The Bedsit Cinema Awards 2022

Hollywood Awards celebrate filmmaking, are great publicity for some cinema and give A-listers a great opportunity to take cocaine and have sex with one another. Not that you need an opportunity, cocaine is never not good, which means it’s also never not always bad, and boy does the film industry exploit that. Also sex is alright from what I can remember. There’s a reason people are addicted to cocaine; everyone’s an A-lister on cocaine, it’s transcendent. Also there’s zero guilt because you have golden trophies thrown at you for doing it.

Then you get have to attend loads of parties where you pretend to like everyone and people judge your clothes. As I say, there’s a reason people take cocaine- the whole things sounds horrendous, I’d want to be freebasing speedballs to escape it too.


The Bedsit Cinema Awards have never distinguished between male and female performances. The Bedsit Cinema Awards have never had any difference for country of origin or native tongue. The Bedsit Cinema Awards do also not have any golden trophies, cocaine or even people. They might have COVID, but are leaving the fun of a lateral flow as a kind of trophy. Negative, yay, I win!


Less and less I find myself bothered by awards-bait. Sometimes I only watch a film because I feel pressured to by a common, critical opinion. Surely I’m not alone in that but I write film reviews and need to transmit some semblance of diversity. I try my best to watch things I know I might not like. Plus, often trying new things is good; like lychees, Latin Mass and *insertdirtyjokehere*.


Bedsit Cinema can only ever offer you my experience of a film, which I hope to entertain in doing so. But I hope my experience can help you in some way, even if just to disagree with. I had a mental hiatus last year. Watching films became hard, really hard, because I couldn’t focus. Despite that, it was a good year so please enjoy The Bedsit Cinema Awards 2022!


As ever these are all films and shows I saw for the first time in 2021, that’s how they qualify regardless of age.

The Only See it on a Big Screen Award

My projector cost under £100, is good quality, and I plug decent headphones into it. I’d got used to that until the excitement of going back to the actual cinema! What I didn’t write in the review of The Last Duel was that I couldn’t pause if for a piss and when I came back the place smelled of farts and sweat. Plus Screen 13 in the Empire Leicester Square is small and badly made, much like the rest of that cinema.


The misanthrope in me is kind of over the cinema, but then I’m a lonely, selfish man. I saw almost all of these at home on the projector on a big screen. What this award celebrates is cinema which is only really enjoyable when you let it beat itself into your eyeballs and earballs.


Bait

Mortal Kombat

Godzilla vs Kong

Justice League The Zack Snyder Cut

Death Race

The Last Duel (qualifies by being the only film I actually saw in the cinema)

Free Guy

Jungle Cruise

Monster Hunter

Black Widow


Winner: Although Free Guy or The Last Duel are probably the “best” films on the list, because of the purpose of this award it is a close call between, Justice League, Monster Hunter and Death Race but the latter pips it to the finish line for the unashamed, giddy joy I got from the car-nage. If you want to see sweaty, bobbing man-ass, watch its sequel, too.


The Best TV Award


I kicked Apple to the curb once Ted Lasso was over. Now TV is like SKY but cheaper and less ambitiously trying to reach in your wallet while it bums you and the BBC isn’t even a knee trembler in a back alley because that implies some effort. ITV and C4 add adds, but I do like Gordon, Gino and Fred.


Choose who you pay and what for, because this symphony syphons money from you subtly, only offering occasional interest in places. The best TV I saw in 2021. For reasons which will become clear later, this is all dramatic/ comedic TV, factual is in a different award.


Line of Duty (all of it except for series six which was a bit slow and unexciting and ended terribly)

Wayne

Das Boot 

Fortitude 

Ted Lasso

Raised by Wolves

The Exorcist

The Outlaws

Squid Game

Succession

Clarkson’s Farm


I know, I know, I only started Line of Duty last year. Das Boot was a nice surprise- as unpredictable as Game of Thrones, as tense as hell, and somehow and even for a WW2 show it manages to shock and sadden in its own way (one would normally expect this of a war programme, no?). Game of Thrones  in a boiler room; a brilliant expansion on the Wolfgang Petersen film. Succession was a late entry, I only got into it in December but what stops it winning is everyone is just so awful in it and this has been a year I’ve needed cheering up.


