Welcome to the WTF Awards, our tribute to the past year’s most surprising, frustrating, bewildering, and ridiculous movie moments. Whereas the Academy Awards, Golden Globes, and other so-called “prestigious” awards ceremonies honor such trifles as “excellence” and “achievement,” we seek to celebrate the myriad ways in which filmmakers inspire us to ponder that age-old question: What the f**k?!?
The spirit of the WTF Awards is embodied by the Frank trophy, a statuette inspired by the bunny-suit-wearing apparition from writer/director Richard Kelly’s classic mind-bender — and arguably the greatest WTF movie ever made — Donnie Darko. Built to the character’s exact dimensions, it stands at over nine feet tall (ten if you include the ears) and speaks telepathically, delivering ominous warnings about the coming apocalypse to its lucky beholder. It also makes a fabulous coat rack!
Without further ado, we present this year’s WTF Award winners:
Most Inexplicable Hit: Paul Blart: Mall Cop
Just weeks after electing the first-ever African-American president, the American people proved they still had far to go in the fight against the forces of ignorance and small-mindedness when they made this thing a hit.
Most Unexpected Flop: Jennifer’s Body
Despite boasting a formidable — and presumably profitable — combination of sex, violence, and timely controversy, Megan Fox’s high school horror flick crashed and burned in theaters, failing to crack even the low end of box-office analysts’ predictions. Could stripper-screenwriter (in that order) Diablo Cody’s spirited reign as Kevin Williamson’s heir be finished already? Sadly, no.
Most Distracting CGI Appendage: Dr. Manhattan’s Penis, Watchmen
Zack Snyder’s determination to faithfully adapt Alan Moore’s seminal comic was certainly commendable, but some things are simply better left on the page. It’s difficult enough to grasp Dr. Manhattan’s quantum ramblings without his big blue member flopping around, disrupting our concentration like a blast of phallic tachyons.
Most Misleading Movie Title: Funny People
Sure, Bitter, Self-Pitying, Occasionally Amusing but Usually Just Depressing People isn’t as appealing on a marquee, but at least it’s accurate. Mr. Apatow, we know comedians are uniformly miserable bastards, but they’re miserable bastards who make us laugh. Except in this movie.
Most Uncomfortable Sex Scene: Observe and Report
Seth Rogen’s tubby Travis Bickle obliterates the line between consensual sex and date rape when he romances Anna Faris’s drooling, doped up, barely conscious mall employee. And it’s not even the most disturbing moment in Jody Hill‘s stridently irreverant comedy — not by a longshot. (Clip NSFW)
(Incidentally, what kind of depraved YouTuber labeled that clip “Anna Faris Hot Sex Scene?”)
Most Unexpected — And Hopefully Short-Lived — Comeback: Vin Diesel
After the unexpected success of Fast & Furious briefly revived Diesel’s comatose career, the gravel-voiced diva wasted little time wearing out his welcome, blowing off press events and spewing all sorts of delusional crazytalk about Chronicles of Riddick sequels. Perhaps he can partner with director McG on those Terminator Salvation sequels he thinks he’s making.
Most Disastrously Ill-Advised Metaphor: The White Horse, Halloween II
Rob Zombie deserves credit for trying to blaze his own creative trail in the follow-up to his 2007 Halloween remake, but he overreached in his artistic ambition with by making repeated cutaways to a white horse, meant to represent Michael Myers’ rage or resentment or … who the hell cares? Low-budget slasher flicks just aren’t well-suited to extended allegories; they tend to get in the way of the bloody kill sequences and gratuitous nude scenes.
Most Unintentionally Disturbing Children’s Movie: Ponyo
The Little Mermaid’s tale of the forbidden romance between a man and a fish didn’t seem all that odd until it was re-imagined by Japanese animation legend Hayao Miyazaki. Without the trademark Disney charm, pescaphilia is just downright creepy.
Most Enterprising Use of a Cell Phone: Law Abiding Citizen
While other movies strive to diminish the cell phone’s narrative impact, concocting convenient reasons for characters’ handsets to lose reception or run out of juice at crucial moments (the average battery life of a horror flick cell phone, for example, is less than five minutes), Law Abiding Citizen turned it into a potent plot device. Watch as Gerard Butler’s vigilante tort reformer makes an powerful statement against judicial activism (Clip NSFW):
Never saw it coming.
Most Incomprehensible Plot: The Box
Who else but Richard Kelly, the very inspiration for the WTF Awards, could concoct such a deliciously daft labyrinth of mind control experiments, bloody noses, NASA conspiracies, malicious Martians, water portals, and Cameron Diaz? Richard, your work never ceases to leave us utterly baffled. Don’t ever change, you crazy genius.
Most Disconcerting Industry Trend: Board Game Adaptations
Having thus far failed to produce a decent videogame adaptation, studio execs started mining a consumer product category with arguably even less narrative potential, moving forward with movies inspired by such analog relics as Monopoly, Risk, Ouija, and Battleship. The Roland Emmerich-directed Connect Four movie, meanwhile, appears to be stalled in development.
WTF Performer of the Year: Nicolas Cage
After he spurned our affections, churning out one high-paying crapfest after another for the better part of a decade, Cage twitched and screamed and sweated his way back into our hearts in Werner Herzog’s gleefully deranged Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. But be careful Nic, you’re only an awful Ghost Rider sequel away from returning our doghouse. (Clip NSFW)
WTF Film of the Year: Antichrist
At first it seemed category this would come down to a neck-and-neck battle between The Box and Bad Lieutenant. But then, at the urging of a friend, we went to see Lars von Trier’s disturborama Antichrist, a veritable buffet of WTF delights like smashed testicles, a blood-spurting penis, and a graphic close-up of a self-administered clitorectomy. Needless to say, we are no longer on speaking terms with said friend.
Growing up Danish is bound to traumatize anyone, but damn Lars, what kind of unholy contagion of neuroses inspired this cinematic house of horrors? Were you gang-raped by demons as a child? Whatever the source of your dysfunction may be, we hope that winning a WTF Award will bring some small measure of joy to what we can only assume is a lonely, tortured existence.
Congratulations to Lars and all of this year’s winners!
