With 2020 coming down to a close (thankfully) there are just a few remaining films I will be able to see. So I went out to Cinemark today to see a couple of them. The first film I saw was a film that I have seen on a lot of lists of possible Oscar nominees, Promising Young Woman.
Promising Young Woman starred Carey Mulligan and was directed by Emerald Fennell.
Something happened to Cassie (Carey Mulligan) during her college years that led her to drop out of her collegiate medical program. It had something to do with her friend Nina. From this event, Cassie had struggled to get past her memories. On the weekends, she goes to bars and pretends to be drunk. She waited to be picked up by men trying to have sex with her and she lured them into a trap, confronted them and kept a record of it.
Working at a coffee shop, Cassie was approached by a former classmate of hers, Ryan (Bo Burnham) who wanted to ask her out on a date, but Cassie was to distrustful of men to accept.
Carey Mulligan is exceptional in this role. I love the way the film hints at what happened without coming right out and explaining it to us. We can figure out what happened without it being laid out before us. With the pain in her face, Mulligan brings us along on her way through her life. The film hints at Cassie doing worse things to her victims, though it seemed as if she did not.
You understand the anger and pain that Cassie is facing, but you want her to overcome the anguish. Then, she does something that makes you shocked at her behavior.
Then the third act becomes one of the craziest third acts you are ever going to see. It is surprising and it is uncomfortable. I never saw it coming and I really loved that.
Thrilling. Heart-breaking. Uncomfortable. Promising Young Woman is one of the greta films of the year and certainly may deserve that Oscar nomination it hopes for.
Was flipping through Roku TV last night and I came across Sam Raimi’s classic Spider-Man. This was my favorite super hero movie for quite awhile (until the recent expansion of the MCU). I love Spider-Man and this felt like the most iconic version of the Web-Head.
Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) is struggling through his life, trying to make way with his lack of money, classwork and relationships, all the while hoping to continue his alternate life as the Web-Swinger. However, when a lab accident turned mild manners scientist Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina) into the psychotic, metallic armed Doctor Octopus, Peter has to battle him to save the city.
Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock is nearly perfect. The film took the character and gave a bit of a twist to him with the arms being somewhat sentient and mentally suggesting, if not controlling Octavius. It allows Doc Ock to have a moment of clarity at the end of the film which helped the story and resolution (making if different than Raimi’s previous Spider-Man movie).
I don’t know if it is because of how much I like Tom Holland, but Tobey Maguire felt more miscast in the role of Peter Parker than I had ever felt before. Maybe it was the age thing, with Maguire being older than he was playing. He was fine as Peter, but there was just something about him that bugged me with this viewing.
Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane Watson also did not feel as perfect as it did back when I first saw this movie. I mean, she does not ruin anything for me, but she would not be my prime choice for MJ despite her undeniable beauty.
Spider-Man 2 has what is arguably one of the greatest sequences in comic book movie history. The Spidey-Doc Ock train fight is as good as it gets. It perfectly encapsulated everything good about the character of Spider-Man and how he relates to the people of New York. His never say die attitude and his determination to save the people on the train under any circumstances is astounding. Then, the reaction of the people on the train to their savior was iconic. Tears were in my eyes when that kid said, “We won’t tell nobody” about Spidey’s mask being off. So much emotion being shown by the people involved… it is truly one of the best scenes in any super hero movie.
The film is based on the iconic comic book run of “Spider-Man No More” starting in Amazing Spider-Man #50.
We see more of Peter Parker and what makes him tick in this movie. We see the relationship between Peter and Mary Jane, between Peter and his Aunt May (Rosemary Harris) and Peter and Harry (James Franco). Putting Octavius as a scientific inspiration to Peter was smart as well, because it gives them a deeper connection than just hero-villain.
There are all kinds of Sam Raimi flares scattered about the the movie. His flavor is unmistakable and tehre are scenes that are pulled directly out of previous Raimi work. The scene in the operating room where Doc Ock’s tentacles first come to life is a perfect example of Sam Raimi’s style. I am anxious to see how Sam Raimi’s style translates into the MCU with Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.
Of course there is also perhaps the greatest bit of casting in comic book movie history is here as well as J.K. Simmons reprised his role as J. Jonah Jameson, publisher of the Daily Bugle. Simmons steals every scene he is in and is completely tremendous as JJJ. You can’t talk about the original Spider-Man trilogy without mentioning J.K. Simmons.
Spider-Man 2 has the feel of a comic book come to life. The fantasy of the hero swinging through the city, sacrificing for the unknown is powerful. I have heard some criticism that this film does not hold up, but I would disagree whole-heartedly. This is still one of the best Spider-Man movies of all time and it laid the groundwork for what the character could possibly be on the big screen.
I was on Netflix last night and suddenly, there was a new super hero movie with Pedro Pascal. It was called We Can Be Heroes and I had no idea it was coming out and it was written and directed by Robert Rodriguez, the mind behind Spy Kids and Sin City. It also appeared to be a sequel to The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3D. That should give you a good idea of the tone of this filn.
