By The Bug's resident
fillum reviewer, Don Gordon-Brown
What a great year it was for motion pictures!
Grand spectacles, heart-stopping action flicks, gripping dramas, excellent
character-driven romances and misty-eyed melodramas; all powered by outstanding
acting performances from the industry's greatest-ever stars.
But enough about 1939. Let's now look back at 1998.
What can you say about a year which boasted two animated fillums about ants;
two Elizabethan costume extravaganzas, two (or was it 32) meteor disaster
movies, two corny "my country, right or wrong" US war movies and
a plethora of other bland Yankee dribble?
Before releasing this year's batch of Bugsies, a word about our rules.
Fillums are eligible if they've been shown in Australia in the last 12 months
or so – sorta.
For example, we wanted to include Kevin Costner's annual, over-priced, over-long,
over-the-top post-apocalyptic offering - in this case the arse-numbing,
giggle- inducing The Postman – in this year's Bugsies, if for
no other reason than Kevin Costner's annual, over-priced, over-long, over-the-top
post-apocalyptic films always help fill out most of our categories.
Then, sadly, we realised that because The Postman was released in
Down Under Land in February last year, we gleefully included it in last
year's Bugsies. Likewise, The Matrix – although just released
– slips in under the wire for the 1998 awards because the Bugsies are
later than normal this year. Besides, it suits us. The Matrix has
a walk-up start for a couple of much-sought-after Bugsie nominations
The other basic rule is that we haven't seen most of the movies we nominate.
We prefer it that way.
Finally, we apologise for the aforementioned delay in releasing the Bugsies.
It wasn't totally our fault: we took in a screening of The Thin Red Line
some five weeks back and have only just been woken up by a thoughtful
cinema staff finally alerted to the smell.
So now, without further ado, the envelopes please!
The least-worst Australian fillum of the year:
1. Babe: Pig in the City
2. The Interview
3. Head On (or was it Hard On?)
4. Amy
The Australian fillum most likely to have been in the $2 for six weeks
section of your local video store before the first weekend after its cinema
debut:
1. Welcome to Woop Woop
2. Dear Claudia
3. Dead Letter Office
Worst international fillum of the year:
1. Godzilla
2. Lost in Space
3. Baby Geniuses
4. Hurly Burly
5. Legionnaire
6. Mercury Rising
7. Shit Floats
The Perpetual Test Audience Sampling Trophy Award for the American
movie whose slick production gloss was more than matched by the dross of
a tired, predictable, spew-inducing, formula-driven storyline.
1. Patch Adams
2. Stepmom
3. Message in a Bottle
4. You've Got Mail
Worst international performance by a female pretending to be English
in any role :
1. Gwyneth Paltrow: Sliding Doors
2. Gwyneth Paltrow: Shakespeare in Love
3. Gwyneth Paltrow: Oscar Night Acceptance Speech
Worst international performance by a female in any role :
1. Sandra Bullock, Hope (amongst other things) Floats
2. Every actress in Species 2.
3. Sweet little Anna Paquin trying to be a slut and rating
1.2 on the Christina Ricci scale of trollop: Hurly Burly
Worst international performance by a male in any role:
1. Wesley Snipes (Blade)
2. Claude Van Wham Bam Thank You Damme, Legionnaire
3. Harry "I Should Stick to Singing" Connick Jnr, Hope
Floats
4. Woody Harrelson: Palmetto
5. Kevin Costner: The Postman (good enough to put in two years running!)
Worst plot premise on which to hang an entire movie:
1. That two old codgers can read in the Irish Times that someone in their
West Irish village has won the Lotto and none of their neighbours finds
out one way or another: Waking Ned Devine
2. That anyone is going to be remotely interested in a Jamie Lee
Curtis movie where she doesn't flash her tits at least once: Halloween
H20
3. That Susan Sarandon, 52, who has a 30-plus something Tim Boy in
real life, could be remotely interested sexually in either wrinkled old
Gene Hackman or wizened Paul Neuman (102 and 107 respectively): Twilight
4. The entire sting concept which drives The Spanish Prisoner.
The Merchant/Ivory Award for a costume drama in which a homely young
thing discovers the power of her magic road, lets some poor sap take his
turbo-charged blue-veined monster for a quick spin on it but then suddenly
declares the road off-limited to all vehicular traffic, putting up the carnal
barricades and living out a solitary existence strangely comforted by the
knowledge of what a damn fine road it was in the first place.
1. The Governess
2. Washington Square (or something akin to that)
The "Gosh, there so much blood spreading out from under his body
that there's no way in the world that this character will ever survive to
see the movie's end which is a shame really 'cos he seemed quite a nice
guy" Award :
1. The security officer/gatekeeper, (LL Cool J): Halloween H2O
2. Samuel Jackson's character, The Negotiator (or was it Kevin Spacey's
character?)
The blandest, most forgettable original song of the year:
1. The Prayer, Quest for Camelot
2. That'll Do, Babe: Pig in the City
3. I Don't Want to Miss a Thing: Armageddon
4. When You Believe, The Prince of Egypt
5. A Soft Place to Fall, The Horse Whisperer
Best use of special effects to cover for a non-existing storyline:
1. Godzilla
2. The Matrix
3. Lost in Space
4. Species 2
5. Blade
The "Imagine How Shitty a Year It Would Have Been If We'd Been
Forced to Endure these Sequels" Award:
1. Schindlers List 2: Return to Auschwitz
2. Waterless World: The Dry Years
3. First Man to Get Up Again
4. Brady Bunch Back Again: Third Time Funny?
5. The English Cadaver
6. I Wouldn't Have a Fucking Clue What You Did Last Winter!
7. Bravebrain.
The silliest/corniest single scene in any movie:
1. Shakespeare in Love: the sword fight between the two rival
theatre troupes.
