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I figure I'd better get this out as a statement of intent. Time for me to move into the EOY forum and stay here for approximately the next month, talking about things on my own timetable, which means, will get finished but I am probably not going to be regular with it.

 

And what things are these? Well, they are going to be, in order:

1) albums, which is going to be rather quick because I really haven't listened to that many albums this year and I don't even know that I have one that I'm absolutely raving over like the last few. But I'll still try and do a quick countdown.

2) films, which I've watched quite a few more of this year in the cinema, I may rank them this time

3) (western/live-action) TV shows, which I have a few of certainly, I may not rank those, but I might

4) Games, which I am definitely ranking as I basically discovered Paradox Interactive grand strategy games this year and kind of LOST myself in those

5) Anime, which I am very excited to do because I have a definitive ranking of everything in place, having watched about 5 times as many anime shows as western shows this year, and actually have thought of an entertaining way to count those down as the content will mean nothing to most people here, but it's the EOY section I've been thinking the most about and most looking forward to doing because the competition is really really fierce.

6) Songs, probably still a top 200 despite me being less into music, which will contain few chart hits, several older Japanese pop songs, soundtracks I liked, and lots of BJSC hits, which remains my principal source of new music because an average BJSC song is about 50 times better than the average chart song. Expect zero Drake.

 

Other than that, I'm notoriously lax with commenting which is why I just throw my weekly chart in the multichart so there's no obligation to comment for either you or me - hence there's no need to feel an obligation to comment but if you want to, I'll welcome it. I'll also try and take a look at and read everyone else's EOY charts and comment if I see something worth commenting on. The reading is the important part though. ^_^

 

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gifs provided by my namesake and spirit animal Weiss Schnee

 

probably... I don't know when I'll start, I have a busy weekend ahead. But soon.

an iz countdown *.*

Looking forward to this! :D

I shall be awaiting this with anticipation, then pass judgement upon your decisions.

Excellent!

 

ALBUMS

 

Normally this is about twice the size with much more care given to it, albeit the ones below 17th place are normally just those I've listened to once and found 'alright but probably wouldn't bother to listen again until shuffle unlocks one specific track for me and subsequently that's the only track I ever play from it'. But this year I've found it very hard to engage with albums over and over and indeed lots of the ones low on the list are just those that I have listened to once, this time through Spotify so there's even less of an attachment made to them. I guess I liked these? Kinda. As the important part is my top 8, I'm just going to skim past these 9 incredibly quickly.

 

Probably also a time to make the point to make the note that year released doesn't matter one bit to my EOY lists, except in the case of music that's obviously really old, it's just stuff that is new to me this year. And even, sometimes, if there's something that I'm revisiting after a long break away and I want to talk about it. So albums that were released in 2015 will be here. In fact it's probably more likely that they'll be that year and not this year seeing as I haven't really listened to new albums for months - I only found out about five days ago that Amaranthe had stealth released a new album without me realising and they're huge for me!

 

Also this might have been a weaker year as a lot of my solid favourites released albums in 2015 and so haven't come back around for 2016 - there's only Amaranthe and Lindsey Stirling that I'd say had been ultra reliable before that released new albums this year. But anyway, on to the albums 17-9 #downwithbase10.

 

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12. Coldplay - A Head Full Of Dreams

 

 

 

 

Well, I suppose actually a lot of those are also favourite acts of mine. Mika, Sia, Rihanna, Tonight Alive, Coldplay, yeah, maybe I was exaggerating a little although some of those certainly were released late last year. But the thing is with most of these is that I already have so many albums by most of them (except for Sia and TA), that it didn't feel like I necessarily NEEDED new music from them. However, what we have is good.

 

Anti, that is last because I want to punish Rihanna for this year. But most of the tracks I didn't like from her this year weren't on Anti. Some of it is, there's certainly a good number of tracks I never listen to, because it's the sort of pop I find really boring and/or awful. This was a direction I knew she was heading but she kind of embraced it fully this year. And most of it wasn't that good. Kiss It Better was as was Consideration and Love On The Brain, that's good, and there was the Tame Impala cover of Same Ol' Mistakes that gave me one of the most interesting Rihanna songs I've heard this decade (after FourFiveSeconds). But I know she can do much better than this.

 

I will not hold back, the next three albums on the list are mostly on the list because I know I listened to them in full, but it was only one listen on Spotify and I can't remember anything about any of them. Like with This Is Acting, I certainly don't think it's bad and I know I really like some non-singles like Reaper and listening to some of the tracks now it sounds pretty good as I know Sia to be but I know that one listen didn't stick with me at all during the year. The same with Mika, particularly Staring At The Sun, even though I imagine I'd like it more if I listened to it more because I normally work that way with him. These albums just being on Spotify for me doesn't help. I even think I really liked Get To Heaven from Everything Everything a lot. Spring / Summer / Winter / Dread and No Reptiles were lovely tracks but it's been ages since I thought about them as a band.