I have never seen The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3D, but I have heard about it, and, maybe it should go on the list.
This focused on the children of the group of heroes known as The Heroics, which included the aforementioned Lavagirl (Taylor Dooley) and Sharkboy (Jeffrey Dashnaw). It also included the retired leader of the Heroics, Marcus Moreno (Pedro Pascal).
The film starts off with Miracle Guy (Boyd Holbrook) and Tech-No (Christian Slater) half-heartedly trying to deal with an unidentified object in space, only to discover that there was an entire armada on its way to earth. The aliens made short work of the Heroics, capturing them all and imprisoning them on their ship.
Missy Moreno (YaYa Gosselin), daughter of Marcus, was taken by the government agency to a location to protect her from the aliens. They take Missy to the rest of the children of the Heroics. However, the other children all have super powers, but Missy does not.
When one of the children, Ojo (Hala Finley) turned out to be prophetic with her drawings, the kids discover that the aliens are preparing to attack the agency. Together, the group escape the facility and try to come up with an idea to rescue their parents.
Teen/child super heroes are always fun. There was a definitely fun tone going on here. It reminded one of Spy Kids because there were some stakes, but the kids were not in any real jeopardy. It had the feel of a Disney Channel show where the kids are generalized characters without a ton of depth to them. The children are charismatic enough and have enough fun powers that you do not need deeply developed characters. They all have their one or so obstacle that they have to overcome to become the best they could be.
Some of the other neat ideas are Noodle (Lyon Daniels) who can stretch, providing some cool visuals, Wild Card (Nathan Blair) who has all the powers but cannot control them, Guppy (Vivien Blair), daughter of Lavagirl and Sharkboy, who can control water and had super shark strength, Wheels (Andy Walken) who is in a wheelchair because his strength in his legs were too strong, Slo-Mo (Dylan Henry Lau) who moved in super slow motion despite being the son of the speedster, A Capella (Lotus Blossom) who can move thigns with her singing voice, Fast-Forward (Akira Akbar) and Rewind (Isaiah Russell-Bailey) who were twin brother and sister who were not fond of each other, and Facemaker (Andrew Diaz) who has a malleable face.
The film is light, funny, breezy. It is not something to dive into deeply. It is a kids movie that you can use to introduce children to the world of superheroes. I had fun watching it. It is like eating cotton candy. Sweet at first, but not much remaining after.
I can’t say that I am sad to see it end. There were so many stories coming out of the year that I have to adjust my usual Top Geek Stories entry in the Year in Review. In the past, I have listed a top (usually) 15 stories in order for the year. This year, I am not going to pretend to list them. I considered going by month, but that felt like it was too much of an undertaking. So… we will see how this works itself out.
Joe Biden defeats Donald Trump in Presidential Election. This year’s most important election of our lives might have actually reached that level. Joe Biden received over 81 million votes and 306 electoral votes to win the contest, although as of this writing, President Trump has not conceded. I will admit to being nervous to see what the lame duck president may do between now and Jan. 20th when Biden is sworn in.
Coronavirus aka COVID-19. The biggest story of all areas this year is the arrival of the coronavirus in late January. It arrived, was ignored, spread like crazy and spread again. We are still dealing with the virus by social distancing and wearing masks, though there are plenty of people who believe that infringes on their rights. There was a vaccine developed (couple actually) near the end of the year so there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately, over 330,000+ Americans have died from Covid-19 so far.
Movies pushed. Because of the pandemic, theaters wound up closing down for a chunk of time in 2020 (some which are still closed). This has led to a bunch of movies being delayed, some originally to the end of the year like Wonder Woman 1984, but most into 2021 like Black Widow, Fate 9, the new James Bond: No Time to Die, The Eternals, Godzilla vs. Kong, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Halloween Kills, Jungle Cruise, A Quiet Place Part II, Top Gun: Maverick etc. Several movies, such as Trolls 2 and Artemis Fowl, skipped their theatrical release and released on streaming services instead.
Tenet saves theaters. Not. However, Christopher Nolan’s new movie Tenet ended up opening in 2020 because of pressure placed on the studio from Nolan. Nolan wanted his film released on the big screen and there was discussions about whether Tenet would save the box office. The answer to that was no as Tenet had fair to middling results.
Warner Brothers/HBO Max had an idea. WB announced that they would be releasing all of their large tentpole releases for 2021 on their streaming service, HBO Max. Max, which rolled out this year with a mixed review (difficult to work, not on Roku etc), would be getting the releases of major films, starting with Wonder Woman 1984 on Christmas. The films would also be released in the theaters, where available. The creative folks were not pleased with this news. Dune (and Lionsgate) fought the release and it may have worked. Other creative people such as Christopher Nolan and James Gunn (among others) spoke about their disappointment with the company.
