Movies: 2016 Year in Review: Part One

I watched less movies this year than I have since starting this blog--282. That’s down from 298 last year. And my wife would tell you that it’s still an absurd amount of movies to watch in a year.

The average rating this year was up from last year’s all-time low--a 12.2. This year, it was a 12.5. You have to remember that I go out of my way to watch terrible movies though, so this is meaningless information. The rest of this is actually meaningless information, too.

The most-used rating, for the second year in a row, was a 14/20. There were no 20’s, and both 1 and 19 were represented only once. There were two 2's, 3's, and 6's. Is any of this interesting?

If I had to rate my enjoyment level of doing this blog, it’d be somewhere around a 13 or 14. However, because I really don’t have much else to do with my time, I’ll likely keep on going.

Most disappointing: I fell just a little short of hitting 3,000 blog entries which I thought I would hit for sure this year. I would have gotten there but deleted a bunch of extraneous “news” or “recommendations” posts.

Anyway, let’s get this awards show going!

The Billy Curtis

Traditionally, we start with the biggest achievement by a little person in a movie. Unfortunately, it was an extremely weak field this year.

Fritz Hakl played Bebra in The Tin Drum.

There were a bunch of little guys in Snow White and the Huntsman, but that’s a movie I don’t even like to remember watching.

Mark Northover was only in a tiny bit of Hardware, but it was an interesting character.

There’s a little fellow in Tokyo Tribe.

Peter Dinklage was embarrassingly bad in Tiptoes. Gary Oldman might win if I had an award for “Best Fake Little Person in a Movie” from the same movie. He’s a Billy Curtis wannabe, I guess. And a guy named Michael J. Anderson was also good in Tiptoes.

Bridget Powers was also in Tiptoes, and although I’ve always wanted a female to win this award, this isn’t the performance that is going to do it.

And there was a little person in Caligula named Salvatore Furnari.

The winner could have been Luis De Jesus who was perversely wonderful in Blood Sucking Freaks.

But I’m feeling a little sentimental and am giving this to Warwick Davis who played a little alien dude named Weeteef Cyubee in Rogue One. The character didn’t really stand out, and Davis didn’t do anything all that profound, so consider this a lifetime achievement award.

Saddest Little Person Fact

Playing R2D2 in the newest Star Wars movie? Jimmy Vee, uncredited. Rest in peace, Kenny Baker.

Worst Special Effect

Jason Statham, in one of the 37 Jason Statham movies I watched this year, bounced off a car at the end of the otherwise wildly entertaining Crank, and the CGI was hilariously bad. Watching the Washington Monument toppling in Olympus Has Fallen probably wasn’t supposed to make me laugh. Peter O’Toole’s syphilis-stricken countenance in Caligula was more of a make-up issue than a special effects one, but I’m still counting it. And I didn’t think talking cats could look stupider than the one in A Talking Cat?!?, but Santa Claws proved me wrong.

There’s no way a bad special effect is going to beat the hiding of Gary Oldman’s legs in a couch in Tiptoes, however. That was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen.

Best Dance Scene

There was so much good dancing this year! The “An erotic dance for my friends” scene in What We Do in the Shadows, the homoerotic homage to old-timey musicals with Channing Tatum and other Navy guys in a tavern in Hail, Caesar!, the surreal long-legged jazzy dances in the wonderful Mood Indigo, Vixen’s seductive fish dance in Vixen!, Marisa Tomei dancing with a vibrator in Slums of Beverly Hills, Bette Davis finishing off What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? with that sad dance on the beach? It seems like anytime Anna Karina dances in a movie, she should win this award, and she does in My Life to Live. But once you’ve seen Kirk Cameron do the worm in Saving Christmas, you’ve seen magic.

I don’t know if Kirk Cameron beating out Anna Karina makes me gay or Christian or a little of both.

Best Montage

Swiss Army Man, one of my favorite movies of the year. The vocalists even point out that it’s a montage. It’s really a thing of beauty amongst a lot of beautiful things in that movie.

