The Acolyte Deserved Better

Television takes a backseat on this blog for a variety of reasons.  For starters...I don't like television the way I like movies & books.  TV is a continual effort, and frequently, it's about drawing out the plot.  This isn't true now as much as it was years ago.  I watched shows I really liked like Friends, The Simpsons, and The West Wing become repetitive and too much by needing to have another season, another year to profit in syndication.  That's not really a thing anymore, both because syndication isn't what it once was, and because seasons of television shows are anything but long.  In fact, one could make the argument that the current TV landscape could benefit from extending (a show like Heartstopper was begging for longer seasons to explore side characters like you would've gotten in a different era).  But the point is-I think that they are not well-paced with a central story, and only a couple of shows can handle multiple storylines over multiple years well, without it feeling sloppy.

The other reason I don't like television is that it can end in the middle of its run.  This shouldn't be the case for a book or movie.  In a land of perpetual "IP" and sequels, we can run into situations where an original film feels incomplete because it didn't perform at the box office.  Jim Carrey's take on Count Olaf, for example, demanded a sequel, as did the cliffhanger ending at the end of A Haunting in Venice.  But most of the time, if you are operating under the (correct) rule that a movie must stand by itself, even if the film isn't a hit, you still have it forever.  You can't "undo" a movie because people didn't see it.  This isn't the case, though, with television, where shows will end earlier than the creators wanted, and will be cancelled before we have gotten a resolution, so the series just sits there, never actually over.

That is now the fate of The Acolyte, the latest Disney+ series focusing on the Star Wars universe.  The series viewership was a problem from the beginning, coming in behind the initial run of Ahsoka, as well as the most recent seasons of Andor and The Mandalorian.  Ratings continued to suffer, and by the end of the series, it had what was assumed to be the lowest finale ratings of any Disney+ Star Wars series to date.  The show cost an ungodly amount of money ($180 million), so it makes sense that Disney couldn't take the risk and continue the series beyond the initial run, instead choosing to cancel it, the first Star Wars series that they have run that was intended to have a second season (it ends up on a pretty big cliffhanger involving two characters steeped in Star Wars lore), but didn't.

Here's the deal-I think The Acolyte is a weird situation, because I don't think it's that great.  I was in the middle on my initial review of it, saying that I would be around for another season, but didn't really need one because I wasn't that invested.  The series was predictable, and it lacked both the heart that made the first two seasons of The Mandalorian so exquisite as well as the storytelling ballsiness that made Andor so refreshing.  It was, for my money, better than Ahsoka, Boba Fett, or Obi-Wan Kenobi, and I would've liked to have seen where they were going to go with it, but in my opinion, the show wasn't superb and (as a fan) I'm not heartbroken it's not doing better.

It also didn't deserve the evisceration that it reserved from conservative Star Wars fans online, who were clearly attacking the show primarily because it had a Black female lead playing two key characters, and that there was at least hints of lesbianism in it (seriously, if you have to wonder if a character is a lesbian, they aren't being very overt with it).  This feels like a big part of why Disney cancelled it-because they couldn't convince new fans to give it a chance as MAGA crowds destroyed it online.  This isn't the only time we've seen such attacks-look at movies like The Marvels or the all-female Ghostbusters...these sort of sexist crusades against allowing women in the leads of franchises, particularly women of color, is really disgusting, and makes this all the sadder.

It also feels sad because we're in an environment where a show that might've grown with some legs ends up being cancelled before they can find their audience (or their creative footing).  With the $180 million price tag, Disney can't afford to make a series that looks this good (which it does-it continues to astonish me how every Star Wars film is littered with Oscar-worthy effects & cinematography while every MCU TV series looks visually like garbage), and keep it on to grow an audience, but this isn't the only show of this nature.  Everything from A League of Their Own to Mindhunter has struggled in the streaming universe, because they don't have a couple of seasons (and a full 24-episode season) to gain an audience.  Now-beloved streaming shows like Parks and Recreation and The Office were allowed room to grow an audience (and honestly, were never super big ratings hits in their initial runs), but have made tens of millions in syndication.  Shows like Family Guy and Cagney & Lacey went from being literally cancelled into major successes for their networks.  Streaming's model breaks so many aspects about TV, but an underrated one is that it demands a show be a hit from the start-if you have a model of TV where shows like Breaking Bad and Seinfeld might well have been cancelled for not catching on, you're clearly doing something wrong.  And The Acolyte (and its never to be completed cliffhanger) will be one of the series that will pay the price of that incompetence.

OVP: Star Wars: The Revenge of Skywalker (2019)

Film: Star Wars: The Revenge of Skywalker (2019)
Stars: Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Ian McDiarmid, Billy Dee Williams
Director: JJ Abrams
Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Score, Visual Effects, Sound Editing)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

In recent years, it has become clearer and clearer why I prefer film to television.  In a supposed "Golden Age," TV frequently repeats itself, and seems incapable of telling just one, comprehensive story.  The medium takes complete narratives such as the first seasons of The Handmaid's Tale and Big Little Lies, stretching them despite perfect endings after just one season.  Film is complete-it gives you proper endings with actual stakes, as has been illustrated continually with this excellent cinematic annum.  The question becomes at what point do franchises struggle with the same question-when do they risk the pitfalls of television?  We saw that earlier this year with Spider-Man: Far From Home, when it became apparent after 22 films that Marvel doesn't really have anything left in its arsenal but retreads and lesser characters with the same plot lines (it doesn't seem like a mistake that they're going back-to-the-past for their next entry of Black Widow).  Here we have what some will claim to be the "final" chapter in the Skywalker fantasy, but one with a lot of dangling storylines and myriad characters to get back into in an "Episode X" if these actors don't make it in as proper movie stars (not everyone gets to be Harrison Ford).  But if this is the end of the series (and wouldn't it be amazing if it was and they actually respected the tale without trying to bilk it for more cash?), what kind of ending do we have for arguably the most important series in modern cinema?

(Spoilers Ahead) The film focuses on the final battle between, initially, Kylo Ren (Driver) and Rey (Ridley), who is fully immersed in her Jedi training with Leia (Fisher) as her mentor.  She is hoping to find Emperor Palpatine (McDiarmid), who is apparently not dead (as we'd assumed from Return of the Jedi), but instead the mastermind behind Snoke and has been guiding Kylo Ren this whole time.  It also turns out, as we continue, that Rey is not "the child of no one," but instead Palpatine's granddaughter.  Rey struggles with this, as her fight with the dark side takes on a similar path to that of Luke Skywalker in, again, Return of the Jedi, but she ultimately chooses to side with the good guys, winning over Kylo Ren before he dies (with the help of Harrison Ford in a cameo as Han Solo, almost certainly his final appearance in the series), and helping to take down her grandfather in an epic battle.

