by Adam Riske
Attaboy: M. Night Shyamalan, Knock at the Cabin
Best Action Movie: Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning
Best Duo in a Good Movie: Greta Lee and Teo Yoo, Past Lives
Best Duo in an Okay Movie: Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich, Fair Play
Best Final Scene: Sanctuary
Best Jewish Moment: In Theater Camp when it’s revealed that one of the past musicals was called “A Hanukkah Divorce.”
Best Model Trains Toot! Toot! A Good Person
Best Netflix Movie: May December
Best Performance: Denzel Washington, The Equalizer 3 (Yeah, I said it).
Best Soundtrack: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Better Than I Expected: Good Burger 2
Blech: Evil Dead Rise
Boo Hoo: You Hurt My Feelings
Bored Just Thinking About It: Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant
Did I Hallucinate It? My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3
Dumbest Shit Ever: Fast X
Enough Already: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Fun: Saw X
Fun and Then Ruined by World Events: Scream VI
Funniest: Bottoms
Good Closer. Don’t Make Any More: John Wick: Chapter 4
Good Drama, Bad Horror Movie: Insidious: The Red Door
“Heartbreak Feels Good in A Place Like This”: Priscilla
Hidden Gem: Mob Land
Horniest: Flora and Son
I Definitely Fell Asleep During: The Last Voyage of the Demeter
I Didn’t Hate It: Renfield
I Dunno…Recommended? Cobweb
It’s Good but I Kept Waiting for it to Become a Funny or Die Sketch Because It Doesn’t Look Serious: Blackberry
I Hate It: The Exorcist: Believer
I Liked Some of It: Renaissance: A Film by Beyonce
I’m The Only Person Who Liked: What Happens Later
I’m The Only Person Who Saw: Shortcomings
Instant Energy: Chris Pine, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
It’s Alight: Infinity Pool
It’s Fine: The Killer
I Weep for the Children: The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Least Intimidating Villain: Thanksgiving
Like a Movie from 1989: Air
Like a Movie from 1993: Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
Like a Movie from 2007: No Hard Feelings
Like A TV Movie That Would Have Aired on CBS in 1990: A Man Called Otto
Like Eating at Applebee’s when you Wanted to Eat at Chili’s: Elemental
Most Annoying: Cocaine Bear
Most Clamoring for an MTV Movie Award Nomination for Best Villain: M3GAN
Most Cozy: The Holdovers
Most Desperate: The Flash
Most Directed: Barbie
Most Gentle: Somewhere in Queens
Most Underseen: Dream Scenario
Most Welcome Return: Heather Graham, Suitable Flesh
Movie I Like Less than Everyone Else: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
Movie I Like More than Everyone Else: Somebody I Used to Know
Never Stop Directing: Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon
Not as Good as Draft Day but Pretty Close: Oppenheimer
Not as Good as Love, Lights, Hanukkah! Round and Round
Not Terrible: Haunted Mansion
Pretty Good: Eileen
Pretty Sure He’s Not Acting: Russell Crowe, The Pope’s Exorcist
Robert Englund Power Ranking: 1) Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story, 2) Natty Knocks
Scariest: Skinamarink
She’s Just Really Poised: Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour
So Bad It Should Be Against the Law: Back to the Drive-In
Stop Being Long: Beau is Afraid
Sweetest: Champions
Ugh: Talk to Me
Wait, That Was This Year? Creed III
We All Have Problems, Bud: Bye Bye Barry
Whatever: Asteroid City
Worst Movie: Expend4bles
WTF: She Came to Me
Yeah, No, I Dunno, It’s Good I Guess: Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie
You Can Stop at Any Time Now: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Bottoms is the only thing I feel like I have left to catch up on that I think might make my top ten. I am glad to know that you seem to think it’s such a strong comedy!
ReplyDeleteLmk what you think :-)
DeleteAlways my favorite awards of the year! I especially agree with your award for Priscilla, which I finally caught up with this weekend.
ReplyDeleteThere are at least two more people who loved What Happens Later, because Andy & I just watched it and it was way more beautiful and sentimental than I expected. Meg Ryan, man.
Nice! I really like that movie. It snuck up on me too.
DeleteThe thing about Dial of Destiny that People Don't Talk Enough About, IMO is how bizarre everyone's belief in the dial is. In the prologue, Voller takes one look at it and decides, based on zero evidence, that it can be used for time travel. Indy, however, doesn't seem to believe it has any such power, since he keeps it in an easily lost cardboard box in university storage, rather than dropping it into the Atlantic ocean (or at the very least locking it in a bank vault).
ReplyDeleteBUT, as soon as Voller gets the dial back, Indy is suddenly convinced that it can be used for time travel, and demands that Helena help him on a quest to save history/The World! Her reponse should be to laugh at him and call him a lunatic, but instead, she just frowns and goes "Whelp, okay." And then Voller and his men (who are also all in on the plan, practicing their German and everything) blithely fly right into a temporal rift, without taking any time to check their math (never mind continental drift; what about planetary orbit?!). And Voller's supposed to be a... *checks notes* rocket scientist?!
It's one thing for religious people to seek religious artifacts, or for Hitler to send task forces on weird missions because he's a wacko, and Spalko doubtless had access to some stolen intel about the crystal aliens, but everyone in this movie's belief in the dial as a feasible method of time travel just comes out of nowhere, and it's bananas. (I mean, the Hogwarts faculty was more skeptical of the existence of The Chamber of Secrets than these characters are of time travel, and they live in a magic castle.) This script needed a full rewrite in which the opening sequence demonstrated that the dial could, in fact, do the job. But, this is the studio that brought us the meticulously written Star Wars sequel trilogy, so, I guess daft writing is par for the course.
I’m so annoyed at myself for missing Shortcomings in theaters because it’s adapted from the graphic novel by Adrian Tomine, creator of Optic Nerve, one of the half-dozen best comics to come out of the 90s indie-comix scene.
ReplyDeleteI really want it to be amazing but, “I’m the one who has seen it” award doesn’t bode well. Two thumbs up? Mixed? Not 2 down?!
I liked it
DeleteI've been championing Bottoms to everybody around me. It is definitely my favorite of the year
ReplyDeleteJust saw Are You There God? It's great. Love the ending scene in the bathroom. So touching
ReplyDeleteI was about to get upset that Expend4bles didn't make the list but right at the end, you delivered!
ReplyDeleteI couldn't never leave out Jumbo Shrimp and Ocelot
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