New Dawn Fades (hopefully not)

I've decided I'll write in this bloody thing again, and try to do it frequently as well. I've said that before in the blog-world but this time I bloody well mean it. I've said that before as well, bollocks...

Anyway, 2010 is drawing to a close now, Christmas is nearly upon us (or is it? It's cancelled if you believe tabloid newspapers, all the online shops won't be able to ship us our goods on time! There's still a full 7 days of post still to come, calm the fuck down!) which means new shit to play with, watch and listen to. It's not been a bad year, and since it's nearly at an end I think I'll have a wee look back and consider the stuff I've experienced for the first time over the course of the year. By which I of course mean music, films and the odd book. I don't imagine any of them will be new releases, in fact the majority will be fairly old indeed.

So let's start with...FILMS

While I've been to the cinema a fair bit more than usual this year (9 times, by my count!), I don't think any of them would get into my top 100 (except Back to the Future, but that doesn't count). The best film other than that was probably Toy Story 3, which, while good, wasn't anywhere near as good as the first film. I also felt it relied far too heavily on nostalgia, and I was actually fairly disappointed when I saw it after having it built up by everyone else I had known who had seen it, expecting to be reduced to a gibbering pile of teary goo but instead being treated to a solid 7/10 children's action film with bits of "Don't you wish you were a care-free child again? Isn't it hard to let that go?" sprinkled in. While I admit I was affected by these sequences, and obviously it would be nice indeed to be 8 again, it just wasn't enough for me to make up for the repetitive nature of the action sequences. I know that Woody and co have to get from one place to another but why does it always have to be such a bloody mission for them to get there? It doesn't really engage me, but I suppose most people enjoyed it.

I missed the other big blockbuster of the summer, just didn't get the chance to go see it. I'm talking about Inception. I'd quite like to see it and will eventually on DVD, although I doubt it'll be the 5th best film of all time or whatever preposterous position it is on the IMDB top 250.

Enough about the films of this year though, the films I most enjoyed seeing were ones released long ago. I watched a fair few, some exceeding my expectations, others falling fairly short. Off the top of my head, the best films I saw this year for the first time were, in no order:

Casablanca, Seven Samurai, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Planet of the Apes, the Princess Bride, Ponyo, Gran Torino, the Manchurian Candidate.

Good but not great were a Nightmare on Elm Street, the Conversation, (500) Days of Summer, the Wild Bunch, Se7en, the Outlaw Josey Wales, Pale Rider, Hang 'Em High.

Smelly piles of stinky shite included the Graduate.

My favourite was probably Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It's just a superbly written film, and since I had been getting into Westerns at the time it was just the perfect film for me to watch. The chemistry between Paul Newman and Robert Redford is outstanding, so I'll be looking into watching the Sting, the other film they starred in together which is also meant to be very good indeed.

Speaking of superbly scripted films, Casablanca was probably second favourite. The whole thing is just gold, and the scene in which the patrons of Rick's bar fervently drown out a small knot of German's singing "Die Wacht am Rhein" with an emotional and powerful rendition of "La Marseillaise" is my favourite in the entire film. Whenever someone asks me what I'm doing tonight, the reply is now always "I never make plans that far ahead".

Of the good but not great films, the Wild Bunch probably disappointed me the most. It was generally rather dull, peppered with the odd good scene, but I felt the whole thing went on entirely too long and I can't really fathom why it's so highly regarded. Its saving grace however was the absolutely spectacular shoot-out at the film's end, which alone made up for the mostly rather average scenes that preceded it.

Se7en started out well, but the ending felt like something of a cop-out to me. I won't go into it though in case anyone who's reading this (as if) hasn't seen the film yet.

As well as the films I saw for the first time, I also rediscovered love for films I hadn't seen in quite a while. Raiders of the Lost Ark is the most prominent of these, I forgot just how fantastic it was. It's the perfect action film, I'd love to see one of its quality made today.

I've still got plenty of films to watch, in fact I think I've more now than I had at the start of the year, even with me watching a fair few.

In terms of television I didn't really discover anything new. Lost ended and, as expected, the ending was a massive pile of shit. By the show's end it was so far removed from what made the first two seasons great that it was almost beyond recognition. The Simpsons continues to be soul-crushingly awful (upwards of 12 years now and counting!), whereas How I Met Your Mother continues to be watchable. The Inbetweeners was also good without being anything special. Louie was a very good new show that I watched this year, featuring the comedy of Louis C.K, although the best episode of the series wasn't funny at all but more of a terrifying look at his religious upbringing. As for old shows only just discovered by me, Freaks and Geeks takes the top spot. The cast is just absolutely fantastic, drama and comedy is mixed wonderfully and the soundtrack is also great.

Anyway, I think I've gone on for longer than I had anticipated, so I'll leave music for another time. There's still another 2 weeks of 2010 left, after all.