"I'm gonna rip your eyelids off and paste them on your asshole, alright?"
"Ah! A distressing odor. I seem to feel my bowel moving."
"I say there is no arse wiper like a well-downed goose. Take my word for it."
"My penis betrayed me."
"What a nostril--a dramatic nostril."
"There's nothing I hate more than happy morons."
"Woe, woe, the wooden horse is forgotten."
"What a world. It could be so wonderful it wasn't for certain people."
"Whitefella way is shit way."
"If I had a steak, I would fuck it."
"But as for me, I'm living between the buildings with the ghosts."
"But I love life, imbecile!"
"Falling asleep while defecating, I don't care."
"I'd say that the whole world consists of a whole bunch of bastards. You hear that, bastards?"
"I want to make movies out of blood, sperm, and tears." (Followed by “Hahaha. That’s so sweet.”)
"Shall we make those pants dance?"
"You best get to shucking!"
"Did we just murder. . .as a family?"
"Will you please check my head for signs of spoiling?"
"It's about time people learned about their failures and my successes."
"I've never been able to relieve myself in the presence of another."
"You don't know how fast time goes by until you get there."
"Oh, great. I'm inside a guy who likes game shows."
"First one feather goes...and then another. In the end, you're just a plucked chicken in the dung."
"I've never seen a guy get picked up by his testicles before."
"It's living in the past that is scary, not mudslides."
"It's hard to get born, and it's hard to die."
"I don't know why you're outside my house like some deaf mute pervert."
"The brighter the light, the clearer you see the scum."
"The napkin is the only thing that separates man from the carnivorous animals."
The E.T. (Best Product Placement)
Burger King in The Thin Blue Line
Sun-Maid raisins (also Budweiser) in Stars and Bars
Marlboro and Pizza Hut in Frantic
Starbucks in Velvet Buzzsaw
Chick-fil-A fries and Digiorno pizza (the latter with a shot of a line of drool rolling down a baby’s stomach) in Hale County This Morning, This Evening
Pepsi in the climactic Live-Aid scene in Bohemian Rhapsody
Whitman’s Candy, The Night Stalker (used as a bribe)
Marlboro in Ivan Vasilievich: Back to the Future
Fruit Roll-Ups in Rabbit Hole
Mounds in Rolling Thunder
Snickers, Snapple, Mountain Dew and likely others in The Dead Don’t Die
Tab (my favorite!) in Kramer vs. Kramer
Wrigley gum in Hair
Yoohoo in Happy Death Day 2U
McDonalds in Benny’s Video
Oreos, Doritos, and especially Avis (the rental car for people who have had acid dumped on your own car by a scorned mistress) in Fatal Attraction
Vis a Vis markers in The Fanatic
Bengay in The Mule
Home Depot in Pain & Gain, because that’s where dumb characters need to go to get items needed to dispose of bodies. And you can return your saw there! This movie also has a brief commercial for something called a Taco Supreme from Taco Bell.
Corn Flakes, Campbells, and KFC in Scarecrow
But the winner? Hostess Sno-Balls in Backtrack!
Best Fake Product Placement
I don’t believe “Liquid Python” from Happy Death Day 2U is real, but it doesn’t matter because it can’t compete with Cheddar Goblin, seen in a commercial in Mandy. Cheddar Goblin!
Best Scene Involving Cannibalism
Dr. Caligari, a guy who is also addicted to shock therapy
There’s also some cannibalistic references in Pilgrim. But man, I didn’t see nearly enough movies with cannibalism in 2019!
Best Dream Sequence
There’s severed heads, bleating, and a sheep bursting through a fridge in one in Dr. Caligari.
There’s a husband’s dream sequence in Who Wants to Kill Jessie? involving magic anti-gravity gloves, the fetching Jessie in various bondage poses, and the wacky superhero and cowboy villains.
There’s another one in Jessie with a cow’s dream of gadflies that might be even better.
Mandy has a Bakshi-inspired animated dream sequence, but I didn’t love that one.
