Previously, in 2016

2016: A Look Back

With me hitting my stride (hopefully permanently) with the Oscar Viewing Project I figured I'd kick off 2016 almost immediately after we finished 2015.  My goal will be to get you at least two of these a week, so they will be roughly 2.5 month affairs and we can maybe do 5-6 a year (so that someday we'll actually finish this and not just be doing recent years).  But enough griping-let's go into our TENTH Oscar Viewing Project, 2016.  2016, a year that we all remember like we do a nightmare, whether it was Brexit or Trump causing those doomsday sweats.   We are still hoping to end both of those things, but they still feel like emotional scars at this point.  And of course, we remember the movies...

Box Office

This is what the Top 10 at the (Domestic) Box Office looked like:

1. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
2. Finding Dory
3. Captain America: Civil War
4. The Secret Life of Pets
5. The Jungle Book
6. Deadpool
7. Zootopia
8. Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice
9. Suicide Squad
10. Sing

Did you know that The Secret Life of Pets made that much money?!?  How did this not get an Oscar nomination with that kind of box office?  I actually did relatively poorly here in terms of seeing some of these movies, missing Pets, Batman, and Sing, as well as a handful of other $100 million grossers (Jason Bourne, Central Intelligence, and Independence Day: Resurgence among them), though I honestly don't think I'm missing out on much (any of these movies ones I should actually check out?-share in the comments!).  We had by my count three Oscar Best Picture contenders that crossed $100 million (Hidden Figures, Arrival, and La La Land), so once again while the Top 10 didn't have a Best Picture nominee in the bunch, Oscar stayed pretty darn populist.

The Films I Missed

While I've seen all of the Oscar nominees, I haven't seen every film in 2016.  In addition to the Box Office champs I listed above, I missed a couple of films that got cited by precursors.  Looking at the Globes, they found room for The Edge of Seventeen, War Dogs, Gold, and Sing, while BAFTA & SAG both found citations for Julieta and Jason Bourne.  Other than perhaps Sing (which got more loving than I remembered from the Globes and I might just try because I feel like I should), I don't know that I'll see any of these pictures unless you think one is particularly great.  Share your thoughts in the comments, and then this week get ready to kick off installment ten of our Oscar Viewing Project!