Best and Worst of Entertainment 2015: Take 2

[Wumbo]

Looks like The Hills has everyone split now. Split as in half. As in half past five.

Okay, that was reaching for a punchline.

[Clappy]

Ok since this Best List has been taking me forever to finalize and it's over 6500 words...easily the longest list I've ever written, I decided to split this into two parts.  Not only because of the crashing Page 3 has been doing for me on mobile, but just because it's literally A LOT to read and you'll see why in a minute.  So I'm going to post Part 1 tonight since it's definitely the most ready part, while I post Part 2 probably in the morning or around early noon.  I hope you guys enjoy this because while it may sound repetitive at times in comparison to what others have already beaten me to the punch about, I did my damndest with the amount of time I've been given with the amount of traveling I've been doing for my new job.  Sincerely hope it was worth the wait probably not but we'll see.

Who cares if I sound like a recurring poster jumping on the bandwagon.

ALL HAIL THE HITS OF 2015.

This year was so good when it came to the hits.  Best of the past four years for sure just inching out as the second best of the decade.  As I previously stated, at least the stagnancy was for far better hits.  I was heavily contemplating making this a straight up Top 20 because while it was hard to choose what was bad enough to make my worst list, it was equally as challenging to weed out all of my honorable mentions...you know what fuck it.  I’m going to spice things up with my honorable mentions list for a change.  Usually I hint at where my honorable mentions/dishonorable mentions were super close by saying shit like unofficial number eleven, this was super close, and so on so forth.  I’m going to rank my honorable mentions for my best list.  They deserve to be noticed because I was so fucking impressed with them this year.  So while I usually may always struggle to find words when it comes to my best list, it’s at least for a damn good year so this was far more fun to write up than my worst list was this year.

 

CLAPPY'S TOP 15 HONORABLE MENTIONS TO HIS TOP 10 BEST HIT SONGS OF 2015

God what a mouthful of a title....but let's get the ball rolling.

 

Spoiler

HM15. “Shake It Off” – Taylor Swift

Is it too late to revisit my best list from last year?  This almost made the best list in 2014 and I feel like looking back now, I undersold how much I loved this.  As this year went on, my love for it kept growing even more and more.  It was impossible for me to shake it off.  While this is certainly not the end of my love for Taylor Swift in this countdown, this is a good starting point.  While everything else emphasized how Taylor Swift should have gone full on pop years ago, Shake It Off was the point that made me realize how ready I was for Taylor Swift’s new direction with open arms.  This song’s energy is amazing and while I still don’t find Taylor to be one to “shake off” her critics, her trolling of them is just hilarious.  It’s a song I can’t take full on seriously and it’s fun about it.  I don’t even mind the rap breakdown.  It reminds me a lot of the Taylor Swift/T-Pain parody from years ago which I loved back then and still do now.  I hope Taylor doesn’t do a song like this again because we only need one Shake It Off.  Multiple would be a headache, but more pop please Taylor.  You’re so good at it.

HM14. “My Way” – Fetty Wap (featuring Monty)

I’ll be honest.  This year if there was any artist that confused me on how to actually feel about him….it’s without a doubt Fetty Wap.  When I was first introduced to him via Trap Queen, I thought for sure he was the stupidest artist out there.  I mean what else would you guys think when you heard a rapper who sings like a walrus that got punched in the gut?  I thought for sure that Fetty Wap’s mere existence was a ridiculous joke and he would be a one hit wonder like nearly every other novelty rap artist we got this year.  But unlike the others, Fetty Wap just didn’t go away and we got three Top 10 hits by him.   The joke was on us and we had to start taking Fetty Wap seriously…and I can kinda see the appeal now.  The guy is just happy to have a career and you can tell that through his music that he’s not some industry plant.  You can definitely tell that after revisiting Trap Queen and then of course 679.  They may be the most unoriginal rap songs in existence, but Fetty Wap sounds happy that he has a career and while they are too stupid to hate, I want to highlight the one Fetty Wap song that I actually grew to appreciate.

Now why this one over the ones where Fetty Wap sings much less in?  Yeah Fetty’s vocals start to wear thin during it and he’s definitely not a great singer by any means of the imagine I agree, but you know what rap cliché I’ve grown absolutely sick of?  Artists always telling me that they are going to steal my girl.  That trend in music is beyond grating to me more than being told that I already know what or who it is.  Which is why I find My Way absolutely refreshing as Fetty Wap tries to defend this girl’s honor and it’s that sense of chivalry that makes me really appreciate this song.  He doesn’t steal girlfriends and he gives reasons for these girls to come his way.  I highly appreciate the fact that he doesn’t chase hoes and how he states reasons why he’s better than the last guy this girl dated.  And yeah Monty’s part is utterly pointless.  I agree.  Which is why the Drake remix, had that been a single, would have probably jolted this up a few more spots on this list.  But that being said, while I still don’t know how I feel about Fetty Wap, I at least really like this hit far more than the rest of his in 2015.

HM13. “Lay Me Down” – Sam Smith

Holy crap.  It’s a Sam Smith song near my best list.  Yeah if you guys remember correctly, I’m not a fan at all of Stay With Me and I’m Not the Only One.  Both are overdramatic bores that have been in consideration for my worst lists in both 2014 and 2015, even if neither made my Dishonorable Mentions either years.  So what exactly does Lay Me Down bring to the table since it sounds like any other Sam Smith song in existence?  Well it’s not like he’s untalented.  He has always had the potential but to me he’s always been technically sound, but lacking any sort of remote passion or any sign of trying to strike an emotional chord to me.  Anyone could have sang Stay With Me or I’m Not the Only One and it would have existed.  However, I think Sam Smith finds an emotional chord here that strikes some sort of passion.  Maybe it’s the music video since it shows Sam Smith mourning his dead husband after reflecting his marriage with him?  I admit that does help because it shows a side of Sam Smith that I never knew existed.  Actual human emotion….oh wait he showed that in Latch, which I actually really liked.  Who knows.  Sam Smith is still an enigma as an artist to me.  Maybe someday I’ll admit to being a fan because he does have songs that I really like a lot.  I can now mark this as his second.

HM12. “Lean On” – Major Lazer & DJ Snake (featuring MØ)

All hail DJ Snake.  Probably my favorite mainstream producer.  I didn’t really like You Know You Like It nearly enough to be considered for a honorable mention spot, but this I absolutely enjoy.  By all accounts, this song is literally nothing, but once you get to the hook, oh my god it’s everything.  Insanely catchy chorus.  Fun fact.  This song was offered to both Rihanna and Nicki Minaj who both turned it down because they thought a song like this would never catch on.  I’m glad they did because who would have thought that the Charli XCX clone from Iggy Azalea’s flop Beg For It would sound this much like a siren.  Biggest guilty pleasure song that deserves to be recognized.

HM11. “Night Changes” – One Direction

With the impending breakup of One Direction, I’m glad they got a song out that was this honestly sincere.  One Direction has so blatantly faked sincerity for far too long just to pander to their fan base that it never really made me consider myself a fan.  And yeah this is another occasion where One Direction wants to date you fan girl, but they actually handle this maturely for a change by asking you out properly, take you on a proper date, and finally want to take things seriously.  That’s freaking impressive from a band that not too long ago had songs about your imperfections, people wanting to steal their girl, how you don’t know your beautiful, you got that one universal thing…just so much bullshit for so long.  I mean for all I know this song might just be blatant One Direction fangirl pandering bullshit, but I like to believe it’s not because of how well structured this song is in comparison to a majority of their discography.  Maybe with age comes maturity and I’m glad One Direction got a song like this out before their hiatus/end or whatever this is.

HM10. “I Don’t Fuck With You” – Big Sean (featuring E-40)

So I have to admit that while I have always been a Big Sean fan, I’ve been waiting for him to have THAT moment.  You know what I mean?  For him to take that next step because despite being goofy as hell and having some of the most hilariously stupid lyrics of the past five years, I wanted him to get more serious.  This isn’t exactly that step I wanted, but I’ll be damned if this song wasn’t fucking awesome.  I love how perfectly blunt it is about how he has moved on from Glee cast member Naya Rivera and how he’s appreciative over everything he has in his life including his then “new chick” Ariana Grande.  Definitely find Ariana to be a huge step up over Naya tbh and he’s got some really good lines in about the airing of their dirty laundry and how much better he has it going back to doing what he was good at.  Also this is easily my favorite DJ Mustard production ever and I love how it clashes with Kanye West’s as well.  It just works perfectly.  Also that E-40 guest spot is gold every time I listen to it.  It’s definitely one of his best singles to date.  Keep it up Big Sean.

HM9. “Blessings” – Big Sean (featuring Drake and Kanye West)

…oh hey turns out he did keep it up.  Call it an unpopular opinion, but this was the better Big Sean hit single to me in 2015.  What I like about it is about how it’s a dark take about appreciating your blessings in life.  While E-40 was able to overshadow Big Sean in his own song, for the first time in a long time I can say that Big Sean wasn’t overshadowed by his peers.  He actually matched them toe for toe by not only holding his own, but with a creative structural and emotional verse about losing his grandmother but still appreciating the highs in his life.  Drake also knocks it out with the hook as usual, but actually makes his most aggressive verse since his So Far Gone days.  Then of course there is Kanye.  While I feel Kanye spent most of the year humanizing himself and accepting humility, it’s nice to know that he can still hit it out of the park with his egotistical, ballsy self with plenty of nerdy references to Snapchat and Star Wars.  While Dark Sky Paradise isn’t Big Sean’s big moment yet, he’s getting pretty damn close with the hits he had this year.

HM8. “Don’t” – Ed Sheeran

You read that right.  My best hit song of 2014 is a honorable mention of 2015.  That’s how good this year was.  That’s not excluding this song entirely because it still rocks, but just not nearly as much as it did for me a year ago.  I think the production for this really tired on me.  That being said,  I want Ed Sheeran to keep writing dark material like this and now that Ellie Goulding is firing back with, please retaliate Ed.  Please.

