The 12th Annual Mutant Awards Show

Intro

As 2009 bludgeons us senseless as we pass into the new year, we kept the Mutant staff at harpoon-point until they finally cobbled together our twelfth awards show — 12 years of new categories, crazy voting and unpredictable surprises.  Y’know, versus predictable surprises.

So read on, cult fanatic, and spread the message to the whole world: that while they may take our lives, they will never take our meaningless accolades!

Category: Best Scene on an Airplane

• Winner: Airplane! in its entirety (37.9%)
• First Runner-Up: Robbie professes his love with the help of Billy Idol (The Wedding Singer) (24.2%)
• Second Runner-Up: “Oh stewardess, I speak jive.” (Airplane!) (15.8%)

Drew: As the person who nominated Airplane!‘s jive-talking scene, I’m going to call out Mike for his choice of, oh, the entire movie… poor form, sir. Nonetheless, I can’t fault him his choice, as Airplane! was back then and remains to this day comedic gold. Gladiator movies, the jive talkers, Otto the autopilot — the list goes on and the laughs keep coming. Plus there’s no end to the little sight gags in the background, so each viewing brings something new to the table. This really should be the only film shown on flights, ever.

Heather: I call cheats, too! All the good single airplane scenes were already taken, and then the whole darned movie of Airplane! got blanketed by Mike.  I shall present you with sauerkraut or something else unpleasant should we finally get to meet on one of my road trips! That being the case, you’ll all probably be shocked to know that it isn’t one of my favorite movies (BLASPHEMER!) and yet I agree with Drew that they should only show this one on airplanes, if for nothing else to relieve the tension. You hear me, American Airlines? Showing nothing but Catwoman and Wimbledon to people on a 14-hour transatlantic flight is torture and you should be ashamed!

Justin: I think we can all come to a consensus that Mike is a horrible, low-down, despicable human being, and we should work him over with rubber hoses.  That said, a bruised winner is still a winner, and even though Airplane! is nearly as old as I am, it’s of great testament to it that it is fondly loved, admired and held up as the spoofing standard for the genre.  Plus, it’s impeccably silly.

Kyle: Idiotically, my groggy remembrance of the AMA’s lead me to believe I had to nominate films ONLY from 2009, hence the bizarre inclusion of 2009’s The Proposal in this category (not to diminish the comedic brilliance of Betty White). I agree, Airplane! is perhaps the ultimate airplane movie, especially since at the other end of the spectrum the entire Airport series serves only to remind us what a mind-numbingly excruciating experience air travel truly is. ‘Tis the season to recognize that fact, yes?

Mike: Honestly I apologize for pulling the AMA equivalent of bidding a dollar higher then the person next to me, but honestly I couldn’t really bring myself to pick any one scene from Airplane! that deserved this accolade. In my mind this is the Zucker brother’s crowning achievement, and an even tie with Holy Grail for funniest movie ever. Apologies to Drew for scuttling his nomination, and next time I’ll read the nominations more carefully and see if somebody’s already taken my choice. On an entirely different note, the second runner up  is one of my favorite scenes as well, and I’m not ashamed to admit I always get a wee bit misty eyed when Robbie comes out from behind the curtain. “Hey! You don’t talk to Billy Idol that way!”

Lissa: I’m with Heather that this is not one of my favorite movies.  Actually, I’m really not a fan.  So I was a little disappointed that it not only took first place, but third as well.  Me, I’m a much bigger fan of Billy Idol on the plane.  But Mike, it’s a biker that rams the food cart into Glenn and says “Don’t you talk to Billy Idol that way!”  And Billy Idol hides behind him and gets all smug as the guy takes on Glen.  It’s awesome.

Al: Yeah, Airplane! may have been a total shoo-in for this category, but I’m definitely glad to see MRFHers step up and show love to something on the sweet side.

Category: Best Death Speech

• Winner: Spock in Star Trek: Wrath of Khan (28.4%)
• First Runner-Up: Roy Batty’s speech from Blade Runner (17.9%)
• Second Runner-Up: Doc Holiday in Tombstone (12.6%)

Drew: I have no idea what Spock said in this movie, but I imagine it as something like, “Lata, y’all jive-ass turkeys. This one’s fo’ tha muthaluvvin’ B-I-G.” Then he poured out some of his 40 on the ground.

