HAIZ (not a Hailee Steinfeld reference) Welcome to my countdown.

 

 

This will probably start in all actuality after Christmas at this point but what's wrong with whipping up a bit of hype, I might get a post or two in before the day.

 

What it will consist of... now, that's a thing. I'll obviously end with my top 200ish songs that I feel define this year like everyone normally does, with a lot of writing about them, although I think I'm definitely conserving my energy for the upper tiers this time because of what else I have planned. What albums I got and listened to this year will front this.

 

But in the middle, I'm going to write a lot (and in fact, have already prepared a lot of this in advance) about the big films, TV shows, animes and video games that I've watched or played this year because as well as making this about music, this is an entertainment site and this has definitely been a year where I've gone deeper into entertainment. It'll only include a few significant ones, there won't really be an order to them, and it'll just be what I liked about them and maybe in that the odd recommendation if you somehow haven't seen what I've seen (I guess that part will mainly apply to anime). So if you feel like reading paragraphs from me, that'll be what's happening prior to the big song countdown. I do like indulging myself. ^_^

Very excited for this! Your commentaries are always very insightful so I'm looking forward to reading them :D

Hype *.*

Nightwish to obviously SLAY.

Excited for this Iz :wub:

^Will Nightwish slay though :o Glad to see some comments, ta guys.

 

ALBUMS

 

So, this includes every album that I listened to in part for at least some of this year. That I felt I could include for this year. Some might be a year or two old. Some might have appeared in every list last year. The order isn't really that important for quality, at least not this low down, it's more of how much they impacted my year. The top 10 is definitely in quality order however, being the 10 best albums I've heard this year.

Also there may be a few exceptions, like I'm saving Coldplay and any album I'm going to be seeing under the Christmas tree for next year. Naturally.

 

So... in this one little pre-Xmas teaser, let's go from 0-60 and 26-11

 

26-11

 

http://gl.weburg.net/00/fck/muzobzor_news2(14).jpg

 

26. Train - Bulletproof Picasso

25. Ed Sheeran - x

24. Galantis - Pharmacy

23. Taylor Swift - 1989

22. Hozier - Hozier

21. Ayumi Hamasaki - A ONE

20. Death Cab For Cutie - Kintsugi

19. Mumford & Sons - Wilder Mind

18. FKA Twig - LP1

17. Florence & The Machine - How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful

16. Years & Years - Communion

15. Against The Current - Gravity

14. Rachel Taylor - Come Alive

13. Marina & The Diamonds - FROOT

12. Owl City - Mobile Orchestra

11. The Pretty Reckless - Going To Hell

 

I'm not sure when this Train album actually got released but it takes a customary spot for their albums, i.e. nice singles and then an album I barely listen to, X was okay but far too many slow songs (and not in the cool way like I See Fire is a cool ballad), Pharmacy was a bit of a disappointment honestly, two stormer singles but then an album with not much else that needs listening to. 1989... eh, I don't worship it like a lot of people do and that it's here and not in 2014's EOY is a testament to that but it has some enjoyable pop on it. Hozier is instantly better than Ed Sheeran for delivering a meaningful singer-songwriter album, his voice is a nice prospect to listen to even if I haven't done it much outside Take Me To Church, Ayumi's album I barely meant to get but after loving Warning so much it did make sense, and it's a fairly cool J-Pop album. Kintsugi and Wilder Mind see stellar if not outstanding updates to previous faves, LP1 is a great chilled album from the best of her particular subgenre, the way that voice moves. Florence and Years & Years show off some of the better side of British music, if Florence has had better (although I appreciate the 'storm' theme), Communion shows off some pretty lovely pop, I may not be their biggest fan but I certainly am an appreciator.

