Mother!
The E.T. Award (Exceptional Use of Product Placement in Film)
Dairy Queen (Army of One, Guardians of the Galaxy 2)
Coca-Cola (Altered States, Kindergarten Ninja, Q, both Blade Runners)
Quaker Oats (four boxes on a refrigerator shown repeatedly during Dreamaniac)
Pringles, or salty parabolas (Ghostbusters)
Fruity Pebbles (Nine Lives)
Hawaiian Punch (Nothing But Trouble)
Kettle Chips (Doctor Strange)
Atari (Blade Runner)
Junior Mints (Buster’s Mal Heart)
Ajax, Chips Ahoy, Pepperidge Farms, Mr. Goodbar (Ghosthouse)
Nabisco, Absolut Vodka (Downsizing)
The most exceptional? Sure, I liked the Nabisco gag in Downsizing, the weird use of Aquafresh in Adrift in Tokyo, and the 2-hour commercial for Google Maps in Lion. But my favorite has to be the sheer amount of sickening product placement in Daddy’s Home. It starts (and ends, actually) with blatant advertisements for the Ford Flex and throws in Starburst, Cinnabon, Red Bull, Bud Light, Red Roof Inn, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. And I know I'm leaving off a bunch! It might have the most product placement that I've ever seen in a movie.
Biggest Missed Opportunity for Product Placement
Purge: Election Year. A candy bar was a very important piece of the story’s plot, and no company jumped at the opportunity to have their brand mentioned?
Favorite Sneaky Allusion of the Year
The brilliant use of cotton in Get Out
A Question That I Doubt I’ll Ever Answer
The meaning of those French fries in The Killer of a Sacred Deer
Movie Moment That Made Me the Most Uncomfortable
When Peter Pan (in Peter Pan) tried to force me to participate by clapping so that Tinkerbell would come back to life
Most Distracting Extra
An old lady watching a fire in Possession
The Shymalamadingdong (Silliest Movie Twist)
Well, Shyamalan’s Split could probably win this award although I’m not sure I’d call that movie twist “silly.”
There’s a big twist in Bloodlust! with the returning of a guy who died via leeches and quicksand earlier in the movie. The Screaming Skull, Kill Squad, Happy Death Day, and Ghosthouse all had ridiculous twists, but I think I have to give the Shymalamadingdong to Collateral Beauty because it had two twists! Two!
Best Villain
I loved Paul Williams’ Swan in Phantom of the Paradise and that crab guy in Moana, but the best villain is easily the media in Amanda Knox. Fake news indeed!
Favorite Quotes of the Year
As always, I'm not going to tell you where these come from. Have fun guessing! Make a game out of it! Get your family to participate during dinner or something!
“Does the Bearded One go to Denny’s?”
“They don’t call me the psychic wizard for nothing!”
“I will piss on your eyes. I will throw curse on you. Your mother will not recognize you!”
“Does the Trojan Horse have a wooden dick?”
“Well, it ain’t Barney the purple dinosaur!”
“God doesn’t build in straight lines.”
“I feel like I’m being harpooned by some raging monk in the act of finding God.”
“How would you get a scar like this eating pussy?”
“I’m not some fucking stunt cock. I’m an actor.”
“They’re not tattoos. They’re skin illustrations.”
“I’m half a freak already.”
“If my dishwasher said, ‘Look, I’m falling in love with the refrigerator, and as a result, I have no time to wash the dishes,’ I would not like that dishwasher.”
“This ain’t no charred foster kid.”
“He’s raping my ears! Make him stop!”
“I don’t know about you, but I’ve got some morning wood that needs to cowboy down.”
“No woman can truly love a man who listens to Phil Collins.”
“Hootie tootie, disco cutie!”
“I’ve been making my own olive oil in the bedroom. Extra virgin.”
“Bob Barker peed on a puppy?”
“You touched her Tinkerbell!”
“I’m not really paying attention. I’m thinking about waffles and pussy.”
“I am the holy trinity. I am the father fucker, son of a bitch, and holy shit.”
“The idea of a giant gorilla intrigued me.”
"It's all so horrible you know, the nightmare of childhood. And it only gets worse. One day you'll wake up, and you'll be past it. Your beautiful skin will wrinkle and shrivel up, you'll lose your hair, your sight, your memory. Your blood will thicken, teeth turn yellow and loose. You will start to stink and fart and all your friends will be dead. You'll succumb to arthritis, angina, senile dementia, you'll piss yourself, shit yourself, drool at the mouth. Just pray that when this happens you've got someone to love you, because if you're loved you'll still be young."
“I smoked a big joint down by the river and realized I was not black.”
“Here at NASA, we all pee the same color.”
“Mean machine, Jellybean.”
“How do you like your tea? Cream? Sugar? Or do you want me to pee in it?”
“If a Martian ever saw me naked, I’d freak.”
“Oh no! A bimbo with a gun!”
“At least I will die with my cock intact.”
“You sound like a Nazi Julie Andrews.”
“I will marshal all the forces of darkness to hound you into an assisted suicide.”
“I love pissing.”
“I laughed at the man with no pants until I realized I had no legs.”
“Yup, yup.”
“Across the street the schling a schlong.”
“Speaking of Romeo and Juliet--Abbott and Costello.”
“They were just words written on water.”
“I’d have to hide my erections.”
“I have sold my devil to the soul.”
“I am saving my hymen for a man with a divine face who will descend from the mountains.”
