IHAO on ... Best (and Worst) Films of the Year 2014

I’ve built up to this one for … really no reason.  I mean, I am mostly a film critic here at I Have an Opinion, but I review other stuff, too, and arguably the things I get the most views on are wrestling reviews, and those I did yesterday, but … whatever!  I want to do Best Movies of the Year, all leading up to the actual best film I saw this year, as well as my thoughts on what makes that movie so good.  And I suppose I'll do the Worsts, too, just for fun!

So I suppose I’ll split the "bests" into two categories: best movies I saw all year not in theaters, and then the best films OF the year.  I’ll link to them all and just make life fun and entertaining while I do it.  So let’s take a gander first at every film I’ve reviewed this year that I gave an A+ or higher, all with links now so I don't have to later:

Not in Theaters: Snowpiercer, A Monster in Paris, Saw III, The Human Race, Bee Movie, Altered States, White House Down, Odd Thomas, Rocky III, Rocky II, Rocky, EdTV, Someone Like You, The Wrestler, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Flypaper, Lovelace

In Theaters: Penguins of Madagascar, John Wick, Birdman or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance, Maze Runner, Guardians of the Galaxy, Hercules, Oculus, Captain America: the Winter Soldier

I suppose now, I’m just going to go ahead and to the top 5, counting down to the best in each category, and talk a little more about them!  It should be known that this list is going to be a cumulative list.  By that I mean that it will be my best to combine both what I think is the highest quality and what I liked the most.   You with me?  Fantastic, let’s do this.

Not in Theaters Number 5: Rocky III

I loved watching the Rocky films this year.  It was so amazing to learn that my opinion of what a Rocky film was, based on the clips of III and IV I had seen, had no real relation to what the series is actually about.  That said, Rocky III did the sports drama the absolute best I’ve ever seen, without losing any of the character drama that Rocky gave us.  It picked up its pace and became a fantastic film in its own rights, the last great Rocky film.  Clubber Lang is an incredible character, the story so perfectly finishes up the major trilogy of the Rocky stories, and the color and film work is just fantastic.  I really love the franchise now, and Rocky III just makes it into the top 5.

Not in Theaters Number 4: Lovelace

Amanda Seyfried was phenomenal.  She deserved an Oscar nod.  And on top of that Lovelace is a complicated film.  It isn’t just a biopic about the woman from Deepthroat.  It is a really well written, well acted, well plotted film.  We don’t just amble along linearly, no, instead the film works its magic through excellent editing and pacing to really help us the audience get a deeper experience.  Lovelace was an amazing film, and I am so happy to have seen it and to now own it.

Not in Theaters Number 3: The Wrestler

With all the wrestling talk I’ve done this year, I am so happy to have finally checked this film out.  Darren Aronofsky continues to be one of my favorite directors.  This is a quiet film that is real and touching.  You see real professional wrestlers talking backstage, the curtain behind an industry that is still shrouded in some small bits of mystery in a fascinating way.  It is a character driven film, which I always love, and Randy the Ram lives on as a real character.  I believe that it is him.  Watching this film and learning more and more about life for older wrestlers, it is heartbreaking and personal.  It is an amazing film.

Not in Theaters Number 2: Rocky

Yeah, the third film made it on the list too.  And Rocky II sits at number 6, just so you know.  Rocky won Best Picture in 1976, but also Best Director, and even more interesting, Best Editing.  Best editing nowadays is a joke category, generally given to the films that indeed have the most edits in them.  But when really treated like it is an art form, excellent editing creates tension, it drives story, and it fuels emotion.  Rocky is an incredible film, an incredible drama about one of the most likable characters in film history. 

Recently, I was watching a video that pondered the question: “If aliens came to earth, and you could show all of them one film to sum up all of humanity, what movie would you show them?”  And Rocky was my answer.  The story of the true meaning of the human spirit, not to win or destroy, but to survive, to go the distance.  The story of a man who wasn’t the brightest, nowhere close in fact, but a man who worked and tried, and was given a chance.  The story of a man who fell in love, and who goes through the entire human spectrum of emotion.  A perfect film.

Not in Theaters Number 1: Snowpiercer

So how can another movie top a perfect film from 1976?  By being a more stylized, deeper, more thought-provoking thrill ride of emotion, color, and crisp art.  Snowpiercer IS art.  It is the best modern film I’ve seen this year, maybe the best actual film I’ve ever seen.  It is deep, it is funny, it is violent, it is thoughtful, it is mesmerizing, it is filled with amazing characters, it is chockfull of tension, it is supremely well directed and edited, it has amazing music, it has amazing visuals, it has amazing acting, it has amazing actors.  It is dark, but hopeful.  It is creepy, but understandable.  It is human, but entirely foreign.  And it shocked me with how many clever turns and twists it could take without ever resulting in cheap storytelling or plot convenience.  It is the best film I saw this year … not in theaters.

((-=-))

I’m incredibly happy with that list.  But I have two more lists to go.  First, the best films OF the year!  The films that I saw in theaters that blew me away and were absolutely ones I want to own (and many of them I do!), I want to share with others, and deserve awards.

Number 5: Oculus

Just narrowly beating out Captain America: the Winter Soldier for the number 5 slot is one of the scariest, most intense, most inventive new horror films I’ve ever seen.  See, I’m a Dungeons and Dragons lover, and my game world of choice is Ravenloft, a gothic horror inspired set.  And Oculus hits every single one of my buttons, and does something that very few films has ever done well: it uses perception and illusion as the ultimate crux of the horror.  Oculus is absolutely terrifying, and beyond that, has Karen Gillan giving a really fantastic performance.  The film isn’t gory, it isn’t foul, it isn’t sexist, it doesn’t have any of the pitfalls most horror movies fall into.  It is clever, horrifying, and an amazing experience. 