 

Then in the final 5 to miss the top 10 we come to some of the albums I'm sorry to see miss top 10. At #15 and #14 are EPs from two acts who've had a strong year for me, Against The Current are an excellent new pop-rock band who's EP Gravity shows off some of the best of that genre in a young, excited way I thought I wouldn't hear again. Talk and Brighter are great great songs (for the latter, that's the same title as one of Paramore's earliest highlights). Rachel Taylor is a little bit more subdued but not by much, she used to be part of He Is We and I think now is running under the name She Is We and for her solo career is going far more down the pop rock route than her old band ever did. Songs like Dance With The Devil and Come Alive are really energetic and if you liked Porcelain or just like pop-rock, I'd definitely recommend that particular EP.

 

FROOT was, in the end, a bit weak by Marina's lofty standards but I still liked it or it wouldn't be up this high. There are a couple of highlights from it to come in the songs chart and a lot, particularly Happy and Weeds and Immortals have really grown on me. Similarly, an old favourite of mine, Owl City, falls pretty early on. I guess Mobile Orchestra just isn't as strong as his other efforts for me, it has several enjoyable tracks but maybe I have finally been sated with geeky pop anthems too much. Nevertheless, the likes of Thunderstruck and Unbelievable give us some good pop-rock and there's a couple of nice ballads like This Isn't The End, but definitely prioritise his other albums first if you wish to start spinning with the best.

 

Finally, The Pretty Reckless, I think this is the oldest album on the list but I only got it at the start of this year and it is rather lovely. As lovely as hard rock with a name of 'Going To Hell' can be. But then I like dark lyrics with what seems like a lot of tongue in cheek emo-esque and from the utter highlight of summer 2013 that Follow Me Down was there's also some great stuff in the title track, Heaven Knows, the longing cries of f***ed Up World, the bonkers Why'd You Bring A Shotgun To The Party, it's just as essential if not more so than their debut album.

26. Train - Bulletproof Picasso

25. Ed Sheeran - x

24. Galantis - Pharmacy

23. Taylor Swift - 1989

22. Hozier - Hozier

20. Death Cab For Cutie - Kintsugi

19. Mumford & Sons - Wilder Mind

18. FKA Twig - LP1

17. Florence & The Machine - How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful

16. Years & Years - Communion

13. Marina & The Diamonds - FROOT

11. The Pretty Reckless - Going To Hell

 

All good albums :wub:

Agree with the Owl City comment tbh. It flopped at #7 for me this year :lol: I'd say it's my 2nd least favourite album from him (which is a shame because ATBAB and TMS are my top 2) I still rather enjoyed it because it's Owl City ofc but I really hope he can get back to his usual slaying of my ears with the next album.

 

Loving Pharmacy and 1989, and Communion and FROOT are really good too :cheer:

Edited December 24, 20159 yr by Mace Spindu

Hi Iz

 

Glad to see HBHBHB make an appearance here, I like Ceremonials but some of the tracks were back on par with her debut in this. It's a bit more mature and slow but stuff like HBHBHB, QOP and Delilah are all Florence classics now, so glad she made another great comeback.

 

Mumford & Sons appearing is nice to see as well, I did like their old sound but it was starting to get a bit tiresome by a couple of albums in so I'm glad they changed it up, I prefer them now more than ever and tracks like Believe and Ditmas are really up there with their others.

Agree with the Owl City comment tbh. It flopped at #7 for me this year :lol: I'd say it's my 2nd least favourite album from him (which is a shame because ATBAB and TMS are my top 2) I still rather enjoyed it because it's Owl City ofc but I really hope he can get back to his usual slaying of my ears with the next album.

 

Loving Pharmacy and 1989, and Communion and FROOT are really good too :cheer:

 

Exactly that really, Ocean Eyes is my top though, he has been going downhill for a while but this is the first time I wasn't too excited over an album from him at all.

 

Hi Iz

 

Glad to see HBHBHB make an appearance here, I like Ceremonials but some of the tracks were back on par with her debut in this. It's a bit more mature and slow but stuff like HBHBHB, QOP and Delilah are all Florence classics now, so glad she made another great comeback.

 

Mumford & Sons appearing is nice to see as well, I did like their old sound but it was starting to get a bit tiresome by a couple of albums in so I'm glad they changed it up, I prefer them now more than ever and tracks like Believe and Ditmas are really up there with their others.

