Protoclown's 2009 Movie Awards
by: Protoclown

Another Oscars presentation has come and gone, and unsurprisingly, nobody really cares. And though I can't be bothered to watch all of the celebrities jerking each other off over how good a job they did, I do love movies, and always feel that certain ones deserve recognition for being particularly good or laughably pathetic. And there's always plenty of pathetic.

Unfortunately, compared to 2008, this last year was a bit lackluster in terms of movie quality so I don't have quite as much to work with as last time, at least not for the good categories. Still, I braved watching these movies through rain, sleet, and snow (there's no roof on our local theater--you'd really think they'd get that fixed) just so I could provide you with this commentary on them. So now it's time to get to the only awards that do matter, the Protoclown Movie Awards for 2009!

Here are this year's categories:

Worst Raping of a Classic Franchise

The nominees are:

Friday the 13th
Terminator Salvation
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
G.I.JOE: The Rise of Cobra
Halloween II
Astro Boy

And the winner is:

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Much as I feel like I'm beating a dead horse here, I cannot in good conscience vote for any of the others when this movie is out there continuing to rape the mangled, tutu-wearing corpse of Optimus Prime. There was never the slightest sliver of hope for this movie (so it had no power to disappoint, it could only offend), and the only reason I watched it was due to sheer morbid curiosity (I wanted to see if the depths to which a movie could sink were deeper than I imagined). I've already trashed it about as much as anyone can in my in-depth review, but the fact is that this movie sucks more than all the others on the above list combined, and that's after they've finished four years of Whore School.

Best Comic Book Film, I Guess

The nominees are:

Watchmen
X-Men Origins: Wolverine

And the winner is:

Watchmen

In a time when comic book movies are more popular than ever, there wasn't a lot to offer in 2009, and neither one of these exactly set the world on fire. I enjoyed Watchmen, but I honestly can't recommend it to someone who hasn't read the book, as so many important details explaining certain characters' motivations were truncated or left out altogether for time. Still, when its only competition is the lackluster Wolverine origin story, it squeaks out a victory, and the opening credits sequence, which was the only part of the movie where director Zack Snyder showed any imagination (rather than slavishly following the comic) is worth the price of admission alone.

Most Horrific Abomination Committed to Film

The nominees are:

Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience
Hannah Montana: The Movie
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel

And the winner is:

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

These are all terrible movies that I would rather rip my lips off and eat than sit down to watch, but I have to give this one to New Moon for one very simple reason. I know that there are at least two or three more of these goddamned Twilight movies in the works. Do any of those others really have that kind of threat power? Hell, the Alvin and the Chipmunks one is already a sequel--do we really think that there's a trilogy brewing there? Unlikely. And if there is it will probably be straight-to-video. And the "music" (haha, I know!) related ones will soon be swept under the rug and forgotten. But I'm going to have to see that fucking Robert Pattinson's gothed-up sparkleface all over various merchandise tie-ins like Burger King cups and pizza boxes for the next several years, and this displeases me.

Least Anticipated Movie, And How!

The nominees are:

Fast and Furious
Saw VI
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
Angels and Demons
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chung-Li

And the winner is:

Angels and Demons

I have a hard time believing that anybody out there actually cared about any of these movies, so it's kind of difficult to select which one I was least interested in, but after enduring the inane pile of shit that was The Da Vinci Code, I'd sooner eat a copy of the book than endure the movie version of Angels and Demons and watch Tom Hanks and his bad hair running around solving puzzles that are far less challenging and interesting than anything Professor Layton can conjure up on my Nintendo DS.

Best Animated Film

The nominees are:

Up
Coraline
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Avatar
9

And the winner is:

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Okay, so there are two tracks I could have taken here...yes, I enjoyed Avatar more than all of these, but since my including it on this list was a joke I'm actually going to go with a proper animated movie, Fantastic Mr. Fox. It was actually quite a charming movie, and I have to give them serious credit for the fact that they used stop-motion instead of computer animation. It gave the whole movie a classic, warm, slightly wobbly look and feel that the other movies on this list (save Coraline) were just lacking. And the characters' voices were perfectly cast.

Best Film Featuring Liam Neeson
Being a Total Badass

The nominees are:

Taken
Five Minutes of Heaven

And the winner is:

Taken

Okay, technically Taken came out in limited release in late-2008, but I'm ignoring that fact because if I didn't, we wouldn't have much of a category here, would we? This was a highly enjoyable film, and even though the action was rather far-fetched at times, there was something endlessly fun about seeing Liam Neeson running around kicking ass and surviving things he had no business surviving (as well as somehow convincing multiple people that he was French law-enforcement without even really trying). I'll watch Liam Neeson on just about anything (including the shitter), so it's no surprise that I found this film highly enjoyable.

