THE BEDSIT CINEMA AWARDS 2024
THE BEDSIT CINEMA AWARDSThe Bedsit Cinema Awards have never distinguished between gender performances.
The Bedsit Cinema Awards have never distinguished between country of origin or native tongue.
Cinema is cinema, people are people.
I am a person, this is my Cinema,
welcome!
Who gives a toss about The Oscars? They're only what would happen if you let the Tory party dictated film awards, wheeling in sex offenders to swing it in their favour. Well, that’s how I imagine The Oscars work anyway, “Harvey which way are you voting this year?”.
You don’t want The Oscars, you don’t want a well established, world renowned congregation of entitled executives and entertainers who’ve made billions in cinema. What you want, is one tiny little man wallowing in excess seasonal weight from meat and wine, who needs you to like him. If that sounds pathetic, I also work for the NHS. So if you banged a saucepan during COVID, you’re just as desperate for people to think you’re great as I am.
I started 2023 with a run of wonderful, powerful films I thought the quality of would never maintain over twelve months of my addictive film watching. Certainly not with my predilections, I was bound to lapse into a horror binge and ruin it all. More on that later.
Whether that happened or not you’ll have to read on to find out. I ended 2023 with a wonderful girlfriend, a job (still!) and a new place to live; but a friend and uncle lighter. My uncle Bobby was old, my friend Anna killed herself. It has had knock on effects which certainly changed my viewing. Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares was all I watched for at least a month.
My rules for qualification for The Bedsit Cinema Awards are that all contestants, desperately vying for my damned praise, are films and shows I saw for the first time in 2023- regardless of age of production.
The Only See it on A Big Screen Award
The award for a film which might not be the best of the year, but has blockbuster bombast and fun.
The Flash I enjoyed much more than expected, a lot of fun with a quirky character. Meg 2: The Trench was a let down even though I had low expectations and bloody love sharks, and got drunk just to make sure I liked it, which I didn’t. Don’t see The Meg 2 even if you’re in love with sharks and are a few glasses deep.
For Barbie not only did we go out for cocktails but I wore a frigging pink suit. It was a fantastic experience and is a wonderful film I'm excited to watch again.
It wasn’t my choice, I was ok about the first two films in the series, but watching my girlfriend go through every emotion (at least six separate episodes of tears) in what is a surprisingly touching film, during Guardians of the Galaxy 3, then end it dancing chipper as fuck is one of the happiest points of my year. A beautiful moment of cinema’s power to evoke all it can from you, and I’ve never loved her more.
Winner: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 - a very good film which deserves the big screen and has emotional meaning to me, now.
The Best Documentary Award
This award is for the best series or standalone, erm, duh.
In retrospect, but simultaneously predictably, my top doc watches of 2023 are either true crime or sports. What else do people make documentaries about, though? War, maybe, but most of the time that’s a crime anyway these days. Documentaries are for insight.
“In Waco we did not save every life we could have, and that is a failure.” I found this to be a seriously moving, contrite quote from one of the FBI agents at Waco. USA missing persons unit limited series Missing Dead or Alive is well shot, cleverly structured and restrainedly compassionate.
You know you have a good editor when Roy Keane comes across well. To be fair, if I wanted an enforcer, he’d be near the top of my list. I’m not necessarily condoning it, but footballers are tarts and sometimes need a lesson. David Beckham is likeable, self aware and oh, oh so talented. The doc is not only a look into Becs’ career but British culture of the time and fame itself.
I’d rather be rich than famous. It’s why I play the Lottery.
Winner: Forensics: The Real CSI
Seriously kids, don’t do crime and also if you do “no comment” cements you as guilty. Just waffle nonsense until you get a nice comfy bed in a ward, for the rest of your life.
The Made Me Blub Award
Pretty self explanatory: what did I cry at the most in 2023?
Some really sad, touching or shockingly tear jerky moments in film, TV, and my life, this year. Because of this, and because of how much Matthew Perry’s death was so close to my friend’s (pun intended) as his iconic character was so impactful on me, and his slow decline so obvious, I just want to say goodbye Mrs. Chanandler Bong.
