Tag Archives: 2015

Dec 30 2015

Best Of 2015

owen and raptors

defiance bar

Best Sci-Fi TV Show

By the end of its third (and final) season, Defiance had become completely engrossing and well developed thanks to memorable acting and character arcs. It’s too bad that Syfy cancelled the series about a town in the future populated by struggling humans and aliens trying to get along with each other.

Best Horror TV Show

The Walking Dead continues to chomp up the horror competition on TV. It’s been a long road for Rick Grimes and his battered and worn troupe as they battle undead zombies and savage humans, but the show still delivers the chills and excitement.

Best Fantasy Show

4. game of thronesGame of Thrones rightfully won the best drama Emmy, making it one of the few genre shows to accomplish this honor. What helped make the show so captivating is that it outpaced the novels from which it’s based on with new character and plot developments, providing new territory for fans.

Best Cancelled TV Show

Defiance came into its own when it was regrettably cancelled. At least we got three full seasons and the final episode provided for the most part a sense of closure…except will Nolan ever come back from space?

Best Animated Show

Star Wars:Rebels is a fun and engaging TV show that captures the mood of the original Star Wars films as it fills in the gap between the original and prequel films.

Best TV Character

This is a hard one since 2015 featured 6. Jessica jonesmany terrific and memorable characters. With that said the best character has to be Jessica Jones from the TV show named after her. Hard boiled, weary and sporting a tough exterior to mask her pain, Jessica Jones was your typical private detective with superpowers struggling to get by with her life.

Most Missed TV Character

rip tyreeseThe Walking Dead is noted for the constant death of regular characters. Each time this happens, the other characters lose more and more of themselves every time. The slow death of semi-gentle giant Tyreese after he was bitten by a walker wasn’t an exception and came to viewers as a sad surprise.

Best TV Superhero

Thanks to an inspired performance by Grant Gustin as Barry Allen, his alter ego of the Flash has quickly become one of the best superheroes featured on a TV show. Fast, quirky and full of wonder and angst, this version of the Flash combines the traits of many different superheroes and became his own unique character.

flash promo

 

Best TV Villain

The most memorable and unsettling aspect of the Netflix show Jessica Jones was the chilling performance by former Doctor Who actor David Tennant as Kilgrave, the sociopath who can control people with his voice alone. Spoiled, petulant and with a savage streak, Kilgrave was one of the best supervillains ever shown on TV.

kilgrave

Best Fight Scene

The highlight of the second episode of Daredevil (“Cut Man”) and in fact the entire first season was this long, continuous fight scene that took place in a hallway between Daredevil and some Russian thugs. It was brutal and ugly but became a standard bearer for an unforgettable fight scene.

Best Guest Appearance

HauntedEven though Constantine was cancelled earlier this year, that didn’t mean that the title character was forgotten. To fans’ delight, he turned up later this year on Arrow and proved that a cancellation couldn’t keep a good sorcerer down.

Best Sci-Fi Film

There were some great competitors for this category like Mad Max: Fury Road and Ex Machina but Jurassic World just edged them out with its roaring dino action, some food for thought and that unforgettable moment with Owen riding his motorcycle flanked by his raptors sealed the deal.

owen rides with raptors

Best Horror Film

Crimson Peak was a nice throwback to old-fashioned Victorian-era ghost stories that raised viewers hairs while adorned with spooky modern touches.

Best Fantasy/Animated Film

6. inside outOne of Pixar’s two offerings in 2015, Inside Out, quickly won over the hearts of viewers over the summer as they witnessed the inner psyche of a young preteen girl. It was so easy to identify with and delight in the way her inner feelings were represented by such amusing archetypes.

Best Action Film

Director George Miller showed today’s generation of action junkies how to do a real action film without CGI. Mad Max: Fury Road was jammed with non-stop excitement and gasp-inducing action scenes that rarely let up.

mad max chase

Best Superhero Film

Despite its many behind-the-scenes obstacles, Ant-Man defied low expectations, continued Marvel Studios winning streak and proved to be a more fun film than the other Marvel Studios offering, Avengers: Age of Ultron.

3. Antman

Best Superhero on Film

Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man, turned out to be the most memorable and fun superhero to star in a superhero film in 2015. He has many downtrodden tropes of a hard-luck superhero like Spider-Man, but witty dialogue and solid acting by Paul Rudd who added just the right amount of humor made Ant-Man a character to watch out for in future films.

Best Film Character

Out of all the characters, old and new, from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Rey was the most intriguing with a mysterious back story that has yet to be fully revealed. Thanks to Daisy Ridley’s performance and the way she was written, this future Jedi left viewers with a confident impression that she will carry the torch for the Star Wars saga.

rey and bb8

Best Line in a Film

“What a lively day!” Mad Max: Fury Road

Best Film Villain

Indominus Rex was literally the biggest and most terrifying villain/movie monster to come along in some time. His savage rampage across in Jurassic World was one of the reasons why the film became the summer blockbuster of 2015.

I Rex

Best Special Effects

There was so much to choose from this year from the dizzying size proportions of Ant-Man to the practical effects showcased in Mad Max: Fury Road to the rampaging dinosaurs in Jurassic World. But one film stood out above them all and that one was the seventh film of a long-running franchise, Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Best Trailer for an Upcoming Film

There were some cool trailers like the one for Independence Day: Resurgence and some Godawful ones like Star Trek Beyond, but the trailer that stuck was one that was leaked out of Comic-Con and forced into general release to the delight of millions as they met the new Joker played by Jared Leto. That trailer was for Suicide Squad.

