All the best tomfoolery in the past twelve months of cinema presented by the Trustees of the Slam Zuckert Institute of Arbitrary Film Opinions
The Slammys: “Come on and Slam”
Official Theme Song:
And now, without further ado, Welcome to the Jam…
The “Girl Power! Plz” award goes to…
Mustang for being both a heartwarming and heartbreaking tale of five orphaned sisters who are forced to move in with their oppressive uncle in a conservative Turkish village. When their uncle forbids them from leaving the family property they have only each other to salvage their childhoods and live life to the fullest. Combating their aunt and uncle at every turn, whether it’s over them fighting back against arranged marriages or orchestrating a field trip to a soccer game each adventure and challenge is met with nothing but love for one another.
Technically Mustang came out in 2015 but it didn’t get a US release until 2016…or maybe I didn’t see it until 2016, but I definitely saw it in theaters in 2016 so I’m going to go ahead and count it anyway. I think it’s on Netflix so no excuses.
Runner Up:
Ghostbusters for being a very fun and enjoyable remake of the 1984 classic starring a great female-lead cast. It got a lot of flack because of people feeling betrayed that they remade the ‘84 version and sexism and sexist people feeling betrayed that they remade the ‘84 version but all those haters can go kick rocks because the movie was great.
The award for “Best Opening Scene” goes to…
Swiss Army Man and it’s not even close. Hank (played by Paul Dano) contemplates suicide on a desert island, puts a noose around his neck, almost ends up killing himself by accident before he was ready, then finds a dead corpse that washes ashore (played wonderfully by Daniel Radcliffe) and then tries to resuscitate it. Soon the corpse starts farting in his face and after noticing the extreme propulsion generated by the corpse’s flatulence Hank hops on and proceeds to ride Daniel Radcliffe’s farting corpse body like a jetski. And all of this is before the opening credits! Swiss Army Man is probably not a movie for everyone but if a buddy-film about Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe as a farting corpse written and directed by the guys who directed the “Turn Down for What” music video seems like a good time you won’t be disappointed.
Runner Up:
La La Land for it’s dazzling one-shot opening song and dance number on an LA highway exit ramp (or maybe it was an entrance ramp). The euphoric tapestry of people (and outfits) alone was worth the price of admission.
The Michael Bay award for “Best Explosions” goes to…
Well, it should probably go to one of the Marvel movies because I suppose a Michael Bay award for Best Explosions should to to the most humongously excessive explosion but I’m going to go ahead and give it Hell or High Water for when Tanner is leading what seems like a whole west Texas town on a high-speed car chase and eventually turns of the highway and drives straight up a hill and when everyone stops at the bottom and gets out of their cars assuming he has nowhere to go he douses his car in gasoline then throws the car in neutral, bails, and lets his pickup roll right back into the crowd below. Suckers!
Runner Up:
Rogue One for the Death Star blowing up whole got-damn cities and planets and stuff and also I guess the Marvel movies for also blowing shit up with real big boom-boom-bang-bang.
The award for “Best Montage” goes to…
The criminally under-viewed Kicks for the scene where Brandon and his friends go into Oakland, meet up with his cousins, and go to a Bay Area Sideshow (car demos including but not limited to doughnuts, ghost-riding, and other dangerous but incredibly cool car tricks). Beautifully shot and scored by Blue Magic’s beautiful “Sideshow” (of course) the montage is not only a whole lot of fun but also does a great job of conveying the intoxicating experience of watching people recklessly drive cars in circles at high speeds…which makes the following scene when reality comes crashing back in all the more effective as well. Shouts out to Justin Tipping for writing and directing this excellent movie.
The award for “Best Use of 80s Music” goes to…
What else but Everybody Wants Some!! Richard Linklater’s spiritual sequel to Dazed and Confused takes his free-wheeling, loose-flowing filmmaking style to a Texas college in the 80s and follows a group of Freshman on the baseball team as they first arrive. The 80s music is non-stop since a major part of the movie is watching the baseball team hop from house party to disco club to country bar to punk rager to wherever else there is booze, music, and females to cavort with. From “My Sharona” blasting from the car speaking as Jake pulls into the baseball house for the first time to the kind of odd scene where five guys drive around rapping “Rapper’s Delight” for an extended period of time the 80s music is as essential to the film’s setting as any of the visuals and runs away with this category.
