In the world of the internet, sometimes stories gain a life of its own. Thus, the award called Confirmed… or is it?. This is the former winner.

Confirmed… or is it? Award

Previous Winner: Mephisto is in WandaVision (2021), Fantastic Four has been cast (2022)

I was originally going to give this award to the story that CM Punk, fired from AEW earlier this year, was going to show up in Chicago at Survivor Series and return to the WWE. It sure felt like a ridiculous idea considering the way that Punk had left the WWE almost ten years before.

And then he showed up.

So much for a Confirmed.. or is it? Award for that. It’ll probably show up in the WWE awards later.

That meant I needed a new winner. So … looking back at last year’s I see a nearly repeat potential winner:

Winner: Everyone is cast as Reed Richards.

People have been crazed about the casting of Mister Fantastic in the upcoming Fantastic Four MCU movie. It kicked off as John Krasinski. He was a fan cast and appeared in Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Then there was Adam Driver. It sounded as if this was a sure thing. Then, it wasn’t. Then there was Penn Badgley from You. Ryan Gosling was speculated. So was Jake Gyllenhaal. Matt Smith.

The most recent actor signed for Reed Richards unofficially is Pedro Pascal.

Well… we’ll see.

The Kurt Russell EGO De-Aging Award

Previous Winners:  Robert DeNiro (The Irishman), Mark Hamill (The Mandalorian), Alfred Molina (Spider-Man: No Way Home), Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things season 4)

Technology has been changing every year. Taking an older actor and de-aging them is a huge step forward instead of just putting a funny wig on them.

Runner-Up: Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny). I expected this to be the winner this year. I even made a comment on last year’s award that this was going to win in 2023. And it was great work, but the winner just looked that much better.

Winner: Samuel L. Jackson (Secret Invasion)

There was not a lot of great coming out of Secret Invasion, but the look of Nick Fury in flashbacks was just astounding. It was even better than his appearance in the movie Captain Marvel. These flashbacks made Nick look like he absolutely did in the past.

If only the rest of Secret Invasion was as excellent as this de-aging technology.

The EYG Star of the Year crosses many areas of content. We’ve had several winners over the years such as:

EYG Star of the Year

Previous Winners:  Gal Gadot, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jennifer Lawrence, Marvel Studios, J.J. Abrams, Josh Brolin, Damon Lindelof & Regina King, Netflix, Andrew Garfield, Tom Cruise

This is the first year where we get a straight singer as our EYG Star of the Year.

But first, we have one runner up.

Runner-Up: Pedro Pascal. I considered him as the choice considering his roles on the Mandalorian and The Last of Us are iconic. Had Pedro been officially announced as Reed Richards, which he is rumored to be cast as, he may have aced this award. However, that official announcement has not yet come.

Our EYG Star of the Year is very worthy this year. She has the most successful tour in years (grossing about 2.2 billion in North American tickets alone) and parlayed that tour into a massively successful concert film ($96 million opening weekend domestically) that brought tons of fans back to the theaters. In fact, this very week, she has been named Time’s Person of the Year.

EYG Star of the Year: Taylor Swift

YouTube has become a land of content providers and I loved plenty of shows that pop up on the site. Here are my top 12 choices for 2023.

#12. Late to the Party. A reactor channel. Like most of these reactors, it depends on what they are watching. The thing is… there are dozens if not hundreds of reaction shows and this is one of the best.

#11. Ashleigh Burton. The second reactor of the list. Ashleigh is very entertaining and fun to watch. It still depends on what she is watching if I watch it, but I loved watching her watch the Marvel stuff this year.

#10. Fatman Beyond. Kevin Smith and Marc Bernardin star in this show. I used to watch this more but the show is always very long, which makes it more difficult to watch with all of the other content. I do love the pair though.

#9. The Hot Mike. Scoops galore. The show from John Rocha and Jeff Snyder is always fire because they are both very opinionated and not afraid to speak their minds, even if what their minds are saying is very controversial.

