The Star of the Year.

What performer has had the biggest year?  This could be a movie actor, a musician, a tv star, or even a company.

Previous winners:  JJ Abrams, Marvel Studios, Jennifer Lawrence

This year’s EYG Star of the Year:

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Lin wrote and starred in the Broadway sensation Hamilton.  He won a Tony Award for his performance in the musical, which also won the Tony for Best Musical (and 10 other awards) as well as a Pulitzer Prize for Drama.  He also wrote several of the songs for the Disney animated movie, Moana.  Miranda has been a huge pop cultural icon for 2016 and is only heading for bigger things.

Runners-up:  Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, The Stranger Things kids, “The Rock” Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Gosling, Kate McKinnon, Emma Stone. 

Here are the top ten best “moments” of pop culture and beyond.  Those moments that might be considered “Geek Moments”

#10.  Glenn, Abraham are killed by Negan on the Walking Dead.  The Walking Dead cliffhanger had made many people upset, but it did place eyes on the season 7 premiere.  Many wondered if the show would kill off Glenn in the same manner as the comic series did…at the end of Lucille.  So when Abraham tasted the barbed wire, Glenn fans everywhere took a sigh of relief.  But it was not over.  As a punishment for Daryl, Negan chose a second victim, and this time, Glenn was killed.  Shock filled the internet.  Many would say that the Walking Dead has not been as solid as it used to be, but they certainly provided quite the season premiere.

#9.  Captain America- Agent of Hydra?  The new series, Steve Rogers: Captain America saw Cap return from old man state back into healthy super soldier state.   However, the end of the first issue sent shockwaves through the comic community after Cap said those two fateful words, “Hail Hydra.”  Anger consumed the comic book fans as people swore to never read another Captain America book.  It was revealed soon that the memories of Cap as Hydra agent as a child were false memories implanted by the living cosmic cube Kobik. I must admit, I am really ready to have this story end. Seeing Cap as the villain is just wrong.

#8.  DC Rebirth. In 2016, DC Comic did another relaunch of its super hero continuity.  Going from the end of the New 52, DC intended to return to its old DC Universe while keeping some continuity from the New 52 books.  No matter what argument you can make about how DC does relaunches way too often, success cannot be debated.  Rebirth has been an extremely successful relaunch for DC Comics as they have seen their books’ sales reach high levels, even surpassing Marvel’s.  Whether or not this can be sustained is another question, but there is no denying that DC hit a homer with this.

#7.  Pokemon Go.  This was a short lived phenomenon that swept the nation, causing people to search for these Pokemon characters using their cell phones.  It was such a wild time that the Pokemon app was crashing, unable to contain the number of participants “Having to find them all.”

#6.  Hamilton.  Broadway got a huge hit this year.  Hamilton is a rap show about Alexander Hamilton and if you thought that was a strange combination, then you are not the only ones. However, with the great music by Lin-Manuel Miranda and word of mouth that was out of this world, Hamilton became the ticket to find.

#5.  Big Budget Summer Films Bomb.  Though there were some really great movies during 2016, many of the big summer blockbusters that we were looking forward to really underwhelmed us.  Independence Day: Resurgence, Jason Bourne, Ghostbusters, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Warcraft, The BFG, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, Neighbors 2, Huntsman, X-Men: Apocalypse,  Zoolander 2.  These are all movies that under-performed and trended toward failures.  The small, independent movies still had quite a successful year, and there were some great summer movies (Captain America: Civil War for example) but the blockbuster certainly took its beating in 2016.

#4.  Disney makes all the Money $$$.  Meanwhile, Disney continued to rule the world.  With its studios like Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilms, Disney set a record for highest domestic total at $2.7 billion.  It has also passed $7 billion worldwide.  Both of these are records.  Disney has (currently) the top four grossing movies worldwide of the year with Captain America: Civil War, Finding Dory, Zootopia, and The Jungle Book. Rogue One is still climbing and, as of this post, has garnered $635.8 million for 11th place.  Add to this Dr. Strange (656.5 million) and Moana (342.8 million), the studio’s success is clear.

