Friday, August 16, 2024

Rhode Island Movie Corner's Annual End of Summer Fan Poll - 10th Anniversary Edition Commencement

Hello there, folks! I couldn’t be any more excited about today because the time has come once again for this site’s most well-known tradition: the Annual End of Summer Fan Poll! And this year, folks, we’ve got a significant milestone to celebrate as this marks the 10th anniversary of when I first launched this event back in the summer of 2014. Back then, it was simply a way for me to try and come up with some content for this site during a time of the year when there simply wasn’t much to talk about film-wise. But thanks to all the amazing people who’ve participated in the event over the years, whether by voting or by helping to spread it around on social media, we’ve turned this into a relatively successful annual endeavor of ours. And so, with that in mind, the time has come for the 10th Anniversary Edition of this event, which also happens to be the 10th time I’ve held it. That said, though, it should be noted that, under normal circumstances, this technically shouldn’t be the 10th annual edition of this poll. If this truly was an annual event, this year would’ve been the 11th annual edition of the poll whereas last year’s event in 2023 would be the 10th. But, of course, the infamously awful year that was 2020 nixed any sort of chance of the event happening that year so this year’s 10th anniversary event ended up becoming the 10th official one as well which… hey, if anything, does feel appropriate for the occasion.

For those who are new to this site, here’s how it’ll all play out. The link below will lead you to a poll that I’ve set up on the survey creation website Survio that will ask you to vote for your favorite film from this past summer. You’ve got quite a lot of picks to choose from since the list of options consists of almost every major wide release that came out these past few months, but if you don’t end up seeing your favorite on the list, I always include a write-in section for anything that I missed. As always, this poll will focus solely on films that got a proper theatrical release, which means that I won’t be counting anything in the write-in section that was solely released on a streaming service. However, I will be lenient enough to accept votes from those who saw any of these films through On-Demand services in case they haven’t had any time to go to a theater; they can’t, however, be films that came out before the start of May. The voting process will conclude on September 1st and I will then proceed to write a Results post that covers all the winners… here’s hoping that it won’t take me until the end of this year to finish it like what happened with last year’s Results Post. As always, it’ll be interesting to see how this year’s votes will go. Could the billion-dollar juggernaut that is Inside Out 2 become the first-ever animated film to take the top spot in our event? Will the equally huge Deadpool & Wolverine give Marvel its first solo win since Avengers: Endgame back in 2019? Whatever the case, let’s get this party started!!

CLICK HERE TO VOTE IN THIS YEAR'S EVENT!!!

But to conclude today’s post, it’s time to do what we always do and celebrate this event’s past winners by way of…

RHODE ISLAND MOVIE CORNER’S ANNUAL END OF SUMMER FAN POLL HALL OF FAME

2014

The inaugural RIMC End of Summer Fan Poll started out on a solid note with a relatively modest 43-vote turnout. It also gave us an exciting three-way tie for first (FIVE votes apiece) that gave us quite an eclectic group of winners. You had The Fault in Our Stars, the highly popular adaptation of author John Green’s best-selling tearjerker novel about a blossoming romance between a pair of cancer patients, 22 Jump Street, the rare superior sequel to 2012’s 21 Jump Street, Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s unexpectedly great revival of the 80’s series of the same name that launched the career of Johnny Depp, and Guardians of the Galaxy, the MCU film that took some of Marvel’s most obscure characters and promptly made them some of the company’s most beloved heroes.

2015

The voter turnout increased to 47 in our sophomore year of the event, but this time there was no contest for the number one spot. With a TEN vote performance that doubled that of not only the 2014 winners but also the two runners-up of the 2015 event, Mad Max: Fury Road was the visually spectacular summer blockbuster that film fandom had been craving for quite some time. This now begs the question… with the Mad Max franchise returning to theaters this year with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, can it follow in its sister film’s footsteps and become this year’s champion?