“When I diet, I diet. And when I orgasm, I orgasm. I don’t believe in mixing the two cultures.”
“God’s not supposed to be a hack horror writer.”
“Enjoy the absurdity of our world. It’s a lot less painful.”
“Your anus is missing a crease.”
“You need to resign yourself to the awkwardness of life.”
“That’s some pure dick magic right there.”
“Are you fucking owl or what?”
“I never did like turnips.”
“I’ll split that banana octopus!”
“I want to blow the soul out of that horn.”
“We don’t want your pants. We want to get out of here.”
“Is your little brother made out of your sperm, cocksucker?” “No.”
“You whistle like a little boy.”
“You’re probably the most beautiful software developer in Silicon Valley.”
“You can fail at what you don’t love, so you might as well do what you love.”
“Continuity is in your forehead.”
“Wow, happy birthday.”
“Does everything in the world have a middle?”
“I’m gonna crucify the motherfuckers.”
“One doesn’t laugh at food.”
“Why don’t you take your toolbox and go fuck a garage?”
“An unclear chemist put Drano in your snuffbox.”
“Knowledge belongs to all. You do not understand that. You are just a white man.”
“Pardon me, sir. Stuff? Would 60 gallons be sufficient?”
“Why don’t you wag your tail at me in the bitches’ room?”
Favorite Bit of Dialogue
From Dog Eat Dog:
Nicolas Cage’s Character: "Can you shut this baby up? I know you know how. Where’s the thing you put in the fucking baby’s mouth? What’s it called?"
Willem Dafoe’s Character: "Ummm. Dick?"
Cage: "No."
A Good Idea That I Had
A movie where Haley Mills fights herself (I don’t have any clue what I’m talking about here.)
Best Opening Credits
Superargo and the Faceless Giants
Best Extended Shot
Baby Driver, the walking-for-coffee sequence (this could also probably have fit in with the best musical moments), and that’s because I can’t have Bela Tarr win this award every year. Although Satantango has some really nice ones--cows in the opener and a revolving nightmare description sequence that ends with a shot of an owl. I also liked a split-screen rehearsal scene in Phantom of the Paradise, the opening of The Player, a fantastic (but fake and therefore disqualified) lengthy fight scene in Atomic Blonde, an especially chaotic and exceptionally frightening moment in Mother!, and an extended scene featuring a woman eating a pie in A Ghost Story. But even though all of those are terrific, Baby Driver wins this one.
Best-Worst Montage
Julie and Jack had a completely pointless dating montage, and A Safe Place had the strangest montages. This award goes to Kindergarten Ninja because it had the most. I think the movie was half montage!
Something That Would Make This Go a Lot Faster and Let Me Get Back to Normal Life
If I didn't include pictures. . .
Best Transitions
If I didn't include pictures. . .
Best Transitions
The words that would appear in random places, kind of like chapter titles, in Girl Asleep
Weirdest Silent Movie Intertitles
“I will lear to pain, kiddie.” (The Vagabond)
“Holzbein!” (From Morn to Midnight)
“Pop, that horse went the wrong way was really funny.” (Oh, Doctor!)
Peter Pan’s claim that kids were “innocent, gay, and heartless”
“Come wiz me--we will find ze mos’ beautiful bubbles in ze worl.” (Wings)
“If he ain’t nutty, ahm sure Snow White.” (One of the Charley Chase shorts--can't remember which one)
Best Opening Scene
Opening shot of “The Vagabond” with Chaplin’s feet under swinging saloon doors, Chaplin again with “Easy Street,” the gorgeous opening shot of the frequently beautiful The Neon Demon, a golf ball hitting a net with a statue behind it in 3-Iron, undulating seaweed in Evolution or a coffin’s arrival in Innocence by the same director.
I think my favorite is probably the opening underwater sequence that starts off The Shape of Water. It lets you know right off the bat that you're going to be treated to a visually-stunning fairy tale.
Best Ending
Sing Street, a touching ending with a boat
The Meyerowitz Stories, art discovery
I'll go with The Shape of Water again. It also had a great middle!
I'll go with The Shape of Water again. It also had a great middle!
Worst Ending
The Penalty, with embarrassing and possibly offensive overexplanation
Most Difficult to Watch Scenes
A tie! Cat abuse and then poisoning in Satantango and a handful of scenes from the intense Mother!. The use of sound in Mother! made things especially difficult. Oh, and the dog-fighting in Amores Perros.
Most Offensive Movie Scene
Indian caricatures coming out in Fun in Balloon Land
Best Archival Footage
Interview with Harry Partch in Gimme Danger
The Attaboy, Luther (Best Random Words Uttered by an Extra, Usually Offscreen)
“Look out! He’s got a tree!” (Giant of the 20th Century)
“Oh no! This isn’t happening! This isn’t real!” (during a shooting sequence in Tales of the Quadead Zone)
“He’s inside-out.” (Society)
I don’t feel like that’s a complete list. I didn’t do a very good job of keeping track of those, I guess. I apologize.
Best Set Design
The expressionistic bedrooms and barber shops of silent Genuine
The house in Malpertuis
The fairy-tale land in The Singing Ringing Tree
The deteriorating sets in High-Rise
The labyrinthine sanatorium in The Hourglass Sanatorium
The winner: The minimalist/expressionist sets in From Morn to Midnight
Worst Set Design
After Last Season, with paper/cardboard covering up things on the walls of somebody’s grandmother house. And that MRI machine? Oh, my!
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