HM7. “Love Me Like You Do” – Ellie Goulding

Not the song I meant, but let’s talk about this one anyway because this is the polar opposite spectrum of the two 50 Shades of Grey chart hits.  While The Weeknd channels exactly how absolutely skin crawling the actual source material is for the movie it soundtracks for, this is the exact opposite.  Having seen the movie, this song absolutely doesn’t work…because those two doormats that are called the leads have zero chemistry and are horrible actors, the writing is fucking terrible, the directing…anyone could have directed this and it still would have sucked.  So as you can see, it just makes this song stand out even more because it deserves to be associated with a much better movie.  It’s absolutely hypnotic and it reminds me as to why I love Ellie Goulding in the first place.  Because while I’m absolutely shocked that this song would be associated with the movie in the first place, the fact that Ellie Goulding managed to make a song that completely overpowers my thoughts of that terrible unintentional comedy just goes to show how great of an artist she actually is.

HM6. “Here” – Alessia Cara

It’s a shame really.  I want to absolutely love this song because I use to heavily relate to the subject matter.  I have been THAT GUY that just wants to leave the party because of everyone around me being trashed off of their ass and making completely ridiculous fools out of themselves.  But I think what is preventing me from loving it is because I think it’s years past my point of loving it since I’m no longer in my late teens and early twenties.  I don’t need to be that guy anymore since I don’t really go out nearly as much as I once did.  Regardless of that, I am absolutely impressed by the fact that this was written by a teenage girl along the same lines as I was by Lorde two years ago…but not quite as much as I 1was with Royals just because I think artists showing self-awareness about modern day pop music wasn’t nearly as fresh as it was two years ago.  Still, well done Alessia Cara.  You made one hell of a debut and I can’t wait to hear more.

HM5. “Ex’s and Oh’s” – Elle King

Who would have thought that a woman would be this gritty when it comes to burning her lovers, especially the daughter of Rob fucking Schneider?  But damn this song is just awesome.  I love the grunge-blues vibe of Elle’s voice and the fact that this completely switches the role reversal of women being submissive to men in a year where we had too many songs of women wanting to look good for men.  This is utter revenge fantasy at its finest and I hope to hear more from Elle King in the future.

HM4. “What Do You Mean” – Justin Bieber

Wait!  Stop all of you living under a roof from all the way back in 2010.  Justin Bieber has improved immensely.  Please ignore what I wrote four months ago about this song being dull.  This grew on me in such a good way.  I am actually excited to see where Justin Bieber’s career goes from here because if he actually keeps his nose clean and stops being such a fucking tool, he actually has finally grown a much needed personality in his music.  I really like the trop house pop vibe production he’s been going for in his past few singles and while most of the credit goes to his new best friend Skrillex, Bieber takes advantage of it and makes inescapable catchy music.  Also who doesn’t like being messed around by another’s mixed signals?  That alone makes me fully appreciate this far more than I should.

HM3. “FourFiveSeconds” – Rihanna, Kanye West, & Paul McCartney

After FINALLY taking a break, it was well worth it because this has been the most on Rihanna has been in years.  Her music was becoming absolute nonsense, even when it came to her trying to be completely serious.  This is completely raw and powerful in every sense of the word and she couldn’t have chosen two perfect collaborators like she has here.  You all know how I feel about Kanye West by now that I shouldn’t have to remind you, but this songs manages even to make Kanye show vulnerability that he hasn’t really shown since his 808s and Heartbreak days.  Then we got Paul McCartney who strips away the production down to simple instrumentation and it just works beautifully.  Rihanna should be more vulnerable in her music.  It works incredibly well for her and while this may have had a super brief Top 5 appearance, I was glad that song this simple, yet complex became a hit and that Paul McCartney can still make hit pop music.

HM2. “Uma Thurman” – Fall Out Boy

Referencing one of my all-time favorite movie directors in Quentin Tarantino is most certainly one of the best things Fall Out Boy has ever done since reuniting.  However, I think the one reference that prevented me from fully loving this is…as so many others have pointed out…that sampling of The Munsters theme.  I get it’s the closest thing to surf rock that hasn’t been sampled already in pop radio since the Pulp Fiction theme was already beaten to the punch by The Black Eyed Peas, but hey so many others have sampled multiple themes more than once.  Why not do it again?  It would have made much more sense in context because you already name drop so many other elements from Pulp Fiction and comparing this super badass chick to Uma Thurman from the Kill Bill movies, why not the actual Pulp Fiction theme again?  Hell, the Kill Bill theme would work even better in context.  Still, 100 times better than worst list contender Centuries for sure.

HM1. “Cool for the Summer” – Demi Lovato

I’ve always thought Demi Lovato had a great voice, but my problems with her in the past were that she had next to no personality to really relate to any of the subject matter she tried to sing about.  But let me put on record that immediately changed this year.  Demi took that much needed next step primarily because of (just like Bieber) growing a much needed personality.  Sometimes it just takes one song for me to change my opinion entirely on an artist and Demi certainly succeeded here.  If this is what it takes for us to get some damn good rock pop back in the mainstream, then I’ll absolutely take more of this.  Now I find it as pure irony that her and Selena came into the music industry together with Selena getting more of the hype.  That may still be the case now, but I think Demi is the one who has the brighter future because while Selena is still struggling with her identity, Demi can go nowhere but up from here…I hope.  Please America.

Thank you for those of you who took the time to read through my honorable mentions.  The best list comes tomorrow.

[Clappy]

Now onto the moment you've all really been waiting for....the actual Top 10.

CLAPPY'S TOP 10 BEST HIT SONGS OF 2015

Spoiler

One of the best things this year did for me, it showed that maybe the pop music landscape can survive without Justin Timberlake.  Would I love for JT to still make new music?  Hell yes.  He’s my favorite pop artist of the past ten years hands down.  But with so many guys stepping up their games in 2015, it shows that we are more than capable of filling the void that pop music struggled filling in between JT’s last two albums.  I already went over Justin Bieber’s huge improvement, so let’s talk about Nick Jonas shall we?

10. “Chains” – Nick Jonas

 

This is a pretty damn good example as to how to get in my good graces after an awful first impression.  Just sell yourself in absolute pain and for a song about being held down for your love, it sells the hell out of it.  This is what The Hills could have been to me in terms of dark pop and where The Weeknd didn’t do it for me for getting too over the top to bore me, Nick Jonas absolutely succeeds in impressing me.  The minimalist production helps out a lot and Nick Jonas vocals work far better here than they did in Jealous where it just didn’t work.  I don’t know how much momentum Nick Jonas has left since Levels, which I liked even more than this, wasn’t able to sustain any sort of success, but I seriously hope we get more.  Nick’s certainly the far more talented of the two Jonas Brothers that are still making pop music and I think he'll rebound.  I eagerly await to see what he does because if we get more songs as good as this, he certainly has a bright future.  Let Jealous burn in hellish infamy while Chains unleashes me to a future of promising pop music.

 

Spoiler

So yeah 1989 was a nearly perfect album and a third of this best list has Taylor Swift.  I’m not going to even try to be subtle about it in my preambles because I haven’t heard a pop album this near perfect since Teenage Dream by Katy Perry.  Let’s go ahead and get the ball rolling with the one that still surprises me didn’t have enough points for the 2014 year end list.

9. “Blank Space” – Taylor Swift

 

This would have topped my best list last year if it racked up enough points which I'm completely surprised it didn't.  I’ve never seen Taylor Swift this openly honest about herself in a song, character or not, I don’t care.  Every single lyric knocks it out of the park here and while the production could have had a tad more life to it, it’s not too big of a complaint because of just how well Taylor performs it.  Her self-awareness is just absolutely critical and honest.  There are only two options when it comes to dating: forever or going down in flames.  It’s funny and knowing that it’s the truth when it comes to dating.  The fact that she finds success in her life portrayed by the tabloids in misadventure, instead of simply wallowing in it, just goes to show Taylor’s power and how in her prime she is right now.  I don’t know where Taylor goes from here…oh wait yes I do, but I can definitely do more vicious Taylor riffing of herself on future songs by her.  Taylor Swift commentating on Taylor Swift's love life filled a much needed blank space that I never thought I needed up until now.

 

Spoiler

 

 

It's a shame that 2015 pretty much ended Kesha's career with her label blocking her from releasing any new music due to her lawsuit with Dr. Luke.  I mean good for her for sticking to her guns for not wanting to work with the man who raped her, but it's sad because I was just starting to like her as an artist.  She definitely had a personality that was intriguing...which is better than Pitbull at least.  I’ve stuck up for Pitbull in the past for just coming up with stupid fun music, but there are times where I just wish Pitbull had some sense of self-awareness.  We can’t relate to being Pitbull.  Not all of us have it as well of as we do and while some of us do like to party, we party to escape from all the pressure life puts on us.  What I’m hinting at is that 2015, Pitbull finally became self-aware.

8. “Time of Our Lives” – Pitbull (featuring Ne-Yo)

 

Or maybe not.  This still has Pitbull bragging about how fun and awesome it is to be him.  But not in his usual format where he talks about all the places he’s been and how much money he has to waste on women, clubs, alcohol, etc..  No.  This is about how Pitbull has very little money to spend but he’s going to have a good time anyway.  Telling poverty to piss off so he can throw away his problems for one night to forget all of that.  That’s unreal coming from the man who has in essence become one of the most predictable artists on the planet.  Maybe he’s come to the realization that not everybody is Pitbull so how can they relate to his music?  Or maybe, it’s just a fluke…but that gets proven false when it comes to Pitbull’s last lines.

But everyday above ground is a great day, remember that
Believe me, been there, done that
This for anybody going through tough times

That’s inspiring right there.  It’s him telling his audience that he knows and understands all of their suffering, but to go out and enjoy life to the fullest like he does in the rest of his discography.

As for Ne-Yo?  It’s like someone told him that he completely missed the point of his last guest spot in Give Me Everything, so he wanted a redo.  Well…he’s better yes, but he’s also the reason this song isn’t any higher.  He at least gets the message across of this song to have the time of your life even though everyone is going through something, but at the same time, he really doesn’t stand out.  He can in essence be replaced by nearly anyone on this song and it still would have worked with or without him.

Whatever this is, this is the realest party song Pitbull could have possibly made and I’m completely thankful that we have this if that means we had to sit through years of Pitbull being entirely inept.