#8. Alex Hefner’s TV & Movie Vault. Another reactor channel and he has watched some really fun films and TV shows this year. Watching him see the original Star Wars trilogy for the first time was epic, even he was more surprised at the reveal of Luke and Leia as brother-sister than he was for Vader being Luke’s father.

#7. Reel Rejects. Citizens of the Reject Nation… Another of the reactor channels, this includes Greg Alba and John Humphrey, as well as other guests. I loved watching them react to Loki season two, One Piece, and even the weaker Secret Invasion. John and Greg have some excellent analysis of the shows and give strong opinions.

#6. FYC. Stands for For Your Consideration. It is an Oscar preview show featuring Scott Mantz, Perri Nemiroff, and Jeff Snyder. They discuss the potential nominees and whom they believe will win. The trio’s chemistry is clearly the glue that holds this show together. They also did Emmy Awards this year and more the merrier.

#5. The Geek Buddies. AAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYY! John Rocha, Michael Vogel and Shannon McClung do reactions, reviews and a weekly show where they talk about the biggest news from pop culture. Again, the key to the show is the chemistry between the Geek Buddies.

#4. Preview’d. This was last year’s number one. It did slip a touch because they decided to stop much of what they did this year for the actor’s strike. Even still, the reaction to Jeopardy Masters was hilarious.

#3. Settle the Score. Host Matt Knost and musical director Andy Merryweather bring a weekly show featuring well known movie and YouTube personalities competing with musical trivia. Merryweather is truly an amazing talent and the show is always a lot of fun.

#2. Ups & Downs. Simon Miller from What Culture Wrestling has the finger of power and he watches wrestling shows and gives the good bits an up and the bad bits a down. While I only watch WWE Ups and Downs, he does one for RAW, Smackdown, NXT, and the Pay Per Views (premium live events). Miller is a great host and brings a definite “Positive Pete” energy that makes me feel warm and fuzzy in my tum tum. A big up for Simon Miller!

#1. Bonus Action Vol. 1. It seemed a strange idea. Jay and Adam from Preview’d had been planning this out for quite a while and it came together this year. Eight episodes (although there were three prequels too) of the two of them playing D & D with their group of comedian buddies. Who would have thought this would be as compelling as it turned out. There were six brilliant characters that were played to the hilt by the six players. David Armstrong is the friendly neighborhood DM and Jay Schmidt and Adam Lash are joined by Je-ron Young, Jason Speena, Amanda Nicholas, and Josh Hurley. This is the show where friends don’t let friends adventure alone.

The internet can be an ugly place. Yes, it has its awesome moments, but it allows some individuals (or groups) rage against things that they do not like. Hence, this award came into being three years ago.

The term “Trolls” has been given to those on the Internet that go out of their way to speak down to something. Previous winners of this award include:

The Don’t Feed the Trolls: Insane Internet Rage Scandal of the Year

Previous Winner:  Baby Yoda eats frog’s eggs (2020), Masters of the Universe: Revelations part one (2021), She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022)

Twitter purchased by Elon Musk, becomes X

There are few ends of the internet with as many Trolls than we saw with Twitter. Only billionaire Elon Musk chose to purchase the social media site and immediately made some changes that created an even more toxic environment, enabling the trolls to run wild.

The issues occurring on Twitter even drove millions of people, temporarily, to Threads, a new online community. It was huge for a minute but it could not sustain the momentum.

Then Musk decided that he wanted to put his own stamp on Twitter, so he changed the name to X.

X? Yes, X.

Twitter… errr, I mean… X can still have its moments. Unfortunately, the hate is free as well.

Every year there are movies that I missed from the previous year or that I watched once the calendar switched from December to January. Those movies I do not consider for the 2023 year end lists even though I watched it in 2023.

This number has increased since I started doing the June Swoon, this year the second annual June Swoon included 30 unseen films from 2022.

Here are the top 12 films that I watched during 2023 that were actually listed as films from 2022.