Disney drops their load. As if it wasn’t tough enough on WB, about a week later, Disney had their investor call and proceeded to drop information on dozens and dozens of projects… everywhere from new Star Wars shows such as Ahsoka and Andor to Marvel and their new shows such as Armor Wars, Secret Invasion as well as trailers for Loki, WandaVision and Falcon & the Winter Soldier. But it was not just Star Wars and Marvel either. We got Pixar, Hulu, Disney proper, National Geographic news too.
Who’s got the Toilet Paper? At the beginning of the pandemic, with people restricted to work from home, toilet paper supplies from the stores nationwide started disappearing. People went nuts over the TP, deciding that this would be the stuff worth hording.
Release the Snyder Cut! The cry of fanboys everywhere since the release of a less-than-expected quality Justice League movie was for WB to release the Snyder cut. It was an online thing for years. Finally, WB announced in 2020 that they would release the Snyder cut of Justice League in 2021. However, it does appear that they have give Zach Snyder $80 million to finish the film (which will be 4 hours long and released on HBO Max) so there must not have been a finished cut of the movie prior.
Black Lives Matter: As if the pandemic wasn’t enough of a problem, African American man George Floyd was, in the process of being arrested, killed by the police. It all happened on camera for the world to see as the police officer knelt on Floyd’s neck for over 8 minutes. This led to Floyd suffocating and kicked off a series of protests and riots across the country. Though most of the protests were non-violent, those that did end up in violence were what were focused on and led to further racial strife in the country. It became political theater for many (on both sides to be fair) and the message got lost.
Imagine. Gal Gadot and many of her celebrity friends recorded a version of John Lennon’s Imagine that was both figuratively and literally tone deaf. Though they may have had good intentions, I have heard that the road to hell is paved with those.
Tiger King. In March, Netflix released a true crime type show called Tiger King which focused on zoo owner Joe Exotic and his rivalry with big-cat activist Carol Baskin. Tiger King was shock TV at its finest as people everywhere could not believe what they were seeing each episode. From the revelation that Carol Baskin may have fed her previous husband to a tiger to Joe Exotic’s bizarre campaign for governor, Tiger King was what everyone wanted to talk about.
Zoom. This company went from nothing to everything. The world knows now about Zoom and many have had Zoom meetings. Schools held classes virtually over Zoom, TV programs broadcast their shows with the web site, businesses used it as for a meeting. We all now know that we have to “unmute” ourselves and that you only need to dress from the waste up. Just be sure that your computer is facing a wall where no one can walk behind you (I know a friend who had a parent walk behind a student and the parent was naked).
Don’t call him Baby Yoda. Season two of the Mandalorian came to Disney + and it was joyous. One of the biggest reveals of the season was when Ahsoka Tano (yup, played in live action by Rosario Dawson) told us the real name of Baby Yoda. It was Grogu… and the internet whined. It was a weird name, and people seem to be getting used to it. At least it did not create the same stir as when Grogu ate those frog eggs.
Dodgers win! Yeah, this one is in for me. The Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the Tampa Bay Rays 4 game to 2 to win the 2020 World Series after a shortened regular season. The Dodgers had not won the World Series since the year when Kirk Gibson hit the game one walk-off home run (1988) so it was a long time coming.
Rest In Peace. 2020 had a terrible number of people die, but there were at least two celebrities who died unexpectedly that crushed countless people. NBA legend Kobie Bryant died in January after his helicopter crashed. His daughter was on the helicopter as well. Actor Chadwick Boseman died after a years-long battle with cancer that he had kept secret from most of the world. These two men in the prime of their lives passed on leaving a massive hole in the hearts of their families, friends and fans. There was too much loss in 2020 as a whole.
Impeached for life. Donald Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives and had his trial in the Senate in January. Trump was not convicted by the Senate, with it being a nearly partisan vote. Only Utah Republican Mitt Romney voted to remove Trump. I can’t imagine how the year might have been different if the Senate would have removed Trump from office when the legitimate chance presented itself. Trump’s failure with the Covid-19 virus might have been different and the entire year might have been changed.
Oh no….oh no… oh no no no no no. With the pandemic forcing everyone home, another app that benefitted hugely was TikTok. The short-video sharing platform exploded into a nationwide sensation with Americans everywhere dancing, posting videos of “Karen” and lip synching. TikTok even affected the national political events when the TikTok kids requested thousands of tickets for the first Trump rally in Oklahoma (during the pandemic) and did not show up. They drew the ire of Trump from this but they seem to be as strong as ever.
Live from my living room…. TV show, in particular talk shows such as the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, The Daily Show, The View, and news network programming set up Zooms and Streamlabs and continued to provide interview segments and entertainment for the isolated public at large. YouTube was deep into the broadcasts as well as podcasters everywhere learned how to ask for money via Super Chat.
Murder Hornets. There was so much news happening in 2020, that it seemed like every month there was something new and tremendously horrible was going on. When news of murder hornets, large insects that were coming from South America and would murder bumblebees, the nation could only wonder what wa next. Fortunately, murder hornets have not led to the insect apocalypse… at least not yet.