 

Hi Josh ^_^

I think on balance, HBHBHB will definitely be better than Ceremonials in time, I really like St Jude and the overall darker sound that she seems to be going for. I'd have to agree with you on Mumford too, I think another album of their old sound would have come in at the very bottom but this new look gets them up... a couple of places. It's rather interesting at least.

 

10-6

 

6. Muse - Drones

 

Moving into the really good end, 5 more albums I really enjoyed. Quality shifts sharply up from the section below which was... 'rather good... at least I didn't delete it' territory to some really excellent albums.

 

My Love Is Cool is one of the more credible albums on here. Indeed, it's something that music critics should probably be falling over themselves to include in year-end lists (not they DID from what I've seen) as Wolf Alice are exactly the sort of rock band that you might expect their sort to love, and critic darling-esque bands and the bands my music taste loves don't always cross over to the point where I really LOVE the band in question so to have an exception is very exciting. I initially didn't think much of what I'd heard of Bros but hearing single after incredible hard rock single come out this year really made me excited for this in particular, and it didn't disappoint, I had it on repeat in the summer. The band uses their frontwoman and the other guys to good effect to create a diverse album, it's actually not all that heavy, only on a few songs like Giant Peach and the well-named Fluffy (*.*), a lot is even towards the indie-pop end of the spectrum. And we all know how much I love diversity. Definitely a band I'll be watching for more from now, because I know they're capable of a wide variety of things. I'm actually sorry it's at the wrong end of my top 10, but we do have several more albums that were nearing perfection coming up.

 

1000 Forms Of Fear was actually the first Sia album I've invested in. And it's a good one, even though it's probably (at a guess) the most commercial she's ever been. I've always been a fan of her voice and the way she moves melodies to match it and instantly found a few non-single highlights, which is always good. Burn The Pages, Eye Of The Needle and especially Hostage I've been playing so much, and the emotion on Straight For The Knife is beautiful. Doesn't really have any down-time or filler and I enjoyed so much of it which is very good for a pop album given my critical eye towards that genre as I grow older.

 

Also surprisingly rather pop (although because of the way Buzzjack is structured it's TECHNICALLY a representation for the indie forum again, I think in this whole top 10, for those with Buzzjack threads, only Sia wasn't posted in there, further proving why it's the best genre forum here) and also in my EOY is Susanne Sundfør with her 10 love songs. They all show an excellent understanding of melody and how to build an exciting song. Accelerate for example lives up to its title in the most glorious way possible, you can feel the song getting faster as it builds towards a climax. And they're all like this. All epic odes to their title, encapsulating everything about that word or phrase, Delirious, Fade Away, Kamikaze, Slowly. As a pop album, it's mostly so perfect, it tails off a bit towards the end in terms of quality (Insects and Trust Me aren't quite as amazing as the rest) but, again, it should be higher. 2015 was really good at its top end.

 

White Noise represents another great new band and what have been acting as my replacement for Paramore this year, except a bit more refined. That's not a slight at Paramore but PVRIS are definitely slightly more in control of their sound, their songs are all very polished and well done. Sometimes I don't like that but Lyndsey is a very confident frontwoman with her own identity that elevates these tracks into really enjoyable experiences, from the beautiful Holy to the anthem of St. Patrick to the exciting rock tunes of Fire and Ghosts, it's been a good ride having this in my collection, they're a band I'm very glad exists. The world needs more bands like this, and not just to help the Séyetan cause, but it would be a truly better world.

 

I saw Muse live this year. They are now the biggest band I've ever seen live, in what was comparatively a small venue. It was one of the best experiences of my year. And that was the Psycho tour to launch off their newest album, one that I've taken to far quicker than I ever did The 2nd Law (though I love that too). Far from going downhill as they age, they're adding to their melodic and epic builds and it's just a whirlwind of all the stuff I love them for. A couple of these examples will be in my singles chart but honestly, the lead single disappointment of Dead Inside aside (it's rare that I don't like the lead single, but what were they thinking with that?), it's almost cinematic in how well the album is put together. I guess part of that is the Drones dystopian concept. Tracks like Revolt and Aftermath really benefit from that. But the best doesn't come until almost the end of the album. I often love the longest track on an album as it's so often the album in mini, with all the myriad elements that made up the album coming together in one blast, but I can't remember it ever being a particular highlight of Muse before. However, The Globalist, with its whistling start, its typical Muse ballad then Muse guitar chord middle with spoken word sample (10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1...FIRE), before finishing with an Elgar homage, it is everything you could ever want from Muse in one overblown, audacious track. And it works so well. Brilliant album.