The award for “Most Disappointing Movie” goes to…
A post/pre-apocalyptic film set in a 1970s brutalist high rise apartment building starring a ripped and oiled up Tom Hiddleston…what could go wrong? Well the pacing for one thing. Anyway, that’s just one of the things that made High Rise such a disappointment to this humble writer. Once the infrastructure of the building starts to fail the building falls into class warfare and chaos which made for a badass story but somehow didn’t translate to film very well. The film follows Tom Hiddleson, a doctor who just moves into one of the luxury apartments , but Hiddleston’s hot-bodded doctor man seems to wander lifelessly through the impending disaster and ranges from being lifeless to just plain uninteresting. There are some great scenes like when a mob of children from a lower-class birthday party invade the upper-class swimming pool, but as a whole the movie dragged on and left me with a hollow empty feeling. Like a calzone with no cheese.
Runner Up:
Nate Parker’s Birth of a Nation. I liked the film as a whole but for a film about the biggest slave rebellion in US history it focused a ton on Nat Turner’s life before the rebellion and sped through the rebellion itself. Nate Parker had some interesting ideas but I think he bit off a bit more than he could chew in his directorial debut. Perhaps he’ll be able to smooth out those issues in future films, that is if anyone else lets him direct another film after Birth of a Nation flopped commercially and fell out of award contention partially due to the press circuit bringing to light the time he was accused, tried, and ultimately acquitted (in the legal sense) of raping a fellow student when he was at Penn State.
The award for “Best Talking Animals Movie” goes to…
Zootopia! Beautifully animated with a heart of gold, Zootopia was a fine film for the whole family. Plus it had enough animal puns to keep everyone satisfied for years to come (“Elephant in the room” anyone?) and a healthy dose of social commentary that ranged from the overarching theme of how people can use fear to seize power for themselves (what a timely message) to the frustrations of waiting at the DMV. Too bad its message of inclusivity and working together despite our differences proved to be politically useless this year.
The award for “Worst Romantic Lead” goes to…
Jeremy Renner in Arrival. Not only was this romantic subplot jammed into the last act of the movie (before the end Jeremy Renner and Amy Adams were just co-workers who got along and also were of the opposite sex) but the romantic climax of the film is literally Renner turning to Adams and saying (direct quote): “Wanna make a baby?” Real smooth there Renner.
The award for “Best Used Movie Cliche” goes to…
La La Land for taking a relatively formulaic romantic comedy story line and turning it into a brilliant cinematic experience. Boy meets Girl, they don’t fancy each other at first, they keep running into each other, romance eventually blossoms, good times, rough times, happy times, sad times…we’ve seen it a million times but the deft guiding hand of Damien Chazelle and the film’s excellent song-and-dance musical numbers make the film feel wholly new and original. La La Land plays like a perfect pop song, at every point inspiring the feeling of “I’ve seen this before, but I’ve never seen this before.”
Runner Up:
Moana for following the classic “Hero’s Journey” story line but executing it damn-near perfectly. A healthy dose of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Lin-Manuel Miranda don’t hurt either.
The award for “Best Tom of the Year” goes to…
Tom Hardy in The Revenant for being the only interesting thing about that self-indulgent monstrosity of the movie. Technically The Revenant was released in 2015 but it didn’t get it’s wide release until 2016 so I’ll take this opportunity to tell you all how I felt this film was particularly overrated. The beginning and end of the move is super solid, due in the most part to Tom Hardy’s compelling portrayal of the brutally savage and unforgiving John Fitzgerald. The middle hour and a half (the movie’s run-time is an excessive 2 hours and 36 minutes) is mostly Leonardo Dicaprio yelling and dragging himself across the snowy frontier which is good for like five minutes but seems a little unnecessary unless you’re in the camp of “more acting is better acting”. There’s a really good 100 minute film somewhere in The Revenant, too bad there’s another hour of Leo screaming like a madman padding it. Tom Hardy was great though.
Runner Up:
Tom Hiddleson in High Rise I guess.
The award for “Best Scientologist Actor of the Year” goes to…
Even though he wasn’t in a film this year I’m going to give this award to Doug E. Fresh. Did you know Doug E. Fresh was a Scientologist? I didn’t either until I googled “Scientologist Actors” to figure out who to give this stupid award to. Who woulda guessed.
The award for “Best Slo-Mo Food Scene” goes to…
The gut-wrenching Krisha, a brilliant film about a mother estranged from her family due to her drug and alcohol reuniting with everyone (including her son) over Thanksgiving dinner. Krisha (the name of our troubled protagonist) insists on cooking dinner for everyone, and in case you couldn’t guess she is not in fact over her drug and alcohol use and the slow-motion food scene in question come when after a bottle or two of wine and a handful of pills (in her room so no one sees her) Krisha goes to take the turkey out of the over and we watch in a beautiful slow-motion shot as she drops it right onto the floor. After all, nothing says family like betraying everyone’s trust and ruining thanksgiving dinner.