Number 4: Maze Runner

This is probably controversial, and in fact I may be the only film critic to put this film this high on their year’s end lists.  But I don’t care, I think Maze Runner doesn’t get enough credit.  Maze Runner is deceptively simple, and is more than likely ignored for that fact.  Its simplicity is not a negative, but a positive, as its story is fueled by its simple setup of a dystopian future.  The film is societal in nature, with incredible, memorable characters, all of which were young adults!  That is NOT a common statement.  The film is also beautiful, with an amazing sense of size and color without feeling unnatural, even though you know it is.  The last … few minutes of plot are truly unnecessary, and a bit of a let down, but they make up such a small percentage that even they don’t kill the film for me.  I really suggest everyone give this clever, yet simple science fiction film a chance.

Number 3: John Wick

I want to curse and yell and shoot guns in the air!  This is the best straight action movie I’ve seen in probably 5 years.  It is cool and sophisticated and clever and original.  It has fantastic acting from all sorts of guys that many do not give a chance, especially Keanu Reeves who is a criminally underrated actor that was finally able to really show all his skill and all his range in a film.  The action sequences are tight, exhilarating, and awesome to behold.  The plot is an awesome take on a pretty standard story that breathes new life into the film.  The villains are vile, and our hero is almost as bad, but yet we root for him!  The movie does such a tremendous job of getting us into John Wick’s head and really falling for the character.  This film could have easily gotten number 2, and some days I could even argue it was the best film I saw all year.

Number 2: Guardians of the Galaxy

Of course this movie is on the list.  In fact, me not putting it at number 1 might shock some of my readers.  Guardians of the Galaxy is the first space opera since the original Star Wars films that actually worked.  It is grandiose, it is hilarious, it is action-packed, it has just a touch of romance, it has amazing visuals you just want to sink into, it has memorable characters that will never leave the zeitgeist, and it is more than just a standard summer blockbuster.  It is a smart movie with a theme and a plot that culminates not with a fire or a storm, but with a whisper, to paraphrase the bible some what sacrilegiously.  Every time I watch the movie, I am in awe.  It is in fact the only movie I saw in theaters more than once this year.  A movie that beats this one would have to be something really special …

Number 1: Birdman, or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance

Birdman is the most well-made film I saw all year.  Period.  Every actor, every scene, every line, every performance, every bit of the amazingly cool jazz drum score, every  camera move, every special effect, every. Single. Detail. Of this film was thought out and superbly crafted.  This film is one of the hardest films to talk about this year as well.  It is a film that every time I talk about it and some asks me to tell them what it is about, I have to ask “do you mean ‘what’s the plot’ or ‘what’s the movie about?’”  It is a deep, artistic film that covers every single aspect of the film making and dramatic process, from writing to production to acting to directing to set building to being a PA to personal lives of the creative to what it means to be past your prime to journalism and criticism to being an audience member.  Every single person who has ever been a part of a play or a musical or a dance recital or in some part of the film making process needs to see this film.  It is absolutely my film of the year, even more so because it represents for me a profound and dense statement about films this year, with its focus on how you interact with the world, what entertainment becomes popular, and what all work goes into a production.  Michael Keaton is my actor of the year.  Alejandro González Iñárritu is my director of the year.  Birdman is my cinematography of the year.  And it is absolutely the film of the year!

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Well, that was fantastic.  I love positive thoughts an opinions.  And … I know everyone loves  a train wreck of awfulness.  So let me talk about the worst films I was forced to watch this year, and my pick for the worst film of 2014.

Just like before, here’s a wonderful list of every film I gave at least an F- to : See No Evil 2, Saw: the Final Chapter, MacGruber, Popeye, Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat, The Starving Games, Leonard Part 6, Brazil

Here we go, Top 5 worst films I’ve seen this year.  God help me.

Worst Film Number 5: Saw: the Final Chapter

This movie makes me so sad.  It just … it craps on every single thing that the entire six films before it had done as a franchise.  Its film quality, its storytelling, its creativity, its acting … Ugh.   All of the Saw films before this one had some surprisingly good actors in them.  But in this film, Cary Elwes is officially a WORSE actor for having been in it, and he is the BEST PART of this abomination.  How is it not any farther up this list?  Because I can at some point see myself watching this again, because no matter what happens, it is a part of a franchise, and I will eventually watch it once more.  The next four I will never, EEEEEEEEEEVER watch a-gain!

Worst Film Number 4: Popeye

Rest in Peace Robin Williams.  With that out of the way, this film is horse-crap.  It doesn’t make any sense, is filled with terrible musical moments and no dancing of any worth, none of the fun of a Popeye cartoon is in it at all, and is just plain old ugly.  Even Williams’ Popeye is muttering hard to understand fool more akin to Donald Duck on Quaalude than Popeye.  I will give it this, it has real nice sets.  In fact, that’s the only reason it isn’t any higher on this list.

Worst Film Number 3: MacGruber

Good cinematography.  Completely wasted, always moving, always fake and “cinema” looking but perfectly fine in skill cinematography.  That is the only good thing I have to say about the worst SNL film ever made.  They took a sketch that always took place only in the countdown of a bomb going off and wrapped an entire film around the ad libs and curse words and sex jokes of one of the least funny actors in recent SNL history.  Don’t get me wrong, Will Forte is a funny writer, he wrote for That 70s Show and such.  But this film is utter trite nonsense and garbage.  The fact that there are two films worse than this that I saw this year clearly means that this year was filled with pain like you wouldn’t believe.

Worst Film Number 2: Leonard Part 6

Ugh.  If MacGruber is a parody film done wrong, then Leonard Part 6 is all the deleted scenes from that terrible parody sprayed down with skunk stench and let out to dry.  Almost literally actually, since there are ACTUAL BLOOPERS MONTAGED INTO THE FILM.  This film makes Ghost Dad look like an Oscar contender for Bill Cosby.  And that is not a good thing.  I cannot say a single good thing about this movie except that it isn’t as bad as …

Worst Film Number 1: Dr. Seuss’ the Cat in the Hat

That is this whole movie.  That right there.   Look at it.