There are a lot of problems with Rise of Skywalker, so let's get the good out first-it looks great.  The special effects here are top drawer, some of the best of the year.  Standouts include Rey literally riding gigantic waves, and the entire water-soaked battle with Kylo Ren, as well as the final battle between the Empire and the Rebels.  It's become something we just expect from this franchise that the visual effects are top-drawer, but 2019 hosted visual effects that felt kind of lazy or appreciated a bit too generously; this is classic, impressively-designed special effects work, which shouldn't be dismissed as it becomes a rarity.  Also, in a year where we were expected to suspend belief with less-than-impressive "de-aging" in The Irishman, Captain Marvel, and Gemini Man, for a brief moment I was stunned at how good the de-aging work was for Carrie Fisher, until I realized that they used unused footage from past films to put together her scenes; this was the correct choice.

But the rest of Rise of Skywalker is kind of a disaster.  The latest episodes have always struggled with defining their new characters outside of the shadows of their previous iterations, giving the best moments of the new series to Fisher, Ford, and Mark Hamill.  Without that nostalgic pull (since Ford & Hamill's characters have died, and Fisher died in real life), this film needs its new characters to do the heavy-lifting, and that's not really something they've built a foundation toward.  Finn & Poe are both ancillary characters, at best-suddenly Poe is a horn-dog and Finn is just sort of there, promising information to Rey but never actually delivering it.  Kelly Marie Tran's Rose is so sidelined in this movie you basically wonder why the series even introduced her.  The film has nostalgic moments, involving Fisher & Ford, but they don't ring as meaningful as they did in the past films, the Fisher one obviously not being the franchise's fault (it's clear she had a different role in this film than they intended before her real-life death), but the writers never found a proper solution to handle her death.  The only time that felt similar to some of the high points of the previous film on this front was the first appearance of Lando (Williams)...who promptly disappears from the story, an indication that he was more a tag-on to the story because of Fisher's death (suddenly depriving the studio of a major link to the initial franchise) rather than because it suited the plot.

Rey has been drawn better than pretty much any other new character, and as a result was the best chance this film had to distinguish itself in a way similar to The Last Jedi standing apart from traditional Star Wars action-adventures, but the decision to make her a Palpatine falls flat.  This feels like a direct reaction to the fans hating on The Last Jedi, but it's a good indication that giving fans everything they want is a TERRIBLE idea.  JJ Abrams likely shouldn't have taken back over the franchise here-he had a vision that was completely disparate from Rian Johnson, and basically ignores the intriguing directions that Johnson took the characters in Episode VIII.  As a result, this is a jumbled mess, full of expository plots & repetitive action scenes.  The emotional stakes aren't strong (the only hero character to die is Leia, which pretty much anyone would have assumed would have to happen considering real-life implications), and by bringing back a bad guy who had already died, they showed they never really had faith in the new universe they crafted, just in its links to the older series.  It's hard for me to hate any Star Wars movie, but this one definitely is met with a gigantic eye roll, and my wish that they retire the Skywalker saga going forward if they are going to invest in a galaxy far, far away.

OVP: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

Film: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
Stars: Alden Ehrenreich, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Donald Glover, Thandie Newton, Paul Bettany
Director: Ron Howard
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Visual Effects)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I never quite know whether or not to qualify myself as a proper Star Wars fan.  During my youth, I kind of dismissed the franchise as a bit gauche, I was so into more prestige cinema, and admittedly there are a lot of faults in the film's dialogue and repetitive character structuring.  This was proven accurate when the prequels came out and everyone abandoned the franchise, or at least qualified their love.  But in the years since, heading into The Force Awakens, I changed my tune a bit.  I now have a Star Wars shirt, and genuinely, gleefully shouted out loud when I saw the new trailer when Billy Dee Williams came in laughing.  It might be because there are so few filmic series that rival some of the obsessions people have otherwise in pop culture with video games or television shows that I can't really dismiss one of the few franchises that genuinely inspire such passion, even if I don't always return that ardor.

(Spoilers Ahead) This is all to say that when a movie like Solo comes along that sharply divides the major fandoms of Star Wars, I'm one of the few people who go into it ready to judge it on its merits, rather than feel some sort of betrayal if it doesn't match what I want from the film, or be ambivalent because I didn't care about what came before it in the series.  The film, the second stand-alone Star Wars movie, looks at a young Han Solo (Ehrenreich) who starts the picture escaping from the law, and loses his love Qi'ra (Clarke) when she's apprehended during their escape; he eventually joins the Imperial Navy.  We thus explore the origin story of Han Solo, learning how he initially met Chewbacca & Lando.  We also see him reunite later with Qi'ra, but she's now the lientenant of Vos (Bettany), a chief aide in the Crimson Dawn, run by Darth Maul (whom you remember from the prequels, and in a moment that made quite a few people in my audience gasp, is reprised briefly by the original actor Ray Park).  With his rough-and-tumble friend Beckett (Harrelson), Han and Chewbacca try to steal some coaxium (hyperspace fuel) from Vos, but in the process Vos is killed by Qi'ra (who takes his job in Maul's regime, though specifically not betraying that it was Han who was involved in the crime), and Han realizes that he's been double-crossed by Beckett, whom he kills.  The film ends with Han winning the Millennium Falcon from Lando, after discovering that Lando is cheating in his card games (a fact that will surely be employed in The Rise of Skywalker, right?).

There are two directions I go here.  The first is that it's difficult to imagine anyone else playing the title role other than Harrison Ford, and Ehrenreich in some ways was destined for failure here.  It's not that you can't reinterpret classic characters (though perhaps you shouldn't-hint hint Hollywood), but it's also that Ford is kind of in a different league when it comes to action heroes.  In his prime, Harrison Ford might be the greatest action-adventure star of all time, and his best creations (Han and Indiana Jones) are so completely identified with him that making another actor take them on seems cruel.  Yes, you could claim that eventually Daniel Craig lived up to the likes of Sean Connery, but we had to go through four other actors to get there, and Ford is better as Han/Indiana Jones than even Connery was as Bond.  As a result, Ehrenreich can't find the same sort of roguish charisma here, coasting on his easy handsomeness and charm (which, if you saw Hail, Caesar! is definitely there), but falling short of what we'd expect from someone playing Han Solo.

