Films 2010

Lastly some films. Probably the hardest to put together as well.

1) The Social Network

2) Inception

3) Toy Story 3

4) Monsters

5) Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

6) Kick-Ass

7) Four Lions

8) How To Train Your Dragon

9) The Illusionist

10) Shutter Island

Music 2010

As ever I started the year trying to listen to as many albums as possible and ended it with 100's of plays of the same ones. Number one was hands down this year though and I won't hear anything else otherwise.

Top 10 Albums

1) Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma

2) The National - High Violet

3) Frightened Rabbit - The Winter Of Mixed Drinks

4) Four Tet - There Is Love In You

5) Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

6) LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening

7) Gold Panda - Lucky Shiner

8) Caribou - Swim

9) Foals - Total Life Forever

10) Warpaint - The Fool

Honourable Mentions

Laura Marling - I Speak Because I Can

Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record

Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

Hot Chip - One Life Stand

Gorillaz - Plastic Beach

A Few Disappointments

M.I.A - MAYA

Klaxons - Surfing The Void

Kate Nash - My Best Friend Is You

Vampire Weekend - Contra

Zola Jesus - Stridulum II

Top 10 Tracks

1) Flying Lotus - Do The Astral Plane

2) Frightened Rabbit - The Loneliness And The Scream

3) The National - Terrible Love

4) Gold Panda - You (Album Closer)

5) Flying Lotus - Kill Your Co-Workers

6) Hans Zimmer - Dream Is Collapsing

7) M.I.A - Born Free

8) Daft Punk - Derezzed

9) The Gaslamp Killer - Carpool Dummy

10) Foals - This Orient

Games 2010

2010 has been a pretty strong year for the industry as a whole. Black Ops has made over £1 billion, Microsoft and Sony have made us the controller and Blizzard only went and released Starcraft 2 and a WoW expansion in the same year. Still got a few games to get through (AC:Brotherhood, Singularity, Rock Band 3, Need For Speed, Vanquish, Fable 3 and New Vegas a few who have slipped through the net thus far) but, hey, I'm not made of money. So here's a few top fives.

Top 5 360

1) Red Dead Redemption

2) Alan Wake

3) Just Cause 2

4) Mass Effect 2

5) Fifa 11

Top 5 XBLA

1) Limbo

2) Super Meat Boy

3) Worms 2

4) Sonic 4 Episode 1

5) Lara Croft: GOL

A Few Disappointments

Black Ops

Alien Vs Predator

Halo Reach

Splinter Cell: Conviction

Scott Pilgrim: The Game

Honourable Mentions

Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver

Football Manager 2011

Flight Control HD

Split/Second

Bioshock 2

Dead Rising 2

Now I've got a current gen PC, I might be able to expand my horizons in 2011. Still no PS3 or Wii though.

Quick Rant

Quick rant. The dust is starting to settle on the recent events up in Tyneside and yet it still makes little to no sense. Chris Hughton gets sacked after a run of 5 games without a win. On paper it seems logical. Given it's Newcastle as well it seems very logical, well for them. But yet this is the first sacking at the club for a long time that has left me bemused, upset and downright angry with the the blatant short-sightedness of the club and it's owner.

This time two years ago Newcastle were an absolute state. In fact this time 18 months ago we were a complete mess. To take us from the relegation joke team to being back in the Premiership and shipping 5 one week and scoring 5 the next is an achievement. We're not the Newcastle of yesteryear, but we're certainly playing with the same excitement and inconsistency of it. This is the reason you love the team as a fan. Seeing us get hammered by West Brom is depressing and as upsetting as it gets, but not two months ago we smashes Sunderland so hard I almost got in a fight watching it for just wearing a Newcastle shirt. As a fan, this year has been brilliant, I couldn't have asked for more.

But yet no we're faced with Pardew, a man so bland you forget his face every moment you're not looking at it. He's also signed a 5 and a half year deal which really shows how much of a joke this whole situation is. I will be amazed if he makes it to the end of the season. Which is what brings me to the overall focus of my ire. Ashley has managed this club worse than the Americans do their secrets. Just one mess after another. Like an elderly dog with the shits we continually stumble through the footballing calender emptying our bowels in a fit of embarrassment at the slightest opportunity. There is literally no logic behind this move given he's trying to sell the club. Not even the most naive of Saudi business men would purchase a club with that dead weight strapped to the front for 5 and a half years.

