"Sharknado 4: The Fourth Awakens" premieres 2016

Sharknado 4: The Fourth Awakens, the sequel to the sequel to the sequel to Sharknado, premiered on the SyFy Channel July 31, 2016.  Ian Ziering and Tara Reid reprise their roles for the fourth time. In this movie, the sharknado strikes Las Vegas.

It stars David Hasselhoff, Tommy Davidson, Cheryl Tiegs, Al Roker (again), Garey Busey, Susan Anton, Wayne Newton, Dog the Bounty Hunter, and plenty of beefcake Chippendales dancers.

Sharknado 4 was nominated for a BloodGuts UK Horror Award for Best Prequel/Sequel/Remake

Sharknado 4 trailer 

"Mad Max: Fury Road" wins 6 Oscars 2016

 

George Miller's post-apocalyptic movie, Mad Max: Fury Road won six Oscars at the annual ceremony held February 28, 2016. It was nominated for ten, including Best Picture.  It took home most of the technical awards though. It won Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Production Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Costume Design, and Best Film Editing. It's other nominations were for Best Direction for George Miller, Best Cinematography, and Best Visual Effects.

The Revenant garnered a whopping twelve nominations but only won three: Best Directing for Alejandro G. Inarritu, Best Actor in a Leading Role for Leonardo DiCaprio, and Best Cinematography.  Tom Hardy, who also starred in Mad Max: Fury Road, was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. 

Star Wars: The Force Awakens was nominated for five Academy Awards. John Williams was nominated for Best Music (Original Score), Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Film Editing, and Best Visual Effects. 

Leonardo DiCaprio's acceptance speech

"Star Wars: The Force Awakens" wins eight Saturn Awards 2016

Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the continuation of the Star Wars series, was nominated for a whopping 15 Saturn Awards, the most nominated film by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, and won eight at the annual ceremony held June 22, 2016.

The film won: 

Best Science Fiction Film

Best Writing for Lawrence Kasdan, J. J. Abrams and Michael Arndt

Best Actor for Harrison Ford

Best Supporting Actor for Adam Driver

Best Music for John Williams

Best Editing for Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey

Best Make-up for Neal Scanlan

Best Special Effects for Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach,Neal Scanlan, and Chris Corbould

The Force Awakens was nominated for:

Best Director for J. J. Abrams

Best Actor for John Boyega

Best Actress for Daisy Ridley

Best Supporting Actress for Carrie Fisher and Lupita Nyong'o

Best Production Design for Rick Carter and Darren Gilford

Best Costume Design for Michael Kaplan

Grammy Hall of Fame induction 2016

The Grammys inducted twenty-six recordings into the Grammy Hall of Fame at the 58th annual ceremony held February 15, 2016.  A bunch of my favorites made it in!

The always-entertaining and lovely Andrews Sisters 1942 recording of Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (with Anyone Else but Me).

Ella Fitzgerald's and Louis Armstrong's collaboration Ella and Louis released in 1956.

The Loco-Motion's first release in 1962 by Little Eva.

Jimmy Buffett's timeless Margaritaville from 1977.

Blondie's first big hit Heart of Glass from 1978

Celebration from Kool & the Gang from 1980.

Joan Jett with the Blackhearts 1981 breakout single I Love Rock 'n' Roll.

"Mad Max: Fury Road" wins 9 Critics' Choice Awards 2016

George Miller's post-apocalyptic epic Mad Max: Fury Road took home 9 Critics' Choice Awards at the 21st annual ceremony held January 17, 2016.  It received 13 total nominations.

It was nominated for Best Picture and Best Sci-Fi/Horror Movie but won for Best Action Movie. George Miller won Best Director.  Charlize Theron was nominated for Best Actress but won for Best Actress in an Action Movie.  Tom Hardy was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for The Revenant, but won Best Actor in an Action Movie.  

Colin Gibson and Lisa Thompson won Best Art Direction.  Jenny Beavan won for Best Costume Design, and Margaret Sixel won Best Editing. Mad Max also won Best Hair and Makeup and Best Visual Effects. It was nominated for Best Cinematography but lost to The Revenant.

Jurassic World received 5 nominations but got beat by Mad Max every time.

OSIRIS-REx, spacecraft to asteroid Bennu, launched 2016

One of the first of its kind, OSIRIS-REx, Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) is a NASA spacecraft sent to study the asteroid Bennu and return a sample to Earth.

It was launched September 8, 2016 and landed on Bennu in October 2020. It lifted off from the asteroid's surface in early April 2021 and in May, began its journey back to Earth.  It is expected the storage container of samples of Bennu will touchdown September 23 of this year. 

"Shin Godzilla" released 2016

Shin Godzilla premiered July 25, 2016 in Tokyo before being released to the rest of the country on July 29.  It is the first Toho Company production of Godzilla since Godzilla: Final Wars in 2004.  Also, it is considered a 'reboot' of the series since it is not a sequel to any of the previous movies.

It was released in the US in October starting with Los Angeles on Oct 3, New York City on Oct 5 and Columbus, Ohio on October 7.  Then it had a limited release on October 11.