#12. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande. A fun, sexy romp with Emma Thompson working through some sexual satisfactions with a sex worker. Thompson is always fun and she is great here.

#11. The Pale Blue Eyes. I love Edgar Allan Poe and seeing this film provide one of the best versions of the author ever on screen. Plus, Christian Bale.

#10. Honor Society. One of the biggest surprises of the year. A film that I never thought I would enjoy turned out to be really funny and a bit of an unexpected shock at the end. Featured Angourie Rice and Gaten Matarazzo.

#9. On the Count of Three. Two friends decide that life is not worth living and they agreed to kill each other after a last day taking care of loose ends. Dark comedy at its best.

#8. Brian & Charles. Brian invents a robot named Charles out of a washing machine. This is a top notch British (Wales actually) comedy and it very funny.

#7. Decision to Leave. Epic Korean film where a detective investigating a man’s death ends up developing feelings for the man’s widow. Story is very smart and well designed.

#6. The Duke. Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren are an old couple whose marriage was strained by life. Broadbent ends up stealing a valuable painting, holding it for ransom.

#5. A Man Called Otto. Tom Hanks is a grumpy man who is preparing to commit suicide but a new neighbor throws a wrench into his plans and his life.

#4. Breaking. John Boyega is a Marine Corps veteran who holds a bank hostage. Based on a true story, Boyega does an amazing job in this portrayal.

#3. Women Talking. A film about women talking does not sound that compelling. It absolutely is. A religious community is shocked to find out the secret being kept by the men.

#2. To Leslie. Andrea Riseborough received an Oscar nomination out of nowhere for this role and, after watching the movie, I can see why. She was amazing and Marc Maron was very good too.

#1. Living. Bill Nighy is unbelievable in this movie as a man who receives some bad news and it changes his life and the lives of many people around him because of his choices. This was such a great film with an Oscar-worthy performance from Nighy.

So here we are.

2022 has been an outstanding year for movies as you can tell from the fact that this list, which is normally 30 films long, is now at 40 films. I decided to expand the list instead of having ten honorable mentions on the normal length list.

Not only were there a bunch of movies on this list, they were extremely difficult to rank. I was flip-flopping these movies multiple times, with some dropping down and others going higher on the list. In fact, I can’t promise that the list that I type up will be exactly the same as what I have written down on the paper. I had more trouble organizing this list than any that I can remember in the past.

As usual, I did not include an documentaries on this list. It is not like that is a hard and fast rule, but the doc would need to be something truly special to make this list. Fire of Love was on the original possibilities list but it got dropped early in the process. Another film that I did not consider much was the DC Animation Battle of the Super Sons. I loved that film, but it got dropped because of the lack of release. I also did not include the Marvel Studios Special Presentations (Werewolf By Night and The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special) in the Top 40. Honestly, both of those would have made it had I not decided to cut them off.

Finally, as I stated with the Worst Movies List, my normal star ranking does not go into effect with this listing. I have a 5 star film currently sitting at #13. The star ratings help organize the possible films to make the list and then I look at my current thoughts on the film. Sometimes they are different than immediately after seeing a film.

So, off we go…

#40. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. Charming and fun, they were able to take an animated short film and make it a feature length movie without any trouble. Marcel was such an awesome character, it’s a shame more people did not see this.

#39. Strange World. The Disney animated film this year was simply not promoted properly. It was a great generational film looking at father and son relationships. Great animation too. Yes, it has some issues, but it deserved better. Everyone should go watch it on Disney + .

#38. Emily the Criminal. Aubrey Plaza gave an amazing performance as a woman who turned to credit card scamming to egt by in her life. Plaza is a star in the making.

#37. All Quiet on the Western Front. The German remake of the classic was a powerful and beautiful film that was very difficult to watch. It should be a leading candidate for Best International Film at the Oscars.

#36. She Said. An investigative journalist film dealing with the controversial Hollywood figure, producer Harvey Weinstein. A great cast and a strong story helped She Said.