 

Limitless was a pretty solid album. Not as good as The Other Side, but solid. I loved Human Interaction but didn't really get into much of the rest of the album majorly. Everywhere and I Defy were wonderful though, off the top of my head. Similar thematically, Beautiful Bodies really impressed me on the one listen through I managed to give it properly, putting it a bit higher than the other albums that I did manage to do that with. I also took away a few tracks that I've listened to a bit more regularly, Ravens, Good Luck And Good Night, and most of the others really, as a band, their sound is a very appealing one that will sound very good on nearly anything - a bit like Hey Monday or Paramore in that respect but a little bit more raw. Definitely something I'll need to give a few more listens to as I listen to it now.

 

A Head Full Of Dreams is largely in here, as a 2015 album, because of seeing the accompanying tour in the middle of the year - the title track and Up & Up getting played during that night was incredible, I was more familiar with the older tracks at the time so those have stuck with me here but I've casually gone to listen to the rest of the album over the rest of the year since. My non-single highlight is still the Tove Lo duet of Fun, it has some pretty great lyrics with nostalgic feeling.

 

Up to 10th after only a few days of knowing it, and I haven't even been that obsessed with them this time around, Amaranthe's Maximalism really does show the ease a good album that grabs me has in getting into the higher part of my list. In fact, given the speed at which I'm adopting new albums, I'll probably keep it around as an option for next year. It hasn't really advanced on Amaranthe's mission objectives (which can be summed up as 'create the craziest meld of pop and metal you can think of so metalheads will be eternally confused about liking them'), but that's a good enough MO that it all still sounds pretty great and I'm sure I just need a few more days get used to the new tracks, a couple of them are already settling in as future faves, Boomerang and Supersonic in particular.

 

Finally before the arbitrary cut off point, it's KKB! I'd listened to Intro Bonito a little bit in the past and kind of liked what was there but this second album has hugely improved on that with a wall-to-wall sound of cute bubblegum computerised pop - and that is one of my advertised weaknesses, in fact I'm still not sure why it isn't one of everyone's advertised weaknesses. The interspersion of Japanese lyrics here and there does endear it to me I suppose. The album opener of Waking Up, combined with the laziness of Break, are both pleasingly upbeat anthems to the lazy, Graduation has some very.... relatable lyrics, Trampoline and Picture This are, as evidenced by BJSC, clearly superior pop songs to everything else on the market and the rest is lovely really the only reason this one isn't in my top 8 is that I still haven't dedicated as much time to it as I'd like to have and additionally this is where the competition starts to get tough and it turns out there actually are some albums I managed to get some proper listens in of this year. Hurray.

 

looks like I need to do more seshes

:hi: Iz!

 

I only know two albums from that list - ANTI and This Is Acting. Rihanna is hit and miss with me as I've mentioned to you before and ANTI is no different, plenty of goodness (I agree with most of your highlights) and a bit of rubbish too. This Is Acting is a really strong pop album, I've only heard her last two albums but this is the one I prefer of the two!

 

Interested to see what else is coming :D

Oops this reminds me I still need to listen to Bonito Generation :lol: Anti and This Is Acting though <3 Both in my top 10 of the year!

http://fresh-music-only.ru/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Lindsey-Stirling-Brave-Enough.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/8V06rlb.jpg

 

8-3

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. BABYMETAL - Metal Resistance

 

Jackpot is an EP, so a little short compared for an album but I normally have one or so EPs in here or thereabouts. It came out last month with four new tracks, Jackpot, Epic, Elegy and Prelude on it. The former two are very amazing and the latter two even have some chopped-up vocals for extra loving. There's nothing bad TheFatRat has done, everything has been beautiful, so four extra songs of him is tight and very enjoyable.

 

Brave Enough I don't think can stand up to Lindsey Stirling's other albums, I had my main love of her in 2014, and it took me forever to actually get around to listening to this. But it can only not stand up to them by the mildest of margins, and it's largely because I haven't yet had time to sink and play these tracks over and over. Some of them are coming in my songs chart and I'll leave those unmentioned. It's like she's continued experimenting with collabs and sound effects to advance her sound very slightly, even though it's still very quintessential violin dubstep that we all know her for. The vocal collabs are rather good, Christina Perri being high quality as normal in a track that's clearly trying to be this album's Shatter Me, the title track and some crashing vocals. It's not my favourite on here, but it's still very good. Something Wild, a track used for a film this year also uses the collab to high effect and I know there's still a lot that I'm very interested in continuing to explore over multiple listens on this album. If I continue to do that it'll reach the heights of the other two in time.

