2019 Year in Review (Part 3)

Favorite Quotes (Part 2) 

"Making love, as you call it, is only a detail."
"You've been destroying my buttocks since early morning."
"Names is for tombstones, baby. You all take this honky out and waste him."
"We got a swamp full of black Russians driving boats to beat the dam down here!"
"My throat feels like a vulture's crotch."
"Being human is a condition that requires a little anesthesia."
"Get out, you treacherous pissflap!"
"It was with deep regret that I chose to forego the joys of daffodils in Pullayup, but I had other plans."
"Everyone is magic. And no one is."
"Good night, world! You motherfuckers!"
"And I can tear the ass out of a goddamned elephant!"
"My soul felt like a brothel."
"God, first and foremost, is an experimental, independent reality different for each of us. And incommunicable."
"Morning, get up. Go to bed. Go to sleep. That's insanity, right?"
"I'm not a spaghetti man!"
"I don't understand why people like to eat together but hate to defecate together."
"I could buy a lay from anyone just to wash you out of my genitals"
"It's mental group sex to the max!"
"Go ahead--pray. But pray with your eyes open."
"My dad is a dad, but he's also a bird."
"I hope I get hit by a truck full of fuckin' cement."
"I don't trust people who talk about their children. They're perverted."
"A man without a truck isn't a man. You know that."
"Does the tin man have a sheet metal cock?"
"I'm gonna drain the main vein."
"I prefer daydreams to psychology."
"Locks are like pretty girls. You have to practice on them."
"We live among the trees. We live among the stars. We live among the galaxies. We are a part of the universe, and the calcium in my bones was there from the beginning."
"Whoa! Where are we? We're inside a robot's vagina!"
"Oh, wow! The poop is spinning!"
"So somewhere out there, I'm making pancakes? Or at a water park?"
"If you're gonna zoom somewhere, then you're a zoomer."
"I need your observations like I need a dick in my ass."
"I've seen this dog around here before. I think he's lost." (Reply: "Let's pee on his head.")
"Expect the unexpectable."
"Ok. But I want to beat the rat serious." (a euphemism for sex)
"I'm cumming day and night. It's terrific. I'm in heaven."
"That's America's ass."
"Remove this tracheotomy or whatever it's called."
"The pendulum has killed time."
"Good heavens! Are you housing anarchists?"
"It's no use! The only solution is monkey urine."
"Eureka! The flower's weeping!"
"You don't really care for an electric spanking, do you?"
"You can't just bring an erection into my marriage and then disown it--your own flesh and blood."
“In this life, we should trust everyone, except those who have two nostrils.”

Single Worst Thing I Saw in a Movie This Year

Some guy: God!
Bradley Whitford: Zilla


Although “I’m going to get you all the cheeseburgers you want” in that Avengers movie might not be far behind.

Happiest I’ve Ever Been to See a Person Lose a Leg

Of Fathers and Sons

Most Disturbing Scene in a Movie

“It’s snowing” from Benny’s Video

Best Costume

Amber Heard’s dress in Aquaman with its jellyfish collar and a tentacle skirt. Her lovely red hair probably doesn’t hurt either.

I can't find a picture with the rest of the dress. My apologies. 

Best Articles of Clothing

The titular dress in van Warmerdam’s The Dress
Nicolas Cage’s tiger shirt in Mandy



Either the red dress or the green gloves or the combination of the red dress and green gloves that Cyd Charisse wears in The Band Wagon



Nicolas Cage’s alligator (or is it a crocodile) shirt in Between Worlds


You just know he's grabbing these from his own closet. 

A t-shirt with a hole in it in Maria Braun
Pauline’s boob shirt that she puts on in One Sings, the Other Doesn’t

Best Hats

The bowler in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, for like Pavlov’s dog, I started to get aroused every time I saw it


Friend’s beret in Hana-Bi (Fireworks), a thoughtful gift from the main character
Steve Buscemi’s “Keep America White Again” hat in The Dead Don’t Die
Friki’s hat in The Tree of Wooden Clogs, but maybe only combined with his mustache
And the octopus that King Kong wears on his head in King Kong vs. Godzilla

The quality of these screenshots likely explains this blog's popularity. 

Best Teeth

Otik in My Sweet Little Village, but it was a narrow gap between his and one of the thieves in Survive Style 5+.

Best Dance Scene

Lamplighters by an underground fountain with bicycles in Mary Poppins Returns, not quite the chimney sweeps but not too shabby

Shoeshine scene in The Band Wagon, a dance sequence that cracked me up


Harrison Ford and Emmanuelle Seigner in Frantic, he trying desperately to keep up while she’s gyrating in this red dress

Gene Hackman’s striptease in Scarecrow, though thankfully, that character wore a lot of layers

Climactic ballet sequence in An American in Paris, the colors and the choreography and the dancing, a sequence that made that otherwise dull movie worth watching

Anthony Quinn and four shirtless guys dancing at a party in Seven Servants



Jim Cummings dancing to a song that only he can hear in Thunder Road



Jane Birkin’s attempts to belly dance, “Hopeless,” because she’s “as sexy as a locust to them.”