Biggest Disappointment

Sure there were many truly dreadful films this year like Fant4stic, but Avengers: Age of Ultron has to take the title for biggest disappointment. It’s not a bad film at all, it’s got a lot going for it, but it lacked the energy and fun of the original Avengers film and failed to live up to the buildup.

Best App

Marvel: Future Fight is a true successor and competitor to Marvel: Avengers Alliance with its wide roster of heroes, inventive game play and thrilling graphics.

Best Video Game

Thanks to a sprawling, post-apocalyptic virtual landscape, involving storyline about a parent looking for a lost child and addictive gameplay Fallout 4 gets the honor for the best video game of 2015.

fallout 4

Best Merchandise

Anything with BB-8 🙂

bb8 toy

Best Hallmark Ornament

With Leonard Nimoy passing away bye spock ornamentthis year, this ornament poignantly symbolized the friendship between Kirk and Spock as it recreated their final scene in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Biggest News Item

2015 started off with the exciting announcement that Spider-Man would now be part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the news event that sadly supplanted that later on was the unfortunate passing of Star Trek legend Leonard Nimoy. His Spock is a genuine cultural icon and Mr. Nimoy is still missed by us.

 

Oct 21 2015

Back To The Future, October 21, 2015 & Beyond

hill valley 2

Forget about May the 4th (sorry Star Wars fans), the real date to look out for is Oct. 21, 2015, 4:29 pm to be exact. Any self-respecting Back to the Future fan knows this is the date where Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox), Dr. Emmett “Doc” Brown (Christopher Lloyd), Jennifer Parker (Elizabeth Shue) and Einstein the dog time travel to from 1985 in the classic film Back to the Future, Part II.

Now that that fabled day is here, how cubbies windoes it compare to the future seen in that film? To be filmmakers got wrong. But the film has made some predictions that come close. For instance, technically we do have flying cars it’s just that they’re not commonplace, and while the Chicago Cubs haven’t won the World Series, they’re in a fight for the pennant with the Mets. On that note, Back to the Future, Part II got the dates for the World Series completely wrong. We’re still in the middle of the playoffs, while in the film on this date, the Cubs swept Miami–at least the film correctly predicted that Miami would have a baseball team, it’s just that this year the Marlins didn’t even come close to getting a Wild Card spot.

eyewearIn a recent interview, co-writer and producer Bob Gale admitted that when making Back to the Future, Part II the future predictions  wouldn’t be too accurate, so instead efforts were focused on creating an optimistic vision of the future. And what an awesome future they presented us. We all wish it came to be, but many elements are with us today like flatscreen TVs, video calls, wearable eye tech and the self-lacing sneakers are coming!

As fun as it is to compare reality to fiction, what makes Back to the Future, Part II such a classic is that it went the dark route as a sequel. Many followups to film classics doc explains timelinetake their characters into dark places and this film isn’t an exception. It also explored another time travel motif: the Butterfly Effect (the first Back to the Future film was about the Grandfather Paradox, while the third film examined predestination). Marty McFly buys a sports almanac on October 21, 2015 with the intent to go back to his time period and get rich making bets. What happens is that Biff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson) gets a hold of the almanac and the time traveling DeLorean and alters the timeline when he goes back to the 1950s. The resulting chaotic divergence creates a timeline where Biff becomes a one-percenter and rules Marty’s hometown Hill Valley with a tyrannical fist. The town becomes a lawless hellhole where Marty’s father was murdered in the past and Doc Brown has been committed into an asylum.

Marty realizes that the calamitous events are his fault and goes about correcting the timeline by going back to the first film. The way director Robert Zemeckis intertwined the actors into the footage from the first film was simply genius and flawlessly executed. It was a pioneering use of special effects and editing that still holds up and which we take for granted these days.

marty and docThe Back to the Future trilogy overall continues to enthrall viewers and interest in the films continues to grow. The logical question is will there ever be any more films? Ordinarily, the answer would be no. Zemeckis and Gale have been adamant about not continuing the story. As far as they’re concerned, the story ended with Marty McFly rebooting his future and Doc Brown time traveling with his family. Besides, how could they top the original trilogy? Remaking it would be a mistake since trying to find actors to replace Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd is an impossible task. Lloyd last week declared that if asked he would return to his role in a fourth film. The issue is with Michael J. Fox. Frankly, he is too old to play a teenager and is suffering from Parkinson’s Disease. The best thing to a reunion we’ll get was the cute short the two actors made recently.

*It has to be added that Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd reprised their roles of Marty McFly and Doc Brown on Jimmy Kimmel Live on October 21, 2015. The skit felt faithful to the spirit of the trilogy and we got an explanation from Doc as to why our 2015 is different than the one depicted on the film: we’re in an alternate reality! It was all in good fun and concluded with Doc hopping into another time-traveling car (not the DeLorean, that car was left with Marty and Jimmy) to go back to the past and correct the timeline. Needless to say he didn’t do so, but for all we know he probably created an even better 2015.

However, one way to continue Back to the Future would be to have it focus on the children of Marty McFly and Doc Brown. The original actors could appear in supporting roles as time travelinis being done with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but the main story could be about a time-spanning romance between Marty’s son and Doc’s daughter. Or come up with a story where Marty and Doc’s children try to change history and learn some lessons about fate. If they put their minds to it, Zemeckis and Gale can come up with something. If Star Wars, Jurassic Park and Ghostbusters can return after so long, maybe one day we’ll see the DeLorean hitting 88 mph again.

José Soto