Zombie 2 shows a woman’s face being pulled into a splinter of wood, and Brightburn has a difficult-to-watch scene where a woman has to pull a sliver of a fluorescent bulb from her eyeball. But the winner is John Wick 3 with a slow-motion knife jab into an eye.
Best Gorilla Suit
Close, The Battle Wizard. Close! But The Pink Panther has a wild car chase featuring two men in gorilla costumes, so that’s got to win. Two gorilla suits are always better than one. I think they teach you that in film school.
Honorable mention: In the Soup with that scene mentioned earlier with a little clown and a person in a gorilla suit.
Best Action Sequence
Mandy’s chainsaw fight between Nicolas Cage and a cult guy
Mandy’s battle between Cage and a demon with a penis knife (!) while porn plays in the background
A train collision sequence in Fritz Lang’s Spies
A stabbing in a taxi cab, one of the few good parts of I Saw the Devil
A Harryhausen-crafted fight between a troglodyte and a tiger in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger
A shoot-out in a wedding dress shop in the surprisingly good Cold Pursuit
The climactic fight in The Battle Wizard, one that includes a guy getting clawed right in the ol’ crotch
Tilda Swinton swinging a samurai sword in The Dead Don’t Die
Zombie vs. shark in Zombie 2, a scene that follows nearly-nude scuba diving that is pretty hard to argue with
The exquisite sloppiness of the first murders in Vengeance Is Mine
Duvall’s scenes in Apocalypse Now, taking the good surfing spot from Charlie
A shoot-out that leaves an apartment riddled with bullets in Le Jour Se Leve
People scooting down the street in metallic umbrellas in Shadow
This is one of those examples where I knew the winner as soon as I saw it though. That winner is the fight sequence in the knife museum in John Wick 3. I know it’s the scene that made me the giddiest I’ve been while watching a movie this year.
Best Chase Sequence
Daniel Day-Lewis chasing Juliette Binoche through an old folks home in The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a dark-horse nominee here, but this one also goes to John Wick 3, not for the motorcycle/sword shenanigans that were an homage to The Villainess anyway but the scene with the horse. A horse!
Scene from The Villainess. Look familiar, Wick fans?
Best Vehicle
Despite getting to see the Millennium Falcon one last time (maybe) and watching a Herbie movie, not even that ship can compete with the motorcycle with the cow skull on the front of it in Touki Bouki or the time machine in Ivan Vasilievich: Back to the Future.
The winner? The car in In the Land of the Owl Turds! Check it out!
Best Decapitation
Silence has a really good one.
There are lots in The Dead Don’t Die. You have to kill the head, ya know.
Bachelor Mother has a decapitated duck toy because Niven winds it too much.
I Saw the Devil has a cruel denouement that may or may not feature decapitation. I wouldn’t want to say for sure because I don’t want to spoil anything.
The winner goes to Pilgrim even though I don’t really want that movie to win any awards at all. But when a woman beats a pilgrim woman with her husband’s severed head, it’s something worth mentioning. And yes, that’s a spoiler, but you don’t want to see that movie anyway.
Best Severed Body Part
I Lost My Body has to win this one though. I love the way that hand is animated!
Best Death Scene
(Note: Spoilery stuff here. It won't hurt my feelings if you skip this one.)
Slim’s death in Snake Eater is one of those that has to be seen to be believed. But it’s not one that you’ll understand after you’ve seen.
There are two beautiful death sequences in Ashes and Diamonds, one at the very end of the movie that I can’t give away and another one that features fireworks.
There’s death-by-bad-rock-music in High Anxiety.
There’s a great death scene in The Marriage of Maria Braun that I can’t talk about because it would spoil things.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood isn’t without its problems, but it’s impossible not to love a flame-throwerific scene in that movie.
How about a woman’s spaghettification in High Life?
Midsommer has a few great death sequences. Again, this is one I can’t give away because it would spoil things.
There’s a great death scene in Nic Cage’s Between Worlds, one complete with very special special effects and a jack-in-the-box.
The winner is courtesy of my favorite director, Aki Kaurismaki. I don’t think it’s a complete spoiler (since it’s pictured on the poster) to mention that a guy dies when he gets a jukebox to the head in Hamlet Goes Business.