The reality is, though, if you can take this film outside of the lens of what you'd expect (and I'm not sure that you should, considering they slapped Star Wars on the title and incorporated Han, Chewbacca, and Lando into the franchise), this is still a fun movie.  No, no one is breaking the bank when it comes to great acting (Glover is more doing something inventive than giving a great performance), but it's not like the original Star Wars films didn't also have their problems, and I found this movie really fun.  It's lighter fare than we're used to in this franchise, but it doesn't have the plot holes and questionable visual effects of Rogue One, and there's enough scamp in the work of Glover & Harrelson to make it feel like a light, fluffy ride.  I get why super fans don't love it because it takes a lot of leeway with a classic cinematic character, but as I said-I'm a devoted, but casual fan, and I don't have that same level of attachment.  As a result, I'm going with three stars-it's fun on its own, and considering the box office, that's probably where it stays.

The Highest-Grossing Films Ever Made

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OVP: Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)

Film: Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
Stars: Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Laura Dern
Director: Rian Johnson
Oscar History: 4 nominations (Best Score, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Visual Effects)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

In recent years, we have seen an influx in long-delayed sequels to movies.  Franchises such as Rocky, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones, and Blade Runner have emerged from a long dormancy, all the while coming back with an updated storyline and a continuation of a tale we know so well.  Perhaps no film series has done this in as big and splashy of a way as Star Wars, which this month brought its eighth (or ninth, depending on how we count Rogue One) entry into the series.  These sequels, though, have something very much in common: the intense need for nostalgia to sell their stories.  It is impossible to look at The Last Jedi separate from the nostalgia that it feeds from, but that's a problem for a franchise that is so central to American cinema in the new millennium.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film itself is largely known to most of us, not least of which because it's already made a fortune ($600 million at the global box office and counting), but also because it's very familiar to previous tales of the Star Wars saga.  The movie is the second chapter of a new trilogy, so it's going to be dark, and indeed, we see conflicts with our leading characters such as Rey (Ridley), Kylo Ren (Driver), and to a lesser extent Poe (Isaac).  All-the-while we see the expansion of the world that George Lucas created decades ago, alien planets and epic battle scenes, and the smaller moments like those between Luke and Leia, as Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher have returned for another entry in the series.

It is in this latter attribute that The Last Jedi gleans most of its power.  What made The Force Awakens so fun was not its plot or the updated effects, but the sheer movie magic of watching some of the most iconic characters of all-time be revisited decades after they were retired.  Harrison Ford as Han Solo boarding the Millennium Falcon literally made me clutch my fist in the air the first time I saw it.  I'm not even a Star Wars nerd, exactly (though I've gotten closer through the years, at least in terms of appreciating it for its place in movie lore), but there's a joy in watching Luke Skywalker clutch a blue lightsaber again or catching Carrie Fisher's trademark sardonic spunk infiltrate Princess Leia.  It's the same thing with catching a weathered Sylvester Stallone as Rocky one last time in Creed or Andy Serkis fighting with himself again in The Hobbit.  It's not the intensity of the original, but these are such storied part of our cinematic universe that watching someone try to recapture this magic gives me goosebumps.  The best moments of The Last Jedi rest with Hamill and Fisher, particularly a shared kiss on the forehead late in the film, as we understand that Luke Skywalker is soon for the ether, and tragically Fisher's work here is her final portrayal of the princess-turned-general.  It's in these moments that, in the same way a series finale gets the easy tears, you forget you're watching a movie and suddenly are a younger version of yourself, seeing your heroes battle once again onscreen.

The problem here isn't that these moments aren't effective, it's that they're perhaps the only truly effective things happening in The Last Jedi.  While some of the visuals are interesting (I adored the red sand battle, a spectacular visual), and I thought finally introducing sex into a galaxy far, far away (Kylo Ren wasn't shirtless for nothing here) was a nice touch, nothing in the movie comes close to being as special as Leia meeting Luke again, or really much of anything that the first two films in the original trilogy achieved.  It's hard to invest in characters who are so obviously carbon copies of the original characters.  Luke's a girl now, Leia's black and male, and Han's Latino, but well-intentioned diversity isn't going to change the fact that we've already watched this trilogy before, and the formula is so intensely similar between A New Hope/Empire and Force Awakens/Last Jedi that it's hard not to think of this more as a remake than a sequel.

And that's bad for the crown jewel of our franchise-heavy cinematic universe, particularly one so celebrated by Disney, because the characters are dying off a wee bit too quickly.  Though obviously fate played a cruel trick on Episode IX (it's obvious Fisher was going to be a centerpiece of the final film in this trilogy), with Hamill and Ford's characters both dead, the nostalgia will be in short supply in our next iteration.  Sure, we will see the robots and Chewbacca, but it's just not the same without Luke, Leia, or Han (if Disney knows what's good for them, they've already sent a blank check to Billy Dee Williams to reprise Lando in Episode IX).  And without that, we're going to have a problem as Rey, Poe, and Finn just aren't distinctive enough to root for without the help of the originals.  It's not a fault of the actors (there is no universe where Oscar Isaac isn't a better thespian than Mark Hamill), but the writing doesn't allow for us to know them, instead smartly focusing on the characters we already have a proven track record with.  This shouldn't affect my score of Episode VIII too much (it's getting three stars as its own entity), but when a movie basically ends on a cliffhanger (which this one does), what comes after should directly affect its score, and it's very hard to see the next movie getting past the gargantuan mountain of not having Han/Leia/Luke to fall back upon, and getting us to root for characters who are just too unknown for anyone to care about without tricking ourselves into accepting a facsimile.

OVP: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

Film: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Stars: Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelsen, Riz Ahmed, Forest Whitaker
Director: Gareth Edwards
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Visual Effects, Sound Mixing)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

I have seen every live-action Star Wars film in theaters.  It's something I try to remind myself when I kind of also remember that I'm a casual fan (in the case of almost all entertainment-based pop culture phenomenons) when I'm usually an ardent and obsessed one of such cinematic undertakings.  After all I have so much Harry Potter merchandise in my library you'd think you'd actually made it into a Hufflepuff's dorm, and I can tell you nearly every episode title of Lost without looking them up (seriously-test me sometime).  But Star Wars, while I appreciate it and in the moment, really love it, is one of those areas of pop culture where I can become objective about what is "good" versus what is "bad."  I haven't become so steeped in nostalgia that it clouds my judgment.