The award for “Most Unrealistic Movie Sports Moment” goes to…
The scene in Moonlight when they’re playing the football game where one person has the ball and then everyone tries to tackle that one person and when they inevitably do the person releases the ball and someone else picks it up and so on and so on. Anyway, the boys who played it in Moonlight were incredibly restrained and damn near gentle and as a person who played that game a child about the age of the kids in Moonlight it felt deeply unrealistic. No one got hurt in the movie and every time I played that game growing up someone got hurt every 2 minutes at a minimum.
As you can see I’m really grasping for straw here, not a big year for sports movies.
The award for “Most Casually Racist Movie” goes to…
Doctor Strange…for now. There was concern about Tilda Swinton (noted White lady) playing the Ancient One who is a Tibetan Man in the comic books (they changed the character to be a Celtic mystic as opposed to Tiben) and to add to that Margaret Cho said that when she talked to Tilda Swinton about it she was very rude and condescending to her but then Tilda Swinton released the whole email exchange it seemed that maybe it wasn’t as cut and dry as Cho made it seem. (You can read the whole exchange here and decide for yourself: http://www.vulture.com/2016/12/read-tilda-swintons-emails-to-margaret-cho-doctor-strange-controversy.html)
Swinton’s main point was that although she, a White lady, was taking the part of a not-white character, the character itself was a Fu-Manchu style Asian caricature in the comic books so Marvel decided to turn the ancient one into a White Lady and add other parts for Asian actors. Even if we take that at face value Marvel still decided to turn the 2nd or 3rd main character in the movie from a Tibetan man to a White woman which is we’re going to go ahead and classify as “casually racist” here at the Slam Zuckert Institute of Arbitrary Film Opinions.
The award for “Worst Failure of the Bechdel Test” goes to…
Hail, Caesar! for being a hilarious, sprawling tale of a misadventure set in 1951 Hollywood that somehow doesn’t find time for any female characters to interact. Granted, there are some great female characters (Tilda Swinton, ScarJo, Frances McDormand) but they are all relegated to second tier roles and never end up interacting.
Interesting how one of the best scenes in the movie is the Channing Tatum-lead musical number “No Dames”. Check it out: No Dames
Runner Up:
Everybody Want Some!! Even though the film follows a college baseball team which makes it inherently male-centric film, it also features a sprawling ensemble cast and it would have been nice to see female characters besides the ones who are romantic interests of the baseball boys.
The “Emily Blunt Award for Badassery” goes to…
Mary Elizabeth Winstead in 10 Cloverfield Lane for not only escaping John Goodman’s jail cell of a disaster bunker (after figuring out John Goodman is a lying SOB and kicking a barrel of perchloric acid right into his stupid face) but then taking down a whole got-damn alien spaceship with nothing more than her own reckless gumption (and maybe a Molotov Cocktail or two). I already spoiled pretty much the whole movie if you haven’t seen it (sorry) so I might as well tell you than as she heads off into the sunset, downed spaceship in her rear-view mirror, instead of driving to a safety refuge she decides to hightail it to Houston where survivors of the alien invasion are preparing to fight back.
The “Pacific Rim Award for Best Premise” goes to…
High Rise, a film about a high-rise apartment complex that falls into chaos and class warfare once the basic infrastructure starts to fall apart. Sounds crazy, right? Alas…Ultimately it was the poor execution of this incredibly cool premise that also won High Rise the award for “Most Disappointing Film” so yeah, great premise but unsatisfying final product. So it goes sometimes.
Runner Up:
Hell or High Water, a film about two brothers who go on a bank robbing spree of at branches of a specific Texas bank in order to pay back a predatory mortgage that the bank put on their mom’s ranch. Chock full of poetic justice, Hell or High Water actually delivers on it’s excellent premise and is one heck of a film. Plus, Chris Pine’s chrome-blue eyes pierced deep into my soul every time he was on screen. Not related to the plot but always worth mentioning.
The award for “Douchiest Smile” goes to…
Zac Efron in Neighbors 2. Who else?
Runner Up:
Zac Efron in Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates and Zac Efron in Dirty Grandpa.