Desperate attempts to make us laugh.  Mike Myers laughs so much in the movie in this vain attempt to make me believe he is telling jokes.  He isn’t, though.  He isn’t telling any jokes, or doing anything even remotely related to humor. 

This is without a doubt the worst film I’ve seen this year.  In fact, it is probably the worst film I’ve ever seen.  This film is the benchmark for terrible films.  If a movie is worse than this … I’m going to be very upset and very depressed, because I know I’m going to have to watch it in Torture-Jessel-a-Thon 2 next year.

Ahem.

And now, ladies and gentle-readers, I would like to present to you, the worst film of the year.  The movie that I saw in theaters and absolutely was terrible beyond every single other film …

The Worst Film of 2014: Dumb and Dumber To

I could just post all the gifs again, but really, just follow this link.  That is an entire review summed up in ten or so pictures.  This movie was awful.  And even worse, it wasn’t awful enough to have the courtesy and be worse than any of the other five movies on the worst list.  That almost makes me madder.  To be a movie that is so incredibly stupid that it is worse than Interstellar this year absolutely deserves you an award.  The “Go Away and Die” award.

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Thank you everybody, I hope you enjoyed this film wrap-up of the year 2014.  But I’m not done.  Tomorrow, I have a list of 48 categories for “best of the year” that I need to answer, including everything from “best episode of television” to “best seasoning.”  Yeah, it is gonna be a weird stupid list.  I’ll see you tomorrow!

IHAO on ... Wrestling Bests of the Year 2014

Man has wrestling been rough and exhilarating at the same time.  This year, TNA all but died, got a new home for the new year, and will be starting over.  Lucha Underground started and is really starting to make huge waves as they build up to their big AZTEC WARFARE match at the beginning of 2015.  NXT has been destroying WWE so thoroughly in quality and in skill that WWE morale is incredibly low.  And Vince in a live podcast buried everyone who wasn’t Bray Wyatt or the Shield.  WWE PPVs have slowly gotten worse and worse, and so many of the top guys or close to the top guys have gotten injured, fed up and quit, show up only once every month if we are lucky, or are just veterans who have no business continuing in the main events or upper echelon of the company. 

A lot has happened in 2014.  And with the help of some readers, I’ve compiled a list of “Of the Year” categories.  I’ve also got some garbage joke ones, and I’ll answer those at the end, because I refuse to not answer them, though I would like to actually talk about stuff like a real reviewer first, ok Mom?!

Here we go:

Best Jobber

A jobber in wrestling terms is a guy whose job is to lose to put over their competition.  They may have a name and a gimmick, but they are not a featured player or character.  Their job is to lose so that we can learn the schtick of the other guy.  The best jobber is one that bumped well, was interesting, left an impression, but never overshadowed the talent they were enhancing.  This year’s Best Jobber is …

Blue Pants

Blue Pants is actually Leva Bates, a female wrestler in the Indy’s who seems to be a friend of the female trainer for the NXT Divas and came in to do a terrible favor: to lose to someone else.  But Blue Pants put  on her Kitty Pride cosplay, came out to no music, introduced to the crowd by the most charismatic G in NXT, Enzo Amore, and sparred with the debuting Carmella.  Carmella looked great, Blue Pants looked good and rolled with the role, and returned for another match, once more jobbing to Carmella, but this time the fans cheered and chanted for Blue Pants, Blue Pants, Blue Pants!

 

Honorable Mentions:  Kane, the Undertaker

Most in need of a Gimmick Change

Oh goodness.  Why did I put this so high on this list?  All right, so lots of wrestlers get repackaged or work with what they are given.  Some have great gimmicks, some are basically gimmick-less and just play themselves, and some flounder in their gimmick.  Ezekiel Jackson had a terrible gimmick and terrible matches in the WWE, but now in Lucha Underground as Big Ryck, he is treated like a monster, and his cigar grinding and “brawling, not wrestling” approach changes everything about the promotion, and it was just a simple gimmick change (and company switch, but shh).  This year, the award for the wrestler most in need of a gimmick change is …

The Usos

Don’t look at me, I absolutely thought I’d be putting John Cena or Randy Orton here.  But let me ask you, oh reader, what is the Usos gimmick? 

Think about it.  Samoans?  I dunno, they don’t really talk about it other than their opening chant, which then doesn’t affect anything other than throwback moves to their father.  Is it that they are twins?  They wear face paint to make it absolutely clear which one is which.  Is it as the good guy champs of the Tag Division?  They sure don’t get to talk or really do anything to show that other than be in EVERY SINGLE CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH for the tag titles.  The last time they didn’t wrestle for the WWE Tag Titles was Summerslam, and that’s because there wasn’t a tag title match on the show.  The same holds true for most PPVs this year.  But to be in every title match for so long, and still be just … those colorful guys that are good guys and have the same match all the time … that is infuriating. 

They need something.  An edge.  A heel turn.  A manager.  ANYTHING.  SOMETHING.

Honorable Mentions: Bayley, AJ Lee, Randy Orton, John Cena, Bull Dempsey, Mojo Rawley

Most Disappointing Release

Folks get fired every year.  For lots of reasons.  Some quit, some get injured and retire, and some just fail drug tests or hit women or something.  And sometimes guys get fired or leave or whatever and they had so much more they could have done!  This year, the most disappointing release goes to …

Josh Mathews

The main WWE commentary is the pits.  It is just absolute and utter garbage.  They have some talented dudes around that can do good play-by-play and good color, but the worst release for me was Josh Mathews.  He was a really good play-by-play guy, if a little bland and personality-less, but he played well with JBL, unlike Cole and Lawler, as well as some of the newer commentary guys like Byron Saxton, Alex Riley, and Scott Stanford.  For a short time Mathews was doing the PPVs and doing a real solid job.  But he was never given a real chance to do things as the lead commentator in a big way. 