 

I know Art Angels is 2015, I however only fully cottoned on to the amazingness of Grimes and this era this year in January, so all of her songs from this era that I deem worthy of calling attention to will be right here. And Art Angels is one of the best pop albums I've noted down this year, I made a point of keeping it on rotation. Belly Of The Beat is absolutely stunning with its instrumental progression, shared in other tracks like California, Realiti, World Princess, also all very good tracks. Scream reminds me very well of Kitty Pryde - I think I'm going to keep this one around for a long time - especially because of its highlights that are coming later - this time what I've neglected to mention via omission should be obvious.

 

I think I'll have to mention everything awesome about Twenty One Pilots - which includes Vessel because me getting hyped for them as a huge new act this year includes me properly and many times over listening to Vessel. I did a similar thing in 2014 with Lindsey Stirling. Fully appreciating the awesome eclectic manicness of tracks like Guns For Hands and Holding Onto To You is very worthy of putting it in my albums list this year, there's something very complete and fulfilling over listening to them as a band - nothing feels unnecessary or hasty filler, each track is there for a reason.

 

Blurryface feels a bit more polished and I'm ranking it ahead of Vessel for one simply reason, this is its year, I don't really want to choose between them because each is so amazing I feel that choosing between them truly would just be a bit anticlimatic. I think for a higher plateau level of quality on all the tracks Blurryface might be slightly ahead but it's not really functionally any different, both albums are outstanding examples of... albums. Not genres, because who's going to ascribe these two to a genre, attacking modern dance with electronic instrumental choruses, filling a much-needed gap as a rock duo, doing a bit of rap, creating pop with strong melodic hooks - all four of these are arguably present in Tear In My Heart alone. The first six tracks of this album are a perfect gold run of great, enjoyable tracks, and while the quality drops slightly afterwards it's not by much as all the fun continues until it continues with a classically beautiful emo ballad in Goner. Twenty One Pilots have been a jewel in the music scene this year and long may they continue to reign.

 

Babymetal have nearly improved on their brilliant debut album with Metal Resistance, regardless, one album of J-pop metal was definitely not enough for me and so I've definitely welcomed this one showing up. Especially as it finally gives me a legitimately great mp3 for Road Of Resistance, my #2 song of last year. I've had to give quite a bit of time for songs to grow on me, Karate especially, but Meta Taro and Awadama Fever stood out as bright melodic anthems immediately. Yava is just now revealing to me some excellent metal progression and Tales Of The Destinies is really hard yet beautiful in the end just like Ijime Dame Zettai on the first album. There is so much to enjoy here, I continue to be under the impression that these girls can do no wrong and every time one of the tracks on this album comes up for me I codify that belief even stronger. If only I'd gone for more specific Babymetal listening sessions during this year - which I'm slightly surprised I haven't done as much as I should have, I could have challenged this for #1, but I think the top 2 are so far ahead that even the power of Babymetal couldn't quite do it for me this time - they've still yet to get to #1 on either my albums or songs despite always being in contention. Next time maybe. Metal Resistance shows no signs of slowing the quality down, and if anything, the melodies show that there's an improvement from their debut - already evident on the beautiful Road Of Resistance, which I will keep mentioning until everyone considers it as an incredible 11/10 song as they should, this is like an entire album of that.

:hi: Iz!

 

I only know two albums from that list - ANTI and This Is Acting. Rihanna is hit and miss with me as I've mentioned to you before and ANTI is no different, plenty of goodness (I agree with most of your highlights) and a bit of rubbish too. This Is Acting is a really strong pop album, I've only heard her last two albums but this is the one I prefer of the two!

 

Interested to see what else is coming :D

 

Oops, the bottom 2. :D But yeah, at least you agree with the highlights. And despite me adoring Sia I've actually only heard the latest two albums too, I'm so bad at this part of music discovery i.e. appropriate album listening.

 

Maybe you'll know other albums but I actually doubt it :kink:

 

Oops this reminds me I still need to listen to Bonito Generation :lol: Anti and This Is Acting though

 

Do listen to Bonito if you can, there's so much lovely pop on there, it can't go overlooked!

Get to Heaven & This is Acting are the only albums so far I've listened to in full but both are good :D

 

I do like a number of songs from Brave Enough though, namely Something Wild & Prism.

