2016 Year in Review: Last Part

Best Tiny Character/Extra

I love the fringe characters, sometimes characters who you might not even notice or remember. Here are the candidates for the best ones from movies I saw this year.

Manillo from Burn After Reading, with one repeated line
Spoon Boy in The Matrix
The limo driver in Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (“Tuscan leather”)
Mike Pipper (Ron Anderson) in The Final Sacrifice


The beat-boxing waitress in Tokyo Tribe
“Goof” (the cat guy) in Maniac
That nearly indestructable Indian character in The Quick and the Dead
William Hickey, Toulon in Puppet Master


A mumbly guy in a bar in Moonwalkers
And a guy on a stretcher in a hospital scene in Olympus Has Fallen

The winner has to be that beat-boxing waitress! Because that was dope!


The “You’re No Chuck Norris” Award for Worst Action Hero

Peter O’Brian in The Stabilizer and George Chung from Hawkeye were both good enough to be worthy winners of this stupidly-named award. But there’s one guy who knocked this out of the park, and that was Bruce J. Mitchell as Zap Rowsdower in The Final Sacrifice.


In fact, let’s just go ahead and call this award the Zap Rowsdower Achievement in Bad Action Heroism from now on.

The Tootie, Worst Child Acting Award

Hiroyuki Kawase, not helped by the dubbing in Godzilla vs. Megalon
Keaton Nigel Cooke, Wiener-Dog

Those were both bad, but Ezra James Colbert, Tommy from Santa Claws, gets the Tootie this year.


The Wiseau

This award goes to the individual who decided that being a bad director or a bad writer or a bad actor wasn’t enough and decided to take on all three, a real triple-threat.

Y.K. Kim would win this for the triad of ineptitude in Miami Connection, but that movie was a repeat for me and doesn’t count.

This is tightly contested this year.

Lawrence Kasanoff voiced a character in the craptastic Foodfight! which he wrote and directed, apparently after several blows to the head.

James Bond III put himself in his own Def by Temptation.

Prince starred in Graffiti Bridge, a movie that taught us that Prince should have just stuck to music.

And Darren Doane ruined Christmas by writing, directing, and acting in Saving Christmas.

And then there’s George Chung for his work in Hawkeye, a movie he ostensibly made because he wanted everybody to see what a great action superstar he would make.

This is a tough decision. I have to go with Kasanoff, mostly because I like his imdb picture.


The Torgo, Worst Actor Award

Coleman Francis, Motorpsycho!
Brandon Gaines, overly enthusiastic in Superfights
Charlie Sheen, from the Eric Roberts school of voice acting with his work in Foodfight!
Horace B. Carpenter, the doctor in Maniac
Slim Pickens, Poor Pretty Eddie
Morris Day, Graffiti Bridge and probably Purple Rain
Prince, Graffiti Bridge
Mike Kellin, Sleepaway Camp
Walt Gorney, Crazy Ralph in Friday the 13th


John Fowler, a performance that will make you believe in Santa Claus again in Santa Claws
Evan Boymel, the neighbor Marcus Bramble in Santa Claws
Kirk Cameron and his hands or Darren Doane, Saving Christmas

The winner of this year’s Torgo? Horace B. Carpenter still managed to stand out in Maniac despite everything being awful around him. And that, friends, takes a special gift.


The Livingstone, Worst Actress Award

Haji, Motorpsycho!


Halle Berry, Catwoman
Charlize Theron, Snow White and the Huntsman
The screechy-voiced woman in Maniac (disqualified because I’m too lazy to look up a name)
Minnie Gentry, the grandmother in Def by Temptation
Shelley Winters, Poor Pretty Eddie

The winner? Shelley Winters! She could almost have this award named after her actually.


Best Actor

Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Mabuse
Paul Giamatti, Straight Outta Compton (he was up for a Torgo last year, as I recall)
Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
Louis Negin, Marv and others in The Forbidden Room


David Bennett, The Tin Drum


Gregg Turkington, Entertainment
Tom Hardy, The Revenant
Oliver Masucci, Hitler in Look Who’s Back
John Heard, Cutter’s Way
Tom Courtenay, Billy Liar
Steve Coogan, Alan Partridge
Elmber Back, Eisenstein in Guanajuato
Philip Baker Hall, Secret Honor
Carlo Battisti, Umberto D
Craig Roberts, Fundamentals of Caring
Robert Deniro or Harvey Keitel, Mean Streets
James Caan, Thief
Daniel Radcliffe or Paul Dano, Swiss Army Man
Pit Bukowski, Der Samurai
Cliff Curtis, Dark Horse

I’m going with an underdog here. Congratulations, Gregg Turkington!