Kyle: Drew is surely mistaken here, or perhaps he didn’t grow up with the same sort of emotional vulnerability I did. Spock’s death scene would be traumatic in even the worst of the Trek films; that it serves arguably as the climax to the best heightens its impact to Shakespearean effect. Those who engage in any sort of Trek versus Wars debate (does such a thing occur anymore amongst those who haven’t had such arguments hundreds of times before?) would do well to reference Spock’s death and Kirk’s eulogy as proof that Trek is capable of plumbing certain poetic depths Luke and Han couldn’t match if they tried.

Mike: Right you are, Kyle! From Bones and Scotty holding back Jim as he tries to get to Spock, to Spock’s final “live long and prosper”, this scene speak volumes of what Kirk and Spock and their whole dynamic is all about.  Aside from just being a choice bit of character development, it was also ridiculously daring to kill a much-loved and integral character. It brought home the film’s message of facing death with hope and elevated an already superior Trek outing into something a little more.

Lissa: I do find it kind of funny that a character known for his logic gets the best death speech – a normally emotional moment.  Just a little irony for the universe.

Al: I must admit I’m a little disappointed to not see Dennis Hopper crack the Top 3 here.  Is it full of racial epithets?  Sure, but also it’s a great scene performed by two great actors.  Although I suppose it doesn’t have anything as eminently quotable as “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few… or the one.”  Pretty anything from Dennis Hopper’s speech would get your thrown out of most public places.  C’est la vie.

Justin: To this day, there are only a handful of movie scenes that get me genuinely choked up each and every time I watch.  This is one of them.  Kirk and Spock’s friendship is one of the grounding anchors of the original Star Trek, two figures who couldn’t be more polar opposites and yet forged a team that was just about unbeatable.  As Wrath of Khan’s theme was one of difficult choices and impossible sacrifices, to see Spock quickly and without hesitation take the path that would save the ship (and his friends) while condemning him to a painful death is moving.  To hear him reaffirm his friendship to Kirk, even as he can’t see, is… is… *SOB*

Category: Worst Direct-to-DVD Sequel

• Winner: Ace Ventura Pet Detective Jr. (28.4%)
• First Runner-Up: S. Darko, a Donnie Darko Tale (18.9%)
• Second Runner-Up: Lost Boys: The Tribe (13.7%)

Drew: I have never been more grateful that having an infant makes renting movies a wasted proposition. This category makes me love my daughter all the more.

Heather: I nominated Lost Boys: The Tribe, and felt pretty strongly about it being the worst D-2-D sequel ever made. Now, seeing by how much it lost first place, I can say that I am mortally terrified and would probably run screaming from the room if anyone ever dared bring in a copy of Ace Ventura Jr. Is anyone else imagining a Dr. Forrester-like scenario where AVPDJ is brought in with a biohazard sticker on the front and heavy duty gloves used to carry it? Just me? Okay.

Kyle: What is there to say here? Basically every film that is released directly to DVD is atrocious. The few that suffer the ignoble fate due to studio idiocy or rights disputes tend to be exceptions that prove the rule. If you don’t quite remember noticing or even being aware of a film’s theatrical release, standing there in a rental store aisle or digging through a discount DVD bin, save your money.

Mike: Having sat (re: slept) through the second and third runners up in this category, I take some solace in the fact that others have felt my pain. At times such as those it’s nice to have MRFH as kind of support group for those who have lost hours of their lives to Hollywood’s attempts to make massive amounts of bank with a infinitesimal amount of effort. Can we do something about this? If we get the word out and stop people from buying straight to dvd releases, will they stop making them. Call me a dreamer, but a world without Ace Ventura Pet Detective Jr. is a world that I want to live in.

Lissa: I’m right there with Kyle.  If it didn’t make it to the theaters, I’m probably not interested – ESPECIALLY if it’s a sequel.  Some movies are just best when they’re over, and the story is done.

Justin: Look at that picture there.  Stare at it.  That’s just one frame from the movie, and if it doesn’t make you want to punch somebody — perhaps several bodies — then you are legally dead.  I can’t imagine living through an entire film consisting of such frames.

