Films watched 2014

Hands down film of the year - Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – just awesome!

Most perplexing - Tree of Life – overlong, over-ponderous and expensive.  What were they trying to say?

Most predictable American action guff - Olympus has Fallen –but does contain some good plane bits and explosions. 

Action film with most actual actors who should know better - Reds 2 - including the magnificent John Malkovitch

Funniest gangster flick - The Family – a very funny caper

Best tour of less salubr3ious parts of downtown LA - Rampart – oh the pathos

Best Sly and Arnie caper - Escape Plan – ridiculous and entertaining

Most enjoyable Viking romp - Hammer of the Gods – crying out for a part 2

Best movie with just one actor - All is Lost – although I found it hard to identify with the character

Best Flash and shiny - Now You See Me - daft but definitely shiny

Close second - The Bling Ring –those kids received very harsh justice indeed for nicking a few trinkets off celebs who probably got the stuff free in the first place

Best Brit flick - Starred Up - good story and very engaging

Funniest Brit flick - Bronson - fuck off!

Best Low budget Brit flick - Dead in France – very funny but a bit messy in places and dodgy dialogue

Close second - The Estate – strangely, the quality improved as it went along

Best film set in Yorkshire – the Selfish Giant – excellent child acting but felt the original story was somewhat lost

Best low budget American film - King of California - an excellent Michael Douglas in rare low budget mode

Most amusing Horror - Thirst – odd but entertaining Korean vampire priest romp; quite funny but not sure if it was meant to be

Best British vampire film - Byzantium – quite good vampire tale; much better than I expected

Most disturbing - Julia’s Eyes- Del Torro creeps you out

Most convoluted ghost story - the Awakening – keep up!

Best Historical film - Here there be Dragons – a tale of the Spanish civil war which doesn’t take sides

Best Russian war film - Stalingrad –pretty good especially the set decor.  But is needlessly bookended by narration saying how great Russia was

Best Greek epic - 300, rise of an empire – superior to the first instalment but crying out for part 3

Best sci-fi sequel - Riddick – including a rather cool sort-of-dog and ace scenery

Best film based on a toy - Transformers – Age of Extinction - ridiculously entertaining

Most disappointing Sci-fi - Gravity - what was it trying to say?

Close second - Elysium – okay but could have been much better and they should have killed all the rich people

Best sci-fi mish-mash - Pacific Rim - like Del Toro had slammed together bits from all his other films with some Michael Biehn and Godzilla thrown in for good measure

Most weird mish-mash of technologies - Outpost 11 – very weird low budget do

Best alien - The Arrival of Wang - unusual Italian sci-fi offering with an unexpected twist

Close second - Under the Skin - odd low budget alien in Scotland

Most likely to come true – Transcendence – this will probably happen soon

Weirdest since Brazil - the Zero Theorem - Terry Gilliam practically remakes his old classic

Best 1940’s sci-fi - On The Beach - good but very odd

Most disappointing baddie – Maleficent – not really evil at all

Best feel good movie - Good Vibrations - funny and entertaining

Best retelling of Shakespeare - Caesar must die – play in a play in an Italian prison

Best heist film - 11.6 –French heist film based on a real story 

Best hats - The Light Thief - nice gentle film from Kyrgyzstan with excellent hats

Oddest Arty film - Dogville – odd Von Triers effort done like a play with minimal props.  Very long and with an unexpected end.  Good closing titles of old photos to strains of Young Americans

Best black comedy Western - Dead Man – From 1995, the cast includes Johnny Depp, Iggy Pop, and Robert Mitchum.  Very funny and atmospheric

Best Faustian Western - Dead in Tombstone - silly but entertaining

Best Marvel movie - Guardians of the Galaxy – fun and fabulous

Worst remake - Robocop - absolutely terrible!  How did they manage to make it so bad? - They took all the fun out of it!

Needless remake - Carrie - Just like the original

Best blast from the past - Top Gun – best line: ‘your ego is writing cheques that your body can’t cash’ – genius!

