2015 in a Bottle: Best in the Movies

This is post #700, by the way. No big deal.

We've been recounting the Best of 2015 all month like a good little Internet site, and here is where we end it. We've already gone through our Top Ten-ish list of the best films of the year, which I can totally see changing dramatically (hint: Star Wars: The Force Awakens [2015] doesn't last), but there's more to film that just good movies. There are always excellent actors, trailers, scenes, and soundtracks to dig into. Most of these were in good movies, but there's always epic moments in terrible films that deserve to be highlighted. So, let's talk about the greatest scenes of the year. I suppose there could be some SPOILERS since a solid amount of these are ending scenes, but whatever. Get over it:

Best Scenes:

Goodbye, Paul Walker from Furious 7



Here's your challenge: watch the above without balling your eyes out. It's impossible. It's amazing that a franchise like The Fast & The Furious, which once made its bread and butter on fast cars, bikini babes, and super bro moments has completely transformed itself into one of the most inclusive movie series in history, also capable of scenes like this. There's almost no other film influenced as much from a major actor's death, to the point where a tribute like this is crafted and worked into the story. The film is full of moments where you think Brian O'Connor is going to eat it, but their choice to instead send him off into retirement in the sunset is both touching and brilliant. For as insane and as stupid as most of this film is, that ending grabs your heart and twists it till the tears come out.

"I got something to say" from Straight Outta Compton



The culmination of generations of racial angst encapsulated in a single performance from 1989 that's more relevant today than ever (not like the issue has gotten worse - we just have cell phones to record it), the emotional build-up to this scene is perfect. It also works as a microcosm for the entire movie - the young, dangerous attitude that strikes against an established yet unjust order that's been opposed on the populace. "Fuck Da Police" is still a great song, blatant in its hatred for the man, but less blatant than the everyday racism, institutional and personal that oppresses victims every day.

"OH WHAT A LOVELY DAY" from Mad Max: Fury Road



It's tough to pick one scene from Fury Road, if only because it feels like most of the film is just one huge chase. There are plenty of epic, worthy contenders to choose from, but this line that became instantly iconic, that leads into the sandstorm chase is what we'll always remember.

Bing Bong's Sacrifice from Inside Out



Pixar has the uncanny ability to rip your heart out and spit on it more efficiently than any other group of filmmakers. You don't need to know who Bing Bong is or what the hell he's doing there with any of these people to just start shedding ridic tears upon watching this. That's the point of really good and concise filmmaking. When you're in the midst of the film and understand the stakes and been on the journey with them, though, it's obnoxiously tragic. Oh, children's films.

Underwater Shenanigans from Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation



A lot of people would point to the opening plane ride, or the daring tête-à-tête opera scene, but there was no other point of Rogue Nation, or any film I saw this year for that matter, than the underwater scene. There are continually "oh shit, no!!" moments that stack on top of each other, until the mission actually became too impossible for Ethan Hunt, and he needed Rebecca Ferguson to step in and do the job. Tom Cruise's wobbly half-dead performance after the fact is an awesome bonus.

Vision is Worthy from Avengers: Age of Ultron



There were a lot of issues with Age of Ultron and it was hard to think of a single memorable scene, but the earlier set-up to this and the shorthand it then affords the story is spectacular. It instantly grants the Vision credibility among the super-team even if his creation and powers make no sense.

A Trip to the Store from Magic Mike XXL



I haven't actually seen Magic Mike XXL, only this scene, which may be even better out of context. It's sincerely goofy yet also full of these really spot-on character beats. It's sexy, of course, but the juxtaposition of this ripped guy trying really really hard to impress an unimpressable clerk offers some hilarious moments. "How much for the Cheetos and water?"

Ex Machina Dance



Possibly the scene of the year, this also works possibly better out of context, which is how I first saw it. It suits an impossible tone between humor and horror, with Oscar Isaac's blithe commentary crashing into Domnhall Gleeson's righteous need for inquisition. In most other movies this would be a funky feel-good number, but here it becomes a distracting bit of terror as you slowly realize what is going on.