(Spoilers Ahead) This is all to say that Rogue One was not a movie that I particularly enjoyed.  The movie follows Jyn (Jones), the daughter of a scientist (Mikkelsen) who will one day build the Death Star.  She is raised largely as an orphan as she escapes the burgeoning Empire and is raised by Saw Gerrera (Whitaker), a family friend who increasingly goes mad as the film progresses.  The movie follows her as she attempts to find a way to connect with her father, and then as she, along with a motley crew that includes Cassian Andor (Luna) tries to find the plans to the Death Star, which she knows has a vulnerability in it (which of course any fan of the original series also knows), to transmit to the Rebel Alliance.

There are admittedly a few things to enjoy in the film.  Luna stands out to me as the best-in-show of the actors, but it's also kind of cool that they have a leading woman that doesn't really need a love interest to catapult her through the movie (I'll believe it when I see it for Daisy Ridley's Rey), and there's a wonderful finality of the penultimate scenes on the beach (which are beautifully rendered in terms of the special effects-I love the minimalist, high water production design of the planet); you don't have to worry about a sequel since you've already seen one and these characters aren't going to be coming back since, well, they all died.  The movie's score is robust and though it never quite hits the iconography of John Williams, perhaps that's for the best as it hums and drums in a slightly darker way that works in select sequences of the movie.  Plus, I like a sequel/prequel (whatever this is) that actually fills in some of the gaps rather than just creates new ones or stretches them out to make more money.

But all-in-all this was not as much fun as The Force Awakens.  The film suffers from that "reinvention" issue that plagued The Phantom Menace (it's not THAT bad, mind you), in that it is too reliant on super-fans to fill in the gaps rather than the plot, and there's way too many characters all at once.  For a while it feels like we're just hiring dozens of well-known character actors to randomly come in and be a part of the Star Wars movies, as if Gareth Edwards had a list in his house of every person he's ever wanted to turn into an action figure.  This causes too much busy-ness in the first half of the movie from which it never really recovers, and he hires actors that are a bit too naturally hammy (Mikkelsen and Whitaker being the chief culprits) to be able to deal with what they're doing onscreen.  Whitaker in particular crosses the line into "bad acting" toward the end-his character being too filed with ticks and clicks.  It's kind of dull when you take the Star Wars adventure out of it, and in particular it never really recovers from the "we know how this ends" aspect of the movie, even if the ending actually works.

The other problem I had here was the visual effects.  While certain parts of the art direction and the matte work were divine (like I said, the water planet in particular was really cool), the Peter Cushing/Carrie Fisher stuff was deeply off-putting.  I felt like every time that Cushing's CGI creation was onscreen I was supposed to be seeing some version of a cartoon, or that my eyesight was messing with me; the technology is not there yet to believe he's a human alongside actual humans.  It was less a supremely cool effect and more like a Robert Zemeckis animated work (the same can be said for Fisher, though that's only one scene so it's less of a callout).  Putting aside the moral dilemma here (and that really should be a factor since Cushing himself never consented to being in this movie), it's not a good effect.  The sound work, art direction, and music are all strong, but I'm going to be deeply disappointed if this gimmick lands the movie an Academy Award on Sunday.

Those are my thoughts, and yes, I'm definitely The Force Awakens>Rogue One, but how about you?  Where does this land in the Star Wars pantheon?  Who is best-in-show in terms of acting?  And do you think Rogue One can take the VFX Oscar on Sunday?  The comments are below!

Carrie Fisher (1956-2016)

Can 2016 just, well, take a chill pill?  Seriously-I know that 2017 is potentially going to be worse (Voldemort will go from being a Twitter troll to the most powerful man on Earth and all that), but this year has, in a word, sucked.  That was no more apparent than yesterday, when we heard that yet another cultural icon, the incomparable Carrie Fisher, had passed.

It's hard not to be angry right now, and I think Carrie Fisher would relish that the reactions over her death have ranged from biting dark humor to a series of "are you kidding me's?" since Fisher herself rarely took certain aspects of herself particularly seriously.  While she grew up the daughter of Hollywood royalty and eventually became an icon as Princess Leia, her later life was more a celebrated look at herself.  She spoke poignantly and hilariously about her celebrity highs-and-lows, her issues with drugs and alcohol, and in particular became a plainspoken advocate for those dealing with mental illness.  So many people are indebted to Fisher for her plainspoken and frank discussions about mental illness, as it helped the conversation continue about bipolar issues and mental health, a topic that has taken great strides in public acceptance since Fisher came forward some 15 years ago (though we still have a long way to go).

And yet for many, despite the decades of writing and public advocacy and acting, she will be eternally Princess Leia, a fine legacy in itself.  I remember looking to Star Wars with different eyes the first time I saw the series than most young men my age.  While Luke was too passive for me and Han was more an object of lust for my teenage viewing, Leia was cool.  She was badass, someone to root thoroughly for as she fought the dark side and commanded respect from everyone around her.  To find out that the woman who inhabited her was also a cool, badass who commanded respect-that was particularly sweet icing on the cake.

OVP: Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

Film: Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
Stars: Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong'o, Domhnall Gleeson, Max von Sydow
Director: JJ Abrams
Oscar History: 5 nominations (Best Original Score, Editing, Visual Effects, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Like every carbon-based life form on the planet, I too saw the new Star Wars movie this past weekend. In fact, I am still wearing my R2D2 shirt that I wore to the opening weekend this morning (I saw it Saturday so it's not quite as gross as it sounds).  The movies, which were a part of my childhood in a way that they were for many Millennials who saw the original trilogy when they were re-released for the twentieth anniversary, bring back a sense of nostalgia that seems to have been the theme of the year.  From Jurassic Park to Rocky, nostalgia at the movies and playing off of past love for a cinematic brand has been the best way to mine the box office and our pocketbooks for a Hollywood that continually wants to find a sure-thing (lest we forget that the Independence Day and Harry Potter franchises recently released new trailer installments).  Like many critics, I found the film itself to be an enjoyable and thrill-filled ride, one that reestablishes the world of Star Wars without alienating die-hard fans of the franchise (like JJ Abrams kind of did for some more devoted Star Trek fans) while still seeming accessible to those people who didn't just rewatch all of the original six movies for the 70th time.  Still, that doesn't mean the film isn't without its faults, and so we'll get into that juxtaposition right now.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film in many ways borrows from the original A New Hope, so much so that some (including myself) felt like they remade the original trilogy with just a complete rehaul of gender and racial backgrounds of the main characters.  Here, so far, we have Rey (Miller) taking on the Luke Skywalker role, Finn (Boyega) seemingly taking on a more robust Princess Leia position, and then of course there's can-he-be-in-everything Oscar Isaac as Poe, the scallywag who is clearly mining Han Solo while Adam Driver's Kylo Ren is the misguided son of Leia and Han and our Vader-like antagonist.  The film plays out in many ways just like this, with Rey discovered ala Luke on a lost planet, and we have Han Solo step into the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi for Finn and Rey as they try to take down the newly-risen Empire (for anyone who eye rolls, remember that every generation has their "Empire" on Earth, after all, so the fact that they're back with a different name isn't really that surprising).