And what’s happening for him now?  He will be the new voice of the WWE’s largest not-in-house competition on the new Impact Wrestling on Destination America.  And he’s going to do a great job there, because he won’t have Vince yelling in his ear, Michael Cole saying stupid things to him as heel color, and a company behind him that is trying as hard as it can to improve.  Who knows if it will, but this is a bad blow for us WWE fans because we are stuck with the same garbage we currently have instead of what we could have had.  And that is absolutely disappointing.

Honorable Mentions: Evan Bourne, Aksana, Drew McIntyre

Heel Turn of the Year

Sometimes good guys go bad.  Sometimes relationships end.  Sometimes a new villain arises from the ranks of the heroes.  And that is professional wrestling in a nutshell.  A great heel turn makes both people in that turn a bigger star, like the Rock at Survivor Series 1998.  A bad heel turn doesn’t matter, like Cesaro’s hip-hopping from fan favorite to heel for Heyman to cheered for to made obscure and held down to dwindle away what started as a great year.  But that’s neither here nor there.  The Heel Turn of the Year is …

Seth Rollins

There was no other choice.  Seth Rollins broke up the Shield, won Money in the Bank, became the true heel that HHH needed to work for him against all those pesky do-gooders in the roster.  Rollins has been the fixture of the bad guys every week, has rolled with the punches and changed every week, and has been about the only good thing to come from this whole Authority storyline that has lasted a year too long.  And he is only going to move upwards.

Honorable Mentions: Kevin Owens, Chavo Guerrero, Nikki Bella

Pageantry of the Year

Paige is my good friend.  And I got her into wrestling because she fell in love with Dusty Rhodes and his yellow polka dots.  She loves the ridiculous characters, the spectacle, and the huge stories.  She loves the guys with the PAGEANTRY.  And she asked me for my pick for Pageantry of the Year.  That one’s easy …

Finn Balor

Holy monster-under-the-bed crap, look at this glorious video! ((EDIT: Ok, so the video I wanted to share, that I had shared a lot, has been taken down by the WWE.  I put the official WWE video, but it is more edited and also doesn't have enough of the Ascension's reactions to it, but I think it'll do enough for you to get my point.))  I don’t care if you hate wrestling, love wrestling, whatever.  THIS is an entrance.  THIS is special!  THIS is thrilling and ridiculous and wonderful!  And it cannot be topped.  Well, it could have been, if Sting had given a damn and came down from the rafters or they gave him anything beyond just walking out to generic garbage rock music instead of his actual theme at Survivor Series.  BAH!

Finn Balor, before he was Finn Balor, was known for this kind of thing, this kind of pageantry.  It is not his gimmick, he just goes a little harder on special occasions, and that makes it even better than being Stardust who never turns it off.

Honorable Mentions: Stardust at all, Mil Muertes, Baron Corbin

Tag Team of the Year

Tag team wrestling hasn’t been important to the WWE for a long time.  But recently things are changing.  And since my limited scope only has time to watch WWE and NXT plus Lucha Underground (I’m gonna watch Impact in the new year, gah, gimme a break, I only have so many hours in an insomnia-afflicted night to watch stuff, guys!), I already know who the Tag Team of the Year is …

The Ascension

Face?  Heel?  Who cares!  These guys kick our butt, have an aura of awesome, and legitimately make me mark out, which does not happen often any longer.  When they rip apart jobbers, everyone is yelling along with every kick and pin count YA YA YA!  And when they are put against a real team, they show that they can actually go and show a lot of skill and character.  Watch Konnor’s reactions to Finn Balor in the video I linked to above, they are priceless.   The Ascension is about to debut and shake up the WWE Tag Division, and I cannot wait.  I cannot wait for them and the Brothers of Dust-struction.  I cannot wait for them to rip the Usos in half.  I cannot wait for them to dominate the division and actually make people care beyond the antics of Damien Mizdow.

Honorable Mentions: The Certified Gs Enzo Amore and Big Cass, the Brothers of Dust-struction

Gimmick of the Year

A great gimmick is one that makes it clear what your character is.  It lets audiences understand your character quickly and efficiently.  A gimmick is creative lubricant that makes a wrestler better.  A GREAT gimmick takes a mediocre wrestler and makes them extraordinary.  A terrible gimmick takes a great wrestler and reduces them to Adam Rose.  But what exactly is the Gimmick of the Year …

Enzo Amore and Big Cass

That right there is Enzo Amore, and he is a certified G, and a bona fide stud, and you can’t. teach. that.  And this right here is Big Cass, and he’s seven foot tall, and you can’t. teach. that.  And if you don’t like them, then you are probably S-A-W-F-T, saaaaaaawwwwft!

These guys take the awful Jersey Shore gimmick and breathe life into it like you cannot believe.  Probably because they live that gimmick; that is who they are, turned up to 11.  That’s the best gimmick.  That’s the Rock, that’s Mankind, that’s Stone Cold, that’s Kevin Nash, that’s Ric Flair, that’s what you want from an incredible gimmick.  These guys are big stars without ever having to win matches or show up all the time.  Because when they do show up, the electricity is palpable in the arena.  They have so much in front of them.  And it isn’t just the “Jersey Shore” aspects.  It’s Big Cass’ size and stature, but being cool like Big Daddy Cool Diesel.  It’s Enzo, trying so hard, even though the only offense he has is punching a few times and kicking around when he talks.  They are a great team, and will only get better.

