The T-Dub Awards
The Oscar nominations are in, and, big surprise, it’s the same boring categories as last year.
While the Academy should legitimately add a stunt category to their ceremony, my year-end awards contain a few categories unlikely to land on any professional list. In an effort to make it sound as fratty as possible, I hereby present the T-Dub Awards for Cinematic Excellence.
• Best Performance Under Age 10: Jacob Tremblay, “Room”
• Best Performance Over Age 10: Brie Larson, “Room”
• Best “Old Man” Performance: Ian McKellen, “Mr. Holmes”
• Best Performance (biased edition): Samuel L. Jackson, “The Hateful Eight”
• Most Surprising Performance: Sylvester Stallone, “Creed”
• The “If You’re Going to Oscar-Nominate Stallone You Have To Nominate This Guy” Award: Michael B. Jordan, “Creed”
• Probably Deserves the Oscar He’s Gonna Get, Even If It Isn’t His Personal “Best” Performance: Leonardo DiCaprio, “The Revenant”
• Best Cast: “Spotlight”
• Best Cast Break: The Rock, “Furious 7”
• Most Miscast: Emma Stone, “Aloha”
• Best Serious Performance by a Comedian: Seth Rogen, “Steve Jobs”
• Runner up: Amy Schumer, the serious scenes in “Trainwreck”
• Best Action Hero: tie: Charlize Theron, “Mad Max: Fury Road” and Daisy Ridley, “Star Wars — The Force Awakens”
• Best Villain: Immortan Joe, “Mad Max, Fury Road”
• Best Hans Gruber Monologuing (RIP Alan RIckman): James Spader, “The Avengers — Age of Ultron”
• Best Musical Performance: Nina Hoss in the devastating final scene of “Phoenix”
• Best Duo: Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, “Carol”
• Best Performance by a Person with a Hard to Pronounce Name: Saoirse Ronan, “Brooklyn”
• Best Performance in a Mediocre Movie: Olivia Cooke, “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl”
• Most Convincing CGI: The Bear in “The Revenant”
• Least Convincing CGI: Young Arnold Terminator in “Terminator: Genisys”
• Craziest Scene in a Donut Shop: “Tangerine”
• Best Movie I Never Want To See Again: “Beasts of No Nation”
• Best Outdoor Cinematography: “The Revenant”
• Best Indoor Cinematography: “The Hateful Eight”
• Best Cinematography in the Dark: “Sicario”
• Most Shocking Moment: That poor, poor deputy in “Bone Tomahawk”
• Most Spectacular Set Design: “Crimson Peak”
• Most Ridiculous Moment (Good): The T-Rex arrives, “Jurassic World”
• Most Ridiculous Moment (Bad): Kevin James is the President, “Pixels”
• Best Chase: Pick one from “Mad Max: Fury Road”
• Best Aim: Channing Tatum, “The Hateful Eight”
• Best Fight: Jason Statham vs. The Rock, “Furious 7;” Runner-up: The boxing match at the midpoint of “Creed”
• Best Stunt: Tom Cruise hangs outside a plane, “Mission: Impossible- Rogue Nation”
• Best Dance: Oscar Isaac, “Ex Machina”
• Better than the Title: “The DUFF”
• Worse than the Title: “Pay the Ghost”
• Best Trailer: The second trailer for “Star Wars — The Force Awakens”
• Most Frustrating Trailer: Anything related to 2016’s “Batman vs. Superman”
• Happiest Moment: Matt Damon *redacted* in “The Martian”
• Saddest Moment: Bing Bong stays behind, “Inside Out”
• Awkward Sex in a Good Movie: “Anomalisa”
• Awkward Sex in a Bad Movie: “50 Shades of Grey”
• Best one-liner: “Daddy’s gotta go to work.” The Rock, “Furious 7”
• Best quipper: Jeremy Renner, “The Avengers — Age of Ultron”
• Best Conversation: The entirety of “The End of the Tour”
• Worst Conversation: Prison talk in “Get Hard”
• Best Entrance: The Millennium Falcon, “Star Wars - The Force Awakens”
• Best Reason to Make Science a Priority for Today’s Children: “The Martian”
• Worst Reason to Make Science a Priority for Today’s Children: Training Velociraptors and creating the Indominus Rex, “Jurassic World”
• Best Gesture: The thumbs-up, Tom Hardy in “Mad Max” and BB-8 in “Star Wars”
• Surprisingly Not Terrible: “Unfriended”
• Biggest Blindspot (Movie I’m Sad I Missed): “Straight Outta Compton”
• Not Sad I Missed: “Alvin & the Chipmunks - The Road Chip”
• Take an Oscar for Not Getting One Last Year: Michael Keaton, “Spotlight”
• Give Your Oscar Back: Eddie Redmayne, “Jupiter Ascending”
• Best Awards for Cinematic Excellence: “The T-Dub Awards for Cinematic Excellence”
Tyler Wilson can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com