Most Depressing Use of Special Effects
No competition here--it’s Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die. They just don’t belong!
Best Special Effects
Who Wants to Kill Jessie? I don’t know if it’s the talking bubbles or the helicopter flying backwards while shooting specifically, so don’t ask me.
Best Training Montage
This one belongs to Who Killed Captain Alex?, another interrogative title with the word “killed” in it. This montage includes Bruce U., the Ugandan Bruce Lee.
The American Sniper Fake Baby Award
3 Women
No picture available.
Best Scene Involving People Acting Like Animals
There’s a dad hypnotized to think he’s a bird in Survive Style 5+.
Jane Birkin, Varda’s son, and Birkin’s youngest daughter imitate birds while sitting on a porch in Kung Fu Master!.
“Junior” in Snake Eater acts like a bear and growls with the rest of his hillbilly kinfolk.
Matthew McConaughey has a grand old time in The Beach Bum, getting a chance to act like both a dog and a dolphin at various points.
Arthur Bisbane acts like a puppy in High Anxiety, humping Mel Brooks’ leg and barking a lot.
There are a lot of barking women in Under the Silver Lake.
Jimmy Stewart bird-calls in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
In the Land of the Owl Turds contains a scene where the protagonist imitates a chicken.
Yeelen has a guy with a silly laugh pretending to be a hyena while perched in a tree.
Buster Keaton imitates a parrot in a short that I saw this year.
But I’m giving this award to Alex van Warmerdam for his work in The Last Days of Emma Blank. He plays a dog in the movie and is totally committed to the performance, humping legs and defecating outside.
Alex van Warmerdan, not as a dog
November has both a plague goat and a pig, but it’s kind of like when you’ve got two Cy Young or MVP candidates on the same baseball team and they kind of cancel each other out.
Same goes for the pigs--one old, one young--in The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I do think the old one does the better acting, however.
In Time of the Gypsies, there’s a turkey that gives an incredible performance. And it gets a sex scene, so that’s a definitely bonus.
The main goat in Le Quattro Volte? That’s solid work, but how about the dog in that same movie that manages to hit all its marks in this incredible 8-minute shot?
There’s a stinkin’ cute Jack Russell terrier with a good amount of personality in Beginners.
Charlie the cat from The Beach Bum deserves a mention, I suppose, though he’s really more of a prop.
The White Meadows has a monkey (Man with 10,000 Faces).
Irma the Cat does good work in Dinner with Adele.
There’s Sam Elliott’s dog, Ralph the dog, in The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot.
That horse in The Black Stallion! Man alive! So good! IMDb tells me it was a horse named Cass-Ole.
And Long Day’s Journey into Night has an amazing performance from a mule.
I’m giving this award to Cass-Ole, but it’s just because I know the animal’s name. I’m too lazy to look up the other ones. If you have a problem with that, talk to the committee.
Best Animal Moment
A vulture on a bed in van Warmerdam’s The Northerners, horses inevitably devouring a character at the end of Asphalt Jungle, Truffaut trying (unsuccessfully) to direct a cat in Day for Night, an ostrich head poke in Paddleton, a panting dog that Melville keeps cutting to in Bob le Flambeur during a scene where a dude is practicing with a lock, ubiquitous goat chaos in Le Quattro Volte, a friendship between a chicken and a hog developing in The Biggest Little Farm, Neil Breen hanging out with an eagle, Sam Elliott having a conversation with an owl, a fish narrating Maelstrom, Peter Lorre with raven arms yelling at Vincent Price for not wizarding correctly, John Wick 3 again with a dog action sequence?
Lots of good candidates, but I’m going with one that made me laugh out loud--a dead dog scene in Walking Tall where Buford Pusser brings it into his house so that his kids can see it and freak out.
Here's a picture of Peter Lorre and Vincent Price anyway. This is my blog, and I can do whatever I want.
Worst Animal Moment
Well, Bunuel had a donkey killed with bees and a goat killed by being shoved own a mountain in Land without Bread, and that’s not very nice. In The Tree of Wooden Clogs, there’s goose decapitation that is hard enough to watch, but some horrifying pig screams before its slaughter are not easy to forget. And that punk Osama kid slaughtering a bird in Of Fathers and Sons wasn’t fun to watch either.