#35. Scream. The new film in the Scream franchise came out early in 2022 and did a great job of setting up a new direction for the franchise while still paying homage to what had come before.

#34. When the Screaming Starts. A mockumentary focusing on a serial killer who had yet to actually kill anyone. A serial killer wannabe. And this was hilarious.

#33. Pearl. The prequel to X (which also came out this year), this included a star-making performance from Mia Goth, as a brutal serial killer and her origins.

#32. Confess, Fletch. Jon Hamm took over the role of Fletch and they made a film that was smart, funny and full of surprises. This was another movie whose promotional material did not do it any favors. I want more Fletch, and I am not that much of a fan of the originals with Chevy Chase.

#31. Beast. Idris Elba is in this movie about a killer lion that was way better than I ever thought it would be. It was a lot of dramatic fun and frightful moments.

#30. The Lost City. Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum worked well together in this Romancing the Stone-like action film. Brad Pitt gave a scene stealing performance in a short role.

#29. The Woman King. An epic film dealing with a race of warrior women from Africa, led by Viola Davis. There were excellent fights and battles too.

#28. Smile. A great year for horror included this, one of the scariest films of the year and certainly also one of the creepiest with all of those crazy smiles.

#27. The Outfit. Mark Rylance played a tailor whose ties to the mob come back to haunt him.

#26. The Banshees of Inisherin. Reuniting Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, this Irish film was thoroughly entertaining and momentously shocking. One of the Academy Award favorites.

#25. Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris. I waited for the price on this to drop before renting it this year. It absolutely would have been worth paying full price. Full of charm and fun performances.

#24. Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers. A Disney + exclusive that was so much fun and filled with nostalgia and cameos galore. Ugly Sonic was a standout for sure. Clever and well written.

#23. Spirited. Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell give their spin on a version of A Christmas Carol from a new perspective. It had some great music and some fun dance scenes as well.

#22. Till. A tough film to watch because of the painful topic, but a movie with so many great performances, led by Danielle Deadwyler, our The Liz Award winner this year. Give it a watch.

#21. Elvis. Baz Lurhmann’s new film detailing the life of Elvis Presley. Austin Butler does an outstanding job as Elvis and Tom Hanks is underrated as Col. Tom Parker.

#20. Enola Holmes 2. This Netflix film starred Millie Bobby Brown as the sister of Sherlock Holmes, returning in a sequel that exceeded the original. Brown is an absolute star and she has a bright career past Stranger Things.

#19. Top Gun: Maverick. One of the most successful films of the year, Top Gun Maverick looked amazing and brought a great deal of nostalgia to a simple story. Very thrilling.

#18. Black Phone. A clever horror film with Ethan Hawke as a child kidnapper and a mysterious black phone that keeps ringing though it is not connected to anything.

#17. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. A wonderful addition to the Shrek franchise, Puss in Boots was funny, creative and full of an energy missing form many animated films these days.

#16. Turning Red. A brilliant film from Pixar that tackles the theme of young girls growing up and uses a metaphor to tell the tale. Amazing graphics as most Pixar films have.

#15. The Batman. Robert Pattinson made a solid Batman as he battled a psychotic version of the Riddler and an imressive Penguin, who was an unrecognizable Colin Farrell. May have been a touch too long.

#14. Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Sam Raimi succeeded in making a Marvel movie feel like a Sam Raimi movie. There were some haters of this online, but I think this movie wa a victim more of over-expectations than anything else.

#13. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. This is the film that has bounced around the most, having been as high as six on this list. Nic Cage playing a satirical version of himself in this movie was amazing and it was a lot of fun.

#12. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio. One of the most beautifully animated movies of the year and easily the best Pinocchio movie of 2022. The film was dark, funny, full of great music and some messages among the themes. A special film.