#3.  Too Many Deaths- #2016MustGo.  At some point, things have gotten too ridiculous.  At first, blaming the year was kind of a joke.  A way to have something to blame when we lost another huge star.  Then, it piled up.  Prince, Alan Rickman, Ali, Carrie Fisher, Leonard Cohen, Debbie Reynolds, Gene Wilder, George Micheal, David Bowie, Anton Yelchin are just a few of the A-list celebs that we lost in 2016.  As of this writing, we have about 2 1/2 days left… let’s hope that the blood sucking year 2016 has taken enough from us.

#2.  The Chicago Cubs win the World Series.  Something happened this year that some people have literally waited their entire lives for.  The Chicago Cubs won the 2016 World Series.  The last time the Cubs appeared in the World Series was 1945.  And they hadn’t won the World Series since 1908.  That was 108 years.  I am not a Cub fan, but I have to say that I am happy for those long suffering fans who never seemed to catch a break.  Whether it was billy goats or Steve Bartman, the Cubs always found a way to end up on the outside looking in.  But this season was different.  They had a great series with fellow long time losers Cleveland Indians, and the Cubs had to come back from a 3-1 deficit to win the championship.

#1.  Donald Trump, President-elect.  In any other year, the Cubbies winning the World Series would be far and away the number one geek moment.  However, 2016 was not a typical year.  2016 became the year when we elected our first reality star as president as Donald J. Trump was elected to be President of the USA.  This happened despite him losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by 3 million votes.  This happened despite his constant Twitter rants that were many times inappropriate and most of the times childish.  This happened despite the release of tape from Access Hollywood where Trump spoke about “grabbing women by the p*ssy” and getting away with it because he was a celebrity.  He insulted women, Mexicans, immigrants, Muslims, other celebrities.  He said he would “lock up” Hillary.  He encouraged Russia to keep hacking into Hillary’s e-mails.  And yet, despite all of these potentially disqualifying events, Donald Trump won the election.  Who knows what is coming next?

Memes have become part of our online social media culture, and they can be a way we cope with the horrible things that happen in our world.  Humor is always a way to deal with pain, and many of these memes do just that.

I have picked my favorite six memes from 2016…

#6.  Evil Kermit

#5.  Ken Bone

#4.  Water Bottle Flip

#3.  Mannequin Challenge

#2.  Harambe

And #1.  Joe Biden!

Presenting our first “FRAME” Award for best animated film of 2016.  We have given the best animated film in the past including such films as Inside Out, Flashpoint, Big Hero 6, but now we have the official EYG FRAME Award to present.

Animation this year was okay.  We have had better years in the past.  I am only placing eight on the list of animation this year, with four making the bad list.  There were several that I did not see.  So when Ice Age’s new film is not on the bad list (or Norm of the North btw), I did not see it.

Two films that fall int he middle between the lists are Secret Life of Pets and Batman: Killing Joke.  Killing Joke could have been so good, but yet had to tack on a first half of the movie that had nothing to do with the story.  Pets was pretty average to below average, but was passable enough to avoid the bad list.

So here is the Top Ten Eight Animated Movies of 2016

#8.  Kung Fu Panda 3.  This was really a good movie but honestly, I forgot all about it until I went back over the other movies I reviewed this year.  I did not have to do that for the other movies on this list and thus, Kung Fu Panda 3 gets the #7 slot.  Still a greta film though.

#7.  The Little Prince.  This was on Netflix and was an adaptation of the beloved children’s story and this was done so well.  I had tears in my eyes watching The Little Prince.  This was an example of adding material to a film that actually fit into the story (hint hint Killing Joke) and made the movie better.

#6.  Sing.  Saw this one late in the year and really enjoyed it.  The story was simple.  I liked the characters.  And the music was engaging and entertaining.  That was about all that Sing was about.

#5.  Finding Dory.  I enjoyed this movie.  It would have been a better film if it hadn’t been constantly compared to Finding Nemo, which was a significantly better film.  Still enjoyed the story and the voice work from Ellen DeGeneres was top notch.

#4.  Kubo and the Two Strings.  A beautiful story with epic animation from the people at Laika.  Great characters on an epic adventure.  I did not love it as much as most people did, but this was really great, no doubt.