The winner will be the killing of a pig in Benny’s Video, however, because Haneke made sure I got to see that about 40 times throughout the movie. Thanks, Haneke.
Best Use of Chickens (The Herzog)
Though I liked the chickens in Bunuel’s The Young and the Damned a lot, Angel Heart gets this because of the protagonist’s fear of the fowl.
Most Oppressive Use of Birds
In Teorema, birds are omnipresent, and there’s an oppressive raven (or crow) ensemble cast in Opera. But once you hear the Lorre-voiced raven in The Raven--during the moments in the movie that are kind of like the poem its adapted from--you probably would have trouble imagining a more oppressive bird.
Use your imagination and imagine this raven with Peter Lorre's voice
Harryhausen’s troglodyte in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger
The titular creature in the cheapo Milpitas Monster
Svankmajer’s “Audrey II” in Dinner with Adele, mostly because the thing has a freakin’ tongue
The winner is Kratt in all its various forms in November, but it’s probably only because of the bonus points I awarded it because it’s a monster that farts. Congratulations, you flatulent beast!
The Lew Zealand (Best Puppet)
As a fan of ventriloquist dummies (but not really ventriloquism), I really enjoyed Vincent in Toy Story 4, but I thought Jules’ conductor puppet in L’Atalante was wonderful and not a CGI creation. The winner, however, is Charlie McCarthy in You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man. He rides a pony, ends up inside an alligator, wears blackface. What else could you want from a puppet?
Best Movie Scene Involving a Penis
Yes, I did see The Crying Game this year, a movie that this award could probably be named after. However, there’s also the climax of A Nos Amours (probably), and Miss Scorpion’s erection at the sudden wind-aided glimpse of Yoko’s white panties in Love Exposure. And yeah, you read that right.
The winner is from Mandy though--a biker demon’s knife penis is just too hard (no pun intended) to compete with.
Best Bulge
Terence Stamp’s in Teorema! This one excited me enough to use an exclamation point!
Best 3-D [Censored] [Censored] from the Perspective of [Censored]
Love was the only movie that provided this delight. Thanks, Gaspar Noe.
Best Masturbation Scene
As always, there’s fierce competition for this award.
Love Exposure, Yoko with a lot of writhing in bed
Dr. Caligari, a nympho wife pleasuring herself in front of a static-filled TV screen with a lurking guy in a mask
Y Tu Mama Tambien, two characters on a diving board
Pain & Gain, Adrian Doorbal trying to masturbate to a pornographic film despite suffering from Defeated Phallus Syndrome
I Saw the Devil, a first suspect going at it in front of a computer when the good guy walks in, pointless like the rest of the movie
The Nine Lives of Tomas Katz, security guys interrupting a masturbating man
Burning, a guy enjoying a tower a little too much
The Silence, Ester’s work. Swedish!
Under the Silver Lake, Andrew Garfield going to town to several magazines and a backwards record
Memories of Murder, a suspect masturbating at the scene of a crime to lady’s undergarments while he’s wearing a pair of red panties
The Lighthouse, Pattinson using a mermaid figurine as inspiration
Rebels of the Neon God, a guy pleasuring himself while listening to moaning sounds from an adjacent apartment
This one is a tie. First, you’ve got a scene that has to win because it’s become an immature inside joke with a co-worker of mine. Seth Rogen, come claim your Best Masturbation Scene prize for your work in Long Shot. Hitting your face with your ejaculate might not have been enough, but that “Oh, boy!” really sealed the deal.
Oh boy!
Best Phallic Symbol
Sometimes, as Freud said, a lighthouse is only a lighthouse. In The Lighthouse, the lighthouse is clearly a penis in what turned out to be the horniest movie I saw all year.
Best Belly Dancing Sequence
Flip a coin on this one, ladies and gentlemen! The China Syndrome? “Get in tight on the navel!” From Russia with Love? When there's belly dancing, we all win!
