It is a dimension much like our own, but different. Pam Grier is our celebrity president. There are no late-night Jimmys to host. We’d get Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner. The oldest Jews we can possibly get. The ceremony is fifteen minutes long, soup to nuts. No one cares what or who you’re wearing, as long as you’re comfortable in your own skin. All the seat-fillers are human-sized Muppets. You know, the tall guys in full-body Muppet costumes.This dimension is strange, but somehow it feels right. There, the Razzies are but a wet fart that happened only once, many years ago. There, people get more excited for the newest Iggy Pop song (he’s still at it!) than the newest from Justin Timberlake. There, nobody live-tweets anything. There, life is still dumb, but it’s just a little bit better.
Welcome to Daily Grindhouse’s third Bizarro Oscars event. Since the nominations for the 90th Academy Awards will be announced tomorrow morning, we thought we’d provide you with our own alternate-universe take on award-season tomfoolery, minus all the prognosticating and musical numbers. Well, mostly minus the musical numbers. Here’s some fitting orchestral-type musical accompaniment for your reading pleasure —
Hit play and keep scrolling!
The rules are fairly simple. Whatever rules we do have can change as we like. Everyone who participated had the freedom to add categories to the list of options provided to them. If there was something they wanted to mention, they did. We printed everyone’s responses. If more than one title or performer was mentioned in the same category, you’ll see it as a list. If only one thing was nominated, it wins automatically. All the nominees are winners, in our eyes. This is one award show where it really is its own honor to be nominated. (Although there are a few categories no one in their right mind should want to win.)
Mostly this is about recognizing the stuff we love, the stuff that most award shows will never mention. Even when there’s stuff we complain about, it’s because we cared enough to watch it in the first place. So nobody go getting your feelings hurt, okay? That’s not the aim.
Lastly, beware…
*S*P*O*I*L*E*R*S* *A*B*O*U*N*D*
And now, without anymore prefacing, here they are…
Daily Grindhouse’s 2017/2018 Bizarro Oscars!
BEST END CREDITS SEQUENCE
THE DISASTER ARTIST [Rob Dean]
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL.2 [Albert Muller]
THE DISASTER ARTIST [Alejandra Gonzalez]
“The Pure And The Damned,” GOOD TIME. That one broke me. [Jon Abrams]
Jennifer Jason Leigh (AMITYVILLE: THE AWAKENING): What the hell is Jennifer Jason Leigh doing in a movie that feels like it could have been dumped to video store shelves in 1998? Outside of, well, turning in a decent performance in a movie that dips a toe into a pool of meta-ness and then runs shiveringly away from it. She was also in GOOD TIME, though, so I’ll forgive her. [Paul Freitag-Fey]
Takeshi Kitano in GHOST IN THE SHELL [Jon Abrams]
BEST MOVIE YOU PROBABLY DIDN’T SEE
BRIGSBY BEAR and MY FRIEND DAHMER [Rob Dean]
BEST SCORE FROM A MOVIE YOU PROBABLY DIDN’T SEE
Aesop Rock for BUSHWICK [Jon Abrams]
BEST SOUNDTRACK ALBUM FROM A MOVIE YOU PROBABLY DIDN’T SEE
GHOST IN THE SHELL. It’s the 2017 equivalent of the STRANGE DAYS soundtrack. (It’s good!) [Jon Abrams]
JUST PLAIN BEST SCORE
Steve Moore for MAYHEM [Rob Dean]
Hans Zimmer & Benjamin Wallfisch for BLADE RUNNER 2049 [Albert Muller]
Michael Giacchino for WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES. [Alejandra Gonzalez]
Oneohtrix Point Never, GOOD TIME. [Jon Abrams]
BEST SOUNDTRACK DROP
“The Passenger,” I, TONYA. [Jon Abrams]
BEST THEME SONG