#3.  Zootopia.  Disney continued to be making all the money this year as Zootopia was one of the year’s biggest hits.  It also had a very subversive story with plenty of metaphoric moments that adults would understand while kids would laugh at.  Beautifully blended the viewing pleasure for the whole family.

#2.  Batman: The Return of the Caped Crusaders.  A personal favorite of mine because it brought back Adam West and Burt Ward as Batman and Robin.  Building off the success from the comics of Batman ’66, The Return of the Caped Crusaders was so full of nostalgia and fun that I had a smile on my face the whole time.  The animation did not measure up to the rest of this list, but I did not care.  It took me back to my childhood when I could watch these episodes and wonder how Batman and Robin were going to get out of this trap.  Loved this.

And our first official winner of the EYG FRAME Award goes to…

#1.  Moana.  So many great things here that, even with what was a very simple story, when put together, something special is created.  It had great music, a great female protagonist and The Rock.  What more do you need?  It also showed the Polynesian culture, something that we had not seen before.  Moana was my favorite animated experience of the year.

Top Four Worst

Again, I skipped out of quite a few animated films this year that looked to be awful.  I did not see the new Ice Age movie, Ratchet and Clank, Norm of the North, The Wild Life, Nut Job 2.  These are the four that made my list.

#4.  Sausage Party.  This was as disappointing as anything else.  I expected a lot of rauchy humor, and, though I got raunch, I did not get much humor.

#3.  Trolls.  Way too saccharine sweet for my taste buds.   It had some good moments, but it really was too much of a good thing.  Plus, it was predictable as heck.

#2.  Storks.  Did not like this one either.  There were so many stupid moments and the predictability of the film was so obvious.

#1.  Angry Birds.  Man this was horrible.  I hated this movie.  Nothing but  a cash grab.  Another example of the video game movie failing.  Dumb and boring.

It is time to present the prestigious Gomer Award for the biggest surprise of the year in the world of movies.  I had a lot of choices this year, actually even coming up with a list of honorable mentions.

Previous winners of the Gomer included:  The Gift, Edge of Tomorrow, We’re the Millers and The Campaign.

This year’s list starts here…

Honorable mention:  The Boy, The Little Prince, Don’t Breathe, Allied.

Top Ten Biggest Surprises for 2016

#10.  Deepwater Horizon.  This was one that the trailer did not sell properly for me.  I was not looking forward to this film and yet it turned out to be one of the best disaster films in many years.

#9.  Swiss Army Man.  I loved this movie.  I did not expect to come out of the farting corpse movie loving it so much.  Great performances from Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe in one of the most original films in a long time.

#8.  Bad Moms.  Most of the time, this type of movie doe snot interest me because it usually is not that funny.  Bad Moms broke that mold and had me laughing.

#7.  War Dogs.  I am not  a huge Jonah Hill fan so I anticipated not liking this movie.  And yet, I found it very entertaining and worth the time.

#6.  Barber Shop: The Next Cut.  Another comedy that I did not expect to laugh at, and yet I did.  I had never seen the other Barber Shop films so I did not hold high expectations for this, but it turned out really enjoyable.

#5.  13 Hours.  It was a film from Michael Bay being released in January.  How could this be anything but a horrid film.  Surprise!  It was really well done.  The Bay-isms were held to a minimum and the story was compelling.

#4.  Bridget Jones’s Baby.  There was no way I was going to like this.  I did not see other Bridget Jones movies and it felt like I was the wrong sex.  Still, this was really funny and I truly liked it.

#3.  The Legend of Tarzan.  Everything I saw about this new rendition of Tarzan looked to be crappy.  And then I saw the film and I found myself engaged and enjoying it.

#2.  Pee Wee’s Big Holiday.  Saw this on Netflix and watched it.  I don’t remember why I watched it.  I have never been a fan of Pee Wee Herman and had not seen his other films.  Still, I loaded up this new film and laughed all the way through it.  I couldn’t believe it myself.

But the 2016 Gomer will be awarded to the following film….