Honorable Mentions: Damien Mizdow, Erick Rowan Genius, the Ascension

Most Improved WWE Superstar (no NXTers)

I technically didn’t want to do this one because I wanted to talk about wrestling as a whole.  But let’s be fair, I mostly watched WWE this year.  So I can easily do this one.  Now, what do I think is important to “most improved?”  I would say that I as a viewer was turned around on them, that their gimmick synced in better than before, their ring work got better, and their promo works improved.  Since I cannot do NXT guys, that is going to sorely hurt who I can talk about.  So I guess that leaves only one option …

Nikki Bella

Brie was positioned to be the big star of the Divas division along with Paige.  But things got off track because, frankly, Brie is a terrible face and Steph is a fantastic heel, so Brie never took off.  She coasted along on her husband’s popularity after Wrestlemania, but she was soon overtaken by her heel turning sister.  Nikki has improved in the ring in a huge way, having a new moveset as a power diva that is impressive and really fun and different to watch from the normal “run at you, pull your hair” Summer Rae garbage.  On top of that, her personality is starting to really shine through.  She isn’t just a “Bella Twin,” she’s Nikki.  If you need more proof, Brie turned heel just recently to go back to being with Nikki instead of the “triumphant” babyface she was supposed to be.  And now Nikki is Diva’s Champion for the WWE.  That says a lot, and makes me happy.

Honorable Mentions: Tyson Kidd

Even By WWE Standards This Makes No Sense

This was a weird one, and I was going to throw this into the joke categories below, but as I thought about it, there really is an interesting thing here to talk about.  WWE Standards means standard WWE wrestling and television.  And that means that whatever I am to talk about here needs to be ludicrous.  And I am pretty sure I know what wins the award for the E.B.W.S.T.M.N.S. …

Looney Tunes antics stopping Dean Ambrose

Dean Ambrose is the top face in the company right now.  He has the audience in his hands.  He is Stone Cold just before Austin made it to the top.  He is physical, engaging, with great character and gimmick and promos and movesets and an amazing look and … he is treated like utter trash, especially on PPVs.  Let me just share some of the ridiculous things that have happened to Dean Ambrose in just the past few months:

This is just bonkers.  It makes him look weak, as he constantly loses big matches and loses feuds by moving on to new feuds.  You cannot build your company this way!  WWE, look, you have a face the fans LOVE rooting for and seeing, why are you forcing Roman Reigns down our throats instead of using the already popular Dean Ambrose, a man who out sold ALL OTHER WRESTLERS on Black Friday for your company in merchandise?!  Ridiculous.

Honorable Mentions: Not mentioning NXT on Raw, 25 minute promos to main events and no promos for anyone else

Face of the Year

Babyfaces are the wrestlers you cheer for.  They aren’t necessarily good guys, but they are the ones the fans love.  Many times they are heroes, or at least they are wronged, or their obstacles are understandable, but not always.  It is hard to really explain the difference between hero, protagonist and babyface.  But there certainly is an easy thing for me to answer, and that’s who is the Face of the Year …

TIE: Adrian Neville and Sami Zayn

These two guys have spent one whole year building a feud that just recently culminated.  Both men have been the top guys of NXT.  Sami Zayn was, until just recently, the uncrowned champion, the people’s champion of NXT.  Adrian Neville, on the flipside, was the actual champion of NXT, the face of the brand, and the fighting-est, most honorable and skilled champion for nine months.  The two guys were part of amazing matches all year, have incredible reporte with the audience, and drove the entire brand of NXT to be as awesome as it is.

Their feud for these past few months have been some of the most tense feuds I’ve seen.  Their friendship, their rivalry, the way that Neville slowly became more and more heelish as he continued to do fight and fight for his championship, which is all he has ever done, and as Sami Zayn worked harder and harder to prove he was capable of being the top guy.  And in the end, after Neville became as heelish as he ever had been, he was redeemed by his friendship with Zayn, and then the very next week was the fighting warrior who was forgiven by the audience as he tried to redeem himself against the awful heel who destroyed Zayn’s beautiful win.

These two guys deserve this “award” and designation.  Daniel Bryan never had the company behind him.  Reigns became a caricature of himself over the course of three months, then was injured and gone.  Dean Ambrose only came into his own in the last third of the year.  John Cena is awful.  Lucha Underground is too new to really have Johnny Mundo or Sexy Starr or Prince Puma at the top.  These two deserve it, and there were no other choices.

Heel of the Year

Every face needs a heel.  Every heel needs a heel.  And even more, every fan needs a heel.  The story of wrestling, the thing that makes wrestling so magical doesn’t work if there isn’t a heel.  That guy who may do nothing wrong, never be a villain, but is always booed.  The ultimate obstacle, the ultimate other choice.  Cheating, or being a rules lawyer, being a monster or a chicken-crap-coward, there is no singular way to be a heel, and all of them are good, as long as the audience fully stays against them.  You won’t see Bray Wyatt as the winner here because it was only recently he acted as true heel  ignoring and hating the audience, actually getting boos.  No, there is only one (two) people who deserve this award …

Triple H and Stephanie McMahon

They are perfect as heels.  They knew this way back at the turn of the millennium, and they are back doing it amazingly again.  Stephanie is so perfect, and had an amazing match with Brie after almost a decade out of the ring.  Triple H bumped for Brie, did the job for Daniel Bryan, fought hard for his control, was a huge obstacle for everyone, and the two of them were perfect as the bad guys on top.  Last year, I couldn’t say that at all.  Really, it was just this year, it was just them running the show, tricked into giving Daniel Bryan a chance at Wrestlemania where he SUCCEEDED against every odd, but then splitting up the Shield, but then losing the legitimate power of Batista just before he became an enormous commodity, but then they put down the pressure and made life terrible for every face, until Survivor Series where the faces FINALLY beat them!  It was perfect, and these two deserve to be the Heels of the Year.

Now I want to see Adrian Neville and Sami Zayn v. Triple H and Steph as a feud.