That jazzy, surreal interpretive bird dance at sunset when the music stops but the character doesn’t in Burning



Allen Ginsberg busting a move in Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story

The winner has to be Mary Poppins Returns for a scene where Dick Van Dyke jumps on a desk and starts dancing like he’s not a 90-year-old man. It was exhilarating, a scene that made me yelp in the theater.


Best Score

Hiroshima Mon Amour, Georges Delerue and Giovanni Fusco
The Thin Blue Line, Philip Glass doing his normal Philip Glass thing
Mandy, Johann Johannsson
If Beale Street Could Talk, Nicholas Britell
The Ghost Writer, Alexandre Dusplait
The American Friend, Jurgen Knieper
3 Women, Gerald Busby
Midsommar, The Haxan Cloak
Under the Silver Lake, goofball noir with a Hitchcock vibe by Disasterpeace, a word that I really hated typing
Teorema, Morricone
Apocalypse Now, Coppola’s dad
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, Morricone again

The winner is a 2019 movie though. It’s Emile Mosseri’s lovely and eclectic score for The Last Black Man in San Francisco.


Best Potential Band Names I Heard in Movies This Year

Plague Goat
Cheddar Goblin
Gnarly Psychos
Ear Nostril
Buford Pusser’s Woody
Goat Ambiance
The Archbishop of Shitting
The Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus
Interstellar Perversion
Spaghettification
Shaman of Sperm
Rotunda Lust
Smegma Trumpet
Haunting Peacock Soliloquy
Tuning Fork of Annihilation
Flaming Orangutan Chandelier
Robot Funeral
Aquatic Rape
Sphere of Influence

Best Musical Moments of the Year

The series of angry events in The Dress that end up with a calliope thing being thrown into a river, the most Roy Anderssonian scene I saw in a movie this year even though I actually saw a Roy Andersson movie

When the church bells work their way into the score in L’Atalante

Shirley Maclaine singing “After You’ve Gone” in a club in Some Came Running

Mandy, the titular character in Mandy, laughing at Jeremiah’s song (better than the Carpenters) which leads to what I believe might have been angry masturbation

Aylmer’s Tune from the sink in Brain Damage

A kid in Time of the Gypsies playing his accordion and squawking at his turkey

Dixieland funeral band in Live and Let Die, once with a stabbed guy sucked into a casket (I did see this exact location during my trip to New Orleans, by the way.)

Roxy Music’s “Virginia Plains” scene in Cold Water, siblings fighting over a radio

Oscar Levant going absolutely crazy in An American in Paris during a cool dream sequence

Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams with a ukulele rendition of “You Always Hurt the One You Love” while she tap-dances in Blue Valentine

Minneli belting out “World Goes Round” in New York, New York

Way too many to mention from The Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story

A moment in The Dead Don’t Die when Adam Driver points out how the title track of a movie his character is in is playing on the radio

Keaton’s “It Had to Be You” with cacophonous accompaniment in Annie Hall, her first song

Street musicians with a mandolin and guitar rocking a Vivaldi number in Kramer vs. Kramer

“Yesterday” in Yesterday

Elizabeth Moss playing a song for her daughter in Her Smell, heartbreaking

Dueling zithers in Shadow, one of the most erotic moments I saw in a movie all year

Beach numbers at the end of Nightingale or an act of defiance in a bar

Adam Driver’s song in Marriage Story

“Amazing Grace” in Amazing Grace, one that brought tears

“Mother Country” by John Stewart in Apollo 11

If I had to pick a winner, it’s the Songwriter’s medley on piano in Under the Silver Lake. So, so good.


Worst Musical Moments

The Ed Sheeran and main character in Yesterday song-off, a scene that could have singlehandedly ruined the movie if the movie
Dennis Hopper, each time he does something with a saxophone in Backtrack--trying to hurl it through a window, popping into the shot to play it on a boat during the end credits


Travolta’s “Great Ball of Fire” in The Fanatic

Best Use of a Song

This is a tie between Mandy’s use of King Crimson’s “Starless and the Bible Black” and Cold Water’s use of Nico’s “Janitor of Lunacy” in a post-party sequence while a guy eats ravioli from a can and kids take dumps in the backyard.

Worst Theme Song

Snake Eater, a song that details the plot a little and calls the titular character a survivor


Most Surprising Theme Song

The Milpitas Monster

Worst Song

That travesty that Johnny Mathis sings at the end of Walking Tall


Worst Use of a Song

“Leader of the Pack” at the end of Between Worlds is a perplexing bit of lunacy. But how can that possibly compete with the panpipes version of Seal’s “Kiss from a Rose” in Who Killed Captain Alex?

Best Use of Music

The Tree of Wooden Clogs, symbolically, always just out of reach of the characters

Best Musical Extra

Vibes/xylophone player who takes advantage of his limited screen time in Bob le Flambeur, and he could probably be in the running for this next award

Most Disappointing Limited Time with a Musician

The fire keytar guy from Hair! One shot? That’s it?

Best Sound Effect

A horrifying thud in a decrepit restroom in George Washington
Autopsy sound effects in Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, something that had to be a blast for the sound effects guy
A squeaky wheel in Meek’s Cutoff, a constant companion

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