Mare of Eastdown was Mare of Letdown for me, it was drab and I was disinterested after the midsection. Raised by Wolves was weird but I kind of liked it. I do not understand people who complain about “world building”, bore off, it’s a Sci-Fi and it’s supposed to be nonsense. Style with some of Ridders’ fave themes (consciousness, religion, creation). Them would have been on the list if it didn’t completely lose its mind and my interest down the stretch.


While it isn’t exactly cheery, in fact it’s far from that, there was a gleeful joy I took in Squid Game (and Hellbound which suffered towards the end). Clarkson’s Farm was unexpected mirth, but stagey and just nowhere near as original as the final two.


The winner in a year I needed cheer I’ve agonised between Ted Lasso (I saw both seasons for the first time in ‘21) and Wayne. Ted Lasso sneaks in at number one for its genuine heart. Both shows were a surprise (Wayne is included with Amazon Prime) but Ted Lasso had me laughing and in places cry and genuinely always caring about the characters.


Winner: Ted Lasso

The Best Death Award

The best, most satisfyingly gory or shocking and original on screen death. All of these explosive exits are worth watching whatever show or film they’re in just for the thrill of the kill alone!


Wire- The Decline

“Mama?” - Let Him Go

Fingered - Possessor

Hope - Can’t Get You Out of My Head

Hat Head - Mortal Kombat

Sentenced to death - Wrong Turn

Boar! - Boar

Bottlenecking- Freaky


A fun little horror brimming with some new ideas and new takes on old ones, which you very must seek out if horror-coms are your thing.


Winner: Bottlenecking- Freaky

The Best Horror Film Award

Saint Maud

Possessor

Wrong Turn

A Quiet Place Part II

Sputnik

Army of the Dead

Candyman (2021)


Not a strong year for horror that really wowed or scared me. Army of the Dead was fun. Possessor was fucked up and new and exciting but I’m not sure I’d call it a horror. Saint Maud was offbeat and well acted. Wrong Turn was exactly the right kind of trash with viscera everywhere. Sputnik has Oksana Akinshina in it.


Winner: Candyman (2021)


A lovely, creepy moving on of the Candyman lore (which I had rewatched some weeks before seeing this). While it didn’t blow me away, it had the hairs on the back of my neck going the most of any of the finalists and I like its slick, contemporary style.


The Made Me Blub Award

I’ve had a wobbly year, the epilepsy has wreaked merry havoc with my mood. As such, this award genuinely could include the Tom and Jerry movie in the shortlist because I cried watching it, but given that I wasn’t level at the time, it’s not going to be.


The Father

The Blind Side (within about 15 minutes)

Ted Lasso

Arctic


The award goes to this film because the emotion came out of nowhere and choked me up, unlike The Father which I was expecting to find upsetting (even though it was brilliantly done).


Winner: Arctic


Bedsit Cinema is spoiler free but if you’ve seen Arctic, I imagine you know what I’m on about.


The Peter Bradshaw Award


Could also be called The Awards Bait That I Hate Award. After Bradshaw’s MASSIVE WIN last year, this is now either a doff the cap or disrespect the pompous critic award. Who knows where it’ll go!


The Green Knight

Dune

Skyfall


Peter Bradshaw probably gave great reviews to films I loved in 2021. In fact I imagine such is the beauty of film that if we sat down for a purely Platonic film night with a shared bowl of sugar and salt popcorn we’d probably have loads we could agree on to watch. Two of the nominees I can accept are well made and might be good but I have limited time left as a consciousness. Bond is just pure shit.


Special mention for Force Majeure, not “deliciously chilling drama” but European, up its own arse stuff which despite featuring an avalanche, moves like a glacier.


Winner: Dune


At least I liked looking at The Green Knight some of the time, it's like a joyless Tale of Tales. Loads of my Twitter, and therefore only, friends loved Dune. I was hugely excited for it, but it was as boring as Blade Runner 2049, just as long and sporting the style of a drunk Jean Paul Gaultier. With Bagpipes.


The Best Documentary Award

If I mentioned every good documentary I saw, this single award would be two thousand words. If I was able to remember them all it’d be letters trying to claw off the screen at your eyes, angry and confused at their existence as my fragmented grey matter short-circuited trying to assemble them. What I have done is put serial and feature length documentaries in together, hence their disclusion from the TV award.