Category: Worst Movie Robot

• Winner: The jive talkin’ ‘bots in Transformers 2 (52.6%)
• First Runner-Up: Good Bill and Ted from Bill And Ted’s Bogus Journey (11.6%)
• Second Runner-Up: Battle droids in the Star Wars prequels (10.5%)

Heather: You know, I was actually going to nominate Wheelie, first for his completely embarrassing humping, and also because I thought nominating two robots would be cheating. Then Drew was all “I nominated it first, har!” and I was all “boo”.   I decided to go for it and nominate what I (and apparently you all) believe were the most embarrassing, cringe-inducing, fury-stoking robotic creatures that ever have been or ever will be on the silver screen. Michael Bay has drudged up pure evil from the stomach acid of Satan himself, and we’ll all be feeling the heartburn forever.

Drew: Oh, Heather… how I envy your naive innocence, my friend. If only I were referring to the annoying Decepticon from Transformers 2, who at least reminded me of the Humping Robot from Robot Chicken. No, my nomination was for an infinitely fouler wretch. The stuff of nightmares, a glimmer in the eye of a child-hating animator that should never have been spawned. I speak, of course, of this abomination:

“Friend find, look behind!”? You son of a b-

Kyle: In retrospect, perhaps had I walked out of Transformers 2 with the girl who admitted later she had wanted to walk out too but didn’t want to leave all of us to our foolishly chosen fates, we would be dating instead of exchange occasional awkward texts. But my personal drama shouldn’t distract from the blatant racism Michael Bay vomited upon a million screens in the guise of providing comedic elements to his CGI waste of time. It’s one thing to play with stereotypes for satire or not-quite-cheap shots in proper contexts, but here it was just pandering of the worst kind. Considering the film as a whole is nowhere near good enough to balance out the missteps, we should all be ashamed of its mammoth success.

Mike: Didn’t see Revenge of the Fallen, for exactly all the reasons that Kyle just named. It’s as though after the first Transformers movie, Bay went “What? They…liked it? Well SCREW THAT!!”. Drew, you’re right, Wheelie was an abomination. You know you’re a failure as a transforming robotic warrior when you’re the guy on the team who makes Bumblebee look butch. I still maintain that Data’s special-needs little brother B-4 deserves a higher spot on the list for pretty much ruining Nemesis in particular and Star Trek in general, to the point where it took a J.J. Abrams reboot to save the franchise.

Lissa: Well, I didn’t see any of the Transformer movies, so no comment on the first part.  I just know a bit about the Battle for the Allspark from Ducklet’s book.  But I have to agree about Bill and Ted, and I still think the battle droids are incredibly annoying, if nothing else because they are almost cute.  Seriously – those things are meant to inspire fear in the populace?

Al: You know, I’m going to stand up and say that I liked Revenge of the Fallen.  Plenty of it was inane and some of it was offensive and a lot of the jokes were just awful, but, darn it, I thought it was leaps and bounds better than the first movie, which just gave me a headache.  I even saw this one twice.  That said, I have no qualms whatsoever about handing first place to the embarrassingly racist Skids and Mudflap, who always seemed only seconds away from bursting into “Mammy.”  They fully deserve the title of Worst Movie Robot.

I’m also proud, though, to see agreement from everyone that Good Bill and Ted were pretty lame.  Evil Bill and Ted were cool and funny (-ish).  Good Bill and Ted looked like walking erector sets.

Justin: Who here now has lost all respect for Al?  Let’s see a show of hands.  Yeah.  Personally, I’m never going to see Transformers 2 (or any subsequent sequels), as my headache from the first is still pounding, but I have no idea how Michael Bay got away with incredibly racist characters — and got rewarded for it, with truckloads of cold, hard cash.  Maybe Transformers 3 should just go full hog, insult every race on the planet, and throw in a hardcore robot-on-robot sex scene just so that he can retire forever and stop making these atrocious films.

Heather: Drew, you have managed to make me feel a lot better about watching so much My Little Pony as a child. No small feat, mind you. Congratulations.