The award for “Dumbest Guy and Girl” goes to…
The leads in the amazingly wacky horror film The Boy. Picture this, you’re off in the English countryside for a job babysitting a child while his elderly parents go on a long vacation and when you get there the child you have to babysit is a porcelain doll that the parents treat like a real life human being. What do you do? Leave immediately like any sane human because this situation is 100% funny money? Not if you’re this pair of maniacs who decide to stay in the obviously haunted house. Very dumb.
The award for “Funniest Serious Moment” goes to…
The confusingly sensual sex scene in Anomalisa, a very Charlie Kaufman moment in a very Charlie Kaufman film. What makes it so funny? Well, the entire movie is stop motion animated (with 3-D printed puppets which results in some very cool texture in the puppets) so I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a 3-D printed pupped perform cunnilingus on another in stop motion animation but it is quite a sight to behold. Kaufman somehow maintains the power of a serious sex scene while also drawing on the absurdity of, well, puppets having sex.
The award for “Grossest Laugh” goes to…
Every time in Swiss Army Man that the corpse played by Daniel Radcliffe farts, especially the times it farts right in Paul Dano’s face. Hilarious.
The award for “Food Porn-iest Moment” goes to…
The diner scene in the last chapter of Moonlight. When Kevin goes back into the kitchen and fixes Chiron the “Chef’s Special” you can almost feel the love he’s putting into the meal ooze through the screen. It’s not too much, a simple cuban steak, rice, and beans, but the little touches like the packing of the rice into the cylindrical shape and the drizzling of the cilantro over the rice and beans make this one very sensual cooking scene.
The award for “Normal Porn-iest Moment” goes to…
The numerous sex scenes in The Handmaiden, a South Korean “erotic psychological thriller” that follows a poor Koren girl who goes off to be a handmaiden for a rich Japanese countess but is also in a plot with a con man to defraud the countess but then they fall in love (her and the countess) and lots of sex scenes ensue much to the chagrin of the con man. It leans a little heavier on the erotic than psychological thriller if you ask me and some of the scenes are a little “much” (like the one with the small ball bells that get inserted into, well, I’ll leave that to your imagination).
The award for “Whitest Person” goes to…
The excellent Greta Gerwig in Maggie’s Plan. She plays the same character she always plays but this time she wants to have a baby so she connects with a high-school friend who now runs a gourmet pickle business to be the sperm donor. As you can see, she is already running away with this category but I’m not even ten minutes into the movie.
After her pickle-man sperm donation doesn’t work out she meets Ethan Hawke who is a “ficto-critical anthropologist” at the University she works at and they fall for each other even though Ethan Hawke is married. Anyway, it’s actually a delightful movie, but as a whole, white as a polar bear in a snowstorm.
The award for “Most Overwhelmed Uncle” goes to…
In a role almost tailor made for this category, Casey Affleck in Manchester by the Sea. While working as a janitor in a Boston suburb Affleck is called out to Manchester-by-the-Sea, an old fishing town close to an hour north of the city, when his brother dies and leaves him with custody of his teenage son. Affleck used to live in Manchester-by-the-Sea (the name of the town has the hyphens in it, the name of the movie does not) but fled some personal demons from his time there and the combination of raising a teenage child with old wounds resurfacing overwhelms him in damn near every scene. Still, it’s probably the funniest sad movie of the year and the whole cast gives excellent performances to make this movie about an overwhelmed uncle much more than just a bunch of people yelling at each other with thick Boston accents.
The award for “Worst Sister” goes to…
Sisters don’t drop the ball in much bigger ways than Anya Taylor-Joy did in the pilgrim-era New England horror film The VVitch. She’s watching her baby brother one day by the creek and a Witch literally steals him from right under his nose. It’s like, he’s in his basket, then she turns away, then when she turns back he’s gone. Understandably her family is quite upset and this sets in motion a whole series of hauntings and possessed goats and witches messing with them and stuff. Maybe next time don’t let witches steal your baby brother, okay Anya?
The award for “Least Lines Given to a POC Best Friend” goes to…
Linklater’s Everybody Want’s Some!! for the role of Dale played by J. Quinton Johnson. One of the Freshman new to the baseball team and college Dale gets a good amount of screen time as he cruises around and parties with the other members of the baseball team but he has no particular story besides being just another guy on the team and has probably the 7th or 8th most lines in the film.
The award for “Cutest Dog Appearance” goes to…
Colin Farrell’s brother in The Lobster who failed to find a mate in his time at the resort and as a result got turned into a dog. He’s very handsome (and cute) dog though, so don’t feel too bad for him. Look at him there in the corner…Who’s a good brother?! You are! You are!