Money Machine

Collectiv: Uncovering a Scandal

Meru

Surviving 9/11

Framing Britney

Can’t Get You Out of My Head

Night Stalker: Hunt for a Serial Killer

Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell


Cunts are everywhere, but it’s worse when it’s your Dad who’s rinsing you. Framing Britney is A microcosm of Can’t Get You Out of My Head; most of us are getting fucked by cunts only it's hard to define because it isn’t physical and until we all die early because of them nobody cares. Even an atheist like me knows there’s no pain after death, though. Perhaps The Man is doing us a favour.


As mentioned I’ve probably forgotten loads of great documentary work but it’s irrelevant because the two I wrestled between are solid 10/10s.


Winner: Meru


Can’t Get You Out of My Head is all out brilliance yet again from Adam Curtis, you have to see it, while fascinating and endlessly inventive it is also almost relentless doom and gloom. Meru I don’t have enough superlatives for. Every single aspect of the filmmaking is jaw-dropping but it is eclipsed by the subject matter. See it (and read my review).


The Best Performance Award


Keith Allen - Pembrokeshire Murders 

Morfydd Clark - Saint Maud

Jennifer Ehle - Saint Maud

Mads Mikkelsen - Arctic

Mads Mikkelsen - Another Round

Lesley Manville - Let Him Go

Stefan Konarske- Das Boot

Ben Daniels- The Exorcist

Carey Mulligan- Promising Young Woman

Anthony Hopkins - The Father

Jason Sudeikis - Ted Lasso

Kieran Culkin - Succession


If you think this is a long list, you should see how many names I had to excise last minute.


2021 really was a year rich with films for me. I saw so much I loved and was very lucky as I’m sure you have had those bland years of cinema, too. Neck and neck imaginary silver trophy winners (no imaginary cocaine guys, sorry) are Carey Mulligan absolutely making Promising Young Woman and Mads Mikkelsen in Arctic, carrying a film on his own. Which is kind of the point but still. However it’s a clear winner, a man who perfectly portrayed the horrors of memory loss (aided masterfully by the film’s construction).


Winner: Anthony Hopkins


The WTF Moment Award


Fanny Lye Deliver’d - Eek, a penis! Freddie Fox whips it out and pokes a (presumably fake) erect member into Maxine Peake’s side in one of the most bizarre scenes in a very odd film.


Why is it always a willy? Why are we so shocked at a cock? I see one every day. But enough about work. There’s also a hard penis that pops up in Possessor, though it’s not as weird as in Fanny Lye Deliver’d.


The Best Film Award


Self explanatory.


The Decline

The Upside

Arctic

Let Him Go

Promising Young Woman

The Father

Another Round


A wonderful 2021 of viewing means lots of very strong 8/10, some 9/10 and two solid 10/10 in The Father and the winner...


Winner: Promising Young Woman


Promising Young Woman is colourful, funny and downright bang on the money. It is complex but so cleverly conveyed that a difficult subject is dealt with delicately but also destructively. Carey Mulligan absolutely kills it, too. The Father is brilliant but not as new and fresh.


AND ON TO THE BIG ONE!


The La La Land Award

The Bedsit Cinema Awards' jewel in the cock ring, The La La Land Award is my unique slander of Hollywood gush. It's also my favourite award to award, because I'm a horrible little man with a hump full of hate. Usually it’s a musical which takes my ire, because they're sickening and Tinseltown thinks they’re just swell. Engorge into this, you smug, singy-dancy bastards!


Out and out winner is a film loved by many, like La La Land, and hated by me…


Winner: Frozen


Sorry kids, parents of kids, people who want kids and perverts; Frozen is puke inducing puberty preparation. If you throw up on ice, can you pick it up and throw it like a frisbee? Probably not, but if you could it’d be more fun than Frozen. Pee javelin? Shot poo? Ok I’ll stop.

Olaf celebrating the cock ring he can wear around the palace

That concludes the 2021 2022 Awards! I hope you had a good year, despite all that’s going on and I wish you love and joy and great films and most importantly, good health for 2022. Thanks for reading.

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