Best Sex Scene
Loads of really great ones this year! These are among my favorites:
The Last of England, a guy humps a painting
Time of the Gypsies, turkeys going at it
Jeanne Dielman, her first orgasm (that’s probably a spoiler)
Seven Servants, an ending with all seven servants and a revelation about why Anthony Quinn was inspired to do this movie in the first place
Mother, random words uttered slowly while a couple make love (“spaghetti,” “armadillo”) while the titular character looks on from a closet
Midsommar, a group orgasm while an old lady pushes on the guy’s posterior to aid in the thrusting
Under the Silver Lake, doggy style (naturally) with a news report of a missing billionaire playing in the background
Any other year, that scene from Midsommar would win this easily, but I didn’t see Nicholas Cage in Between Worlds in any other year. I saw him in this year. And in this movie, he has a few sex scenes including one where he asks a woman to say “Fuck me” like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. But the winner is the one where his character is having intercourse while reading a book of poetry called “Memories” by. . .you guessed it. Nicolas Cage! I mean. . .
Best Golden Shower
Also Nicolas Cage in Between Worlds. To be completely honest, it’s not a golden shower. He’s playing with a hose while washing a motorcycle. However, he does scream “Golden shower!” at one point, so I’m counting it.
Missing Sex Scenes
Honeymoon sex in The Tree of Wooden Clogs. But you sure spent a lot of time on that boat, didn’t you, Olmi?
Also, either of the threesomes that Clint Eastwood’s character has in The Mule. Yes, you read that correctly. Either of the threesomes. I haven’t seen Richard Jewell yet, but I’m assuming he gives himself a part as an extra just so he can have a random sex scene in that, too. Hopefully, it’s not with Richard Jewell.
And, of course, we found out that Palpatine has sex but didn’t get to see it.
Palpatine's "O" Face
Love, A Nos Amours, or In the Realm of the Senses. At least two of those made my wife suspicious in my movie choices. I’m not sure which movie has the most sex scenes. I’d have to watch them again and tally.
And speaking of my lovely and talented wife. . .
Things That Would Really Annoy My Wife If She Actually Read My Blog
Calling Michel Simon’s character in L’Atalante a “sexy beast” because of his “I’ll show you my puppet” line
The enjoyment of Maggie Cheung’s form-fitting dresses in In the Mood for Love
Leering at Olga Schoberova (Jessie in Who Wants to Kill Jessie?) like I was a comic book villain
Typing the words “That’s right, naked muscle guy in the shower--I’m looking at you,” knowing what it could mean, and leaving it in there anyway
Admitting that I may have wanted to “pflug” Jo Ann Pflug from The Night Strangler
Typing that I deserve a hand-job from her for coining the term “pop-doc”
Typing that I fell in love with Rosamund Pike because of a dress she was wearing in Barney’s Version
My regrets that I didn’t become aroused during a Pumping Iron shower scene and blaming the photographer for it
How much I enjoyed seeing Michael B. Jordan without a shirt
Enjoying Schygulla’s legs in Maria Braun
Revealing how when I dream about Matthew McConaughey, he’s almost always naked
Calling Mickey Rooney pantomiming the riding of a horse the “sexiest thing I’ve ever seen”
How thrilled I was to see Pitt take off his shirt after a roof climb in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
How Jimmy Stewart’s fingers in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington might have given me an erection
How much I enjoyed imagining Jimmy Stewart and Marlene Dietrich having sex
Yet another admittance that I have a nun fetish
How I’d have sex with Dopey or Esmeralda in a “Sex with a Disney Character” part of the theme park if that sort of thing exists
My Costanza-esque reasons for wanting to watch My Cousin Vinny
That I might also have a trapeze fetish
The desire to rewatch a scene in Summer with Monika in order to check out the part with nudity again
The excitement I had after she gave me permission to sleep with Cher if that opportunity ever arises (Note: She does know about this one.)
How a Chinese woman saying “Your zither needs tuning” gave me an erection”
That I want Morricone to compose the score for the next time I have sex, assuming it ever happens again
For the ladies! And me!
The gal in Wings of Desire--yes, it’s only her back, but it’s really something.
Two naked guys on stilts around a roulette wheel in Jane B. for Agnes V.
The girl who plays peek-a-boo with her buttocks from behind a tree in The Northerners
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