Just why did I watch this again? - Sweeney Todd - I think I just needed to make sure I had not made it up.  I had not: Johnny Depp definitely sings like he got lessons off David Bowie and there really are some truly awful songs too especially ‘Pretty Women’. Makes you want to poke your ears out.

Review of 2011

2011 has been another stunning year for the Conroy-Openshaw’s, when yet again we failed to escape the drudgery of wage-slavery. Phil has still not made millions of pounds from selling either his non-commercial music or his interestingly weird photos (following the news that the most boring photo in the entire history of humanity sold for £2m, this is hardly a surprise; we just hope that whichever company bought it, enjoys looking at it in their board/bored room). I have failed equally spectacularly as a successful highly-paid writer despite having the wittiest blogs known to humans and ace story ideas (just a pity I can’t get round to actually writing).

During a freezing cold January and February, I stood around lots whilst Phil pursued his new hobby of making panoramas of everything in sight. Telly high spot was 2 of Phil’s workmates not winning £100k on ‘secret fortune’ thus having to give up the dream of leaving Leeds City College and opening up a cake shop. Well, if we can’t have our dream I don’t see why they should!

In March, we escaped the harsh winter of Yorkshire and spent an equally freezing but interesting week in Prague. We had a lovely time seeing all the main sights but were disappointed by how cheerful the locals were – not at all the glum Eastern European stereotypes we had hoped for! Maybe it’s because of the seemingly endless list of alcoholic beverages available from the ubiquitous pilsner, via the umpteen exotic liqueurs to the hot drinks selection (what do you mean hot G&T sounds gross? It’s winter you moron!). During this sojourn I came up with the ‘Moody in Prague’ photo series (available on Skydrive).

Spring and early summer were characterised by a series of delightful country walks, picnics and lashings of ginger beer (okay, it was just beer). The unusually dry conditions were remarked upon by several pub veterans who declared it had never been so mud-free in living memory and in fact this turned out to be true as the last time we had so little rain was apparently during the time of Hogarth so they should know! Mind you, this didn’t stop them having a roaring blaze in the fireplace on Easter Monday. After a day sat outside in premature shorts, the poor dears’ knees were a tad chilly. We were regaled by tales of how the drought-like conditions had necessitated the building of a dam in the river in order to launch the plastic ducks for the annual race- a ridiculous tradition made even more daft.

Unfortunately the weather took a wetter and chillier turn later in the spring and into early summer. A brief respite from the rain was experienced on the late May bank holiday whence we intrepidly set out for Foot fest in the lesser-visited hamlet of Luddenden Foot to support the world famous (well, in the Calder Valley anyway), local Ska combo. We also saw a couple of kids singing and playing guitar who were amazingly good (so they’ll probably end up on X factors and be totally ruined by the age of 16) and some bands that were a bit shit. I was quite relieved, however, to have successfully avoided the Blues Masters of the Calder Delta (sic) weekend.

During the only decent week in June, we decided to go camping in Cornwall and got worse weather than in Yorkshire! It was so windy that the tent broke when we were putting it up and so we had to bodge it, and it was so cold at night that we had to keep all our clothes on. But we had a good time of course in the great British stoical tradition 'shut up and enjoy yourself’, we told each other repeatedly ‘you’re on holiday’! (photos on skydrive)

On the return journey we stopped off in the delightful regency town of Cheltenham Spa and ended up in a nightclub full of footballers and chavs. An interesting interlude, which I am finding hard to be sarcastic about as the beer was cheap, the people friendly and the entertainment superb – courtesy of an indigenous urban dance crew. Mind you, there’s not much else to do as a tourist in Cheltenham – the high spot possibly being the Wishing Fish Clock which does some ridiculous performance every hour to the tune of ‘I’m for very blowing bubbles’, whereupon a stampede of toddlers threaten to trample everything in their path to witness the spectacle at close quarters, then promptly burst into tears when the thing stops about 10 seconds later.

