1GF Presents: The 2nd Annual That's Not Cinema Awards

Less People Should Have Seen

I could go on some entire charade with bullshit nominees when we all know, deep down, there is only one movie from 2020 that deserves this title.

And the Marty goes to...

Worst Production Design

The concept of illusion is not strong with these five pics, which have trouble putting forth a convincing argument that they take place in a real world of any sort. What are the fakest movies of the year?

Axcellerator: It's clear that Axcellerator couldn't afford many location shoots (or maybe filming permits), so a lot of scenes that take place outside are done with the actors against a green screen with a generic landscape projected behind them. And when they do seem to have some sort of location shoot, it's very rare for the movie to hire many extras to make it's world feel lived in, making everything feel like a controlled set. Or perhaps this movie takes place post-snap in the MCU.

The Last Full Measure: For the most part Last Full Measure is a pretty okay movie with pretty okay production design, until it insists on showing flashbacks to tell the story of the main soldier the film's conflict is about. These scenes, supposedly taking place in Vietnam, always look like the same twelve foot patch of some jungle set that some studio had lying around, and it always seems like they're in the same location despite supposedly being on the move. This whole subplot almost guts the movie because it makes the story of this real-life hero seem plastic and make-believe.

Money Plane: Money Plane feels like it was made with a lot of stock sets that the crew rented for the day, and when our heroes are on said Money Plane, the film does very little to convince us that the airplane is actually flying. Everything feels like it's a bunch of wood in a finite amount of space. Hell, some points make the Money Plane's interior seem a hell of a lot larger than it's exterior.

Ouija Shark: Technically Ouija Shark is filmed in a lot of real life locations. The movie is so cheap that it was probably filmed at some dude's house. Ouija Shark's ambition can probably exceed its grasp however as it tries to stretch to different locations, even the White House. Spoiler alert: The Oval Office looks like shit.

Skylin3s: Compared to the first two, Skylin3s features a lot of space stuff, which means alien planets and space ships. But planets just means some desert tinted blue and spaceship interiors are a lot less interesting than their CGI exteriors. Hell, the interiors look smooth and welded together, which is a stark contrast to how they used to look. It all just looks cheap and pretty shitty.

And the Marty goes to...

It always comforts me when I see wrestlers in garbage like this. Like, you may be a multi-time world champion, Royal Rumble winner, King of the Ring, multiple "best match of the year" accolades, but you're still not too good for Money Plane.

Most Forgettable Film

...

I'm sorry, what was I saying?

Brahms:  The Boy II: I remember a stupid looking doll.

Capone: I remember Tom Hardy shitting his pants for half the movie.

Hillbilly Elegy: I remember Amy Adams acting exactly like my sister.

I Still Believe: I remember every song sounding the same.

Lost Girls & Love Hotels: I remember a lot of man ass pumping up and down.

And the Marty goes to...

Worst Special Effects

"That's one small step for special effects, one giant leap for the audience's imagination."

It's taking me every fiber of my being to not just troll this award out and give it to Sonic the Hedgehog. Let's not beat around the bush then. What are the most fakey looking movies of 2020?

Axcellerator: From crappy CG projection shot to slight blue flashes and puny explosions that nobody was obviously in the same room as, Axcellorator has a lot of trouble convincing the audience that that the main character is even driving a car, let alone that anything in the movie is actually happening.

The Call of the Wild: Call of the Wild's special effects aren't necessarily bad, they're just distracting. The CGI dog looks very unconvincing when he's next to human beings or real animals, while when he's in a CGI environment with other CGI animals, it's more digestible. I wondered to myself while watching it why they were doing this hybrid when the vision of this story probably would have played better as an animated feature.

Ouija Shark: Plushie shark.

Shadow in the Cloud: The main CGI creation of this movie looks pretty good, but that's about all that's convincing about it. The movie which has so many scenes in an airplane can't even convince me this airplane is in the air, as even when they have Chloe Grace Moretz crawling around on the outside it often looks like she just has a cheap fan blowing on her.

Skylin3s: Skylin3s is bizarrely inconsistent. Some CG shots look okay, while others feel like they came from 1999. The alien costumes looked good in the previous film, but look worn and baggy here. Then you get to a finale where it's just a nonstop blinding light show.

And the Marty goes to...

I own all three Skyline movies on blu-ray so I'd like to think I'm personally funding them.

When Skyline 4 comes out (and they tease one at the end of 3), you have me to thank. And I'd do it again too.

Yup. It's the same guy who plays Kong in Skull Island and Godzilla vs. Kong.

And Harrison Ford commits to treating that guy like a dog.

::1godzillafan returns to the stage::

Folks, we're getting down to the home stretch of our ceremony. The next few awards are some biggies before we announce the bottom ten films of 2020 and finally close out with the Worst Actor award. We promise Chadwick Boseman fans won't be pissed at us.

Before that point, we have one last Hurts So Good Nominee. A film that personifies the idea of loveable bad filmmaking. A film made in a backyard with a group of nobodies who are just hanging out and making something stupid. Then you put that stupid thing out to market and make some money off of it. Capitalism, bitch!