#11. Thor: Love and Thunder. Another film that found a lot of hate this year, but I loved. Yes, I thought the film had too much goofy humor in the first part, but I found myself engrossed in the second part. Then, on the second watch, the jokes did not bother me as much as they did in the first viewing. It was an excellent ending too.

#10. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. We, once again, join in the world of Benoit Blanc, and the great detective finds himself deeply involved in another murder. Glass Onion has a stellar cast and is very clever and creative.

#9. Prey. A Hulu film that reinvigorated the Predator franchise by taking it back into the past. Dialogue was limited but the storytelling was not. This should have had a theatrical release.

#8. Violent Night. A film that surprised me with how much it dove into characterization. I thought it would be just a bad ass Santa, but it was much deeper than that. Loved the performance of David Harbour as the three dimensional Santa Claus and his sledgehammer.

#7. Deadstream. A wonderful take off of YouTube streaming culture in a great found footage horror film. One of the best horror films of the year that I found on Shudder.

#6. Everything Everywhere All at Once. It was the best multiverse movie of the year. Clever, creative, fun, and filled with amazing performances, EEAAO showed that a little film can be successful.

#5. Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. Putting the Roku Channel on the map, Weird was the funniest movie of the year. As one would expect, Weird took the genre of biopics and parodied them, just like Weird Al parodied the songs. Some of this biopic is true… though not much.

#4. RRR. One of the most energetic films of the year. RRR was filled with kinetic dances, over-the-top action and some of the best characters around. It is long, but every second is a treat.

#3. The Menu. My favorite horror/thriller of the year, The Menu has everything. Ralph Fiennes leads a sensational cast in one of the most tense films you are going to find. It is also a satire of chefs and their manner in preparing meals. The Menu was an amazing tasty treat.

#2. Matilda the Musical. This almost made number one. I love this musical with the wonderful Alishia Weir as Matilda and the unbelievably transformed Emma Thompson. On re-watch, I had tears in my eyes during the Revolting Children song/dance from just pure joy. It is on Netflix right now…go watch it!

#1. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Marvel Studios and director Ryan Coogler faced such a series of problems with Wakanda Forever, namely they lost their main character (T’Challa) played by their star Chadwick Boseman to cancer. What came from that was a film that was a beautiful tribute to Chadwick Boseman while also moving Wakanda forward in the MCU. Emotional and full of grief, but also hope.

It is time for the Worst Movies of 2022 list. This year the list is at 25, though there are also a few dishonorable mentions. Every year there are people who refute the writing of Worst lists because they claim that it is too negative. While I agree that it is difficult to make movies, in my opinion, criticizing the work does not disrespect the people involved. At lest, I do not mean to. With the Batman and Robin Awards, I talked about “celebrating” the bad movies. That is what I want to do.

And as always, the individual star ranking for each movie does not necessarily mean that they are in that order. A movie could have 1 star and be ranked blow a film that had 2 stars because it depends on how I feel about the film, the reflection of it, and compared with others. I say that because the one film that I gave zero stars to this year did not end up at number one.

Dishonorable mentions: Four films did not reach the top 25. They were Bones and All, which a lot of people loved and I did not, Crimes of the Future, a sci-fi film that just did not do anything for me, She Will, another film that failed to grab my attention, and The Independent, which I saw on Peacock and had John Cena but I had never heard of it before.

Here we go…

#25. Don’t Worry Darling. A film that people thought would be a huge Oscar contender, but flopped in poor storytelling and chaos behind the scenes.

#24. Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank. Just a dumb, childish animated film filled with fart and poop jokes. Brings the level down to the kids instead of the other way around.

#23. Halloween Ends. Not what the trailers promoted. I was excited for this after seeing the trailers, but the “final battle” with Michael and Laurie felt tacked on to the end of a film that was not about Michael.

#22. Ambulance. Michael Bay’s new film about two thieves pulling a bank heist and ending up inside an ambulance. Dumb.

#21. Hotel Transylvania: Transformations. Hopefully the last of this franchise. This is a franchise truly losing steam as it moves along.