The Best Death Award
I couldn’t resist the juxtaposition of this with the previous award and yeah it seems crass, but I needed cheering up because even writing The Made Me Blub Award got me down. Thus, here is the golden dismembered limb prize for most enjoyable (on screen) demise!
Deep Blue Sea’s best moment was also its one original and reasonably well executed exit. The Last of Us specialised in ooh moment, cool kills and the nailed to a tree in From runs a close second to the winner purely because its victim was an innocent and therefore it is more sad.
Winner: Mr. Mercedes. A genuinely disturbing, left field and cleverly, knowingly sadistic final croak. Au revoir, you fucking nut job.
My yearly reach around for the Guardian’s chief film reviewer and a man whose opinion is magnetically opposed to mine- we're both north, the scientific Alpha. I love him, I want his opinion and mine to meet, but they rarely do. Despite that I read all the guy’s reviews and then get angry when I think he’s wrong. He probably thinks I am wrong, too, but his lawyer’s cease and desist note put paid to me trying to ask him again.
He actually was positive about Guardians of the Galaxy vol.3 but he manages to drop a Seven Samurai reference like a frigging wannabe. Something I would never do (in my defence Rebel Moon is essentially a space remake of that film, just shit).
Petey loved Killers of the Flower Moon, which I thought was very good and full disclosure, if I hadn't known the story (because I occasionally read, but don't tell anyone), I'd probably have loved, too. He gave Napoleon full marks, as did I. Reading his 2023 Braddies, it's hard to oppose his choices at this point and given I haven't seen a lot of the films on his film of the year list, I feel rather ashamed of myself.
However.
With a dramatic poise unseen before on Bedsit Cinema, you’re going to have to wait to read who has won The Peter Bradshaw Award 2024…
To reiterate, these are films I saw for the first time in 2023, they could have been made whenever. In a way this is the film of the year award’s B-Team but also hopefully just good films you may not have heard of which you might want to see. I respectfully and demurely present for your consideration:
In The Bedsit Cinema Awards most egalitarian move ever, it’s just a list, there is no winner -THEY ALL WIN, AS DO YOU FOR READING! #BenevolentDictator
The Best TV Show of the Year Award
Special Mention: The Last of Us: Episode 3 - Long, Long Time
Possibly the most well crafted, perfect, episode of television I’ve ever seen. A standalone in a series which had promise but was uneven. You could watch Long, Long Time having never seen The Last of Us and probably still enjoy it, be moved by it. Brilliant, but it didn’t save the show from its waywardness.
Winner: Happy Valley.
Yes I was late to the show, literally and metaphorically, but you know what being late to a show means? More frigging episodes to binge. I loved every minute of this dark as hell, supremely British, police thriller. Sarah Lancaster is up for performance of the year in the next award, but I don’t do spoilers so…
The Performance of the Year Award
There’s three in my list which jump out at me, but then acting isn’t about just being noticed. As my choirmaster used to say, this is our secret. He’d also say there’s no soloists in a choir, and he was right. Sometimes something needs to sing together and many of these actors did that, perfectly in tune with the film or show they were in.
I really hope Steve Coogan eclipses his portrayal of Jimmy Saville because it will wipe all memory of the heinously accurate job he did of enacting my choirmaster* the UberNonce reincarnate. He finishes third.
Coming second, unlike Jimmy Saville ever did, is Leonardo DiCaprio who in a film I thought was good but not great, kept me watching with a display of flamboyance and stage craft like nothing else I saw last year. I almost hate giving him second with so many amazing, more obvious, choices on the list, but damn he is good in The Great Gatsby.
The Best Horror of the Year Award
Horror can be many things: scary, gory, scary gory, funny, gory funny, titillatingly gory, creepy, sinister and lastly subtle. Most of it, because it is usually cheap to make, is of course just plain crap. When money is pumped into a horror to please people, it’s often as limp as a late era Dirk Diggler. The geezer must have passed out trying to get that thing into work mode on that many drugs.
If my abhorrent jokes, which remember you’re reading the censored version, haven’t given it away, I didn’t find a single horror I think I’ll stick with.
Pearl is just an origins film for a mental health sufferer. Sure it’s a very good and interesting one which probably eclipses its predecessor/follow on, but it isn’t scary and really shouldn’t be listed. Smile and Fall both got me going in places but were limited. Renfield was bloody fun and The Reckoning I threw in because it was genuinely the most scary thing I saw last year.
