Thursday, December 21, 2017

Riske Business: The Biness Awards 2017

by Adam Riske
I saw a lot of movies this year. Next year: Less!

Note: Movies I saw in an empty theater are marked with an asterisk.

3D Movie I Saw with 5 Star People: Terminator 2: 3D with JB and Jan

90 Minute Movie that Felt Like 3 Hours: The Little Hours

Aggressively Average: Okja

“And That’s the Twist!”: Split

Angriest I Got During a Movie: It Comes at Night

Best Action Sequence: The opening car smash-up in John Wick: Chapter Two

Best Actor in a Movie No One Saw: Demian Bichir, Lowriders

Best Actress in a Decent Movie: Jessica Rothe, Happy Death Day

Best Airplane Movie: Going in Style (2017)

Best CGI: Undead sharks, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

Best Delayed Sequel: Last Flag Flying

Best End/Post Credits: The Disaster Artist

Best Horror Movie: Get Out
Best Looking Bad Movie: A Cure for Wellness

Best Looking Good-ish Movie: Blade Runner 2049

Best Movie No One Saw: Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer*

Best Musical Moment: “Intermission” by Blur and “Hocus Pocus” by Focus in Baby Driver

Best Netflix Movie: Win it All

Best. Original. Screenplay: Wish Upon

Best Original Song: “Remember Me” from Coco

Best Soundtrack: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Best Stunt Casting: Alicia Silverstone, The Killing of a Sacred Deer*

Best Supporting Actor in a Movie I Liked: O’Shea Jackson Jr., Ingrid Goes West*

Best Weirdo Caleb Landry Jones Performance: American Made

Best WTF Character: The librarian, The Bye Bye Man

Better than I Expected but Still Not Great: Power Rangers

Biggest Disappointment: The Fate of the Furious

Coma: Ghost in the Shell (2017)

Complete Nonsense: Rough Night

Creepiest Experience: Jim Carrey 2017 in Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond

Decent: T2: Trainspotting

Double Decent: Stronger

Douchebag-iest: Kingsman: The Golden Circle

Dumbest: Sleight

Dunkirk Priority Ranking: 1. The 70mm 2. The IMAX 3. Winning Oscars 4. Summer Box Office 5. Honoring the soldiers (It’s a good movie, though)

Fuck Everything: Beatriz at Dinner

Funniest Movie: The Big Sick
Funniest Performance: Ellar Coltrane as Mercer in The Circle

Good-ish Movie. Great-ish Nap: Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

Great Movie I Don’t Care About 5 Months Later: War for the Planet of the Apes

Hand! Gerald’s Game

How Many Bullets Do They Have? Wind River

I Call Bullshit: If Roman J. Israel, Esq. were an HBO mini-series, people would like it

I Can’t Believe I Saw: The House

I Don’t Like Movies Anymore: Snatched

If 2017 Were a Person: Jason Sudeikis, Colossal

It’s a Perfect Movie: Birth of the Dragon

It’s Fine: The Beguiled (2017)

It’s Funny: Thor: Ragnarok

I Wish I Liked It More: Brawl in Cell Block 99

I Wish I Was On Set to See Them Filming: Just Getting Started

Lifetime Achievement Award: Hugh Jackman, Logan

Like a Biopic from 1957: All Eyez on Me

Like a Comic Book Movie from 1997: Justice League

Like an Indie from 2000: Personal Shopper

Meh: Beauty and the Beast (2017)

Mike Pomaro Consoled Me After My Shitty Celebrity Encounter with: Thomas Ian Nicholas
Most Annoying: The Lego Batman Movie

Most Confusing: The kids in It don’t seem to care it’s the summer of Batman (1989)

Most Depressing: Detroit

Most Exciting Gefilte Fish Falling Out of a Truck Scene: Menashe

Most Generic: The Dark Tower

Most Heartfelt: All Saints

Most Inspiring: Wonder Woman

Most Like a VR Experience: 47 Meters Down

Most Perplexing Ensemble: Table 19

Most Precious: Columbus

Most Random Death: Flatliners (2017) – you know which one if you’ve seen it

Most Redbox: The Belko Experiment

Most Screenplay: The Meyerowitz Stories – it must be over 1,000 pages

Most Self-Impressed: Spider-Man: Homecoming

Most “Watch It at 4:43pm on an Overcast Sunday”: Thank You for Your Service

Movie I Want to Hug: Lady Bird

Movie I Like More than Most People: Life (2017)

Movie that Hates You: King Arthur: Legend of the Sword

Movie that Wants to Curb You: The Mummy (2017)

Never Stop Never Stopping: Chadwick Boseman playing historical figures, Marshall

Not Entirely Unsexy: Grapefruiting, Girls Trip

Now! That’s What I Call New Wave! Atomic Blonde

Outlier: I didn’t like Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Patrick and I Were the Only Ones in the Theater for: Friend Request

Pleasant Just Barely: The Incredible Jessica James

Pleasant Surprise: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

Ran Out: The Great Wall (the first time I heard Matt Damon’s accent)

Should Be Studied in a Museum: xXx: The Return of Xander Cage
So Lost She Should Be On a Milk Carton: Brie Larson, Kong: Skull Island

Somebody Say a Prayer for Me: The Foreigner

Stop The Rock. Can’t Stop The Rock. He Won’t Stop: Baywatch

The Passion of the Lawrence: mother!

