Best Musical Number
Obviously, this award must go to one of the “La La Land” numbers, but which one? The grand razzle-dazzle LA freeway opener, or the “getting ready for the party” number, or any of the “City of Stars” bits or the scene where they dance looking over the lights of the city? It’s a tough call, which is why it’s lucky that we’re not going for “La La Land” at all, but for sailor Channing Tatum‘s rendition of “No Dames” in “Hail, Caesar!”
Best Long Take
In Bi Gan‘s remarkable “Kaili Blues,” there is a single take that is 41 minutes long and encompasses whole encounters, side characters, journeys in a variety of vehicles and even a hair-washing sequence.
Best Chilling Monologue Delivered By A “That Guy!” Character Actor
John Carroll Lynch, whose roles as doting duck-painting husband Norm in “Fargo” and as a potential Zodiac Killer in “Zodiac” must surely rate him as one of the most versatile supporting players whose name you probably don’t know offhand, had a glorious moment in the sun in Karyn Kusama‘s terrific little thriller “The Invitation.” He plays an unexpected dinner guest, seemingly benign, who, as part of a kind of parlor game, relates the circumstances of his wife’s death. It’s a brilliantly written monologue, accurately skewering the kind of self-help jargonizing that might characterize a cult member’s delusions, but it’s Lynch’s soulful, completely sincere delivery that really makes you understand that everything is about to go very, very wrong.
Best Seance/Communing With The Spirit World
“Ouija: Origin of Evil,” “The Witch” and “The Conjuring 2” together ensured that 2016 was good year for rendering the barrier between the real world and the spirit world more porous, which is good news for believers, considering how many of our favorite people “passed over” this year. But the ribbon this year for such scenes has to go to Na Hong-jin‘s awesome “The Wailing,” which contains one of the loudest and most frightening seance/exorcism scenes in recent memory as a hired shaman whirls himself into a fire-and-percussion-fueled frenzy in an effort to rid a writhing, tortured young girl of the demon that inhabits her.
Least Dynamic Scene
With all the action packed into the fiction-within-the-fiction of Tom Ford’s splashy, silly “Nocturnal Animals,” there’s not a lot left for Amy Adams to do bar read a book in various locations such as her bed and her bath. In fact, one of the funnier awards nominations this year was the SAG nod that the film picked up for “Best Stunt Ensemble,” because while there are obviously scenes in the other strand that required stunt doubles, it’s amusing to think of Adams’ stand-in bravely risking bathwater pruning or paper cuts.
Best Frightening Tech Monolith Made To Seem Warm And Fuzzy
Google in “Lion.” We won’t say too much more for fear of affecting our SEO stats, but Garth Davis‘ tear-jerking crowdpleaser really makes you think the best of our wonderful, gracious, benevolent algorithmic overlords.
Best Single Opening Title/Logo
“Presented in CinemaScope” from the very beginning of “La La Land.”
Best Opening Title Sequence
Everything, right down to the font choice, is such an accurate pastiche of its influences that even before Anna Biller‘s” The Love Witch” has properly started, we know exactly the cinematic universe in which we’re located.
Dulcet-est Voiceover
Ever seen a cat react to catnip? I am the cat and Cate Blanchett‘s creme brulee voice murmuring impenetrable metaphysical nothings in Terrence Malick‘s “Voyage Of Time” is the nip.
Maddest Plot Development In A Sequel
We’re deep into this labyrinthine, completely un-navigable feature, so here’s where we feel safe in confessing that there’s more than one of us here who, with deep shame, enjoys the hell out of the “Now You See Me” movies, largely because they’re such unapologetic drivel. However even the ‘NYSM Fans Anonymous” members among us were momentarily taken aback by the sheer level of chutzpah on display in ‘NYSM2‘ whereby ur-hypnotist Woody Harrelson is revealed to have had a twin brother — also a magician, natch — who shows up and joins the bad guys’ side. Keep something in the tank for ‘NYSM3,’ guys! (Also, when will that be out? Asking for a friend.)
Best Dramatic Performance By A Comedy Actor
Hard to believe that the same year he voiced the objectionably depicted talking box of grits in “Sausage Party,” Craig Robinson also turned in the most nuanced, touching and flat-out best performance of his career (and one of the very best of this year, no joke) in “Morris From America.” It’s a shame the role was not bigger and the film didn’t get more attention — it’s a low-key charmer, but the scenes between Robinson and his onscreen son Markees Christmas are revelatory, not just for Robinson’s warm, conspiratorial, gently befuddled performance but for drawing a father/son relationship in such sharp, insightful detail.
Best Performance By An Inanimate Object
This is a pretty hotly contested title, considering all the meaningful props we’ve become invested in throughout the year, but we’re sure everyone will be very thrilled with our decision to award it to the bright blue, iconic IKEA bag that Isabelle Huppert nearly throws away in “Things To Come” before fishing it out again for future use. It’s a stunningly understated, generous turn, by a presence so familiar one could easily overlook it, but the volumes spoken in that moment of forlorn crackle after she leaves the room, not to mention the near-tangible joy at her return, tells us so much about the nature of their relationship. They really are very good bags.
