Top 10 Surprises of Season 34

 

Sherman J. Pearson here with another post-season Top 10 segment covering some of the biggest and most shocking events in LRF's 34th season.

Top 10 Surprises of Season 34

10. LRF Directorial Debuts

This season featured an impressive seven directors make their LRF debuts.

9. Ruby Ridge GRA Dominance

I thought the GRA race was going to more even than it ended up. Kudos to Ruby Ridge.

8. Superhero Box Office

Not so much a surprise as a sigh of relief than Superman and X-Men were able to make up for some weaker box office from other films.

7. Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Flesh and Blood was a great reboot that was way better than it probably even deserved to be as part of that franchise.

6. Shakespeare

I wasn't expecting multiple Shakespeare adaptations - let alone the two combining for eight GRA nominations.

5. Full Custody

I definitely did not have Shane Gillis suddenly becoming a movie star in a GRA-nominated comedy on my Season 34 bingo card.

4. Holden Abbott

Not a lot of LRF writers open their careers as strong as Abbott did this season with a GRA trophy and good reviews with their first film.

3. Kathryn Bigelow

It wasn't so much a surprise that Bigelow won the Best Director GRA trophy for Ruby Ridge, but I didn't realize that she had never been nominated before or that a female director had yet to win the award.

2. Eric Bana

Bana's performance in Ruby Ridge was exactly the type of masterclass performance people have been waiting and expecting from him since his early career roles like Chopper, Black Hawk Down, and Troy. Better late than never, as they say.

1. Robopocalypse

I was not expecting such a massive flop given the cast, subject/source material, budget, writer, or director here. It all looked like a hit on paper.



Stay tuned for Season 34's History Lesson on 1/6.