The year is winding down, and 2014 was pretty great — as long as you were a formerly unknown sexy British human-rights lawyer, a talking raccoon or the person who greenlit “Too Many Cooks.”
It was slightly less great if you were Shia LaBeouf or if you came anywhere near either of the two Hercules movies.
One of the biggest (literally) pop-culture stories of the year involved Kim Kardashian’s butt. The reality star bared her ample behind on the cover of Paper magazine, launching an online feeding frenzy.
In that spirit, we present the “Bummy” award — a statue of a round backside that comes with its own spray bottle of baby oil to keep it glistening — to a few people and things from 2014.
Congratulations to all the winners. You owe Kim’s mother 5 percent.
Best ad disguised as awards banter
Host Ellen Degeneres’ “impromptu” selfie at the Oscars with stars Jennifer Lawrence, Brad Pitt, Bradley Cooper, Meryl Streep and Kevin Spacey set a record for Twitter retweets. The stunt, which was reportedly arranged by a cellphone maker, has been retweeted more than 3.3 million times. At next year’s ceremony, word is Neil Patrick Harris will eat a Doritos Locos taco.
Best name-butchering
At the Oscars, John Travolta — for reasons that still aren’t quite clear but we hope in some way involve Scientology — introduced Broadway’s Idina Menzel as “Adele Dazeem.” At least when Leo DiCaprio called “Philomena” “Philomania” at the Golden Globes, he was in the ballpark. Travolta wasn’t even on the same planet.
Best song at driving parents to violence
The most ubiquitous hit of the year was “Let It Go” from Disney’s “Frozen,” which was played and replayed about a billion times by every little girl in America. By the summer, it had sold more than three million digital copies.
Best wedding
Who else could it be? Kim and Kanye got hitched in Italy. Imma let you finish, George Clooney. I’m really happy for you, but this was the best wedding of all time!
Worst avoidance of the term “divorce”
Gwyneth Paltrow had been so hated on in recent years, a backlash to the backlash was almost upon us. Almost. And then the spoiled blond comes out with a ridiculously pretentious, completely tone-deaf blog post explaining her split from husband Chris Martin with the now infamous term “conscious uncoupling.” Gag us with a goop.
Best fall-from-heaven moment
Ariana Grande’s got a problem all right: dodging angel wings. The “Problem” singer had to duck and grimace to dodge Elsa Hosk’s huge pink wings while performing on the runway at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show in December. She joked about it on Twitter later: “a Victoria’s Secret angel accidentally smacked me in the face with her wings and it was awesome #goals #bangbangintomyface.”
Best scene-stealing (surveillance category)
How to get noticed when you’re trapped in an elevator with people way more famous than you? Try slugging one of them completely out of the blue. It worked for Solange Knowles, who hauled off on her brother-in-law Jay Z at the Standard Hotel.
Saddest anti-drug PSA
The death of Philip Seymour Hoffman from a drug overdose at just 46 years old shocked the world and was made all the more tragic by the great work he did in the espionage thriller “A Most Wanted Man” — one of his final films.
Least “Amazing” release
Avi Arad once remarked in the 1990s that Spider-Man — just the character alone — was worth a billion dollars. Not in Sony’s hands, it’s not. Last summer’s reviled “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” appears to have derailed the studio’s plans for a slate of sequels and spinoffs.
Worst finale since “Lost”
Audiences had been tuning into “How I Met Your Mother” for nine seasons to hear the story behind the title. What they got in the final episode was a disappointing downer filled with divorce and a quick reveal of the death of the “Mother.” More like “How I Met Your Bummer”!
Best spin on an annoying viral trend
The summer’s ice bucket challenge was for a good cause, but let’s just all admit that the videos got a little old by the end. Thank God for Patrick Stewart, who put a pin into the overblown trend with his contribution. The actor uploaded a video of himself sitting quietly at a desk. He calmly writes a check to charity, then drops an ice cube in a glass of booze.
Biggest miscalculation
“People have enjoyed our albums in the past,” U2 reasonably thought. “What they really might enjoy is to get the new one for free automatically in their iTunes account.” Not so much.
Best wooden performance
Treeman-of-few-words Groot, along with partner Rocket, stole the show in the year’s biggest blockbuster, “Guardians of the Galaxy.” I. Am. Impressed.
Best scene-stealing (red carpet edition)
Jennifer Lawrence photobombing Taylor Swift at the Golden Globes as the singer was busy being interviewed by Ryan Seacrest. “I was going to come in and push you down the stairs,” Lawrence joked to Swift. Would you two just make out already?
Biggest moment of foreshadowing
Lamest ’90s nostalgia
Lifetime’s much anticipated “Unauthorized Saved By the Bell” movie was a snooze-worthy dud, even more boring than “The College Years.” The attempted behind-the-Screech shocker left out a lot of the juicy details and covered the rest of the years at Bayside High with lifeless actors who admitted they never watched the original show. Most fans would take a caffeine-pill habit over having to watch this again.