#1.  Ouija: Origin of Evil.  This was certainly going to be one of the worst films of 2016.  The first trailer was atrocious.  This was a sequel to one of the worst horror films of the last few years.  It was just a way to sell a few more Ouija boards from Parker Brothers.  And what happened?  They gave us compelling characters in an engaging and entertaining story and shocked the heck out of me.  As of this day, I cannot believe that Ouija: Origin of Evil was good, let alone on the possible list for my best movies of the year.  This was insanity and a runaway winner for the Gomer!

I do not usually get to see a lot of documentaries.  In fact, I have only seen a handful of documentaries this year.  In fact, over the last 48 hours, I beefed up the resume of docs seen thanks to Netflix, iTunes, Hulu and YouTube.

I do wish I could see more, but the only documentaries that tend to come to the theaters near me are the ones like Hillary’s Evil World and How She Plans to Destroy It.  Okay, that wasn’t the actually title of that film, but I did not see it.  Those types of political hack jobs by people like Dinesh D’Souza do not interest me.  I want to see a real documentarian.

I have a Top Ten list for Documentaries that I have seen in 2016.

#10.  Team Foxcatcher.  This was the real life story behind the film Foxcatcher.  The story of millionaire John E. DuPont and his building of a wrestling group he called Foxcatcher and the tragic end to the story.

#9.  Amanda Knox.  This was the amazing story of an American living in Italy who gets blamed, arrested and convicted of the brutal murder of her roommate.  However, the evidence is not compelling and “Foxy Knoxy” has to go through the Italian court system for years.

#8.  Michael Moore in Trumpland.  This was an interesting evening with filmmaker Michael Moore as he held a show in the heart of “Trump country” trying to convince Trump supporters that Hillary Clinton was the better choice.

#7.  Audrie & Daisy.  This documentary tells the stories of two underage females who had been sexually assaulted and how the community and the schools reacted to the girls.  This was very emotional and the sheriff from Maryville dealing with Daisy’s assault is one of the worst figures I have seen on film this year.

#6.  Beatles: Eight Days a Week. Ron Howard’s love letter to the tour of the Beatles across the USA.  There was very little conflict within this documentary, but the music is always great.

#5.  Gleason.  This was the sad but inspirational story of former NFL football player Steve Gleason who was diagnosed with ALS.  Watching the disease slowly eat away at Steve and seeing how it affected his wife and his father was heart breaking. And yet, he continues to fight to this day.

#4.  13th.  Director Ava DuVernay looks at racial strife and inequality in America and how the overcrowding in American prisons is one more symptom of the racial imbalance in our country.  The stats revealed in 13th are mind blowing.

#3.  The Resurrection of Jake the Snake.  A film focusing on former professional wrestler Jake Roberts and his attempt to get clean and sober.  Roberts got involved with Dallas Page and his DDP Yoga and credits that with saving his life.

#2.  Weiner.  This documentary followed around Anthony Weiner, former congressman who resigned in disgrace after he had sexted pictures of his penis to women.  Weiner decided to try to run for Mayor of New York, and this documentary followed him through that ill-fated campaign as the scandal returned.

#1.  Tickled.  This is easily the best documentary I saw this year, and it will be making my top movies list, somewhere.  Who thought that a fluff story for a New Zealand news program involving “competitive tickling” would devolve into a dark and sordid tale of harassment and online threats and cyberbullying?  There are things that happen in this film that you can not believe.

There are several disappointments from this year.  A disappointment does not have to be a terrible movie… just one that should have been so much better.

Previous “winners” of this award included:  In the Heart of the Sea, Amazing Spider-man 2, After Earth, Dark Knight Rises, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter.

Here are the runners-up to this year’s Spider-Man 3 Award.

#10.  Batman: Killing Joke.  I liked this film overall, but the first half was just terrible.  They added material in order to stretch the film out longer, but what they added… ugh.  It was very disappointing.

#9.  Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.  I went into this looking forward to a new entry in the Harry Potter-universe and I came out thinking how “eh” this could be.  Fantastic Beasts was okay, but nowhere near worthy of the Potter world.