Wolf Alice - Glad it finished top 10 here such a unique album I love it so much :heart:

 

Sia - I do like this even if not not her best album :wub:

 

PVRIS - I do like this band but dont lsiten to the album massively :heart:

 

Muse - Now I Love this album so much :heart:

 

5. Halestorm - Into The Wild Life

4. Fall Out Boy - American Beauty/American Psycho

3. CHVRCHES - Every Open Eye

 

It's somewhat surprising to me that before this year I'd only really heard Love Bites and I Miss The Misery by Halestorm, with a bit of Here's To Us thrown in (because unfortunately that's the only song everyone knows by them, it's uplifting and all but it doesn't advertise why they're so special). Because they are a perfect band for me, what with hard rock chords, a charismatic frontwoman and some pretty cool lyrics. Often I do include two albums including a catalogue album from an act I've really thrown myself into this year and if I'd done that, 'The Strange Case Of..' would be just about sitting in the same place as 'Into The Wild Life'. But in any case, Into The Wild Life is a really strong third album from an act that is one of my new favourite hard-rock bands and is obviously absolutely flawless with everything they do. They are a similar deal to The Pretty Reckless really, a heavier type of band (and therefore not a Paramore ripoff). Actually, seeing this album be the midweek #1 in the UK I think ranks top of my favourite chart moments of the year. I think I was one of the ones who bought it then. Utter anthems like Mayhem, I Am The Fire, Gonna Get Mine and Amen are exactly what you get on here, a few less ballads than The Strange Case Of and it's all the better for it, an absolute romp into... the wild life.

 

At the start of this year I really thought Fall Out Boy were past their peak, I took a brief listen to this new album and it was even more boring on first listen than Save Rock and Roll had been. However I think something majorly switched then as suddenly I couldn't get enough of ALL Fall Out Boy, past and present, but especially everything (The Kids Aren't Alright aside) on American Beauty/American Psycho. Too few bands are doing what Fall Out Boy are doing right now, I think they're one of the few veteran bands from the mid-00s that still seem to able to get some minor hits. Them and Paramore. And the experience speaks volumes, it's top of everything you could want in a pop-rock album. We have the wonderfully aggressive title track, the dancey Uma Thurman, the epic Novocaine, the Son Lux sampling chilled Fourth Of July, the brilliant bookends of Irresistible and Immortals (well, with Twin Skeleton after Immortals, but still). It's been a pretty brilliant rock album and in fact my favourite rock album of the year. If we go by strict genres for my top 3.

 

I sneaked Every Open Eye into my subtitle because I have made no secret of the fact that CHVRCHES have been saving Western music for me definitely in the last half of the year. Every Open Eye builds on the brilliant debut album from CHVRCHES, which I was spam-playing in the first half of the year and gives more airy pop perfection. It's the same sort of thing I loved Lights' album for last year but even more polished. So many of these tracks have made my EOY and I've been enjoying the rest as great additions to my collection. An album really well worth the money. It's just something about Lauren Mayberry's voice that draws me in and keeps me interested. Unlike so many other British singers, she sounds completely joyful while singing her parts and it uplifts the songs into something emotional and approaching perfection. I really have to thank her and her bandmates for keeping me interested in pop music, I think I might have walked completely away from it were it not for this album. It took a great deal of willpower to not put this in my top 2, really. There have been times this year where I've wanted to keep a CHVRCHES shuffle on all day, for the amount of stuff that gets compared to them on the blogs, there's really nothing like the real thing at this moment in time, I think it'll be a long time before I'm bored of any of the tracks on here.