This sounds worse than it is, to be fair.  The reinvention is lighter than some other franchises, and they don't skimp on humor and charm, particularly in letting us soak up all of the nostalgic glory of the franchise.  There's something so magical about hearing John Williams lush strings echoed behind the faces of Fisher, Hamill, and Ford (which are awash onscreen long enough for midnight movie crowds to cheer enthusiastically, and even if I didn't go to a premiere, I still heard the murmurs when Ford and Chewbacca or Leia's face first is shown on the movie screen).  To pretend otherwise would be stupid-Star Wars is so important to pop culture and these three have featured so prominently in it that we forgot the prequels entirely while waiting heroically for JJ Abrams to save the franchise, and he did.  This film, especially in the confines of a crowded movie theater, is extremely enjoyable to watch in the moment.  The action is intense, the set pieces are great, and the visual effects never totally abandon the color palette and become a CGI monstrosity (like, say, Jurassic World); the matte work seems to match in many ways what we first saw in a galaxy far, far away.  To put it bluntly, this is a good movie, and not one you're going to force yourself to watch when you prep for Episode VIII in two years.

The problem is that when it takes on A New Hope that I felt a little less enthused once I left the theater, and even as the film progressed it became a bit of an "oh, we're just going to do that again."  I liked the movie, don't get me wrong, and suggest you see it in theaters if you're one of the three people who haven't, but they're just not adding something new to the mix.  Ben Solo (Kylo Ren's real name) is just Anakin or Luke, continually having issues with his father or father figure, and watching Han Solo, one of the most iconic movie characters of all-time go down in a scene we're completely sure he's going to die in is so anti-climactic that it borders on sacrilege.  Is there really no way that we could have done Star Wars again without a son rebelling against his father?  Are there no other plot points in a galaxy far, far away?  The film is exhilarating, and the acting is good (though some people like Isaac and Ford are better than others), but the writing still needs work, and I hope that since I've already mentally spent money on the following two sequels (Disney bought the crack cocaine of movie franchises-no one quits this baby) my goal is that they not only continue to break down gender and racial stereotypes by casting against expectations (Poe could be gay, is all I'm saying here people), but also by defying expectations since we still have Luke and Leia to perhaps subvert the path that we followed in Empire and Jedi.

Those are my thoughts on the latest Star Wars.  I'm positive you've seen it, so why not share your own?  Do you agree with the death of such a beloved character?  Are you in the same boat as I where you were thrilled while watching but kind of wish you'd gotten something new instead of pleasant leftovers?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

The 2015 Kennedy Center Honorees

Ahh, this is too early in the year and I almost missed it (usually it happens around Labor Day)!  The Kennedy Center Honorees for 2015 were announced yesterday and I am so excited about the list.  Of course I naturally gravitate toward the actresses that picked up the honor, so I am super-pumped that Rita Moreno (who has been hunting for this award for eons), as well as living legend Cicely Tyson both made the list (I can't wait to see the dance tributes to Moreno and the inevitably brilliant things Viola Davis, who is a long-professed admirer of Tyson's, will say on the evening).  In addition, we had George Lucas, Star Wars creator, getting the second leg in his Cinematic Life Achievement Triple Crown, along with the Eagles and Carole King providing solid musical relief (heart them both, though especially King as she is a favorite of my mom's).  Oh, and then of course there's poor Seiji Ozawa, who is the honoree no one has heard of and won't get any headlines.  He can take comfort in being arguably the most accomplished conductor from Japan in the last 100 years or so and being the first Japanese person to ever win the Kennedy Center Honor.  Congrats to all of the victors-can't wait for December!

Oscar and the Box Office

For as long as I have been watching the Academy Awards, there has been complaints about how "they don't nominate the movies people actually see," and I have always scoffed at this for a couple of reasons.  For starters, Oscar does frequently have categories (many times including Best Picture) that do honor the films that people line up around the block to get tickets to, and I always have examples each year of a celebrated film that will score big with AMPAS.  Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the Oscars could be a lot more esoteric: look at the (oftentimes very worthy) nominations of the Independent Spirit Awards and there are many times that the Spirit nominations could be more worthy than what's going on with AMPAS.  Still, though, this argument isn't enough for some people, so I decided to go and see: am I right or are they (or, as I suspect will eventually be proven, perhaps we both are, as is the case in so many debates?)

Going back to 1980 (because that's when Box Office Mojo goes back to domestically), I took a look at what the highest-grossing films of the year were as well as where the Best Picture lineup stood with the Box Office.  Let's start the popcorn and begin:

1980

Highest-Grossing Film: Coming off of the initial Star Wars hit three years earlier, it was of little doubt that The Empire Strikes Back would be a major force, earning double that of second place 9 to 5 (yes, a film starring three women in a workplace comedy was the second-highest grossing film of the year-unfathomable in a marketplace that now seems entirely geared toward movies for teenage boys).  Despite being the best of the trilogy, Empire didn't score the Best Picture nomination its predecessor did, but it did get a very respectable three nominations (winning for Best Sound), as well as a special award for Visual Effects.
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?:  Yes-Coal Miner's Daughter was the seventh-highest grossing Best Picture nominee of the year, just out-earning Smokey and the Bandit II.
Where's the Winner?: Ordinary People, the eventual winner, was the eleventh-highest grossing film.

1981

Highest-Grossing Film: Continuing the utter dominance that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg once had on the Box Office, Raiders of the Lost Ark clobbered the competition in 1981.  It also dominated with AMPAS, winning four Oscars (Art Direction, Sound, Film Editing, and a special awards for Visual Effects) and seven nominations (including ones for Best Picture and Director).
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: In addition to Raiders, we had On Golden Pond (#2) and Best Picture winner Chariots of Fire (#7) in the Top 10 for the year.