#8.  Sausage Party.  It had its share of laughs, but there are only so many “f-words” and sex jokes that you can handle.  And it may have had some laughs, but it was not enough to really overcome the disappointments of the movie.

#7.  The Accountant.  A lot of people liked this film, but to me, it was pretty dull and needed to be considerably better. I was really looking forward to this film and found it a serious disappointment.

#6.  Assassin’s Creed.  I was not looking forward to this, but there were tons of people who had placed their hopes that this would finally be the movie to be made from an existing video game and be good.  It is one of the worst films of the year.

#5.  X-Men: Apocalypse.  Quite a step back from Days of Future Past.  Apocalypse was a waste of what should have been an epic villain.  The 4 Horsemen was tossed away.  The finale was not what it should have been.

#4.  The BFG.  Steven Spielberg creating a film from a property of Roald Dahl.  How could this be a miss?  You make it dull and boring.

#3.  Hail Caeser.  I had looked forward to this film for awhile.  The new Coen Brothers film was not as funny as I had hoped, and was pretty dull.

#2.  Independence Day: Resurgence.  How can you be disappointed with the sequel of one of the great summer action movies of all time?  You make a overall rotten film that spoils what you remember of the original.

And the “winner” of the Spider-Man 3 Disappointment of the Year is….

#1.  Batman v. Superman

This was the easy choice.  Batman v. Superman should have been the greatest super hero film of all time.  It had the first appearance together of the two biggest icons of the super hero world as well as the first arrival of Wonder Woman.  And yet, there was so much wrong with the film.  From Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor to “Martha!”, B v S was the biggest disappointment of the year.

Here’s hoping that 2017 does not see The Justice League on this list.

Whereas 2015 was the year of the “spy” movie, I do not think there is any doubt that 2016 is the year of the Horror movie.  The horror genre had a fantastic year, with multiple movies that told interesting stories with great characters.  There was a lot of originality in a genre that was in desperate need of it.  The best horror movies avoided the nonsensical jump scare and concentrated on scaring us in other ways.

Not that there still weren’t bad movies in the horror genre.  Of course there was, but this year just seemed to make fewer bad films and much better good ones.

Now, let me state this.  There are two movies that could be considered horror movies.  I have seen others list these as horror, but I am going to disqualify them from the list and just mention them here.  These two films are 10 Cloverfield Lane and The Shallows.  I really enjoyed both of these (10 Cloverfield Lane for sure will be making the big list), but they are borderline horror movie.  And with as many great one available this year, I am taking them out of the running.

What follows is the top ten list of horror movies this year.

Top Ten Best

Honorable Mention:  The Witch ( I didn’t like this as much as many others did), and The Forest. 

#10.  The Boy.  This one I thought was going to be horrible, but turned out to be entertaining enough for what it was.  I enjoyed Lauren Cohen’s performance.

#9.  Blair Witch.  The surprise sequel announced at Comic Con was good, but too familiar.  Still, this was loads better than the previous Blair Witch sequel and had many frighteningly chilling moments.  I also relaly liked the time loop idea that I wished they had done more with.

#8.  I Am Not A Serial Killer.    Saw this recently on Netflix and it was a deceptively fun performance from Doc Brown himself, Christopher Lloyd.  A monster movie and a love story all combined into one.

#7.  The Autopsy of Jane Doe.  Another one I just saw recently, I really enjoyed this. It felt like a mystery story and a procedural as well as a tense horror story.  This had a great set up and basically became a haunted house in a morgue situation.  Brian Cox was great as well.

#6.  Green Room.  Great work from Patrick Stewart and the dearly departed Anton Yelchin.  Green Room was hard to watch, made you squirm, and filled you with emotion as these characters got picked off one after another.  It was a slasher film in a year without too many.  It also show us how much of a tragic loss it was with the accidental death of Yelchin this year.

#5.  Conjuring 2.  The return of the Warrens in another story of demonic possession.  This time the Warrens travel to England to deal with a little girl who may or may not be faking this possession.  This was an enjoyable sequel with one of the best uses of music of the year as Ed Warren sang Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love With You.”  I loved that scene.

