Songs

1. Matthew Good – Last Parade
2. Pearl Jam – Amongst the Waves
3. Handsome Furs – Radio Kaliningrad
4. Pearl Jam – Unthought Known
5. The xx – Islands
6. Matthew Good – Empty’s Theme Park
7. Bat for Lashes – Daniel
8. The Temper Trap – Sweet Disposition
9. Matthew Good – A Silent Army in the Trees
10. Phoenix – 1901

(Almost there: State Radio – Mansin Humanity, Pearl Jam – The Fixer, The Boxer Rebellion – Flashing Red Light Means Go, The xx – Crystalised, Pearl Jam – Just Breathe, Engineers – Sometimes I Realise, Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Zero, The Boxer Rebellion – Evacuate, The Decemberist’s – The Rake’s Song, Engineers – Clean Coloured Wire, Handsome Furs – Talking Hotel Arbat Blues, Metric – Help I’m Alive)

Albums

1. Matthew Good – Vancouver
2. Pearl Jam – Backspacer
3. Handsome Furs – Face Control
4. The xx – xx
5. Engineers – Three Fact Fader
6. The Boxer Rebellion – Union
7. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz
8. State Radio – Let it Go
9. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
10. Bat For Lashes – Two Suns

(Almost there: The Twilight Sad – The Night Ahead, Metric – Fantasies)

Movies

1. The Hurt Locker – Saw this in 08 but it's only now getting a cinema release. Weird. Anyway, the first great movie about the war in Iraq. Very tense!
2. Avatar – being derivative isn’t necessarily a terrible thing when you can pull it off this well. Yeah ok mainly the 3D was
3. Inglourious Basterds – I’m not exactly a Tarantino lover so likely expected less from this than most people. Basterds, however, has some of the most carefully crafted and effective scenes in any movie this year. Brad Pitt’s purposely mangled Italian accent is also the funniest thing committed to film in years. GRAAAAATZI.
4. 500 Days of Summer – I admit I’m drawn to twisted romantic movies like this (eg Eternal Sunshine). That said this is very well written and acted. Joseph Gordon Levitt is also one of the best young actors working today.
5. Moon – Speaking of fine actors, Sam Rockwell has always been very good but his showing in Moon is a cut above by even those high standards. Also has Kevin Spacey as a talking robot, need I say more.
6. Star Trek – Never been a huge fan, but this was boatloads of fun. Or spaceshiploads of fun. Whatever.
7. Up – Pixar has gone from making kids movies that adults can enjoy to adult movies that kids can enjoy. Sweet, witty and sentimental in a good way.
8. Black Dynamite – DYN-O-MITE. It takes a lot of effort to make a bad 70's movie this well.
9. In the Loop – biting political satire that will make you laugh hysterically and develop a fear of Scottish people.
10. Watchmen – never was a comic book person at all so knew little about this and expected even less. Glad I gave it a shot as it’s one of the most interesting and unusual entries in this genre I’ve ever seen. Still quite alarmed by the giant blue penis though.

(Almost there: District 9, Zombieland, State of Play, Julie & Julia, I Love You Man, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The Hangover, An Education, A Perfect Getaway, Samson and Delilah….maybe, no actually scratch that it's just so unrelentingly goddamn depressing).

WORST OF 09

1. The Spirit – Hahahahahaha.
2. 2012 – A couple minutes of spectacular effects do not make up for the other 2 hours of shite.
3. Punisher: War Zone – Violent and weird.
4. Year One – Never before have so many funny people joined together to make something without any laughs.
5. Night at the Museum 2 – One night too many. Whatever good will Tropic Thunder gained you from me is now gone Stiller.
6. Knowing – A love or hate movie I guess. Nice atmosphere, but just utterly ridiculous.
7. The Taking of Pelham 123 – Walter Matthau will rise from the grave to disembowel all involved in this piece of shit re-make.
8. Land of the Lost – I almost started to enjoy this halfway through as it is so bizarre I think it was someone's prank on Hollywood. I hear lots of people took their kids to this and it made them cry, awesome!
9. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – Michael Bay needs adult supervision. Nowhere near as fun as the first, just terribly bloated.
10. Law Abiding Citizen – Technically well made thriller has a real nasty edge to it which leaves a bad taste in the mouth.