Films (at the cinema, in seen order):

1. Daybreakers
2. The Road
3. A Single Man
4. The Wolfman
5. The Crazies
6. Alice in Wonderland
7. Ponyo
8. Shutter Island
9. Perrier’s Bounty
10. Kick Ass
11. Psycho
12. I Am Love
13. Double Take
14. Dogtooth
15. Four Lions
16. The White Ribbon
17. The Bad Lieutenant
18. Rec 2
19. Inception
20. Splice
21. Down Terrace
22. The Illustionist
23. Mother
24. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
25. The Maid
26. Certified Copy
27. Cyrus
28. Winter’s Bone
29. Made in Dagenham
30. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
31. Let Me In
32. The Light Thief
33. Black Swan
34. Womb
35. Octubre
36. Monsters
37. We Are What We Are
38. Tron: Legacy
39. The Town
40. Love and Other Drugs
41. The Way Back

Again, they’re OO5ed

Best

Again, super lucky to get to put some sci-fi in the top of my list. The Road is captivating, if in an entirely bleak, looking at your pets and wondering if you’d eat them in a crisis, kind of way. My favourite was Monsters. It felt like an antidote to all those silly explosion, chase driven, gun-ho monster movies. It’s delicate and subtle, and looks frankly amazing and ultra-detailed, and it doesn’t treat the viewer like a complete idiot. It’s just lovely. I guess Inception is the big one for everyone else – I liked it a lot, but I’ve kind of forgotten it already.

I had anticipated Splice as being a winner this year, but it totally missed the mark – Womb turned out to be the much more interesting, in depth, film about cloning and genetics (and it’s got Matt Smith in it – what’s not to go crazy for?). Tron should have been a massive disappointment, but I managed to keep expectations deliriously low and came out entertained. The film I failed to not get excited about before I saw it was Scott Pilgrim, given the sentimental place that I hold the graphic novels in, and fortunately it is really excellent fun.

I also loved The Illusionist and Ponyo. The former is beautiful, and although it’s French it doesn’t matter – they hardly utter a word, and when they do it sounds like a Sim – it’s totally carried by the perfect animation style. And Ponyo is just adorable (sing the Ponyo song!).

The big marmite film for 2011 is definitely going to be Black Swan. It’s a ballet drama? Really? Yeah. It is entirely a must-see film. It’s an intensely paced psychological thriller and the ballet bit really shouldn’t put anyone off. It’s probably one of the best crafted films I’ve seen this year, if not for a few years.

Also loved lots of others, particularly Down Terrace, Dogtooth and Winter’s Bone – all share the commonality of being a bit bleak (or, actually, totally screwed up – don’t watch Dogtooth with your family, okay?).

Worst

It’s only when compiling this list that I’m reminded of all the complete movie mishaps I’ve suffered this year. Not least, Alice in Wonderland. I’m a massive fan of the story, as many people know, and I was a fool to even think that a new film would capture everything I love about it. Oh, so disappointed. I rated it more highly at the time than I feel about it now. Damn you, Burton.

Other let downs include a whole slew of films that have brilliant concepts, but they were just half-heartedly or plainly executed – The Crazies springs to mind, as does Four Lions (controversial, I know, but it’s a bit meh, to be honest – Chris Morris has a long way to go before he’s back in “paedophile dressed as a school” territory), We Are What We Are and Daybreakers.

Mostly this year, there has been some severely pretentious nonsense. I Am Love, Certified Copy, The Light Thief, Double Take and A Single Man – all fairly decent concepts, but unfortunately completely boring. I struggled to stay awake in a couple of those. Mostly designed as fodder for film reviewers to fawn over, but actually, totally ridiculous and unwatchable.

Books

I’ve given up any semblance of attempting to record what I read. I did, however, buy a 3rd edition Kindle 3G, which I love. Surprisingly. Digital books completely lack everything I love about a beaten-up old paperback, particularly the digging through a dusty bookshop and finding random left-overs of previous owner’ lives (ticket stubs, receipts… postcards are my particular favourite), but the convenience and the form factor of this thing is amazing. It’s also caused me to re-read or find a bunch of classics, for free from manybooks (released through Project Gutenberg), that I would otherwise never have given the time to. I’ve read the complete Sherlock Holmes adventures, almost all of Robert Louis Stevenson, a bunch of H.G.Wells, and all sorts of other odds and ends. Metamorphosis struck me as an instant favourite of the classic selection.

