L.G.T.D. 2023 Movie Awards
It’s award season, and I figure it’s time to talk about all of the movies I watched this year and use this article as an excuse to convince myself I watched all of them for work.
Welcome to the first annual Let’s Get This Dread Movie Awards
The “Wait, That Was a Pixar Movie? But It Sucked…” Award: Elemental
I’m not sure if I remember any scene from this movie but I do remember it looked like a very talented 4th grader drew it. And I recognize I’m no longer the target audience for Pixar movies but I watched Cars for the first time this year and it was FIRE. Shout out Doc Hudson. But Elemental was like a dream you suffer through after being found in a house fire and placed into a medically induced coma.
The “I’m Glad They’re Making These Types of Movies Again” Award: No Hard Feelings
Growing up, I never really loved the late 90’s/early 2000’s ‘raunchy’ comedies like American Pie or Eurotrip. I didn’t relate to the type of white guy Ryan Reynolds was portraying in National Lampoon’s Van Wilder. The jokes were never that clever either. You’re not sexually active, and you would prefer to be. We get it.
But I 1000% understand Jennifer Lawrence’s character in No Hard Feelings.
Runner-Up—Totally Killer: This was a 2008 MTV movie. These days, MTV exists exclusively to fund Rob Dyrdek’s unhealthy addiction to dressing like a mannequin in a Journey’s store window.
The “You Really Don’t Need To Remake Every Movie” Award: White Men Can’t Jump
White Men Can’t Jump is a movie that only really works in the 90’s. Especially in 2023 when the best basketball player in the world looks like this:
This was a decent movie that could’ve and should’ve existed completely independent from the classic movie it was attempting to remake.
The “ I Would Have Never Watched This Movie If It Weren’t On Netflix” Award: Pain Hustlers
Maybe it’s the music or not being able to tell the tone of the movie but if I saw this trailer on a big screen in a movie theatre, I’d turn to the person next to me and say “Let’s never watch this”.
But when I watched this same trailer after finishing a season of Love Is Blind, I turned to the person next to me and said “Yoooo, we should watch this”.
Runner-Up—Leave The World Behind: “Hm, interesting the movie about the fall of America is produced by the Obamas. What do they know that we don’t"??” -the guy you work with who leaves the bathroom uninhabitable for an hour after he walks out.
The “Did Anyone Else See Nonstop Trailers, Billboards and Ads For This Movie Too or Was It Just Me??” Award: Strays
Just a serious question I have for you guys. You were all waterboarded with these commercials too, right?? With the talking dogs? Did I make this up???
The “Just go ahead and make 10 more sequels of this, I’ll see every single one” award: The Meg 2
Let Jason Statham fight prehistoric dinosaur sharks once a year for the remainder of time.
Runner-Up—Guardians of the Galaxy 3: I teared up watching the origin story of a talking raccoon. Y’all got me. I’ll go see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 7.
The “Push Me to the Edge, All My Friends Are Dead” Award: The Iron Claw
RIP literally all of the Von Erichs.
Best Movie I Didn’t See: Killers of the Flower Moon
Leonardo DiCaprio. Martin Scorcese. I’m sure it’s one of the best movies ever made. And when I finally sit down to watch it in 2026, I’ll write a review about it here.
Runner-Up—Oppenheimer: Christopher Nolan is probably my favorite filmmaker and I will most likely go the rest of my life without ever watching this. Seems like a phenomenal movie though. For whatever that’s worth.
Best Movie I Swear No One I Know Has Watched But Me: They Cloned Tyrone
Black Sci-Fi as a way of exploring and explaining American racial disparity is a hyper-specific genre I could consume more of if studios allow it (They won’t).
Also, I forgot Jamie Foxx can tap into his mutant ability to become the funniest living organism on Earth whenever he so chooses.
Craziest Documentary: Hell Camp
Growing up, I watched Jenny Jones and Ricki Lake send misbehaving teenagers to ‘Boot Camp’ and laughed seeing them curse out their parents while I did my social studies homework but I had no idea these kids were being sent to the fucking JUNGLE indefinitely.
Biggest Bag Fumble: Jonathan Majors
Personally, if I just starred in Creed 2 and Marvel was preparing to build an entire cinematic universe around me, I would simply not assault my girlfriend and then call the police on myself and then tell my girlfriend to hold it down for me like Coretta Scott King and then stage a fake fight at the local high school for me to pretend to break up after Marvel fired me in an attempt to get good PR and then sit down with ABC News to cry about how difficult my life is while also praising my new girlfriend, Megan Good, and comparing her to Coretta Scott King.
Jonathan Majors is weird, man.
Worst Scene: Barbie
America Ferrera giving a 2-minute book report on ‘What Being a Woman in Society Means to Me’ was like a record stretch shutting down what was an incredible movie up to that point. It stripped all comedy, nuance and subtext from the film and turned it into a Ted Talk.
It felt like I got in trouble.
Runner-Up—Saltburn: Whatever you do, do not look up “Saltburn Graveyard Scene”.
Best Scene: The Killer
The entire opening sequence is Michael Fassbender explaining how difficult is it to be an assassin as we watch him slowly prepare for a hit. It’s long and methodical. You are hypnotized and lulled by his calm, cold precision.
Oh, then he immediately blows the entire mission and you realize he’s just a weird guy who kinda sucks at his job.
Funniest Movie: Theatre Camp
When I first watched 40-Year-Old Virgin, I laughed at everything. When I tried to watch it a second time, I knew I would never be watching it again. I didn’t smile once.
I’ve seen Theatre Camp like, 6 times this year and I’ve laughed at every single joke, every single time.
Runner-Up—Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain: If you’ve given up on Saturday Night Live, I get it. You can only stay in an abusive relationship for so long. But at least give all the Please Don’t Destroy sketches a shot.
Best movie: Asteroid City
This movie made me cry.
Runner-Up—May December: This movie made me laugh.
Thanks for reading. All typos are rubber and you’re glue and everything you say bounces off of me and sticks to you.