Best Erections In An Arthouse Movie
TIE: The gentle tenting of a hospital sheet, regarded with interest by a trio of watching women, forms a particularly memorable passage in Apichatpong Weerasethakul‘s blizzard of odd “Cemetery Of Splendour,” while corpse Manny (Daniel Radcliffe) experiences an erotic engorgement in a moment similarly filled with wonder in Daniels‘ “Swiss Army Man.” Forced to choose, we might even suggest the latter shades it, if only for giving us an excuse to make a “stiff with a stiffy” joke.
Best Sex Scene
Any of “The Handmaiden“‘s scenes of lesbian sex will do (in fact, any random scene in “The Handmaiden” is probably more eroticized than most other entire films manage), but we’re particularly fond of the overhead shot of the two actresses (it helps that they’re both unbelievably gorgeous, of course) vigorously scissoring. They even sweat elegantly.
Funniest Sex Scene
As well as mining the intense awkwardness of a strained father/daughter relationship, Maren Ade‘s brilliant “Toni Erdmann” contains some tremendously well-observed scenes of social and sexual awkwardness. The sex scene, in which Sandra Hüller‘s Ines challenges her casual lover to ejaculate onto a petit four, which she will then consume, is kind of a detour away from the main thrust (sex pun intentional) of the plot, but it also shows Ines’ weird side, something she’s repressed in response to her father’s tyrannical pranking. Oh, and if you’re curious, yes, she has her cake and eats it too, but just the green one.
Most Sex Scene
The orgy at the end of “Sausage Party” encompasses ravishment, gay sex, lesbian sex, threesomes, interracial sex, blasphemous sex, etc. etc., but it’s between a bunch of anthropomorphic foodstuffs, so it’s not juvenile and irritating but hilarious and satirical, I guess.
Most Unsexy Sex Scene
Apologies to all the necrophiles out there who found it a massive turn-on, but Jena Malone‘s “intimate encounter” with a young woman’s corpse in Nicolas Winding Refn‘s “The Neon Demon” is both a terrific scene and a complete libido-killer. Plus, something about her writhing effortfully on top of a beautiful but lifeless, empty body is uncomfortably paralleled in the experience of watching the film in the first place.
The Suddenly And Happily Everywhere Award
One of the few bright spots of the second half of 2016 is that two long-serving, oft-underlooked character actors, Riz Ahmed and Mahershala Ali, suddenly became nearly omnipresent. The former shone brightest in “The Night Of,” but was also arguably the best thing in “Jason Bourne,” stole the show in ‘Rogue One,‘ even popped up in “The OA,” and released a pretty great album as Swet Shop Boys. Meanwhile, Ali played the bad guy in “Luke Cage,” looks set for an Oscar nod for “Moonlight,” continued to be one of the best things about “House Of Cards,” gave life to underwritten supporting roles in “Free State Of Jones” and “Hidden Figures,” and was great in indie gem “Kicks,” too. All we need is a buddy cop movie teaming the two and we’ll be happy.
Best Cat
Keanu in “Keanu,” a kitten so cute he leads to the death of dozens of people, including Anna Faris (sort of).
Best Dog
Marvin in “Paterson.” He might be a little mailbox-destroying, poetry-eating dick, but it’s a fine performance (though sadly, the actor died before the movie’s release).
Best Physical Comedian
Not only did Ryan Gosling show that he could be a song-and-dance man this year with “La La Land,” but he also demonstrated he’s an unusually gifted physical comic, bumbling and stumbling and pratfall-ing his way through “The Nice Guys” like he was Jacques Tati or Harold Lloyd. People that good-looking shouldn’t have that innate comic timing, goddammit.
Best Physical Gag
That said, the most we laughed at any physical joke this year wasn’t from Gosling, but at Colin Farrell spitefully kicking a little girl in the shin in “The Lobster.” Maybe that says something about us.
Biggest Asshole
Maybe you can’t call him a full-on villain — actually, no, fuck that, you can — but no character was more boo-able this year than wealthy, cowardly CEO Yon-suk (Kim Eui-sung) in “Train To Busan.” His selfishness and lack of compassion dooms dozens of other lives across the film, and though he is eventually zombified, his death is hard to cheer because he ends up taking our hero with him, too. God, what a dick (and what a metaphor for so much this year).
Best Waitress
It could only be “Hell Or High Water,” in which Margaret Bowman’s service professional thieves an entire scene from under Jeff Bridges.
Most Rote Boxing Movie
“Bleeding Hands Of Stone For This,” starring Édgar Ramirez and/or Miles Teller as a boxer overcoming a difficulty of some sort, and Robert-Aaron De Niro-Eckhart as their trainer. Despite being unable to tell either of these movies apart, they were still better than “Southpaw.”
Biggest Obviously Re-Shot Cop-Out
“Bridget Jones’ Baby” stretches out the question of the parentage of Bridget’s child across the entire film — is it old flame Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), or Boring Handsome American (Patrick Dempsey)? It nearly comes to a more challenging, 2016-ish conclusion: that Boring Handsome American is the father, but she stays with Darcy regardless, the three of them in a happy threesome of parenting. But instead, in a scene that couldn’t have been more obviously reshot after test screenings if it hadn’t been in the trailer for ‘Rogue One,’ it turns out that Darcy’s the father anyway. Which is frustrating, but not as frustrating as the fact that the dad didn’t turn out to be our preferred candidate, Baoht Z’uqqa Mogg, The Bringer Of Pestilence.
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Any other moments you want to shout out? Let us know in the comments.