Intro to Tomorrowland

Tomorrowland seemed to get an unfair rap when it came out, but when Britt Robertson first steps foot (teleports? transposes realities?) into Tomorrowland, even if it later turns out to be a fake recruiting advertisement, you're blown away by the possibilities of this world. The whole point of Tomorrowland is that our Utopian fantasies will never be as great as the effort we can make in the real world, but for a moment it looks like the greatest place on (or not on) Earth.

Bear Attack from The Revenant



The Revenant is pound for pound the most brutal mainstream film of the year, and the relentless pain suffered from Leo in his Bear Attack sets the tone for the rest of the film and presents his first amazing hurtle to overcome - simply surviving this thing. Iñárritu fearlessly sticks you in the midst of this shit, offering voyeurism that feels as painful as the attack itself.

Honourable Mentions:

The following scenes are all also fantastic. I may need to post about them later.

Margot Robbie explains the financial crisis from her bathtub in The Big Short
The border patrol shoot-out from Sicario
Dia de los Muertos in SPECTRE
Adonis runs with the motorbikes in Creed
Rey overpowers Kylo Ren's mind control in The Force Awakens

Actor / Actress of 2015

This was a big year for a lot of new faces, and even some old ones that seem to have finally gotten some traction. Oscar Isaac, Amy Schumer, Charlize Theron, and Chris Hemsworth are all in this conversation. This year, though, truly belonged to Tom Hardy and Alicia Vikander.

After years of playing an underrated chameleon in a dozen notable roles, Tom Hardy blew up in a big way with three major acting creds. Donning the dusty leather jacket and limp in Mad Max: Fury Road is the obvious starring role, although that can honestly be debated based on how much he actually does and how many lines he had. Add to this Legend where he owns his double role as twin British Gangsters. Finally, he completely sinks into his shifty fur trapper role in The Revenant, completing the year of Hardy forever.

Alicia Vikander didn't have any dominant blockbuster roles, but her resume this year is outstanding. She's gone from nobody to on the map with rapid speed. Her showcase is Ex Machina, in addition to narrating a documentary, appearing in the little seen Brad Cooper chef vehicle, Burnt, as well as the summer blockbuster attempt, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Add to this Oscar Bait The Danish Girl and she's got one hell of a year.

Best Trailers of the Year

Sometimes I'll have an assortment of trailers both for movies that came out this year and some for next, but this time I felt like almost all my anticipation is gearing up for things to come.

Hail, Caesar! (2016)



There is a sublime balance of introducing characters, stakes, plot, and tone here that really works. The narration would seem awkward in-film but is pretty precise and specific in setting up what could be an excellent hair-brained Coen Brothers film in vein with a lot of their modern screwball work.

Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)



It's important to note that the second trailer, while no less impeccably edited, gave away a little too much to be valuable at all. Taking a suspicious property and embedding it with ideological weight like this is a difficult task, and the focus on the central conflict between iconic heroes is smart. The second trailer totally wasted all this good will.

Suicide Squad (2016)



Perhaps its a solid feat, then, that Suicide Squad has stuck with the one exceptional trailer they've generated? The core conceit of the film is laid out plainly, and the character introduction with a focus on Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn is an excellent choice, especially with how many acting and character heavy hitters there are hanging around this place. It's got enough gumption and quirk to look really interesting when confronted with the glut of cookie-cutter superhero films both Marvel and DC that we're knee-deep in right now.

Queen of Earth (2015)



The tone here is managed with expert precision in a throwback to a 70s-style exploitation flick. It's a brilliantly captivating trailer as shit slowly starts winding out of control as the dueling women here, played by the ever watchable Elizabeth Moss and Katherine Waterston plunge into insanity against each other. It's sharply cut and wonderfully executed.

Soundtracks

Last year there seemed to be a glut of spectacular soundtracks and scores, but I never got that vibe this year. Straight Outta Compton is the obvious choice, but I'd like to side with Dope, pushed mostly by the in-movie band, Awreeoh, but with a spectacular sample of modern and classic hip-hop hits.