“Plastic Heart,” JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2. Did you know there was a John Wick theme song? Now you do. And the lyrics mention sharks! Victory. [Jon Abrams]
WORST SEQUEL
EVIL BONG 666. Fun enough to watch, but entirely incomprehensible for newcomers to the EVIL BONG franchise. [Jon Abrams]
BEST SEQUEL
[Three-way tie! Jon Abrams]
CREEP 2
CULT OF CHUCKY
WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES
BEST SEQUEL SOUNDTRACK DROP
“Slow Slippy,” T2 TRAINSPOTTING [Jon Abrams]
KUSO. Awesomely ugly! [Jon Abrams]
PRETTIEST MOVIE
It’s dark material, but GOOD TIME gives you the beautifully neon-lit crime noir of THIEF or DRIVE without feeling as though it’s too indebted to either of those films’ (or those films’ filmmakers’) look and feel. The Safdie Brothers made breaking your brother out of prison through the dumbest means ever look stunning. [Paul Freitag-Fey]
DUMBEST MOVIE
BEST DUMB MOVIE
WORST HERO
Superman (Henry Cavill) in JUSTICE LEAGUE. [Rob Dean]
I love the City of a Thousand Planets part of VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS – it’s obviously a completely-conceived world in which every location was thought out. The Valerian parts, however, encompass most of the film, and giving us both he and the curiously non-titular-even-though-they’re-basically-both-the-stars Laureline as tour guides is like having Ben Stein narrate a rollercoaster ride. Constantly prattling and having battles over a relationship we’re never given any reason to care about, the heroes of VALERIAN suck all of the energy out of what could have been an amazing film. My congrats go to the winners of the “Win a Starring Role in a Luc Besson Film” contest that clearly served as casting, but it’s a shame the rest of us had to suffer. [Paul Freitag-Fey]
BEST VILLAIN
Bo Dawg (Jeremy Lawson), HAPPY HUNTING [Jon Abrams]
Pennywise, IT [Albert Muller]
Look, Michael Shannon is outright terrifying in anything he elects to be terrifying in, but THE SHAPE OF WATER may just be peak Michael Shannon terrifying. [Paul Freitag-Fey]
BEST EVIL HENCHMAN
David Hewlitt as Fleming in THE SHAPE OF WATER [Alejandra Gonzalez]
There’s plenty to love about I, TONYA, but Paul Walter Hauser’s performance as Shawn Echkardt is easily one of the highlights. Playing Eckhardt as a dumb goofus is a relatively easy thing to do, but Hauser isn’t just a goofus, but a convincing goofus, someone so completely caught up in his own bullshit that he’s even convinced himself that he was a secret agent. [Paul Freitag-Fey]
Greg Sestero (Dave Franco), THE DISASTER ARTIST. Everybody’s reading this story wrong. Tommy Wiseau is Count Dracula and Greg Sestero is his faithful Renfield. [Jon Abrams]
BEST PARENTS
Jacki Weaver & Robert Forster, SMALL CRIMES [Jon Abrams]
BEST HORROR-MOVIE MASK
BEST GIANT MONSTER
Filmmakers were big on using genre tropes for deeper subtext this year, ranging from GET OUT to mother! to THE SHAPE OF WATER, and COLOSSAL kind of got lost in the mix, and it’s a damn shame. Gloria (Anne Hathaway) is the year’s best giant monster by far, a figure that only appears when her human counterpart steps in a certain location. It’s a great monster, and a great performance by Hathaway that gives a hell of a lot of meaning behind the destruction she wreaks. [Paul Freitag-Fey]
King Kong, KONG: SKULL ISLAND. [Jon Abrams]
BEST WEREWOLF
No noteworthy contenders this year, but honorable mention to that gigantic wolf from THOR: RAGNAROK. [Jon Abrams]
BEST VAMPIRE
BEST SKELETON
BEST SUPERHERO COSTUME
Peter Parker’s homemade outfit, SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING. [Rob Dean]
BEST CHARACTER ACTOR
Michael Stuhlbarg/Jon Bernthal (tie) [Rob Dean]
BEST EXTRA