Fire! Fire! Fire! Things have burned all over the place this year. Starting in Australia, the bush fires set that continent ablaze for nearly three months. The event was horrendously tragic for the people and wildlife of Australia. Not to be out done, California was once again on fire with wildfires all across the state. Smoke came from the fires and was seen across the country. Skies in California turned a shockingly red even without a fire in sight.
Have you ever seen 2001: A Space Odyssey? At the end of November, a mysterious monolith, reminiscent of Kubrick’s classic film, appeared in the desert of Lockhart Basin, Utah. Then, after several days of intensive scrutiny by the world at large, the monolith disappeared. Copycat monoliths appeared in Romania, California and New Zealand. A group on TikTok claimed responsibility for removal (and showed videos of the monolith in a backyard) but the monolith’s original appearance and origin is still a mystery.
Unidentified, you say? Oh yeah… and the US Military confirmed that there were UFOs. In any other year, this would be the biggest story around and this year it is way down my list. The US Military released three videos that the Pentagon said were “unidentified aerial phenomena.” The three Navy videos were said to be “real” by the Pentagon, meaning that they did not know what they were but they were not behind it. UFO enthusiasts were excited, but it is not like the Military walked us through Area 51.
More:
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle quit the royal family
Parasite won Best Picture at the Oscars becoming first foreign language film to win main award
Harvey Weinstein convicted of sex crimes
Stock Market crashed
Kim Jong Un was believed to be dead. Reports of his death were apparently greatly exaggerated
Twitter was hacked in a bitcoin scam
Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged madam Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested; President trump wishes her well
Trump spend first debate with Biden talking over him and interrupting the entire event.
Massive explosion rocked the city of Beirut.
Ruth Bader Ginsberg died. Trump and Republicans hypocritically push through her replacement
Trump tested positive for Covid-19. Gets best treatment in world.
Eddie Van Halen died
Alex Trebek died
Locusts swarmed in Africa
Avoided World War III after Trump launched drone strikes against Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in January
Trump suggested that bleach could kill the virus and wanted doctors to look into ways to inject it into people.
Kanye West ran for president of the United States. Really.
Live action Mulan premiered on Disney + and Disney charged everyone an extra $30.
Carole Baskin was on Dancing with the Stars
Tom Hanks got Covid. So did the Rock.
Person Woman Man Camera TV
The nation got its Space Force (and they called them Guardians)
Quibi launched and shut down in six months (after losing 1.75 billion dollars)
There was a plot to kidnap the Governor of Michigan.
Speaking of Michigan, a group of armed people stormed the state capitol because of the shutdown.
Trump teargassed protestors so he could pose with a Bible outside of St. John’s Church across the street from the White House.
Steve Bannon was arrested for stealing Build a Wall donations. Trump has not yet pardoned him.
Trump pardoned everyone else in his orbit.
Rudy Giuliani …well what else needs to be said about “America’s Mayor”?
All kinds of sporting events were cancelled.
Sarah Palin appeared on the Masked Singer
The Undertaker officially retired from WWE in ring action (for now)
Randy Orton set The fiend on fire in WWE
DC Comics fires a ton of staff members.
Luke Skywalker appeared as The Jedi on the Mandalorian season finale
Trump tries to bring down the post office to slow mail in voting.
Jim Carrey played Joe Biden on SNL for a few months
Oscars postpone ceremony until April- extend eligibility requirements.
Collider fire a bunch of on air and behind the scenes talents in January; plan on changing directions
Za Flertinflaus arrives on SEN Live!
John Lewis died.
Adam Collins defeats Dan Murrell for Movie Trivia Schmoedown Championship
Odd Couple defeats Shazam for Movie Trivia Schmoedown Team Championship
MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki spends weeks at the “Big Board” during election season. Clear MVP on network
I was not sure what t expect from Hunter Hunter, but I had heard some positive word of mouth about it online, so I figured it would be a good film to give a chance.
Whoa.
Joseph (Devon Sawa), his wife Anne (Camille Sullivan) and daughter Renee (Summer H. Howell) lived as a family in the wilderness, surviving off the land as trappers. The family was afraid that they were being stalked by a rogue wolf. The desperation of Joseph to capture the canine sent him out to track the predator, leaving his wife and daughter alone in their cabin.
As Joseph continued to be out of communication range, Anne and Renee were becoming more anxious and frightened of the wolf. However, a noise outside the cabin led to Anne discovering an injured man Leo (Nick Stahl) who she nursed back to health.
The film had a slow build as it patiently revealed its surprises and its frightening scenes. You are never quite sure what is going on and a few of the things we discover along the way make you uncertain about what is happening and uneasy about what might happen. The film does an amazing job of creating a mood of anxiety among the audience.
Personally, my favorite character and performance came from Gabriel Daniels, who was the local forestry agent. He was making his way around to the different locales in the film, picking up roadkill such as dead skunks or responding to bear sightings by the yuppie locals. Daniels does not get a ton of screen time, but I enjoyed his performance while there.
When the film kicks it into high gear, it really goes all in. The final scene of this film is as grizzly of a scene as I have seen in any movie this year.