2015: What Have We BECOME?! Looking Back on Looking Forward

Way back in the nether reaches of January, 2015 we produced a list of fifteen great pop cultural events dropping in the year that we ranked in order of most-looking forward to. As usual, most of these were utter, utter crap that I know don't care about. But let's take a look at what we were looking at a year ago anyway:

#15: The Return of Archer (01/08)

I'll be honest, I didn't really remember much of Archer's sixth season when it came time to write this reflection. It only ended in April. I suppose in early January of last year I was really looking forward to it and so it was naturally on my mind, but looking back at some of the episodes now to refresh my memory I'm filled with a surprising amount of "meh." I recall really enjoying the season when it was on, and there is still hardly a more complex and funny animated spy comedy on television right now, but for all my purpose here, it's fitting to be #15 and no greater.

#14: Pitch Perfect 2 (05/15)

I didn't end up seeing this. I want to. It landed with more a thud then a "YEAH!" and appeared to be mostly a re-hash of Pitch Perfect (2012), as awesome as that still is. It suffers from a hard case of sequelization where nothing is really added to the premise except that things get bigger, badder, and more outrageous. It's essentially a skip.

#13: Minions (07/15)

Why is this on this list?

#12: The Avengers: Age of Ultron (05/01)

I have really mixed feelings still about Age of Ultron. I left the theater really enjoying myself, but with seven months now to reflect, it's astonishing how much of a shitty movie it was. Ultron, while promised greatness in Jim Spader's voice and a stellar marketing campaign, ended up being a bit lackluster, with murky motivations and an evil maniacal scheme that seemed reductive at best. The film works well as an advertisement for Captain America: Civil War (2016), but shouldn't we hold our movies to a higher standard than that? We all know this. This film actually broke me - I didn't and still contain no desire to see Ant-Man (2015). I guess this was compounded by the excellent one-two punch of Marvel Avengers Assemble episodes, "Crack in the System" (S2;E14) and "Avengers Dissassembled" (S2;E15), which deal with a similar story line with greater efficiency and cleverness.

#11: Jurassic World (06/12)

I'm going to have to side with similar feelings to this as I did with Ultron, although certainly not as drastic. It's a fine litmus test to try to think of a great scene from a movie six months down the line, no matter how jazzed I was watching it in the theater. Maybe it's the general souring of this film on the Internet that has me jaded, because I was a sole voice of reason during its initial $1.6 billion run. I did point out at the time that Chris Pratt only exists to explain things and be the only reasonable human being on screen at any given moment, and the film serves more as a meta-indictment of current blockbusters while acknowledging the superiority of Jurassic Park (1993) while relishing in its own blockbuster-yness. In the end I sorta just wish they made a better movie instead of pumping nostalgia, even if their commentary on doing just that is pretty canny.

#10: Better Call Saul (02/08)

This is certainly a deserved chunk of pop culture and Better Call Saul quickly became extremely watchable television. It's amazing that a spin-off prequel to Breaking Bad could be so successful, but it works in part because it's not beholden at all to the original's mythology. It has simply taken a handful of characters from the original show and elucidated them under different circumstances. This is exactly what we want. It's what we always want.

#9: Halo 5: Guardians (Fall)

This is kind of a curveball, I totally forgot that this was even coming out and that I even cared about this until I was re-reading this list. After slamming through some playthroughs, because I never actually play video games any more. Again, I'm totally just into the single-player campaign, which is probs the minority opinion among Halo Junkies. Anyway, the split focus recalls the middle chapter in the previous trilogy, although Locke is a bit less interesting than the Arbiter. At least we don't have to play as a gross Elite and be disgusted with ourselves. The composition of the story ends up being a little disjointed, and after Halo 4 really impressed me by subtly breaking away from some of the Halo conventions and feeling really fresh, suddenly Halo 5 seems like a retread. Well, time to look ahead to Halo 6: Space Monster Boogaloo.