Old lady in library, IT or the zealots at the end of mother! [Rob Dean]
BEST DESERVES-HER-OWN-MOVIE CHARACTER
Cyril (Lesley Manville) in PHANTOM THREAD doesn’t steal every moment she’s in – she merely borrows it from the leads, carefully placing it back in their hands but clearly making her presence on it felt. Daniel Day-Lewis’s Reynolds Woodcock may be in charge of his designs, but Cyril controls his world, even in ways that are invisible to the eye. Almost like some sort of — hang on, I’ll get it. [Paul Freitag-Fey]
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MOST CINEMATIC SHITKICKERS IN ONE PLACE
Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Sylvester Stallone, and Kurt Russell in GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, VOLUME 2 [Rob Dean]
BEST CATCHPHRASE
“This is not going to go the way you think.” — STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI. [Rob Dean]
“Apes together strong.” — WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES. [Kevin Maher]
BEST OUGHT-TO-BE-A-CATCHPHRASE
“Apes together strong.” — WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES. [Kevin Maher]
BEST LINE, IN CONTEXT
“You don’t think that’s what the Lord looks like, do you?” — THE SHAPE OF WATER. [Rob Dean]
“I’m confused. What do you want?”
“For people to not be assholes.” — i don’t feel at home in this world anymore [Jon Abrams]
“Who the fuck is on top their first time?” — LADY BIRD. [Alejandra Gonzalez]
BEST LINE IN OR OUT OF CONTEXT
“And now I’m going to have to kill this fucking clown.” — IT. [Alejandra Gonzalez]
BEST NICOLAS CAGE MOVIE
MOM AND DAD [Rob Dean]
BEST DANNY TREJO MOVIE
DEAD AGAIN IN TOMBSTONE (also a contender for Best Sequel!) [Jon Abrams]
The episode of BROOKLYN NINE-NINE where he plays Rosa’s dad. [Rob Dean]
BEST FIGHT
The entirety of JOHN WICK 2. [Alejandra Gonzalez]
Vince Vaughn vs. anyone & everyone, BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99 [Albert Muller]
BEST CAR
The car they stumble upon blasting The Psychedelic Furs in CALL ME BY YOUR NAME [Rob Dean]
BEST CAR CHASE
THE VILLAINESS [Albert Muller]
BABY DRIVER‘s opening chase [Rob Dean]
The final chase in WHEELMAN. Fuck BABY DRIVER. [Jon Abrams]
Oh, sure, BABY DRIVER is the obvious choice, but Begbie seeing Mark Renton in the parking garage in TRAINSPOTTING 2 (I will not call this T2: TRAINSPOTTING) is probably the most perilous. Other car chases have their high stakes, but for reasons that anyone who’s seen TRAINSPOTTING can attest to, Begbie is basically a deranged lunatic with perfectly understandable reasons for slaughtering the kid. It’s a downright scary scene, even if only one person is actually in a car. [Paul Freitag-Fey]
BEST DOG
Fenris Wolf in THOR: RAGNAROK [Rob Dean]
The black dog in GERALD’S GAME. He wasn’t exactly playing a good guy, but that was a terrific dog acting performance. [Jon Abrams]
Probably ROCK DOG because he rocks. [Paul Freitag-Fey]
BEST CAT
Bodega cat, SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING. [Jon Abrams]
BEST IMAGINARY ANIMAL
OKJA (That’s right, we snub Porgs here!) [Jon Abrams]
BEST AMERICAN
Rod Williams (Lil Rel Howery) in GET OUT [Rob Dean]
BEST CANADIAN
Wolverine in LOGAN [Rob Dean]
Christopher Plummer as Kevin Spacey’s replacement in ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD. [Alejandra Gonzalez]
BEST AUSTRALIAN
Usually this award goes to Margot Robbie, and it easily could again because in I, TONYA she went the whole Jaime Pressly and that always needs to be saluted. But this year let’s give Samara Weaving some justly-deserved shine — whatever you think of THE BABYSITTER, MAYHEM, and THREE BILLBOARDS, she was great in all of them, and in vastly different ways.