The kid in Time of the Gypsies has a very strange sex dream.
3 Women has what you might call a dream sequence within a dream. Inception-esque?
Matthew McConaughey’s in Serenity, but that’s only because he, like me, dreams of himself naked.
Under the Silver Lake has that scene I mentioned in this earlier with the intestines. I’m not totally sure what is a dream and what’s real in that movie though.
The Lighthouse has a dream sequence with mermaids, always a plus.
Herbie Rides Again shows the villain’s nightmare with a bunch of fanged Herbies. Terrifying!
And there’s a great butterfly montage in The Duke of Burgundy that looks like something from a Svankmajer short. I loved that.
The winner is so easy though--the last hour of Long Day’s Journey into Night, an unbroken shot that is the dream of a person sleeping in a pornographic theater. Man alive!
Best Devil
Though the trio of biker demons in Mandy are cool, this has to go to Jaan Tooming in November, an ornery little devil lurking around in those black and white woods.
Best Movie Prayer
“Jesus, I approve of you as the only cool man besides Kurt Cobain.” (Love Exposure)
That’s good, but Elizabeth Moss’s prayer to the goddess amidst all this insanity in Her Smell wins.
The Shammalammadingdong (Goofiest Movie Twist)
This has to go to the end of Zolar. I can say no more, for I would not want to spoil anything.
Best Tree
Meek’s Cutoff has nice tree, but the tree in Le Quattro Volte--one that is hoisted and climbed, etc.--is more vital to that story.
Best Use of Doors
Where Is My Friend’s House?
Most Egregious Thing I Saw in Any Movie This Year
“You like a little Bizkit?” a dad asks his son in Fred Durst’s travesty, The Fanatic
Random Favorite Moments or Scenes I Really Enjoyed from Movies This Year
A still of hippies kissing used twice (twice!) in Herbie Rides Again
Pompeii excavation scene in Journey to Italy
Sharon Tate watching herself on the big screen in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
A cult member amusing himself with an automatic window in Mandy
Daniel Day-Lewis having a staring contest with a cactus in The Unbearable Lightness of Being
A perfectly-timed skirt flip in The Last Days of Emma Blank
A Kyle MacLachlan snot rocket in High Flying Bird
Some bad acting with a cab driver in Touki Bouki reacting to a skull
Valentina Cortese in Day for Night trying to get through a scene while soused
An old lady’s “thank you” at the beach in Shoplifters
Ryan Gosling unpacking an old man’s things in Blue Valentine
A local in Restrepo trying to get a straw into a Capri Sun during a meeting with soldiers
One of Breen’s characters screaming “I never had a beard!” in Twisted Pair
A cabinet opening in Vengeance Is Mine to reveal another victim
Agata Trzebuchowska taking off her nun hat (I know--that probably has a name) in Ida
Sherly Lee laughing at an angel in Fire Walk with Me
John Travolta smelling his finger after touching his ear and Hunter’s ear in The Fanatic
Those oranges in Shoplifters
A camera sweeping over a roof to a little window with the titular baby in Little Tony making the perfect expression while sitting amongst some birds
Colored hands hanging on a wall in front of a tiny chair in Thunder Road
A silhouette searching the Atacama Desert for human remains while a lone star looks on from above in Nostalgia for the Light
So many in Apocalypse Now, the sun stealing the movie in nearly every shot its in
Jean running away from the camera on a beach in L’Atalante
A sister’s descent into the waters in Sansho the Bailiff
Nearly every shot in In the Mood for Love, but if I’m forced to pick one--a shot of a reddish hallway with a plant in the foreground
A shimmering tea room in Hiroshima Mon Amour
A first shot of Marilyn Monroe (her first screen appearance actually) in The Asphalt Jungle
A shot of the eyes of a suicidal lady’s eyes in Berlin, Symphony of a Metropolis
Carnival lights as a backdrop to a chase sequence in Minneli’s Some Came Running
Those impaled guys on a beach in On the Silver Globe
Fireworks perfectly punctuating a death sequence in Ashes and Diamonds
Swirling around Fonny’s artwork in Beale Street, and all that smoke
Cold Water--a kid emerges from woods after reciting Ginsberg, hops on a bike, gets absorbed by the fog
This miraculously impossible rolling apple the camera follows for a really long time in Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
The ringing bells at the end of Certified Copy, at least once that guy gets his head out of the way
A mother and son in a bed together slowly fading into the body of a murder victim in Mother
De Niro watching dancers illuminated by lights of a train in New York, New York
A fading shadow during a sex scene in Burning
Suzanne on the front of that boat while Klaus Nomi sings in A Nos Amours
A shot following Ogata down an alley when he abruptly turns around and looks directly at the audience in Vengeance Is Mine
Pretty much any shot at all from Homo Sapiens, a movie that might not have the best shot but has the most best shots
Grandma waving goodbye from the perspective of a car pulling away in The Farewell
A maddening swirling shot in Opera from the perspective of a raven, one of those seemingly impossible shots
A creepy figure behind frosted textured glass in Joon-Ho’s segment in Tokyo!
