2015: The Year in Review, Pt. 1

Who knew!

Certainly not me, that 2015 was going to go down as the year in which I didn’t, in which I couldn’t.

I didn’t watch all the films and movies in a timely, efficient fashion – because I couldn’t. Madonna occupied more head space than ever, and rightfully so (long live the Queen!). The competition from live music (Taylor Swift! Janet Jackson!) was fierce, but not as fierce as that of TV, which offered a whopping 21,000 options, the lot of which did draw my curious attention (alright, so I am exaggerating on that number, but, then again, there was a heckuva lot of s--- to watch on the tube and beyond this past year...).

And I, honestly, had better, cuter, realer entertainment in my life this year, so there: No regrets at all that I haven’t yet seen Carol.

Here’s the first part of what I thought stood out in the year that almost was. Merry Christmas, everybody!

Best Duo: Mistress America’s Greta Gerwig and Lola Kirke

Best Hair: Rose Byrne’s in Spy

Best Line: “Chewie...we’re home,” said by Harrison Ford in Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Best Look: Blake Lively’s in The Age of Adaline

Best Presence: Sam Elliott in I’ll See Your in My Dreams and Grandma

Best Trend: Female directors doing it for themselves (Pitch Perfect 2’s Elizabeth Banks, By the Sea’s Angelina Jolie Pitt)

Worst Trend: Bypassing theatrical releases in favor of iTunes or On Demand. Hollywood, if a movie gets made, release it how it’s meant to be seen, at least for two weeks to give us ample opportunity to see it

Best Use of Amber Heard: The Danish Girl

Most Eh Use of Amber Heard: Magic Mike XXL

Cutest: BB-8 (#obvs)

Let’s: Keep featuring minorities in leading or featured roles!

Let’s Not: Have Emma Stone play a minority she has no business playing, like in Aloha

Most C’mon!: Biopics that skimp on the bio parts (Steve Jobs)

Most Confounding, Yet Eye-catching: The heels Bryce Dallas Howard wears in Jurassic World

Most Disappointing: Avengers: Age of Ultron

Most Surprising (tie): Room’s Jacob Tremblay and women of a certain age (I’ll See Your in My Dreams’ Blythe Danner, Grandma’s Lily Tomlin)

Most Ubiquitous: San Francisco (really, the City by the Bay was in just about every other movie this year – and last, if ya think about it)

Most Welcome to the A-List: Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina, The Danish Girl)

Most Welcome: Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man

Most Welcome Back: Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa

Most Come Back to Us, Honey: Jennifer Lopez (The Boy Next Door was totally beneath her)

Most Who Knew He Could Act: Trainwreck’s LeBron James

Most Who Knew He Was So Funny: John Cena (Trainwreck, Sisters)

Most Whoa!: Chris Hemsworth’s...big contribution to Vacation

Should’ve Had a Better Year: Chris Hemsworth (Blackhat, Vacation, and In the Heart of the Sea did not work)

Can’t Wait to See More of – Female (tie): Rebecca Ferguson (Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation) and Daisy Ridley, from Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Can’t Wait to See More of – Male: John Boyega, from Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Worst Movie (tie): Hot Pursuit (for being patently bad) and Aloha (for not being better)

Photos: NewYorker.com (Mistress America); Collider.com (Pitch Perfect 2); Universal Pictures (Steve Jobs); Fandango.com (Ant-Man); Sony Pictures (Aloha).

Found Lady Bird

That Brooklyn girl is going to partner up with Ms. Mistress America!

Now that is a loaded sentence.

What I mean to say is that Academy Award nominee Saoirse Ronan is going to headline Lady Bird, the (solo) directorial debut of Greta Gerwig.

Ronan will play a Sacramento high school senior, who, more than likely, will be absolutely completely totally verbose.

Hey. Gf is 22. She can still get away with the high school part.

Photo: GotCeleb.com.

Actually Starring John Cho

#StarringJohnCho, there is a movie coming that is actually going to star John Cho.

You did it, guys!

Cho – who is helping to open Star Trek Beyond this summer – is going to co-headline the hush-hush project Gemini, a thriller set in L.A.

Zoë Kravitz and Mistress America’s Lola Kirke are also on board.

Photo: Zimbio.com.

An Untogether Man

An affair between a former teen prodigy-cum-heroin addict/striving (sober) writer and a published writer who has found success with a memoir of wartime bravery obviously would necessitate Jamie Dornan (who currently can be seen in Anthropoid, if you care to give him a chance to live down Fifty Shades of Grey)

No? You don’t see it, too?

Too bad.

Dornan is going to star in such a project, an indie titled Untogether to be helmed by journalist, author, and first-time feature-film director Emma Forrest, who also wrote the script.

Jemima Kirke (HBO’s Girls) will play the fairer half of the couple in conflict, while Mistress America’s Lola Kirke (total relation) will portray her own older sister’s on-screen little sister, a young woman who sees her relationship with her older bf (Ben Mendelsohn, Forrest’s own real-life hubby, has been tapped for the part) tested by an attraction to an even older man (a rabbi, no less).

Sounds complicated and intriguing.

Can’t wait.

Photo: Celebuzz.com.