I don’t think I saw a single metronome in a movie in 2017, another reason why this year might have been the worst one ever.
Best Western
Bone Tomahawk
Best Animated Movie
I liked Kubo and the Two Strings, Moana, My Life as a Zucchini, Perfect Blue, and Hugo the Hippo. I even almost liked Boss Baby. My favorite animated movie of the year was Coco though.
Movie That I Watched But Apparently Forgot to Write About
Cars 3. And no, I didn’t accidentally leave it off the list above.
Best Documentary
Finding Vivian Maier
Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World
Life, Animated
Gimme Danger
One More Time with Feeling
Gleason
Amanda Knox
Into the Inferno
Magnus
David Lynch: The Art Life
The Cardboard Bernini
Jim and Andy
I liked all of those, but the best documentary I saw this year was probably I Am Not Your Negro.
Unintentional Poster Synchronicity?
I loved La La Land and The Lure (the only Polish mermaid horror musical I’ve ever seen), but De Palma’s Phantom of the Paradise wins this one!
Best Silent Movie
I’m not sure how many silent movies I watched this year as some of my enormously popular Silent Saturdays were used to watch shorts collections instead of full-length feature films. Here are the best I saw this year though:
Downhill, He Who Gets Slapped, Dante’s Inferno, The Oyster Princess, Master of the House, A Dog’s Life, 3 Bad Men, The Phantom of the Opera, The Black Pirate, The Lost World, The Penalty, Peter Pan, When the Clouds Roll By, The Doll, Menilmontant, and Flesh and the Devil are all silent movies that I would recommend.
The Top Ten:
Diary of a Lost Girl
The Parson’s Widow
From Morn to Midnight
Michael
The Big Parade
The Wind
A Man There Was
Wings
The Seashell and the Clergyman
The best silent movie I saw this year was Fritz Lang’s Destiny.
Best Silent Movie That I’m Not Sure Counts
The mesmerizing and hypnotic and insanely beautiful Decasia
Best One-and-Done Performance
This is for the performance or director who I really liked in something I saw this year who did nothing else at all.
We start in 1911 with Pier Delle Vigne who played Count Ugolino in Dante’s Inferno and decided that flailing limbs was the way to go.
It’s impossible to believe that Kindergarten Ninja was Dwight Clark’s only role.
And the work of Hernesto Mc. Kimnoro as a cemetery custodian named Harvey in Ghosthouse was really remarkable.
And how about Adele Lamont for her work in The Brain That Wouldn’t Die?
Andrew Jordan’s Things was his lone directorial credit, probably for reasons that can be understood if you watch that movie.
It’s the same with Bill Feigenbaum, the guy responsible for Hugo the Hippo, although that movie’s pretty good!
The winner has to be John Parker though. He directed Dementia, a really cool little movie, and then nothing else at all.
Obviously, it's just an excuse to get another Angelo Rossitto picture in this.
As much as I loved Jermaine Clement’s menacingly glam clam in Moana and Paul Lynde’s villain in Hugo the Hippo, this has to go to Taika Waititi as the rock man in Thor: Ragnarok. So imperfectly perfect!
The “Tootie” (Most Annoying Performance by a Child Actor)
There’s Victor DiMattia in Cool As Ice who, as Tommy, gets to say wonderfully written lines like “As soon as you’re dong making sex?” And there’s “Sonny” from Fun in Balloon Land who gives an all-time lousy child performance. I’m sure he’s still undergoing psychological trouble because of what he had to endure during the shooting of this movie and needs something positive in his life, so I’m giving him The Tootie.
Tell me I'm wrong about the psychological issues!
And speaking of psychological issues...
He gets to engage in a little real-life Fruit Ninja action (“Hey!”), has a whiny freakout when engaged in conversation with “God,” answers a “reason for your visit” question at an airport with a hearty “Taking care of business!” and a snorty laugh, rides a camel, rides a donkey, puffs on a joint, sports a fez, laughs at Osama bin Laden, dances, gets to wear a ponytail, and uses “I fantasized about you and went through boxes of Kleenex” as a pick-up line in Army of One. He also gets some great lines in that movie:
“You got to talk to the meat!”
“Does the Bearded One go to Denny’s?”
“If these aren’t the best chicken wings you’ve ever tasted, then I’m not the Donkey King!”
“They don’t call me the psychic wizard for nothing!”
“This ain’t my first rodeo, hombre!”
My favorite moment from that movie might be when he gets high and tells a kid on a coin-operated horse to “Ride it, cowboy” before kicking a pinball machine and walking around laughing at things for five minutes. Because apparently that’s what taking drugs is like.
