I don't really get comments, so blame yourselves if you don't think any of these are worth reading.
Cory: “I am not going to say that what you do with your blog always makes sense to me or has great value.”
Josh: “I mean, I know Andy Serkis is the master of acting in a unitard with dots on his face, but did he really need to for this movie?”
Cory: “[Kristen] Stewart takes understated acting to new levels, sucking every bit of energy out of every scene. She is the acting equivalent of a Quaalude.”
Barry: "If Ed Wood had ever been given 200 million dollars to make a movie, it would have been Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom."
Marlisa Yo: "here is so much more to discuss about this film, but nothing more I can say will be able to communicate how much of a failure it all is."
And there's a fun book-and-a-half-long discussion of The Florida Project if you want to see how wrong Josh can be about something.
Best Death Scene
Self-immolation in Nostalghia
The repeated draggings by a subway in The Bothersome Man (only it doesn’t actually kill him)
A main terrorist in Terror in Beverly Hills who throws himself out of a window and then is shot 40 times
A dude exploding himself in Annihilation
A cop electrocuting himself in D’Curse, the dialogue that came before it nearly killed me
Death by cello in The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians
Joaquin Phoenix in one of the movies I saw him in (mentioning which one would be a spoiler)
An old lady engulfed in flames with her books in Fahrenheit 451
Deadpool in Deadpool 2, but only because it’s a scene that goes on for far too long
Dr. G., Rick Camp, the villainous scientist in Replica
Goldblum in Hotel Artemis with his “Oh, baby, take me down the river,” dying as cool as only Jeff Goldblum can die
Weronika in Double Life, a soul sailing over a crowd
“Olive, I think you should know this--you’re a lousy actress.”
Thoroughbreds, a climactic scene with only the sound of exercise equipment
The guy’s friend in Eat Drink Man Woman where he goes to work, gets a round of applause, sits down, and dies
Boris in Eden and After, poisoning and a death march
Dennis Hopper in The Last Movie, ad infinitem
Welles in The Stranger, stabbed by a clock figure
The winner is The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, but I'm really not sure which death scene to even pick. And I'm not sure I even want to give any of them away although once you realize what the movie's about, you can easily guess who is going to live and die in this one. Anyway, don't look at the next picture because it's a spoiler.
Best Sigh of Relief I Had While Watching a Movie All Year
"It didn't hit nothing important!"
Best Monologue
A tie! Townes Van Zandt tells a story about grave-robbing, a loan slip, and a guitar in Blaze that is really beautiful.
And Tom Waits’ character’s story about why he hates Christmas in The Old Man and the Gun is a director pretty much allowing Waits to do what Waits does best.
Close behind was Nicolas Cage’s “I was gonna grab the world by the balls!” soliloquy in Mom and Dad.
Honorable mentions: The opening of Beware of a Holy Whore, a character rambling about a Goofy cartoon; Rita Moreno’s end monologue about Nicholson’s erection in Carnal Knowledge; Madeline’s Madeline, an impersonation of a mother; and lots of Bogosian in Talk Radio, especially that one where the camera is swirling around him.
