2018 Year in Review: Part One

I don't know why anybody would read this. A lot of this has to be just completely meaningless. I could probably make up movies, characters, quotes, monsters, or whatever I wanted, and people wouldn't even know. I tried my best to get out of this with a Facebook poll, but that didn't work. So like Sisyphus, I'm going to keep pushing this blog up the hill, at least with this Year-in-Review stuff.

Here are some statistics that nobody is likely going to care about:

I’m not even going to mention how many movies I watched this year because it’s slightly embarrassing. When I started this blog, the goal was to hit 365 movies. I passed that up by a little this year. I don’t know why I should be embarrassed about the amount of movies I saw. If anything, I should be embarrassed that I’ve kept up this pointless blogging endeavor for 11 years now. Just typing that depresses me.

The average rating this year was a whopping 13.4 on the 20-point scale. The previous two years were 12.45 and 12.5, so 13.4 is pretty high. A lot of that might have to do with less Bad Movie Clubs this year. The most popular rating this year was a 15/20. I didn't give anything a 20 or a 1, but I did give out a pair of 19's and three 2's.

Anyway, let’s give out some awards!

The Billy Curtis Award

Traditionally, we begin with the Billy Curtis--the Best Performance by a Little Person. 

I enjoyed Sam Humphrey, the deep-voiced little General Tom Thumb in the overrated Greatest Showman, but I’m pretty sure the CGI legs disqualify him. 

Vladimir Fyodorov, “Mr. Yellow Pants Dwarf” in the Russian Kin-Dza-Dza, doesn’t have a lot to do, but he sure looks cool. 

There’s a brief shot of a little person in Andrei Rublev; Hellzapoppin’ has a little demon and a ittle taxi driver, both in hell; there’s a little attorney in The Double Life of Veronique who doesn’t do much but does give the character a really dirty look; and there’s a little guy in Goodbye Uncle Tom who chants “1, 2, 3, he’s got three.” Mark Gash is great as a disabled painter in To Live and Die in LA. Marc Colombani plays a little jackaroo in Sweetie. Alfred Baillou is in Steppenwolf. 

The great Warwick Davis actually reprises his role from The Phantom Menace in the Solo movie. 

And the late, great Angelo Rossito, along with a little cowboy friend, makes an appearance in the great, late Orson Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind. That cameo was certainly a nice surprise. 

The award is going to perennial favorite Peter Dinklage for his work in two movies. I saw his first role as an angry and top-hatted little fellow in Living in Oblivion, and he was in that silly Avengers movie, ironically playing a really large character. He's now joins Weng-Weng as a two-timer winner of the Billy Curtis. 

Saddest News of the Year

Aki Kaurismaki has claimed that he has made his last movie. 

Something I’m Sadly Proud Of

Bad Movie Club had its 200th viewing this year. Pocket Ninjas, if you’re keeping score at home. 

Best Sports Moment

There’s a great scene in The Rider where Lane Scott’s friends help him enjoy a ride, and I enjoyed seeing the gayest basketball ever in The Young Girls of Rochefort. 

But nothing else has a chance when Tommy Wiseau plays basketball in these ridiculous platform shoes like he does in Best F(r)iends, Volume 1. 

Worst Special Effects

As much as I loved the way the movie magicians in charge of effects for the Christian found-footage horror film The Lock In made it appear that a demon knocked over a trash can (essentially by kicking a trash can over), the man-to-dog transformation with that tail in Love on a Leash takes this prize. 

Best Sand

Queen of the Desert. It was the only good thing about that entire movie. 

Best Action Scene

A Nintendo Power Glove with attached blades vs. a lightsaber in Buzzard. That creepy bear/human hybrid sniffing around in Annihilation. The Peanuts-esque dog fighting scenes in Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs. Two very different war sequences from masterful directors--a war sequence in The Sacrifice where Tarkovsky basically just uses airplane sounds and has characters move their heads around and the extended battle sequence in Welles’ Chimes at Midnight, more awesome because it’s so much fun watching Welles run and spin. Tarkovsky has another great action sequence with a raid in Rublev. Exciting car-related action sequences included a car chase in the Wreck-It Ralph sequel and a psychedelic forest fire drive in The Road Movie, and maybe the opening post-heist car chase in Widows deserves a mention. The shootout following a bank robbery in Heat is really good, and there’s a great scene in Wolf Guy where a bad guy pulls a mouse out of his pocket in order to distract Sonny Chiba. And then there’s Joaquin Phoenix throwing down with a hammer in You Were Never Really Here. 

An honorable mention has to be the part of Faces Places where Jr is rushing Agnes Varda through the Lourve. The winner, however, goes to Free Solo with Alex Honnold climbing a big rock. 

Worst Action Scene

Freshest on my mind is a wacky chase sequence in Magic Christmas Tree after the annoying kid wishes for his “hour of power,” but there were all sorts of examples of inept action sequences. If you imagined Wiseau in a gunfight (not with himself), you’ll perfectly imagine what’s going on on Best F(r)iends, Volume 2. There was a shoot-out (and stab-out) in Ulli Lommel’s Overkill where I had trouble figuring out who was shooting at whom and why. And James Nguyen had a little trouble with a car crash in Replica. If I was picking an action sequence just based on unnecessary gruesomeness or terrible one-liners, the jack scene in Death Wish would win, but I don’t even want to admit to anybody that I watched that movie. 