#20. The Lost Patient. This is one of the films that I do not remember much about. Looking back on it, there is some really dumb twists that was so obvious that it ruins the film.

#19. Memory. One of Liam Neeson’s films. You see some and you’ve seen them all. Liam is forgetting things and looking to retire. Yawn.

#18. My Best Friend’s Exorcism. I had hoped this would be cheesy, campy fun. It was everything…except the fun part.

#17. Falling for Christmas. I don’t usually watch these cheesy Christmas films, but with Lindsey Lohan, I gave it a chance. Bad choice.

#16. The Invitation. Just watched this recently after avoiding it for so long. It was free on Netflix and that was the only way I could justify it. Terrible vampire movie.

#15. Disney’s Pinocchio. Who would have guessed that you have Disney, Pinocchio and Tom Hanks and this would be one of the worst films of the year? It just had no reason to exist and lacked any real purpose.

#14. The School of Good & Evil. I had hoped that this could be the next big Harry Potter-like franchise. No thnak you.

#13. R.I.P.D 2: The Rise of the Damned. Who wanted this? A prequel with no stars from the original and just a terrible story and CGI. It felt like an early 90s action film, but not as good.

#12. Firestarter. Another failed attempt to adapt this Stephen King book. Almost made her a super hero.

#11. Choose or Die. Asa Butterfield could have bene Spider-Man. Boy we dodged a bullet there.

#10. The Requin. A killer shark movie. Or at least, that is what I thought. Shark wasn’t here for much. Silly and not fun.

#9. Moonfall. If only the moon would have crashed into the earth sooner.

#8. Morbius. It’s Morbin’ Time! A film so bad it flopped twice. This could have been so great. I love the character of Morbius, but this was such a poor rendition that it became a joke meme instead of a hit movie. Plus, one of the worst post credit scenes ever.

#7. Senior Year. Oh, my goodness. Rebel Wilson as a girl who wound up in a coma as a high school student and awoke years later, still with her same mindset. It was painful to watch this seriously unfunny comedy.

#6. The Man from Toronto. Speaking of unfunny, I was shocked this film was as bad as it was with Kevin Hart and Woody Harrelson.

#5. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022). The remake of a horror classic was anything but a classic. What a horrendous waste of a IP.

#4. Studio 666. The Foo Fighters fighting foo. That would have been more interesting, I think. Horrible Satanic, demonic tale of a rock band. They did not die quickly enough.

#3. Babylon. This could be one of the firsts Worst Film List films to receive a Best Picture Oscar nomination. I hope the voters come to their senses. It has been a long time since I came out of a theater angry at what I watched. This was the latest time. I hated this movie.

#2. Jackass Forever. I gave this movie 0 stars because I did not find anything funny. It felt cruel and mean-spirited and featured way too many penises.

#1. The Munsters. Rob Zombie was apparently a huge fan of the TV show, but you would be hard pressed to find any evidence of that. You knew when you saw that trailer that many people thought was a joke or a misdirect, that this movie was going to be a stinker. There was potential here, but it was totally unreached. The Munsters became the worst movie of 2022.

2022 brought a major change for one of my favorite shows.

The Movie Trivia Schmoedown entered its ninth season seemingly strong. It started its own Friday night program called Friday Night Titans. It continued to have exciting and competitive matches every week in singles, teams and InnerGeekdom (Star wars too, but I rarely saw any of those).

After several years of debate, I opened the Movie Trivia Schmoedown Wing of the EYG Hall of fame and inducted the first class of inductees, with the plan of inducting three or so every year.

It was not too long after the Hall of Fame announcement that the announcement from Chairman Kristian Harloff shook the MTS to its core. The Schmoedown would be ending with season 9. There would be no more Movie Trivia Schmoedown moving forward.

It was quite the blow. It had been a major aspect of my life for many years and it felt like I had lost something. I added a few more members to the Hall of Fame, those that would have been the second year inductees and those that I almost added to the first class originally.