:hi: Iz~, looking forward to seeing what your upcoming countdowns entail :D

 

Good to see This Is Acting do decently well here, I feel as though that has been without a doubt the highlight of her career for me, great to see it has spawned multiple hits. I love her willingness to explore mutliple genres (eg. dancehall in Cheap Thrills and more relaxed ballads in Alive), for me it makes her unique as an artist and I believe that's one of the primary reasons this era has spawned such monumental success for her :D

 

Also fantastic to see the inclusion of two twenty one pilots albums here, and so high as well :dance: I personally prefer Vessel to Blurryface however I excluded it from my countdown as I didn't consider it enough of a discovery as I was aware of it prior to 2016 - safe to say it would have easily been top 3 if I hadn't been as stringent with my rules!

 

Fantastic countdown so far!

TheFatRat :dance: :wub: his whole EP is great alongside the other songs he released this year. He's now become one of my fave musicians.

Get to Heaven & This is Acting are the only albums so far I've listened to in full but both are good :D

 

I do like a number of songs from Brave Enough though, namely Something Wild & Prism.

 

I would normally suggest listening to others, especially on the rest of Brave Enough, but I'm not sure what you'd like and I'm hardly on top of things this year with albums. But all my stuff is worth a listen. If you're me.

 

:hi: Iz~, looking forward to seeing what your upcoming countdowns entail :D

 

Good to see This Is Acting do decently well here, I feel as though that has been without a doubt the highlight of her career for me, great to see it has spawned multiple hits. I love her willingness to explore multiple genres (eg. dancehall in Cheap Thrills and more relaxed ballads in Alive), for me it makes her unique as an artist and I believe that's one of the primary reasons this era has spawned such monumental success for her :D

 

Also fantastic to see the inclusion of two twenty one pilots albums here, and so high as well :dance: I personally prefer Vessel to Blurryface however I excluded it from my countdown as I didn't consider it enough of a discovery as I was aware of it prior to 2016 - safe to say it would have easily been top 3 if I hadn't been as stringent with my rules!

 

Fantastic countdown so far!

 

Great! I was thinking Sia's highlight was more earlier in her career, but I haven't fully listened to the albums with Breathe Me or Clap Your Hands on them. Which I should. If I ever get around to it. I probably won't.

 

I'm not sure when I first listened to Vessel, it might have been before this year but I know I certainly listened to it much more this year than ever before. So that's why I did it but others have their own way of approaching things