Textbook Mensch: Austin Stowell, Battle of the Sexes

That’s Hot: James Franco, Alien: Covenant

There’s Funny People in this but it’s Not Funny? Brigsby Bear

There’s Nothing Here for Me: Cars 3

Ugh! War Machine

Wait…That Was This Year? XX

Walkout: Transformers: The Last Knight (30 minutes in)

Weirdest Ending: The Trip to Spain

Whatever: Annabelle: Creation

Why There is a Critic/Audience Divide: A Ghost Story*

Worst Accent: Adam Driver, Logan Lucky

Worst Delayed Sequel: Jigsaw

Worst Final Minute in an Otherwise Very Good Movie: The Florida Project

Worst Final 119 Minutes: The Snowman

Worst Lead Performance: Dane DeHaan, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Worst Movie: A Bad Moms Christmas
Worst Movie I Saw with Mark Ahn: Free Fire

Worst Movie I Saw with Rob DiCristino: The Hitman’s Bodyguard

Worst Nose Makeup: Whatever is on Jennifer Jason Leigh’s face in LBJ

Worst Original Song About Shitting: “Making Poopy,” The Comedian

Worst Scene in Cinematic History: The movie theater ending of Daddy’s Home 2

Worth Existing for the “Ruin My Box with Crawdads” Meme: Fifty Shades Darker

WTF: Hangman, but more specifically Al Pacino’s performance

30 comments:

  1. Some i don’t understand the category, some i don’t agree with you, but this is always an entertaining and a great reminder of movies i still have to see

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  2. I can’t wrap my head around the fact that The Return of Xander Cage came out this year.

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    Replies
    1. I feel it might have come out a little too early, to walk home with ALL of the Oscar nominations.

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    2. I had a lot of fun with it, BTW. It does feel like an eternity ago.

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  3. I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't like Free Fire. What is Ben Wheatley doing?

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  4. Hey Adam,

    Sorry to go off-topic here, but did you hear about the Dark Crystal restoration and 4K release?

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    Replies
    1. I’m sad they still won’t put the workprint on the disk, as a bonus feature or something. It is a great version of the film

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  5. My nominations:

    Best Soundtrack: The Greasy Strangler

    Best Satire (It's Satire, Right?): A Christmas Prince

    Most Moving: Lucky only a few days after HDS's passing

    Most Fun Theater-Going Experience: The Disaster Artist

    Most Confused I've Been After Seeing a Movie: Tokyo Vampire Hotel

    Most Out of Breath I've Been After Seeing a Movie: The Villainess

    Funniest Awkward Moment: Claes Bang and Elisabeth Moss fighting over a condom in The Square

    Best Finnish Movie: The Euthanizer

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  6. Big year for Caleb Landry Jones weirdness. Now I have to see American Made.

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  7. Very nice Adam! I agree with nearly all of them (those I have watched). Especially, The Little Hours. What was that movie going for? Comedy, apparently. Nuns having sex could be funny, but there are so many long stretches where there was just nothing humorous, or otherwise, happening.

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    Replies
    1. You can't just curse and expect that to be funny. What a drag. Good thing Aubrey Plaza had Ingrid Goes West shortly after that because she's incredible in that movie.

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    2. Never even heard of The Little Hours before. Now I watched the trailer, and I wish I hadn't.

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    3. It wasn't at all from a lack of talented actors. A few of them were quite funny, but played minor roles. Nick Offerman was great as always (I love his great comedic timing/delivery in everything), and I though Lauren Weedman (as his wife) gave a funny performance too.

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  8. i'm starting Bad Moms Christmas right now, fully knowing what i'm getting into.

    but damn. in mean, the first one was kinda boring, but pretty harmless i thought. but this one is just swearing (even kids) and saying crass things as much as possible, and just being mean to other people that are not them.

    and you know, moms right, aren't they something! i expect the same level of crap from Daddy's Home 2

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  9. Oh Mr. Riske, I do believe I just had your baby. I'm crying up here. Thank you, you magnificent bastard.

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  10. Just to clarify, did you like Life more than you like most people or are you saying too few people actually enjoyed Life? ;)

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  11. Bichir was super good in Lowriders. Did you see the tv series The Bridge? I don't really dig on seriel killer bizness but it was him, Diane Kruger, and lumpy old Ted Levine.

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    Replies
    1. I missed it. Thanks for the recommendation. I'm really bad at keeping up with TV.

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    2. well there's way too much tv now, and it takes a million years to watch.

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  12. I’m honored to be included here, though I apologize for making you sit through that awful movie.

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  13. I saw that Norman movie. It felt weird the whole time, like I kept asking myself What IS this? I liked the Israeli guy character.

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    Replies
    1. That's what I dug about it. It doesn't feel like any other movie but it feels like every Richard Gere movie...if that makes sense

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