I came into Hunter Hunter with almost no idea of what the film was, outside the fact that I had heard it positively referred to as a horror movie. I was not ready for the film to be as compelling as it was and for it to switch gears as quickly as it did. It was a brutal development and an unexpected journey.
Here are the worst of the worst for 2020: the Batman & Robins!
The F-You Award: COVID-19. This goes without saying.
Worst Movie of the Year: You have to wait and see on the Year End List. However, a hint, it is one of the worst of all-time.
Worst Actor: Nick Stahl (The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson). He may have been the standout in this movie. That is not saying much.
Worst Actress: Mena Suvari (The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson). Her performance was not quite as obscene as the film.
Worst CGI: Roald Dahl’s The Witches. The CGI here was disappointing and it surpassed the badness of the dog from Call of the Wild, which was a runner-up.
Worst Sequel: Brahms: The Boy II. A sequel that was terrible and had zero reason to have been made. The first Boy move was okay, but this one took the good parts of that one and tossed it out the window.
Worst Superhero Movie: Project Power. This was not terrible, but there were limited number of superhero movies this year and I did not want to give this to Wonder Woman 1984.
Worst Director: Daniel Farrands (The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson). Amateurish.
My Favorite Rotten Movie (Low Score on Rotten Tomatoes): The New Mutants. Lots of people disliked this long-delayed movie, but I found it decent. Perhaps I am more willing to give this a break because of my background.
Worst Movie I did not see: Songbird. At 11% on Rotten Tomatoes, it is low. As the first major film involving COVID, it most likely is a little too tone deaf.
Cashing a Paycheck: Harrison Ford (Call of the Wild). Harrison was good in the movie. The CGI dog was a horrid distraction.
Book was Better: Artemis Fowl. Although I have never read the book, it would have to be better than this Disney + flopper.
Worst Reboot/Remake: Dolittle. The sad “adventure” starring Robert Downey Jr and his weird accent. He was Tony Stark once. Now he is pulling items out of a dragon’s anus.
Most Successful Bad Movie: Spencer Confidential. This Netflix series was successful for the streamer, but it was just God awful.
Worst Movie Based on TV Show: Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island. Michael Pena as Mr. Rourke was the fisr mistake, but far from the only ones in this terrible re-imagining of the class TV show.
Worst Performance from an Oscar winner: Judi Dench (Artemis Fowl). She was Commander Root, head of the fairies. Coming on the heels of Old Deuteronomy in Cats, this was maybe another step down.
Worst Wig of the Year: Glenn Close (Hillbilly Elegy). It was a horrible distraction the entire time.
Science Fiction was not the most used genre for 2020. Maybe because the world itself was living out a sci-fi story. Still, there are some choices for Best and Worst Sci-Fi.
One rule I have followed. I do not include superhero movies in this award. That would be less of a constrictive rule this year with the limited number of superhero flicks that came out, but it does mean that there will be no Wonder Woman 1984 or Old Guard on these lists.
Best Sci-Fi Movie
Previous Winners: Upgrade, Blade Runner 2049, Arrival, The Martian, Ex Machina, Star Trek Into Darkness, Edge of Tomorrow, Freaks
Runners-Up for Best: Spontaneous, Freaky, Bill & Ted Face the Music, Vivarium, The Vast of Night, Color Out of Space
Winner:
The Invisible Man
The Invisible Man finished high up on the horror list as well, this time taking the gold for sci-fi. The Invisible Man starred Elisabeth Moss as a woman tormented by her old boyfriend who had supposedly died. Instead, he found a way to turn himself invisible.
The movie was one of the breakout hits of the year in the few months that films were released in the theaters worldwide. It had a very modest $7 million dollar budget and made that back in a massive amount. It was tense and anxious and still stands out as one of the top films of 2020.
Worst Sci-Fi Film
Runners-Up: Underwater, Dolittle, Bloodshot, Tenet, The Midnight Sky.
Both Tenet and The Midnight Sky were okay. They are certainly much better than the other films on this list. Bloodshot is a comic book movie, but I am not considering him a superhero. The character does feel more sci-fi than superheroic and Vin Diesel brings his same old act to this. Dolittle was not the massive success that Robert Downey Jr. had hoped. It was a dragon fart of a movie. Underwater was one that I barely remembered seeing in the theater in January.
Winner:
Artemis Fowl.
This was released by Disney straight to Disney + midway through the year. Based on a young adult book, the movie brought a level of stupidity that had not been seen in quite a while. It was truly disappointing since the potential premise of the young thief Artemis Fowl had some merit. However, the execution of this film was just not there. And poor, poor Judi Dench, who went from Cats to this atrocity.
A brand new category for 2020! Probably should have been one several years ago. There certainly is not any end in sight for comic book movies, no matter what the pundits may say about “comic book movie fatigue.” 2021 will truly test that theory as there will be a ton of new comic book movies coming out.
Meanwhile, 2020 was the least amount of comic book movies to come out in a decade.
