2023 Year in Review – The ‘Jitsu Awards
Best Picture –
Curious Case of Benjamin Button – 166 min – J
Kids – 91 min
Timecop – 99min – MJ
I am a Ghost – 76 min – J
The Book of Henry – 105 min – J
Out of Africa – 161 min
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier – 107 min
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday – 89 min -M
Brainscan – 96 min
Thir13en Ghosts – 91 min
Amityville 3D – 93 min
The Mean One – 93 min
Police Academy 4 – Citizens on Patrol – 88 min
The Beyond – 80 min
Knock Knock – 96 min
Mandy – 121 min – M
Cats – 110 min
Knight Rider 2000 – 91min
Larger than Life – 93 min
Home Team – 95 min
The Happytime Murders – 91 min
- Director – David Fincher – “Curious Case of Benjamin Button” technical wizardry at its finest, while also showing a sensitive touch for smaller moments, this movie has far and away the best direction of any of the others we watched for the show. That said, it’s got a trash third act and a loathsome, selfish lead character, so I’ll just give this award to Colin Trevorrow for “Book of Henry” instead. No, kidding. it’s Fincher alll the way for me here.
- Cinematography – David Watkin for Out of Africa or Claudio Miranda for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Giving Watkin the edge for his outstanding Oscar acceptance speech, but I’m inclined to give Miranda a Jit because he lost the Oscar to Anthony Dod Mantle for Slumdog Millionaire. But considering Benny Butts led the pack at the 2008 Oscars with 13 nominations, maybe it’s fine to give it to Out of Africa and its lowly 11 nominations. Jesus, what are we even doing with this podcast?
- Score – Mandy – Jóhann Jóhannsson. I despise the movie Mandy for so many reasons, but the music score is certainly not one of them. As tribute to Jóhann Jóhannsson, who passed away in 2018 at only 48 years-old and who did some incredible score work for Denis Villeneuve’s”Sicario” and, especially, “Arrival,” it’s without even a trace of sarcasm that I award “Mandy” a Jitsu for its lurid, guitar-heavy, synth-layered score that does at least 70% of the work building what most people commend as its textured atmosphere.
- Death Scene – the real estate lawyer, Ben Moss (played by actor JR Bourne) who gets sliced in half profile-wise in “Thirteen Ghosts.”
- Love Scene – Mia Sara and Jean Claude Van Damme – “Timecop” Never thought we’d see Sloane from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” like this, but I’m not complaining!
- Actress – Naiomi Watts – “Book of Henry” Susan Carpenter, mother of Henry and Peter. Both Rosario Dawson and Chloe Sevigny could have had this one, were “Kids” not so challenging to watch and perhaps so overly realistic, as though it’s not acting so much as who the actresses were at the time. Sevigny in particular, blurs the line between acting and real life in other films, like Boys Don’t Cry and, most notably, Brown Bunny with Vincent Gallo.
- Actor – Jaeden Martell – “Book of Henry” Henry Carpenter, the title character. Close runner up was Ron Silver as Senator Ron MacComb, but he was basically Al Pacino, so. Also good was Ian
- FX moment – All of the FX work that made Brad Pitt an old man boy – “ Curious Case of Benjamin Button” was extraordinary makeup effects work by industry veteran Greg Cannom who also worked on Bram Stoker’s Dracular for Coppola, Hannibal for Ridley Scott, and, in the movie Vice, turned Christian Bale into Dick Cheney. Anybody who can turn Patrick Bateman into Dick Cheney? That’s a guy that deserves an award. But if not that, maybe the scene where Ron Silver comes into contact with himself in “Timecop” and morphs into Gak. But I’m not psyched to go that route because 1) it looked trash and 2) John DJ Des Jardin was the head digital effects guy on it and he’s Zack Snyders main effects dude. No thank you.
- Stunt – all the sweating Eddie Furlong does in Brainscan. He’s lucky to still be alive.
Bottom Five Filmjitsu Moments
- I have something I call “Incidental Wit,” which is probably my favorite phrase I’ve ever coined because 1) it describes me succinctly and 2) it’s an oxymoron. The actual definition of wit involves inventiveness and keen intelligence, meaning it’s something that isn’t happenstance and cannot just “happen” out of nowhere. To be witty means you’re clever – you see an opportunity and seize it to say something funny. But me? I am CONSTANTLY falling sideways into jokes that SHOULD be witty, were they actually intended. There’s no better example of this than in our “I am a Ghost/A Ghost Story” episode where I make the perfect joke… completely unintentionally. (Episode 11 – 12:50)
- I think I have a tendency to be like one of those NPR reports who speak with a completely normal, straight American accent and then, whenever a fanciful Spanish name or word floats by, I completely overdue the pronunciation. Mike, you’re genuinely kind for saying I’m not pretentious for pronouncing words like Barthelona with the Castilian lisp and for arguing that it makes sense I do so because I’m married to a Spaniard, but when I roll my r’s like dice in Vegas? I should be called out for it. And hilariously I was once texted after a friend listened to our Knock, Knock episode and heard the way I pronounced Lin Manuel Miranda’s birthplace. (Episode 5 – 52:00)
- I know we’re sort of trying to stick to our own bottom five moments here, but I gotta call bullshit on you, Merrigan, for something you did during our “Larger than Life” episode. Not sure if you recall this, but you full-on admitted that you fell asleep during the movie and even went as far as explaining to our listeners that there are not 21 minutes of the George Burns movie “18 Again” in “Larger Than Life.” Man… falling asleep during a movie is one thing – I think it took me a month to watch Cats all the way through. But when I mentioned the crazy scene in the movie where Murray and elephant sidekick stumble into a village being torn apart by a monsoon, you looked at me blank-faced and said “Yeah, I might have been asleep for that.” If I can stay awake through that never-ending speech by the “Children of the New Dawn” cult leader in “Mandy,” you sure as fuck could have paid attention while Vera the elephant saved the day by holding up the wall of a wind-blasted church.
- I do a ton of bad impersonations and terrible sound-effects with my mouth on this show. It’s just… it’s how I talk. I think I’m funny, and oh God I’m so not. Never is there a more apparent case of this than my horrendous show-stopper impression of Malcom McDowell from Star Trek:Generations during Episode 3 – our Out of Africa – show (58:40). But as bad as that one is, I might say my version of Olaf during the Larger Than Life Episode may be worse. (Episode 15 – 24:40)
- When we did our bottom five gore effects for The Beyond, which was our second of three Halloween special episodes, Mike chose the scene where the title character bursts from a space marine’s penis in Leprechaun 4: Leprechaun In Space and I, for whatever reason, took issue with his insistence that it needed to be more gory. I consider this the “Lepracock Incident” and what was I even thinking? (Halloween Episode 2: The Beyond – 45:00)