We'll see how we do on Saturday against the previous "biggest joke in the Premiership team" Liverpool. He'll need a lot more than a result there to prove his worth though.

Holidays In The Sun

So I've been away for a while. Been busy you could say. Although you probably shouldn't. I've changed up a lot of things, grown as a person. Mainly outwardly though to be honest. Still, I've learnt a lot along the way. Here's a small list of the most important.

1.) Most problems can be solved by not doing much. I found myself in debt, adrift and on the verge of spending my days watching Jeremy Kyle and weeping into a bowl of Cornflakes. However, an afternoon spent making CV's and then one handing them in later I found myself employed (twice over in fact) and then, through a few extra forms, enrolled at the OU. Debt crisis was averted through ignoring phone calls then agreeing to pay off some every month with my freshly earned pay cheques. And voila, future sorted. I always complain about being unlucky, but green was certain rubbed in my favour on this one.

2) I am wrong about almost everything. Living with more than 0 people that I talk to every day leads to discussions about many things; music, politics, how to deal with the sexual advances of Stephen Fry. However, blindly arguing about things you don't understand doesn't always win the day. For example, not the other day, I was discussing about how I hate Twitter. To me it seems like it's a venue for people to bum celebrities and post one liners of middling quality. Yet, even when it's just used in that manner, it's extremely fun. Yet another example of my hypocrisy.

3) Not everyone enjoys films because they're shit. Exaggeration is a disease we all suffer from time to time. Yet, claiming Deja Vu or Domino (or possibly all of the Tony Scott canon) are brilliant because of their dizzying level of shitness is a misfire of larger proportions. Glasses that see into the past. Come on Denzel.

And finally.

SFC, the king of hungover food.

The best Christmas song sounds like a Hungarian wedding.

Newcastle are unpredictable no matter what league they're in.

Having two jobs makes it a lot easier to enjoy one a lot more than other.

Studying something you're vaguely interested in makes it a lot easier to read the textbooks.

Limbo

Last year's Arcade of Summer, Summer of Arcade or whatever it was called gifted us the wonderful Trials HD and Shadow Complex to name but two. This year's premier offering is something a little more, shall we say, pretentious. Limbo is the visually striking tale of a boy's lone journey in to "Limbo" (in speech marks thanks to now being abolished) and basically, that's it. Of course, it being an XBLA title such pointless attachments as plot, voice-acting, tacked on multiplayer are all left aside, leaving you with a touching, un-nerving trip which will induce delight, puzzlement and anger all in equal measure. These are the signs of what make it great though, the satisfaction of solving another devilish complexity massively outweighs the crippling sadness of repeating the same failing attempt at progression. Prepare a slot on your end of year lists.

In other gaming news: RDR. Got a donkey. Did lots of missions. Bonded. Named it Juliet. Watched in vain as it got shot by Mexicans. Too devastated to play again. Wonderful game.

Inception

It's very rare that you can go to the cinema and see something that has the financial backing the same size as the budget deficit but isn't about moping vampires or fighting robots. Inception is not like anything you'll see at the cinema this year. Unless you deliberately go to an art cinema to watch an obscure foreign film just to say otherwise. But then you'd be a pretentious shit. So swings and roundabouts. The lead up to this film was very hush hush and with good reason. It's hard to explain what happens without it sounding like a confusing mess. But basically, it's a film about people who trained to steal information and ideas from peoples dreams who take up the oppertunity to place an idea in someone's head through "inception". It's essentially a heist movie. He gets the job offer, assembles a team, starts the heist. You know the rest.

It's so much more than that though. The outlandish setting keeps you on your toes the whole time. Not to mention that the visuals are stunning, some of the best I have ever seen. Suffice to say that the scenes from the trailer are even more mind-blowing at the multiplex. The script, whilst a little wordy, keeps the balance of complex and engaging and Di Caprio leads with a great performance, with the rest of the cast not too far behind. But overall it's the perfect cinema experience, the perfect to retort to whether Avatar is the future of cinema. It doesn't have to be, we just need more big budget, big idea masterpieces like this. In a word stunning.