Category: Most Gratuitous Christ-Figure in a Non-Biblical Film

• Winner: Neo from the Matrix (41.1%)
• First Runner-Up: Superman in Superman Returns (20%)
• Second Runner-Up: Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen (11.6%)

Heather: Aw okay. So I called Mike out for nominating the entire Airplane movie rather than one scene, and for this category my nomination was every movie Superman has been featured in. Is that the same thing? Am I a hypocrite? Probably, but I’ll pretend like I’m not because that’s what we red-blooded American females do! In the end I defend nominating all of his movies. I feel that Superman is the most gratuitous Christ figure short of that lead singer from Creed.  Apparently I am disagreed with heavily, as Neo from the Matrix just thwomped all of the competition here.

Kyle: I feel Heather’s pain. I think this is less an instance of achievement and more a case where blatancy overwhelms all other remembrances. Even Spider-Man’s brief unconscious run as gratuitous Christ figure in Spider-Man 2 only made people think “Man, Spider-Man just turned into Neo all of the sudden!” Imagine if the Matrix sequels had been at all good, there might have just been something dignified and earned in Neo’s consistent, largely metaphorical crucifixions. Instead, it’s just another disappointing aspect of a series that disappointed so many in the end.

Mike: Ok, seeing as how Airplane! in its entirety won the category I’m gonna stop apologizing and just thumb my nose at the lot of you, and yes, Heather, that is hypocritical (love ya ;-). I’m actually glad Neo took this category, because I only nominated William Wallace because all the good choices were taken. I’d go on, but Kyle pretty much nailed it here, so, moving on…

Lissa: Really, was there ever any doubt?  I forget who I even nominated because come on – NEO.  How much more of a gratuitous Christ figure can you be?  I mean, really.  I do agree that the suckitude of the sequels makes it much more prominent, but still.  Wow.

Drew: Superman is such a Christ analogue that it’s enough to make you forget he was created by two Jewish guys. Honestly, a perfect man who was sent from the heavens to live among us and do only good things? If it weren’t blasphemous, I’d make a joke about Jesus having heat vision. Nevertheless, Son of Man or Son of the Matrix, the Wachowskis inarguably ruled the roost on this one.

Justin: Biblical prophecy comes from God.  What I want to know is where movie prophecy comes from — you know, those vague prophetic statements that just show up in movies like The Matrix, where Neo is the one “prophesied” to be 100% grade-A awesome.  And yet nobody ever says out loud, “Hey, where’d you get that prophecy?  7-11?”  There’s just all these random prophecies floating out in movie-land that somehow always come true, and within  a two hour running time.  I think there’s a prophecy fairy at work.

Heather: Mike, only I can call myself a hypocrite. Expectt a fair helping of natto along with that sauerkraut!

Category: Cameo Crossover Award

• Winner: Tony Stark appearing at the end of Incredible Hulk (31.6%)
• First Runner-Up: The Ark of the Covenant in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (18.9%)
• Second Runner-Up: The Sesame Street cast attending Kermit and Piggy’s wedding in Muppets Take Manhattan (13.7%)

Heather: This was, I think, my most difficult category to nominate for. Maybe I don’t have enough observance skillz to catch the cameos, but once the winner, Tony Stark, was nominated I knew I could come up with nothing comparable. Fans all over squealed with delight when we sight Stark in Incredible Hulk, and it caused quite a buzz for a while afterward. Definitely a most memorable cameo.

Kyle: The fact that they are conscious enough of an Avengers future film to provide little hints and details is enough to give Marvel a nice gold star on this cinematic efforts. Plus, a little Robert Downey Jr. is always appreciated!

Mike: This was an event of no small proportions, it was a heralding of a new era in superhero movies, where crossovers abound and the entire Marvel universe could be explored. Really…any day now…Avengers. ‘Nuff said.

Lissa: Like Heather, I had a hard time with this one.   I was so relieved when I remembered the Sesame Street crew being at Kermit and Piggy’s wedding, and apparently nostalgia did well with you guys 🙂  But I remember going nuts over that when I was a little kid.

Drew: “And there came a day, a day unlike any other, when Earth’s mightiest heroes found themselves united against a common threat. On that day, the Avengers were born — to fight the foes no single superhero could withstand! Heed the call, then — for now, the AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!”

Mike: Drew, seriously, for the next 24 hours, you are my official best friend.

