The 2019 Scottscars

2019, the end of an era for so many things. Who could forget the universally praised climax to Game of Thrones, finally answering the question of where Daenerys buys her coffee from. Or the end of the Skywalker saga! A trilogy that spent more time retconning itself than actually telling a story.
It was also the last time that we lived in a world before Cats was unleashed and changed cinema forever, showing us how musical the results of interspecies breeding could be.

          A year where the voices of Twitter trolls became loud enough to pressure a VFX house to redesign an entire CGI character, subsequently leading it to close its doors, as well as helping struggling indie company Disney to bully smaller companies into cruel deals, because they want to see Spider-man line up alongside the Avengers.

          But if that sounded bleak, then fear not, as we have the most prestigious and uplifting event of the year here! My annual blog post with my daft wee movie awards.

Today's order of events are....

1. End of year statistics (how fun!), 

2. Then The Scottscars Awards, 

3. My predictions from last year

4. Finally, a brand spanking new set of predictions for 2020.

STATISTICS!

Here are my film stats of the year, just in case you're trying to impersonate me and need a hand.

Watched 134 movies (not including shorts)- up from last year's pitiful effort of 109! I attribute at least some of this to getting chickenpox and being in bed for a few weeks. 

So top tip if you're trying to catch up on movies- just pop into your local Wetherspoons and you'll surely catch something.

Most watched actor/actress - Keanu Reeves and Mila Jovovitch, both with 7 movies watched. For some reason Rosie and I watched all 37 Resident Evil movies this year, so that's also why my most watched director isn't Scorsese or Spielberg- it's Paul W.S. Anderson.

Visited the cinema 57 times- a personal best I believe. This is obviously in no way linked to my increasing waistline and lack of physical exercise

This is the first year I have watched more movies via streaming than physical media :(

5 more to be precise. RIP

Anyway on to the most prestigious awards on the planet.

The 2019 Scottscars

*awards will not be posted out to anyone, nor will the winners be notified in any way, shape or form.

Best Visual Effects

Winner: Avengers : Endgame

          On a technical level, The Lion King possibly has Endgame trumped, however, Endgame provided me with the biggest mind=blown moment of the year. It wasn't the millions of fantastical supernatural characters on screen throughout this 3 hour extravaganza, nor the CGI worlds, or recreation of the original movies (HOW WAS THIS DONE) even though any of those could have been enough.

           Instead, it's the white team time travel suits. A Youtube breakdown tipped me off that these were fully CGI and after 2 more rewatches I still haven't found a frame to indicate these aren't real, practical costumes. This would have involved placing the CG costumes over the original costumes, removing the original costumes from the original footage, matching the CG suit's animation to the actors, lighting the costumes to match the scenes and a million more things to make the end result absolutely flawless.

TLDR: This must have been very hard.

Runners Up

Ad Astra

Spider-man Far From Home 

-The Mysterio mind control sequence is the most visually creative the series has been yet

Pokemon: Detective Pikachu

The Lion King (2019)

Alita: Battle Angel

Best Comic Book Film

Sponsored by Howard the Duck

Winner : Avengers Endgame

          Avengers Endgame has the near impossible task of wrapping up the Infinity Saga in a satisfying way. 11 years, 22 movies.  And incredibly, it manages to do so and in a fairly coherent manner too. Having written themselves into a bleak corner with last year's Infinity War, the plot has to result to time travel with a questionable logic, but the shear heart and soul of the movie keeps it joyfully thundering along and allows it to not distract too much. Delivering stand out memorable moments like "Avengers Assemble", Cap picking up Mjonir, and Tony's death, this is a perfectly satisfying jumping off point for the majority of passing comic book fans.

Runners Up

Spider-man : Far From Home

Joker

Batman v Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Seriously this is real and actually surprisingly good

Best Animated Film

Sponsored by The Emoji Movie

Winner : Klaus

          While not the strongest year for animation, Klaus does alot to stand out from the pack for several reasons, including a great script, memorable voice acting, particularly from J.K. Simmons as the tragic man-mountain Klaus, but chief among them is the stunning 2D/3D hybrid art style. This Santa Claus origin story is full of heart, even if its main character, Jesper the postman, is a bit hard to warm up to.