 

Spoiler

Ok I think I need to establish how I really feel about Lana Del Rey because I think some of you think I hate her.  I don’t hate her.  Not at all.  I just think she’s wasting her talent lately.  I know Lana is capable of far better than what I’ve heard from her over the past two years.  Born To Die is a great album and I feel that everything I’ve heard from her since just feels disconnected and disjointed especially the song that makes me want to reiterate my stance in this preamble High By The Beach.  That song is absolute garbage and was one of the worst songs I’ve heard this year in general.  It’s a perfect song example as to why I’ve soured on her these past few years it’s missing some sort of passion…and you know it’s a sign that the best Lana Del Rey inspired song since then came from Taylor fucking Swift.

7. “Wildest Dreams” – Taylor Swift

 

Ok let me re-establish myself.  When I say Lana Del Rey inspired I obviously mean the vocal arrangement because Taylor is absolutely nailing it with far more passion than Lana has lately.  To me Taylor is absolutely haunting here.  There is a muffled elegance to her performance dusting away all the rough edges and letting the guy she is talking to know that she will be the one that inspires his wildest dreams.  But overall, this is just another great example as to why Taylor has convinced me she is so good right now.  She managed to release the best Lana Del Rey single of the past two years.  Her romanticizing of this love story is just so glorious that it makes me wonder why she didn’t become full pop any sooner.  She’s just so damn good at it and while Wildest Dreams may have not been the most successful single of her 1989 radio singles, it just goes to show how comfortable she is in her element in a genre thats far more suiting to her strengths.  Because Taylor constantly finds new ways to write songs that she's written plenty of and unlike Adele did with Hello (which was NOT EVEN CLOSE to making my best list/honorable mentions...sorry), I won't get tired of it as long as she keeps finding ways to make them as fresh feeling as this.

 

Spoiler

So 2015, I had a roller coaster ride relationship with The Weeknd.  There were plenty of instances where I just couldn’t stand him.  He just comes off as incredibly pretentious to me through his music and not in a flattering light.  Like there were times I felt like wanting to punch the guy straight in the face as I hear him whine and moan about women, drugs, cheating, etc.  But you know, as the year came around full circle, I think he grew on me somewhat.  Thats because I ignored how big of an asshole his songs make him come off as and just appreciated the actual music and I think he’s kind of smart about it.  He definitely has the “it factor” and has the potential to become a big name in the music industry if 2015 was any sign of things to come.  So let’s talk about the elephant in the room and why it’s not any higher on this list.

6. “Can’t Feel My Face” – The Weeknd

 

 

That’s how stacked of a year this was.  That this song I praised out the wazoo in my review thread only finished as high as number six on my best list.  That’s not knocking this song at all though because it’s straight fire.

Pun intended.  As much as I got on The Weeknd as stated above about his pretentiousness, he’s smart about it here with the cocaine innuendos about being in loving with a girl.  It’s genius and the production works so damn well with how lively it makes you feel.  I guess you can say it’s like you’re on cocaine.  Repetitive commentary, but damn does The Weeknd knocks it out of the park with his Michael Jackson impression to the point that I actually REALLY want The Weeknd to do this more, which he does with his new single In The Night. 

 

If you think I love Can’t Feel My Face, wait until next year’s best hit song list because The Weeknd does distinctive throwbacks to pop of yesteryear nearly ten times better on this than he does here.  So while I’m not completely sold on The Weeknd being the songbird of our generation, I’ll definitely take more of The Weeknd making R&B pop throwbacks to yesteryear.  Because I love it.

 

Spoiler

 

 

You know as much as I like Hotline Bling, I get it.  I know why so many people really are not fans and go as far as to say they loathe it.  As great of a year as Drake had, I will openly admit that the fact that Hotline Bling was his biggest single of the year and possibly of all time is just not right.  Not when Drake has done a song like Hotline Bling so much better and at the same time, so much worse.  Hotline Bling is B-level Drake, which is still better than so many other R&B artists to me.   But ironically, where Drake cares too much about the girl in Hotline Bling, it’s his other hit single from 2015 where he doesn’t care at all that’s my favorite.

5. “Back to Back” – Drake

 

 

One of the biggest recurring stories of this year was the Twitter feuds between some of our biggest celebrities.  Nicki Minaj vs Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj vs Miley Cyrus, that hilarious 1D feud between Zayn and…the blonde one?  I don’t care to look up names.  Bruno Mars vs Ed Sheeran…oh wait that was a joke about all of the Twitter drama.  But the one that got the most media attention was Meek Mill calling out Drake for not promoting his new album:

"Stop comparing drake to me too.... He don't write his own raps! That's why he ain't tweet my album because we found out!"

….ouch.  Now particularly, I don’t care if Drake writes or doesn’t write his own music, but that’s ballsy for Meek Mill, who finally achieved some sort of relevancy with his new album this past year to call out one of the biggest names like that.  But what he didn’t expect in his rage of high school social media based drama was that people would call him out on his bullshit claims like producers, other writers, other rappers, etc.

Now onto Drake.  Someone calls you out for not promoting his new album and airs out your dirty laundry.  How exactly do you retaliate?  By writing a diss track that shows you don’t even care.  That’s what I absolutely love about this.  It’s pretty much saying, who’s Meek Mill?  Drake’s drawing a lot more blood over a simple, yet gothic beat with skittering trap hi-hats and a smothering bass. Drake sounds awake here in comparison to his other diss track Charged Up that’s garbage in comparison.  This has harder bars, tearing into Meek Mill's relationship with Nicki Minaj, failing to expose more of himself in his rhymes, unable to match Drake on wax instead of on Twitter, and for as much as Drake got thrashed by Meek Mill for his singing, Drake’s absolutely kicking Meek Mill's ass all over the place here.  This is how you retaliate.  By turning your anger into art and I’ll be damned if this isn’t the best Drake song of at least the past five years, possibly one of his best of all time.  And with how pathetic Meek Mill tried to respond to this, its game, set, match: Drizzy.

 

Spoiler

…ok I hate to break people’s hearts here, but I really can’t stand Focus.  It's awful.

 

What a flop of a lead single for your new album Ariana.  I don’t care how much I like the production.  That chorus is damn near unbearable and this is too blatant of a retread of Problem.  And once again, Ariana Grande’s annunciation is all over the place.  How am I suppose to FOCUS on you when I can't understand you for nearly a third of this song?  Maybe instead of licking doughnuts and saying fuck America, she should have focused on what made me like her in the first place.

 

4. “Love Me Harder” – Ariana Grande (featuring The Weeknd)

 

Alright you got me Ari.  This is doing it for me more so than any of your other songs where you try to oversexualize yourself.  This is incredibly sexy and it has everything to do with your vocals.  My god, I didn’t know that Ariana’s cooing would be just as amazingly seductive as her vocals usually are.  She’s a beautiful girl who just wants you to love her harder…and yeah it’s exactly what you think it is.  Not really much interpretation here lyrics wise and thank god because I can completely understand what she’s saying here perfectly in comparison to last year’s worst list resident Break Free.  I also really like The Weeknd’s part.  I know I spent a majority of this year hating on the guy, but it’s not like he’s untalented.  He works greatly here because his voice blends so well in retro throwback songs like this that if he does more R&B from yesteryear, I will definitely come around to becoming a fan.  Because The Weeknd works at bringing that darker, more explicitly sexual side into this song as a perfect counterbalance.  Ariana’s inviting him more into her world than the other way around, and The Weeknd is ready to take the ball and run with it…literally.  It’s that counterbalance among both of these two that really makes this song work so near perfectly.  More of this please from both of you.

 

Spoiler

So let me put on record that while this Best List is fucking awesome, the rest of this list is not even close to my Top 3.  My Top 3 were all at one point or another my best hit song of 2015.  Over the course of the spring and summer, I would chat about music on the XAT with everyone and we were talking about early frontrunners for best hit song of 2015 so far. I’ve mentioned these next three songs were not only my three frontrunners for the best of this year, they were also three of the best hit songs of this decade.  That right there is already a claim that last year’s hit songs did not have and should be a sign of how damn superior 2015 was for hit pop music.  So if I’m at a loss for words on what to say, I’ll just shut up…

3. “Shut Up and Dance” – WALK THE MOON

 

 

…and let the music speak for itself.  You know what I sorely miss in modern day pop music that was a mainstay of as late as the 1980s?  Hit pop-rock music.  I mean what actual rock bands are there that can say still do that?  And I’m not counting Imagine Dragons because they clearly have sold out to adult alternative if their last album was any sign of what their direction is going.  Fall Out Boy, Paramore…I don’t know what genre Twenty One Pilots is going for.  The book’s still open on them.  Who knows, the books still open on WALK THE MOON too because Anna Sun was three years ago and barely anyone knew it existed unless you are fully invested in modern day alt-rock.  I seriously hope the book doesn’t close on them after this inescapable smash because they brought pop rock in such a fun goofy over the top ridiculous fashion that I would love to see them replicate this again even more.  While the race was super tight between these next three, this definitely has the most memorable chorus of 2015.  Nothing comes even close to this song on that front aspect.  Thank you WALK THE MOON.  Please don’t shut up and fade into irrelevancy.

 

Spoiler

And then on the opposite end of the spectrum, we have someone who is never going away.  And thank goodness for that because she’s at her best right now.  Ladies and gentlemen for the umpteenth time.  Queen Taylor.

2. “Style” – Taylor Swift

 

Taylor Swift, I dare you to make a song better than this because this is the best song I’ve ever heard from you and I want to see you outdo yourself.  This epitomizes why you made the right decision to go full on pop.  This is why I’ve accepted, just like you yourself, to enter into your world as a fan.  Something that I was fully skeptical about before 2014.  Where Blank Space is Taylor Swift stating that it’s based on a character she is portrayed as, Style is no character.  It’s the real Taylor Swift.  She dates a lot of guys, she makes mistakes, and she fully embraces who she is as a person and how nothing is going to change that.  And you know what?  Don’t ever change Taylor Swift.  Keep being yourself because you’ve made a fan out of me and for the first time ever, I heavily anticipate to hear your next album because if this year was any sign of things to come, I would gladly take one Bad Blood if that means four hit singles that you had this year that were that much better.  Please take me home Taylor Swift.  You’ll never go out of style to me.

 

Spoiler

For as much as I loved pop music this year, I hate to end easily the longest countdown I’ve ever written on such a predictable note.  But what else can I say?  This song is just too perfect for words and it’s the number one hit song of the year for a reason. 

