) were great. There's a scene I'm mentioning later from Bad Lieutenant that could fit here. I loved a version of "The Moonlight Sonata" from Walker, and the line that follows a song sung by Jarvis Cocker's character in The Fantastic Mr. Fox--"You wrote a bad song, Petey." David Byrne bouncing around and sweating profusely inside that big suit? The musical number in Man of the Century about how the guy is a "Diga Diga Do" man is wonderfully wacky. And delightful! My Best Musical Number for 2010 goes to Scott Walker: 30th Century Man for the scene where Walker instructs a percussionist in the studio on the proper way to slap a big chunk of meat.

Best John Malkovich Line: "Hold this watch because if it breaks, I will kill everyone on this train."

Best Nic Cage Moment Not in a Werner Herzog Movie: Watching Cage chase after a car with a McDonald's apple pie in The Weather Man.

Best Use of the Wilhelm Scream: Them! wins this one easily, not necessarily for the clever use of the scream but for the balls to include three of them in the movie. Three Wilhelms?

Best Scene Featuring the Delightful Practice Known by the Kids as "Teabagging": Laurel teabagging Hardy in Block Heads. This just beat out what is likely the first teabagging in cinema history in The Gold Rush.

Most Ridiculous (Good Ridiculous) Movie Moment: The parking garage scene in Drag Me to Hell. I'm not joking when I type that that scene made me pee myself.

Favorite Moment Involving a Frenchman in a Movie about Russia: For no reason I can figure out, a French guy in Russian Ark peeks in a doorway, blows a raspberry, and then leaves.

Most Touching Movie Moment: Watching Karen at the end of Idioterne.

Best Devil: Pitch in Santa Claus? Walter Huston as Mr. Scratch in The Devil and Daniel Webster? Danny Elfman made a pretty good song-and-dance devil in Forbidden Zone. With apologies to those fine thespians, I just have to give the award to Tom Waits as Mr. Nick in The Imaginarium. When Tom Waits acts, I listen.

Best Moment Featuring a Salad: A scene in otherwise dreadful The Man with the Screaming Brain where Bruce Cambell eats a salad.

Best Death Scene: Nothing can beat a scene where a guy, with his own intestines, strangles another guy, and that's exactly what happens in Guy Maddin's Archangel.

Best Mime Scene: There was a midget mime (again, I apologize to any little people reading, but I can't pass up the alliteration) in Shakes the Clown, but the scene with a mime in Mary and Max is easily the best.

Best Masturbation Scene: Why the hell do I have this award? What's wrong with me? Is anybody even reading this still? Runner-up for this award doesn't matter when you've got a scene where a guy masturbates on tomatoes like in Leolo.

Movie That I Wish Was More Well Known: Fred Tuttle: Man with a Plan. Dinky!

Best Nic Cage Moment and Best Moment in Any Movie Ever: "Shoot him again. His soul's still dancing." I can't believe this scene exists! Thank God for Werner Herzog.

Best Performance by an Actor: It almost seems unfair to include Crispin Glover or Vincent Price or Nicolas Cage in this category. Price showed amazing versatility in Theatre of Blood. I also really liked Christoph Waltz in Basterds, Eamonn Owens (the anti-Margaret O'Brien?) in The Butcher Boy, Marcel Marceau in the delightfully strange Shanks, Michel Simon in Boudo, Per Oscarsson in Hunger, the great Buddy Hackett in Music Man, Conrad Veidt in The Man Who Laughs, Monty Woolley in The Man Who Came to Dinner, Maximillian Schell as Arthur Goldman in The Man in the Glass Booth, Chief Dan George in Little Big Man, Richard Dawson as the villain in The Running Man, and Paul Muni in I'm a Fugitive from the Chain Gang. I have to give the Actor of the Year award to Nicolas Cage for Bad Lieutenant though. I have to give it to him "to the break of dawn!"