1982

Highest-Grossing Film: E.T.: the Extra-Terrestrial became the highest-grossing film of all-time in 1982, in a year that relied pretty heavily on sequels.  Like Raiders, E.T. scored another pair of nominations for Best Picture and Director (yet again, Spielberg was involved), and won four Oscars (Sound, Visual Effects, Sound Effects Editing, and Original Score).
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: Once again, the highest-grossing film of the year was a Best Picture nominee.  It was joined by the year's number two film, Tootsie.
Where's the Winner?: The Best Picture winner was at #12 that year, with Gandhi just missing the Top 10.

1983

Highest-Grossing Film: Yet again we have the Lucas/Spielberg machine giving us the top-grosser, the final of the original Star Wars trilogy: Return of the Jedi.  The film won one Oscar (again, for Visual Effects), while scoring four more nominations.
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: Absolutely-the Best Picture winner, in fact.  Terms of Endearment was the second highest-grossing film of the year, a monster hit for Paramount and one of the biggest of Shirley MacLaine and Jack Nicholson's careers.

1984

Highest-Grossing Film: For the first time we get a film not connected to Spielberg or Lucas (but instead to that other Box Office titan Jerry Bruckheimer): Beverly Hills Cop.  This is also the first film to not have won an Oscar but to top the Box Office, getting instead just a nomination for Best Original Screenplay.
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: This is also our first year without a Best Picture nominee making the Top 10.  The highest-grossing Best Picture nominee of the year was Amadeus at Number 12 (it won the Oscar).  One has to assume that if this were ten-wide some Top 10 hits like Ghostbusters (#2), The Karate Kid (#5), or Romancing the Stone (#8) would have been a part of the conversation.

1985

Highest-Grossing Film: We are back to the top-grossing film of the year being an Oscar-winner, with Back to the Future scoring Best Sound Effects Editing, and getting another three nominations (including Best Screenplay, meaning that in a ten-wide field it may have been a nominee for the top prize as well).
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: A huge bounce back from the previous year, three Best Picture nominees were in the Top 10: The Color Purple (#4, and yes that Spielberg magic touch worked once again here), Out of Africa (#5, and the eventual champ), and Witness (#8, proving that Harrison Ford was once the greatest Box Office champ of them all).

1986

Highest-Grossing Film: Of course Ford would soon have competition from one toothy-grinned boy from Syracuse named Tom Cruise, as Top Gun became the mammoth hit of 1986.  The film won four Oscar nominations, winning one (for Best Original Song, and admit it, you just started slow-dancing in your head).
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: The third-highest grossing film of the year was also the Best Picture winner, as Platoon became the only nominee to crack the top ten.

1987

Highest-Grossing Film: Easily the weirdest film to ever top the Box Office, Three Men and a Baby beat more obvious champs like Fatal Attraction and Beverly Hills Cop II to become the highest-grossing movie of 1987.  The Leonard Nimoy-directed hit (yes, Spock directed this movie!) didn't score any Oscar nominations (or any Globe nods, stunningly enough), making it our first top grosser to completely be overlooked by AMPAS.
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: The rest of the Top Ten was pretty kind to the Best Picture lineup, with Fatal Attraction (#2) and Moonstruck (#5) both appearing in the Top 10 alongside likely near-misses The Untouchables (#6) and Good Morning, Vietnam (#4).
Where's the Winner?: Bernardo Bertolucci's epic The Last Emperor became the lowest-ranking Best Picture winner so far by landing #25 on the year-end Box Office charts.

1988

Highest-Grossing Film: After the doldrums of the previous year for AMPAS and the Box Office, we had a complete turnaround, as for the first time in our count, the Best Picture winner became the highest-grossing film of the year: Rain Man.  Winner of four Oscars (it also took Directing, Writing, and Best Actor honors), it just aided the "Tom Cruise is the touch of gold" truth of that period of movie-watching.
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: Of course it did with Rain Man, though that was the only Best Picture nominee in the Top 10 (Working Girl just missed, coming in eleventh).

1989

Highest-Grossing Film: In the first of many comic book movies to top the Box Office, Batman took out Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade at the Box Office.  Batman was outmanned by Indy at the Oscars, however, with the former only getting one nomination (for Art Direction, which it won), while the latter nabbed three nods and a win.
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: Two did, actually: both the eventual Best Picture winner Driving Miss Daisy (#8, a massive hit and yet another non special effects film in the Top 10-unthinkable these days) and Dead Poets Society (#10).

1990

Highest-Grossing Film: This was during that brief period where America couldn't get enough of the spritely Macauley Culkin, as he conquered the Box Office (and two Oscar nominations for Song and Score) in Home Alone.
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: Right behind Home Alone, however, were two Best Picture nominees: Ghost (one of those nominations that seems to have been basically mandated by the American public, and would probably feel like a "Top 10" nomination now were it not for clear proof it was in the Top 5) and eventual victor Dances with Wolves.

1991

Highest-Grossing Film: 1990 was pretty much the end of the "no special effects, no animation" period of the Box Office champs, as Terminator 2: Judgment Day took the top spot at the Box Office (anyone think we might be about to see Arnold Schwarzenegger start to pick up some lifetime achievement awards soon?).  T2 was a huge Oscar hit, however, and picked up six nods and four wins (Sound, Makeup, Sound Effects Editing, and of course Visual Effects).
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: Beauty and the Beast (#3) was not only a bona fide smash hit, but it also was the first animated film to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Picture (it'd be another eighteen years before it happened again with Up).  The Oscar champ Silence of the Lambs was right behind it in fourth.

1992

Highest-Grossing Film: Aladdin couldn't quite pull off the same nomination the year after, but it moved Disney up two slots on the Box Office charts and pulled off number one (it won two Oscars, for Best Song and Best Score, as well as three more nominations).
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: With Demi Moore, Jack Nicholson, and Tom Cruise in the cast (and being that it was 1992) there was no way A Few Good Men wasn't a hit-the film hit #5 on the charts.
Where's the Winner?: Clint Eastwood's magnum opus Unforgiven was just out of reach of the Top 10, landing at Number Eleven.

