The 12 Best Viral Videos of 2014
Star Wars, pranks, and surprising celebrity rappers. These were the themes that dominated this year’s best movie-related viral videos, which were shared, posted, reblogged and retweeted from here to Tatooine. Here are our 12 favorites that hit the ‘net this year.
12. Star Wars Sorted Alphabetically
We doubt there’s anyone out there with the time and patience to sit through the entirety of this 43-minute exercise in Final Cut fanaticism, but it’s worth jumping around just to see and believe for yourself. It makes our list for sheer ambition alone.
11. Arnold Schwarzenegger Gym Prank
Is the former Governator in on the joke that regardless of what kind of “disguise” they put him in for a prank at Gold’s Gym, people are still going to know he’s Arnold Schwarzenegger? Amazing if so. And amazing if not.
10. Ian McKellen: You Shall Not Pass
Most actors will deny ever quoting their own movies. Sir Ian McKellen is not most actors, which is why it was a treat when the Lord of the Rings actor got his Gandalf the Grey on and yelled out the library window at a group of passing Bristol students. (After this went viral, he performed an encore two weeks later at Oxford.)
9. Star Wars Throne Room Scene Minus the Music
Film clips minus their musical scores are hardly a 2014 phenomenon. But this edit of the climactic scene from A New Hope recut sans its John Williams orchestration is so sublimely awkward, it may be one of the best.
8. Braiding Hair With Chris Pratt
As it became more and more apparent that the Guardians of the Galaxy star was an excellent sport, reporters started to ask him all kinds of questions. Like if he’d braid an intern’s hair. He obliged, of course.
7. The Eye-Popping Ouija Prank
Thinkmodo, the viral marketing masterminds behind last year’s epic Carrie-themed coffee shop prank and the Devil’s Due-inspired Satan-spawn-in-a-stroller gag, struck again with this put-on promoting Ouija (debuted right here on Yahoo Movies) that made an internet star of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not ex-champ Jalisa Thompson.
6. Benedict Cumberbatch’s Celebrity Impressions
MTV’s Josh Horowitz challenged The Imitation Game star Benedict Cumberbatch to a game of imitations. How many impressions could the actor pull off in a minute? Really the number is beside the point once you see Cumberbatch do the likes of Sean Connery and Tom Hiddleston…and feebly attempt a Taylor Swift.
5. Wes Anderson’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens
As far as Wes Anderson spoofs go, nothing will ever top Saturday Night Live’s ingenious horror spoof, The Midnight Coterie of Sinister Intruders, but here’s one that’s pretty close. YouTuber Jonah Feingold nails the aggressively quirky stylings of Anderson in remixing the year’s biggest movie trailer.
4. Fifty Shades of Frozen
After becoming one of the biggest movie sensations of 2013, Frozen was destined to a fate of infinite parodies. Luckily a lot of them were actually good, and none better than this mishmash of the Disney hit and next year’s big-screen adaptation of the racy book Fifty Shades of Grey. So wrong, yet so right.
3. Brad Pitt on Between Two Ferns
Thankfully Zach Galifianakis hasn’t let a little movie stardom keep him from what he does best: interviewing celebrities (and the occasional U.S. president) in a low-fi, gloriously awkward manner on Funny or Die’s long-running faux Q&A show. It’s never been better than his contentious sit-down with Mr. Jolie.
2. Fight Club Minus Tyler Durden
Brad Pitt was only in this next clip in spirit. How it took the internet 15 years to finally recreate a scene that portrayed what it would’ve looked like had a bystander observed the “exchanges” between The Narrator (Edward Norton) and Pitt’s rabble-rouser Tyler Durden is beyond us. But let’s be happy it finally happened.
1. Daniel Radcliffe Rapping Blackalicious
Harry Potter alum Daniel Radcliffe turned up on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon and performed one of the most lyrically complex rap tracks of all time, “Alphabet Aerobics” by Bay Area outfit Blackalicious. While in our studios a few days later we asked Radcliffe if he’d collaborate with Chris Pratt, who only a couple months earlier had wowed us with his rap skills, and he was game. So let’s make it happen in 2015.