#8: The Return, then Finale of Parks and Recreation (01/13)

Parks and Rec ought to have secured its place among the pantheon of contemporary classics, even if its intense serialization has actually made re-watching a less enjoyable affair. The final season limped a bit with heavy losses to the cast and a show that ultimately didn't feature any of its core characters still doing the same work, but in its own way, that's what Parks and Rec was always about - a workplace comedy that eventually had all its people spin out of the workplace and go on with their lives. The final scenes were some of the strongest and most inspirational in recent memory, which also boils down to what it's all about - the most positive and hopeful show on television.

#7: Furious 7 (04/03)

It's seemingly impossible that the seventh installment of a film series that once included Ja Rule would continue raising the bar for itself in every possible way. Each film seems better than the one that came before it both critically and financially. It's also amazing that we all realized that we cared so much about Paul Walker. It certainly lived up to expectations, although is it the Oscar hopeful we all thought it could be? Nah, but probs one of the better blockbusters of the year. Somehow.

#6: The Return of Broad City (01/14)

Yes, a thousand times yes. Broad City strutted out in 2015 for its second season with an absurd amount of confidence and put together some of the greatest scenes in any show this year. It's hard to find a weak episode, with Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson firmly making their case for the funniest buddy duo of our time.

#5: The Revenant (12/25)

It's tough to follow-up a film like Birdman (2014) in terms of both direction, cinematography, cast, cultural context, and ambition, but Alejandro and Emmanuel dare try. Stick these guys with Leo and Tom who have both had spectacular careers lately (lest we forget they were buddies in Inception [2010]), and there's a lot going on here amidst the bear attacks and river fights. Totally worth it and this should have been bumped up this list a ton.

#4: Tomorrowland (05/22)

I like a lot of what Tomorrowland tried to do, but it seemed to get lost in the shuffle of the summer and could never really break out sandwiched between Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), which drew the most eyeballs, Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), which drew the most wonder, and San Andreas (2015), which seemed to be able to mop everything up with the Rock and Alex Daddario better than Clooney and Britt Robertson. And Britt Robetson has total movie star potential, but Tomorrowland is ultimately forgettable - so she'll need something else lest she fall into fell Disney failure Taylor Kitsch territory fast.

#3: The Return of The Venture Bros. (01/19)

This was pretty sweet. Well, the one special, "All This and Gargantua-2" was. So many storylines were wrapped up....so much loss. We're virtually at the same point we were A YEAR AGO with the promise of Season Six premiering in February. So Venture Bross will totally be on our anticipated list for next year. Great. I'm not going to let it get to me that the pilot dropped on February 16, 2003. That's six seasons in thirteen years. There are no other fans that know our pain.

#2: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (Aug or Sep)

I'd say this has been pretty good but not really the great, awe-inspiring change to late night forever as we know it that I sort of hoped it'd be. He got off to a real shaky start, despite what a lot of critics have said, but I've been disinterested in his faux-pundit persona for a while now. The more he's steered away from that and discovered more of who he wants to be on camera, the stronger the show has become, even if Fallon and Kimmel have a slightly stronger hold on virality right now.

#1: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (12/18)

And he's cute!

If you really want to hear what I think about this and have a good forty-five minutes or so, you can check it out right here. Re-thinking all that now, though, I suppose that if we divorce ourselves from this film's utter reliance on basic plot points and motifs from the Original Trilogy, it is a pretty great film. That's a tough call to make, though. I still believe that this has some pacing issues and problems with establishing a clear plot, but every new central character is fantastic and it absolutely feels like a gift more than the prequels, which is a true Christmas blessing.

So that's 2015 in a nutshell. As always, most of the pop cultural artifacts we were looking forward to were really really terrible. I might say 5/15 of these were really worth it?

What do you think of 2015? Do you agree? Stay tuned after the new year to find out what crap we're looking forward to in 2016!

The Road to a Blockbuster: On the Road to Tomorrow! And Ghosts!