1993

Highest-Grossing Film: In the year of Spielberg, Jurassic Park was clobbering the competition in first place, earning over $100 million more than second place Mrs. Doubtfire.  Jurassic Park won on all three of its nominations: Sound, Sound Effects Editing, and Visual Effects (which still look incredible-this was a really worthy citation).
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: It's hard to fathom that an historical epic could actually make the Top Ten now, but everyone wanted to see eventual Oscar-night champ Schindler's List, which ended up in ninth place, a bit behind fellow Best Picture nominee The Fugitive (#3).

1994

Highest-Grossing Film: For the first time in six years, the Box Office champion was also the Best Picture of the year: Forrest Gump pulled off thirteen nominations and won six trophies (Picture, Director, Actor, Screenplay, Editing, and Visual Effects).
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: In addition to Gump, Quentin Tarantino's masterwork Pulp Fiction was also in the Top Ten, coming in at the very last slot with tenth.

1995

Highest-Grossing Film: In what was at the time a pretty close battle, Toy Story ended up the victor at the Box Office.  At the time there was buzz that the landmark film (the first full-length computer-animated film) would get a Best Picture nomination, but it had to settle for three nominations (Screenplay, Song, and Score) as well as a special award for John Lasseter.
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: Just one this year, thanks to the massive star power of Tom Hanks audiences everywhere enjoyed Apollo 13, which came in second to Toy Story that year at the Box Office.
Where's the Winner?: Braveheart was a bit of a surprise winner on Oscar night, and was a modest hit at 18th place on the charts.

1996

Highest-Grossing Film: One of those summer's that truly felt made by blockbusters, we had the $300 million Independence Day dominating theaters everywhere (and making Will Smith's permanent mark on the Fourth of July going forward).  The film won one Oscar (Visual Effects) and one more nomination (Best Sound).
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: We're getting to the point where this becomes a bit more reliant on special effects to even make the Top Ten, but we're not quite there yet: Tom Cruise's magnetism in Jerry Maguire got it 4th place that year.
Where's the Winner?: The English Patient may have been part of the "Year of the Indy" but it still made 19th place.

1997

Highest-Grossing Film: Titanic went on to become the highest-grossing film of all-time (people saw it countless times in theaters: I hit five if you count the re-release), scored the Best Picture trophy, and won on eleven of its fourteen nominations.
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: Both As Good As It Gets (#6) and Good Will Hunting (#7) joined Titanic, proving that if given the chance adults will buy tickets at the movies as well.

1998

Highest-Grossing Film: I genuinely forgot that this happened, but Saving Private Ryan actually topped Armageddon in the year-end Box Office, meaning that the 5-time Oscar winner (including Best Director, but famously not Best Picture) is our highest-grossing film of 1998.
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: Aside from SPR, this was a negatory.  The rest of the Top 10 (with films like The Waterboy, Godzilla, and Patch Adams) is a pretty solid embarrassment.
Where's the Winner?: Shakespeare in Love did cross the $100 million mark, but that was only good enough for 18th place.

1999

Highest-Grossing Film: The grand-daddy of the franchise reboots, Star Wars-The Phantom Menace was insanely popular at the Box Office (crossing $400 million domestically, a number that would top the Box Office in most years) and scored three Oscar nods (the blockbuster Holy Trinity of Sound, Sound Effects Editing, and Visual Effects, all of which it lost to The Matrix).
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: Why yes, yes it did.  The Sixth Sense (another movie many people saw multiple times in theaters-that's your ticket, Hollywood-start making films people want to see multiple times again!) was a surprise hit and brought on a Best Picture nomination after its second place finish (it also brought us Lady in the Water, but let's try and forget about that).
Where's the Winner?: American Beauty was also a smash, landing at 13th place with $130 million.

2000

Highest-Grossing Film: Ugh-this is the year The Grinch made it to the top of the Box Office, proving sometimes we all can get it completely wrong (at least we all knew it-does anyone watch this movie anymore?).  The film did score three nominations (winning for Best Makeup), but let's all agree to never speak of it again (unfortunately until we get to the 2000 OVP) and just watch the Boris Karloff classic instead.
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: 2000 was one of the tightest Best Picture races I have ever seen, but the ultimate victor was Box Office hit Gladiator, which came in at Number 4 on the charts.

2001

Highest-Grossing Film: Setting off a series that would spawn eight Top 10 hits on the Box Office charts (...and counting), Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone got the top spot by just $4 million over the silver medalist The Fellowship of the Ring.  The movie scored three nominations (Costume, Art Direction, and Score) but no wins.
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: As I've just mentioned, The Fellowship of the Ring was in second place, and crushed the boy wizard in terms of AMPAS, scoring a Best Picture nod amongst its thirteen nominations.
Where's the Winner?: Just outside the Top Ten at Number eleven (for the curious, that would be Ron Howard's schmaltzy A Beautiful Mind, the worst of the five films in contention that year).

2002

Highest-Grossing Film: Was it Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter that came out on top in the only year that has ever featured all three against each other?  It was actually D, none-of-the-above.  Instead it was Spider-Man, the original non-Andrew Garfield version that swung up $400 million and two nominations (Sound and Visual Effects, though it won neither).
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: There were two, actually-Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers hit second place again for the franchise, while Best Picture victor Chicago snuck in at tenth place at the Box Office.

2003

Highest-Grossing Film: In the last time this has happened (to date), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won both the Box Office crown and the Best Picture trophy, along with ten other Oscars.
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: There were no other nominees in the Top Ten other than Return of the King (Finding Nemo was in second place and that was probably pretty close).  The next highest-grossing picture was Seabiscuit at Number 17.

2004

Highest-Grossing Film: We're back to animated features again, with Shrek 2 (still one of the highest-grossing films of all-time, and probably the one that people talk about the least in that list) getting $440 million at the Box Office and a pair of Oscar nominations (Song and Animated Feature Film...it lost both).
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: For the first time in twenty years, none of the Top 10 highest-grossing films scored a Best Picture nomination.  The highest-grossing would be The Aviator at No. 22.
Where's the Winner?: Coming in just behind The Aviator (as opposed to just ahead like on Oscar night), Million Dollar Baby was at No. 24 with a nice $100 million to boast of.