In order to celebrate the new award, named after the iconic and EYG Hall of Famer Christopher Reeve, I went back in time and chose a winner for ever year back until 1989. I stopped at 1989 because 1988 was the first year that did not have anything in place even remotely worth honoring.
Doing it this way, there were a couple of CBMs that might not have made a list of great movies from the genre, but since it was the best of the year, they made the list.
Some of these will be easy to predict. Starting off:
1989 Batman
1990 Dick Tracy (I debated between Dick Tracy and Darkman for this year)
1991 The Rocketeer
1992 Batman Returns
1993 Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
1994 The Crow
1995 Batman Forever
1996 The Phantom
1997 Men in Black
1998 Blade
1999 Mystery Men
2000 X-Men
2001 From Hell
2002 Spider-Man
2003 X2: X-Men United
2004 Spider-Man 2
2005 V for Vendetta
2006 300
2007 Superman: Doomsday
2008 The Dark Knight (honorable mention to Iron Man)
2009 Watchmen
2010 Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
2011 Captain America: First Avenger
2012 The Avengers
2013 Iron Man 3
2014 (Tie) Captain America: Winter Soldier & Guardians of the Galaxy
2015 Avengers: Age of Ultron
2016 Captain America: Civil War
2017 Logan
2018 Avengers: Infinity War
2019 Avengers: Endgame
Runners-Up for 2020: Old Guard, Wonder Woman 1984, The New Mutants, Justice League Dark: Apokolips War, Superman: Red Son
2020: Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)
Though most of the CBM of 2020 are on their way to 2021, Birds of Prey was a solid early year entry with Margot Robbie reprising her role as Harley Quinn (from Suicide Squad). The supporting cast around Robbie was strong as well with some of the lesser known DC heroines (at least to the public at large) in place.
Horror has been one of the most popular genres over the last decade. There has been a resurgence in the realm of horror and, with the arrival of such horror specific streaming services as Shudder, horror has become very prevalent.
There are a few horror movies that could also appear on a sci-fi list coming up.
We will start with the Worst!
Runners-Up: There are a lot of these. When horror goes bad, it gets really bad. Gretel & Hansel was a horrid film while we were still in theaters. Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island was a huge disappointment. The unneeded sequels Brahms: The Boy II and Babysitter: Killer Queen were bad. I had liked the Babysitter on Netflix and that sequel was quite disappointing. The Rentaland The Lodge were not good. Come Play, Nocturne and The Lie varied for the badness. Evil Eye was another on Amazon Prime that did not reach the level expected. Antebellum wasted an intriguing premise thanks to the trailer. Into the Dark: Delivered was terrible too.
Worst Horror Movie of 2020
The Grudge
The Grudge was the first movie I saw in 2020 and it was never equaled in badness among horror movies. The movie had a great cast but it was such a dull film and horrible film.
Best Horror Movies
Runners-Up: I really enjoyed the online Host film. It was short, but it may have been the most intense of the films. Pooka Lives! is one of my personal favorites for the year on Hulu. The Invisible Man was one of the best films early this year and was break out for Elisabeth Moss. The Netflix film His House was one of the best of the year, with one of the deeper story. Alone was an interesting thriller that started on the highway. The Hunt was another early year controversial film with a break out performance by Betty Gilpin. Z was a streaming film that caught me off guard.
Best Horror Film of the Year:
Black Box
Black Box was a surprise. It appeared on Amazon Prime during the Halloween and it caught me off guard with how great this film was. It had Phylicia Rashaad appearing and there were some real frightening images. There was a real twist in the film and I loved it.
This is another award that I pushed back to wait for Soul to come out just in case. There is a runner-up from that film.
Now remember, a voice over may not necessarily just be an animated film. This includes live action with motion capture or an animation/live action combination.
Previous Winners: Auli’i Cravalho (Moana), Andy Serkis (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes), Robin Williams (Aladdin- honorary), Josh Brolin (Avengers: Infinity War), Ryan Reynolds (Detective Pikachu)
Runners-Up: I already mentioned that Soul had one so I will place Jamie Foxx here to kick it off. He was excellent in the role. Matt Ryan voicing John Constantine in Justice League Dark. Matt Ryan is one of the most popular version of Constantine. Tom Holland‘s voice work in Onward is great. He has done a couple of animated movies now over the last few years. Sean Bean‘s Wolfwalkers was the animated film of the year, but his work was some of the best. Ben Schwartz was Sonic the Hedgehog and the voice was great.
2020 Winner is…
Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian)
A perfect example of a voice over that is not animated. Pedro Pascal is mostly not in the armor during filming but we always here his voice. This season of The Mandalorian has been top notch and Pascal showed remarkable character growth as his connection grew with Grogu.
I have waited specifically for today before compiling this final list because of one specific film dropping on Disney + today. I anticipated that film making this list so I wanted to wait. Did it make it? If you read the review, you can probably guess.
Anyway… here we go.
Oh, previous winners first…
Previous Winners:Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse, Coco, Moana, Inside Out, Big Hero 6, Flashpoint Paradox, Paranorman, Winnie the Pooh, Klaus
#10. Superman: Red Son. Superman crashes in Soviet Russia and becomes an agent of the USSR. How does that change the world?