Best Hair

Dermot Mulroney’s got a sweet mullet and horseshoe mustache combination in About Schmidt, but Elmer Back’s hair in Eisenstein in Guanajuato is almost a character of its own. It’s secretly what I’d like my hair to look like.

Best Opening Credits

Kwaidan’s liquid colors foreshadowed the beautiful imagery in that movie, the Yellow Submarine-esque Moonwalking opening was a lot of fun, Cooties gave us a gross look at school cafeteria chicken nugget manufacturing, and Deathgasm was badass. But Deadpool’s meta-cheekiness easily wins this one.

Best Closing Credits

I really liked Fury’s closing credits, but there was a Bollywood wackiness to The Voices which managed to not only work in all the characters but Jesus himself. And yes, I’m aware that Ryan Reynolds stars in both of these last winners.

Best Jesus

Speaking of Jesus, the guy who played him in The Voices was Michael Pink. He wins this award.

Best Devil

Frankie in Blunderland, Exterminator City, and The Witch all had depictions of Satan, the latter as a goat. And there was a great Devil Pee-Wee in Pee-Wee’s Big Holiday. But Al Pacino, who fucks ev-ry-where, nailed it in Devil’s Advocate.

Best Prayer

“Make Jerry and Bosco and Mr. Whiskers good boys. Amen.” (The Voices)

But the winner is Pee-Wee’s prayer in Pee-Wee’s Big Holiday: “Uh, encyclopedia, pimple, and uh, hairball. Amen!”

Most Chilling Moment

Hitler saying “I can work with this” in the bleakly relevant and depressingly timely Look Who’s Back. “Make Germany great again” indeed.

Most Annoying Character

This is a tough one because so much of it probably depends on my mood. I watched two--two too many--animated food movies this year, and both Sausage Party and Foodfight! had their share of annoyingly loud and probably racist characters. The various animals in Santa Claws were only one piece of the awful whole for that future holiday classic. And there was Tentacles, a mentally-challenged octopus from whatever offensive Titanic movie I watched this year. And then there was Oh from Home, a character who actually caused a shift from indifference to dislike of Jim Parsons. I think I have to go with that fucking octopus though because of the eight hands he plays in making The Legend of the Titanic (I looked it up) the travesty that it was.

Best Accessory

There was Nic Cage’s fabulous hat in Dying of the Light, Lady Snowblood’s bloodthirsty umbrella, Greg Rainmaker’s cleats in The Stabilizer, a codpiece in What We Do in the Shadows, a projectionist’s scarf in Hail, Caesar!, Don Verdean’s crucifix bolo tie, the zombie’s YOLO shirt in Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse, that kid’s absurd hat in The Sandlot, and Ron Perlman’s shirt in Moonwalkers. But the winner, because I’m in a sentimental mood, is David Bowie’s codpiece in Labyrinth. Because how could it not be?

Best Windsock Man

In Tangerine, one dances to a hip hop beat. So that wins.

Movies That I Didn’t Finish

Home, which annoyed me to sleep.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Saving Private Ryan

Flash Point, a Donnie Yen movie that I still might finish

Most Memorable Fart

I really liked the flatulent introduction to a character in the horror film, It Follows. However, Swiss Army Man put the fart in artsy-fartsy more than any movie in recent history. They made farting something magical.

Best (or Worst) Movie Joke

The one I’ve heard the most is the one-humped camel one in Zootopia because Buster likes that movie a lot. But I’m fond of “What do you call 250 Indian maidens without nipples?” from The Gong Show Movie.

Most Interesting Recommendations

I don’t get a lot because I lack friends and don’t have any readers. But Josh did something special when he handed me four movies--Slums of Beverly Hills, Wanderlust, About Schmidt, and Guarding Tess--that all had one thing in common--a scene with a main character sitting on a toilet. I still suspect he did it on purpose, but he swears it was accidental.

Thanks to Cory for some good recommendations, too. And Anonymous.

Favorite Poster

Purple Rain