Best Shirt
Froot Loop shirt in Atlantics
Best Mutton Chops
Burt Lancaster, The Leopard
Best Hat
I loved those Teutonic Knights helmets (the one with the outstretched hand or the one with the chicken foot) in Alexander Nevsky, but Gregg Turkington’s hat in Mister America is the winner here. I’m sorry if you don’t understand why.
Best Jewelry
Furby bling in Uncut Gems
Best Hair
Bernadette Peters’ beehive in The Longest Yard
Best Dress
A tie! The killer dresses in In Fabric or any number of dresses in Donkey Skin are all great.
Best Furniture
Giant white cat throne--also Donkey Skin
Best Mustache
W.C. Fields’ fake mustache he insisted wearing in his shorts (“perversely insisted” according to Wikipedia) because he knew his audiences didn’t like it
The Wiseau
This award is for the best-worst example of a person who thinks he or she can do it all--write, direct, act, and sometimes even make music. The nominees:
Neil Breen, Pass Thru
Noel Marshall, Roar
Julie Kimmel, A Karate Christmas Miracle
The winner: An upset! Maybe it’s because Breen has won this award too many times or something, but I’m giving this one to Noel Marshall because Roar is a pretty special work of art.
Favorite Cameo of the Year
Jake “The Snake” Roberts, The Peanut Butter Falcon
I thought he was dead.
Number of Frederick Wiseman Documentaries I Watched This Year
Pretty sure it was seven! Maybe eight!
The Zap Rowsdower Achievement in Bad Action Heroism Award
Ron Slinker, Andy in Mr. No Legs.
It was Ron Slinker’s only role.
The Lew Zealand (Best Movie Puppet)
The randy puppet in Coming Home at the hospital. He really really liked Jane Fonda.
Best Scene Featuring a Mask That I Totally Forgot to Mention Earlier!
The use of a Richard Nixon mask in The Ice Storm. Thanks for reminding me, Josh!
Favorite Minor Character of the Year
That dude with a flower in his mouth in French Cancan certainly was up to something. I wanted a spin-off for his character.
The “sundial man” in The Man Who Sleeps.
John Fielder plays the human equivalent of Piglet (well, other than my friend Josh) in Sharky’s Machine.
The winner is a rich lady in Husbands who Peter Falk flirts with. With this ever-changing face, she was just so interesting.
Best One and Done Performance
The previously-mentioned Noel Marshall directed and starred in Roar and then did nothing else. And again, that was truly special.
Fernando Ramos da Silva’s story is a little sadder. He was the titular character in Pixote and didn’t do anything after that because he was shot by police before his 20th birthday.
Ted Vollrath played Mr. No Legs in Mr. No Legs and then couldn’t find any studios looking for actors to play more legless characters.
Vladimir Garin, the older brother in The Return, sadly drowned at the age of 16. This year-in-review has suddenly gotten really depressing.
Ike Sanders, thus far, has directed Final Flesh and nothing else.
Barbara Loden acted in a few things, including Wanda, the only full-length feature she directed.
And Bill Sherwood wrote and directed Parting Glances, his only feature, before he died from AIDS.
I’m too depressed about all of this to pick a winner in this category.
Best Actor
Bernard Pruvost, Li’l Quinquin
Dirk Bogarde, The Servant
Claude Laydu, Diary of a Country Priest
Shooby LeBoof, Honey Boy
Volker Spengler, A Year of 13 Moons
Giancarlo Giannini, Seven Beauties
I liked all of those. The winner, however, is Honey Davis for She’s Allergic to Cats.
Best Actress
Zhao Tao, Ash Is Purest White
Jeong-Hie Yun, Poetry
Chunibala Devi, the aunt in Pather Panchali (she’s so hot!)
Isabelle Adjani, The Story of Adele H.
Krisha Fairchild, Krisha
The winner is Ana Torrent from Cria Cuervos. She was 7 years old when she did Spirit of the Beehive, and this came out a few years later. These performances are the opposites of Tooties.
The Torgo Award (The Best-Worst Performance by an Actor)
Look! It’s Neil Breen again. Pass Thru was his movie.
Two one-and-dones deserve a mention--Ted Vollrath and Noel Marshall from Mr. No Legs and Roar respectively.
And Jeff Kirkendall from Sharkenstein is the final nominee.
This one goes to Neil Breen. “Isn’t that corrupt?” Maybe, it is, Neil. But nobody knows what either of us is even talking about.
The Livingstone (The Best-Worst Performance by an Actress)
Kathy Corpus, Pass Thru
Donna T. Rogers, the smuggler lady who sounds like Mr. T in Pass Thru
Edith Massey, Polyester
Rebel Wilson, Cats
Maybe it’s a bit of recency bias here, but I’m giving the Livingstone to Anne Barschall for her confusing work in A Karate Christmas Miracle.
The Ten Least-Enjoyable Movies I Saw in 2020
Cats
Ready or Not
It: Chapter Two
Two Tons of Turquoise for Taos Tonight
Hillbilly Elegy
The Bling Ring
Maps to the Stars
Da Sweet Blood of Jesus
The Old Guard
Where’d You Go, Bernadette
Bob Dylan’s Renaldo and Clara almost made this list, by the way.
The Manos Award (Best-Worst Movie of the Year)
Bad Movie Club didn’t meet a lot this year, surprising since we all had more time at home in 2020. There were still some enjoyable bad movies though, including these nominees for the Manos:
Pass Thru
Sharkenstein
A Karate Christmas Miracle
The Christmas Tree
Future Fear
Mr. No Legs
Neon Maniacs
A Score to Settle
Assassin 33 A.D.
The Creation of the Humanoids
Best Twenty New-to-Me Movies I Saw in 2020 in Random Order
1917
The Servant
La Notte
Aparajito
The Naked Island
Diary of a Country Priest
Il Sorpasso
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
The Man Who Sleeps
Le Million
The Burmese Harp
Loves of a blonde
Nazarin
Welfare
Quai des Orfevres
The Travelling Players
Topsy Turvy
All About My Mother
L’Eclisse
Kanal
Movies I Saw Twice This Year
Uncut Gems (in one 24-hour period actually)
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
I’m Thinking of Ending Things
Favorite TV Shows That I Watched This Year
The Mandalorian
Schitt’s Creek
Neon Genesis Evangelion