1. “Uptown Funk” – Mark Ronson (featuring Bruno Mars)

 

If the one reason anyone can say to hating this is because of overexposure, then your argument is entirely invalid in my book.  Because it’s been near fourteen months since this came out and Uptown Funk is still funking me up.  Hell I’m 100% convinced that Billboard had to make changes to what qualifies a song to go straight to the recurring  charts just because it’s over a year later and Uptown Funk was not going away.  That’s a sign of modern pop classic.  The production on this is absolutely where it begins.  Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars is a match made in pop music heaven.  Both have a knack for the genres of yesteryear and both are absolutely just killing every single second of this song.  Especially kudos to Bruno Mars.  Every line that comes out of him is just great one liner after great one liner.  And the fact of the matter is that both Bruno and Mark are working together on Bruno’s next album is a sign that even more greatness is bound to come whenever this may be.  Hopefully sooner rather than later because four years is long enough.  Uptown Funk shifted the pop landscape this year in a way that makes my faith restored in modern day pop music.  All it needed was a shift to the past and by god did it get that.  And if early signs of things to come include songs influenced entirely by Uptown Funk like Macklemore showed this fall with Downtown, then I'm fully ready to see how other artists were influenced by the longevity of Uptown Funk's reign of 2015 brought on to us.  Don’t believe me?  Just watch.  Come on!

 

Thank you for reading once again.  If you'd like, I actually pulled a Wumbo and did an entire ranking from top to bottom of the entire 100 if anyone is interested in reading further into my thoughts.  That's how hard I worked on my list this year in comparison to years past where I just piled them in general categories.

So with that being completed, now onto my film lists.  Zero percent chance that I get my worst list up this week, so stay tuned for next weekend where I tackle my final hurdle in the Best/Worst entertainment trifecta.  If you think over 5000 words on each of my music lists was a lot, just you wait...

[Wumbo]

Awesome list Clappy! I'd like to know what you thought of

Downtown

DOWWWNTOWWWN

DAAAAAOOOOWWWWWWNTOWN

(I mean you have a little bit it in your #1 song review but was it close to making HMs or anything?)

[Katniss]

Nice work, Claps. I do wanna see that entire ranked chart too  

Also: I do want to do a best movie list as well, I have a top 5 right now but hopefully I can watch some films online because I'm a pirate arrgh this weekend so I can add more to my list.

Edited January 12, 2016 by katnisslovestacos

[WhoBibbles]

17 minutes ago, katnisslovestacos said:

 hopefully I can watch some films online because I'm a pirate arrgh

Glad to know I'm not the only one  

 

My best movies list is pretty much done, If I don't get a chance to watch a few Oscar potential movies.

[Clappy]

52 minutes ago, katnisslovestacos said:

Nice work, Claps. I do wanna see that entire ranked chart too  

Well since you asked so nicely.

Spoiler

1. Uptown Funk

 

2. Style

 

3. Shut Up and Dance

 

4. Love Me Harder

 

5. Back to Back

 

6. Can’t Feel My Face

 

7. Wildest Dreams

 

8. Time of Our Lives

 

9. Blank Space

 

10. Chains

 

11. Cool For the Summer

 

12. Uma Thurman

 

13. FourFiveSeconds

 

14. What Do You Mean

 

15. Ex’s and Oh’s

 

16. Here

 

17. Love Me Like You Do

 

18. Don’t

 

19. Blessings

 

20. I Don’t Fuck With You

 

21. Night Changes

 

22. Lean On

 

23. Lay Me Down

 

24. My Way

 

25. Shake it Off

 

26. Take Me to Church

 

27. Waves

 

28. The Heart Wants What it Wants

 

29. Sugar

 

30. Hotline Bling

 

31. Chandelier

 

32. Want to Want Me

 

33. Budapest

 

34. Classic Man

 

35. Downtown

 

36. Ghost

 

37. Girl Crush

 

38. Slow Motion

 

39. Drag Me Down

 

40. All Eyes on You

 

41. I Don’t Mind

 

42. Elastic Heart

 

43. One Last Time

 

44. 679

 

45. Trap Queen

 

46. You Know You Like It

 

47. Hello

 

48. See You Again

 

49. Tuesday

 

50. Talking Body

 

51. El Perdon

 

52. Coco

 

53. Cheerleader

 

54. Honey I’m Good

 

55. How Deep Is Your Love

 

56. Hey Mama

 

57. Habits

 

58. GDFR

 

59. House Party

 

60. Animals-mals

 

61. Bitch Better Have My Money

 

62. Riptide

 

63. No Type

 

64. Truffle Butter

 

65. 7/11

 

66. Renegades

 

67. Like I’m Gonna Lose You

 

68. The Hanging Tree

 

69. Hit the Quan

 

70. Heartbeat Song

 

71. Post to Be

 

72. Stay With Me

 

73. Flex (Ooh, Ooh, Ooh)

 

74. Centuries

 

75. I’m Not the Only One

 

76. Somebody

 

77. She Knows

 

78. Bang Bang

 

79. The Hills

 

80. Thinking Out Loud

 

81. Bad Blood

 

82. Locked Away

 

83. Take Your Time

 

84. Lips Are Movin

 

85. Where Are U Now

 

86. Earned It

 

87. All About That Bass

 

88. Photograph

 

89. Nasty Freestyle

 

90. Worth It

 

91. Jealous

 

92. Good For You

 

93. Kick the Dust Up

 

94. Fight Song

 

95. Marvin Gaye

 

96. Ayo

 

97. Only

 

98. Stitches

 

99. Watch Me

 

100. Dear Future Husband

 

 

1 hour ago, Wumbo said:

Awesome list Clappy! I'd like to know what you thought of

Downtown

DOWWWNTOWWWN

DAAAAAOOOOWWWWWWNTOWN

(I mean you have a little bit it in your #1 song review but was it close to making HMs or anything?)

Certainly.  It was close-ish at 35 if you click the spoiler tag above.  I think the one thing that prevented me from getting it any closer to the HM list is just because while I like how clumsy it is in terms of being a mess of a song...it's just a little too clumsy for me.  Macklemore is close to pulling off the amount of swagger Bruno was able to pull off in Uptown Funk, but he just comes up a tad short.  Also Ryan Lewis has done far better productions and I know he can be a great producer as seen all over The Grand Heist, but this is some of his weakest work.  I still like it, I just don't love it nearly as much as I (and probably everyone else who inhabited SBC Music the first few days following it's release) did a few months back.

[Steel Sponge]

Because I needed to, here is my complete rankings of the top 100 songs:

Spoiler

 

1. Shut Up and Dance

2. Style

3. Uptown Funk

4. Uma Thurman

5. Ghost

6. Blank Space

7. Love Me Harder

8. Talking Body

9. I Don't Fuck with You

10. Time of Our Lives

11. Elastic Heart

12. Can't Feel My Face

13. Chandelier

14. FourFiveSeconds

15. Cool for the Summer

16. Wildest Dreams

17. Slow Motion

18. Hotline Bling

19. Heartbeat Song

20. Sugar

21. Don't

22. Habits (Stay High)

23. Night Changes

24. CoCo

25. Downtown

26. Here

27. Good for You

28. Shake It Off

29. Riptide

30. Hello

31. Ex's and Oh's

32. Blessings

33. Girl Crush

34. Take Me to Church

35. Thinking Out Loud

36. Budapest

37. Lean On

38. The Hanging Tree

39. Waves

40. 7.11

41. Love Me Like You Do

42. How Deep is Your Love

43. Want to Want Me

44. The Hills

45. Centuries

46. Bang Bang

47. One Last Time

48. Like I'm Gonna Lose You

49. Back to Back

50. Lay Me Down

51. I Don't Mind

52. The Heart Wants What it Wants

53. Trap Queen

54. Chains

55. Lips Are Movin'

56. 679

57. Drag Me Down

58. Stay with Me

59. Cheerleader

60. Take Your Time

61. She Knows

62. Bad Blood

63. G.D.F.R.

64. Truffle Butter

65. All Eyes On You

66. Where Are U Now

67. Honey, I'm Good.

68. Only

69. Stitches

70. Locked Away

71. All About That Bass

72. Photograph

73. Hey Mama

74. My Way

75. Post to Be

76. Classic Man

77. You Know You LIke It

78. Nasty Freestyle

79. Somebody

80. Hit the Quan

81. Renegades

82. El Perdon (Forgiveness)

83. House Party

84. What Do You Mean?

85. Flex (Ooh Ooh Ooh)

86. I'm Not the Only One

87. Kick the Dust Up

88. Earned It

89. Animals

90. Ayo

91. Worth It

92. Jealous

93. Tuesday

94. See You Again

95. Bitch Better Have My Money

96. No Type

97. Fight Song

98. Dear Future Husband

99. Watch Me

100. Marvin Gaye

 

 

Other than that, I really like everyone's lists!

Edited January 12, 2016 by Steel Sponge

[Clappy]

I'll be honest guys.  This worst list was not some of my best writing.  I seriously don't have much else to say when it came to certain movies on this list except that I hated this movie and that it's terrible.  So let's go ahead and drag through the bad stuff of 2015...and boy was it bad.

So I talked about how television and music were both great years and were improvements over the previous year.  Now onto the final frontier of entertainment.  Were movies better this year than they were last year?  Well after a long hard thought about it, I can fully establish this as my answer:

NO!

Was it a bigger year?  Yes.  But bigger is not always better.  2015 is now officially the highest grossing year of all time but my god it sure doesn’t feel like it.  The blockbusters were definitely bigger with some pretty big movies this year...but not all of them felt like some of the franchise's best, while the awards bait movies…my god.  This year’s awards bait movies were easily the weakest patch in a long time.  But even despite all of that, is the fact that this year’s crop for my worst list was just fucking grating.  I struggled to write my worst list this year because I didn’t have fun doing it in comparison to past years.  This year’s list felt like a chore.  I already made my stance perfectly clear on nearly everything that’s on here so I felt like I was repeating myself at least half the time just doing this.  And not just that, but this year’s crop of bad movies stunk far worse than they did in past years.  It feels like three years ago where my worst film of the year was a movie that wasn’t even worst of the decade material.  Hell, two years ago was nearly the same thing and I WALKED OUT OF MY WORST MOVIE OF 2013.  God I sure hope 2016 doesn’t stink as badly as my worst list of 2015 indicates because god we have a ton of stinkers this past year.  Shall we get started with my dishonorable mentions?