BEST WORST MOVIE
THE BOOK OF HENRY [Rob Dean]
WORST BEST MOVIE
MOVIE OF THE DAMNED OF THE YEAR
Halle Berry, alone and adrift in #MAGA country in KIDNAP. No, it’s not a great movie. But it’s the first revenge movie I’ve seen so far in our current era that recognizes who the real villains are. [Jon Abrams]
BEST HERO MOMENT
John Wick takes out all the baddies in the third-act montage sequence in JOHN WICK: CHAPTER TWO [Rob Dean]
No Man’s Land, WONDER WOMAN. [Alejandra Gonzalez]
Is it any question? There’s plenty of superheroics, but the No Man’s Land sequence in WONDER WOMAN wasn’t just a heroic moment, it was a release of superheroine badassery that felt as though it had been building up since the new superhero movie era started. [Paul Freitag-Fey]
When Gilbert Gottfried starts cracking up at the convention cosplayer in the SS uniform, GILBERT. [Jon Abrams]
BEST “FUCK YOU” MOMENT
David Lynch to all of us at the end of Twin Peaks: The Return [Alejandra Gonzalez]
Vince Vaughn destroys a guy’s head in climax of BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99 [Rob Dean]
BEST OF THE YEAR. JUST THE BEST. THAT’S IT. BEST.
Tessa Thompson. [Jon Abrams]
BEST OPENING CREDITS SEQUENCE
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, VOL. 2 [Kevin Maher]
It’s got to be THE VILLAINESS. I also dug the HELL IN THE PACIFIC re-enactment that kicks off KONG: SKULL ISLAND. [Jon Abrams]
WHAT CATEGORY SHOULD THE REAL OSCARS HAVE THAT THEY DON’T?
HAL NEEDHAM © MEMORIAL BEST STUNT SEQUENCE OF THE YEAR [Jon Abrams]
WHAT IS THIS LIST MISSING?
BEST WORST PERFORMANCE IN A GOOD-BAD MOVIE:
Salma Hayek in BEATRIZ AT DINNER [Kevin Maher]
WORST USE OF RICHARD E. GRANT – LOGAN [Kevin Maher]
WORST RECURRING TROPE – When the female character in a blockbuster is a child who doesn’t speak (LOGAN, WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES) [Kevin Maher]
MOST SURPRISING PERFORMANCE – Ray Romano in THE BIG SICK [Kevin Maher]
BEST MISLEADING TRAILER – COLOSSAL [Kevin Maher]
FAVORITE SNACK TO GET ME THROUGH A LONG MOVIE – a bag of BIG Sour Patch Kids during LOGAN [Kevin Maher]
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE NON-2017 MOVIE YOU SAW FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 2017?
GODZILLA VS. THE SMOG MONSTER (1971) [Kevin Maher]
PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE (1974) [Alejandra Gonzalez]
BOYS IN THE TREES (2016) [Albert Muller]
BLOOD RAGE (1987) and MESSIAH OF EVIL (1973) [Rob Dean]
TIE: THE DEVILS (1971) and DON’T TORTURE A DUCKLING (1972) [Matt Wedge]
DEAD MAN WALKING (1988), DRIVE-IN MASSACRE (1976), ELIMINATORS (1986), TEN TIGERS OF KWANGTUNG (1979), and WILD BEASTS (1984) [Jon Abrams]
See you next year!
- [THE BIG QUESTION] WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE FEMALE ENSEMBLE IN MOVIES? - July 22, 2016
- [IN THEATERS NOW] THE BOY (2016) - January 24, 2016
- Cult Movie Mania Releases Lucio Fulci Limited Edition VHS Sets - January 5, 2016
Tags: Awards, Lists, Luis Guzmán
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