Well it's been a damn exciting Summer Blockbuster season, already! Although to be honest, looking at the upcoming schedule (HERE!), how many movies left are you really pumped up about? I have a nominal interest in Jurassic World (2015), although my enthusiasm actually dropped after stumbling upon this the other day and finding myself agreeing with a lot of random points that found themselves targeting that film in particular, probably because the original was such a paradigm for the genre.

But that's really a conversation to have a few weeks from now. Is there anything else that has really captured our attention this summer? I want to say that we blew our load pretty early with Age of Ultron (2015) and Fury Road (2015), and the combination of both have heartedly taken over our conversational zeitgeist the past few weeks. I would say I'm looking forward to the August 14th double dip of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) and Straight Outta Compton (2015), and that's about it. And Dope (2015). I may be the only one June 12 buying a ticket for Dope while everyone else watches Dinosaurs eat people. I'm like 28 or 29 or something and I think I've finally hit that jaded age where I just don't give a shit about big dumb sequels anymore. I do care about big smart sequels, hence my love for Fury Road, but everything else could crash and burn for all I care. So, on this week's big tentpole release, Tomorrowland (2015). Oh, and Poltergeist (2015) comes out this weekend, too? Damn these movies have done a terrible job of promoting themselves. Well, here we go.

"DON'T LET GO, MURPH!!!!"

This is going to be a fun preview because I know absolutely nothing about Tomorrowland. I know that I liked the first teaser, haven't really seen the full trailer, and maybe George Clooney is in it? That is literally what I started with when writing this post. So let's discover whatever this movie is together in an attempt to assuage its cultural, commercial, and critical potential.

Let's back up and go forward a little bit because the latter two bits of my criteria are easy to judge. Critically this film has already done pretty well, at least in the sense of it just being not shitty. 60% RT. That's well within the realm of being..."at least not completely shitty." It has branded itself as being a hopeful epic movie with strong intellectual appeal, which could actually work against it if the intellectual elite it's pandering towards reject it for being not great. But let's talk about its commercial potential, which is a tricky subject and goes along with the same idea here.

I frankly wouldn't be surprised if this debuted in fourth place this weekend. Actually, there's no way that will happen. I think it can at least beat Ultron in its fourth week. But I imagine that Fury Road rides the strength of its reviews and word of mouth to hold pretty steady, and even a stiff decline of Pitch Perfect 2 (2015) will be a tall order to beat. Okay, so figuring if both of those pull in around $30 million I guess expectations for Tomorrowland need to be higher than that. Right? Okay, let's say it wins. It won't be by too much.

Now, I hate this prospect, because if we're looking at wholly original action blockbusters this summer you've got this, San Andreas (2015), and Pixels (2015), and that last one is a rough stretch. Tomorrowland is our only option for new innovative material at the Box Office. We've actually had a lot of original blockbuster films recently, but the problem is, they've all been terrible. We're talking films like Oblivion (2013), After Earth (2013), Elysium (2013), and Edge of Tomorrow (2014). Now, those two Tom Cruise vehicles are probably the best of the lot, and I didn't dislike either but neither really lit up the Box Office enough to encourage studios to invest in anything other than shared world comic book adaptations. I have more the feeling that Tomorrowland will settle into this vein of film than anything else. Quick - name any character from Oblivion. Even Tom Cruise's character. Who did Morgan Freeman play? You had completely forgotten Morgan Freeman was even in that movie, didn't you? But I bet you know who is playing Dr. Strange in a few years.

