Around the tail-end of August 2014, I decided to try something out here on this site, mainly because I figured that it would be something fun to do during a stretch of the year where, as far as new film releases are concerned, all the major summer blockbusters have come out but we’re not quite at the point yet where we’re getting the most notable fall/winter releases. Thus, I went for the simple but effective concept of holding a poll that would allow you all, the readers, to vote for your favorite new release of the summer, and once the polling process was complete, I would then publish the official ‘results’ post that would go through all the films that earned votes. This officially marked the beginning of a new Rhode Island Movie Corner tradition as I would continue to hold this event every year… except for last year. Yes, thanks to 2020 being the infamously terrible year that it was, I was forced to cancel last year’s event since all the big summer releases got pushed back to this year and, for the most part, theaters didn’t properly reopen until August. And while I did toy with the prospect of doing an alternate poll based around the varied content that we all watched during times of quarantine, I ultimately decided to wait a year and see if things managed to improve in any significant way for me to do this properly in 2021. Cut to 2021 where, despite the continued threat of the coronavirus, the theatergoing experience has managed to make a considerable comeback and we were finally able to see a good chunk of the films that were originally set to come out last summer. Thus, without further ado, I’m happy to announce the glorious return of Rhode Island Movie Corner’s Annual End of Summer Fan Poll that allows you to vote for your favorite film from this past summer.
For those who are new to this site, here’s how it works. At
the link provided below, you’ll be directed to the poll that I’ve set up where
you can select your favorite summer film out of the numerous options provided. As
is always the case with this event, I try to cover as many of the summer’s wide
releases as I possibly can when creating the list of options, which means that,
for all you newcomers out there, I will warn you right out of the gate that
there are quite a lot of films to choose from. So, with that in mind, I
apologize in advance if this all seems a bit too daunting at first. However, that
doesn’t mean that I’ve included every new theatrical release from these past few
months; as such, if you don’t see your favorite film on the list, I’ve also
included a ‘write-in’ section where you can highlight anything that I missed. Ever
since I started this annual event, I’ve used the website SurveyMonkey to
create the poll, but since the end of the 2019 event, the site has undergone
some changes that severely limit the number of responses that a poll can receive
for users who aren’t on one of the website’s paid plans. And since I only really
used the site for this annual poll in the first place, I figured that it wasn’t
worth it for me to sign up for one of these plans if I wasn’t going to use it
for anything else. As such, I’ll now be holding the poll on Survio
which, to my knowledge, allows for, at the very least, a considerably larger
number of poll responses for anyone who’s not on one of their paid plans. That
said, though, if this poll does end up reaching Survio’s response
threshold for free accounts, I’ll be sure to keep you all posted and respond to
the situation accordingly to prevent any delays to the polling process.
Finally, though, I should probably address the elephant in the room that is the fact that, given everything that’s been happening with the COVID-19 pandemic, not everyone has been going to the theater. While I myself am properly vaccinated and, thus, feel comfortable enough to see films in theaters, I fully recognize that not everyone out there feels the same way, and to be clear, I’m not holding that against any of you if that’s your current stance on the matter. As much as I prefer seeing films in theaters rather than just watching them at home, believe me when I say that the last thing that I want to do right now is bully folks into doing something that they personally believe to be an unsafe process given the current global situation. With that in mind, though, I must note that for this poll, we’ll only be focusing on films that have been released in theaters and will not be accepting any write-in answers that name films that were solely released via streaming services or On-Demand. However, there will be one exception that I’ll be making to this ground-rule since several of the big releases this summer were simultaneously released in theaters and on streaming services. Some Disney films, for example, were released as a paid ‘Premier Access’ release on Disney+ while Warner Bros.’ entire 2021 slate has been simultaneously released in theaters and on their streaming service, HBO Max. As such, if you’ve watched any of these films at home rather than at the theater, it’s totally fine for you to vote for them regardless since both options were readily available. And so, with all this background information out of the way, I couldn’t be more excited to revive this classic Rhode Island Movie Corner tradition and am looking forward to seeing what film will end up taking the grand prize.
!!!VOTING
ENDS SEPTEMBER 15TH!!!
But before we
conclude today’s post, let’s take a trip down memory lane to honor this event’s
previous winners… especially seeing how it has been a year since
I’ve done this. This is…
RHODE ISLAND MOVIE
CORNER’S END OF SUMMER FAN POLL HALL OF FAME
*The inaugural
installment of Rhode Island Movie Corner’s End of Summer Fan Poll ended
with an exciting three-way tie as 2014 audiences gave five votes each to the indisputable
tearjerker that was the film adaptation of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars,
Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s rare ‘superior comedic sequel’ 22 Jump Street,
and the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s biggest smash hit of the year, James Gunn’s
Guardians of the Galaxy.
*Conversely, there
was practically no contest when it came to the 2015 edition of this poll as Mad
Max: Fury Road, a film that has regularly been touted as one of the
greatest films of the 2010s, earned a whopping 10 votes, which was more than
double the number of votes that were earned by either of that year’s runners-up,
Trainwreck and Straight Outta Compton.
*2016’s event saw a genuinely
unexpected tie occur between the MCU’s Phase 3 kick-starter Captain America:
Civil War and the raunchy matriarchal comedy Bad Moms, both of which
ended up earning nine votes apiece.
*Enduring film fan
favorite Christopher Nolan was the king of 2017’s poll thanks to his utterly
suspenseful and, even when under a PG-13 rating, incredibly intense war flick Dunkirk,
whose 8 votes managed to overtake fellow Warner Bros. release Wonder Woman
by just a single vote.
*While 2018’s summer
slate was largely dominated by the highly anticipated Avengers: Infinity War,
Marvel Studios’ epic crossover feature was ultimately beaten in that year’s
poll by director Spike Lee’s culturally relevant dramedy BlacKkKlansman,
the true story of former police officer Ron Stallworth’s efforts to infiltrate
the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s. At the time, the 12 votes that it earned were
an event record.
*But in 2019, Marvel
Studios finally had their first undefeated champion (as far as this annual poll
is concerned) as the grand finale of the MCU’s Infinity Saga, Avengers:
Endgame, not only became the highest-grossing film of all time (at
least until James Cameron’s Avatar regained the top spot this year) but
also managed to surpass the record set by BlacKkKlansman the year before
by securing a staggering 19 votes.
*And, of course, in
2020… there was no winner because there was no event. Thankfully, though, this
outcome will not happen again this year.
WHO WILL
WIN IT ALL IN 2021? STAY TUNED!
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