#4.  Ouija: Origin of Evil.  There was no way this was going to be good.  It had a horrible trailer and was a sequel to a horrible movie.  And yet, this was great!  They focused on the characters and there were several really good performances.  Amazing.

#3.  Hush.  Another Netflix film, Hush was the home invasion film taken to a new level. It turned out to be almost a one-on-one battle for survival.  Very tense and suspenseful.

#2.  Lights Out.  A great concept for a horror movie and some really scary scenes.  Plus more development on character than on just jump scares.  Sure, there are a few plot holes in the story, but they can be excused because you are so invested in the characters.  Lights Out was an exceptional film.

And the winner of the Best Horror Movie Award for 2016 is...

#1.  Don’t Breathe.  This was another one that I thought was not going to be good.  I was not a fan of the trailer and I wondered how we could root for these kids who are trying to rip off this blind guy.  However, once I saw the film, all of those worries went away.  There were times when I literally did not want to breathe myself.  So intense.  So frightening.  This was so well done, so well written and acted that it was more than just a great horror movie.  It was a great movie.  And Steven Lang was just awesome.

However…. every horror movie wasn’t great this year.  We had our share of failures too.  So here is the top 5 worst horror movies.

Top 5 Worst

Dishonorable mention:  Neon Demon, The Disappointments Room

#5.  The Purge:  Election Year.  I am ready for the Purge movies to be over.  This even had LOST’s Elizabeth Mitchell and couldn’t be saved.

#4.  Incarnate.  Dreams.  Plus a good effort by Aaron Eckhart.  He really deserved better.  Of course, there was Mark Henry.  WWE produced.  Not good.

#3.  The Darkness.  Honestly, I don’t remember anything about this except for the movie poster with the prints on the bed.  (After a quick Google search)-oh yeah, this is Kevin Bacon and the kid who plays Bruce Wayne on Gotham.  That kid was in Incarnate too.  He really played the same character in both.   Bad horror year for him.

#2.  The Other Side of the Door.  This one has so many stupid things going on that it even gives horror movies a bad name.  Just don’t open the door.

#1.  Shut In.  Probably the stupidest killer ever.  This was a film that had Golden Globe nominated actor Jacob Tremblay and they had him be mute and deaf.  He had zero lines!  There were so many things that you had to accept to believe this movie was even possible.  What are Naomi Watts and Oliver Platt doing in this?  It had 0% on Rotten Tomatoes until recently.  It is now at 3% with one fresh review.

It is time, once again, to give out the John Carter Memorial Award.  This award is given every year to the biggest flop of the year.

A flop can be a fun movie.  It can be an entertaining movie.  However, it is one that fails to connect with the public and, because of that, fails to make any money or to reach expectations for said movie.

Now, these days, films are bolstered by their overseas numbers.  Many of these films in the running for The John Carter Memorial Award made a healthy chunk of their money back with overseas ticket sales.  Something like Warcraft could have been considered in this category except it had such a huge opening in China.

There are those films that opened poorly, but few people expected huge numbers from.  Films such as Rules Don’t Apply, Morgan, The Brothers Grimsby all had low low opening weeks (Rules Don’t Apply was the 6th worst ever in 2000 or more screens), but these aren’t massive blockbusters.

The BFG could have claimed this award, but, again, it has gained second life overseas as it was released in October and is still gathering money from other countries.  Whereas the USA rejected the film, the world seems to understand it more.

Previous “winners”:  John Carter (2012), The Lone Ranger (2013), A Million Ways to Die in the West and Expendables 3 (2014), and 2015’s trio of winners, Jem and the Holograms, Pan and Rock the Casbah.

So we are down to the final choices fro 2016.  The three runners-up and the “winner” of the John Carter Memorial Award.

• 2016 Runners-Up:  Ghostbusters, Gods of Egypt, The Divergent Series: Allegiant

The 2016 John Carter Memorial Award goes to….

Alice Through the Looking Glass.

The first Alice in Wonderland movie surpassed $1 Billion dollars.  This film only made $77 million domestically.  It made some money back overseas, but the expectation of this film reaching the monetary levels of the original was gone very quickly.  It made $700 million less than its predecessor.  Amazing.  And well deserving of the John Carter Memorial Award.

