The Metro Pulse Awards for Really Special Cinematic Achievement
Frustrated by the Academy's unwillingness to present the Oscars that they'd really like to see, movie gurus Coury Turczyn, Chris Neal and Jesse Fox Mayshark create their own list of special winners. Our awards ceremony will be held in our sumptuous offices between 3:05 and 3:10 a.m. on Sunday. Oddly enough, we haven't received a single response to the invitations we sent out. You'd think these stars had something better to do...
Best Sequel of Extraordinary Vision and Depth
Who doesn't like a sequel? Certainly not the moviegoing public. That's why Hollywood devotes so much time, effort, and talent to crafting the very finest sequels possible. These aren't just attempts to milk more money from aging cash cows; no, these are artistic endeavors with the same creative integrity as, say, the latest Saturday Night Live skit movie.
Winner: The Mummy Returns. Not only did it offer more digital mummies, more chase scenes, and more explosions, but it also had The Rock in his history-making motion picture debut. Not only that, but it threw in a cute kid to boot! Honestly, what more could a focus group want out of a movie? (CT)
Coolest Guy in Ocean's Eleven
No movie in recent memory has been more populated by old-fashioned cool guys like George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Andy Garcia and Matt Damon—men who know just how to walk, how to talk, how to dress, and can outwit the devil while looking like a million bucks. Guys women pant after and men want to be so badly it hurts.
Winner: Pitt. I'm not sure why, but I think it's the hair. (CN)
Best Ending for a "Puzzle Movie"
Last year brought an inexplicable wave of "puzzle movies"—films like Vanilla Sky, Mulholland Drive, Memento and Heist—that dare to let the audience be confused for a while, only to (sort of) explain all with a whiplash-inducing revelation at the conclusion. Many viewers, perhaps still numb after Scary Movie 2 and Crocodile Dundee In Los Angeles, were annoyed at being forced to think; many more were delighted at several filmmakers in the same year finally assuming their audiences possess an actual modicum of intelligence.
Winner: Mulholland Drive in a squeaker. In literal terms, it leaves loose endings hanging everywhere, but as those mind-altering last 20 minutes slam to a halt, Mulholland suddenly makes tragic, satisfying and painfully raw emotional sense. (CN)
Best Kevin Spacey Flop
Ever since his award-winning performance in 1999's American Beauty, Kevin Spacey has wisely stuck with the Cuba Gooding Jr. Career Immolation Plan. That is, accept only the most embarrassing roles that least utilize your talent. And 2001 saw two outstanding Kevin Spacey flops that stirred warm memories of his superb 2000 flop, Pay It Forward. In K-PAX, Spacey plays a kooky nut who might just be an alien visitor, while in The Shipping News he's a gloomy gus who must move to Newfoundland to be even more depressed.
Winner: K-PAX. A difficult choice to be sure, but for its combination of silly plotting and syrupy moralizing, the nod goes to K-PAX. (CT)
Audrey Hepburn Award for Sustained Cuteness
The relentlessly cute Audrey Tautou in the relentlessly cute Amélie. She's got the silky black bangs, the pencil-thin eyebrows—heck, she's even named Audrey. Her performance in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's alternately charming and cloying French confection consists mostly of mischievous glances at the camera and assorted expressions of childlike emotion (wide-eyed joy, wide-eyed surprise, wide-eyed indignation, etc.). Like Hepburn, she manages to seem sexy almost by accident. Isn't Love in the Afternoon about due for a remake? (JFM)
Best Reputation Reclamation
It was a year for second chances...and third chances, and fourth...
Winner: Halle Berry in Monster's Ball. The competition was stiff; Ron Howard (Beautiful Mind), Jon Voigt (Ali), and Marisa Tomei (In the Bedroom) had the Vegas oddsmakers in a tizzy. But Berry is the clear winner. A mere five months after Swordfish, Monster's Ball made people stop talking (just) about her boobs and start talking about her talent. Who would have guessed the star of BAPS would someday get such universal critical props? (CN)
Best Performance By a Supporting Bra
Not since Julia Roberts' bra in Erin Brockovich has an undergarment so enhanced the performance of a major star.
Winner: Angelina Jolie's garment inTomb Raider. Truly, all contenders in this ever-popular category must bow to Angelina Jolie's breakthrough bra in Tomb Raider. Not only did this feat of mechanical engineering appear utterly invisible, but it also added at least a full cup-size to Ms. Jolie's already prodigious talent. In this age of rampant surgical enhancement and digital trickery, it is heartening to see that Hollywood has marked a return to the good old days of honest padding. (CT)
Three Faces of Eve Acting Award
Naomi Watts in Mulholland Drive. First, she's the waify naif Betty, all sunny blond and golly-gee. Then, with a wave of the David Lynch wand and a trip into the little blue box, she's the resentful basket case Diane, sullen and punishing and baggy-eyed. And in between comes that amazing audition scene, where for just three minutes she's someone else entirely. If Mulholland Drive is a trickster's treatise on making movies (and it is, at least partly), then Watts' mind-jarring gear shifts constitute a master class on the nature of acting itself. She was named Best Actress in the Village Voice's critics' poll, but she wasn't even nominated for an Oscar—which shows either that Hollywood doesn't like seeing itself in the mirror, or it's too stupid to recognize the reflection. (JFM)
William Shatner Memorial Achievement Award
Ethan Hawke. How many more ways must this man insult humanity? First he offends actors everywhere by snaring one lead role after another despite having no discernible talent. Then he horrifies aspiring writers by getting his self-indulgent novel published. Then he brazenly marries and impregnates Uma Thurman. And now he's nominated for an Oscar! There is no more vivid real-life example of Forrest Gump-style failing upward (unless you count George W. Bush). And don't get me started on that goatee!
Special Runner-up: Keanu Reeves, for many of the same reasons. (CN)
The Pauly Shore Award For Undeserved Movie Roles
This special award spotlights the hopelessly undertalented individuals who have movie offers thrust upon them after gaining momentary fame on MTV. Truly, no artist exemplified this Hollywood tradition in 2001 more than Tom Green—writer, director, and star of Freddie Got Fingered. His inspiring tale of a humble cartoonist with a special affinity for farm animals will no doubt be someday recognized as a classic of the bestiality/comedy genre. One can hardly wait for the next masterpiece by this triple-threat filmmaker. Is it too soon for the American Film Institute life achievement award? (CT)
Best Performance in a Movie Starring Keanu Reeves, Katie Holmes and Greg Kinnear
Cate Blanchett in The Gift. Playing hard against type as a smalltown Southern single mom, the regal Brit single-handedly elevated Sam Raimi's supernatural murder story a few notches above the B-movie genre exercise it should have been. Even as a spooked psychic, the indomitable Blanchett provided a solid, daily-grind grounding for the film's ethereal suspense. And she did it without making her co-stars look bad. Now that's class. (JFM)
March 20, 2002 * Vol. 12, No. 12
© 2002 Metro Pulse
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