The show ended with the 7th Schmoedown Spectacular in October, which featured some fun matches with all of the favorites, but lacked that intensity because they all knew this was the end of the line. It was a greta opportunity to say goodbye to this show that had meant a lot to me over the years.

That brought me to the Year in Review. I normally do up a whole list of award winners for the Schmoedown, but I am not going to do that this year. Clearly, Samm Levine, who ended the Schmoedown as Champion is the Player of the Year.

However, I wanted to give out the final Match of the Year Award because the matches in season 9 were every bit as important as the previous ones.

Movie Trivia Schmoedown Match of the Year

Previous Winners: JTE defeats Drew McWeeny in Sudden Death(2017), Mara Knopic defeated Rachel Cushing in Innergeekdom Tournament (2018), Rachel Cushing defeated Mike Kalinowski in Sudden Death to win the Innergeekdom championship (2019), Dan Murrell defeated Ben Bateman in Sudden Death to win the Movie Trivia Schmoedown Championship (2020), Andrew Dimalanta defeated Alex Damon in Sudden Death to win Star Wars Championship, 51-50 (2021)

2022 Movie Trivia Match of the Year… the final winner is…

Samm Levine defeated Marisol McKee for the Singles Championship, 38-35

This is a final goodbye to the MTS. I have been watching some early matches on YouTube and I do miss it.

The Strangelove (Best Actor in Movie)

Previous Winners:  James McAvoy (Split), Denzel Washington (Fences), Bryan Cranston (Trumbo), Michael Keaton (Birdman), Tom Hanks (Captain Phillips), Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln), Ryan Gosling (Drive), Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody), Joaquin Phoenix (Joker), Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom), Andrew Garfield (Tick, Tick…Boom)

We have ten actors on the list for 2022. All of them have done great work and deserve the recognition.

#10. Jonathan Majors (Devotion). Jonathan Majors is on his way to superstardom and this performance will be pointed at as a gem when he is dominating the discussion as Kang and in Creed 3.

#9. Nic Cage (The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent). Playing Nic Cage had to be more difficult than it seemed. Nic Cage is really into the joke as he brought an excellent version of himself to the screen.

#8. Mark Rylance (The Outfit). This is one of those films this year that snuck under the radar, but Rylance was exceptional in his one setting film. He showed how clever his character was with every step taken.

#7. Daniel Craig (Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery). Our Southern gentleman detective, Benoit Blanc, returned to the screen in a new Knives Out story and entertained us thoroughly once again.

#6. Jeremy Pope (The Inspection). A black gay man trying to make it in the Marines is filled with drama and tension and Pope’s performance showed every bit of that feeling.

#5. Daniel Radcliffe (Weird: The Al Yankovic Story). When you think of who could play Weird Al in a biopic, Daniel Radcliffe does not immediately come to mind. Yet, the former Harry Potter star was brilliant in bringing to life the master of the parody in one of the funniest performances of the year.

#4. Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin). Colin Farrell had a great year and he ended it with this amazing performance of a lonely man who does not understand why his friend has deserted him.

#3. Austin Baker (Elvis). This casting was weird. Austin Baker was a young guy and who thought he could be Elvis Presley? Well, anyone who doubted him has to now eat those words as Austin Baker was brilliant as The King of Rock and Roll.

#2. Ralph Fiennes (The Menu). Ralph Fiennes anchored this wonderful entourage and absolutely dominated every scene he was in. The Menu was such a great surprise and Ralph Fiennes made every moment count.

And the Number One and winner of the Strangelove is…

Brendan Fraser (The Whale). This movie made me feel uneasy and, even at times, depressed and I did not give it a positive review, but there is no denying that Brendan Fraser was utterly transcendent as Charlie. The screenplay may not have treated Charlie well, but Brendan Fraser took every second of the role and made it more than just an actor in a fat suit. Fraser absolutely overcame the cruelty of the film and gave the best performance of the year.