Runners Up

Abominable

How To Train Your Dragon : The Hidden World

Dragon Ball Super : Broly

Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Most Forgettable Film

Sponsored by Hayden Christensen

Winner : Men in Black: International

          The worst part about this, is that I watched MIB:I 3 days before writing this post. I remember being incredibly bored, so that's probably not a great sign. Unengaging plot, a main character who achieves her goal early on with little resistance and doesn't grow over the course of the film, forgettable villains, no real 'jokes' and just nothing new to say or add to the franchise or genre.

Runners Up

Captain Marvel - Seriously, tell me who the villain was and you get a free subscription to my blog

The Lego Movie 2

Roma

X Men: Dark Phoenix

The Award for WTF Moment

Sponsored by Miley Cyrus

Winner : Jean Grey forces a crippled Professor X to walk up the stairs.

The whole cinema burst out laughing- I assume that wasn't the reaction intended. Watch it for yourself here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ1NR3RnlJw

Runners Up

Rey's lineage revealed (Star Wars TROS)

Rey's final word (Star Wars TROS)

Female Avengers all happen to be in one place and line up in Avengers Endgame.

The twist in Serenity

Biggest Disappointment

Sponsored by the look in my parents' faces

Winner: Toy Story 4

          Toy Story 4 is not a bad movie. Hell it's a pretty good one and above the majority of animated movies I've seen. But when you have a trilogy so perfect, so satisfyingly concluded as Toy story 1-3, you better have a good reason to revisit it (ignoring the fact it was obviously to revitalise the merchandise.) Toy Story 4 drags the series  away from being an uplifting,  rounded trilogy full of completed character arcs to a new more mature, darker and much more depressing place for no real reason. The theme of friendship and family throughout thick and thin, is abandoned here to the point that all of the old crew except for Woody are shelved, including Buzz. We didn't need to see this depressing chapter in the story of the toys.

Runners Up

Godzilla: King of the Monsters

Glass

Alita: Battle Angel

Zombieland: Double Tap

The "Film I Really Should Have Seen Before Now" Award

Sponsored by Pulp Fiction

Winner: Minority Report

I'm not sure how I managed to miss this one! Stylish, hi-paced thriller Minority Report doesn't show signs of being 17 years old. Tom Cruise looks, well exactly the same as he does now and is great in this high concept sci-fi mystery show. Surely raised and set the bar for all blockbuster sci-fis from 2002 onwards.

Runners Up

Speed

Stand By Me

John Wick

Face/Off -This was probably the most fun I've had watching a film all year. Cage being Cage and Travolta pretending to be Cage. Big smiles all round.

News Story of the year

Sponsored by Kevin Spacey

Winner : Manhog the Sonic gets completed redesigned after the first trailer drops.

          This year, more so than ever, studios have been trying to give the fans exactly what they want, often with dire consequences. Star Wars became an unfocussed mess, trying to satisfy naysayers of The Last Jedi, Sony had to concede to corporate overlords Disney for a new Spider-man deal to keep him in the Avengers, but worst of all is the Sonic redesign debacle. After a first trailer featured a horrifying man- Sonic, the Twitter outrage was so loud that the studio literally bended the knee and redesigned the titular character. The VFX studio responsible recently went out of business, surely linked to this, as movies don't usually come with a whole 'redesign and reanimate your main character' budget included. This trend is concerning, as how can artistic vision be maintained if things are changed to suit what fans want? What changes next? Do we recast and reshoot if an actor isn't popular?

Runners up:

Cats getting 'patched' with a new updated version with improved VFX 3 days AFTER release.

The Cats trailer in general

Spider-man Sony/Disney deal falls apart and then is quickly reinstated after widespread outrage.

The ICYMI award

sponsored by the Playstation Vita

Winner : Little Monsters

          Lupita Nyong'o stars as a dead serious primary school teacher whose school trip to an amusement park gets interrupted by a zombie attack. Determined to protect the children from the truth and fear, she fights her way through the undead masses while covering it up to make it as normal and child friendly as possible. "Oh I got caught in the middle of a jam fight" she says after returning to the kids, covered in blood. Josh Gad is brilliant as an alcoholic, sex addict, children's TV presenter. It's shut your brain off, fantastic entertainment. With loads of Taylor Swift.....