The E.T. (Most Impressive Product Placement in a Movie)
Brigsby Bear: Coke (egregiously) and Apple
King of the Kickboxers: Budweiser, the king of beers
Crime Wave: Kodak and McDonalds
Fifty Shades Darker: Ben and Jerry’s
15:17 to Paris: Jamba Juice
Terror in Beverly Hills: Pepsi, a few times
I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore: Big Red
Door in the Floor: Nike Air Jordans, disturbingly
Love, Simon: Oreos
Grizzly Redux: Twinkies, cleverly added by Packard
Ready Player One: Pizza Hut (very early), likely lots of technology ones that I didn’t spot
CHUD 2: Coke and Budweiser
Young Adult: Diet Coke, Ben and Jerry’s, KFC, and Hampton Inns
White Dog: Whitman’s chocolate
Young Girls of Rochefort: Honda
Pump Up the Volume: Wild Cherry Diet Pepsi
The Crow: Coors, which Brandon Lee looks at in a confused way
Ant-Man/Wasp: Altoids, Fruit Looops, Pez
Bad Moms (Seriously, I watched this?): Arbys
Sicario 2: Crocs
Eat Drink Man Woman: Wendy’s, although the message here was probably more anti-Wendy’s
The Equalizer: Pringles, New Balance
Uncle Drew: Footlocker, Aleve, Pepsi, Nike, and probably a lot more that I missed because it’s that type of movie
Crooklyn: Trix fight...also Cheerios and Pepsi
City of Women: Coke during a vaginal slide show
New York Stories: Hershey’s Kisses, given to a bum during the horrible Coppola part
The Abyss: Captain Crunch
Flower: “I’m just wondering whose dick I gotta suck to get some Cocoa Puffs around here.”
The Accidental Tourist: Burger King
Green Book: KFC
Ralph Breaks the Internet: Disney, not surprising but still a little appaling
Bird Box: Pop Tarts (“This is what strawberry tastes like.”) and Ty
My very favorites:
Game Night: Tostitos, mentioned a few times, once pretty hilariously
Buzzard: Bugles (with a treadmill challenge)...also, Mountain Dew and Doritos and Little Caesars and Totinos and Hot Pockets
Pieces: Wendy’s, better because it’s in the middle of all this gruesomeness
The Rider: Reynold’s Wrap around the main character’s head before a shower
First Reformed: Drano
Ocean’s 8: There’s a complete Subway commercial in the middle of this movie.
American Animals: Hungryman, shoplifted and sold in anger
The winner: The Happytime Murders: Fiddle Faddle. I don't want to keep saying nice things about this movie because it was garbage, but I do appreciate some good Fiddle Faddle product placement.
Movies with Tab Product Placement This Year
Two. Ready Player One and Lost in America
Movie Product Placement That Inspired Me to Write My Own Commercial Slogans
Adrift: Skippy peanut butter ("Skippy--the best peanut butter to share with your hallucinations!")
Best Food Scenes of the Year
I just mentioned that scene in Buzzard where the character eats Bugles off a treadmill, but that has another great scene where he eats spaghetti in an extended shot that almost rivals that gal eating an entire pie in A Ghost Story.
In Paddington 2, it’s a lot of joy to watch the titular bear and his fellow prisoners whimsically making food in a prison cafeteria.
Daniel Day-Lewis enjoying an omelette in Phantom Thread? Come on!
First Reformed’s Ethan Hawke shows us what it looks like when you combine whiskey and Pepto Bismol.
There’s a great scene in Happy End (the Czech movie that is in reverse) where characters eat cookies. It’s glorious!
In Chungking Express, a guy eats 30 cans of pineapples.
Aaron, the kid in King of the Hill, enjoys a meal made of paper.
The opening scene in Eat Drink Man Woman has duck inflation. That’s one of my favorite things I’ve seen all year!
And in City of Women, we learn what to do when you can’t blow out all the candles on a cake during your 10,000 sexual conquests celebration. It might involve urination.
The Shammalammadingdong (Goofiest Movie Twist)
I’ll try my best to be spoiler-free.
The Baby: an ending with a meeting of babies
The Thrill Killers: a “Linda” twist
The Lock In: Justin was the perv all along! (Ok, sorry. That one is a spoiler.)
Pieces: A Frankenstein castration grab
The winner? Who cares?
Great Movie Quotes, Part 4
Here are some more stupid quotes that I liked! This is the last of them.
"People in love are very seldom hungry"
"Just like me to be almost killed by a fart."
"Hold on to your lugnuts! It's time for an overhaul!"
"Kiss me, my dear, and I will reveal my croissant. I will spread your pate. I will dip my ladle in your vichyssoise."