Category: Hottest Movie Parent

• Winner: Amy Adams in Enchanted (21.1%)
• First Runner-Up: Ellen Griswold, National Lampoon’s Vacation movies (17.9%)
• Second Runner-Up: Missy from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (15.8%)

Drew: I have nothing to add except to say I’m pleased so many of you agree with me. But back off – if Amy and I ever divorce our respective spouses, she’s mine.

I also can’t help noticing we have 4 female staffers but only 2 male nominees in this category. Drew is… intrigued.

Heather: Well don’t leer at me, I left that one blank. In the end I had trouble coming up with a male movie parent I thought was “hot” in time (since Ryan Reynolds was already taken). Also after last year’s landslide of “guys aren’t babes” I figured it was a losing battle anyway. Yay for pessimism. I mean “boo”!

Kyle: I have never seen Enchanted. But man oh man is Amy Adams hot!

Mike: Whose parent was she supposed to be?

Lissa: She’s a STEP parent, even.  I’m still standing by my nomination of Gregory Peck, being morally upright and a real dad in To Kill a Mockingbird.  Seriously- Atticus Finch was… okay, so in the book I never imagined him as hot, but when Gregory Peck played him….  Interestingly, along the lines of what Drew noticed, I notice that all the top three are women.

I’d also like to add that if TV dads could count, Helo from BSG would have been my nomination.  Is anyone arguing with that?

Mike: Heck, I’m 100% hetero and I’d agree with that. Coupled with Sharon “Athena/don’t-call-me-Boomer” Agathon, those two are the pretty much the hottest couple on Galactica, which makes it weird how their kid was so funny-lookin’.

Al: I’m not gonna lie: Missy was my nominee for this category, but I totally voted for Ellen Griswold.  And so did 17.9% of you, apparently.  A triumph of the slightly more realistic looking woman?  Or by-product of Beverly D’Angelo’s shower scene?

Justin: What, so Drew throws in a picture from the Transformers cartoon, and it gives you all license to start winging photos of bare-chested studs?  Well, heck, why NOT?

Heather: I’m diggin’ this new, sexier MRFH. When do we hire those guys on as temps?

Lissa: No kidding.  Justin, I like the way you think!  Can we throw in more around the site?

Category: Funniest Running Gag

• Winner: King Arthur can’t count to three in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (27.4%)
• First Runner-Up: “And don’t call me Shirley.” (Airplane!) (18.9%)
• Second Runner-Up: “Two dollars!” – Better Off Dead (15.8%)

Heather: When it comes to this site, Monty Python is probably going to win any category that it is in. That’s just the way it is, and that’s not all bad. In hindsight I would have recommend the swallow/coconut gag from Monty Python.

Mike: In all earnestness today’s “comedys” like Epic Movie and Meet the Spartans could learn a thing or two from Monty Python and the Zucker brothers. Nowadays all we have are lame pathetic shadows of the genius that is displayed in the Winner and First Runner up.

Lissa: Yeah, Monty Python tends to trump all.  (Now THERE’S a Christ figure, but I don’t think Brian counts as gratuitous.)

Drew: The worst part is that I don’t even remember that running gag from Holy Grail. Whether that’s a sign of my failing memory or just the sheer number of jokes present in the movie is anyone’s guess. (It does help if you watch it sober, Drew. -Lissa) Still, when a film is as good as the first 99% of this one, it’s no surprise that a few will slip through the cracks. Guess it’s time for another viewing…

Al: Geez, Drew!  I’d say to bring in the Spanish Inquisition, but you were probably expecting that.

Mike: Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope, and nice red uniforms!

Cult Lifetime Achievement Award: John Hughes

The Cult Lifetime Achievement Award is a special recognition of an individual or group’s contribution to cult cinema over the course of their life.  This year we’re pleased to honor the late John Hughes with this award, particularly for his bevy of 80’s comedy/dramas that have helped to define a generation of teens.