2016

Once again, our event continued to grow in 2016, yielding a 58-vote turnout. This year saw a two-way tie at the top with NINE votes apiece, which is also notably the last time to date that we’ve had a tie at the Number 1 spot. But as I’ve always said, this year’s results provided us with what is easily the most fascinating two-way tie in this event’s history. On the one hand, you had a film that was guaranteed to do well in Captain America: Civil War, the emotionally-charged third installment of the MCU’s Captain America trilogy that kickstarted Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But then, on the other side of this predicament, you had a genuinely unexpected underdog in the raunchy comedy Bad Moms, which starred Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, and Kathryn Hahn (which means you could argue that, when it comes to the reason behind this film’s success in that year’s event, it was Agatha All Along… 😉) as a trio of overworked moms who, fed up with the daily struggles of motherhood, decide to let loose and partake in a night of pure debauchery.

2017

It was another 58-vote turnout for the 2017 edition of this event, which resulted in what I would describe as a bit of an upset that garnered what would be the first of two wins in this event’s run for fan-favorite filmmaker Christopher Nolan. Yes, even in a year that saw the release of hits like the DC Extended Universe’s first genuinely well-received outing Wonder Woman, it was Nolan’s take on the evacuation of over 338,000 Allied soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk that took home the top prize with EIGHT votes.

2018

2018 was admittedly a slower year than usual for this event with only 44 votes placed, but this year’s champion did manage to set an event record with TWELVE votes… and believe it or not, it wasn’t Avengers: Infinity War. No, instead the honor went to BlacKkKlansman, the then-latest Spike Lee joint that told the true story of police officer Ron Stallworth’s efforts to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan in 1972 by posing as a white man. Upon its release, the film became one of the biggest hits of Lee’s career, earning him his first Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay and garnering much acclaim as a timely reminder of the horrors of hate groups such as the KKK and the Alt-Right.

2019

After tying for first place with other films in both 2014 and 2016, Marvel Studios finally had their first unopposed champion in 2019. Garnering a new record of NINETEEN votes from the equally record-setting 89-vote turnout, Avengers: Endgame promptly certified its status as the biggest film of the year and the immensely satisfying conclusion to the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Infinity Saga.

2020

Well, as I’ve made it clear numerous times by now, there WASN’T a winner this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

2021

Thankfully, a year off did not result in the end of this event as we were able to successfully relaunch it in 2021 without issue. Not only that, but from the 69 votes that were cast that year (nice), 2021’s champion came very close to matching Avengers: Endgame’s 2019 performance with an impressive SIXTEEN vote performance. This year’s champion? Cruella, a re-imagining of Disney’s iconic puppy-stealing villainess… albeit now portrayed as a more sympathetic rebellious anti-hero.

2022

2022 was a historic year for our annual event as it ended up being the first year where we had a turnout of over 100 voters (119, to be specific). And while it was practically guaranteed to be that year’s champ from the moment the event started given its status as the biggest film of the summer, one final day of voting catapulted Top Gun: Maverick into the history books with a jaw-dropping FIFTY-SIX (!) vote victory that probably won’t be contested any time soon.

2023

Think a 119-vote turnout was nice? Well, how about an even bigger 122-vote turnout the following year!? And unlike 2022, 2023’s race to the top was a lot more unpredictable, with the top three films all getting at least 20 votes apiece. This year’s winner ultimately scored the event’s second-best record of TWENTY-FOUR votes and came from that summer’s biggest cultural phenomenon, the double feature of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer AKA Barbenheimer. But while Barbie may have been the billion-dollar juggernaut of the summer, it was Oppenheimer that won out in the end (thus becoming the second Nolan film to end up as the champ in our event) as Nolan’s biopic of the events that led to the creation of the atomic bomb became the biggest hit of his career outside of the Dark Knight trilogy and was the film that finally got him the Oscar for Best Director. It also helped that it also took home the top prize of Best Picture, which notably makes it the first #1 film in this event’s history to go on and win the big one.

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