The 2024 Paultacular Bruene Awards

Hello and welcome to the thirteenth annual Paultacular Bruene awards, a vanity project that is somehow now a teenager. So if this year this thing is suddenly moodier, more annoying, and less rational than ever before, and also smells bad, well, they grow up so fast don’t they.

As in previous years, here is the format. We (“we”) are going to go through a bunch of categories, both the traditional ones and a few of my own creation that replace categories in the real awards that I don’t care about. I’m debuting a new category this year, Best Stuntwork, which is something the actual Oscars should’ve done a long time ago and bizarrely continue to refuse to. But I can!

For each category, I’ll list my top five (called the “contenders”) from 2023, and then crown/award a winner. As of this writing I’ve seen 55 films released in 2023, which means I’ve seen most, but not all, of the major relevant movies from that year. Sorry Nyad.

So without much further ado…the Pauls!

The 2023 Paultacular Bruene Awards

Hello and welcome to the twelfth and once again annual Paultacular Bruene awards. After last year's double sized (or, really, like 1.5x sized) awards covering both 2020 and 2021, we're back to our regularly scheduled vanity project. My zero readers are, I'm sure, ecstatic, joyous, even ebullient.

As usual, here's the format. We (for a generous interpretation of the word "we") are going to go through a bunch of categories, some traditional film awards categories and a few of my own invention. There's a new category debuting this year, we'll see if it lasts or if it's just auditing the course. For each category, I'll list my top five (the "contenders") from 2022, and I'll then crown a winner. As of this writing I've seen 56 films from 2022, so I think it's fair to say I've seen most, but not all, of the relevant movies from the year. Well, except for the horror movies, those I haven't seen. Sorry, Barbarian.

So without much further ado...the Pauls!

The 2022 Paultacular Bruene Awards

Hello and welcome to the eleventh and now not quite annual Paultacular Bruene awards. So it’s been, uh, quite a two years since I last did this. I took 2021 off because there just weren’t enough movies released to make this exercise, which is already straining at having a point, worth it. But now we’re back and better than ever (?) and it’s time to get back into the swing of things with a double-sized Paultacular Bruene awards covering both of the past two years. Okay, it’s not quite double-sized because even with an extra year to watch I’ve still only seen twenty-eight films released in 2020, but something like 1.5x sized. Sesqui-sized?

Here’s the format, mostly unchanged. Normalcy and all. I’m going to run through a bunch of categories and give my top five for the period of 2020-2021 combined, which I’m calling the five “contenders,” and then I’ll give a winner. The categories are mostly the normal awards ones with a few extras of my creation to replace categories I don’t like or don’t see many of (hello, live-action shorts). One category, Best Line, is gone this year because there are just too many films I watched too long ago to remember individual lines of dialogue. It may or may not be back. As always I’ve seen many but far from all of the relevant films so if your favorite goes unmentioned here, maybe I just didn’t see it. Or maybe it sucks.

So without much further ado...the Pauls!

The 2020 Paultacular Bruene Awards

Hello and welcome to the decennial Paultacular Bruene awards. That’s right, I’ve been doing this dumb thing for ten full years now. To address a few questions: Yes, it is a coincidence that I started doing this at the start of a decade. Yes, I will be writing a “best of the decade” type of thing here at some point, hopefully before we’re done with 2020. And no, I categorically do not stand by anything I wrote when I was 19.

Anyways, here’s the format, almost entirely unchanged from the last few years. I’m going to run through a bunch of categories and give my top five for the year (which I’ve termed “contenders”) and then give a winner. Many of the categories are copied from standard awards categories, plus a few of my own creation and minus a few I don’t like or didn’t see enough to judge—maybe one day I’ll watch newly-released documentaries, but that has not yet come. As always, I barely know what I’m talking about, so your indulgence is greatly appreciated

So without much further ado…the Pauls!

The 2019 Paultacular Bruene Awards

Hello and welcome to the ninth (!!!) annual Paultacular Bruene awards! This year coming so late even I wasn’t sure if I’d ever actually finish. Due to a number of events both foreseen and unforeseen—well, okay, basically all foreseen and simply ill-planned-for—it took me much longer than usual to reach my arbitrary threshold of fifty 2018 movies seen before I write this, a number I didn’t even hit last year so frankly I don’t know why I insisted on it this year. But nevertheless.

Anyways, here’s the format, almost entirely unchanged from the last few years. I’m going to run through a bunch of categories and give my top five for the year (which I’ve termed “contenders”) and then give a winner. Many of the categories are copied from standard awards categories, plus a few of my own creation and minus a few I don’t like or didn’t see enough to judge—I saw a few foreign language films year, but probably not really enough to have a separate category. This is all strictly subjective, and for the technical categories I rarely know what I’m talking about. What do I know about editing? Do I know anything? Let’s find out!

So without much further ado…the Pauls!

The 2018 Paultacular Bruene Awards

Hello and welcome to the eighth (!!) annual Paultacular Bruene awards, coming to you live on the west coast (tape-delayed in Hawaii, Alaska, Guam, and American Samoa) from a one-bedroom apartment in North Seattle.

This year is going to be a little shorter (a little shorter) than in years past, in large part because this is the fewest movies I’ve seen before writing this since the first year, only 46 movies released in 2017. That’s a full 20 less than last year, though in my defense I spent the bulk of the past 12 months either studying for the bar exam or as a practicing attorney, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ whatryagonnado. Though there are a few movies I didn’t get to that I wanted to (like All The Money In The World, The Greatest Showman and literally anything in a foreign language or any documentary), I think I did a pretty good job all things considered.

Anyways, here’s the format, almost entirely unchanged from the last few years. I’m going to run through a bunch of categories and give my top five for the year (which I’ve termed “contenders”) and then give a winner. Many of the categories are copied from standard awards categories, plus a few of my own creation (and minus a few I don’t like or didn’t see enough to judge, like, as noted above, anything involving foreign language films). This is all strictly subjective, which, though obvious, I feel like I should mention because my personal taste in movies is further from consensus for 2017 than usual—a lot of the popular (and I mean that both in a critical and commercial sense) 2017 movies I liked but didn’t love. No shots intended at anything or anyone omitted here.

So without much further ado…The Pauls!

The 2017 Paultacular Bruene Awards

Aloha everyone to the seventh (!) annual Paultacular Bruene Awards, formerly known as the I’m Right Awards. I think the ironic bluster that characterized the previous title (and sometimes content) has run its course as a joke, so I’m doing a minor rebranding. Focus group testing has been very positive.

Here’s the format, pretty much unchanged: I’m going to run through and give my own five contenders (renamed from “nominees” because I wasn’t really nominating anything) and winners for all of the traditional Oscar film categories, with a few tweaks. I’ve removed categories about which I lack an opinion*, due to either a) not having seen (m)any, like the three shorts categories, or b) I don’t care about, like Best Makeup.

But, due to a tax loophole I’m exploiting, for every category I take away I add one back. Bolded words in italics are winning movies, bolded words or phrases not in italics are hyperlinks.

And, without much further ado…the Pauls!

*Dangling prepositions are part of the old brand. That’s something I feel very strongly about. Wait, shi-