 

 

Hi Iz.

 

Fall Out Boy AM/AP - I do like this album not gonna lie, its punk rock at its finest although I prefer last era :(

 

CHVRCHES - Every Open Eye - I really love this album but their last era :heart:

Hi Iz

 

I agree with you that Every Open Eye keeps the same sound but sounds very polished now. Lauren's one of my favourite vocalists around, the way her voice and the synths work together in every single song is just magical :wub:

Many amazing albums :heart:

My Love Is Cool, Drones, Every Open Eye and of course 1989 being my highlights, absolutely adore all those albums :heart: :heart:

 

2. Two Steps From Hell - Miracles

 

It's a strange way how such a small action can somehow decide the direction of your year. It took Chez entering the title track from this album to introduce me to the sublime wonders of Two Steps From Hell as an artist, and then it took hearing one other track from it on plug.dj (I believe also played by Chez, I have a lot to thank you for there), Compass, to make me realise I had to purchase this album and see what other amazing, emotional instrumentals were on it. And that turned out to be about the best snap decision I made this year as I have since played this album far beyond the reach that any normal person would play an album. I have always been a fan of epic film music, it used to be all I'd say I liked when I was much younger, but I never really knew many of the names of the artists involved unless it was music for a specific film I loved (like Howard Shore for Lord Of The Rings or Hans Zimmer for Gladiator).

 

So therefore Two Steps From Hell's music really speaks to me, it stirs up the strongest sort of emotions in me. Like Lindsey Stirling last year, it's very easy to get addicted to melodic instrumentals as there's no vocals to tire on you. Though not everything is an instrumental and the ones with vocals from the wonderful Merethe Soldtvedt, My Freedom, Stay and Compass are all huge highlights of the album.

And unlike the rest of their music, I need to get the other albums at some point, but that's more epic fight and gaming music, this is intensely beautiful. The former has its place, but this, Miracles, is a focus more on dreams, life and love and sometimes those emotions are all the strongest. Sun Gazer, Eyes Closing, Fountain of Life are all filled with a bit of slightly epic to start the album off but I also adore the slower moments like I Love You Forever, Color The Sky, Forever In My Dreams (all so very poignant for me), and the very atmospheric Northern Pastures. It's an album of wonder, and it's affected my music habits so much this year, I'd recommend it to anyone looking for emotion in their instrumentals or just in general. A must listen for my 2015 (even though it did actually come out last year).

 

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x263/station820/Nightwish_EFMB_300x300_zpsh5dphx05.jpg

 

1. Nightwish - Endless Forms Most Beautiful

 

But of course, this was rather pre-ordained, and I said as much in my album chart last year. But I haven't done it with it being an undeserved conquest over Two Steps From Hell, Endless Forms Most Beautiful is an album I have loved, listened through many times, and there has been no album I have listened to more than this one this year.

 

The thing is with being a Nightwish fan, more than any other band I enjoy, it is that you really learn that the strength of a band lies not in its lead singer, but in its lead songwriter. Tuomas Holopainen is the brilliant mind behind Nightwish and he is the reason that they are my favourite band, not Tarja, not Anette, and certainly not Floor, although she gives a great account of herself on this first album, I think some of the Nightwish fan community were really worried she would turn out to be a disaster, but the minute I heard Élan, I knew that wasn't the case. Tuomas though, his influence is immediately still detectable in these songs, over all of them. Some of the album sounds like Imaginaerum, some of it sounds like the older stuff from Once or earlier, some of it, particularly the ballad Our Decades In The Sun, sounds very much like the stuff from his solo album last year (i.e. if you liked The Last Sled, you will probably like this album, or at least ODITS).