 

~~~

 

 

 

I was so very hyped for Against The Current's album, as they'd really lightened up the pop-rock scene for me last year, with strong melodies and a frontwoman whose voice comes across as emotional and involved in all of her songs. They had yet to really make a bad song, and I can say with pleasure that In Our Bones has not broken that streak, and has enhanced it, as nearly every track is utterly incredible. This got solidified even more after I saw them live in September, an incredible night in a small venue where Chrissy kept an audience cheering for her and her bandmates, going through tons of great tracks from this album as well as the highlights that they had to leave off like Paralyzed and Gravity.

This album doesn't contain those or Outsiders, in fact it was almost entirely new material. So should you take a listen to this? Absolutely, if you liked either of those BJSC entries, like female pop-rock like Paramore or Kelly Clarkson or anything of the sort, Against The Current is a perfect mid-10s answer to those who want that sort of sound. Running With The Wild Things and Forget Me Now open up the album with some incredible anthemic songs, Chasing Ghosts and One More Weekend, following it, would be, if I have to choose, the weaker ones on the album as their choruses don't come together perfectly, although they're still good. From then though it's plain sailing, the sheer beauty of In Our Bones, the youthful energy inherent in Young & Relentless and Runaway, leading into Brighter, one of the few older tracks on here, so that's a bit nostalgic. It reaches another peak with the breathtaking electrorock Wasteland that by all rights should be a breakthrough hit for them - I can't think who it wouldn't appeal to. Blood Like Gasoline, Roses and Demons finish off the album strongly, a modern-day masterpiece of pop-punk. Very amazing album.

 

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1. Dream Theater - The Astonishing

 

There's one advantage The Astonishing has on In Our Bones, but it's a pretty important one - it's the narrative contained within. I'd been sort of vaguely aware of Dream Theater before this year but hadn't really listened to any albums, I've now had this and a listen of Octavarium to understand where they came from. But this one has really stuck with me. It started with me going on with Blake and a few others for a session on rabb.it to listen, I knew I was curious about listening to them so I came along, and Blake and I ended up having some really cool discussions about this album as I had my first listen to it. The music alone, it's strong voiced rock, vaguely power metal but light for that, no harsh vocals on Dream Theater, it's all melodic, so beautifully melodic and the metal part is contained within in the instrumental backing. Nevertheless it continues the awesome dominance metal albums have over my album chart, only 2014 with Shatter Me was not a metal album and even that had symphonic influences on a few of its tracks. I am kind of predictable.

It's definitely the lyrics that stand out for me on The Astonishing. I have, for some time, began to consider lyrics, in songs that contain them, of utmost importance, because I'm always interested in stories and if a song can tell an interesting story or just has some lyrical turns of phrase that I hadn't thought of before then I will like it far more than a similar track with trite unoriginal lyrics. I consider this my principal reason for why I'm so picky with pop these days. Well, that and so much pop these days is dull and slow RnB-lite shit but that's something for a different rant. Point is, I really consider lyrics an essential way to make me like a musical work more, it's hard to give me chills without it unless the instrumental progression is top-notch. Again, this does only apply to tracks that are supposed to have lyrics, instrumentals can tell a different story with evocative lyrical replacements.

Dream Theater tell a story here. It's not the most unique story, but it's a story created purely to be told upon an album. It makes the whole work a concept album which ties the whole album together and gives you every reason to listen to this as an album from beginning to end rather than picking or choosing the tracks you like. That's a trap I fall into far too much upon listening to albums.

Story is basically, young musician, Gabriel, in a dystopian world without music challenges the evil Nafaryus (who is incredible), falls in love with his daughter Faythe, there are other characters too, all amazingly 'voiced' by the same lead singer who changes his voice subtly to indicate who he's singing for in the story. Eventually, after many trials, Gabriel has an ASTONISHING life. Listening through it in order is an experience I really recommend to anyone who thinks they could like this sort of operatic rock/light metal, there's so many emotional tracks, so many upbeat tracks, choral backing, twists and turns in the story that affect the tone of the music, and we even some genre-bending like the swing segment at the end of Three Days. There's a lot more individual tracks, I'll just quickly mention some of the best, the emotion of Losing Faythe, the villain statement in Lord Nafaryus, the heroic homecoming feeling in Our New World, the energy in Moment Of Betrayal, Finally, there's a most glorious finish in the track Astonishing, ending with the lyric 'our lives will be astonishing'. The Astonishing provided me with basically the best full album experience I've had for a while and that easily makes it my #1.

In Our Bones has some decent tracks on it :D Definitely memorable!

FILMS

 

Probably the least important part of my End Of Years, films have a harder time getting me to watch them than TV series, a much harder time, and so in order to make this list have a decent number of films I'm including not only new films I've seen in the cinema but also old films I've seen for the first time and recall having a good experience of sitting down and watching it - some of these are in preparation for going to see something at the cinema. Ranked but it's not a hard ranking, it could be quite flexible and changing, it's just going on instinct. Spoilers I will try to keep light but if you haven't watched any of the films below and you care, be careful. 9 to 6 here, top 5 tomorrow. Things. Schedules. They're as I make them.

 

9. The Girl On The Train

 

 

