And the Golden Adam goes to...!

The results are in for the winners of the 2019 Golden Adams!!  Thank you to everyone who voted.  There were lots of close races and a few surprises.  So without further adieu, here are the winners!

Drama

Best Picture
Green Book

This was one of the closer races as Green Book beat Bohemian Rhapsody by one vote.  Both movies were good, but Green Book was the better film.  It was my pick for Best Picture, and the Oscars as well.

Best Actor
Rami Malek was the runaway winner here, and deservedly so. 

Best Actress
Based on the votes, Lady Gaga is the winner.  A Star is Born was a huge hit and was loved by many.  But not me.  Gaga was good, and the first time she got on stage was a powerful moment in the film.  If I was picking the winner, though, I would have picked Amandla Stenberg.  If you haven't seen The Hate U Give, I highly recommend you check it out.  And she was fantastic in the lead role.  But congrats to Lady Gaga.

Best Supporting Actor
This was another runaway winner that mirrored the Oscars.  Mahershala Ali is your winner and he was wonderful as musician Don Shirley.

Best Supporting Actress
This was the first real surprise of the awards as Lucy Boynton from Bohemian Rhapsody is your winner.  She was great as Freddie Mercury's best friend and love of his life. 

Comedy

Best Picture
Crazy Rich Asians

This was a fun movie.  It was entertaining from start to finish and it is a worthy winner.

Best Actor
This was another runaway win as Christian Bale takes home the trophy.  Vice was a strangely amusing, yet frightening look at Dick Cheney's reign of terror, and Bale was phenomenal. 

Best Actress
This was another close race as Emily Blunt narrowly beat out Constance Wu.  Blunt was masterful as Mary Poppins, making us fall in love with our imagination all over again.

Best Supporting Actor
This was the closest race of the entire awards as all five actors got multiple votes.  Ken Jeong narrowly edged out Ed Helms and Steve Carrell.  Jeong was hilarious in Crazy Rich Asians.  He is a deserving winner.  But for those of you who haven't seen Uncle Drew, and I assume that's most of you, it's on HBO and it was probably the most surprising movie I saw last year.  It was funny from start to finish and Shaq  was a big reason for that.  The dance scene alone was the funniest thing I saw all year. 

Best Supporting Actress
Awkwafina.  She absolutely stole the show in Crazy Rich Asians. 

Action

Best Picture
Black Panther

This was a really good year for action movies, as you could probably tell by the fact that I couldn't narrow the nominees down to five.  Aside from being an excellent movie, Black Panther was a cultural phenomenon. 

Best Actor
Chadwick Boseman!  I would say more, but keep reading as I let the votes talk for themselves.

Best Actress
Letitia Wright.  Shuri became everybody's favorite sister after Black Panther.

Best Supporting Actor
Michael B. Jordan wins as the villain Killmonger.  Black Panther would not be as good without him

Best Supporting Actress
Danai Gurira completes the Black Panther sweep.  As I mentioned above, the movie was a cultural phenomenon, and the voting in this poll shows just how much people loved the film.  There were a lot of good action movies this year, but they will live in the shadow of Black Panther.  But if you haven't seen the other nominees, check them out.  They are really good!

And that concludes the 2019 Golden Adam Awards!  Congrats to all the winners!  We will be back next year with another exciting awards show!

Re-Introducing the Golden Adams!!!

In 1997 a tradition was born, a tradition that would make unprecedented history.  A young movie fan decided he’d had enough of the typical movie awards.  He was going to create a movie awards show for the people, one where the everyday moviegoer could have their voices heard.  And that’s how the Golden Adams were born.

You see, that young movie fan was me, and the Golden Adams were my way to recognize movies that I thought were the best of the year.  The Oscars typically nominated stuffy dramatic films that teenagers like myself didn’t connect with or often see.  The Golden Globes at least had a comedy category, but even that was filled with less popular films.  Needless to say, action films didn’t get any love at all from these awards shows.  So I decided my awards would recognize drama, comedy, and action films.  But to really make these awards stand out from the rest, I gave votes to the people.  That’s right, critics and journalists were not going to get to decide who wins a Golden Adam.  The movie going public would decide, which at the time really meant my friends in high school.  It was 1997 after all, so no social media, smart phones, etc.  The first ballots were handwritten and passed out to friends between classes.  Humble beginnings, for sure.

