Siskoid Awards 2011 - Technical Achievement Ceremony

The Siskoid Awards are just like the Oscars, you know. Only with 100% less Billy Crystal. And as with the Academy Awards, the Technical Achievement Ceremony is a thinly veiled excuse to have a pretty girl host an awards show for the stuff that didn't fit in yesterday. At the Oscars, these would be for stuff like CG follicle simulations and things. At the SBG, anything goes, really.

So let's say hello to our hostess, the first American to get the job, Alison Brie from the popular* tv series Community! Aw, she's lovely.




Geek wedding of 2011 - David Tennant and Georgia Moffit. They tied the knot on the 31st, just in time, but I would have given them the prize regardless. Think about it. The 10th Doctor marries the Doctor's Daughter, who is the real life daughter of the Fifth Doctor. It's a wedding that actually makes two Doctors FAMILY. Their progeny was my one-time guess for River Song's identity.

Best movie look-alike for New Brunswick of 2011 - Daytime Drinking. Who knew that give or take a pine forest, South Korea could stand in for my home province? I now have plans to remake the film here with Colt .45 as a sponsor. Second place goes to Pressure Point, but since it was only made in Quebec, the similarities are kind of expected.

Best podcast of 2011 - How Did This Get Made? Paul Sheer and his crew of brave souls sit down to watch some of the worst films ever made and then do the only thing you can in that situation, point at them and laugh. Reminds me that I've got to catch up on the episodes I missed.

Best Kung Fu move of 2011 - Pai Mei's Deadly Crotch Grab. Has to be seen to be believed. That sound will haunt me forever.

Strangest movie meme of 2011 - The amputation biopic. With 127 Hours getting some Oscar nods in 2011, it seemed to spawn copycats (as Hollywood somehow always manages to), including the true stories of surfing/shark incident in Soul Surfer, and a dolphin amputee in Dolphin Tale. Strange fad.

***VAN DAMMATHON FALLOUT***
Character find of 2011 (male) - Uncle Douvee (Wilford Brimley) in Hard Target. An over-60 Cajun action hero who makes explosive moonshine was just what the doctor ordered to close out my year.
Character find of 2011 (female) - Taxiwoman in JCDV (Jenny De Chez - who I'm guessing is a non-actor). Hilarious performance on all levels. Her unforgiving nature when Van Damme wants some peace and quiet in the cab ride from the airport. Her screams that sound like a car alarm. It's wonderful stuff. If I had a car, I'd want it to sound just like that.

Ironic 1% victory of 2011 - The Guy Fawkes mask (Warner Bros.). Seems like the 99% movement's adoption of the Fawkes mask from V for Vendetta has netted one of the 1% billions of dollars. Yes, BILLIONS! According to this NY Times article anyway. It's getting really hard to protest capitalism, isn't it?

"Person" of the Year - The Mixed Message. (Hey, if Time Magazine can keep crowning concepts, so can I.) The Fawkes story above is only one example of a communications problem I came across all year, both personally and professionally. The 99% (or Occupy) movement came to my town, of course, fighting corporations armed with iPads and wearing Converse shoes. Then they wondered why they weren't being taken seriously. I made my point about DC's New 52 yesterday, but here's another nail in the coffin: Folks at DC are disappointed the fanboys are obsessing about continuity instead of talking about the stories. But see, by spouting all that hogwash about how continuity was the big evil and needed to be discarded (and yet only discarding it here and there), they MADE IT about continuity. And so it went all year in the media and where I work (can't really talk about that here), people saying things they shouldn't, launching campaigns designed to fail, never really knowing they were killing their own message through how they presented it.

And that wraps up this magical, pre-taped, night! Once again, my thanks to Alison Brie for her fine work here and elsewhere, and we'll see you next year for more Siskoid Awards!

*If I say it's popular often enough, it'll become true, right?