Not my idea to go and see, but I went along as it sounded like a nice thriller that I might enjoy. And I did, to an extent. The Girl On The Train is based on a book that I'd probably never read, not because I don't like reading but it's hard getting me to read a book these days that isn't fantasy and so the only way I'd get to see it is on the big screen. The plot was fairly predictable, there were a few twists and turns but nothing majorly jawdropping and 'the big reveal' was so well signposted I knew how it would play out fairly early. It's rare for me to say but I wouldn't say the characters were likeable either. The good things going for it were the different perspectives seen by the characters and the use of the train as the plot device, that was something I hadn't seen before. It kept me entertained for the hours it was on as I was figuring out and getting ahead of the plot but I wouldn't say it was the most well-written or best film. Hence why it's bottom.

8. Finding Dory

 

 

I'm afraid so. I think Finding Dory was the point where I realised I've kind of outgrown Pixar and Disney films. Not that I won't ever watch any new ones again, I've heard good things about Zootropolis for example, but I felt on the whole, despite me smiling and enjoying a good part of this, that Finding Dory was pretty weak as far as Pixar films go, and certainly can't stand up to its predecessor. It is just the same beats, I wish I cared about Dory more but she's not the best. I felt like the octopus Hank. Who was the best thing about this film, him and the slightly ditzy myopic (major points there) whale shark Destiny, who as new characters kept me interested in the jeopardy. It felt very much seen it all before though. As a kid's film. I can't criticise it that much but I don't think it went far beyond being a kid's film - the ones that do are the ones worth keeping in lists in future years, this isn't one of those.

 

7. Captain America - The First Avenger, Winter Soldier, Civil War

 

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I had not seen any Captain America films when friends asked me if I wanted to come watch Civil War with them, so I quickly went through the first two films in the trilogy, as a minimum for trying to understanding the Marvel Universe, something where I always feel like I'm missing out on something somewhere because of their limitless films that follow the same format but are all so boringly interconnected, such that so much exhausting time and effort is put into trying to understand their latest blockbuster... I'm not feeling kind tonight. It is how you do arc and continuity based storytelling badly though, something I thought was impossible before this. It turns out I'd have probably been better off watching the second Avengers film as there were still things I was confused about in Civil War. The First Avenger was the better of the first two films because of the historical setting, that's normally something that makes spandex-filled superhero films bearable for me, something set in a time period slightly historical, during the war, yeah, that was okay. I really don't remember much about the Winter Soldier and I don't really care to, it felt like one of the most generic superhero film, instead of something where I imagined there would be some sort of Russian forest covered in snow in a Winter War style movie, 'Bucky' is just a character. And a character whereby, because of his name, I am constantly reminded of that title disappointment whenever he's on the screen. And they're fighting in America. At least I finally found out where that Falcon guy from Ant Man fit in. When I watched that movie, as far as I was concerned, he was an Avenger I didn't know existed.

 

Civil War itself was easily the best of the three. With not as much focus on Captain America's horribly straight and chiselled jaw, plenty of familiar faces from the hundreds and thousands of previous Marvel films, and heroes fighting against heroes, it was fairly entertaining, especially the famous scene on the airport runway, where all the superhero teams faced off against each other. Spiderman and Black Panther really shone in those scenes - still probably not watching their spinoff films unless someone drags me along to those. However, I maintain it would have been better if somebody really important, ideally one of Captain America or Iron Man, had actually been killed by the other at the end of this. They were so close to closing off an avenue of revenue here, I felt, and I would have respected them for a sake of a better story. But as it stands it was definitely one of the better Marvel films for not making me want to break out into snark about consumerism ALL the time.

 

6. X-Men: First Class, Days Of Future Past, Apocalypse

 

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Just one place ahead, I'm actually going to be far kinder about this one. Similar story, I was summoned to see Apocalypse and we had a home showing of Days Of Future Past first, which helped. And I watched First Class before to catch up. And it was a far more satisfying experience than my ventures into pure Marvel this year. While I've still never seen the original trilogy of X Men movies, my first experience with this franchise was a good one.

 

Partly it was because I far prefer the X Men formula. Superheroes work in stories when rather than playing a titular character, they are in teams with wildly different powers that they can play off each other, see Misfits for a UK version or Charlotte for a Japanese take on that sort of thing. Also, the historical setting of X Men seems far more nuanced and set in reality. Not that a team of mutant teenagers stopping the Cuban Missile Crisis is reality but it seems far more... respectful. First Class in that basis, knowing that the rest of the films move the time period along a lot, felt kind of nostalgic and for once, I rather enjoyed the story of the 'first superhero adventure', particularly as Professor X and Magneto had been very well cast (and this was something I was slightly fearful of as I knew they had once been played by the awesome Stewart and McKellen duo and this knowledge is probably the only reason I want to see the original trilogy at some point in the future). Total waste of Darwin though.

 