Spoiler

Dishonorable Mentions:

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part II

Can I please retract Mockingjay Part 1 from my best list last year?  I was obviously getting my Jennifer Lawrence bias and my love for the first two books and movies blinding me from what a turd that movie really was.  Way too much talking and not enough action.  At least Part 2 fixed that, but in essence, it wasn’t really that much better because of it.  I absolutely loathed Mockingjay as a book and is hands down one of my least favorite books of the past decade.  So of course my hatred for Mockingjay the movies kind of stems from there.  But even then, the adaptations still felt limp and lifeless.  If I can give any sort of kudos, the actors at least try to salvage their performances from the mediocre writing and WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT HOLLYWOOD COP OUT ENDING.  Awful way to end the movie series because the book at least ended on a dark note with the two still suffering from PTSD.  If you’re going to fucking adapt the worst book, at least remain faithful and stay as dark as it ended.  What a load of horseshit.

Taken 3

Because Taken 2 didn’t kill the franchise and made a shit ton of money, why not make one more right?  My god what a mistake.  Taken 2 was fucking terrible and Taken 3 was just as bad, if not worse.  Killing the wife was an absolutely atrocious idea from the beginning because they made her out to be like Liam’s moral compass, yet she had absolutely no personality to begin with.  Hence her death had little to no actual emotional impact on the audience.  It was an utter reek of desperation to keep this franchise relevant and failed.  I hope we get no more Taken movies because Liam Neeson reached overexposure long ago.  Get this man actual material he can work with.  You can only take so much shit for so long before you overstay your welcome.

The Gunman

But at least Taken 3 wasn’t The Gunman.  Seriously, NOBODY buys Sean Penn action star.  He tried this thirty years ago and failed miserably and still fails miserably as an action star now.  Sean, you know your wheelhouse is prestige pics and dramedies.  Stick to those.  This was a bad experiment and hopefully a reminder as to why your career went on life support to begin with so many years ago.

Joy

Wow two J-Law movies on my worst list.  Is my crush slowly fading….no of course not.  If anything, J-Law salvages both worst list movies with her being the bright spot both times.  That especially rings true here where she is nominated for Best Actress for her performance in this.  She fucking it deserves it too because she is the only thing redeemable about this.  What an absolutely weird mess this movie was.  What the hell happened to David O. Russell’s writing?  This is by far the worst movie he’s ever done.  All of his character’s outside of Joy are so one note written that it makes every scene they are in incredibly awkward.  What a waste of such a talented cast because you have even more Russell mainstays like Bradley Cooper and Robert DeNiro sitting around doing nothing until the script calls upon them to make one note interactions.  Honestly, out of all the Academy hopefuls that underwhelmed this year, Joy was by far the most disappointing to me.

Pitch Perfect 2

Can I please retract saying anything nice I said about this?  I rewatched this the other day and oh my god, it’s bad.  It’s really bad.  I can’t believe I missed it my first go around, but have the Pitch Perfect movies always been this awful?  Like I’m starting to question this franchise now just because how bad this movie was.  They somehow managed to make me feel like the antagonists should have won.  That’s bad writing 101.    Were the jokes always this tasteless?  So many fat and lesbian and Mexican jokes.  Like if my memory serves me, Rebel Wilson was funny in the first one, but she’s absolutely grating here.  Every scene with her is just annoying.  I mean even Anna Kendrick looks bored being involved with this.  I think she at least put forth effort if my memory serves me correctly with the first Pitch Perfect.  She is clearly doing this for the paycheck.  I hope she chooses her future roles more carefully because she has tons of potential outside of this franchise….and she signed on for the third one.  Great.  More Pitch Perfect movies.  Yay!

Get Hard

This movie makes my skin crawl.  I don’t know who in their bright mind thought that making a movie this blatantly racist would be an ingenious idea.  And the movie doesn’t make it any secret that they are going to go for every racist joke they can possibly get away with while still playing it safe and you know what, to their credit, I was impressed that they didn’t go full out on it.  Because this could have been way worse.  While at the same time, the fact that I walked out of this movie not being pissed at Will Ferrell or Kevin Hart is a plus in my book.  Still, this movie sucks.  Hard.

The Visit

I really REALLY RRREEAAALLLLLLLLYYY hate it when people point Rotten Tomatoes scores as quoted scripture to whether the movie is automatically good or bad.  Format your own opinions for Christ’s sake.  Just because The Visit got a positive score doesn’t mean M Night Shyamalan is back…

…ok he’s back.  Back to making movies not as god awful as The Last Airbender or After Earth.  This movie is still pretty fucking bad, let me be honest here.  I absolutely hate SBM’s star actor Ed Oxenbould’s character here.  He’s very annoying and the sad thing is I don’t think he was intentionally supposed to be.  The “twist” is actually decent for a change and is one of the few bright spots of uninspired writing, but this all comes down to one scene and this one scene honestly sums up how I felt about this movie in general.  The antagonists shove a dirty diaper full of shit into the face of Ed Oxenbould….and honestly, that one scene sums up how I felt about watching this movie.  That metaphor of being shoved shit into our face.

Pixels

Yeah…my tangent back in July about this movie…it avoided my worst list.  Keep that in mind.  My rant over this being one of Adam Sandler’s worst movies avoided my worst list in the end.  Please let this be a sign about how bad the bad movies of 2015 actually were to me.

Concussion

This was a bit of a late add on because I saw this while writing this year’s worst movies and oh my god, this is so bad. 

Let me pause for a minute and point out the boycotting about how white washed the Academy Awards this year.  I don’t disagree.  The least they could have done was nominate Creed, one of the best movies of 2015 more for Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan.  Both put on knockout performances, pun intended, and while I think Sylvester Stallone absolutely deserves his nomination and hope that he wins, the other two should be recognized as well as the picture as a whole.  Beasts of No Nation and Idris Elba were both snubbed too and I definitely see why.  The Academy has always been stuck in their ways about accepting change and while it took years and years for them to finally nominate more than five films for best picture, it’s about damn time they accepted Netflix as a format to release major motion pictures.  Also, Straight Outta Compton is another best picture contender that got blanked out.  Only one nomination, are you fucking kidding me?  In a year where so many awards bait movies flamed out with critics and the general public, this one didn’t and if Mad Max: Fury Road can still be remembered around this time, this should have been too.

I only highlight that last paragraph because what I’m about to say is the cold hard truth.  The most outspoken so far about boycotting the awards this year are the Smith family.  Because Will Smith was priming himself for a Best Actor nomination in this movie and got snubbed.  Him and his wife are now boycotting the awards because of the Academy white washing.  Will, believe what you want and I do agree with you.  All Lives Matter….but did you watch your own movie?  I don’t think the Academy snubbed you because of your race.  I think they snubbed you because you were fucking awful in it.  Your African accent was SO bad.  Like this was legitimately some of the worst acting I’ve ever seen you do.  You’re still one of the coolest actors to me and I eagerly await more movies from you, but I never want to see you fake an African accent and yell tell the truth ever again.  Horrible.

 

Now onto the big stinkers of this past year:

CLAPPY'S TOP 10 WORST FILMS OF 2015

Spoiler

So I’m going to be completely 100% honest here.  Someone needs to kill this franchise.  Badly.

10. Terminator: Genisys

 

 

There hasn’t been a good Terminator movie in over twenty years and I have no hope that there will be a good one in the near future either.  Not only that, but audiences are finally catching on.  This didn’t even make it over a hundred million domestic and this even had a 4th of July weekend release, which is usually saved for big name franchises.  Let that be a sign over how big of a flop this was.  This movie was just an absolute mess with nothing redeemable about it.  Hell, the one memorable moment of the entire movie with John Connor becoming a terminator makes no damn sense if you actually try to follow this messy time travel plot.  Not even the return to Ahnuld to the franchise he helped make famous worked for me.  His existence in this movie was completely unnecessary except “nostalgia” but even then the nostalgia factor has long since waned for me.  How many Sarah Connor’s have there been now?  How many John Connor’s have there been now?  This movie franchise needs to stop being rebooted consistently and just let the nostalgia factor of the Terminator movies die already.  This slow painful death has gone on long enough.  This movie was such a massive mess.  Please let this be the end and no more underwhelming piece of shit, loud, obnoxious, ridiculously underwritten, not even entertaining Terminator movies.

 

Spoiler

Speaking of franchises that need to be killed.  Badly.  There was potential to modernize this one with a reboot for a new generation.

9. Vacation

 

 

Not only do I think that this Vacation was not fun, but it was more importantly NOT FUNNY.  The original was written by John Hughes and directed by Harold Ramis.  This new one was written and directed by assholes who I doubt even watched the original Vacation.  I think what pissed me off about this most was that they referenced the original Vacation so damn much that they wanted us to know that this is related to the original.  Yet, they completely missed the spirit of the original so terribly to the point that it makes me wonder what the hell they were even trying to go for with this.  Ed Helms was fucking terrible in this.  He tried to emulate Chevy Chase so much, but missed the heart and the depth behind who Russ Griswold was.  Instead what they do is just make awkward and/or gross hijinks happen to the new Griswolds and see how they react to it.  That’s not funny.  That’s just grating.  And they do it so much by having the kids be pretentious shits and the mom an egotistical whore.  I get that they were trying to play up the dysfunction with Rusty being the happy go-lucky oblivious straight man.  Sometimes, this can work, but here’s the main reason why it doesn’t.  Because Ed Helms doesn’t make the character his own.  It’s just him trying to do what Chevy did, but he’s clearly not Chevy.  That’s seriously the movie in a nutshell for two hours.  Minus wasted cameos from actors who clearly deserve to be in much better movies like Charlie Day, Chris Hemsworth….hell even Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo themselves.  Seriously everyone involved.  You have absolutely no right to bring back the original actors into this shit storm just for nostalgia after how you executed this mess.  What a vacation...to hell.

 

Spoiler

This one’s for Wumbo.  Thank you for making me morbidly curious as to how bad this was:

8. Hitman: Agent 47

 

 

Can we please stop with the unnecessary video game adaptations Hollywood?  Rarely do any of them catch on and since the first Hitman didn’t work, why not reboot it again with a different lead and the exact same movie?  God, this movie’s utter existence was absolutely pointless and beyond Zachary Qunito at least being somewhat of a silver lining, I can’t defend this irrelevant sequel any more if I tried.  The rest of the movies on this list are definitely far worse, but this was the one that felt like the biggest waste of my time.  This was pretty much a 90 minute car commerical.  Next.

 

Spoiler

So Christmas movies are an annual tradition that you either love or hate if you are a movie goer.  You can’t escape them every year.  Hell that’s the sole reason channels like Lifetime, Hallmark, somewhat Freeform…god ABC Family, couldn’t you have chosen a worse name for your network…get higher viewership around the last two months of the year?  There is something about the holiday season that intrigues people to watch holiday movies and find that new entitled Christmas classic.  Well, it certainly wasn’t this one.

7. Love the Coopers

 

I, for one, did not love the Coopers.  I found next to nothing to remotely like about the Coopers.  Every single last one of them were ungrateful shits that were so poorly written, so poorly acted that I couldn’t find a single reason for this movie to get me in the Christmas spirit.  No characters evolved in the story.  Not a single actor even tried to give a conceivable shit about what they were doing.  There is a target audience for dysfunctional family comedies, but so many of them are displayed so terribly that I’m starting to wonder if this sort of genre is starting to reach the top of my shit list when it comes to movie genres I can’t tolerate.  Because so often, they play off being a terrible human being as “dysfunctional” that it completely misses the point of the definition as to what “dysfunctional” actually means.  Also, is it just me or when a movie highlights such a star studded cast as the main reason to go see their movie, it’s an utter reek of desperation?  Because if that’s the main reason you are going to see a movie as your selling point, then you don’t have a backbone to stand on as to what the movie is actually about.  The premise should be the more intriguing point of your movie and if your premise is “Watch a bunch of big names be ungrateful shits for a hour and a half”, then you know your movie is going to suck.  Which this absolutely did.

 

Spoiler

I’ve seen this top so many worst lists this year just because of the phenomenon itself and not the actual movie.  I mean come on guys, judge this movie on its own merits and not the reason for it’s existence.

6. Fifty Shades of Grey

 

 

This movie is still absolute dogshit and yeah I agree that the phenomenon behind this is ridiculously stupid.  But can we pause and put our pitchforks down for five seconds and actually judge it for itself and not how it was adapted?  Every single actor in this movie is stale as dry bread and I don’t know who decided to make Jamie Dornan an actor but the guy is one of the worst actors I’ve ever seen.  His interaction with every single character is hilarious amounts of bad.  I sure hope he stops acting once this is over and goes back to being the male model he was destined to be before being handed the lead role over one of the stupidest franchises in movie history.  At least Dakota Johnson can act, even if it’s not clear that what she’s doing is considered acting here.  But as for a movie itself…it’s unintentional comedy.  I laughed so many times during this because I couldn’t believe someone actually wrote this script.  I laughed over how terrible the chemistry was between the two leads.  I laughed over the fact that someone out there considers those sex scenes “sexy”.  Because I’ve seen better acting and sex in porn that you can find for free on the internet.  This movie was unsexy as fuck and it’s an absolute disaster, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t find a single ounce of entertainment in the fact that this was funny as hell and no one could tell me otherwise.

 

Spoiler

I don’t have much to say about my next choice because what else is there left to say that I haven’t already said?

5. Pan

 

Actually there is something left to say and no it's not I'M JAMES HOOK!  I’m more fascinated now than frustrated over how terrible of a movie this was.  The white washing of an Indian tribe, the terribly terrible acting, the historical inaccuracies….this movie fascinates me with how bad they fucked this up.  But by the end of the day, the fascination can’t save the fact that this was just a horrible movie to sit through.  Can we please promise to stop with the Peter Pan live action adaptations or any more Disney origin stories not handled by the Mouse House themselves?  Because every single one of them outside of Disney have been really bad and with The Jungle Book and ANOTHER Snow White war story to come in 2016, I’m getting ready to go through hell once more.

 

Spoiler

So our former overlord @Rock asked me to do 1996 as my next year I cover in my film project.  Well due to my job changes and travel schedule, it will be a long while before I get back to that.  Sorry buddy, but to slightly spoil my list, my Best Movie of 1996 would have more than likely been Jerry Maguire.  It’s one of the best movies of the 1990s for me and it’s just great storytelling and great acting all around.  Cameron Crowe could have been one of my favorite directors just based off that movie alone.  But alas, his career plummeted badly over the past decade and just when I thought he couldn’t sink any lower, he made this:

4. Aloha

 

Once upon a time, Cameron Crowe knew how to write basic storytelling.  Once upon a time, Cameron Crowe knew how to not write cringeworthy dialogue.  Once upon a time, Cameron Crowe use to know that Hawaii was not a white washed state.  Once upon a time, Emma Stone knew she wasn’t Asian.  My god this movie just got absolutely nothing right.  You know it’s sad when the best part of the movie was John Krasinski not saying A SINGLE LINE and just speaking through facial expressions.  Like how could this movie end up this terribly with such a talented cast?  I’ll tell you how.  Cameron Crowe.  I honestly don't know when his career started becoming this badly on life support, but he's made far too many overly attempts at being emotional stinkers that I'm starting to question whether he'll have another good movie ever again.  And oh my god the twist.  The twist is so forced so badly that I couldn't believe my eyes that I had to rewatch this again just to make sure that I wasn't being sorely mislead and not even a single instance once led us to believe that the twist had any reason to exist. I'm not going to spoil what it is but wow.  This is M Night levels of bad writing and just another reason for me to question if I'll ever be able to forgive one of my once favorite directors for something this bad.

 

Spoiler

Yeah the more that I think about it, this year was just not that good to comedies.  Which is a shame because comedies can be my favorite genre since there is nothing I like to do more at a movie than laugh for all the right reasons.  Humor always knows how to brighten up my mood when it comes to entertainment.  In previous years, I can name so many good comedies, but this year, I can only think of maybe three or four pure comedies that I truly enjoyed.  So without further ado, let’s talk about easily the worst theatrical comedy of 2015.

3. Hot Tub Time Machine 2

 

Which is a damn shame because the original Hot Tub Time Machine was actually a good movie.  The sequel had seriously every aspect of the original coming back including the director and writers.  The only element not returning was John Cusack, who usually signs his name onto anything.  Instead what we got was Rob Corddry as the focal point and he was easily the worst part of the first movie.  This movie seriously damned me to hell to take every single aspect of likability from the first movie and completely savage it over the course of its run time.  Craig Robinson, Clark Duke, hell the movie had Adam Scott in it and they managed to make me hate him just like I did everyone else in this by the end.  This movie was batshit insane amounts of bad with degrading the smart clever humor to absolutely obnoxious.  Hell, this movie had hands down the worst scene I’ve sat through all year with ten minutes wasted on a joke involving Craig Robinson having anal sex with Rob Corddry then Adam Scott.  TEN FUCKING MINTUES.  Let me put it to you in this perspective.  That’s 11.11111111% percent of your movie you dedicated into trying to sell your audience to laugh at guys having butt sex.  That’s your marquee joke and it’s irredeemably awful.  Then they try to sell you that more sequels are coming with how it ended, I sure hope it’s a hard pass because this sequel flopped hard.

 

Spoiler

I respect what this movie was trying to do, but my god what a mess.

2. Jupiter Ascending

 

I mean it’s not often when we have creative visionaries (or at least use to be) trying to make an original franchise of their own.  I respect that from the Wachowskis because no one seems to want to do that anymore.  But the best way to put this is….a confusing mess of a disaster.  The plot is just too ridiculously overcomplicated for its own good.  Our heroine…oh my god Mila Kunis what are you even doing here.  Her acting is so wooden and stale, why even bother showing up and it feels like she has to get saved by Channing Tatum in like every scene.  Channing Tatum, hell it’s telling that he didn’t even bother trying to promote this movie in the press.  And Eddie Redmayne….oh my god this has to be up there as one of the most embarrassing movies a Best Actor winner has ever done.  I’m not completely sure where it would rank, but it’s definitely up there.  His prince-king whatever is just so bizarre and batshit insane that it needs to be immortalized up there as one of the worst performances from an Oscar winner all time.  But you know what really gets me?  All of the countless exposition and terrible writing.  Like my god, I really do understand that they were trying to set up this universe for countless sequels and other movies, but there are some scenes that go on for at least ten minutes of nonstop talking.  Movies are meant for entertainment purposes, not to be bored to tears like you are being forced against your own will to read a dictionary worth of dialogue trying to set everything up.  This movie was pretty much insufferably boring from beginning to end with ridiculously half assed action scenes in between the absolute bore of basic conversation. With this being the latest flop from the Wachowsksis, I sure hope Warner Brothers don’t give them massive amounts of financial control over their next project to bore us to tears again.

 

Spoiler

Are you guys ready…..of course my number one is Fan4stic, really now, why wouldn’t it be?

1. Fantastic Four

 

At least Jupiter Ascending despite being more of a bore than anything else felt like it could have been a good movie.  This was just a flat out disaster.  I already wrote a Crap Cinema review animating how fucking brutal this movie ended up becoming, but holy god, watching it bomb in such an epic fashion the way it did brought a tear to my eye.  I seriously hope the failure of Fan4stic is highlighted by Hollywood for years to come on how movie studios shouldn’t meddle with the director’s creative vision, but even then…how much more creative could this have been?  I have no clue what Trank’s version of the movie was before all the meddling, but once the words

ONE YEAR LATER

Popped up on the screen, this went from being a normal bad movie to an atrocious one.  This movie started to obtain more holes than swiss cheese and the fact that they were trying to set up even more movies in this overcomplicated universe that they couldn’t even begin to straighten out in this one.  Like I already went over all the ramifications of all parties involved with this in Crap Cinema that I seriously don’t have too much else to say over how much I hated this, but when the 1994 Fantastic Four is still your best adaptation of this comic book franchise, maybe it’s a sign that movie studios should stop adapting this franchise.  Of course I fully expect that warning to be completely ignored in ten years or so, but even then, whenever I doubt they can’t adapt the Fantastic Four any worse than the most recent one, this movie franchise still continues to surprise me in the worst ways possible.

 

Thanks for reading as always guys.  You motivate me to keep on writing these things for your entertainment.  Not sure when the best list will be up but I'll probably have far more fun than I did writing the worst list this year.  Ugh.

[WhoBibbles]

Honestly I still don't think The Visit is bad. Shockingly Oxenbould was favorite part in it, I found his rapping to be funny. The acting was also pretty decent, the twist was decent and the ending was pretty hesrtwarming. My only issue is that the stuff doesn't kick until third act. First and second acts were just dull with a few shocking scenes, while I actually really liked third act. It's not as good as people say but it's not as bad as others say either. It's ok at best and I really hope Shyamalan will get even better from this.

I also think Mockingjay Part 2 is ok, it had good action and acting at least but the story was meh and I wasn't fan of some decisions of the writing. I was too nice for this and gave it a B+. Still not a baddie but not a goodie either.

I'm shocked The Ridiculous 6 wasn't on the list since you said it was the worst Sandler movie.

I enjoyed the list and I can't wait for best. My best list is pretty much done, just one movie left to see before getting into my list.

[Old Man Jenkins]

Glad I ain't the only one that found Will Smith's accent freakin laughable, just watching the trailers turned me off from seeing it. Just seeing shit being shoved in ACS's face made The Visit for me. Just knowing that Jai Courtney was gonna be in Genisys made the flashbacks of A Good Day to Die Hard come back, so seeing him help flush the Terminator franchise down the toilet as well took me by no surprise. And they really need to stop taking one of my favorite video game franchises and turning it into Shitman.

[Clappy]

1 hour ago, WhoBob said:

I'm shocked The Ridiculous 6 wasn't on the list since you said it was the worst Sandler movie.

Decided not to put it on there since it falls under the same category as television movies for me, which I don't usually nominate for my movie lists.  I guess that makes me as stuck in my ways as the Academy is about Netflix movies by that technicality.  If I did count it for my worst list, it would have probably placed 4th.

[WhoBibbles]

1 minute ago, Clappy said:

Decided not to put it on there since it falls under the same category as television movies for me, which I don't usually nominate for my movie lists.  I guess that makes me as stuck in my ways as the Academy is about Netflix movies by that technicality.  If I did count it for my worst list, it would have probably placed 4th.

Will you rant about it tho?

[Clappy]

1 hour ago, Old Man Jenkins said:

Glad I ain't the only one that found Will Smith's accent freakin laughable, just watching the trailers turned me off from seeing it. Just seeing shit being shoved in ACS's face made The Visit for me. Just knowing that Jai Courtney was gonna be in Genisys made the flashbacks of A Good Day to Die Hard come back, so seeing him help flush the Terminator franchise down the toilet as well took me by no surprise. And they really need to stop taking one of my favorite video game franchises and turning it into Shitman.

Jai Courtney needs to stop being made a thing.  He's seriously awful.

[WhoBibbles]

1 minute ago, Clappy said:

Jai Courtney needs to stop being made a thing.  He's seriously awful.

Hopefully, he'll act fine in Suicide Squad because he doesn't seem bad in the movie judging by the trailers.

[Clappy]

10 hours ago, WhoBob said:

Hopefully, he'll act fine in Suicide Squad because he doesn't seem bad in the movie judging by the trailers.

That's because he hasn't even said two words in any of the trailers and isn't the focal point like Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Viola Davis, and Jared Leto have been.  You could argue a few others got a few lines in like Scott Eastwood, Joel Kinnaman, and in a non speaking but enough of a focus on Cara Delevingne.  But thankfully not Jai Courtney.

[WhoBibbles]

After seeing so many movies of 2015, It's finally the time for me to make a top 10.

WHOBOB'S TOP 10 BEST MOVIES OF 2015

Before I make my top 10, let me just say that good movies I've seen in 2015 are really good. Not every good movie of 2015 are that great and compared to best movies of 2014 I've seen, this year was a bit step down but still I really like these movies. Also not every praised movie is going to be on the list nor honorable mentions because either I haven't seen them or I didn't think these movies were as great as everyone did.

But first:

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Spoiler

Ex Machina - So many people keep saying there are not enough good original movies anymore. Well, it's true that we are getting so many sequels, prequels, reboots and adaptations but there are still original and fresh movies out there like Ex Machina. Now I didn't really put this one on the list because at times, the movie was dragging. Of course, the movie is supposed to be slowly-paced but at times, I wish the plot could have picked up. Also I'm not sure how to feel about the ending, I really have mixed feelings about this. Still, the movie was really interesting, suspenseful and clever. I loved the relationship between Caleb Smith and Ava and as the movie goes on, their chemistry gets stronger. I adored the performances especially Alicia Vikander, who was great as Ava. And the last thing I wanna say is the cinematography was gorgeous and I loved the location that is used for this film.

Sicario - Like Ex Machina, it does suffer from dragging at times but in the end, the movie was really good. It was really dark and brutal, it really shows us what these cops can go through and it's not pretty at all. You can understand how the character feel when they are in these dark situations. Emily Blunt and Benicio Del Toro's performances really outstanding and I can't believe they didn't get nominated for Oscar, oh well. Maybe next time.

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge out of Water - Yes, people, I'm including this. Honestly at the first time, I've seen it, I loved it and I still stand by it. But when I think about this movie more, the more flaws came in. I really didn't care for Burger Beard, he was such a bland and forgettable villain,The movie doesn't always deliver good jokes, some jokes are pretty childhish and the plot of the movie is all over the place but still I love this movie for so many reasons. I loved the chemistry between SpongeBob and Plankton, the best aspect of the movie. Their chemistry was so charming and so funny that it was a nice change for once in a while. While, the plot of the movie was all over place and messy, it also helped the movie to be really trippy and crazy and it made the movie more energetic and fun. I also think each character had enough moments to shine through the movie. From insane Sandy to ripped Squidward, moments like these really made me laugh so much. And the last great thing is that the animation is so amazing and I really think it was the best animation out of the entire franchise. So yeah, I still love this movie, despite it's flaws.

Ant-Man - I like Avengers: Age of Ultron, I really think it's an underrated fun action movie but it does have some flaws and the premise is something that we've seen so many times that it doesn't feel that original. Ant-Man, however, felt fresh for a MCU movie. It doesn't try to be so big, pun intended, it has a smaller place and I really enjoyed a lot of it. I loved how this movie was a mix of a heist and superhero movie and it didn't feel forced at all. The movie was really exciting, sweet and humorous. My only complaint is that the villain in this movie is just another cliched villain and it's not really that memorable. I still recommend this movie and I really think this is one of MCU's better movies.

The Gift - This is pretty much one of the overlooked ones of 2015, I heard of this from Chris Stuckmann and it seemed interesting. I decided to watch it and I really liked it. This movie was really unsettling af. What I mean is that the movie showed that something from the past can some and haunt you and it was told very well. So be careful and think about your actions before you make because it can effect your life. The ending showed us, it was just depressing. This may be not really a light-hearted movie but it deserves some recognition for it's well-written story.

It Follows - Oh man, I may get hate for this. I love this movie, I really do and I think it deserved it's praise (although some people in Turkey really disliked this movie and I don't think the movie deserved this hate from Turkey) but honestly, especially considering that people keep calling this movie the scariest movie of the decade, I have to disagree. The Babadook and The Conjuring were much more effective and scarier modern horror movies than It Follows, which wasn't that scary to be honest. Maybe due to the fact that it's pretty much a homage to classic teen horror movies and as much as I like classic teen horror movies, I don't find them to be scary or we can see the creature a bit clearly and it has a human form (well, almost), so it didn't effect me that much. However, I still consider this to be a great horror movie because it was suspenseful, thrilling and it didn't try to use fake jump scares to scare you for 1 second. I also think the characters were good, they weren't typical jerk and stupid teenage characters; they were likeable characters that we could get into. I have to appericiate the movie for being a homage to classic teen horror movies because as much as I don't find classic horror movies to be scary, the tone really fit in and it made the movie so charming. So If you love classic teen horror movies, you'll love this one.

The Big Short - Even though, I'm not so familiar with economy and financial crisis of 2007-08 and I didn't understand everything from the movie, I really liked this one because it told the story in a really entertaining and funny way. A lot of stuff from this movie were really funny, I loved the 4th wall breaks, I loved the celebrity cameos and performances were outstanding, especially Steve Carell, who should have got nomination for Oscar. It's not a movie for everybody but I still recommend it If you want to understand the subject more.

The Peanuts Movie - As someone who didn't even read comics and see the specials, I loved this movie. I loved how simple the movie was. It didn't need to be complex or anything cuz according to the fans, the Peanuts is simple. I really think it captured the feeling of how kids used to play in old times. The characters were loveable, especially Charlie Brown, whom you can really relate to because we've had some moments that we felt like we were losers and I know I've had a lot of these memories XD but in the end, you can still come out as a winner. The movie was really fun, sweet and emotional near the end.

Uuuhhhhhh, it took so long to write honorable mentions. Here's my top 10.

Spoiler

#10 Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

 

As far as movie franchises go, they really went downhill *coughcoughcoughterminator* but Mission Impossible prooved that movie franchises can go better and better. I think the reason why it works here and not in Terminator is that the premise of the franchise is open to anything, after all, this is based on the tv series that has the same name. You can make so many movies of Mission Impossible, James Bond and Bourne and it can still feel fresh. The plot was great, the characters from Ghost Protocol and the new character, Ilsa Faust, were charming, action was really exciting and stakes were so high (well, it's a Mission IMPOSSIBLE movie, so that's what to expect ). This is definitely up there with Ghost Protocol as the best MI movie and this was a great birthday present since it aired on July 31 (tho I didn't see this movie until a few weeks later ). I highly recommend this movie, it's so good.

 

Spoiler

What, you are not tired of spy movies, here's a one that is so edgy.

#9 Kingsmen: The Secret Service

Here's another classic spy movie that you may want to add. The movie was one of the most fun blockbusters of 2015. The chruch scene isn't the only scene, people. The skydiving scene, the colorful explosion scene, they were also really memorable and fun scenes. I loved how this movie made fun of cliches of old James Bond movies and seriousness of new James Bond movies, while it was also a homage to James Bond franchise. The movie was really ballsy, edgy and over the top and it was just so fun to watch. Another memorable thing was that the villain of the movie, played by Samuel L. Jackson. What I really loved about this villain is that he really gets disgusted by violence and gore because a lot of villain love violence and gore after all, it felt really fresh for the character, while also being the bad guy. If you love or hate James Bond, you'll definitely appericiate this movie a lot.

 

Spoiler

#8 Spy (2015)

 

 

Hey look, another spy movie with the same name. Oh yeah, I love this movie than Kingsmen and MI5. For one thing, this movie is hysterical, I cracked up so many times during the movie, so many hilarious lines from Melissa McCarthy. Speaking of her, she was such a badass in the movie, she really kicked butt and it was awesome. Oh yeah, this isn't just a comedy, an action comedy. the action scenes were really excited and it kept me on my edge. I really think Paul Feig did an excellent job with this movie and I can't wait for his version of Ghostbusters.

 

 

Spoiler

#7 The Martian

 

 Hello, there Ridley Scott, it's great to see you made another masterpiece. I love this movie. It's visually stunning, it's hilarious, it's smart, it's intriguing. What can I say more? Maybe mention about Matt Damon because I really loved him in this movie. His character was so optimistic, no matter how he fails, he still didn't give up and that made the movie so fun and so lighthearted. Although it did have couple of dramatic scenes but they were executed well. It's definitely a well-directed, well-shot and well-made movie. That's all I can say. I'm lazy.

 

Spoiler

#6 Straight Outta Compton

 

 Fan of N.W.A. or not, it's a must see movie. Even though, I've never listened this group, I was interested in seeing this group's story of how they became a group, how they went through a lot of situations and their break up; all of it's told very well. I loved the songs in it as well, those were fun to listen to. This movie wasn't always plensant to watch tho, it really has a lot of unplesant moment but those were necessary to show us how these guys dealt with awful situations. I highly recommend this one so sadly. It's such a shame that this only got nominated for 1 category.

 

Spoiler

#5 Predestination

(no trailer added because that'd ruin everything about the movie )

 

 

Here's another movie you haven't heard of. It's an Australian movie called, Predestination. After what I've heard from it, I was really interested to see this one and oh boy, it didn't disappoint me. It's another sci-fi classic and it's a mind blowing one. The movie is pretty much a 2 seperated movie, the first half tells a backstory of a girl's life, who i'm not gonna say much and the second part of this is about time travel. This movie does an excellent job at tying knots, while also telling a good story. It has probably the best character study of 2015 and that's saying so much. The movie has also a mind blowing twist into it and I'm impressed by it. Just see this movie blindly, there's a reason why I didn't add the trailer. Impress just like I did.

 

Spoiler

#4 Room (2015)

 

Thanks to Katniss for recommending this one. If you make me hearwarmed and make me cry, you did a damn good job about it and this movie did it. Here's another original movie that no one didn't know what to expect and in the end, it touched our hearts. I love everything about this movie. It's a really sad and touching story of a woman and her child and that's all I can say. Their chemistry was really sweet and their relationship was developed so well. It's heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time. I also loved the performances. Brie Larson and the child actor Jacob Tremblay were so outstanding in this movie, Brie Larson is definitely Oscar-worthy and Jacob Tremblay deserves praise for being such a great child actor. I may be not crazy about drama films but movies like Room definitely deserves attention.

 

Spoiler

And finally we are in top 3, which are so predictable but I don't care.

#3 Inside Out

 

Here's to predictable #3, It's one of my favorite Pixar movies of all-time. This shows us that Pixar is still in the game. This is everything what Pixar should do more. Being smart, mind-blowning, funny, exciting and heartwarming. Oh yeah, this is heartwarming af, it made me cry so many times, I'm run out of tears but that's what I should expect from a movie about emotionals. If I'm being honest, I wasn't expecting this much from this movie and kept my expectations low because the concept didn't seem that interesting to me and Pixar's last films were weak, not bad, I liked last Pixar movies but they felt weak, compared to other Pixar movies. I'm glad Inside Out prooved that Pixar can still be excellent at animated movies. Cheers to Inside Out.

 

Spoiler

#2 Star Wars: The Force Awakens

 

Call me fanboy anytime, I don't care, this movie was awesome. Ok, I'm not going to be blind here and explain what I love about this movie. Ok, I know this movie has been criticized for being similar to The New Hope and yes, they are right, it's similar to The New Hope. But is Chris Stuckmann did bring a good point to this in his analized video. If you look at every Star Wars movies, they are similar to each other; they have similar ideas and plot devices but they still feel different from another because of how they told the story. This movie was no exception. Ok, maybe this movie was too similar to New Hope, more than any other Star Wars movies and it used nostalgia factor a lot but other than, the new death star, I'm fine with that. This movie still did so much to be a different Star Wars movie. They added new characters into it and they were really charming and loveable characters and they didn't just do that, they also developed Han Solo and Leala's characters and I'm so happy they had porpuse to be in this movie, instead of being there as just fan services. Pretty much almost every character have important job in this movie. Another differnet thing about this movie was that it had humor. Of course, this shouldn't be a suprise since Disney has bought this movie and Disney has also added humor to Marvel movies but the humor of this movie didn't feel distracting, they were there to keep the mood light when it's necessary and it did it so well; it didn't feel forced (pun intended) and a lot of jokes were so funny. Tho being amovie that is procued by Disney shouldn't scare you, this movie had dark and serious moments as well and the movie handled it brilliantly. More stuff that I can say more is that the movie had great visiual effects, music and direction from JJ Abrams. I'm so glad to see this franchise going strong after 30+ years and I hope next movies will deliver just like The Force Awakens, If not better.

 

Spoiler

Finally, this list is almost done, here's the most obvious choice EVER!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#1 Mad Max: Fury Road

 

Yes, this is #1. I'm so sorry that I'm predictable, it's my list  . Ok, I'll explain why this is my #1.

I watch movies for fun and this is the most fun, I've had when I watched a 2015 movie. Now, some may complain about that this movie is too simple and doesn't deserve awards because of it but here's the thing. This movie doesn't need to be complex or anything to be a great movie. If you want to make a complex story for action movie, you have to be careful about writing or else you may mess things up. This movie being simple helped this movie to be way better and It should be because the focus was more on the action and that's what action movies should do often, focus on the action. And yes, the action was outstanding. It used real stunt and practical effects to make this more realistic and it made this movie so fun to watch. It's not just that, the visuals and the coloring in this movie were so beautiful and that's another important aspect of this movie. Another great thing is that while it may not be story-driven, the characters were the characters that you can root for, not the mention they were badasses on their own. Everything about this movie is awesome, the action, the visiuals, the characters, the coloring, the music, the quotes; just a masterpiece. 2 hours of adrelarin.

 

Ah, it took like 2-3 hours so finish this list, I hate it. Whatevs.

I hope you liked this list and I can't wait to read yours. Have a great year everyone and I'll see you at the end of 2016.

[Katniss]

Glad you liked Room  Nice list, even though I haven't seen a lot of your choices.

[Hayden]

Hayden's Top 10 Television Shows of 2015 (10-6)

10. You're the Worst

 

Oh my, where do I begin with this? Now usually this might not make the top ten because although it can be fun a lot of its type of humor does go over my head or I sometimes can't relate to. However from a relationship and growth perspective? This is a very endearing show that young adults can connect with. The recent season tackled depression and it was easily one of the most interesting problems I've seen a couple on TV go through. Both Jimmy and Gretchen were frustrating in their own ways, but the penultimate episode was one of the most satisfying moments of triumph I've ever seen. At a core level I also was rooting for it because Jimmy and Gretchen loosely felt like what Kali and I would be together. The side cast isn't on the same level of investment for me, but I appreciate how another karaoke song concluded the finale. I hope every finale is set at one of those parties and can't wait for the faster summer return this is getting!

9. The Last Man on Earth

 

So this is one of the most unique types of sitcoms on earth. Not only does it follow week to week in an apocalyptic setting, it has a largely unlikeable protagonist that we get to watch as an outsider of the last group of people anywhere. Sometimes the antics can be overbearing but the show usually hits just the right amount of heart. Season 2 has been better for Tandy's road to redemption, and I enjoy the dynamic between Tandy and the Other Phil because for a long time he was an antagonistic force of his own. Overall it's easy goofy television for a Sunday night that also manages continuity. That's a lot when compared to animated shows that have lost their luster. Probably the only thing on FOX I have anticipation for this spring.

8. We Bare Bears

 

Seriously the best moment so far right there and a fantastically uplifting song. Such a sweet and simple show. I remember how much hype for this CN made with all those little bear stack promos and it lived up to it. Ice Bear is my favorite (see, I can go with the popular opinion!) and I like how while it isn't plot oriented it is still making the effort to provide depth through a bear backstory with them as little cubs. My favorite episode has to be "Brother Up" because of how it explores the brotherhood hierarchy, but practically every episode has something special or heartwarming in it.

7. Steven Universe

 

Yeah an easy video choice. There's honestly no better way to have an action scene on this show than with music accompanying it on such a personal level. This climax is when SU really made a leap for me into something higher artistically. It still has its flaws (slow build, overdramatics, and strange areas of concentration) but it has done everything right with the start of Peridot's transformation. An opposing mindset of a normal gem was something that always had to eventually come into the conflict (Wouldn't it be awesome if Tumblr was able to understand the show's messages and themes and apply it to themselves?). Steven's special nature opening Peridot up is its own battle and something different after several chase scenes ending with "clods!" It will go back into an overly sappy zone again if the Diamonds or Jasper are redeemed however, but for the time being Peridot is a welcome addition to the character pool, up there with Lion and Connie as the most fascinating characters to watch besides Steven. I attended a "Together Breakfast" at a college campus this past year though so the extra memory attached to the series helped it get up this high.

6. Community

 

And so this quirky show comes to an episodic conclusion? Abed has always been what draws me to it above all else. A character so meta in "the real world" provides for a lot of sharp wit and situations. I'm glad the final scene seems to suggest Abed went off with a happy career ending. I wasn't here for the Troy/Abed glory days but maybe they'll reunite in the movie. If it comes out in like 2017 or something. I also like what they did for Chang with the acting. Was waiting for Jeff/Britta all season too but at least it can be drawn upon they end up together since Annie's out of the picture. I loved the finale concept of imagining a season 7. Most of all though I love how this thing that I binged my senior year followed me into community college by surviving through Yahoo's crazy online streaming decisions. NBC killed the spirit like assholes but some desires of fate cannot be avoided so easily.

Next Time: Hayden's Top 5 Television Shows of 2015

 

[JCM]

Love to see Community on another list. If it weren't for American Ninja Warrior, I'd swear off NBC entirely.