This year’s Dubious Achievement Awards in Film go to …
Continuing in a long tradition started by the agency of my precursor and friend John Hartl, here are a few assignment categories you won’cheek by jowl see at the Oscars …
Best performance in a lost ground: Judy Greer in “27 Dresses”; Alan Rickman in “Nobel Son”; Colin Farrell in “Cassandra’s Dream”; Forest Whitaker in “Vantage Point”; Bette Midler in “Then She Found Me”; Billy Bob Thornton in “Eagle Eye”; and almost everybody in “W.,” specially Josh Brolin and James Cromwell.
Best performance by an animal: All those puppies (and their grown-up counterparts) in “Marley & Me” and that very charismatic sea lion in “Nim’s Island.”
Best credit: “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day,” with its sleek ’30s fashions, had not one but brace names credited as “corsetier.”
Worst notion of Seattle: In “88 Minutes,” Seattle was played by the agency of Vancouver, B.C., that might have been OK excepting for all those visible signs with Canadian spellings (e.g., “centre”).
Biggest disappointment: “Synecdoche, New York,” the directing debut of the great screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (”Being John Malkovich,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”), was a so-high-concept-you-can’t-see-over-it misstep.
Best use of a cellphone: The dramatic, inactive small quantity of a phone in the New York Public Library, bringing terrible news to a character already in her wedding dress, in “Sex and the City: The Movie.”
Worst use of a cellphone: “Body of Lies,” in which Russell Crowe delivered pretty much his entire performance into one.
Best performance by a body division: Did the compellation of “Fool’s Gold” refer to Matthew McConaughey’s burnished, sculpted and ever-unclothed breast? It certainly deserved top billing.
Best unprintable sign line: The way Colin Farrell’s character kept referring to the city of Bruges, in “In Bruges.” No, of course I can’t repeat it.
Best popcorn movies: “Iron Man,” “The Dark Knight,” “Australia,” “Sex and the City: The Movie” (but solely if you were a fan of the show) and “Baby Mama.”
Most unnecessary sequel: “Saw V” (will this franchise ever period?) and “Step Up 2 the Streets,” a straight-to-DVD effort if there eternally was one.