2. Saving Private Ryan: the older Private Ryan saluting the gravestone
of his rescuer at the war cemetery and asking his wife: have I been a good
person? (Steven, pleassssse! Has it sunk in yet why you missed out on best
picture?)
3. Armageddon: any scene showing Steve Buscemi's teeth.
5. Star Trek Insurrection: Captain Jean-Luc Picard as a romantic
interest. (Yechtttt!)
The Lethal Terminal Die Weapon Hard Velocity Award for the most unbelievable
action sequence:
1. Armageddon: The two space shuttles hurting in an out of the meteor
tail shower like dodgems at a sideshow. (let's fire those retro and lateral
rockets NOW!)
2-23. Godzilla: The 22 times the baby mutant monsters chase our heroes
along the corridors of Madison Square Garden and never quite catch them.
Pity really.
24. Lost in Space
Most transparent hype in a media kit/ production notes:
1. Psycho
"Psycho plays on so many different levels that the conscious and
subconscious, the subliminal and the real are equally important" -
Actor Anne Heche
2. Ronin
The extraordinary collaboration throughout the production of Ronin
worked to create something unusual in the conservative, cautious Hollywood
of the present - a movie filled with a pervasive ambiguity, some of which
is never explained.
3. Life is Beautiful
At the outset, Benigni knew he was taking a tremendous risk, but he says
that 'love always brings courage'. "When the idea first took hold of
me, it was very much like an illumination, a revelation, and my very first
reaction was to retreat. But then I realised the retreat was caused by fear,
and in the end my feelings about the story won over the fear."
4. Analyze This
"But when my agent called me a few months later and asked me
how I would feel about the project if Billy Crystal and Robert de Niro were
involved, it definitely became something I wanted to do" - Director
Harold Ramis
5. The Thin Red Line
Malick's adaptation of Jones' work adds a new thematic strand, as
it creates a strong awareness of the physical and anthropological environment
in which this clash was fought. The film represents a juxtaposition of a
vicious mechanized battle taking place in a pristine wilderness...
6. Stepmom
"I was thrilled with the prospect of working with Julie (Roberts)
and Susan (Sarandon) and the opportunity to do a film that could be a personal
journey for me and a tribute to my mother." Director Chris Columbus
7. Stepmom
"While working on my director's rewrite of the script I only
saw one person playing the role of Luke – Ed Harris. Ed brings an honesty,
a verisimilitude to every character he plays." Director Chris Columbus
The following technical and special awards were presented earlier in the evening before we came on-line:
The Shameless Product Placement/Endorsement Award:
Godzilla: any scene, basically; and Antz, with
its gigantic Mountain Dew softdrink bottle (the first tie in this category
in Buggsie history)
The Most Thankless Task Facing Any Make-Up Department Award:
The Mask of Zorro team, for the unenviable - and as it turned
out, impossible - task of trying to make Anthony Hopkins in a flashback
sequence look like an energetic and romantically inclined, slashing young
blade of a Zorro.
The Alan Rickman Scale Award for hamming it up horrendously as a baddie:
Hugo Weaving – The Matrix
The Making the Most of a Really Bad Typecasting Decision and Almost
Getting Away with It Award :
Mike Meyers as the sleazy niteclub owner: Studio 54 (or just
plain 54 to some) and Andie MacDowell as a drunken southern
flousie: Shadrack (the first tie in this category in Buggsie history)
Most Obvious Piece of Typecasting:
Woody Allen as a weedy, neurotic, cowardly, therapist-seeking New Yorker:
Antz
The Loud Extended Raspberry Award for the movie most touted in mainstream
media reviews to clean up at the Oscars but which ended up getting exactly
the number of Oscars it deserved:
The Thin Red Line
The Spanish Dancer Award for the film most likely to get young people
lighting up:
Stepmom (Susan Sarandon grasping defiantly for her gaspers despite
a losing bout with the aforementioned Spanish)
Best use of car chase scenes to make us forget momentarily what a
load of old cobblers the movie really is:
Ronin.
The Meryl "A Dingo's Got Moy Baby' Streep Perpetual Trophy Award
for Worst Accent:
Jean Reno as a Frenchman: Ronin; and Hugo Weaving as a cross
between and Englishman and a Russian on powerful sedatives: The Matrix (the
first tie in this category in Buggsie history).
Best line in what was a particularly bad year for good lines:
No nominations received.
Worst slogan for a movie billboard/advertising material/trailer:
Godzilla: Size Does Matter!
The "Why on Earth Did They Bother Re-making
It When We Already Knew Who Did It" Award.
Psycho
The "You Would Have Been an Absolute Shoo-in for Best Actress
Gong If You'd Shown Just a Little Bit of Tit" Award:
Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth
Best dialogue delivered through a constant drug-induced haze:
Jeff Bridges: The Big Lebowski. (Highly commended: Johnny
Depp; Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas)
The "TV Shows That Should Never Have Been Made Into Movies"
Award:
Leave it to Beaver; The Avengers (the first tie in this
category in Buggsie history)
The Scariest Thing to Come Out of This Year's Oscars Presentation
Night Award:
The thought of ever having to listen to both Gwyneth Paltrow and Tom Hanks's
acceptances speeches on the one night if they ever managed to fluke best
acting Oscars in the SAME year.
HAVE YOUR SAY!
Do you think we miss someone worthy of a gong in
this year's Bugsies list? Or is there a new category you'd like to suggest?
Actor who achieved the greatest amount of money and fame just for being
themselves Award perhaps?
Or maybe you'd just like to drop us a line telling us what you thought of
last year's batch of fillums. Send your e-mail to: editor@thebug.com.au