Kyle: Those of various ages who catch John Hughes films on cable, or perhaps decide on friendly advice to purposely seek out one of his great ones, tend to find that his work is ultimately timeless. Though his strongest creative contributions are found in films firmly grounded in the 1980’s (while he did good work for most of his professional life, this is where his triumphs are found), his directing style and writing skill elevates his subject matter above curious fashions and unrecognizable automobiles. It is a sign of his artistic genius that John Hughes would have produced classic, memorable films no matter what decade he reached his prime in. The surface details were always right, but what draws you in to a work of Hughes’ is the merciful focus on the human drama of teenagers, adults, children, families, employees, and all matter of roles we all find ourselves playing in our lives. His scripts and films speak in the hip lingo of their times but communicate truths that will always define us, and illuminate bonds that we might otherwise ourselves overlook. Whenever I come across a John Hughes movie I’m struck by how obvious and consistent the love for its characters is displayed in every frame. Hughes was a rare talent that was fluent not only with cinema but also with the human condition, and everything he worked on held evidence of that. And of course, for those of a certain age, John Hughes is the filmmaker who didn’t so much tell us how we were to act, as much as used his films to hold up a mirror so we could see and decide for ourselves. We would live our lives much as we do without John Hughes, but we live our lives with knowledge, good humor, and dignity because his work pointed out some things large and small that will always make us laugh, cry, and see ourselves and the people we know reflected in. Thanks for everything, John.

Mike: Everybody wanted to be Ferris Bueller, even though most of us were really Cameron. An entire generation cheered when Duckie showed up at the prom. Uncle Buck displayed the best of a comedic talent that was gone too soon, and whether you admit it or not, your heart was warmed by the holiday feeling of Home Alone. For me though, there are very few John Hughes flicks that speak to me more than The Breakfast Club. The story of a group of individuals basically forced into stifling social groups and further degraded by indifferent, and at times downright hostile, authority figures was an anthem and wake up call for a decade very much defined by it’s indifference to the upcoming generation, and paved the way for later films like Pump up the Volume. With the exception of the focus-group mandated ending to Pretty in Pink, I’d have to say that I’m a huge fan of John Hughes’ entire body of work. Long live Duckie!!!

Lissa: Actually, Pretty in Pink is where Duckie gets his internet handle from.  Random fact.

I discovered John Hughes fairly late in life (relatively speaking) – I think I was in college when I first saw The Breakfast Club, and even Ferris.

Justin: I think it’s one of the greatest cinematic crimes of all time that John Hughes steered away from the teenage comedy when the 90’s hit, and then slowly went into seclusion thereafter.  For a brief window of time, he put his finger square on the pulse of a very misunderstood demographic, and spoke to teenagers eye-to-eye.  He also wasn’t afraid of getting silly or being outrageous, which is why I’ll always prefer Ferris Bueller over Breakfast Club any day of the week.  It speaks highly of his work that even today, I have teenagers at my church see my Breakfast Club poster on the wall and gush about how great a movie that was, how it really nailed what school is like, in a way.  And that’s a movie from the mid-80’s, mind you.

Drew: There is a tacit understanding among all people born between the years of, oh, say 1970-1985. This notion is rarely verbalized, being as it is so universally embraced that talking about it would seem silly — you wouldn’t have a conversation about whether you should put clothes on in the morning, you just do it. (Most of us, anyway. Kyle.) The same holds true for the aforementioned bit of ingrained wisdom, which is simply this: when one is troubled by matters of the heart, turn to the works of John Hughes… they will not steer you wrong.

It’s not that John Hughes was the first person to make a movie starring teenagers, or where the focus was on high school life. But he was one of the first, and unquestionably among the very best, at actually getting inside their heads. It may seem hard to believe today (then again, maybe not), but there was a time when teenagers in films were portrayed as either slightly shorter adults, blithering idiots, or precocious kids. Sometimes all three. What made a Hughes film so special is that he actually seemed to understand the things most of us forget when we reach adulthood. Yes, we’re all self-centered sarcastic know-it-alls who think the world is out to get us as teenagers, and yes, we all grow out of it eventually; but John seemed to be one of the few people interested in saying, “Hey, until you do grow out of it, life’s going to kind of suck. I get it. Here’s something to make you laugh and let you know you’re not alone.” Some of his movies aimed for profound messages and some just tried to entertain, but you always walked away nodding your head, whether it was to the understanding that we’re all a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal, or that life moves pretty fast, so you’d better stop and look around every once in a while, lest you miss it.