A week after our trip ‘down south’ we sampled the delights of the Heptonstall festival - the smallest festival since Foot Fest and a bit shit. After about 5 minutes we’d seen it all so we went in the church to look at crap sculptures and had coffee and cake served by elderly local ladies who didn’t really want to make coffee for us or serve us any cake - v. Royston vasey! July was also the month of mysterious pub closures and rumours abounded about local landlords breaking into each other’s pubs and doing bunks. Interestingly, many of the pubs re-opened again quite shortly afterwards but were looking a bit squatty if you ask me – hmmm!

On the domestic front, August started well with the arrival of our new energysmart^tm meter which taught me 3 things: 1. Telly good, 2. hoovering bad, 3. Stuff on standby does not use leccy. Things took a turn for the worse however, as I came down with a virus– thank god for the riots (or should I say looting sprees) to entertain me whilst I was bedridden. My favourite shot had to be the looting of crisps from Poundland – stylish! They inspired me to an uncharacteristic flurry of blog writing and collageing (Anatomy of a Riot) and even got me back on Twitters if only briefly. It was amusing to see the pundits and sociologists having a field day and the politicians forced to come back from their holidays ranting about Broken Britain (razed to the ground more like!).

At the end of the summer we had a pleasant holiday at my sister’s villa in Turkey where we enjoyed the hot sunny days and balmy nights, but not the whingeing ex-pats (I will never get my head round people moving to another country to sit in the pub and moan when you can do this here and have decent plumbing!). We came back mid-September to an autumnal scene and Phil discovered that not only had he been down-graded at work (‘brain the size of a planet and they want me to draw skeletons’!) but they’d also moved him to Park Lane campus – insult to injury! Shame he can’t make cupcakes!

October saw Mum’s 80^th Birthday which was good as there were no arguments. We managed to get lost en route to Uppermill, but thought we had some time to spare and sampled the delights of the village – another Royston Vasey experience made doubly weird cos they all seem to think they’re in Yorkshire still. Anyway, turned out we got the restaurant wrong so had to find the right one and then got lost again getting home - on the moors in the dark this time– scary!

After saying we should go to London more often, we managed to fit it into our hectic schedule at the end of October. Highlights included the 99p shop on Eltham High street and the small shops of East Molesey (all cappuccinos and bricolage), against which competition the swanky art galleries and royal palaces had no chance! Culinary hotspots included the Forrester’s at Hampton Wick and Pizza Express on Wardour st – don’t laugh; it is the original one, dating from 1965 – historic!

In November a lovely local person died. Her funeral was a fantastically Hebden affair including the rickety camper vans in the crem car park, the whiff of cannabis smoke pervading the air, the lovely humanist ceremony and the wake at t’Trades. The loveliest send-off I’ve ever experienced.

December festivities have so far included a small Solstice Party up tops where we were amused by the Kids’ answers in the Xmas quiz including ‘who wrote Auld Lang Syne’? Charles Dickens (well, he is from the middle ages!) and Saving us all from Santa’s Power (not far of the truth to be honest – I had barely opened my pressies this year when I had e-mails off Amazon “‘you must be bored with your gifts by now; buy more shit!” In fact, there has been a pervading air of desperation around selling stuff this year – how many celebs can you get in a shopping mall advert?

This year’s Christmas Eve carol concert was undoubtedly the wettest and consequently funniest in the history of the village – totally soaked is misunderstatement of the decade. And why is it that every year there are more and more Guardian readers, this year with the added Must Have accessories of reindeer jumpers and lashings of mulled wine – hurrah! After a pleasant and peaceful Christmas it is once again time to contemplate the horror that is NYE and decide where to go to get completely slaughtered. Will it be the crusty techno disco or the Mullet Arms? On the other hand, it could just be a nice bottle of wine and a good film indoors – Attack the Block off Father Christmas – possibly best film of 2011; and I ain’t even lyin’!