Yes, it is the time to present the 2016 EYG Stan Lee Movie Cameo Award.  This prestigious award has been given in the past to such luminaries as  John Cena, Stan Lee, Chris Evans, Sigourney Weaver and Hugh Jackman.  Who will join this list as this year’s winner?  Let’s see, shall we?

And of course…SPOILERS!!!!

#10.  Justin Bieber (Zoolander 2).  One of the only things worth the time in Zoolander 2 and it was spoiled in the trailers.  Bieber is killed at the beginning of the film, giving the iconic Zoolander look.  That started off one of the worst films of the year.

#9.  Ben Affleck (Suicide Squad).  Ben Affleck’s Batman was one of the best parts of B v S this year, so he returned in cameo as Batman in Suicide Squad.  However, the best part of the cameo came when Bruce Wayne showed up to face off with Viola Davis’s Amanda Waller in the post credit scene.  It indicated what could be happening in the DCEU’s future.

#8.  Johnny Depp (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them & Yoga Hosers).  Depp showed up at the end of the film as Grindelwald.  He will probably be in a larger role later. If you add the cameo Depp had in Yoga Hosers as his reoccurring character, Guy Lapointe, then Johnny Depp may have rediscovered his niche.

#7.  Hugh Jackman (X-Men: Apocalypse).  One more turn as Logan, we see the iconic moment when Logan breaks free from the Weapon X program.  We also see a sample of his blood which might be leading directly into next year’s Logan.

#6.  Bill Murray (Ghostbusters).  None of the cameos in the new Ghostbusters were great.  They all seemed to pull the viewer out of the movie and send them back to a happier time, when Ghostbusters was a great movie instead of a so-so one.  Bill Murray’s charatcer was a skeptic of the new Ghostbusters and that made it interesting if nothing else.

#5.  Justin Timberlake (Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping).  There were a ton of cameos in Popstar, but the Timberlake cameo as a chef was the best.  Justin Timberlake has shown a willingness to be funny, even if he is the butt of the jokes.

#4.  Melissa McCarthy (Central Intelligence).  McCarthy showed up at the end of the film as an old flame of the Rock.  She was unexpected but funny addition to a decent buddy “cop” film.

#3.  C3PO & R2D2 (Rogue One).  They have been in every Star Wars movie to date, and it was just a matter of time before they reared their droid heads in Rogue One.  Their cameo set up that they would be needed soon and was a good bit of fan service for two of the most popular characters in the franchise.

#2.  Chris Hemsworth (Dr. Strange).  Seeing Thor in one of the post credit scenes with Dr. Strange did two things.  One, it reminded us all about Thor and his problems with Odin and his brother Loki.  And Two, it placed Dr. Strange squarely in the middle of the MCU.  The Dr. Strange movie was fairly isolated from the MCU, but this dropped our soon to be Sorcerer Supreme smack dab in the middle of what is to come.

And our winner of the EYG Stan Lee Movie Cameo of the Year is………. our first time repeat winner of the award…. and who would be better to be the first two-time winner than the man whom the award is named after?

#1. Stan Lee (Deadpool).  This is arguably the greatest Stan Lee cameo of all time. Stan Lee as a disc jockey at a strip club?  Perfect!

Congrats to Stan for his the second victory in this category.  You are clearly the King of the Cameo!  (Stan Lee has appeared on this list every year since we started giving the award).

The year 2016 actually saw quite an upswing in young children acting in both TV and movies, so this category is filled with a bright future for the entertainment community.

Here are your runners-up and the winner of the “I See Kid Actors” Award for 2016.

Runners-Up

#6.  The Boys from Stranger Things.  Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Metarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin and Noah Schnapp.  These four young boys are one of the major reasons why Strangers Things was such an amazing hit.  They boys were so relatable that we all fell in love with them immediately and cared what would happen to them.

#5.  Lulu Wilson (Ouija: Origin of Evil).  She was really creepy in this surprise sequel.  This movie works in part because of the great performance by this young girl.  Who would have guessed it?  The trailer for this film looked horrendous and yet Ouija was all kinds of entertaining.