Best Actress

Irma P. Hall, The Ladykillers
Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, Tangerine
Scarlett Johansson, Captain America or Hail, Caesar!
Julie Christie, Billy Liar
Rosel Zech, Veronika Voss
Anna Karina, My Life to Live
Kathy Bates, Misery
Shirley MacClaine, Guarding Tess

Easy winner here. Scarlett Johansson once again!


The Manos, Best Worst Movie Award

With a breakdown of Bad Movie Club, I didn’t watch as many bad movies this year as the last couple years, but there were still some great Manos contenders. Here they all are.

The Stabilizer
Shreck
Catwoman
Superfights
Foodfight!
Mazes and Monsters
The Final Sacrifice
Maniac
Exterminator City
Godzilla vs. Megalon
Legend of the Titanic
Tiptoes
Def by Temptation
Poor Pretty Eddie
Black Roses
The Borrower
Spookies
Santa Claws
Saving Christmas

And the winner of the coveted Manos award? I really really want to give it to Maniac because of its general weirdness, some of the worst acting I’ve ever seen, and the forcing of educational value as an excuse to show boobs in the 1930s. Although it’s probably the worst movie I saw all year, Foodfight! was simply too painful, and I’m still dizzy from the experience. The winner, however, is going to be Tiptoes, a movie that should have ruined careers.


Most Painful Movie Experiences

Why did I watch Hot Tub Time Machine 2, knowing that Crispin Glover wasn’t even in it? Or Skidoo? Or Snow White and the Huntsman? Sisters? The Angry Birds Movie? Now You See Me 2, especially after not even liking the first one. Brothers Grimsby? Caligula? Actually I know why I watched Caligula. Sausage Party? Friday the 13th? The Gift? The Purge? Yoga Hosers? And, of course, that aforementioned Danny Roane: First-Time Director movie.

Those were all painful. I can’t even pick a winner.

Best Movie of the Year

I saw a ton of good ones. Here were my top 15:

Hail, Caesar!
Pather Panchali
The Forbidden Room
Kwaidan
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Billy Liar
Vagabond
Closely Watched Trains
L’Avventura
Sleuth
Hell or High Water
L’Immortelle
Swiss Army Man (my most joyful movie experience of the year)
Toto the Hero
My Life to Live

This year’s best movie: The Turin Horse, a perfect apocalyptic vision for 2016


Honorable Mention: The Voices, I Know Where I’m Going, Blind Chance, Cemetery Man, Thundercrack!, Fellini’s Satyricon, Moebius, Thief, Dark Horse, Captain Fantastic, Dressed to Kill, Chafed Elbows, Straight Outta Compton, Bridge of Spies, Look Who’s Back, Cutter’s Way, Steve Jobs, The Pornographers, Mean Streets (repeat), The Last Wave, The Merchant of Four Seasons, Hopscotch, My Man Godfrey, Japanese Summer: Double Suicide, On the Waterfront, Death by Hanging, The Revenant, Spotlight, The End of the Tour, The Walk, The Tin Drum (repeat), The Swimmer, Veronika Voss, The Lobster, Entertainment, Eisenstein in Guanajuato, Mood Indigo, and Tangerine

2 comments:

  1. tin drum not in the top 15? and 2 nominations for worst actor for motor psycho which was an AWESOME movie? sadly it was one of my top 15 in a year where i didnt get to watch that much.

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  2. I omit movies that I've already seen. The top-whatever are movies that were all new to me or things that I'd forgotten I'd seen.

    I liked Motorpsycho, but you can't call those performances good. They were good-bad performances.

    I didn't get to watch that much this year either : (

    By the way, I keep getting in arguments on a Brownsburg Facebook page...and long story short, one of them asked if I'd seen Delicatessen. That came out of nowhere.

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