Honorable Mentions: Tyson Kidd, Seth Rollins, Don Cueto

IHAO's Top 5 Matches of the Year

This is the thing that matters most.  This is the one.  The Top 5 matches of the Year.  The 5 matches that matter most, that are the pinnacle of wrestling this year.  I reviewed most of them for this site, but let’s not spoil it.  I could talk and talk about these matches, but really, their quality is what matters to me, and I want you guys to just go watch them yourselves.  Let’s go:

Honorable Mentions: Johnny Mundo v. Prince Puma v. Big Ryck Triple Threat Ladder Match @ Lucha Underground s01e07

5) Daniel Bryan v. Bray Wyatt @ Royal Rumble 2014

4) Adrian Neville v. Sami Zayn @ NXT Takeover: (R)Evolution

3) Daniel Bryan v. HHH @ Wrestlemania 30

2) Charlotte v. Natalya @ NXT Takeover

1) Adrian Neville v. Tyson Kidd @ NXT Takeover

I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention one more time how disheartened, depressed, and saddened I am because of the Ultimate Warrior’s sudden death just after he finally cleared his entire name with the WWE, entered the Hall of Fame, and gave an amazing speech the Raw after, before passing away.  God bless his family, and may he rest in peace.  Thank you, Warrior.

“No WWE talent becomes a legend on their own. Every man's heart one day beats its final beat. 

His lungs breathe a final breath. And if what that man did in his life makes the blood 

pulse through the body of others and makes them bleed deeper and something larger than life 

then his essence, his spirit, will be immortalized. By the story tellers, by the loyalty, by the memory

 of those who honor him and make the running the man did live forever. 

You, you, you, you, you, you are the legend markers of Ultimate Warrior. 

In the back I see many potential legends. Some of them with warrior spirits. 

And you will do the same for them. You will decide if they lived with the passion and intensity. 

So much so that you will tell your stories and you will make them legends, as well. 

Ultimate. You are the Ultimate Warrior fans. 

And the spirit of the Ultimate Warrior will run forever!" ~ The Ultimate Warrior

 ---

Curt Hennig Award for Best Match While Injured – Ryback, why not

Ironic JR Award for Maximizing Your Minutes – Damien Mizdow

Best Bow Tie – This one, I guess

Greatest Surprise Grunt – Uh … “ooergh!” ((EDIT: I thought of a non-joke answer, "SKRONK!"  RIP Warrior))

Best Beard – Ziggler’s

Wrestler Who Would Most Benefit From Growing a Beard – Erick Rowan

IHAO on ... 2014 - a Year in Review Prologue

*Blows a stupid plastic horn and throws confetti*

By the time Thursday rolls along, we will be in a brand new year!  2014 has been a pretty great year, but at the same time an incredibly difficult one in a lot of very personal ways.  It has been filled with wonderful entertainment as well as some real garbage.  Insomnia and depression, but great friends and times spent with loved ones.  And, most importantly, it has been the first (almost) full year of steadfast reviewing I've done.  I've learned a lot in this year, and I have bigger and better things planned for the future, including new kinds of articles and editorials, a facebook fanpage, a new potential for fan subscriptions to support IHAO, and a lot more reviews.

With so much having happened, I have a lot to cover.  So I am writing THREE “Of the Year” articles for 2014: Wrestling, Film, and Everything-Else!  I asked my friends on Facebook to provide categories for the Wrestling and Everything-Else articles, and the Films will be an actual gathering of the best (and worst) I've seen for this site this year.  I hope to see everyone commenting and enjoying themselves all week before we jump into a brand new year with new reviews starting on January 5^th (or maybe a little sooner!).  See you tomorrow for WRESTLING BEST OF THE YEAR 2014!

~Jessel

Time to clean up that confetti

IHAO on ... Scrooge

I do not like the Christmas Carol.

Yes, yes, I'm a heathen, I'm wrong, I should be punished, yadda yadda yadda.  I do not like the story of a Christmas Carol.  While there are adaptations that have warmed my heart, like the Muppets and Mickey, most leave me cold, like Patrick Stewart's, Kelsey Grammar's, George C. Scott's, the list goes on.  But there is an old 1970s version, staring Sir Alec Guinness and Albert Finney which I have never seen, and for some people, it is there definitive version of the story!  So I strapped on my big boy pants, sat down, and got ready with a clear conscience to give this one a shot.  And ... it was fine.

Yeah, I was expecting something bigger.  But it was just ... fine.  It just kind of averaged out to a fine film.  And I say "averaged out" on purpose, because there is some stuff I love, and some stuff that I really hated.  And sometimes they are the same thing, actually.

Like ... let's talk about "scope."  Scope in a film is how enormous or small something feels.  Lord of the Rings films have ENORMOUS scope, and their influence vastly changed the scope of most films, making many adventure and fantasy films enlargen their scope when a smaller scope suited the story better.  Look at the Walden Media Chronicles of Narnia films.  They tried to emulate that enormous scope of the Lord of the Rings films, when those are really much smaller more intimate stories that use scope sparingly to really emphasize their points in the books and earlier, far superior adaptations.  And Scrooge's scope is very large.  It makes London feel bustling and big, and truly I loved that in the beginning, seeing the thriving city and the enormous sets.  But then you reach Scrooge's house where it is just ... empty space.   Or the scene where he walks through the city, finding people that owe him money and you start to get lost in a sea of faces that are hard to remember.  And all the pathos you are supposed to have for the Cratchets gets lost because of the soup man, and the puppet guy, and the old ladies, and the annoying kids.  And you reach the musical numbers which are all just huge and ... impersonal.  Or even worse, detrimental.

"Thank You Very Much" is such a bitter song because Scrooge doesn't get the joke.  He doesn't know what the people are really saying, and the entire song and filming of the sequence is ENORMOUS.  The entirety of this little burb of London is singing and mocking Scrooge.  Compare that with the scene from the Muppets Christmas Carol, where Scrooge watches in as his maid sells his curtains.  In the Muppets version (which I do believe is much closer to the written story, by the way) you watch as Scrooge starts to piece together that this is a future where he is dead, filling him with dread.  But with "Thank You Very Much" he doesn't get that.  Scrooge doesn't see that at all, he just goes along merrily, and the point loses all its nuance.  And then he goes to hell.