 

Endless Forms Most Beautiful is to some extent a concept album. I tend to like those as it really feels like the songs were put together with a structure in mind, which adds an extra weight and reason to listening to the album in full, and you also handily get to avoid the feeling that this album might have been put together by a bunch of music-hating suits in order to get a quick buck. Not that's probably a problem so far down the commercial scale as Nightwish are, but still, it's nice to have a cohesive album. And this actually was their most successful album in the UK, giving me another of my favourite chart moments this year, not long after the Halestorm #1, Nightwish were TOP 5 in the midweeks. If only those midweeks were the actual thing. And if only everyone listened to the true genre of hard rock. This is why I'm falling out of love with the charts, when they only allow these great albums one week yet slurp over Bieber and all the faux-RnB shit... I think I've gone off on a tangent.

 

Yes, EFMB is a concept album. In fact it's a concept album about the grandest of subjects, the entirety of human endeavour itself. Imaginaerum was about one human life, this is about everything since the Big Bang, with all aspects of human life. Shudder Before The Beautiful starts this off as the grandness of space gets created, Weak Fantasy taking a hard-rock stance against religions that control people's lives (controv perhaps but it's a tune anyway), Élan is about the beauty of life, Yours Is An Empty Hope and Our Decades In The Sun have a wistful feeling to them, the latter being about the band's parents, which makes it the most emotional song on the album. My Walden, Edema Ruh and Alpenglow build up a Celtic trilogy (Celtic vibes are always the best that Nightwish have) to give this image of the struggles that humans have faced throughout our history, while the title track deals with all the life that has been on our planet from the beginning to the present. Too many of these give me chills as they come to an extra poignant word.

 

Then there are the last two tracks. I tend to think of them as one as they work better together, but it actually makes the two a whole 30 minutes long. The first, The Eyes Of Sharbat Gula, is a slow, meandering track that builds up a real sense of foreboding throughout the track. The imagery of that famous picture aids the song, as a representation of the recent tragedies of the human race. The choir really helps that. And then Eyes... leads into the monster, The Greatest Show On Earth. I will be going into more detail on my EOY chart but suffice it to say that the 24-minute long behemoth was entirely worth it and really completes the album, delivering on the theme and with a couple of extracts from Dawkins to enhance the centre of the song, it's fantastic. Previous Nightwish lengthy tracks, Ghost Love Score, Poet And The Pendulum, Song Of Myself, they have been great, but really they pale in comparison to this. It's worth listening through the whole of the album just to get to this last one as by the time you complete it you'll feel completely fulfilled.

 

Woah, I wrote a lot. Endless Forms Most Beautiful is worth it though. It's another fantastic chapter to add to the catalogue of my favourite band. I had waited nigh on 4 years for this, ever since first properly becoming a fan of them and getting all their albums. With the anticipation I had for it, it could have EASILY disappointed. That it didn't but really built on my expectations and exceeded them was so very exciting, I think it made my 2015.

 

~

 

Woo, first part done.

 

 

More thanks for comments, even though I always expect none at a minimum, it's fine if you're just reading.

 

Hi Iz.

 

Fall Out Boy AM/AP - I do like this album not gonna lie, its punk rock at its finest although I prefer last era :(

 

CHVRCHES - Every Open Eye - I really love this album but their last era :heart:

 

Save Rock On Roll has been growing on me and The Bones That You Do Not Believe is beautiful but these... are just as good if not better. I think they're better.

 

 

Interlude time. What that'll be is one post each on films, tv shows, video games and animes, as my other main outlets of entertainment - I would do books but I take so long to read any these days that I haven't got much material, all the books I read are for studying, which is a shame as I used to be quite the bookworm. To sum up, for me, why these pieces of entertainment have improved my year and all. Then we'll get right back (well, at my usual leisurely pace), to my songs after that. It'll be everything I can remember to write about really, some are quite long, some are less so. As far as spoilers go, I'll put big plot twists behind spoiler tags, especially on sections where I'm talking about something that probably no one else here has tried, because I don't want to ruin it for anyone.