Days Of Future Past was one of my favourite superhero movies for a while. Mainly because it was less of a superhero movie and more of a time travel movie and I freaking love time travel as a plot device and treasure it wherever it shows up. This includes an incredibly memorable scene where Quicksilver dances around a frozen room to Time In A Bottle - and you see what I mean about the variety of superhero powers on show? More please.

 

Apocalypse was not quite as good. It is often hard when writing ancient evil powers into your story but the villain of Apocalypse was far too much of a ham at times - especially given his world destroying powers, how he was beaten, because Sansa Stark has a really strong hidden power, was not the most satisfying. However it reintroduced a lot of mutants who I understand are far more classic X Men (i.e. Storm, whose aesthetic looks really ace to me) and the cues given to aid their reintroduction were very nice - and it had another classic Quicksilver scene, those must be mandatory from now on. Particularly the attention given to Scott and the other younger ones, I think I ended the film rather positively about where this franchise was going, which is something I really like saying about films that are part of one.

My top 5 films of this year now. Not all from this year. All new to me this year. Spoilers are scattered throughout. Particularly for films #4 and #3.

 

5. The Theory Of Everything

 

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Came out back in 2014 and it was one of the top recommended films for me to see by family and various other people who like films in my life this year. And that's a good recommendation, as it's about a living legend of science, and actually is not too dissimilar a film from The Imitation Game about Alan Turing that I included in my list last year. So I eventually saw it on a journey back to university and I was not disappointed. Like with The Imitation Game it's a film about clever people doing clever stuff so I'm in awe throughout on the brain power and intellectual discussion that Stephen Hawking shows but also his willpower to keep going and stay alive when everything tries to go against him with his motor neurone disease that has become completely associated with him. He makes writing a book, writing a paper so inspiring through this, life needs to be inspiring to keep us alive. If Hawking can do it with all the obstacles, anyone can. I must say, the main thing that is sticking in my head though is the scene where his friends ask how 'functional' he is and he basically confirms that there's no problem there. I'm horrifically lewd, this is supposed to be a very serious film. Anyway, it's a great film and biography of one of the greatest men alive today.

 

4. Star Trek Beyond

 

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One of my favourite things to do is pick apart loads of holes, in good fun of course, in one of my favourite franchises, Star Trek. Something I normally always rank above Wars but haven't done so this time, even though Beyond is easily the best of the new films, it's still not quite enough to beat this Wars offering. But Beyond is mostly on point and on message with the direction that Trek should be taking as it tries to weave its way between getting the audience in with blockbuster style plots and keeping the true fans that have stuck with the franchise for decades happy. I would have preferred it if there were more familiar aliens, even ones that were human-looking but now can be properly presented with extra makeup and the same name. The galaxy is big but it should have some familiar faces. I.e. the aliens look like an updated version of the Jem'Hadar, why not have them be Jem'Hadar and bring the Dominion into this as a huge threat. And in the end, having the villain be human originally kind of undermined that potential a bit because having humans be the problem in this sort of film is not particularly Beyond. Not saying Star Trek can't do that but this was not the right film to do it in, particularly after Into Darkness made such a meal of it. To say nothing of the fan rage itches that I got in my head upon seeing the whole Yorktown complex. Far too advanced for the Federation to be building...

 

That aside, I really did genuinely enjoy Beyond. The new alien, Jaylah, was very well cast and would be a good addition permanently to the rest in future films, the rest of the character interactions were much more on point than they were in previous films, the cast is really beginning to gel. Especially in the way they worked together to beat the aliens. The parallels to Star Trek III were also appreciated and lets me hold out hope for the next film to be some sort of time travel genius plot that revitalises the franchise as the new TV series steams ahead. History repeats itself, guys. Sadly that will be without Chekhov finding nuclear wessels due to the sad death of Anton Yelchin, whose death does hang over this film in every scene he's in, where he was on top form once again - and the tributes to him and Leonard Nimoy in the credit scenes of this film are very powerful.

 

3. Rogue One (RECENT FILM SPOILER ALERT)

 

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I just finished a couple of days ago writing a far lengthier post on Rogue One that can be found here so honestly there's not much that has changed from my opinions there. I thought about putting it at #1, I really did. I cannot remember the last time a new Hollywood blockbuster satisfied me so completely by killing off all of the characters at the end of it. Would be better if it were a TV series and I'd spent an entire season with them but that's by the by. Rogue One did exactly what it needed to with its characters and did not hold onto them for any kind of sequel hook, instead connected a Star Wars spinoff wonderfully to the original trilogy, with the latest in technology for using Leia and Tarkin that only looks slightly off. The plot could have been better but it could also have been much much worse and I really enjoyed seeing this one. It gives me a lot of hope for future Star Wars spinoffs as well as the future of the franchise in general. It also added to the world of the early rebellion really effectively, something that needed some concrete film time dedicated to it, if any of the periods in Star Wars' history needed anything, this was it. And the final scenes are pretty breathtaking from the moment the incredible snarky droid (who was otherwise an early film highlight) K2S0 has his last stand, the film's ride does not stop.

 