#9. Trolls: World Tour. A sequel to a surprise hit that became the first major film to head to streaming as a release this past summer.
#8. The Croods: A New Age. An animated movie that goes absolutely bat shot crazy in the second half. And I respected that.
#7. Scoob! This was fine, but it could have been so much more. I want more of the story to focus in on Scooby-Doo, Shaggy and the gang and less on Blue Falcon and other Hanna Barbera characters.
#6. Justice League Dark: Apokolips War. The “infinity war” of the DC animation series. Apokolips is a major DC powerhouse villain (who inspired Marvel to create Thanos) and he has devastated the heroes. They try to come back.
#5. Over the Moon. The Netflix film featuring a young girl who builds a space ship to travel to the moon and find a goddess. It was great animation and a underappreciated film.
#4. Onward. A Pixar film that was able to be released in theaters early in the year. Chris Pratt and Tom Holland voice brothers who go on a trip to try and figure out how to use a magical staff to bring their father back to life for a short period. Emotional as any Pixar films can be.
#3. The Willoughbys. Another Netflix animated film from this year. A family of four kids try and get away from their abusive parents and they head out on adventures with their new nanny.
#2. Soul. Pixar’s second film that was released today on Disney +. Jamie Foxx was tremendous as a middle school band teacher who is desperate to play a gig with a quartet. Unfortunately, he dies before he can. He does not want to allow that to stop him.
#1. Wolfwalkers. The Apple Plus film which gives us a look at a fantasy story dealing with the men of a town trying to kill the wolves in the forest who are preventing them from expanding. This is such a great film and the animation is exceptionally original.
After being delayed twice, Wonder Woman 1984, the sequel to Patty Jenkins’ original DC film, was released in both the theaters that are available and open and streaming on HBO Max today.
Jenkins returns to direct WW1984 with Gal Gadot reprising her role as Diana, the Amazon princess. Chris Pine returns as Steve Trevor, who did die in Wonder Woman. Mandalorian star Pedro Pascal is the lead villain Max Lord and Kristen Wiig appears as Cheetah.
Diana has been living and working in the world since the ending of World War I. Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig) was new at the same museum Diana worked and the FBI came to have her try to identify an ancient rock. That rock turned out to be an artifact created by an ancient god and the artifact is able to grant one wish, while taking what the person loves or needs.
Turns out that Max Lord was in search of this artifact and wanting its power for himself. He cons Barbara into letting him get his hands on it and he starts to use it to accomplish what he wanted.
Looking at the previous Wonder Woman movie, I thought the first two acts of the original was just about as good as it was going to get and the third act derailed the film a bit. While the third act was not terrible, I found it to be easily the weakest of the film. Here, however, I found the third act to be very strong, in particular with the showdown between Wonder Woman and Maxwell Lord, but I found the first two acts of WW1984 to contain the weaker parts.
One of those weaker parts, for me, was the overall performance of Pedro Pascal as Max Lord. While I love him in the Mandalorian, I thought Pascal was way-too-over-the-top comic bookie villain in WW1984. There are moments that I liked, but more often than not, I found myself grimacing with Lord. I am not convinced with his motivation and his relationship with his son Alister (Lucian Perez) did not convince me.
However, the other major relationship in the film is between Diana and Steve Trevor and that worked like aces. They have great chemistry together and pick up right where they left off. The dynamic that brought Steve back from the dead worked for me (although there was one part of it that bothered me a bit–can’t go into it further without spoiling it). The film flipped the script with Steve now being the fish out of water and having Diana lead him through the world of the 1980s where Diana was the fish out of water in the late teens. The scenes with the two of them worked completely.
I also liked the scenes with Kristen Wiig as Barbara Minerva, but she feels as if her story got rushed and tossed into this movie to say “Hey, we have the Cheetah!” Cheetah is Wonder Woman’s most iconic villain and she did not feel as if she needed to be here. I would have rather saved Cheetah for a future installment of the series or to have had her be the lead villain in this one.
I should also mention that Gal Gadot is the perfect Wonder Woman. This casting, which I did not think much of prior to the first movie, works so well again. Gadot is exceptional as Diana and hits all of the major emotional moments well. She is exceptional in this role.
I found most of the CGI and effects here to be awkward and lacking any real feel to them. With the exception of the lassoing lightning scenes that were shown in the trailers (which looked fabulous), a lot of the rest did not look great. There was also a story beat in the second act that, while I will not reveal it, is very much a super hero trope that has played its course. It felt the same as if the characters would get amnesia. I’ve seen that too many times to be too invested in it.
The film was too long too as it should have trimmed about 20 minutes off the runtime of 2 hours and 31 minutes. WW1984 has some great moments in it and I believe it is worth seeing. I wish it was more focused of a film than it turned out. Gal Gadot is fabulous again and her relationship with Chris Pine is special.