Runners Up

Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound

Wild Rose

Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Peanut Butter Falcon

Turd of the Year

Sponsored by the Wii U

Winner : The Lion King (2019)

          The Lion King is an absolute joy to watch, the visuals being among the most impressive photorealistic VFX and animation ever put to screen. Similarly, the audio, voice cast and music are all solid as well. The problem is that what you have is a bunch of A list celebrities with far too recognisable voices (John Oliver? Beyonce? Seth Rogen?) doing impressions of the original, fun, over the top, cartoony, animated movie and even have James Earl Jones back doing the same thing as in 1994, layered on top of what is essentially a nature documentary. The two physically don't go together. These overly expressive voices, with animals whose mouths barely move, have no facial expressions and can't 'dance' or emote due to the constraints of realism. The idea is fundamentally flawed and clearly just an obvious, nostalgia-fueled cash grab with far less originality than even any of the other, cynical, Disney live action remakes. Technically amazing, creatively bankrupt.

Runners Up

Hellboy

It: Chapter 2

Pet Semetary

Serenity

Isn't it Romantic

X-Men: Dark Phoenix

My Film of the Year

Sponsored by Sam Raimi's Spider-man 2

Winner : Wild Rose

          Relative newcomer Jessie Buckley absolutely shines in a drama about a country singer from Glasgow, desperate to do whatever it takes to make it to the top, to make a better life for herself, but is torn by her responsibilities at home. The struggle between leaving to go to Nashville to follow her dreams and stay at home to look after her children leads to a fantastic road to discovery. A film dealing with acceptance, priorities, dreams and hard decisions and on top of that -fantastic music, I can't recommend this one enough.

Runners Up: 

Stan and Ollie

Vice

If Beale Street Could Talk

The Favourite

Green Book

Avengers : Endgame

Notable Films I didn't see this year

Parasite- uk release is next year

Cats - while I don't mind going to the cinema on my own, even I have limits

Marriage Story

El Camino

6 Underground

Dolemite is My Name

Shadow

Uncut Gems

Little Women

The Lighthouse

The Aeronauts

Doctor Sleep

Reuben Brandt, Collector

Good Boys

Long Shot

Missing Link

Kid Who Would Be King

Fighting With My Family

Booksmart

One Cut Of The Dead

Last Black Man in San Francisco

Let's get onto the predictions! Starting with how badly I did last year and then onto things that won't happen next year either.

LAST YEAR'S PREDICTIONS

1. Avengers Endgame will be widely criticised for resolving the conflict with a convoluted time travel or alternate dimension gimmick. Will review considerably worse than Infinity War.

-Not really.went down well. 0/1

2. The Lion King outshines Aladdin and Dumbo both commercially and critically.

-Commercially, yes. Critically, not really. All were poo. ½ / 1

3. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu does well enough commercially and critically to have a sequel announced.

-Yep 1/1

4. Meanwhile Sonic the Hedgehog bombs HARD.

-Trailer bombed so hard they had to redesign the character, so yes. 1/1

5. Hellboy is going to be Let Down of the year or Turd of the Year. At least sniffing for one of those titles.

Yep! 1/1

6. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is going to outmatch Toy Story 4 critically and for me personally, sending me into a deep depression. 

-Yes! 1/1 similar on rotten tomatoes, but Toy Story did traumatise me

7. Frozen 2 is the highest grossing animated film of the year.

-Depends if you count The Lion King as an animated movie. 
0/1 I say Lion King IS animated

8. They announce an Animated War for Cybertron Movie.

Paramount see the success of Spider-verse and decide to strike while the iron's hot.

-Lol no 0/1

9. Terminator 6 is delayed, due to extensive reshoots and rumours circulate saying it just isn't working.

-No it came out. Bombed but I liked it. 0/1

10. My Film of the year is Captive State. 

-No, didn't see it. 0/1

RESULT! 4.5/10

2020 PREDICTIONS

1. Black Widow bombs, at least for Marvel's standards. People are over comic book movies and she's literally dead.

2. Wonder Woman 1984 is the highest grossing superhero film of the year.

3. Hayao Miyazaki retires AGAIN. At least in some capacity.

4. They'll announce a Pokemon movie based in the Kanto region (based on the first games, Red and Blue)

5. Sonic earns just enough for a sequel to be announced

6. Turd of the year is Dolittle

7. Shia LaBoeuf is nominated for an Oscar

8. New Ninja Turtles live action reboot trailer comes out and it sparks redesign demands on Twitter, similar to Sonic.

9. More films get their visual effects 'patched' similar to Cats.

10. My film of the year is Soul



Well that's all folks! I hopefully won't leave it another year to post again ;)

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