At the Awards of the Japanese Academy, it won Best Film, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Lighting, Best Editing, Best Sound and Best Art Direction.  It was nominated for four more awards.

Diwata-1, first Filipino satellite, launched from ISS 2016

Mission emblem

The Philippines launched their first satellite, Diwata-1, from the International Space Station April 27, 2016.  It was the first satellite built and designed by Filipinos.  It was launched from Earth on March 23 aboard a supply mission to the ISS.

Diwata-1 was designed for many different uses, among which were monitoring the extent of damage from typhoons and measure changes in vegetation and phytoplankton in Philippine waters.  It was decommissioned March 20, 2020 and entered the Earth's atmosphere April 6.

Soyuz MS-01 launched 2016

Soyuz MS-01 crew (L-R): Anatoli Ivanishin, Kathleen Rubins, Takuya Onishi

Mission patch

Soyuz MS-01, launched July 7, 2016, was a spaceflight to the International Space Station, carrying the members of Expedition 48.  Its crew consisted of Commander Anatoli Ivanishin (Roscosmos), Takuya Onishi (JAXA), Kathleen Rubins (NASA).

Rubins conducted two EVAs during her stay aboard the ICC for almost 13 hours total.  The crew of Soyuz MS-01 returned to Earth October 2016.

Soyuz MS-03 launched 2016

Soyuz MS-03 crew (L-R): Thomas Pesquet, Peggy Whitson, Oleg Novitskiy

Mission patch

Soyuz MS-03, launched November 17, 2016, carried three members of Expedition 50 to the International Space Station.  Its crew consisted of Commander Oleg Novitskiy (Roscosmos), Thomas Pesquet (ESA) and Peggy Whitson (NASA).

At age 56, Peggy Whitson became the oldest woman to go into space.  Novitskiy and Pesquet returned to Earth in June 2017 after 196 days.  Whitson returned in September aboard Soyuz MS-04.

"Doctor Strange" released 2016

Marvel Studios released Doctor Strange November 4, 2016, the fourteenth Marvel Comics Universe movie.  London-born actor Benedict Cumberbatch played a sexy version of the good doctor.  I am a big fan of Tilda Swinton but I did not like her being cast in a role of an old Tibetan man from the comics. 

The special effects were eye-popping and the story was well in line with the comics.  It was nominated for an Oscar for Best Achievement in Special Visual Effects.  (It lost to The Jungle Book.) I liked his appearance in Thor: Ragnarok with Chris Hemsworth.

As of April 2017, Doctor Strange has grossed $677.7M world-wide.

Soyuz MS-02 launched 2016

Soyuz MS-02 crew (L-R):  Robert Kimbrough,  Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko

Mission patch

Soyuz MS-02, launched October 19, 2016, carried members of Expedition 49 to the International Space Station.  The crew consisted of Commander Sergey Ryzhikov, Andrey Borisenko and Robert Kimbrough (NASA).  Soyuz MS-02 docked with the Poisk, the Mini-Research Module 2 (MRM-2), a docking port installed by Russia added in 2009.

They stayed on board the ISS for 173 days, returning in April 2017.

Soyuz TMA-20M launched 2016

Soyuz TMA-20M crew (L-R): Jeff Williams, Aleksey Ovchinin and Oleg Skripochka

Mission patch

Soyuz TMA-20M, launched March 18, 2016, is the 129th Soyuz mission and the last flight of the Soyuz TMA-M class spacecraft, being replaced by the Soyuz-MS later in 2016.  Its crew consisted of Commander Aleksey Ovchinin, Flight Engineer Oleg Skripochka, and Flight Engineer Jeffrey Williams of NASA.

They formed Expeditions 47 and 48 aboard the International Space Station and stayed until September 2016, when they returned to Earth.

During August 2016, they captured stunning video of Hurricanes Lester and Madeline in the Atlantic Ocean and Hurricane Gaston in the Pacific Ocean.

Soyuz MS-03 launched 2016

L-R: Thomas Pesquet, Peggy Whitson, Oleg Novitskiy

 Mission patch

Soyuz MS-03 took off from Baikonur in Kazakhstan, November 17, 2016.  On board were Oleg Novitskiy (Russia), Thomas Pesquet (France) and Peggy Whitson (Iowa).  Peggy was the oldest woman to go into space, but I don't know of anyone who will actually say that to her.  ;)

Soyuz MS-03 traveled to the International Space Station, docking on November 19.  It undocked June 2, 2017 bringing Pesquet and Novitskiy back to Earth.  Whitson stayed on the ISS until September 3.

Shenzhou-11, China's fifth manned space mission, launched 2016

Shenzhou-11, the fifth space mission from the China National Space Administration, took off October 16, 2016 (UTC) with Commander (and veteran astronaut) Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong, who was on  his first spaceflight.

Two days after takeoff, Shenzhou-11 docked with Tiangong-2, the Chinese space laboratory, which was launched just a month prior.  For 30 days, the astronauts conducted scientific and technical experiments.  They returned safely to Earth November 18.

Since then, the unmanned cargo ship, Tianzhou-1 has successfully docked with Tiangong-2 three times, demonstrating docking and refueling.