Modest Achievement Awards

This year we introduce the Modest Achievement Awards, remembering the movies we'll probably forget:

Best Comic Book Movie of the Year:

• Iron Man 3
• Man of Steel
• Thor: The Dark World
• Wolverine

WINNER: Thor: The Dark World. Marvel's crush on Thor (or Hemsworth) catapults him to an upset over his more famous colleagues.

Cable-Worthy Comedy of the Year

• Delivery Man
• The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
• The Internship
• This is the End
• We Are the Millers

WINNER: This is the End. The concept of the award is that one of these comedies is going to be the one that gets a lot funnier on repeated viewing, and end up a cable-driven hit. This is the End has everyone funny in it, being funny. It's not brilliant but you'll be seeing a lot more of it. Until half the actors in it, playing themselves, get forgotten, and then it's meaningless. 

Tolerable RomCom of the Year:

• About Time
• Enough Said

WINNER: About Time. As good as it is to see Ms. Dreyfus get work, About Time is charming in that it's just a love story. There's no drama that keeps the lovers apart and finally gets resolved so they can be together. There's no hijinx, no surprises, no ensemble cast, no gimmicks. There's just love. In that, there's no gimmick needed. 

Movies I Wanted to Like More Than I Did:

• Dead Man Down - A great Pink Floyd cover and Noomi Rapace can't hide Colin Farrel's inability to headline a movie. 
• The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - Tolkien's fear of killing any of his creations make the 5th movie in this line too tame in a Game of Thrones world. I loved the barrel chase scene, it was easily the best action sequence of the year. But without killing, there is no consequence. Without consequence, there is no drama, just a series of amusement park rides. 
• The Hunger Games: Catching Fire - The first one set the bar so low that it's easy to confuse "watchable" with "good".
• In A World - Some clever lines, but also no theme and an empty plot-line about the sister's infidelity that has nothing to do with the rest of the movie.
• Pain & Gain - Michael Bay, the Rock, Marky Mark, weight lifting, and crime. And it's not that bad. Which is the problem - it's trying a little too hard to be a good movie when it should be satisfied being a Michael Bay movie. 
• Prisoners - The problem with these twist thrillers is that the bad guy and his/her motivation is always a let down. Which means everything else has to be good. And there is a lot here that is good. But not Silence of the Lambs  good. 
• Side Effects and Trance - Two movies with very similar profiles - Hitchcock-light, you never know where they're going. It's always refreshing to have someone tell a story you haven't heard before, but in both cases, the twist reveal is merely good. Worse, there's no soul to either, just twists. 

Most Comforting Development: No Longer Needing to Pretend Ryan Reynolds is a Movie Star

Ryan Reynolds took two voice-over animation roles, neither of them contractually-obligated sequels. Given that the primary reason he's famous is that ladies find him attractive, that's a pretty sure sign that he can't act, at least in the roles he's been given; no one wants to see him say anything on screen. Somehow he managed to crash two summer blockbusters, one an animated film, the other, a tentpole called R.I.P.D that was so bad that it made less money than Meryl Streep oscar vehicle August: Osage County. In 2014, he has another voice over and a lead role in a small drama opposite Rosario Dawson, whose career already reached the same place as Reynolds'. The problem is simple - he's not funny, and he's too much of a bro to be serious. All that's left is action, and while he's a big dude, somehow he seems as threatening as a cheese sandwich - he could give you indigestion, but not much more.