AFT Awards: Best Scene in a Bad Movie

This is the nineteenth category of the 1st Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are listed in alphabetical order by film title. Winners will be announced in late February.

This category is designed to recognize moments of brightness in dim, poorly played-out films that came out this year. They may not be the greatest scenes (the ones from “Walk Hard”, especially) but they do glimmer for a moment and produce laughter, fright, or a surprising thrill. Minor spoilers of course, but avoid reading the summary of the scene from “Sunshine” if you have not yet seen the film.

BEOWULF
I mentioned in my review that I was bored as anything and started counting how many times star Ray Winstone shouted “I AM BEOWULF!” By far the most exciting part of this disaster is when Winstone, as Beowulf, starts a minute-long battle cry which culminates in…you guessed it. The scene is wonderfully cheesy and ridiculously exciting.

SOUTHLAND TALES
Before this film takes a nosedive from bizarre into unrescuable territory, there is a strange scene in which The Rock’s actor and Seann William Scott’s fake cop run into Jon Lovitz’s police officer. The three walk through a hazy backyard while an intriguing score thumps in the background, heading straight for Cheri Oteri bickering with her fake husband-to-be. The real question is what the hell could possibly be going on, but for just a minute, it is fascinating and wondrous.

SUNSHINE
The biggest disappointment of the year (I think that is fair) had one gripping scene which was almost enough to reinvigorate the film, almost towards the end. When Cillian Murphy asks the ship’s computer to calculate the amount of oxygen left, it informs him that there is an additional person on board the ship. For a film that sets itself in the far reaches of space close by the sun where there should be no human life, this is a bone-chilling moment. Unfortunately, it all goes south afterwards and the character’s presence becomes a senseless impossibility.

WALK HARD
Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Jason Schwartzman, and Justin Long as the Beatles. That is enough to get a laugh. Paul Rudd in particular is laugh-out-loud hilarious as John Lennon, and his rendition of the word “imagine” is priceless. If only the hilarity could go on longer – instead, they just keep saying “we…the Beatles” and getting too caught up in the showiness of their impressions (see “I’m Not There” for appropriate impersonation lessons).

WALK HARD
It makes no sense, but John C. Reilly’s Dewey Cox dreams up an image of the brother whose life he cut short by chopping him in half with a machete. For some wonderful reason, his brother is now Jonah Hill (“Superbad”). Hill milks the moment for all it is worth, and he really does a terrific job lighting up an extremely stupid film. His presence does grow tiresome after he keeps popping up for no reason. (I cannot find a screenshot of him in this movie. Did I make it up?)