This isn't meant to bemoan either superhero movies or to grouchily yell from my porch that "they just don't make 'em like they used to, dagnabit!" but I am concerned with cultural ramifications, as always. There is something to be said for the big movies of old that succeeded merely on their own  merit as movies. We still talk about Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Die Hard (1988) because they're great movies. To some extent, they needed to be, although this certainly wasn't the original intention, in order to establish themselves in our culture. We don't really remember terrible movies from that era. No one is clamouring for remakes of Dark Star (1974) or The Stuff (1985). Where is our modern adaptation of From Beyond (1986)? Original movies aren't good movies and comic book movies aren't good movies; good movies are good movies. And I'd certainly like to see more of them. If an original movie's method to worm its way into our cultural heritage is to be good, then I'm all for it. I think the disconnect is also because comic book movies don't really add anything new to our cumulative culture. We already have Captain America. We've had him for like seventy years. I want whatever new characters introduced in Tomorrowland to join that great pantheon.

Of course, Tomorrowland isn't wholly new. It's based on a Disneyland ride. Or park section. Or just borrowed the name. I don't know. I think it's the latter. It's also directed by Brad Bird, who seems to really fail at making bad movies, although his animated work has been superior to his one live action attempt, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011), but that's tough to judge someone on, considering the Tom Cruise factor. And I don't have much against Ghost Protocol, it was an extremely fun movie with that one stunt (I shouldn't even have to name it but that moment when Cruise scales the Wiz Burj Khalifa) echoing in memory even if the cast and plot don't really do the same.

I ought to mention that any excitement I have for director Brad Bird is tempered by writer Damon Lindelof. It's not that he's a terrible writer, and I actually liked the two greatest fanboy ires he's created - LOST and its somewhat infamous conclusion and Prometheus (2012). His purposeful obfuscation of answers works better for the former than the latter, though, and even though I understand what he's trying to do, it's still kind of awful for cinematic narrative form. Fury Road didn't give much answers or background but it still bent to its own internal logic, instead of explaining away incongruities with a blanket level of mystery. At this point I am just fearful of anything Lindelof cranks out because you never know when it's going to walk that fine line between awe-inspiring and dream-crushing.

Even though this feels like a lot of good going for it, I just don't feel like anyone is talking about Tomorrowland. At all. It is a complete ghost in our cultural zeitgeist. It's a non-factor. Everyone's lives will move on without seeing this movie. A dozen articles dissecting it aren't going to be written on Monday morning. No one cares. Maybe if the film is good it can snuggle up to us a few years down the line when things are a little less crowded, but in the pure cultural capitalism that is our lives, it just can't fight to the top.

What's actually creepy is that there are
 like four right hands in a row there.

And then there's also Poltergeist this weekend. I honestly didn't even know this movie existed until a few months ago. It felt like one of those films that was in development hell for years and years and then feels like a bit of a "who gives a shit" moment when it's actually here. The original Poltergeist (1982) was pretty popular as a mainstream horror film and I think you'll find a lot of my gripings from a few paragraphs up to hold true here.

This may not be the best judge of how much a studio is investing in its film, because it can be edited by anyone, but I think that checking out a film's Wikipedia page a few days before its release should give plenty of info to get you pumped up. And as far as Poltergeist goes, either the studio doesn't care, fans don't care, or no one knows that it'd be worthwhile to create some kind of mythos around this film if it's going to stand out and be a champion among everyone else. Check out how much more in-depth Mad Max: Fury Road is. And finally, let's go nuts for Age of Ultron. It's not just the breadth of the articles - Ultron has 256 citations. 256! Max has 93 and Poltergeist has...14.

That's a tough metric to judge a film on but I'm going to do it anyway. It's clear indication of how much enthusiasm people have for these properties, and perhaps it's unfair to compare Poltergeist to these big boy movies, but it's also unfair to give it a Memorial Day release date where you know it's going to fight for fourth or fifth place. It was originally set to launch in February, and you've got to think that would have been a better date. It could have at least gotten some press about it winning its weekend. Or coming in second to Fifty Shades of Grey (2015). You know that the 20th Century Fox studio head was just eyeing the success of The Conjuring (2013) and The Purge: Anarchy (2014) and just wanted to drop a horror movie in summer and hope for the best. This flick is going to get buried.

So I hope I talked about Tomorrowland and Poltergeist somewhere in there. I don't have high hopes in any regard for either of these properties this weekend. We're just waiting for Jurassic World at this point and the Internet is obsessed with Fury Road. Like me!