The winner is Pocket Ninjas because Robert Z’Dar + balloons is always a winning combination. 

Most Touching Special Effects

The deliberately cheap effects used in the movie-within-a-movie in Brigsby Bear, a movie you should all watch right now. They made me cry. 

Best Scene Involving Intestines

There are some slide-out ones and shot-out ones in Manborg, one of those by a character who looks like Billy Idol. 

In The Bothersome Man, there’s a shot of a suicidal guy on a fence with his intestines spilling out. 

Annihilation gave us snake intestines. 

There’s a cat dissection in The Corpse Grinders, and a gratuitous shot of a doctor digging through intestines. 

In Singapore Sling, a character’s intestines leak out during his rainy burial. 

I think there might be intestines in Pieces. I don’t really know. 

Born on the Fourth of July has some. “We wasted them!” 

There are visible intestines in The Baby of Macon, dog intestines in The Bear, and even some intestines in White Boy Rick. 

The award goes to Wolf Guy, however, where Sonny Chiba actually sucks his intestines back into his body following a surgery because that’s just badass. 

Best Decapitation

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is fresh on my mind, but mixed in with the rest of that hyper-stylized mayhem, you barely even notice the decapitations. 

Annihilation and Overkill both have nice decapitation scenes, but the winner is Dave Made a Maze when a lady’s head is lopped off and red yarn flies out all over the other characters. 

Great Movie Quotes, Part 1

I need a little break. Here are some of my favorite quotes from the year. Do you know the movies that feature these quotes? Make a game of it or something! 

"What are you looking at, flopdoodle?"

"A worm crawls out of a plate of spaghetti and says, 'That was some gangbang!'"

"If you're feeling romantic emotions, only touch your penis twice a day."

"When life gives you shit, you make Kool-aid."

"This guy singlehanded ruined the word 'motherfucker.' You know how hard that is to do?"

"I've got to go pet that little guy."

"You're a positive thinker, and I respect you. And I fucking dig you."

"If a society doesn't have color differentiation of pants, it has no purpose!"

"I'm sick of your shit, you Hostess Twinkie motherfucker."

"Hey, I have an idea! I could sneak you in later, and when my dad gets back from the club, we can listen to my mom and dad do it."

"One of these days I'm gonna punch somebody in the balls!"

"Don't interrupt me while I'm interrupting you!"

"Confucius say, hospitals are for pussies."

"So you've experienced the joy and ecstasy of the natural configuration of a man and woman?" 

"You know, you really sizzled my wiener last night. It was a real wiener roast." 

"Did he finger your buds?"

"Two roads emerged in the woods. Do they explode? I don't know."

"There is nothing comic about a pair of panties that resulted in the violent death of one man, & the possible incarceration of another."

"There are some things in this universe, ladies and gentlemen, that are bigger than all of us. And a tortoise is one of them!"

“I was being romantic and then you distract me with your kinky fuckery.”

"Hey, can I stay in your trailer. Me and my orthopedic shoe need a place to fuck."

"I need skirt and spuds before I pound my puds and fill my ortho shoe with the crud from my bunny dud. Nut sacks! Nut sacks!"

"Keep your gigantic monkey dick out of my good pussy!" (better because it's a character's last words)

"I always get an erection when a beautiful woman uses a pair of pliers near my balls."

"To steal from a bank is OK but to pauperize a hippo is another story."

"My balls--they've ceased screaming."

"For a child, I imagine seeing it done doggishly must seem especially animalistic."

"Your penis looks funny." 

Best Stunt

Something Tom Cruise did in that latest Mission: Impossible movie. That guy is ridiculous. God bless him. 

The American Sniper Fake Baby Award

Obviously, this award has been renamed in honor of American Sniper which has the greatest scene featuring a fake baby in cinematic history. The award goes to Goodbye Uncle Tom when a fake baby is smashed against a wall, but that doesn’t really matter. That movie doesn’t even deserve to be mentioned, and I’ve already mentioned it twice in this thing. I just wanted to mention American Sniper again. 

Best House

The house I’d most want to live in? Probably the fancy house in Borgman. 

The most fun house? Probably the house the players shared in Everybody Wants Some!!

The most interesting house? Probably the Winchester house in Winchester. 

But I like my houses big and dilapidated, so the one in Men and Chicken takes this prize. 

Best Tree

There’s an impossible-to-chop-down magical tree in The Magic Christmas Tree, and there’s something so sweet about the characters’ special tree in Sundays and Cybele, but my favorite tree is the one that is tipped over but still growing in The Florida Project. That’s right--I saw The Florida Project this year, so get ready to read more about that one, haters. 

The Attaboy, Luther (Favorite Off-Screen Voice)

I have “Stay in there, Pile Driver” typed in my notes, but I have no idea what movie that comes from. Clearly, I need to take more comprehensive notes. 

I enjoyed the collective rooting on Billy Boy during his time with Jimmie Sue in The Last Picture Show, and Damon Packard’s intentional overuse of “Let’s go get that son of a bitch!” in his Grizzly Redux made me laugh. The winner is The Square, however, with a guy with Tourette’s at an artist interview, interrupting with “Cock!” and “Goddammit!” and “Show us your boobs!” and “Camel toe!” 

Or maybe “Stay in there, Pile Driver.” That’s pretty good. If you have any information about a movie with the line "Stay in there, Pile Driver," please let me know.