The CultureSlap Awards for 2015

CultureSlap is the twisted alternative take on the world of entertainment...

Part man (Tom Wade @ThinkWade) Part machine - enjoy!!

Top ten lists are great (READ the Darkmatters Top Ten Films of 2015) - but hard to do. What really qualifies a film being number 3 and not number 4, what if I’ve seen a film more than once - did that mean I liked it more? What happens when someone loves a particular film so much that they just ignore all of its flaws and stick it at in the top 3 anyway (Kingsman…)?

Well with that in mind, I decided that this year it’d be easier just to throw some random awards around to celebrate the Good, the Bad and the Entourage…

Best new potential film franchise:

John Wick (Darkmatters review)

Who’d have thought that a film called ‘John Wick’ would have ended up being so good? And who would have thought that Keanu Reeves can still kick butt in 2015? Now if only Keanu could make a John Wick sequel where he goes back in time and beats himself up before he agrees to make the Matrix sequels.

Worst new potential film franchise:

Fantastic Four (Darkmatters review)

Poor Fox. They keep trying. They keep failing. Any film that the director publicly denounces on its day of release is going to have problems (and led to Trank loosing his Star Wars job as well). Hopefully one day we’ll find out exactly what happened… But hey - here’s to the next attempt at Fantastic 4 in 2020!

Best new film that isn’t a reboot:

The Martian (Darkmatters Review)

Made from an excellent book - this combined a witty script and a fantastic central performance from Matt Damon to create an engaging and exciting ride.

Worst attempt at a reboot:

Terminator Genisys (Darkmatters Review)

Another Terminator reboot/sequel/prequel/alternative universe… Another failed attempt at giving the franchise new blood. After the first ten minutes everything is pure drivel.

Best new sequel/reboot

Tied between: Mad Max (Darkmatters review)

and Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Darkmatters review)

Who actually expected Mad Max to be one of (if not the best) the films of the year? An adrenaline filled chase that is like putting red bull directly into your brain (if red bull didn’t taste like cat piss). Star Wars similarly had so much that could go wrong with it and the crushing expectations of (if box office results are to be believed) 99% of the planet. Thankfully it managed to meet and even exceed most of what fans has demanded of it.

Best Vin Diesel film that will never get to 8 instalments:

The Last Witch Hunter

Cool wig though.

Best Vin Diesel film that will get to an 8th instalment:

Fast and the Furious 7

If you sit and think about the Fast and the Furious, it does become hard to separate each film out into their own instalments. It think the most recent one had cars jumping out of planes and Vin Diesel trying to find a sat nav to help him find the person who is already trying to find him. Or something.

Best 3 films you saw that nobody else probably has:

The Lobster

Funny, odd - but not so odd that it removes you from the central idea of humans being turned into animals if they are single - The Lobster is well worth a watch. Ideally with someone who is currently single and depressed about it.

The Forbidden Room

Any film that has vampire bananas in it deserved more widespread acclaim than this film got.

Hard to be a God.

An astronaut visits a mirror planet to earth that (sadly) doesn’t feature Apes, but instead is stuck in the Dark Ages. It’s brutal. Pretty, pretty brutal.

Best Horror film:

It Follows (Darkmatters review)

The sort of film that as soon as you hear the concept, you go ‘why has no one ever done this before?!’ A film that lives with you long after the credits role, it’s creepy and it may just put you off sex for an hour or too.

Best animated film:

Inside Out (Darkmatters review)

This may also be the best film of the year. Pure, unadulterated brilliance from start to finish.

Most intense film:

Sicario (Darkmatters review)

You’ll never look at a traffic jam in the same way ever again.

Biggest surprise film

The Gift

Where did this film come from? A pleasant surprise and a throwback to old skool suspense and twist and turns. Happy face.

Best Sci-Fi film

Ex Machina (Darkmatters review)

I know you could put Star Wars here, but it’s worth mentioning Ex Machina as a tense (essentially a 3 character piece), suspense filled piece that covers the idea of AI Singularity better than any other film that I can remember.

Harshest reviewed film:

Tomorrowland (Darkmatters review)

For some reason everyone wanted to take their turns in pooping on this film. I don’t know why. It’s actually pretty fun - and it features the least annoying child actor this year.

Best Comedy:

Trainwreck

Funny, insightful, brutal and honest. It made everyone stand up and take notice of Amy Schumer, and it’s probably the least annoying Judd Apatow film.

Biggest film that made lots of money that isn’t very good on a second watch:

Jurassic World (Darkmatters review)

Seriously - go watch it again. It’s not as good on a smaller screen - plus the characterisation is as detailed as an Ikea instruction sheet.

Biggest Disappointment:

Avengers 2: Age of Ultron (Darkmatters review)

Not a bad film by any means. But the fact that this ended up just being ‘another film’ means that Whedon and co. didn’t quite manage to find the same magic as before. It also seemed to suffer under the weight of needing to launch a whole new set of films - the whole thing ended up feeling a bit like a trailer for the next Phase. Here’s hoping that Whedon can go away and do a few more personal projects now.

Biggest hype that everyone immediately forgot about a month later: