Goodbye 2014, and thanks for all the fish

 

 

-Internet memes have finally gone mainstream, with Grumpy Cat and Trollface finally getting their own movies:

 

 -Gary Oldman pissed his career down the drain.

 

 -Sony’s anti-Kim Jong Un comedy The Interview was pulled (supposedly) because of North Korean hacker attacks, then given a limited release in indie theaters. This can only mean either one of two people has come back from the dead: 1) Kim Jong Il, finally getting revenge over his portrayal in Team America: World Police or 2) William Castle, who just helped Sony pull off the greatest publicity stunt of modern times. Either way, don’t expect to see any more Seth Rogen movies playing at indie theaters again.

-My fellow Californians have had to deal with a drought, then weeks of near-torrential rain that still didn’t help.

 

-A found-footage approach, no costumes, ridiculous casting choices and Doctor Doom being made into an internet troll, smug statements about the source material from both employees and defenders, as well as absolutely no promotional material or set photos being offered (even though films not coming out for another two years already have teaser trailers out). Boy, the new Fantastic Four movie sure sounds like a winner! Ten bucks says it won’t be screened for critics.

 

-Dracula and Maleficent were actually pretty decent.

 The characters, I mean, their movies were only so-so. I really, really wanted to like both more than I did.

-The mystery of Jack the Ripper has finally been solved!!!---again, supposedly, kinda, not really, not at all.

-With cringe-worthy ‘romantic’ scenes, drastic tonal shifts (Mourning one minute, next minute “I AM DE VHRINO!!!”), poorly used villains that make Spider-Man 3’s use of villains seem well-planned, dozens of ridiculous subplots (Peter’s parents are such an important part of the mythos, don’t you know?) and forced attempts at building its own cinematic universe to compete with the MCU, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is quite possibly the most fascinating clusterfuck of a film released in the past decade. With ASM3 being pushed back further and further, and rumors of Marvel getting the rights back, it’s going to look awkward as hell in a few years.

  Dane Dehaan was good though, even after turning into robo-Beavis:

 I also cannot get over this display case:

 

 A friend of mine accidentally got one in advance and we considered taking it around town and photographing it in weird places. Thankfully, sobriety prevailed.

-A Furry convention was (supposedly) gassed by trolls and dozens were rushed to the hospital, sparking an outrage online. I don’t see what the big deal is, aren’t these people supposedly subjected to attacks like this every day according to their Tumblr posts?

 

-Speaking of Tumblr and conventions, the first Tumblr convention, called Dashcon, was organized. Not surprisingly, it failed hilariously, with all involved trying pathetically to pretend that they had fun and acting like they ‘get’ jokes about the con. Yeah right, if these people could take a joke that well, the site wouldn’t even exist.

More virgins than a Monastery

 

Also, consider how many of these people claim to be non-white and physically disabled. If even half of those claims were true, a quick glimpse of the con should show, if not a majority of such people, a sizeable amount that could not be missed in any big shot of the con. Well, there are pics showing pretty much everyone who was there, and I don’t see any non-whites or people whose physical impairments are noticeable enough to cause them discrimination worth complaining about. “Most diverse site on the internet” my ass.

OMG! One black guy! Sooo diverse!!!1!

 

-Look, I know Man of Steel didn’t please everyone, but did they really have to reboot it with Godzilla?

 

 -Internet semi-celeb Chris Chan had a pretty rough year. First his house burned down, then he found out several former friends of his were anything but, and now he’s been arrested for assaulting a Gamespot employee (and it seems this time, he’s really going to get the book thrown at him). Back in Chris’s glory days in 2009, someone said this whole affair would be “so funny if it wasn’t so sad”, and five years later, that someone is still right.

 

-Scientists have managed to successfully transplant the brain of a worm into a robotic body. I for one, welcome our new robo-worm overlords.

 

 

-IMDb message boards reveal that 90% of Turks who have internet access have never heard of Dracula (the character) prior to Dracula Untold and think the movie was intended as a serious biopic. What is it with Turks not hearing of famous fictional characters associated with bats and then getting outraged by movies with them?

 

-Having been abandoned by SJWs and declared “Oppressors”, no one paying any attention to the zillions of shitty documentaries being made every week about them, and with even the most hardcore fans acknowledging that the show no longer has any adult appeal (As if it ever did), Bronies are officially out of the limelight.

 

  Breaking Bad fans are also out of the picture now.  Even though the show has ended, Heisenberg is a cultural icon. The most mainstream an “edgy” show can possibly get.

 Doctor Who fans also left the show in droves over the new, less fanfic-able actor playing the Doctor. Sherlock fans also turned against the show. In fact, it seems Tumblr has now turned against Benedict Cumberbatch in general, and is calling his (rumored) casting as Dr. Strange “whitewashing” (Doctor Strange isn’t white? News to me).

 

 So with Bronies, Breaking Bad fans and the Superwholock fanbase out of the picture, which new obnoxious fandom will take over the internet next?

 

 -Strange Magic, George Lucas’s rumored adaptation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream for kids suddenly popped up with announcements for a late January release. From the looks of it, it seems more like A Midwinter’s Tax Write Off, with sub-Dreamworks humor. It’s obvious no one expects to this to be a hit, but an awful lot of care seems to have gone into those character designs, so who knows? Actually, you know what? I’m more intrigued by this than I was by anything in the Force Awakens trailer, and that's not even a slam against Abrams.

 

-Jake Gyllenhall’s performance in Nightcrawler was nothing short of incredible, and the same goes for the rest of the film. This one deserves all the Oscars it gets, hands down.

 

-Captain America: The Winter Soldier was not just an excellent sequel, but probably the best political thriller in years. And not to rip on Iron Man 3 again, but was also far more relevant than whatever message that film had. That film criticized an out-of-power president and vice president years after they were gone, this film had something to say about what is going on NOW. I also really don’t get all the “MCU films are for kids” criticism, this was more adult and over kid’s heads than anything Nolan did in his Batman trilogy.

 

 

Best films:

 

 Anyway, Happy New Year! Maybe I'll even manage 10 posts!