"I won 1st prize for the best kick in the testicles."
"Couldn't you tie a knot in your dick when it was limp?" "Limp? It's never limp."
"They all got fever fever for my beaver beaver."
"Let's make this a proper family reunion. Give me a gun."
"I'll sleep with you for a meatball."
"I'm the cunnilingus king of Orange County."
"Reflexogenic erections. Sounds sexy."
"What's it matter when Piggy catches Kermit? What's any of it matter?"
"Penis! Big fucking erect penis, Mom!"
"Who knew hipsters were so flammable?"
"Punk music is really the greatest thing to happen to ugly people."
"Be grateful of the music. Most of us die in silence."
"Imagine a time when walking on the earth was a pleasure. Remind yourself of the ecstasy of being."
"Apocalypse is our only hope."
"Man, it's not ever stylish to wear a sombrero in the car."
"Fuck a duck, bitch!"
"You put your thing in there for half an hour and you get a baby."
"With speech therapy, I could teach you to say fuck off more clearly. "
"I give this thing a sphincter factor of 9.5."
"But Satan's boy I could never be!"
"We don't have a dime in the bank and he goes and buys a cross."
"You're a bastard! Do you want cream and sugar?"
"I'm afraid of America. Maybe they're mean to newcomers there."
"In the dark, I can't even see where to vomit."
"There's no sacrifice too great for a chance at immortality."
"Learn the inevitable destiny of ignorance."
"Life must take life for the sake of life itself."
"Why create a work when it's so beautiful just to dream it?"
"Power to the impotent! Right on, baby!"
"What are you crying for? It's not a Lassie movie."
"The time, mister, it's not a thief at all like they say; it's something much sneakier, an embezzler, up nights juggling the books so you don't notice anything's missing."
"Well, I wonder what my chances are this morning of getting you kids interested in John Keats."
"Is the camera merely a phallus?"
"You were really great as the detergent lady."
"Sticks and stones can break your bones, but words cause permanent damage."
"It doesn't matter how much you love someone. It's who you are when you're with them."
"Must the duck be here?"
"You are not a cat. You are inside the cat."
"Your stomach's a pussy."
"You did this. You put your seed inside my beautiful angel."
"Yeah, Jesus really hurts."
"In the end, there are only two types of people--the assholes and the dead."
"Pan shot!"
Raw: An awkward dance to an “I Bang the Dead” song and a character who ends up making out with herself
Nostalghia: A Russian poet becomes a crazy guy
I, Tonya: the practicing of a tortured smile
Winchester: David Clarke, who is in every other movie this year, moving a mirror around to look at an empty chair for some reasons and then JUMP SCARE!
I Don’t Feel at Home in This Home Anymore: a young bad man with a very cool, slow-motion smile
The Trip to Italy: Brydon rehearsing for his audition as a mobster accountant
Cool Cat Saves the Kids: Cool Cat brushes his teeth, and that’s really all I need.
Love on a Leash: a guy appreciates his own ass
Pieces: Mom throwing a puzzle at a window, twice since there’s a replay for some reason...or the scene where a lady roller-skates into a mirror for no apparent reason
Trip to Italy: Brydon practicing an impression in the mirror
You Were Never Really Here: Joaquin Phoenix smiling at himself in a mirror
CHUD 2: Bud scaring himself in a bathroom mirror
Brand New Testament: the killer apostle with flowers around him saying “I don’t love you” and smashing a mirror...later, his reflection gives him a hug
The Rider: a guy checking out his stapled head
Lost in America: Albert Brooks practicing a speech before a promotion
First Reformed: a reflection replaced by darkness, just stunning
Hereditary: the kid watching his smiling reflection at school (note: not a mirror)
Double Life of Veronique: where she stares at the puppeteer instead of his marionettes and falls in love
Reversal of Fortune: Glenn Close passe out in a reflection
All That Jazz: this has a bunch of good ones
Thoroughbreds: Olivia Cooke practicing her smile and frowns in a mirror
The Mask: Jim Carrey with his mask
Steppenwolf: Harry giggling at animated reflections of himself
The winner is the last mirror scene I remember from this year--a mirror that allows the viewer to see two Mary Poppins simultaneously! Holy hell! That's double the Poppins!