In Pay the Ghost, we get to watch him run, sometimes dressed as a cowboy.
And in Dog Eat Dog, he gets to become unglued with Willem Dafoe, saying things like “I’ll get us a real good gig. Take your tits off!” with a weird nipple-extracting hand gesture and engaging in a shirtless mustard and ketchup fight with his co-star. And he has a very nice mini-Cage freak-out after almost getting hit by a car.
The Wiseau
Faithful readers know this is the award given to the man or woman who didn’t think just writing a bad movie or directing a bad movie or acting poorly in a bad movie was enough and unwisely took on all three jobs. The nominees:
Previous winner James Nguyen for Julie and Jack, though his “acting” is only a Hitchcockian cameo
David Prior in Deadliest Prey, though he also only provides a cameo
And Adam Minarovich who is responsible for Ankle Biters, a movie I didn’t really like that much
I just did a search, and I can’t find where James Nguyen ever won this award. That’s a travesty, and the only way to fix it is to give it to him this year. Congratulations, James Nguyen! I hope you Googled yourself and saw this.
The Torgo (Best Bad Performance by a Male)
I want to start by recognizing the work of the one guy who seemingly does all of the balloon creature voices in Fun in Balloon Land. I’m unable to find his name or verify that he did indeed to all the voice work for that.
Cranston Komuro and others rock in Samurai Cop 2, but they’re all overshadowed by the force that is Tommy Wiseau. Joe Estevez also really overdoes it as a police chief in that one.
Randal Malone playing the evil Kantlove in The Amazing Bulk. Or maybe Terence Lording who plays the dad in the same movie.
Bruce Kimball plays two roles, both not very well, in The Mighty Gorga.
You have to love the work of Mimmo Crao (and that hair) as the yeti in Giant of the 20th Century. Those facial expressions!
Anthony La Penna, the assistant in The Brain That Wouldn't Die, gives an amazing performance.
Alex Nicol is terrifically bad as a gardener in The Screaming Skull.
Jason Kulas brings the perfect amount of ineptitude to the perfectly inept After Last Season.
Keefe L. Turner. My God, what a performance that is in Tales from the Quadead Zone! Those laughs! That monologue!
Vanilla Ice holds his own (penis) in Cool As Ice, proving that he had no business being in a movie.
Deadliest Prey gets a great bad performance by David Campbell.
Both John Slavik and Bruce Glover are fun to watch in Die Hard Dracula.
Things benefits (or suffers) from three embarrassing performances--Barry J. Gillis, Bruce Roach, and especially Jan W. Pachul.
Julie and Jack has Lee Borne, as Bill the rival salesman, and Will Springhorn, as the protagonist’s sex-obsessed BFF.
Thomas Doherty completely annoys as Captain Hook’s offspring in Descendants 2.
And Juan Chapa as Hector Machete and the great George Chung (previous winner, I believe) both are wonderful in Kindergarten Ninja.
This is always a tough one to pick for me. But when Tommy Wiseau’s in the running, I’m not sure how you can go with anybody else. This is turning out to be a huge year for Tommy, and he can add his second Torgo award to his 2017 accomplishments.
The Livingstone (The Best Bad Performance by a Female)
Well, Fun in Balloon Land has a Livingstone nominee, too, with an anonymous narrator who pointless describes a parade.
Megan Timothy, just so good in The Mighty Gorga.
There’s the aforementioned (in the one-and-done category) Adele Lamont from The Brain That Wouldn’t Die.
Peggy McClellan is wonderfully bad in After Last Season.
Previous winner Shirley L. Jones only made two movies, and it’s hard to argue with both of those performances being Livingstone worthy.
Dody Goodman plays a pretty mean Mae in Cool As Ice.
Suki-Rose Simaki is great in Deadliest Prey. True that.
And then Hilary Swank pops in near the end of Logan Lucky and gives one of the worst performances from a big-name actress that I’ve seen in a long time.
But come on, people. You really think anybody but Shirley L. Jones is winning this? Her work in Tales from the Quadead Zone is just spectacularly awful. This award should actually be named after her.
Best Actor
It’s hard to get excited about this award after going through the Torgo and Livingstone awards. It’s like the Oscars showing best make-up after the best picture award or something. Nobody really cares. Here are the male performances I really thought were great this year anyway.