For six years, the Golden Adams grew in fame and popularity with ballots distributed far and wide via email.  And then, just as quickly as they were created, they vanished.  Rumors spread through Hollywood circles about what happened.  Stars who yearned to win a Golden Adam were devastated.  Fans who looked forward to voting every year were heartbroken.

But now, after a 16 year hiatus, the Golden Adams are back!  And you have the opportunity to vote for your favorites!  After seeing over 50 movies this year (Thank you Movie Pass and AMC A-List!), I felt that it was the right time to bring the celebrated awards back.  Now I’m sure you’re wondering how the nominees are selected.  Well, it’s a very complicated process.  Basically I look at all the movies I saw over the course of the year and I decide which ones I liked best and which performances I thought were best.  Also, Don Cheadle always gets a nomination.  Don’t ask why, just go with it.  So if you disagree with a nominee, tell me about it.  I love to talk movies with people.  But, also, you should vote.  You can vote for Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Supporting Actor in three different genres: Drama, Comedy, and Action.  It’s ok if you haven’t seen all the movies, just vote for your favorites, or ask me and I’ll tell you who to vote for. 

And now, without further ado, here are the much anticipated nominations!

Best Comic Book Movie Winner!!!!

The time has finally come to announce the winner in the Best Comic Book Movie Bracket!  After a little over a month and 63 matchups filled with lots of intrigue and a few surprises, one movie has risen to the top and is ready to be crowned.  So without further adieu, according to your votes, the Best Comic Book movie is....

That's right, by a margin of two votes, The Avengers takes the crown over The Dark Knight!!  Congrats to The Avengers, and Marvel as a whole, which had an outstanding tournament and landed three movies in the Final Four.  Thank you to all who participated by voting and reading.  I hope this has been as much fun for you as it has been for me.  If anybody has any suggestions for next year's tournament, please leave a comment!

Best Comic Book Movie - Championship!!!

And then there were two!!!  After five previous rounds, 62 previous matchups, and a number of surprises, we are down to our final two contestants!  And wouldn't you know, it just so happens to be the top two seeds of the tournament.  It's Marvel vs DC in the final as Dark Knight held off Black Panther and The Avengers easily dispatched Winter Soldier.  I guess it's fitting that the two favorites are the last two standing, but now it's time to crown the ultimate champion.  So here it is, the final vote in the Best Comic Book Movie Bracket!!!


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Best Comic Book Movie Bracket - Final Four

We finally made it to the Final Four!!  I will be the first to admit that I am quite surprised by half of the participants in the Final Four.  The top two overall seeds, The Dark Knight and The Avengers, made it.  Although, The Avengers had to hold a strong push by Wonder Woman.  But the other two are surprises in the sense that they were probably underrated coming into the tournament.  Black Panther is riding a huge wave of popularity and momentum, and would likely be seeded a lot higher based on its current domination of the box office if we were to redo the tournament.  Captain America: Winter Soldier just keeps winning even though I keep predicting it to lose.  It's not that I don't like the film, I just didn't think it was that popular.  I guess I was wrong.  Of the final four films, three of them are in the top ten all-time domestic box office.  The only one who isn't is Winter Soldier.  But that's why they play the games!  So let's get to the voting and narrow the field down to 2!


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And here is how the bracket currently stands.

Best Comic Book Movie Bracket - Elite Eight

Here we are in the Elite Eight, and we are left with some pretty tough matchups.  But now it is time to decide which movies will make it to the Final Four!!  The decisions are tough, but equally important as we get closer to crowning a champion.  Vote now and keep scrolling for analysis and predictions.


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The Elite Eight is filled with some expected names and a few surprises.  In the last round we lost two 1-seeds as Iron Man went down to Logan and The Dark Knight Rises lost to Captain America: Winter Soldier.  In another surprise, Black Panther continued to dominate everywhere, keeping its winning streak alive and taking down Guardians of the Galaxy.  So now we are left with 4 MCU movies, 2 X-Men movies, 1 Dark Knight movie, and 1 DCEU movie.  Let's take a closer look at each matchup.

1 The Dark Knight vs 2 Deadpool
This is one of two 1 vs 2 matchups, and both of these movies have advanced easily up to this point.  The Dark Knight still has to be considered the favorite, but Deadpool is a worthy adversary.  Deadpool is insanely popular for its vulgar take on the superhero universe.  Meanwhile, The Dark Knight is superhero movie set a new standard for what they could be.  I expect Dark Knight to win a close matchup.