#4.  Ferdia Walsh-Peelo (Sing Street).  Ferdia had to carry this film and he did a brilliant job of it.  This was Ferdia’s film, including the singing and Sing Street succeeded beyond all wish.  Not only did he carry Sing Street, but it was his film debut.  He has a bright future in the entertainment business.

#3.  Angourie Rice (The Nice Guys).  Rice was one of the best parts about The Nice Guys and she held her own opposite Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling.  That is asking a lot of a young actress.  And we will be seeing more of her because she has the role of Betty Brant in the upcoming Spider-man: Homecoming film.

#2.  Neel Sethi (Jungle Book).  This performance is all the more impressive when you realize that the boy has no one to act off of.  Everything is CGI here.  I mean…everything.  And yet, Sethi is wonderful as the lost boy Mowgli.  Jungle Book is not as successful as it was without the performance of Neel Sethi.

And the winner of the “I See Kid Actors” Award for 2016 is….

#1.  Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things).  Once I saw the performance of Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven, I knew who was winning this award.  Eleven was a brilliant performance.  She was haunted by a past and confused by a world she did not know.  Eleven was such an anchor to Stranger Things that this role had to work.  And Millie Bobby Brown showed that she could do anything.

Shows I stopped watching.  These may not be bad, but they were shows that I began to watch but for whatever reason, I just let slip off.

#4.  American Horror Story: Hotel (FX).  Fell behind this show and just did not feel the need to catch up.  I did love the episode with the ghosts of the serial killers though.

#3.  Fear the Walking Dead (AMC).  A weaker version of the parent show.  Just could not get into the new characters.

#2.  Secrets and Lies (ABC).  I watched season one, and I started on season two, but it was on Sunday night and there were more interesting shows on at that same time.  I never caught back up on Hulu or other streaming services.  Plus, the character of Detective Cornell was the most annoying character on TV.

#1.  Grimm (NBC).  I really enjoyed Grimm for several years, but I got annoyed by its repetitive plots and twists.  Each season was basically the same, just with a different character.  I still watched because I liked Monroe and Nick, but it got to the point where I just did not care any more.

Worst Storyline:  Who’s going to die? (Agents of SHIELD).  This was very anti-climatic since the answer was Lincoln and the world as a whole said, Ok.  Don’t get me wrong, I am glad that it wasn’t Coulson or May or Mac.  It was the choice of least impact.  Runner-up: Flashpoint (Flash)

Worst Return:  Fish Mooney (Gotham).  Probably the only misstep Gotham made this year was bringing back Fish Mooney.  And they even did that reasonably well.

Worst Season Finale:  The Walking Dead (AMC).  Sure it created a great cliffhanger that paid off in the season opener, but the tease of the episode was uncalled for.  We did not see Negan until the very end and by that time, who cared?  It almost drove the viewers away, and it could be part of the reason why The Walking Dead has been hemorrhaging viewers since.

Worst character design:  Diamondback (Luke Cage).  See….

Biggest Mistake:  ABC canceling Agent Carter for Conviction.  Hayley Atwell was doing just fine as our favorite secret agent in the 1940s era USA until ABC pulled the plug after season 2.  Then they cast Atwell in a series that lasted only a handful of episodes.  Big mistake!

Biggest Insult to a Character:  Barb (Stranger Things). Hey, didn’t Barb get stuck in the Upside Down world too?  Ah, who cares…we got Will back.  To be fair, we did see the dead body of Barb in the other dimension, but it was the “so what” feel that everyone had in the real world that was insulting to the character.

Bad Trend:  General Hospital (ABC). I have watched GH for decades, but this season, I found myself skipping weeks at a time, not caring too much about what was happening.  The writing was pretty poor this year and characters were doing things I hated.  Even the death of Morgan could not get me back full time.  I hope this trend can correct itself soon or maybe the days of network soaps might be ending.

I Miss:  Top Ten Show (Collider).  John Rocha and Matt Knost would come up with a topic and would create their own top ten list of movies and then they would debate what the show’s top ten list would look like.  I miss this show that I would watch every Wednesday on YouTube.  Come on Collider…get this show back!!!