Regardless of how movie marketing campaigns evolve to keep up with the changing times, trailers will always be one of the most crucial tools in the selling of a new film. A typical trailer for a major studio’s potential blockbuster and franchise hopeful tends to look the same as another of its type, from the editing beats to the choice of overdramatic music cues (not to mention that annoying and loud horn sound that can be traced back to Inception‘s brilliantly executed previews).

Naturally this opens the door for aspiring filmmakers and people with both a strong sense and access to pretty decent cameras and recording equipment to create their own improvised spoofs of those occasionally overbearing trailers. Putting their friends and relatives in front of the camera and using whatever materials available to them to recreate the multi-million dollar visual effects, the makers of these “sweded” trailers often end up with something far more entertaining than their inspirations.

I have taken it upon myself to scour YouTube for the funniest, most bizarre, and flat-out fun spoof trailers for the biggest blockbusters (and in one special case, a gigantic bomb), and as a special bonus I’ve included a few for some of 2016’s most anticipated movies. Enjoy, and have a happy new year!

It’s time for my annual look back at my top 10 favorite movies of 2015. While I do write the occasional movie review, I don’t consider myself to be a “film critic,” but rather more of an enthusiastic movie watcher. I enjoy a lot of movies I watch, but not many becomes “favorites.” So, this list here is not my picks for the “best” films of the year; these are merely my favorite movies of 2015.

I do get to see a lot of films every year, and my criteria for a “favorite” typically is one that keeps me entertained and makes me want to see it repeatedly. Admittedly, I tend to be drawn more towards the fantasy/superhero selections, and less towards the Oscar bait pictures. There will be plenty of other “Best Of 2015” lists being published here at Geeks Of Doom in the coming days that will take a more analytical look at 2015’s films, and will likely include more serious dramas. But for now, with me, you’ll get more fun picks than anything else.

With that, here’s a list of my Top 10 Favorite Movies of 2015.

The Martian
Paperback | Kindle
Written by Andy Weir
Broadway Books
Publication Date: February 11, 2014
Cover Price: $15.00

Let’s get the opinion stuff out of the way: The Martian, the book upon which the recent movie starring Matt Damon is based, is pretty fantastic. The premise, like most science-fiction, doesn’t initially come across as compelling. There’s an astronaut named Mark Watney who, through chance and misfortune, was left for dead on Mars by his team. He’s got to find a way to let humanity know he’s still around, and he’s got to figure out how to survive for as long as possible, hoping all the way that NASA can figure out a way to get him back home.

Rather than yet another science fiction blockbuster epic, Andy Weir‘s novel eschews the grandiose space empire stuff in favor of focus and intimacy. In that respect, The Martian is a minor work with major scope. The author achieves this in some interesting ways. There’s a focus on the “how” things get done. Put another way, Weir’s protagonist, Mark, delivers the action of the story to the reader with both high-level strategic sci-fi love (“I have to generate food”) and then drills down into the tactics of how that’s achieved (“I’ve created 192 square meters of farmland and have 600 liters of water for the potatoes I’m about to plant, which should last me 200 Sols beyond my NASA rations”).

The Martian
Director: Ridley Scott
Screenwriter: Drew Goddard
Cast: Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Jeff Daniels, Michael Peña, Kate Mara, Sean Bean, Sebastian Stan, Chiwetel Ejiofor
20th Century Fox
Rated PG-13 | 141 Minutes
Release Date: October 2, 2015

“It is good to renew one’s wonder, said the philosopher. Space travel has again made children of us all.” – Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles

A classic work of twentieth-century literature, 1950’s The Martian Chronicles documents the exploration and colonization of Mars by humans fleeing an unstable Earth. Sixty-five years later, we’re still trying to reach the red planet.

Of course, there have been countless cinematic explorations of Mars: The Angry Red Planet, Robinson Crusoe on Mars, Total Recall, Mission to Mars, John Carter – and who could forget Mars Needs Women and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians? And while fantastical these films may be, none of them have transported me to Mars in a way that felt truly and undeniably real.

Enter The Martian. Written by Drew Goddard (Cabin in the Woods) and directed by Ridley Scott (Exodus: Gods and Kings), The Martian is based on Andy Weir‘s 2011 novel of the same name. It is the harrowing story of the first human to colonize Mars, NASA astronaut Mark Watney, played by Matt Damon.

A new promotional video has been released for The Martian, the upcoming sci-fi drama directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Kate Mara, Michael Peña, Sebastian Stan, Jeff Daniels, Kristen Wiig, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sean Bean, Mackenzie Davis, Aksel Hennie, and Donald Glover.

Instead of a trailer, the video is presented realistically, as a special episode of StarTalk with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson talking about mankind finally visiting Mars and the upcoming mission there that we’ll see in the movie. It’s basically like an episode of Cosmos…from the future!

Click on over to the other side to watch the video.