What do you think about the prospects of these films? What hope have ye? Leave a comment down there.

The Top Fifteen Things in Pop Culture to Look Forward to in 2015

2015 is going to be a beefy year - we're all getting hoverboards after all. So that's why we have a whopping FIFTEEN items of Popular Culture of note to discuss here. Half of them are movies, big and small, others are TV shows returning (or starting), and we even have a video game in there. Let's get in that ass:

#15: The Return of Archer (01/08)

The lack of Danger Zone in their ad
campaign is disappointing, though.

Luckily all of our TV show pumped-upness comes in January. Last season's completely experimental Archer Vice missed more than it hit, but eventually hit its stride as it ended with a long string of contiguous episodes. Archer is at its best when full of heady irreverence coupled with obscure references to pop culture from Burt Reynolds to Bartleby the Scrivener. This has become a show that can go anywhere, with characters strong enough to not be bound by their initial premise, which is an idea I'm hoping they pursue rather than playing it safe.

#14: Pitch Perfect 2 (05/15)

Here's my ace in the hole - somehow last summer I turned into a huge Pitch Perfect fan, which completes my transition into turning into a 14-year old girl. That film was a lot of fun and full of all these subtly bizarre moments like an extended puke fight and Brittany Snow's mysteriously deep singing voice that saves them at the end for some reason. I'm down with whatever the next one is trying to do, and as long as Anna Kendrick is getting her cups on for whatever medley of old favourites and contemporary pop hits they're throwing out. In all honesty, this is going to be a nice mid-May antidote for ridiculous stupid blockbusters assaulting our senses.

#13: Minions (07/15)

I'm not even a huge Despicable Me (2010) fan, and in a normal world I would not care about this spin-off that doesn't seem to have any artistic merit at all, but I mostly really really just want there to be no English spoken in this film and have it all be Minion jibberish. That would be incredible! What a giant screw-you to an animation industry built on miscast celebrity voices! That also forces the presentation of story to be pushed in new interesting, non-verbal directions, which has been successful so far with these little yellow turds in short bits. Will it work stretched into a feature film? Probably not, but damn I want to be riding this train when it goes off the rails.

#12: The Avengers: Age of Ultron (05/01)

I have this pretty low just because I'm skeptical. I spoke at length concerning the trailer and how it's circumvented some of my hesitation, but there's still the concern that this is more fan pandering, easily digestible, mass market material rather than anything that pushes character insight or advances humanity. Maybe I'm being harsh and the film will be really cool. Ultron is suitably menacing and Marvel's stock is actually rising in the quality of their films as of late.

#11: Jurassic World (06/12)

See Ultron, Age of. This has potential to be really cool, but slightly larger potential to suck a donkey egg. I guess I'm just extremely skeptical about these long-range sequels' ability to offer something more to say about a topic or contribute some cultural significance. Instead of seeing the next Jurassic Park (1993) imitator, I'd rather have the next film that can change lives the way Jurassic Park did.

#10: Better Call Saul (02/08)

Is Breaking Bad the greatest TV Show of all time? Maybe Top Ten. But any excuse to play more in that world, especially with the much lighter Saul Goodman is fair game. Bob Odenkirk has put his time in as a character actor and it'll be something awesome to see this take off and him start to get Cranston-level respect, but I'm not sure the premise or fury is as strong as Breaking Bad. Any way you slice it this is an interesting direction and maybe we end up with the second-greatest TV Show of all time.

#9: Halo 5: Guardians (Fall)

Alright, I'm just a Halo junkie, which goes all the way back to playing it in High School with a room full of douchebags. And then I played Halo 2 in College with a LAN full of douchebags. I actually didn't even bother will multiplayer in the third and fourth installments, but I'm pretty curious about the story. That's actually really nerdy of me, but this series also has an epic feel that's missing from a lot of its imitators and spin-offs.

