Best Food Moment
The Two Popes--watching Hopkins attack a piece of pizza
Tampopo--the egg yolk scene (though that should probably go in the “sex scene” category)
Driller Killer--Abel Verrera can also tear through a pizza
The winner: The pizza voters were divided, and Tampopo comes away with this one.
My New Go-To Thanksgiving Movie
Krisha
Best First Appearance in a Movie
Here’s Claudia Cardinale again--The Leopard. And the men in the movie would agree with me. It’s a lovely moment broken by a froggy “Dinner is served” from a servant.
Best Editing
The House Is Black--a scene where quick cuts to leprous faces match the rhythm of a wheelbarrow’s squeaky wheel
Best Monologue
Neil Breen, Pass Thru--a fiery speech from a news station desk
Best Openings
Jojo Rabbit--connecting Beatlemania to Hitlermania very effectively
Coonskin--Scatman Crothers doing his thing in profile
Best Ending
A desert swallowing a family whole in Barren Lives
A goodbye from a train in Summertime
Donald Sutherland becoming a meme in Invasion of the Body Snatchers
A meta scene with characters walking in the background of a shot in Pastoral: To Die in the Country
Vacation photos in The Return
Thick Eggnog in Intimate Lighting
Best Extended Shots
1917--one of my favorite movies from 2019, so something from that (probably the climactic scene I mentioned earlier) has to be mentioned here, right?
Tout Va Bien--a supermarket sequence
The Passenger--the famous final scene
Best Scene Featuring an Umbrella
A tie!
Anna in Capricious Summer, turning to look at the camera while holding an umbrella
A lady with a missing dog waiting under and umbrella in the Outback in Where the Green Ants Dream
Favorite Shots or Movie Moments of the Year
Denis Lavant walking down a street (and jerking, contorting, etc.) while Bowie’s “Modern Love” plays in Mauvais Sang
A welding scene in I Fidanzati, a rain of sparks around a skeleton of a building at night
The church and its parishioners in the background while the March sisters march food to a struggling family in Little Women
Floating veil in Vera Chytilova’s short in Pearls of the Deep--lightning flashes, lovely and haunting
A husband in The Naked Island looking at a grieving wife and then ignoring her to get back to work
A shot of a girl unspooling a roll of film by rolling it on the ground like it’s a hula hoop in The Image Book
Women changing behind a screen in The Gold Diggers of 1933
A shot of a female janitor trying out a balance beam in Something Different while other female janitors watch her work
A briefcase thrown into a tree in Mistress America
A woman’s face highlighted by light after she’s had smoke blown in her face in Il Sorpasso
Grace Kelly in that beach get-up in To Catch a Thief
In the titular donkey skin, Catherine Deneuve prancing through the woods and later a village with frozen people in Donkey Skin
The winner is a really easy choice this year: “Slow-mo artist taunting some goats with a knife--at one point, he and all the goats look directly into the camera and it’s magical.” That’s a note I have written down for this, but I don’t have any idea what I’m talking about or what movie this might come from. It sounds great though, so it wins. If you have any information about this, let me know.
Movie Scene I Thought About the Most This Year
Adam Sandler, after digging through a fish in Uncut Gems, looking straight at the camera and announcing, “Holy shit, I’m gonna cum.”
Best Silent Movie Title Card
“An American boy is in love with an American girl--Let’s go!”
Best Lighting
Cemetery of Splendour--those oxygen tubes that glow and change colors are so cool
Best Poster
Best Animal Moment
Pruvost riding a horse (and fulfilling a dream) in Li’l Quinquin--this one has a punchline!
Barren Lives--Mom kills a parrot
Invasion of the Body Snatchers--a dog with Harry’s face
Lucien Lacombe karate chopping the head off a chicken and walks away before a little girl scrambles over to pick it up in Lacombe, Lucien
A cow shot and eaten in Monos
The acrobatic chickens--in an act with a clown--in Honey Boy (they’re even credited)
Best Scene with a Person Acting Like an Animal
Forest Walrus guy--The Magic Flute
The Bart the Bear Award for Best Performance by an Animal
Beleia--Barren Lives
Jack--What did Jack Do? (disqualified because it’s aided by CGI)
Turkey on a streetcar--Hot Water
Lucy--Wendy and Lucy
Chimp with bells--Arabian Nights
Singing parrot--Donkey Skin
Donkey that shits jewels--Donkey Skin
Dog--The Strange Little Cat
Cat--The Strange Little Cat
Moth--The Strange Little Cat
Bird--The Strange Little Cat
A whole lot of animals in Roar
Rainbow the dog--Fury
Tanga the chimp--Phenomena
The winner: Vlad the tiger from Neil Breen’s Pass Thru. He outshines every human actor in the movie, and any living thing that can have a staring contest with Neil Breen without giggling has to be talented. Congratulations, Vlad.
Best Monster
That monkey man in Neon Maniacs was really working it. Sharkenstein was goofy in the water and then somehow even goofier on land. Wait, what? On land?
The winner: The bunch of melded alpacas in Color Out of Space
Best Pleasant Surprise
Roy Andersson’s Giliap
1 comment:
That scene you described from the newest interpretation of Little Women is in the 1994 version as well. The idea that these girls are sacrificing and giving while they townspeople ironically just gather themselves in a church must’ve been an important moment in the book. Especially for two directors decades apart to have it as scenes in their movies.
...and still no “The Ice Storm”
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