Top 10 BEST Top 10 Hit Songs of 2016

I don't need no stinking introduction. But here, click on this link and you can see my top 10 WORST of the year.



#10. Panda - Desiigner

Top 10 WORST Top 10 Hit Songs of 2016

I've never really tried my hand at writing about music, and while I would normally try to learn a little more about how I should go about trying this out, I actually know about as much about music and I do movies. In fact, in the years leading up to me getting really into movie watching/reviewing, I mostly spent my time listening to tons of music and have continued exploring various genres and expanding my knowledge ever since -- though I admit that has definitely slowed down. So, I've decided to go through the list of Bilboard's top 10 hits of the year and talk a little about the biggest duds (and later, successes) of 2016.

I don't have any specific criteria or rating system in place to rank these songs, all I have is a fairly basic knowledge of musical composition, lyricism, and just a general ear for music in my own subjective way. The songs featured on this list won't necessarily be "bad" in all of these ways, and I can't really expect most people to agree with me on these picks. Obviously, these songs were hits, which means I'm basically just going to be crapping all over nearly a dozen songs that a ton of people enjoyed. Also, I don't listen to pop radip, so something being overplayed isn't going to factor into my opinions on the songs. So there you have it. Let's get this started, I guess.

Starting out 2017 the right way

As the few of you who read this blog already know, I posted a pretty gigantic piece on Hammer's Frankenstein movies from the '50s, '60s, and '70s, and after that I found myself slightly sad. I loved watching through those movies, thinking about them and doing some light research to learn some background on the development of them. It was an enlightening experience that I would love to recreate fairly soon. So, I'm announcing my plans to do this same thing (with a few minor alterations, of course) again with the Universal series. But there are a few things I might need to do first.

The Frankenstein series starting back in the 1930s eventually blended in with Wolf Man and Dracula once they released Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man and the follow-ups. While I don't see much of a connection to the Dracula series, especially considering the casting of John Carradine as opposed to bringing back Bela Lugosi for the part, I feel I need to flesh this whole series out with a bit of a background on each of these serieses. Frankenstein went 4 movies before entering into crossover territory, Wolf Man only 1, and the first Dracula was followed up with 2 semi-sequels and a Spanish alternate version (I'll go into that later), so I'll probably cover everything over several posts something like this:

Adventure Time (S01E01)

Episode #001
'Slumber Party Panic'
Season 1, Episode 1

Princess Bubblegum's disastrous science experiment in a graveyard brings candy people back from the dead -- with a hunger for candy people's flesh. She and Finn proceed to rally the town into her castle to protect everyone under the guise of a massive slumber party while she works on a serum to get everything back to normal.

Top 10 Favorite Christmas Movies

Between Halloween and Christmas, the kind of movies I find myself wanting to watch for the weeks (or month) surrounding them become dominated by the holidays. I love movies so much, and there are certain times of the year that become all the more full for me thanks to them. I dropped the ball with making a favorite movies to watch around Halloween list, so I'm not making that mistake again this year. Here are my favorite movies to watch around Christmas.

First, let me include a few disclaimers. For one, I don't necessarily watch any of these *on* Christmas, because I'm usually far too busy making snow angels out of shredded wrapping paper to think about watching movies, so these aren't ones I have a tradition of watching every single Christmas day itself. Does that matter? Not really, I just wanted to add a little bit about how I love Christmas so much that I don't generally even watch movies during that day. Yeah. It's serious business. Also, these are mostly movies I only watch around Christmas time, which mostly excludes movies I could watch any time of the year. There are movies set around Christmas that just don't make me *feel* the holiday spirit, so these are mostly just the ones I associate with the time of the year, with a few relative exceptions. And finally, this list does not include short films. The Grinch, Rankin/Bass stuff, Charlie Brown...I like those, but that's a list for another time.

So here we go, my 10 most favoritest Christmastime movies!

Best Episodes of Rick And Morty (#1)

#1
'Rick Potion #9'
Season 1, Episode 6

Morty's crush on his classmate Jessica leads to him asking Rick for a love potion that will make her love him back. Not knowing that it's flu season and the effects of this potion will infect everyone else, Rick mixes up a serum that winds up making everyone fall in love with Morty. He attempts to cure this by making more potions that turn everyone into monsters. Meanwhile, Beth is working late at the hospital and Jerry gets nervous that she might cheat on him with her attractive co-worker.