Stupidest Title

The nominees are:

Hotel For Dogs
C Me Dance
Let Them Chirp a While
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

And the winner is:

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

I'll admit that I've not seen any of these movies, but that hardly matters, as this category simply judges the titles, not the films themselves. Even the awful titles were a bit disappointingly weak this year, but I'm going to have to give it to Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. What the fuck is that? Seriously, what does that even mean? No, don't tell me. I don't even want to know. Now if this movie had been a gay porn, that would be an excellent title. Amazing even. I'd be giving it mad props instead of giving it an award for sucking (also an award category for gay porn, coincidentally). But as it is, it strikes me as desperately trying to get my attention, and I don't like that.

Biggest Disappointment

The nominees are:

Paranormal Activity
Fanboys

And the winner is:

Paranormal Activity

I'd heard a lot of great things about both of these movies, but Paranormal Activity was extremely disappointing. After being aware of its low budget indie roots and hearing talk of how it shuns horror cliches, I was really let down to discover that a) it's not scary and b) it resorts to using one of my most hated horror cliches of all for a silly cheap "scare" at the end that was more laughable and ridiculous than frightening. Hell, I've had scarier nighttime experiences involving my college roommate farting through the night after eating bad turkey.

Most Depressing

The nominees are:

Up
The Road
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

And the winner is:

Up

Surprisingly, I'm giving this one to Up for its soul-shatteringly depressing opening sequence. I went to see the film in the theater with three friends and expected it to be a light, fun animated film. So I was totally caught off guard by the opening sequence showing the main character's background as he meets his future wife, falls in love, and later loses her. There was more emotion packed into that ten minute sequence than in most of the other movies I saw all year. I looked over at my friends and we were all nearly in tears over how sad this shit was. When four (arguably) grown men are nearly brought to tears over a fucking cartoon, that's some seriously sad shit right there.

Best Movie That No One Saw

The nominees are:

Moon
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus

And the winner is:

Moon

Holy shit, both of these films were awesome, and neither of them lasted in the theaters nearly as long as they deserved. It's a close call, but in the end I'm giving it to Moon, because a film with a cast of basically one has no business being as interesting or captivating as this one was, but it was a searingly brilliant, thought-provoking story. And how often (outside of an Evil Dead movie) do you get to see an actor kick his own ass? Also, it was directed by David Bowie's son, so cool points for that. If you haven't seen this one yet, rent it immediately.

Best Villain

The nominees are:

Hans Landa, Inglourious Basterds
The Jonas Brothers, Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience
That Freaky Gypsy Woman, Drag Me To Hell
Michael Bay, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

And the winner is:

Hans Landa

Cristoph Waltz did a downright amazing job portraying Hans Landa, aka "the Jew Hunter" in Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. Just watching that tense opening scene which is basically nothing more than a ten minute long conversation tells you that this guy's got truly sinister depths. But he's not simply some one-note cardboard cutout villain either--he's got a hidden complexity to his character that comes out in the film's final act, when he does something I never would have predicted. And it's because of that most of all that he's a realistic character--he's not evil simply for the sake of being evil, or anything ridiculous like that which you might see in a cartoon villain. He's quite believable.

The What The Fuck Is He Doing Award

The nominees are:

James Marsters, Dragonball: Evolution
Dwayne Johnson, Race to Witch Mountain
John Turturro, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

And the winner is:

Dwayne Johnson

This award goes to an otherwise talented actor who is for some reason "slumming it" in movies that are well beneath them. I have tremendously enjoyed seeing Dwayne Johnson in various action movies, especially ones with some humor to them like The Rundown or Get Smart. The man is charismatic, badass, and he's got a remarkable gift for comedic timing. He should have no problem finding plenty of roles that are well-suited to his talents. But I'm seeing a disturbing trend here where The Rock is starting to show up in god-awful family films, and this strikes me as a tremendous waste of talent. Ahnuld dipped into the family-friendly Disneyfied crap too from time to time, and needless to say, they are not among his most memorable films. Dwayne Johnson should stick to what he's good at and avoid like a plague the shit like The Tooth Fairy that he's appeared in this year, no matter what his agent says.

And this concludes my movie awards for 2009. Agree? Disagree? Want to suggest a new category for next year? Post a comment below and let me know!

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