2005

Highest-Grossing Film: We were back in the world of George Lucas again, as Revenge of the Sith hit the number one slot once more (Attack of the Klones is noteworthy for being the only one of the six films to not dominate the Number One slot for its year, an astounding achievement for the series).  Sadly for Lucas, the film received only one nomination for Best Makeup, and say what you will about the film, but I think it's pretty idiotic that it got snubbed for Best Visual Effects that year in favor of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: 2004 actually kicked off what would be one of the longest-stretches (probably THE longest stretch) of years where AMPAS didn't pick a film in the year's Top 10.  So no, with King Kong missing out on a nomination (the only film that had a remote shot at the top category), the highest-grossing Best Pic nominee was oddly Brokeback Mountain at No. 22.
Where's the Winner?: Sadly Brokeback wasn't the winner, and instead it was Crash, which rose to No. 49.

2006

Highest-Grossing Film: For a brief period in the mid-Aughts we would buy a ticket to everything that Johnny Depp was in-this has since passed (as has any interest from Depp in playing a normal human being again), but that was enough for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest to hit the Numero Uno slot (and to win Best Visual Effects amidst a set of four Oscar nominations).
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: Once again we get a no, with Best Picture winner The Departed getting the closest with a respectable 15th place.  It's worth noting that in a ten-wide field Casino Royale (which was 9th) may well have made it onto the roster.

2007

Highest-Grossing Film: Once again we have Tobey Maguire swinging into Number One, and for only the second time in this write-up, we have a film that couldn't get a single Oscar nomination.  One imagines that it probably would have landed a nomination in a five-wide field for Visual Effects (we were still a couple of years away from that happening), but you would be wrong-the film made the shortlist (Visual Effects at that time had a shortlist of 15 films, then would corner it down to seven for the bake-off before selecting three) but not the bake-off, with 300, I Am Legend, Evan Almighty, and The Bourne Ultimatum all making it to the "just miss" category (all but Evan Almighty made the year's Top 10, and all but The Bourne Ultimatum would go home without an Oscar nomination).
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: No, though in a ten-wide field surely The Bourne Ultimatum would have been a threat.  Still, this is one of the finest Best Picture fields that Oscar ever assembled, so I don't think anyone should be complaining (the highest-grossing was Juno at 15th).
Where's the Winner?: No Country for Old Men came in at 36th, getting just shy of $75 million.

2008

Highest-Grossing Film: So much has been written about how The Dark Knight (in my opinion still the high mark of the superhero genre) didn't get a Best Picture nomination, likely causing the jumbled mess of nominees we see today, but let's be honest here: it clearly just missed and it was amply rewarded; most films would kill to score eight nominations and win two (Supporting Actor and Sound Editing).
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: No, though the streak will soon be over.  We did have near misses in The Dark Knight and WALL-E at the top of the list, though, so this was almost a resounding yes.  The highest-grossing ended up being the winner Slumdog Millionaire (coming in at #16).

2009

Highest-Grossing Film: Once again the highest-grossing film (ever, in this case) managed to top Oscar's charts with Avatar scoring a Best Picture nod amongst its nine nominations (it won three: Visual Effects, Cinematography, and Art Direction).  This is also the third time James Cameron has directed the highest-grossing film of the year, an impressive stat for a man who makes films about once every decade.
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: Aside from Avatar, we also had Up (#5) and The Blind Side (#8), the latter of which is a rare throwback to when the Box Office was driven by domestic dramas.
Where's the Winner?: The lowest-ranking film we'll chart, The Hurt Locker is the best example on this list of a film that no one saw winning a ton of Oscars: it ranked #116 on the year-end Box Office charts, being out-earned by all but two of its competitors.  It's had a solid life on DVD/streaming, however.

2010

Highest-Grossing Film: Continuing our streak, Toy Story 3 managed to land $400 million and a Best Picture nomination when it topped the charts four years ago.  The film won five nominations, winning for two of them (Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song).
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: In addition to TS3, we also had Inception at Number 6 on the charts.
Where's the Winner?: Despite being a non-effects driven drama, The King's Speech made up for a lot of lost time over The Hurt Locker, getting $135 million and 18th place.

2011

Highest-Grossing Film: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 became the second film in the series to nab the top spot, but like all of the films in the series, it missed both for Best Picture and for an actual trophy (it still feels wrong that Harry Potter never won an Oscar, though as the OVP has been revealing so far, I'd likely do the same thing, though I admittedly have a few years left of nominations to suss through).  This installment got three Oscar nominations, though, for Makeup, Visual Effects, and Art Direction.
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: No, it did not-the closest that any nominee got in this extremely franchise heavy list (seriously-every film in the Top 10 was part of a franchise) was The Help at #13.
Where's the Winner?: The Artist hit 71st on the list right between two films I think almost all of us would be hard-pressed to mention the stars of (Hall Pass and Soul Surfer, for the record, proving that Box Office frequently means diddily to the public's memory).

2012

Highest-Grossing Film: Reigniting the trend of comic book movies topping the list, Marvel's The Avengers clobbered the competition and hit $623 million.  They did not, however, get an Oscar win or a Best Picture nod, instead settling for a sole nomination for Visual Effects (which quite frankly the film didn't deserve).
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: Nope once again, though Skyfall and Brave both were close and they were in the Top 10.  It's worth noting that six of the Best Picture nominees crossed the $100 million mark, so it's not like this wasn't a pretty populist year.  Lincoln ended up being the surprise hit of 2012 (Spielberg-what can I say?) and landed 13th, making it the highest-grossing Best Picture nominee.
Where's the Winner?: Argo wasn't too far behind, making it to Number 22.

2013

Highest-Grossing Film: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire won everyone's favorite movie star Jennifer Lawrence the top spot to go along with her many other accolades.  That said, this is the third film on this list to not score an Oscar nod, and considering there are two more films in the series guaranteed to be major successes, this may be a weird streak coming into 2014.
Did a Best Picture Nominee Make the Top Ten?: Absolutely-Gravity landed No. 6 on the list, proving once again that Sandra Bullock is a Box Office powerhouse.
Where's the Winner?: 12 Years a Slave managed to land Number 62 on the year-end list, making over $50 million.

And there you have it-a comprehensive look at the many, many films that made up the Box Office and the Oscars.  Overall, while I kind of see the point of those who claim that the Best Picture race isn't remotely reflective of the Box Office, I have to say that I still feel pretty right.  Almost all of the films that topped the Box Office got at least an Oscar nomination, and almost every year had major hits nominated in the Best Picture race.  And not to chastise, but if we were a bit more discerning in what movies we were throwing our money at (The Waterboy, really?), AMPAS might better reflect public tastes.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Are there any surprises on this list?  Are there any films that should have gotten more/less attention from AMPAS that were Box Office powerhouses?  Share in the comments!