Oh yeah, he goes to hell in Scrooge.

Albert Finney is really good ... but also is directed to be very broad.  Everyone is.  Everyone's acting is just as broad as can be.  The nice people are the nicest.  The mean people are the meanest.  The jovial Scrooge at the end is big and just silly with joy!  And that is ... boring.  There isn't anything interesting, like with Uncle Scrooge from Mickey's Christmas Carol pretending to still be mean (again, a scene I do believe is in the original story) but having the hardest time because he is BURSTING WITH JOY!  That bursting is like ... ok, here's the difference between the acting.  Finney, in that final scene, is a bucket of joy.  Just a whole bucket that is filled with joy, and you can see it.  But Uncle Scrooge is a water hose of joy that is all kinked up as the joy builds up pressure trying to push its way out.  And the Uncle Scrooge version is just plain old better and more interesting as acting.

I think Scrooge is a very average film, filled with large, broad brushstrokes of skill.  It is not subtle, it is not realistic, and it loses all those little details that makes good adaptations of a Christmas Carol so great.  Scrooge is in no way bad.  But for me, it gets lost in the shuffle, and I cannot honest say that I really ever want to see it again.  If it was on, I may watch part of it.  But I'm much more likely to turn it off, or put on a version of a story I hate that actually ended up making me like the story.

Grade: C

Hey, guess what, tomorrow is CHRISTMAS!  So you can beat I won't have any reviews for tomorrow or Friday, because CHRISTMAS!  But, I will the next week start a whole week of 2014 in Review articles, including a special AMA about my favorite or opinion on "best" THINGS of the year!  It'll be a hoot!  It'll be wrestling, and tv, and movies, and randomness!  And it'll be glorious!  I'll see you guys on Monday for the BEST WRESTLING of 2014 review!

IHAO on ... Christmas Shopping and Dirty Santa Parties!

I love Christmas shopping.  It is a point of pride for me to go looking for gifts for people and giving it to them.  I love filling stockings, surprising people with thoughtful gifts, and finding great hidden gems in flea markets or obscure antique stores.  I also like hosting.  Or, more accurately, I like being in control of social gatherings.  That probably sounds a lot more awful that it really is, now that I look at that sentence.  What I mean is that I personally get social anxiety pretty easily, but if I'm the one who puts together the party or social gathering I have something I can focus on which allows me to channel my stress into something productive.  It's what I love being a DM for Dungeons and Dragons and other table-top roleplaying gmaes, why I love owning as many movies as I do so that I can have folks over to share movie experiences, why I love getting the WWE Network so I can have people come over for NXT and such.  Of course, I have been sick since that party, so maybe all the stress, even channeled, isn't great.  But that doesn't really matter, because we had a great party and a great time shopping for it.

So what is a Dirty Santa party?  Or more specifically, how did I change the rules just a smidge to make it my own version?  The goal of this party was to have all of our friends, all strapped for cash and wanting to buy gifts for everyone, to instead by one good gift and then we Dirty Santa it.  It is like a mix of Secret Santa and good old fashioned game show antics.  Did it work?  For the most part, absolutely.  Here were the rules:

1) Buy a present and bring it wrapped.  Present must be between $10 and $50, no less and no more.

2) Once everyone has arrived, I give point values to presents for a bit of meta-knowledge ((I will explain this a little further down))

3) Everyone draws a number to create a turn order

4) In turn order, you may either open a present or steal one that has already been opened.

5) No Take-Backsies Rules: If a gift has been taken from you, you cannot steal it back until it has shifted to another player.  No stealing from the person who stole from you, basically.

6) Once everyone has had their turn, Number 1 has the option to put the gift they currently have back into the pile and steal one last time.

And that's it!  Was the party successful?  For the most part, yeah!  Lots of great gifts, only a few duds, and everyone had a great time!

Now, to get to this point, I had to create a stupid point system to help make the shopping of presents fun.  See, some of my guests HATED shopping.  But I helped out and now can share a pretty fun and simple shopping game.  Here's how it goes:

There are seven categories for all presents: NERDY, BOUGIE, RANDOM, $$$, COMFORT, FOOD, and then a specialized one for your group that hits most of their interests.  That could be SPORTS, MOVIES, RELIGION, or the one we used, THEATRE.  Once you have done that, try to give every guest three of four categories that you believe they would fight for a present of that type.  Try to make each guest have a different set of likes, just for variance.  Once you have done that, it is time to give a point value to every present:

 - 2 points per category the gift falls in.  Don't be generous here.

 - 1 point per person who you determined might steal this gift based on category.

 - BONUS: if the gift hits every single guest for a point, the gift gets a 15 point bonus

 - 1 point per $10 spent on the gift, rounded down.

 - 1 point if the gift is unique and not just "got it at a store"

 - 1 point per size difference based on the standard: a shoebox

 - 1 point per weird shape based on the standard: a shoebox

And there you go!  With 15 guests (and one wild card) we had a maximum point total of 94 and a minimum score of 7.  At our party, our lowest point value gift was a set of foam dice and our highest was two months of LootCrate!  Though, the present that actually won the game, i.e. the one that was stolen the most often, was a ridiculous framed painting of a bougie woman with a leopard all decked out in furs and diamonds.  You never know what is gonna do well and what isn't!

Now, evaluating how this holds up, I have a few points I could have improved upon.  One was to really hit home that this wasn't a joke gift, white elephant party, but supposed to be a gift replacement, like with Secret Santa.  Also, I really want to next time hit home the "buy a NEW gift" to avoid regifts.  And I came up with the point scoring system very late in the process, so I should make that public earlier, because as silly and arbitrary as it was, everyone enjoyed having the gifts be valued and it made for an interesting meta-game as some people went for the nicest wrapping, some went for the biggest, and some went for things based on their scores.