I think most of us already know what the final nominee is, it was just a matter of how long I wait to nominate it. So without further adieu, I give you the $300 wonder from Canada...

Yup. This is your legacy, Coop.

Worst Actor

Okay, fine. I won't save this category for last. WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?

Michele Morrone - 365 Days: Michele Morrone admittedly has a thankless task of taking his unlikable Italian mafia character and trying to make him relatable, but instead he seems to embrace the fact that the character is scum full-stop. It's really hard to empathize with anything this character is going through right up until the film's tragic(?) end, because he's in many ways one of the biggest pieces of slime I've ever seen in a movie. He's at his most endearing when he just whips our in front of flight attendants and telling them to get on their knees.

Ferdia Shaw - Artemis Fowl: Even when his dialogue isn't ADR'd to tatters, Ferdia Shaw delivers a very lifeless performance in the title role. He tries to display confidence and swagger, but always feels stiff as a board and boring. If there is anything that killed Artemis Fowl's attempt to be a franchise, it's our lack of interest in Artemis Fowl himself.

Ben Schwartz - Sonic the Hedgehog: I'm just going to say upfront that I find Sonic the Hedgehog to be the most unlikable video game mascot there is. He's an arrogant prick who's entire schtick is to run around being an arrogant prick. Ben Schwartz is at the very least good at playing an arrogant prick. But his version of Sonic is so unappealing because he's not only an arrogant prick, but he's a glorified stalker and peeping tom as well. He feels like he was designed in this movie to be a hero to virgins, cuckolds, and incels everywhere. He's one of the most unpleasant characters I've ever laid eyes on.

Scott Pryor - Tulsa: Scott Pryor is probably the most wooden performance this year. His vices and moods shift on a dime, and every attempt to display trauma always looks like he has gas. He feels like someone who got bored of his own movie and checked out in pre-production.

Josh Whitehouse - Valley Girl: The big problem I have with Valley Girl as a movie (Logan Paul aside) is that most of the time it comes off like a string of Karaoke performances and not an actual musical. While most of the singers in the movie are pretty good, Josh Whitehouse feels pitchy and monotonous. Every time he sings in this movie I cringe, because no matter the song, he always sounds exactly the same. His performance otherwise is fine, he just can't deliver on what this movie promises.

And the Marty goes to...

Worst Director

Before you wonder why Ouija Shark wasn't nominated, bitch, that movie was made for 300 bucks and exists. That alone is better filmmaking than anything listed below.

Barbara Białowąs and Tomasz Mandes - 365 Days: What's strange to me about 365 Days is just how un-sexy it is. Supposedly it's an erotic romance, but it feels like it was made with the eroticism of a middle-aged husband's attitude of "in and out I'm done what's for dinner." The attempt at actual drama amidst its stupid sex scenes are overwrought, as it has melodramatic scenes of SCREAMING ANGUISH all filmed in slow motion so you can tell how EMOTIONAL they are. I call this tactic SLOWMOTIONAL!

Jeff Wadlow - Fantasy Island: It's fascinating to me that people still hire Jeff Wadlow. He make plain looking movies out of bad concepts that are all laughably bad. Maybe somebody is getting off on it. Apparently one of his next projects is a horror movie based on the Magic 8 Ball toy (no, seriously). I have to admit, even I want to see how badly he fucks it up.

Olivier Megaton - The Last Days of America Crime: Olivier Megaton movies always look bad, are full of people with ugly souls doing shitty things. The Last Days of American Crime is almost his masterpiece in that regard.

Daniel Ferrands - The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson: The career of Daniel Ferrands is kind of interesting on paper. The guy wrote Halloween 6, disappeared for a while, then wrote the sex comedy The Girl Next Door, then he directed a pair of documentaries for the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street franchises called Crystal Lake Memories and Never Sleep Again. Now he's doing movies like this, melodramatic horror fluff that would have even been too bad taste for Showtime back in the 90's. His previous movie was very similar to this, The Haunting of Sharon Tate, which took a real life tragedy and turned it into a tacky horror movie that doesn't even work as a horror movie. One would think he would have learned a few tricks from those Friday and Nightmare documentaries, but nope. This is what he does.

Scott Pryor and Gloria Stella - Tulsa:  Watching Tulsa you wouldn't be faulted for thinking "I don't think whoever's making this has ever directed a movie before."  Both Scott Pryor and Gloria Stella have a handful of acting and producing credits (in fact Stella's IMDB bio is absurdly large for someone with that few credits to her name, so either she or some publicist spiced it up to try and impress somebody).  For some reason this duo, who produced some movie called Blackbear together, decided that together they knew how to direct a movie.  They were wrong. Everything about Tulsa feels like it was made by a robot trying to mimic empathy. They don't know how to get good performances out of actors (hell, one of the directors is the main actor in the fucking movie), has no sense of actual drama, no sense of comic timing, and is just such a shoddy looking movie to boot.

And the Marty goes to...

Honestly, Wadlow might be the least worst on that list.