Last Place:
The SS dogs that were guarding Auschwitz in Son of Saul. Not cute.
The “Chef Award for Seamless Twitter© Integration” goes to…
When Calvin and the rest of the crew over at Calvin’s barbershop/Angie’s beauty salon decide that they have to take back their Chicago neighborhood from the gang violence that plagues it they decide to have a weekend of free cuts/styling in order to mediate peace between rivaling sets. Now how to get out the message? Flyers won’t do in this digital age and “the internet” is too abstract a concept to move the plot forward so looks like it’s time to send out some tweets©! For that, Barbershop: The Next Cut runs away with this year’s Chef Award for Seamless Twitter© Integration. Not only does everyone from the shop send out tweets but they pop up on screen! With the twitter logo and everything! And other real-life Chicago celebrities tweet© back! And their accounts are verified with the official Twitter© verification badges so you know it’s real.
Shameless product placement aside Barbershop: The Next Cut alternated pretty smoothly between goofy comedy with trite relationship drama and thoughtful meditation on being Black in America and living/raising a family in a lower-income urban neighborhood. It has a large number of parallels to Spike Lee’s Chi-raq from last year and I think they would be great companion films if you wanted to have a night of films which focus on the power individuals hold to combat the consequences of concentrated poverty.
The Award for “Most Pandering to the Alt-Right” goes to…
Dinesh D’Souza’s Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party for it’s complete ignorance of history and lack of connection to anything resembling the political realities of the world we live in. Fresh from the eight months he spent in the pokey after his felony conviction for violating federal campaign finance law, D’Souza seems to ignore any historical evidence that might challenge his preconceived political options.
The main point of the film is that since the 1850s Democratic Party was the party of slavery the current Democratic Party must also be the party of White Supremacy. Ignoring 150 years of political history and his counterfactual arguments would make anyone who associated themselves with the Alt-Right proud. Who needs real facts when you can make up your own!
The Award for “Most Pandering to the Alt-Left” goes to…
The film that plays in the minds of Republicans who assume that because there is a White Supremacist branch of the Republican Party that brands themselves as the Alt-Right there must be an equally as bad branch of the Democratic Party called the Alt-Left. This movie is a work of fiction but unfortunately has burrowed itself deep in many people’s minds and can only be removed with the rigorous self-reflection and self-education that many people are unwilling to partake in.
The Award for “Most Embarrassing to See with your Parents” goes to…
The Handmaiden for the multiple long, passionate, and pretty darn freaky sex scenes. See “Most Normal Porn-ies” award description for more detail.
The Award for “Most Offensive to Conservatives” goes to…
Jeff Nichol’s excellent Loving, a story of judicial activism and the federal government snatching away power that rightfully belongs to the states. Any god-fearing conservative would be sickened watching those un-elected judges in DC telling us salt of the earth people how to live our lives. In addition to that, the movie glorifies a pair of convicted criminals. This is a country of laws and you expect us to lionize this couple that knowingly violated the law in the great state of Virginia? Shame on them.
If you’re a good conservative and think that the Court erred when they ruled that the 14th Amendment gave them authority in their decision the case of Brown v. The Board of Education (because, as an originalist, you know that when the 14th Amendment was enacted the writers obviously didn’t intend for it to allow for complete racial equality) then better head to your Fox News safe space because this might not be the movie for you.
The Award for “Most Offensive to Liberals” goes to…
If you believe that “The War on Christmas” is very real and that Christians are one of the most oppressed groups of people in present-day America then do I have the movie for you! All this and more makes God’s Not Dead 2 offensive not only to liberals but also to anyone who enjoys good cinema because even for a Christian Propaganda film God’s Not Dead 2 is a pretty big stinker.
When a teacher refuses to apologize for maybe bringing a little too much religious talk into a public school classroom the evil, non-christian administrators attempt to fire her. But she fights back! And in a court case watched by the entire nation her lawyer wins the case by…proving the existence of Jesus? It doesn’t completely make sense but that’s not the point, the point is that Christians are the good guys and non-believers are all evil monsters who deserve the cancer that metastasizes throughout their digestive tract (actual plot point from God’s Not Dead 1).
Slam Zuckert is a municipal bureaucrat. He sees a lot of movies and reads a lot of books and sometimes writes about them. His favorite movie is There Will Be Blood, his favorite mathematician is Georg Cantor, and his least favorite mathematician is Leopold Kronecker.
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