I look forward to doing this party next year.  And every year after.  And am thankful that I had 15 friends that I wanted to invite, even if it did stress me out to no end up to the party itself.

IHAO on ... Olive, the Other Reindeer

Nostalgia and Christmas go hand in hand.  I am perfectly happy to admit it, there are specials and movies from Christmas and my childhood that I love but are really not that good.  Chipmunk Adventure, how you spurn me with your sometimes great animation, awesome music, and mostly really terrible-ness.  And it is always crazy to me to find new nostalgia.  You know, kids films from when I was a teenager that never did anything for me, but for some people is what Christmas was for them.  Olive the Other Reindeer absolutely is that.

I totally get why this may be a loved special.  It is quirky, sometimes funny, very simple, very interesting, starring a cute dog.  Olive is a dog, but when things go poorly because of an evil mailman and Blitzen getting hurt, Santa cancels Christmas.  Olive misunderstands the radio when it talks about "all of the other reindeer" and thinks it is saying her name!  So she heads to the north pole with a penguin con artist to save Christmas.  And ... this special is ... wow, ok ... uh ...

I'm ... I'm just going to get on with it.

First, this thing is ugly.  Ugly character designs, really weird animation that baffles me.  They could have gone with cheaper flash animation or actual real animation, considering Matt Groening produced it.  It is based on a popular kids book, so that's good, but ... man, did I really not like this.  There are just some kinds of quirk that do not do well with me.  And while I like hidden adult humor in kids stuff, it really does need to be hidden, which isn't how this special treats it.

There is some crazy voice talent in this, including Drew Barrymore, Dan Castellaneta, Jos Pantoliano, Billy West, Jay Mohr, Ed Asner, Tim Meadows, Diedrich Bader, Tress MacNeille ... it is a nice long list of actors doing this one.  And they all stick out like a soar thumb.  Castellaneta has some amazing characters, but he also tends to recycle voices quite often, and the mail man is Robot Satan from Futurama which is ... actually pretty hilarious.  But not in the right way.

I dunno, this special isn't very good.  But it is also perfectly fine and enjoy incredibly enjoyable for some people.  My roommate got it for me last year, because it holds a special place for him and his childhood.  And that's kind of special.  I understand it.  I pull out Rankin and Bass' Twas the Night Before Christmas every year, and that movie is just as strange and oddly animated and ... ok, not AS oddly animated or nearly as strange ... and the music is way better ... ok so bad example, but what I'm trying to say is that while I didn't care for the special, and certainly don't think it is very good, I loved sharing a memory with him.  And THAT is why you buy movies for your collection, to share those memories and thoughts and opinions with others.  And Olive absolutely succeeded there.

Grade: D

IHAO on ... Parties

Due to having a good ole time and letting the hours pass as we talked about Dungeons and Dragons, theatre, London culture, alcohol, Gremlins, and played some great board games and had an awesome time doing Dirty Santa ... I totally forgot to write the review of the party.  But tomorrow will be a big ole review of the Dirty Santa party, as well as rules for how you can play the IHAO version of Dirty Santa as well.  See ya then!

IHAO on ... Troop Beverly Hills - READER REQUEST

requested by Paul Conroy

For a long time this has sat on my pile of films to watch.  Luckily I waited long enough, because it popped up on Netflix December 1st, and I've finally found myself time to review it!

Before it started, I had a few expectations of Shelley Long.  I had seen her previous in only two places: Cheers and a made for TV ABC special version of Freaky Friday.  I loved Freaky Friday and I hated Cheers.  When watching Frasier, the episode with Shelley Long in that was a Cheers parody came up and I was shocked by how much I enjoyed it, and her.  And I realized that I had been placing blame of a character and writing style that I didn't like on the actress.  So I started this film with a fresh mind, especially considering how many times the requester told me how much he loved the movie, and he and I have some pretty common ground when it comes to film comedies we think are funny.  But is this movie funny?

Absolutely.  Absolutely is it funny.  I want to sit down and do a double feature with it and Major Payne some day, because both movies are similar in plot: major character is odd and going through personal things while having to help a bunch of kids who all have their own problems and issues, and together they all help everyone while also stopping the evil bad guys.  Troop Beverly Hills' plot and characters are for the most part less nuanced than Major Payne, which is one of my few true criticisms of the film, but it makes up for it by being exceptionally clever.  I have never laughed so hard at the opening of a jar of mayonnaise, and it is all in Shelley Long and Craig T. Nelson's acting and comedy chops without an ounce of dialogue.

I wanted to put the mayonnaise joke here in gif form, but I couldn't make it.  So I put this instead.  No reason.

The acting all around in this film is fantastic.  The script is mostly really great, though the villain is so cartoonishly villainous after seeing such interesting nuanced characters in the Neflers.  The real drawback is that the film has some crazy editing and direction in places, and some very on the nose music choices.  Every now and again a scene will cut to the new scene the second a line ends, which is crazy abrupt and the lines always felt like Phyllis had more to say.  Then there are emotional insert scenes that, while good, are shot as if they were a completely different movie, like the scene where the "spy" played by Mary Gross throws away her spy equipment, triumphantly ignoring the villain's wishes.

The movie is really fun and endearing, with some cliches that make it a little harder to swallow, but think of those cliches and bad bits of filmmaking as just a gel-cap that dissolves away making you in the end just feel better.  The movie doesn't break any new ground, but watching Shelley Long and Craig T. Nelson and all the girls do such a great job acting is really worth price of admission.

Grade: B+

Tomorrow will be the set up for the rules of the IHAO Dirty Santa game, with the next day being pictures and thoughts about the whole game!  I hope you are all excited, because I put a stupid amount of work into this that is almost entirely unnecessary.  Buh-bye!