#8: The Return, then Finale of Parks and Recreation (01/13)

It's almost easy to forget how the previous season of Parks and Recreation ended, with a flash-forward jump in time and Leslie Knope firing Jon Hamm. There may not be a better comedy on Network TV right now, and there's certainly not one on NBC. It's the last vestige of a once impenetrable Thursday Night Line-Up (if not in ratings, then at least in quality) that will be missed dearly. Here's to the hope it goes out with a bang rather than a whimper.

#7: Furious 7 (04/03)

I have Furious 7 ranked above Jurassic Park and Avengers sequels? Of course I do. The rise of this franchise is one of the most unlikely and ridiculous in Hollywood, and for any fan, this is a true finale - finally we get to see what happens after The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) ended and a lot of Han avenging / Jason Statham tussling with The Rock and The Diesel. By all accounts this is going to be spectacular - and hopefully also a fitting send-off for our dear Paul Walker, departed from the earth.

#6: The Return of Broad City (01/14)

Anything that comes close to "Destination
Wedding" (S1;E8) would be appreciated.

I found myself really jonesing for this a few weeks ago actually, while watching some Hannibal Burress stand-up. My only regret about Broad City is that in the year since its debut it's gotten way more mainstream. It's such a bizarre niche show that I really enjoyed it when I felt like I was the only one watching it. That's a stupid complaint, but I also feel like this show hinges on being grotesque and unique rather than primed for mass consumption. It'll be sweet.

#5: The Revenant (12/25)

It's tough to think about what you'll be doing on Christmas Day, 2015, but I'll probably be seeing this. Alejandro González Iñárritu has never been hotter coming off Birdman (2014), and the mix of actors and premise (Leo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy in a 19th-Century Fur Trapper thriller!) is palpable. There aren't a ton of images or trailers for this one yet, but with everyone involved it ought to be compelling. Hey, I made the same judgment on Interstellar last year.

#4: Tomorrowland (05/22)

Brad Bird is the man. So is everyone else involved in this. And a cool trailer that makes you go "Wha?" without totally losing your faith in God like some other trailers out there. I am all about original blockbuster filmmaking. I'm actually only concerned about the involvement of writer Damon Lindelof, who tends to purposefully obscure his projects in mysticism that confounds rather than entices. Oh Brad, be our balance, our light in the darkness. We beseech thee.

#3: The Return of The Venture Bros. (01/19?)

It's hard to be a Venture Bros. fan. What other show puts out six seasons over twelve years? You'd think we'd have stopped suckling at their teat by now, but the milk is just so damn good. Rumour has it that there's a January 19th premiere date, but other sources say Summer, and the only video they've put out merely says this year. That last one is probably as close as we're going to get to pinning something down. Any year that actually contains new episodes of this show is a good one.

#2: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (Aug or Sep)

Four years ago I actually wrote that I hated The Colbert Report because it had grown repetitive, limited Colbert's comedic potential, and pandered to a brainwashed audience. I'd like to think that everyone else has caught on by now and it was really refreshing news to hear that Colbert was stepping in to fill Dave Letterman's shoes at The Late Show. I am infinitely curious to see whether or not Colbert can pull this off because it's really a slightly different direction than what The Colbert Report does. Colbert is still an incredibly funny, creative comedic genius, though, and stretching his legs with a more traditional Talk Show format is a move that I am very excited for.

#1: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (12/18)

Guaranteed to please both R2-D2 and Soccer Fans.

C'mon. It was never going to be anything else. Whether or not this is The Empire Strikes Back (1980)-level good, Return of the Jedi (1983)-level meh, or The Phantom Menace (1999)-level bad, it's a cultural event. New Star Wars, people! Star Wars is like pizza - even if it's old and cold you're still going to enjoy eating it. I can't even begin to imagine how the mix of Abrams' style with Lucas' world turns out, but whatever this thing is like I am seeing it, and so are all of you.

I'm feeling good about this list, folks. Then again, I almost always feel good about these lists and almost always disappoint myself. What's your pick for 2015?