Top Ten Most Looking Forward to in 2015

Time for the third and final part of my movies round up, where I look across the next twelve months and say what I'm most looking forward to seeing.  Now this was a tough one, as 2015 is definitely set to be one hell of a year for big releases, with more than one notable franchise making a comeback.  Of course, being me, I'm very interested in the smaller scale stuff as well, so this list is going to be a bit of a mix of both.  A quick shout out to the runners up; Jupiter Ascending (which was originally going to be out this year), Big Game (should it find distribution), Big Hero 6 (since it’s already out in the States) and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (mainly for John Boyega).  Let’s dive in!

Top Ten of 2014

It's that time again; you saw how I found most of my looked forward to titles turned out, now let's look at my favourite movies I saw this year.  Once again, that's my favourites, of the ones I've seen; there is a good chance this list might be different when quite a few things I missed this year finally get watched, but these are my feelings right now.  So this is sort of provisional before I catch up with Her, Boyhood, Nightcrawler, Gone Girl, Pride and/or The Babadook (I'm really kicking myself for missing that one).  Also, this is about favourites, I'm not saying of these are objectively the best, just the ones I got the most from.  It's been a tough one this year, because there was quite a lot of good stuff out, more than I was really ready for!

2014's Most Looked Forward to Films - How did they do?

It's time once more for me to look back on the last twelve months of film, and see how did 2014 stack up overall.  Last year I did my list of the top ten films I was most looking forward to seeing, so let's see how they all did.  Just like the last time I did this, to save repeating myself I'm only going to talk about here the films that didn't make it onto my top ten of the year.

"Boys and Girls of Every Age, Wouldn't You Like to See Something Strange?"...

Technically the countdown to Halloween started a few weeks ago, when Starbucks started putting so much pumpkin spice in their drinks, you could fold space.  But with October starting tomorrow, it's time once again for me to try...

This image created by Christianne Benedict  over at Krell Laboratories

Seven Movies in and still no Lockheed.

So, given my little rant earlier about why I was not looking forward to Days of Future Past, I figured I should give my thoughts on how it actually turned out.  I can say right now that I was pleasantly surprised to have been mostly wrong about this, but that doesn't mean the film doesn't have some pretty big issues, and to discuss them I am having to go into spoiler territory.  So the short version and overall is that the film is so much fun, it's able to overcome problems that would cripple most other films, it's one of the better X-Men films, but not quite up there with X2, First Class or The Wolverine.  For more details, read on, but be aware that spoilers a-plenty lie within...

It passed the first test; it was better than this!

Trancendenzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

You know, more than a few movie magazines and websites, like Empire and Den of Geek put Transcendence (near) the top of their "most looked forward to of 2014" lists.  They've gone quiet since then, presumably now they've actually seen some of the previews.  You may note that I didn't have it in my 2014 look ahead list.  So I guess what I'm saying here is that I'm smarter than everyone at Empire magazine?  Ok, not really, but I can take comfort that I'm not as stupid as this movie is.

Days of Future Passé

Guys, I have something I've been pondering for a while.  Something I've been trying to wrap my head around, and I'm wondering if anyone else is having the same issue.  What I've been losing sleep over is... why aren't I getting really excited about this?

It's Time to Play the Music...

So, thanks to Den of Geek, I've gotten to see number seven of the list already; Muppets Most Wanted!  The screening even had Kermit and Gonzo do a specially filmed intro!  So how is it?  While it's not up there with their best, it's still a real blast with what really want from the Muppets; fun gags, leaning on the fourth wall, catching songs, and celebrities clearly fanboying out about acting opposite socks with attitude!

You Have Been Warned - A Spoiler Free look at Ghost Stories

Not to be confused with Ghost Stories (when will they do that on Tabletop?), Ghost Stories is a play that's just started a new three month West End run.  I first saw it three years ago when it was on at the Duke of York theatre, and last weekend I caught the start of the new run at the Arts Theatre.  Now the show relies a lot on some pretty big secrets; in fact, as you leave, you walk past a sign saying how many people now know the secrets (which when I was there stood at just over 310,000).  As such, I am going to work very hard to make sure I don't give anything away, while still giving a full and fair review.  Challenge Accepted.