Of non-ebooks, I read Philip Pullman’s newest book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, early in the year. Thoroughly disappointing. More hype than substance, in my mind, and felt a little like a cash-in on his controversial position (I enjoyed the His Dark Materials trilogy). I also read my usual fill of science fiction and re-read some favourites. I read Cormac McCarthy’s The Road after seeing it at the start of the year – which is unusual, since I’ll generally rush to read a book before I see the film – but it’s pretty much identical. Definitely recommend it if you’re lacking that stark, miserable, hopeless feeling at the beginning of your new year. :)

So, I wrote a little article for this year’s 24ways on documentation. It’s based heavily on the processes we used to develop BBC Glow, so I hope someone finds it useful.

If you’re feeling charitable, this year you can buy my article and the other brilliant 23 as an annual from Five Simple Steps: 24ways 2010 Annual, with the proceeds going to UNICEF. Yay!

For no other reason than to have something to blog at the end of the year, I kept a list of films I’ve seen and books I’ve read from Jan 1st 2008 until the end of the year.

Films (at the cinema, in seen order)

1. I Am Legend
2. Sie, Jie (Lust, Caution)
3. No Country for Old Men
4. Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead
5. Sweeney Todd
6. Cloverfield
7. The Savages
8. Juno
9. There Will Be Blood
10. Be Kind Rewind
11. My Blueberry Nights
12. 10,000 BC
13. El Orfanato
14. Funny Games U.S.
15. [Rec]
16. In Bruges
17. Deception
18. Iron Man
19. Smart People
20. Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull
21. Gone Baby Gone
22. The Incredible Hulk
23. Kung Fu Panda
24. WALL-E
25. The Dark Knight
26. Elegy
27. Persepolis
28. Hellboy II: The Golden Army
29. The Strangers
30. Pineapple Express
31. Taken
32. How To Lose Friends and Alienate People
33. Burn After Reading
34. Easy Virtue
35. Choke
36. What Just Happened?
37. The Fall
38. The Day The Earth Stood Still
39. The Reader
40. Blindness

Favourites:

Fortunately, there were many I really enjoyed. Juno, Wall-E, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Funny Games U.S (or the original – it really is an identical shot for shot remake), El Orfanato, In Bruges, Easy Virtue and The Reader (on general release in 2009) are all ones I’d especially recommend, though.

Least favourites (or just plain terrible films):

10,000 BC (just awful on every level), The Day The Earth Stood Still, Be Kind Rewind (good concept, bad screenplay), Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead (incredibly boring).

The Day The Earth Stood Still deserves special mention. I was willing to give this film a chance if it stood up as a film in it’s own right, rather than as a remake, since they couldn’t really make an accurate one set in today’s world. Such an utter disappointment.

This film is remarkably not ruined by Keanu Reeves. He actually suits his role. The film is ruined by an incredibly bad screenplay that makes half-hearted references to the amazing original, includes terrible dialog and unbelievable situations which lead all the main characters to constantly and whimsically change their allegiances so as to suit the ridiculous “human beings are wonderful” love-fest and unnecessary patriotism. Oh, and the CGI sucks too.

Books (fiction and non, plus some graphic novels – in finished order):

1. The Unteleported Man / The Mind Monsters – Philip K. Dick / Howard L. Cory
2. Scott Pilgrim Vol. 4 – Bryan O’Mally
3. The Amber Spyglass – Philip Pullman
4. Star Maker – Olaf Stapledon
5. The Penultimate Truth – Philip K Dick
6. Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson
7. A Handful of Darkness – Philip K Dick*
8. Dr Bloodmoney – Philip K Dick
9. Love and Limerence – Dorothy Tennov
10. Ubik - Philip K Dick*
11. Dark Stars – ed. Robert Silverberg
12. Bonjour Tristesse – Francoise Sagan**
13. Lost at Sea – Bryan O’Mally
14. Through a Glass, Clearly – Isaac Asimov*
15. The Gryb (and other stories) – E. A. van Vogt
16. Fear and Trembling – Søren Kierkegaard
17. The Game Players of Titan – Philip K Dick**
18. On The Genealogy of Morals – Friedrich Nietzsche
19. Watchmen – Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons***
20. The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck****

Gracious book lends: *Michael, **Dave, ***Patrick and ****Steve

I’ve certainly been on a short-stories kick this year, having read 5 collections. I really like the medium, actually, and it’s a shame that the form seems to be dying. I only tend to come across good short stories, especially of the sci-fi variety, in now out-of-print editions in musty second-hand bookshops. The Blackwells and Foyles seem to push and stock mostly the latest full-length pop novels and not a whole lot else. Shame.

The other clear trend is my continuing appreciation for Philip K Dick. The man was prolific, but I find almost all of his books interesting to read. I really do recommend him if you’re interested in concepts of alternative realities, trust and philosophy of the mind.

I wanted to read as much as I saw, but, as pointed out to me, a film is just a couple hours out of the day, but a book is a lot more. Maybe next year I’ll do better (or watch less).

Happy 2009!