Best Episodes of Rick And Morty (#2)

#2
'Total Rickall'
Season 2, Episode 4

One day while sitting at the kitchen table with their beloved Uncle Steve, the family are horrified when Rick blasts Steve with a gun, revealing he was actually a parasite who wormed his way into their minds to convince them he was always part of the family. Rick believes someone must have brought the parasite with them on their shoe, as a whole series of other wacky characters begin to emerge and have the family questioning who is actually real and who is a parasite.

The Art of Recommendation: A Beginner's Guide to Being a Useful Movie Know-It-All

Most movie fanatics seem to operate on the thought process that what they like is the best, and in order to further educate their family and friends, they must force their own favorites on everyone else in an effort to expand their horizons. It's a natural response, but ultimately a fruitless one. Granted, you may turn some heads and generate a new fanbase for the art you admire, but for every recruit there are equally as many detractors; the punchline being the latter category won't be able to fully trust your recommendation ever again. There is a time and place for passion and forcefulness, and getting people to watch the things you like because you like them is most definitely not that time and/or place. At least, not if you really care about or respect the artform -- not to mention your friends.

Best Episodes of Rick And Morty (#3)

#3
'The Wedding Squanchers'
Season 2, Episode 10

Rick receives an invitation to the wedding of his best friend Bird Person and Summer's friend from school, which he is apprehensive to accept. The whole family wind up going, where it is then revealed to have been a huge set-up to a mass arrest of Bird Person, Rick and a variety of other criminals who would be in attendance. This leads to the family narrowly escaping and needing to find a new planet to live on while the galactic authorities hunt for Rick.

Best Episodes of Rick And Morty (#4)

#4
'Rixty Minutes'
Season 1, Episode 8

Tired of watching inane Earth television with the family, Rick installs an interdimensional cable box (with crystals!) that allows them to watch channels from an infinite number of realities. Jerry appears as a movie star on several of the channels they're watching, which leads to Rick giving Jerry, Beth, and Summer a headset that allows them to look through the eyes of different versions of themselves in alternate realities. Familial issues arise.

Best Episodes of Rick And Morty (#5)

#5
'Close Rick-counters Of The Rick Kind'
Season 1, Episode 10

Rick is taken captive by alternate versions of himself and brought in front of a tribunal headed by the supreme council of Ricks. They believe he's responsible for the murders of other Ricks and for kidnapping multiple copies of Morty. He escapes from the Ricks with Morty in tow, as they attempt to find the true culprit. Meanwhile back on Earth, Jerry befriends a "doofus" version of Rick, all the while being taunted by more regular copies of Rick who have taken the house over as a base of operations for their manhunt.

Best Episodes of Rick And Morty (#6)

#6
'A Rickle In Time'
Season 2, Episode 1

Following the 6-month time freeze at the end of the first season, Rick, Morty, and Summer restart time, which makes time itself unstable. Sending Jerry and Beth to get ice cream and allow time to stabilize, Morty and Summer have a small fight that results in a time-split. As time keeps fracturing, they have less and less time to restore it before they all cease to exist. Meanwhile, Jerry and Beth hit a deer with the car and Beth attempts to operate and save its life.

2016 in film (Part X)

I have decided to pass on putting reviews of these ones on the list, seeing as how close we're getting to me needing to rewrite a crap ton of tidbits about the 25 best movies, 10 best performances, 10 most UGH movies, and any other countdowns, so you'll just have to deal with seeing a flat list this time around. Too many other projects and CHRISTMAS(!!!) going on for me to want to write more right now.

So here's my incredibly lazy listing of the 91st-100th movies I've seen from 2016.

Best Episodes of Rick And Morty (#7)

#7
'Pilot'
Season 1, Episode 1

Rick, an alcoholic supergenius scientist inventor, moves in with his estranged daughter and her family, constantly taking his grandson Morty with him on sci-fi escapades to other planets and dimensions. This is effecting Morty's grades and attendance at school, which causes conflict between Morty's parents - Jerry and Beth - and Rick.

The Hammer Frankenstein series (1957 - 1974)

Back in the mid-'50s, Hammer Film Productions (a company founded in 1934) transitioned from largely producing mystery films and noirs to focusing more heavily on reimagining the gothic horror stories brought to life by Universal Studios starting several decades earlier. While it took a few films for Hammer to make this step, starting it's official horror catalog with black and white sci/fi movies like 'X The Unknown' and 'The Quatermass Xperiment' (and no, that's not a typo) that were at worst passably entertaining, in 1957 everything changed with the release of 'The Curse of Frankenstein', their first color horror movie and a massively influential gothic milestone.