Cheap, crap, camp, The Stuff was a film I bought a ticket to on a whim, then when it came around to the screening my life had changed. Leaving my house after days, dragging myself to the West End of London and having fun, then crying in a pub writing my review, was my horror experience of the year. It was fun, though, and dragged me out of my hole. I’ll always love The Stuff for that.
The Horrific Disappointments of the year Award
Logical follow on award.
What a shit year for the horror I’ve seen, except in my night terrors where my dead friend’s corpse tries to talk to me but can’t because she’s rotten. I did try to vary my cinematic scares, I promise you. Here’s a list of horrors I had hoped for but which let me down.
Obviously what will haunt me most are the recurring night terrors where Anna’s voiceless carcass reaches for me, but I’m glad you don’t have to see them. I’m also glad for you if you didn’t spend any money on some of my list of regrets.
There is a "winner" in the list of disappointments though.
I could barely wait to see Evil Dead Rise and I'm so upset at what I saw I keep wanting to watch it again in case I had a brain fart for a couple of hours.
The WTF Moment of the Year Award
Sometimes even I’m looking at a screen wondering why I haven’t run away or thrown up.
The last act of Honeydew was an early frontrunner but it was blown out of the water, in a tsunami of what the fuck which obliterated the entire year by The Neon Demon.
Winner: The Neon Demon - sexy morgue time
The Best Film of the Year Award
It started so well, and my tastes changed. What I love about Bedsit Cinema is I can never change me and I have to stay true to that. The film which did the most to me in 2023 is…
A three horse race again, which I’ll sum up as one which just felt brilliant and had a bit of everything, one which wowed me technically and in every aspect and one which excited me and had me giddy with joy. Surprise! The technical one didn’t win.
Oppenheimer would most years win this award. Amazon Prime's Thirteen Lives deserves so much more than a TV watch yet still carries much power on it, superb from ol’ Ron Howard.
Winner: Napoleon
I have every episode of the Sean Bean starring, Napoleonic War set, Sharpe, on DVD and return to them every couple of years. I’ve been obsessed with the show since I was a child and still enjoy the swords and swoonery. I wanted big budget Sharpe and Napoleon delivers so much, so so much more than just what I wanted. I wanted it though, and I didn’t even need to wank any walruses off to get their vote.
On to a DOUBLE BUBBLE BIGGIE, closing the show!
The La la land Award AND The Peter Bradshaw Award
The film La La Land is the very embodiment of the kind of horse shit I will not stand for. So smug it's basically fellating itself, with a maniacal grin and giving you two thumbs up. This Award goes to a celebrated Hollywood film which left me dumbfounded as to why anyone ever thought it was good, apart from feeling like they had to.
Winner: The Killer
Executed that accolade quicker than anything the film manages.
Whether it wins awards or not, which David Fincher’s The Killer will (starting here), it is a steaming pile of pseudo-intellectual thriller with no thrills and nothing permeable philosophically, shit. It is so boring I wished I was transcribing a drunk Emmanuel Kant. The Killer just thinks it is clever and by liking it you will think you are too.
Andrew Tate, Covid deniers and Joey Barton use that move. I’m not comparing liking The Killer with being a fan of any of these “people”. I’m also not saying you’re a flat earther, or someone who think The moon is made of cheese (we all saw Wallace and Gromit), most cheese tastes of plasticine to people who lost all sense of reality long, long ago. Where am I going with this?
Oh yeah, you’re either nuts, stupid or boring if you liked The Killer.
Well well well, what a year 2023 was for me as a human and for my cinematic endeavours- flawed as they both may be. I hope that you are well, had a happy year and another one incoming (an ongoing sentiment), and have seen lots of brilliant films. I am open to recommendations, so do please get in touch.
*I’d like to stress that my choirmaster was actually a fucking lovely guy who just happened to teach teenage boys music and was therefore mercilessly sledged as hard as every teenage boy who studies music. Or joins a choir…
Dedicated to Uncle Bobby and Anna
HAVE A GREAT 2024! SEE YOU FOR THE REVIEW AND AWARDS IN 2025!
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