Best Performance by an Actress: Lots of good ones here, too. Sarah Douglas as Ursa in Superman II. Non-actress Flo Jacobs, the director's mom, in the oddly-named Momma's Man. The lovely Angela Jones in the macabre comedy Curdled. Susan Cabot, the Wasp Woman herself! Sally Kellerman in Brewster McCloud, Judith Anderson as Buffalo Cow Head in A Man Called Horse, or Lillian Gish as the titular girl in The Yellow Man and the Girl (Broken Blossoms)? I certainly enjoyed watching Britt Ekland in The Wicker Man and The Man with the Golden Gun. Edith Evans almost should earn this award for her delivery of "A handbag?" in The Importance of Being Earnest. This award was an easy one for me though. Congratulations, Emmanuelle Beart for your work in Manon of the Spring! That harmonica solo could have also been included in the Best Musical Moment category, by the way.

Worst Movie of the Year: These are unpleasant bad movies, not good-bad movies. Those are for another category. I wanted to give this award to Orphan because some fool who likes this movie too much left those stupid comments. But the truth is, there were worse movies I watched this year. Bicentennial Man (4/20) was particularly brutal, possibly the longest movie I've ever seen. Little Man (4/20) ended the "man" streak. Batman and Robin (4/20) could almost be considered a good-bad movie, so I don't want to pick it. He Was a Quiet Man (3/20) was abysmal, but the winner of the Worst Movie of the Year award goes to the Michael Jackson biopic, Man in the Mirror: The Michael Jackson Story. That 2/20 has to be seen to be believed.
The Manos Award (Best Good-Bad Movie): The contenders--Creature from the Haunted Sea, Eegah, The Amazing Transparent Man, Tentacles, Breaker! Breaker!, Pumaman, The Incredible Melting Man, The Wild Women of Wongo, The Horrors of Spider Island, The Wasp Woman, Santa Claus, and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. The winner--Teenagers from Outer Space.

The Torgo (The Best Bad Acting of the Year): George Murdock, you classed up Breaker! Breaker! Linda Hayden, you made things sizzle in Blood on Satan's Claw. Douglas Kennedy, you made The Incredible Transparent Man come to life. Alan Oppenheomer, you almost had it as Dr. Contrare in that Gamera movie I watched this year! Fess Parker, you sure did your best to bring Them! down a few notches. And Ronald Halicki, your performance as the pig farmer in The Junkman was about the worst thing I've ever seen. And you can call me biased, fine thespians, but I've going with Crispin Glover's dad Bruce Glover for his portrayal as "The ex-husband" in his son's It Is Fine. Everything Is Fine! It's a truly Torgo-esque performance!

Nipples I Almost Forgot About!: Rubber Duck's nipples! Not reader Rubber Duck. Convoy's Rubber Duck.

Best 11 Movies New to Shane (No particular order. . .well, actually they're in the order I watched them. That's a particular order, I guess.):

Inglourious Basterds
Idioterne
The Earrings of Madame de. . .
Odd Man Out
Broken Blossoms
The Man Who Would Be King
Ugetsu
The Lavender Hill Mob
Jean de Florette/Manon of the Spring
The Sweet Smell of Success

My Pick for Movie of the Year: You, the Living

But My Actual Favorite Movie Experience of the Year: Forbidden Zone

My Wish for 2011: To find a movie where John Wayne beats the crap out of Tootie from Meet Me in St. Louis. Or that with CGI technology, somebody can still make that movie.

Statistics:

I watched 47 movies in December. I watched only 10 in April. April had the highest average rating with a 16.1, but that's based on only those ten movies. The next high was November with a 14.9 average. The worst average for a month was September with a 9.8, but that was only based on 11 movies as school was starting up again. The next low was actually December with a 12.4.

The rating I gave the most was a 16/20. That's three years in a row. That has to mean something, but I don't know what. I gave only five 20/20 (two Santo movies), and zero movies got a 1/20 this year. There were four 2/20's though.

Average rating: 13.7. Last year it was a 12.6 and the year before it rounded up to a 13.