 

FILMS 2015

 

I might get some retribution from the film-watchers here like Bal and Ultra for saying this, but films are really my least favourite medium out of all the visual options I have available to me. The reason is really that I go into a story to fall in love with the characters. Preferably lots of them. Films, with only 2 hours to tell a story, can only really do this for a few characters, it's often hard for me to empathise with a straight hero, and all the intriguing side-characters get a couple of lines. So they're too short, but at the same time, they're also too long to casually sit down and watch one. And the fixed plot time builds things up too quickly and I find there's a lot more variety in the overarching plots a TV show can provide. Also, cinemas are expensive. So I only go to the cinema a few times a year, if that, and that's mainly to see big hyped films. So this lot may not be the longest and it'll mainly contain films we've all seen. A nice easing in, I guess.

 

From the beginning of the year:

 

The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies

 

The first film I saw in 2015, and the last of Peter Jackson's Tolkien films. Barring them making a movie out of the Silmarillion I'd suppose, but believe me when I'd say that any movie would either miss out a ton from that book or it would be the finest Middle-Earth history documentary you've ever seen. Maybe a movie about Beren or Hurin... but I'm getting away from myself. The Battle Of The Five Armies. While the original trilogy is 99.9% flaw-free, the one flaw being that Legolas doesn't know his cardinal directions when calling out Uruk movements, over time I have come to accept that The Hobbit, as a trilogy, isn't quite as infallible and at times it overdoes the fight scenes at the cost of developing the dwarves, which is what I was really hoping they'd do. Two-thirds of this movie is one long huge battle, as you might expect from the name. The vista is incredible however and there's certainly enough epic to fill a whole Erebor. So it's enjoyable but not close to the standard of LOTR, and you can see this in the level of attention to detail that was done in trilogy #1 with costumes, sets, vistas, in contrast, some of the Hobbit looks blatantly computer-generated and less authentic.

However, one thing I will always, always, always defend, as it seems to be people's main criticism of this movie, is its length. This wasn't just an adaptation of one small book, it was turning the key story from that one small book into a story that could rival LOTR in grandeur. It is, in some parts, a mainstream presentation of Tolkien's appendices and as someone who kind of sees him as a godfather of fantasy, my favourite genre, that absolutely appeals to me. I saw the extended version of the whole trilogy this Christmas and pretty much all of the flaws I found in the trilogy from first watching the theatrical release were cured (less so than the extended editions did for the originals, there are so many scenes from those I couldn't imagine LOTR without now, but still pretty excellent). There's several more nice moments with the dwarves (including one scene where Bifur and Bombur actually get lines), they included fantastic bits from the book that got missed out (like the dwarves comically getting introduced to Beorn in the second film, as well as the enchanted river), there's a bit more sense made in various scenes with elements being introduced before they were used, like, say, in the battle with Thorin et al getting up to Ravenhill, and there's a

funeral scene as well as Dain being crowned the new king

. So yes, not only were they not too long, they were not LONG ENOUGH.

But yeah, yay Tolkien. I'm happy with how they finished it, I enjoyed it for what it was, a big romp into a massive fantasy battle. That sort of thing is cool.

 

The Imitation Game

The one film here I didn't see in the cinema, I included this because of all the films new to me that I saw in 2015, including films seen at home, The Imitation Game really stood out to me as one to talk about here, it's about Alan Turing, and as much as I say I need lots of characters to make a film worthwhile, focusing something on one historical character can really work wonders as you go in with an attachment to this person and of course Turing was one of the greatest men from at least the 20th century for the impact that he has had so a film dedicated to his life did captivate me rather well. And I guess that's what I mainly have to say about it, Cumberbatch played a role that's far less over-the-top than many other roles I've seen him in, with a few social issues, but still a clearly talented and introverted guy (after my own heart then x). This really carries the film, he has some struggles with Charles Dance's character, the depiction of the code-breaking is wonderful to watch, having a keen eye for puzzles, watching someone else solve a puzzle is also really appealing to me.

And then it has the saddest ending too, jesus, really hammering home how backwards the laws dealing with LGBT folks were at the time.

Definitely worth a watch. Incidentally, one of my presents for Christmas is The Theory Of Everything, which I suspect will fall into a similar bracket of films, I've heard nothing but good things about. More character studies of real people please films (or just historicals in general), they are an exception to my 'must have lots of characters' rules.