Best Prayer
Tower, The Sacrifice (a character looking directly at me and asking if I can stop the apocalypse), Love on a Leash (“Lord, help me find a man.”), The Rider, First Reformed (in journal form), Four Weddings and a Funeral (a bugger-filled prayer), Crooklyn (an abbreviated prayer for food), 8th Grade (as sweet as everything else in the movie), Goodbye Uncle Tom (“Thanks for closing your blind eye to a few transgressions I’m planning for tonight.”), The Devils (“Take away my hump!”), The Night God Screamed (“They were just a bunch of sinners, but I saved them. I made them see that using dope was the way to turn on to you. We got trouble, Lord--the heat won’t leave us alone--they want to bust us for being hooked on you. They don’t dig our kind of faith--they put us down cause we ain’t one of them uptight establishment churches with one of them phoney moneymaking ministers, lying, and stealing.” Etc.), and The Emigrants all have really good ones.
The best prayer, however, is in The Lock In. It mostly concerns the “trap door,” and it has to be heard to be believed.
Best Jesus/God
Both the Jesus and God in The Brand New Testament are really good, but even better is the animated, ever-shifting one in Mind Game.
Best Satan
Hellzapoppin’ has good Satan action, but the Everything Is Terrible people rolled into town with their latest slab of recontextualized media, a movie that was all about Satan. So The Great Satan wins this one! Call it a Satanic composite.
Best Book
Louie Bluie’s pornographic book that he kept under lock and key. Man, that’s one talented mo-fo.
Best Drug Trip
Protagonist in Unsane has one, and there’s some trippy double-exposure stuff. And there’s some glue-sniffing in Crooklyn with Spike Lee and another character. And that’s all I’ve got for this one. Neither are even good enough to call a winner.
Best Movie Art
General Garcia’s flag in The In-Laws, a big-eyed Elvis in Guns on the Clackamas (part of the guy’s second largest collection of big-eye art), and the updated “last supper” for the new apostles in The Brand New Testament are all pretty good. The winner is a horse sculpture set up in protest in Sorry to Bother You.
Best Photograph
Clown family--Best F(r)iends, Volume 1. (Sorry, no picture seems to be available.)
Best Poem
The dude in Wrong Move who recites his sperm-reference-heavy poem.
Most Doors
L’Argent. That movie has a lot of doors. Don’t play a drinking game because you’ll die.
Best Wilhelm Scream
I know I missed a bunch or just forgot to put them in my notes. I think my favorite of the four I know about (including Nuts!, Solo, and The Hitman’s Bodyguard) is Deadpool 2.
Worst-Delivered Line of the Year
Keanu Reeves’ “It is the main himself! Look! He’s grown young!” might have given her a scare in Bram Stoker's Dracula, but Andie McDowell’s got this one with “Is it still raining? I hadn’t noticed.” in Four Weddings and a Funeral.
Best Tattoo
American Animals, a dinosaur trying to turn off a ceiling fan (Sorry, no picture available)
Best Teeth
The Decameron
Best Toothbrushing
Sisters Brothers, John C. Reilly
Best Flowers
Le Boneur
Best Facial Hair
Seymour’s in Minnie and Moskowitz
Best Typewriters
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Best Dream Sequence
The two in Suspiria win, but there are also good ones in Demons, Sisters Brothers, and (surprisingly) The Bear, the latter after the characters have had some bad honey.
Best Wink
A tie! Both are at the ends of the movies.
John Hurt at the end of The Hit
Jeremy Irons at the end of Reversal of Fortune