Bob Balaban, Altered States
Rod Steiger, The Illustrated Man
Lon Chaney, He Who Gets Slapped
Bernhard Goetzke, “Death” in Destiny
Michael St. Michaels, The Greasy Strangler
Alex Hibbert, the kid in Moonlight
James McAvoy, Split (though I didn’t like that movie as much as some)
John C. Reilly, Dr. Steve Brule in Kong: Skull Island
Yeong-su Oh in Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring
Ben Mendelsohn, Mississippi Grind
Daniel Fripan, the “kid” in Der Bunker
Robert Gustafsson, under tons of make-up in The 100 Year Old Man. . .
Tom Hardy in Legend. Or maybe Tom Hardy in Legend.
Barry Keoghan, The Killing of a Sacred Deer
Fabrice Luchini, Slack Bay
Sam Rockwell in Three Billboards Outside Ebbings, Missouri
The winner of the best actor award? Michael St. Michaels, of course!
Best Actress
No Scarlet Johansson this year, so the field is wide open!
Mira Sorvino, Mighty Aphrodite
Meryl Streep, hilarious in Florence Foster Jenkins
Magda Vasaryova, Marketa Lazarova
Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk about Kevin
Mathilde Nielsen, Mads in Master of the House
Susan Hampshire, 5 different roles in Malpertuis
Ossi Oswalda, a doll in The Doll
Natalie Portman, I guess, in Jackie
Emma Stone, La La Land
Louise Brooks, Diary of a Lost Girl
Hildur Carlberg, The Parson’s Wife
Pamela Flores, Endless Poetry
Kerry Dustin, dual roles in Die Hard Dracula
Isabelle Adjani, Possession
Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbings, Missouri
Juliete Binoche, Slack Bay
Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water
Wow! This is a really tough one! Before I started typing these, I figured it was Sally Hawkins’ award for sure because I loved her so much in that. But Pamela Flores is so good, too! I’m going to have to go with Isabelle Adjani’s work in Possession for this one though. And it’s not just because she gets a sex scene with an octopus.
Most Unpleasant Movie I Saw This Year
Why did I subject myself to the following: Suicide Squad, Yeti: A Love Story, Nine Lives, Last Ounce of Courage, Antibirth, Collateral Beauty, Murder of a Cat, Godzilla: Final Wars, Okja, The Wave, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Happy Death Day, The Belko Experiment, Daddy’s Home, either Descendants movie, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, The Number 23, or The House? I hated all of those!
One stands head and shoulders and frizzy hair above all of the rest, however, and that is Trolls. I’m pretty sure I’d rather be stabbed in the eyes than have to sit through that one again. The Little Panda Fighter might be a close second. In fact, since that’s such a blatant rip-off of another movie, that one should probably win. No glitter out the anus in that one though.
The Manos
Of course, I really do enjoy watching a good bad movie as much as I enjoy watch a great movie. Bad Movie Club is on its last legs, but I still watched a lot of contenders for this, one of the most prestigious shane-movies awards.
Fun in Balloon Land
The Amazing Bulk
The Mighty Gorga
Giant of the 20th Century
The Killer Shrews
Bloodlust!
The Brain That Wouldn’t Die
After Last Season
Tales from the Quadead Zone
Kindergarten Ninja
Cool As Ice
Things
Ghosthouse
Julie and Jack
I Believe in Santa Claus
Superargo and the Faceless Giants
There can only be one winner of the Manos though, so I’m going to pick three. There’s just no way to choose between The Amazing Bulk, After Last Season, and Tales from the Quadead Zone. They’re three movies that broke the rules for what a movie has to be, so it seems appropriate to just break this Manos award into three and give them each a piece.
You can complain in the comments below if you’d like.
Best Movies of the Year
These aren’t in any real order, but here are the movies I saw in 2017 that I liked best. These saved me from the insanity of this truly dreadful year. Note: I am not mentioning those silent movies again though some would have definitely been on this list.
Kontroll
The Greasy Strangler
The Handmaiden
Sing Street
In the Loop
Paterson
Dementia, Daughter of Horror
Endless Poetry
The Hourglass Sanatorium
Decasia
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter. . .and Spring
The Tenant
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?
Before Sunrise
Phantom of the Paradise
Dunkirk
mother!
Possession
The Fantastic Baron Munchausen
John Wick: Chapter 2
The Killing of a Sacred Deer
Lady Bird
Three Billboards Outside Ebbings, Missouri
The Shape of Water
Coco
Embrace of the Serpent
And the best movie I saw in 2017? It’s also the longest--Satantango. This is the third time in ten years of doing this blog that a Bela Tarr movie has been my favorite.
My Goal for 2018
More movies from Czechoslovakia
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