The Wahlberg Awards - The Usual Suspects

Though there are no shortage of terrific Wahlberg-Award-worthy film moments out there, I'd like to draw attention to a very interesting candidate; Bryan Singer and Christopher McQuarrie's The Usual Suspects. This notorious and almost obscenely entertaining movie doesn't just satisfy the expectations of the judges in terms of "Oh Shit!" moments, but also manages to meta-comment on those moments, with moments so twisted around themselves that the judging panel had their minds bent out of shape trying to assess it all. It truly is a remarkable movie. The first award is a deviation from the norm: Best Non-Response By Pete Postlethwaite To Repeated Threats By A Born-Again Christian:









That confrontation leads us to the second award, this time for Best Fake Response To A Revelation About The World's Naughtiest Criminal Made By The World's Naughtiest Criminal Within The Fake Narrative He Has Created To Flummox Chazz "Calogero" Palminteri And, As A Consequence, The Audience:


At the end of the movie, that fake narrative comes to an end, and a moment later we get the iconic and infamous moment that wins our third award, Best Response To Realising You've Just Spent Ages Listening To A Bunch Of Hooey Woven By The World's Naughtiest Criminal, And Broke Your Favourite Mug In The Process:


Of course, Chazz Palminteri was only speaking for all of us, and so with that same revelation of the naughtiness of Verbal Kint, The Usual Suspects wins the Lifetime Achievement Wahlberg Award for Services to Generating Meta-Shock in Worldwide Audiences Through The Clever Manipulation of Narrative.


Truly the awards panel is awed.