Pixar’s latest animated movie dropped on Disney + after getting pushed thanks to the virus. Soul was directed by Pete Docter and he provides the most metaphysical Pixar film since Inside Out.
Joe (Jamie Foxx) was a middle school band teacher who had been struggling to chase his dream of being a jazz musician. A former student was able to set Joe up with a gig playing piano for diva Dorothea Williams (Angela Bassett). Unfortunately, Joe found himself in another realm of existence. Along his desperate path to return to earth, Joe meets up with 22 (Tina Fey), a uninspired spirit, and he has to help 22 find its spark.
Soul is beautiful in all ways. The animation is the typically spectacular animation of Pixar. The music, particularly the score, is astounding. The score was created by Nine Inch Nails duo Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, with Late Show with Stephen Colbert bandleader Jon Batiste providing jazz compositions and arrangements.
The voice cast was led by Jamie Foxx as Joe and Tina Fey as 22. However, the cast included such notaries as Questlove, Graham Norton, Phylicia Rashaad, Daveed Diggs, Angela Bassett, and Rachel House. The voice work in Soul was spectacular.
The story of Soul contains some really deep ideas and some existential beats. It is a film that can keep the mind occupied of the adults as well as the children. It takes this metaphysical realm and creates a beautiful world around it. Soul is a world of imagination and creativity like few movies reach. This reminded me quite a bit of Inside Out, which was Pete Docter’s last Pixar film.
Soul is an amazingly gorgeous film that sounds better than most films around. The score, music, animation and voice work is superb. Soul is one of the better Pixar films to have been released in the last few years.
Yesterday I watched Elf, which was a beloved Christmas movie that I had never seen. I knew a few scenes but I had never watched the whole film. Tonight, I removed another Christmas classic from the list of Christmas movies that I had never seen before, A Christmas Story.
Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) wanted a a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas more than anything. As he tried to figure out a way to get the Old Man (Darren McGavin) and his mother (Melinda Dillon) to get him a Red Ryder for a present, Ralphie had to make his way through a challenging childhood, dodging a bully Scut Farkus (Zack Ward) among others.
Of course, everybody tells Ralphie that the Red Ryder BB gun would only lead to him “shooting his eye out.”
A Christmas Story was a nostalgic trip back to a simpler time and is filled with humor. Poor sad sack Ralphie never seemed to catch a break and you could root for him easily. You knew things weren’t going to turn out okay though. So when he has his major confrontation with the bully, you cheered for him.
There was a lot of humor in the movie as Ralphie tried his best to navigate through his youth. The scene with Flick (Scott Schwartz) got his tongue froze to the metal pole during recess is an iconic moment and still plays wonderfully.
The film was imaginative and included plenty of fantasy scenes directly from the head of Ralphie. These scenes gave the film a true magical, almost dreamlike state. This set the tone for the film and showed the audience what to expect.
The performances were all solid, especially from the parents, Darren McGavin and Melinda Dillon. They were an old fashion couple, but their relationship felt real even among the fantasy. The whole battle over the leg lamp was some of the best scenes of the film not directly connected to Ralphie.
Speaking of Ralphie, Peter Billingsley was perfect as the young boy. His bright blue eyes shined through each scene he was in and his child performance has to be considered one of the best of all time.
A Christmas Story is clearly Christmas classic and I am glad to have finally added it to my list of watched movies.
This was a brand new award last year, in honor of Avengers: Endgame. I can still remember the emotions and feelings I had when seeing this movie and its tremendous cast. This year had several movies that contained remarkable actors.
I consider an ensemble in a movie to be a group of actors from a movie where there was lacking an obvious lead performance.
The Avengers: Endgame Ensemble Cast of the Year Award
Previous Winners: Avengers: Endgame
We shall start with the runners-up.
Runners-Up:
The Personal History of David Copperfield. I included this because the cast was so great, but it did not receive the award because the fact that Dev Patel was truly the lead actor and the rest of the actors were supporting to him.
The Birds of Prey. Another ensemble that is actually headed up by Margot Robbie. She was more of the lead actor in the film than the whole film was ensemble.
Da 5 Bloods. The exceptional Netflix movie from Spike Lee was a leading candidate for this award. Once again, though, I thought there was one major standout in the cast, that being Delroy Lindo.
Hamilton. The Disney + filmed version of the stage play was a real treat during the summer of 2020. Disney + placed it on their streaming service instead of a theatrical release in 2021. The musical was brilliant.
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. This was probably the second place film in this category. Viola Davis was unbelievably brilliant and Chadwick Boseman’s final filmed performance was his best work ever (and that was saying something).
And the winner is…
The Trial of the Chicago 7
The fantastic Netflix biopic telling the story of the trial of the Chicago 7 was a true ensemble cast. Eddie Redmayne, Alex Sharp, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jeremy Strong, Mark Rylance, Frank Langella, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Keaton, John Carroll Lynch, Noah Robbins, Daniel Flaherty. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Kelvin Harrison Jr.
The cast had to be great because the written word of Aaron Sorkin presented the actors with some of the best dialogue of the year.
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EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 