 

Inside Out

 

Now Pixar are normally excellent. Even so, I went into Inside Out expecting it to be somewhat a bit kiddy for me, I thought I might have outgrown Pixar. What I didn't expect though was for them to hit me with emotions. Quite... literally actually. As I'll go into in one of the later posts, I was really having a turbulent summer as far as my emotions go. Not directly because I was having a tough time, but I had finally finished years of study and I felt like I could really let my guard down and let a lot of the emotions I'm normally so good at holding away from the surface directly out. As such, I let my inner Sadness out and ended up having a great cry to some of this, it hit me right there in the feels, as they might say. Plot was a fun idea as well, I might have liked to have seen more of other people's minds rather than just using them for cheap gags, and the progression of the 'get back to HQ' plot itself was in the end very predictable, but I wasn't expecting a lot more there. And Amy Poehler really shined as Joy, thinking of her performance really makes me happy, because that woman can make anything joyful. A good film if only because it really made me feel a lot of emotions. And I'd prefer that to a technically excellent film that doesn't make me feel anything at all.

 

Spectre

 

SPEAKING OF those, I guess I should talk about Spectre. I think only Goldeneye and Skyfall, out of the small number of Bond films I've seen have really lived up to a film I love. Spectre was really quite Bond on autopilot, I didn't realise the significance

of the reveal of Blofeld

until later, and even then that feels underplayed, even for Bond, the final act taking place in a blown-out MI6 was hammy, and I didn't really take to what new characters there were. However, it wasn't all bad. I still enjoy Bond because the action sequences, particularly those at the start of a film (before MAIN PLOT kicks in) are enjoyable, and getting more for Q and Moneypenny to do is very welcome. I actually really found C a great Bond villain, because he's entirely realistically possible. And that makes him scary and watchable. Bond I find works best when it's not overdone. I care a lot for not losing my suspension of disbelief. Others may disagree. Stellar film, despite all those criticisms, certainly not as good as Skyfall but at least it got me into the cinema for more than one film at Christmas.

 

Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens

 

And the big one. The one everyone's talking about. Even the more sheltered members of my family are going on about it. The emotions I felt when 'a long time ago...' and the opening crawl came onto the screen are just kind of indescribable. And, pleasingly, it was not a disappointment. Now I know I love Episode I (for reasons like Duel Of The Fates, Darth Maul, Liam Neeson, the best character ever created and the Trade Federation) and I do, to an extent love seeing people complain about it, but it's nice to see everyone truly happy and excited for this new one. Because I don't think the biggest franchise on the planet needs another decade of angst over George Lucas' questionable writing decisions. And thankfully The Force Awakens didn't have any of that. The main criticism I see leveled at it is that it's trying to be A New Hope. And that's not a problem for me, A New Hope always felt, to me, a bit hindered by the time it was made in, and could have used a bit of fleshing out, and this does that wonderfully, set 30 years later and all, but I see nothing wrong with having history repeat itself. The new characters still feel like a load of blank slates, BB8 aside, but there's plenty of time for them to become as classic as Han Solo and Chewbacca. If they play the next couple of films right, this'll please everyone and make the franchise stronger as a result. Also, I loved the theme of taking us to new planets. Even if they still followed the basic desert planet/city planet/ice planet thing it's showing more of the galaxy. The Force Awakens has really made the galaxy feel a bit more alive. I hope it'll hold up as well on a second viewing, this is all from one viewing, but for some fantastic acts of nostalgia mixed with a push towards the new, it's a great time to be a Star Wars fan and I'm very glad I got to see it. If I was ranking them, I'm not, this would probably be my film of the year.

 

Back on this 2nd January.

FILMS 2015

but films are really my least favourite medium out of all the visual options I have available to me.

Boo :kink:

 

Love the reviews though :heart: Agree with you on Spectre, yeah it was a bit flawed but I found it so fun and a really good time!

Love all the films you have reviewed (apart from Hobbit, found it really boring :( ). Also agree on Star Wars, such an epic movie and easily one of the best of the year :heart: Omg at that Jar Jar Binks comment though :lol: