Bridge of Spies - initial thoughts

Bridge of Spies sees Spielberg reunite with Saving Private Ryan and Catch Me if You Can star Tom Hanks, in a film written by Matt Charman and Joel & Ethan Coen. 

If you want the tl;dr synopsis, it’s Spielberg doing as Spielberg often does - directing well made, intelligent yet accessible, entertaining adult drama.

Some spoilers abound, by the way.

Triple J's Hottest 100 - #Tay4Hottest100

The #Tay4Hottest100 campaign seems to be gaining momentum, and publicity, enough that it is amongst the favourites on Sportsbet. I'm not particularly convinced that Sportsbet is on the money; it'll rank closer to 100 than to top spot (if indeed Triple J don't declare votes for "Shake it Off" ineligible).

With the momentum and publicity, comes the inevitable backlash. For mine, I'd prefer it to be included if it does get enough votes, rather than discounting them, and opening a can of worms over how truly the countdown relfects votes received. Realistically, while it has no place in the Hottest 100, if the campaign does succeed, "Shake it Off" wouldn't be the first song of dubious quality (and/or fit with the station) to make the countdown, and it won't be the last.

In that vein, let's have a look back throughout the Hottest 100 history at other songs which raised an eyebrow or two (some perhaps more in hindsight than at the time), be it over inclusion in the list, or, it's actual ranking.

Ranking Disney's anmiated films (part 2)

Up next with part 2 (30-1) of my complete ranking of Disney's 54 animated feature films.Controversy awaits!

You can view Part 1 here

Ranking Disney's animated features (part 1)

Having finally seen Big Hero 6 (a pox on the fact that Australia gets so many releases week (often enough, months) after the rest of the world), I'm taking my cue from the fantastic Nighthawknews blog to rank the 54 Disney animated features. This purely takes in to account those films with Walt Disney as the animation studio - the films (for example) made by Pixar (which will be a separate list at some stage) or Studio Ghibli aren't considered for this list.

Hottest 100 votes 2014

After giving it some thought, here are my final votes for the 2014 Triple J Hottest 100.

Top Fives - Artists never to make the Hottest 100

A cursory glance at almost every list I've published yields some link to Triple J's Hottest 100. With voting now open for 2014, before looking at which songs made my shortlist, I've decided to revisit five artists that have never placed in the top 100.

Ground rules: they need to be artists that I have actually voted for, in the annual countdowns, at a time voting was limited to 10 songs. Bands like Machine Head (I didn't vote when songs from Burn My Eyes would have been eligible, and their most recent work hasn't been on Triple J's shortlist) miss out for this reason (my notes around my voting history go back to 1998 (and while I can be held accountable for "Got the Life", I directed no votes in the way of "Pretty Fly" that year)).

Top Fives - Album closing tracks

A while back I listed my favourite side one, track ones. As it's been a while since I put up a list, I decided to go with a variation of a theme and go with closing tracks. A few rules here... no bonus songs (for example, "No Shelter" on Battle of Los Angeles), hidden tracks ("Mr E's beautiful blues") or live albums ("Where did you sleep last night?" from Nirvana's Unplugged).