2. Princess Mononoke

 

(see what I mean about them not all being fresh new films)

 

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I finally saw another Ghibli film this year! That makes 3 now. Despite me being very interested in anime, I'm not so hot on what is most normal people's experience with anime, Ghibli, and had only seen Grave Of The Fireflies and Spirited Away up to now. But yes, I spontaneously decided to watch Princess Mononoke and see what I was missing. Turns out I was missing a lot. Enough that I think I'm ranking this ahead of the other two Ghibli films I've seen, as amazing as they both are.

 

You may say Studio Ghibli are the Japanese Disney and you may be right but on that level Mononoke definitely out violences nearly every Disney film, there is a lot of death and darkness as medieval Japan warlords find out that the environment can easily push back against them when they become too greedy. It feels very thematically similar to a lot of films involving natives or wild-born people defending the wild, but in this case the wild defends itself and pushes back against the humans. At a certain point in the film you have the titular Princess finding herself torn between the wild and the main character Ashitaka. The thing is, despite it focusing on humans destroying the environment, it's not a straight good vs evil narrative, the environment contains Japanese demons and the issues at stake are how humans and nature are going to coexist in the new world being created by the film - where the main characters are clearly going to be on the side of humans in the end. It's something I need to see again to really draw out clearer meaning from, I'm going off a lot of memory here, but it is a very good and complex film for the Studio and their high-water mark... for now.

 

1. Deadpool

 

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Surprise! Even though I've slammed superhero movies in this list as hard as I possibly can, in accordance with my pleasant and friendly review demeanour of course, Deadpool, a superhero movie, has ended up as my favourite film of the year. Probably for the first time ever. Probably the first time I've talked about a superhero movie without wanting to metaphorically kick it in the balls at least once. I hope it's finished high for most and I wouldn't be surprised, because everything about this movie was rather unexpected.

 

It lay in development hell for ages, it was supposed to be a flop but somehow, everything went right, it opened to huge acclaim from the public and critics, and I was actually really interested in seeing it. I'd seen a few Deadpool comics before and I liked his deprecating sarcastic style loads and so figured an entire movie of that would be pretty hilarious. I was not wrong. The engaging and snarky title sequence, the performance of Ryan Reynolds keeping you fixated on the main character as he walks across the screen, the banter and comedic moments (of particular note is International Women's Day), the supporting cast of Negasonic Teenage Warhead inspiring me to demand more teenage lesbians in films everywhere. The script and perfect dark humour carries this to far greater effect than its plot ever could, but given its plot is meant to be parodying superhero movies, I have no issue with it. Also, this film proves deathpools are a thing. Imagine how many worthless deathpool points I could have gotten if I'd got a good list together at the start of this year, I'd have put Castro and Zsa Zsa Gabor on there for sure. Although I probably would have put loads of slots on Popes Emeritii and Mugabes so would have still fallen short in many areas, I should draft some strategically made list up for the new year (probably an appropriate interlude to say: get well soon Carrie Fisher!). But anyway, Deadpool. My favourite film of the year, amazingly. Even superhero films can get me sometimes... if they ruthlessly parody themselves.

 

Parts 3, 4, 5 and 6 will be after Christmas xx

Hey Iz,

 

Glad it's not just me who found it an uneventful year for albums. I do love the Mika one though, it was in my top ten of last year! And Sia's is great too.

 

Really need to get round to listening to Kero Kero Bonito. And TheFatRat, didn't know that existed!

So much of my favorite movies here, especially DEADPOOL *.* :heart: :heart: :heart:

Dead pool really was brilliant, glad it was such a success.

 

how do you rate The Force Awakens?

Hey Iz,

 

Glad it's not just me who found it an uneventful year for albums. I do love the Mika one though, it was in my top ten of last year! And Sia's is great too.

 

Really need to get round to listening to Kero Kero Bonito. And TheFatRat, didn't know that existed!

 

Hi Rich!

 

Yes, I think about November I had the realisation that I hadn't really listened to any new albums intentionally since June or something - even ones I was supposedly excited for like Lindsey Stirling. It's taken me a bit of time to reorganise myself around that but a part of it was that there wasn't any one musical act really motivating me to go out and listen with a new album. There's a few now. But even then, normally I have several albums that 'define' my year. There were only two that came anywhere close this time around, the top 2. The ones low on the list, I like them but I haven't listened to them that much, I don't know why. I'm sure with Mika at least it will grow on me in time, I was similarly underwhelmed by his third one at first.

 

Yes, I'd recommend them if you get the chance. TheFatRat I'd only discovered because of browsing that area of Youtube, it's a very lovely little EP showing off the two sides he has to him.

 

So much of my favorite movies here, especially DEADPOOL *.* :heart: :heart: :heart:

 

 

Dead pool really was brilliant, glad it was such a success.

 

how do you rate The Force Awakens?

 

Erm, The Force Awakens I really liked upon first watch and almost rated it my best Star Wars film then but over time I've kind of dialled that back a bit such that it's a bit behind things like The Phantom Menace and Empire Strikes Back. It's good, like a better and up to date New Hope but it really relies on nostalgia and the factor of 'my god guys, this is the first Star Wars film for ages' so I overrated it a bit. I don't think those are problems I'm having with Rogue One so I'm willing to say it's a lot better.