In the time before and even since Hughes’ death, I’ve heard the backlash that inevitably arises in response to popular but not sufficiently “artsy” works of pop culture. There are those who say that The Breakfast Club is a movie about a group of stereotypes complaining that they don’t want to be treated like stereotypes. Some rail against the ending of Pretty in Pink, or claim that Home Alone was juvenile and unfunny. (Never mind that it was a movie made for kids, and having seen it as a kid, I can vouch for the fact that it was hilarious. To kids.) And the thing is, none of that matters even the slightest little bit in the long run. History, as always, will not record this backlash; what it will remember is that there was once a talented and, by all accounts, very nice man who made a bunch of movies, many of them aimed at a segment of the population who are disaffected, cynical, and often supremely annoying… but who nonetheless need to feel understood as much as anyone, because they’re only a step away from being the adults of tomorrow. He made us cry and he made us laugh, and he ultimately left the world a better place than it was when he arrived; and in the end, that’s really all that matters. We’ll miss you, John, but thank you for leaving us a legacy.

“And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds are immune to your consultations
They’re quite aware of what they’re going through.”

Voter Comments

• I’ll reserve my pith for another time.
• There’s cat hair under the keys. How on earth are you supposed to get cat hair out from under the keys?
• “I remember another gentle visitor from the heavens. He came in peace and then died, only to come back to life. And his name was… E.T. the Extraterrestrial. (Sniffs) I love that little guy.”  signed, Oogie-Boogie
• re: Best Scene on an Airplane: Is this the first time a movie (outside of actors from the same film) was nominated twice in the same category?
• A well rounded individual would most certainly know how to peel a potato using the simplest of tools. But then I said: “Whoa! Is that really all you have to say?” and then she said: “Campbells chicken soup IS the most perfect food simulation known to man.” And that’s how we know the Earth to be bannana shaped.  CHEESE!!!
• I haven’t felt this awful since we saw that Ronald Reagan film!
• Special mention should go to Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz for their excellent recurring running gags. “You’ve got red on you.” – RobOfTheDead
• pithy sayings.
• My hat is a squid, your arguement is invalid.
• No pithy sayings, just “keep up the good work,” “some of those were REALLY tough,” and “how is a girl supposed to choose between Gregory Peck and Ryan Reynolds, even if the former’s dead? Just impossible.”
• I’m pretty sure the worst movie robot category was invented just for those Transformers 2 robots. Good call.
• So long, and thanks for all the fish.
• Another year, another Mutant Awards! Sadly, my answers on the survey are rather limited since I never actually SAW half the movies mentioned here. Sorry!
• Nice selection this year. Everything strikes me as a good pick, had to make some tough choices. Looking for an older crowd eh?
• Question 5 was a toughie. But then Christ-figures in non-Biblical films are intrinsicly gratuitous.
• The hiiiiiiills are alliiiiiiiiiive with the sound of muuuuuuuuusiiiiiiiiiic….
• Tadpoles! Tadpoles is a winner!
• More power!
• Do you really think it’s fair to put LB2 AND HPty4 in the same ‘worst of’ category? And I think that stupid robot from Power Rangers should have been an option, too. (there were 2 PR movies, after all)
  But thank you, Mutants all, for another year where you ventured into shelves of the video store that others were afraid to visit. For warning me against ‘films’ like Hitman and anything by Uwe Boll (ok, the last one was pretty much a given). Thank you for bringing gems like ‘Let The Right One In’ and ‘Brick’ to my attention.
• Honorable mention: George Barrows as Ro-Man!
• Can we just have Keanu Reeves as Christ, period? 😀
• …but seriously, I want my two dollars.
• How could you have missed Spawn in the “Most Gratuitous Christ Figure” category? ‘Cause that was pretty gratuitous.
• Best Gratuitous Use of the Word Belgium in a Major Motion Picture. Not including In Bruges.
• Did you know this was a private party of Satan’s helpers? No one “hipped” me to that, dude! IT’S OFF LIMITS!!
• No Peter Jackson or Bill Nighy for a brief cameo in Hot Fuzz? BLASPHEMOUS!  Would Edward Furlong count for Best Death Speech in American History X?