4 Logan vs 6 Black Panther
This is the all upset region.  I thought these two had a chance to pull the upset, but thought they would each fall short.  Instead, Logan dominated Iron Man by a 10-1 margin, and Black Panther pulled away from Guardians of the Galaxy late to win 8-4.  Secretly, I was hoping Guardians would keep advancing because it's my favorite MCU movie.  But both of these movies are really good and either one could win.  I think Black Panther will continue to ride the wave of dominance it has been on and advance to the Final Four.

1 The Avengers vs 2 Wonder Woman
This is the other region where the top two seeds advanced, setting up a real heavyweight matchup.  Avengers showed that superhero team ups could work and was a lot of fun.  Wonder Woman has been by far the best DC movie and was the hugely popular hit of last summer.  It also has the women empowerment vote on its side.  I think this will be another close one, but I predict The Avengers will squeak by.

2 Captain America: Civil War vs 4 Captain America: Winter Soldier
The all Captain America matchup.  I didn't really expect Winter Soldier to advance this far, but this sets up an intriguing matchup against its sequel.  The Captain America movies have continued to get better with each movie.  Civil War could be considered Avengers 2.5, but it was really good, and should win, setting up a potential matchup against The Avengers.

So now here is what the bracket looks like.

Best Comic Book Movie Bracket - Sweet Sixteen

We've made it to the Sweet Sixteen!! This is where the decisions get really tough.  With most of the top seeds still around, that means we have some heavyweight matchups.  So let's get right to the voting and you can scroll down for analysis and a breakdown of the matchups.


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When looking at the Sweet Sixteen, you might notice that there are a lot of high seeds.  The lowest surviving seed is a 6 seed.  It will be interesting to see if there are any upsets in this round.  And here's a breakdown of the remaining teams: 9 MCU movies, 4 X-Men movies, 2 Dark Knight movies, 1 DCEU movie.  Yes, the bracket is full of Marvel movies.  Can they continue to advance?  You may also notice that there's not a single Spiderman movie left.  That's a little shocking considering how many there have been.  Now, let's take a more detailed look.

1 The Dark Knight vs 4 Avengers: Age of Ultron
I still think The Dark Knight is the favorite, but it could have a tough time against Age of Ultron.  The way the MCU movies have performed has been impressive.  Ultron was fun, but has its issues.  Dark Knight blew people away, though.  It should advance.

2 Deadpool vs 6 X2: X-Men United
Deadpool continues to advance easily.  I still don't get it.  X2 is one of the two remaining 6 seeds.  It was the best of the original X-Men trilogy.  However, I don't see it advancing any further because Deadpool has been a powerhouse.

1 Iron Man vs 4 Logan
I'm predicting an upset here.  As good as Iron Man was, people love Wolverine.  And Logan was a great conclusion to Wolverine's story.  It will be close, but I think Logan advances.

2 Guardians of the Galaxy vs 6 Black Panther
Guardians was great and absolutely refreshing.  Black Panther has taken the world by storm recently.  It's a shame one of these movies has to lose.  I think this will be a very close matchup, but I predict that Guardians will advance.

1 The Avengers vs 4 X-Men: Days of Future Past
The first Avengers movie showed just how great a superhero team up movie could be.  But Days of Future Past took the best X-Men storyline and made it a great movie.  My heart is with the X-Men, but I think Avengers will win.

2 Wonder Woman vs 3 Thor: Ragnarok
The last remaining DCEU movie was by far the best one.  And it has a chance to continue advancing.  The third Thor was the most successful of the trilogy, but I don't think it has enough to take down Wonder Woman.

1 The Dark Knight Rises vs 4 Captain America: Winter Soldier
The Dark Knight Rises barely survived the second round matchup against Thor.  That doesn't bode well for another matchup against an MCU movie.  I think another 1 seed goes down in this matchup.

2 Captain America: Civil War vs 3 Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Civil War was basically another Avengers movie and it introduced Black Panther and Spiderman to the franchise.  Guardians 2 continued the most fun franchise in the MCU.  This one should be close, but I think Civil War wins setting up an all Captain America regional final.

And now here's what the bracket looks like.