Best Opening
There might be recency bias, but I really liked an opening shot in Dust in the Wind, a simple one of a train coming out of a tunnel. It’s lovely and sets up a central metaphor.
This is not the opening shot. It's a little after the opening shot.
Best Intertitle Card
“Well, goodbye, I’m dyin’” or “He liked pears,” both in Earth
Best Closing Shot
Most of these are probably spoilers. If you haven’t seen the movie, don’t read about the closing shot. It’s not like any of you have gotten this far anyway.
The Asphalt Jungle: Horses getting ready to devour a character
The Thin Blue Line: A tape recorder, the audio sharing the haunting words of a probable killer
Mandy: The otherworldly psychedelic landscape featuring multiple planets
Hana-Bi (Fireworks): A shot of a girl with a kite during the indeterminate ending
Ashes and Diamonds: A poor guy dying on a heap of trash
Jeanne Dielman: A character just sitting at a table
Spies: A clown shooting himself in the head and getting a round of applause
Another Year: A shot of Mary
My Sweet Little Village: A shot of the two co-workers walking (and hopping) in sync
Land without Bread: An abrupt “After two months in this country, we leave” followed by FIN
Goodbye, Mr. Chips: A creepy superimposed kid starting straight into my soul
The Big City: light bulbs--one working, the other not
Long Day’s Journey into Night: A miraculous sparkler, a symbol of transience, concluding an uninterrupted hour-long shot
I’m picking Jeanne Dielman as the winner, but you should be aware that I didn’t put any thought into it at all.
Most Distracting Aspect of Any Movie I Saw This Year
The imprisoned guy (Randall Dale Adams) in The Thin Blue Line has a very similar speaking cadence to Nicolas Cage. I couldn’t un-hear it.
Best Poster
Worst Posters
Innerspace has a bunch of awful posters. This one is my favorite:
Best Narration
Only one movie had a “Video Joker,” and that was Who Killed Captain Alex? A bonus for the added fart sounds.
Best Wilhelm Scream
Welcome to Marwen
Worst Allusion That Doesn’t Have Anything to Do With Fred Durst or Limp Bizkit
Welcome to Marwen, a bit where Zemeckis references to his own Back to the Future
Worst Cut
Dennis Hopper’s character in Backtrack appears to leap from a rooftop and land right in front of Jodie Foster’s dresser. That’s something, but it didn’t make me laugh as much as Eastwood’s cuts when his character gets to an engagement party in The Mule.
Clint Eastwood needs to retire, by the way.
The “Whoops! I Forgot the Title Screen” Award
I’d have to do a little more research than I’m willing to put into this. I know that Noe’s Climax starts with what appears to be closing credits, and I think the title screen shows up about halfway through the movie. Long Day’s Journey into Night’s title screen appears an hour and eleven minutes into the movie, right before the shot that is winning the next award.
Which you'll have to wait for in Part 6. That's right, motherfuckers--a cliffhanger.
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