In spite of not being their first foray into the horror genre, Hammer's first entry in their Frankenstein series was perhaps the most important film they ever produced. This movie, which was a distinct departure from the source material had an instant impact on their company, ushering in sequels and several other horror films that would become series' of their own. The use of gothic sets, brightly colored blood, and theatrical performances became staples of the company, and as Hammer's first color horror film, this one pretty much set the standard. Following the exploits of Dr. Frankenstein, this series immediately separated itself from the Universal films, which focused more on the Monster instead. It was a different approach that paid off in the end, as this allowed them to create new monsters with each movie and still have the series tie in together through a single lead performance.

Best Episodes of Rick And Morty (#8)

#8
'Auto-Erotic Assimilation'
Season 2, Episode 3

Rick, Morty, and Summer follow a distress beacon on a planet where they encounter Unity, an ex-lover of Rick's. Unity takes the three to a planet which is inhabited by people possessed and controlled though its hive mind. Unity and Rick rekindle their romantic relationship much to the chagrin of Summer, who seeks to free the minds of the individuals under Unity's control. Back on Earth, Jerry and Beth discover a hatch under the garage where Rick has a dangerous looking alien held captive.

Best Episodes of Rick And Morty (#9)

#9
'Look Who's Purging Now'
Season 2, Episode 9

Rick and Morty stop off at a planet real quick to grab some windshield wiper fluid, only to discover that planet is having a "purge night" like the popular movie series. Rick is intrigued by this and decides to stick around to watch it, only to wind up being drug into it. Back on Earth, Jerry tries to bond with Summer.

Best Episodes of Rick And Morty (#10)

#10
'M. Night Shaym-Aliens!'
Season 1, Episode 4

Rick wakes up one day and realizes something is slightly off. He and Morty are actually in a giant Earth simulation created by aliens who intend on tricking Rick into revealing his recipe for a special kind of fuel intended for high-speed space travel. Meanwhile Jerry, who is also in this simulation, doesn't notice anything is off (in spite of a plethora of obvious clues) and winds up having the best day of his life in this very fake and lazily robotic simulation of a normal and mundane day.

Best Episodes of Rick And Morty (#11)

#11
'Lawnmower Dog'
Season 1, Episode 2

Jerry is sick of their dog Snuffles being so dumb, so Rick gives the dog a helmet to increase his brain power, which ultimately backfires when the dog becomes too smart and builds robot bodies for he and his canine brethren with plans for world domination. Meanwhile, Rick takes Morty to his teacher's house with a device meant for going into his dreams to "incept" him into giving Morty better grades in math. This also gets out of hand as they're forced to keep going deeper and deeper inside the dreams to avoid being killed.

Best Episodes of Rick And Morty (#12)

#12
'The Ricks Must Be Crazy'
Season 2, Episode 6

On his way to an ice cream place in a different dimension with Morty and Summer, Rick's spacecraft won't start up and he and Morty have to shrink down and go inside it's microverse battery to discover why it isn't working. They leave Summer behind in the car with the instruction to keep her safe while they're gone. Inside the battery is a universe which is meant to power Rick's car, but that universe's scientists are finding new ways of generating their own power.

Best Episodes of Rick And Morty (#13)

#13
'Big Trouble In Little Sanchez'
Season 2, Episode 7

Rick takes Jerry and Beth to intergalactic couples therapy where they're shown what they really think of each other in a very literal sense. Meanwhile, Rick transfers his mind into the body of a child the age of Morty so he can find and kill a vampire at his grandkids' school. He then decides to stay young a little while longer, gaining popularity at school, but there's some changes going on with him that aren't quite normal.

Best Episodes of Rick And Morty (#14)

#14
'Meeseeks And Destroy'
Season 1, Episode 5

Rick lets Jerry, Beth, and Summer use a Meeseeks box (which generates a temporary alien helper named Mr. Meeseeks to perform simple tasks before disintegrating) to get them off of his back so he can take Morty along for another adventure. Morty tires of only ever doing what Rick wants to do, so they make a deal, giving Morty an opportunity to choose their next mission, which doesn't necessarily go as planned. Meanwhile, Jerry has issues with his Meeseeks.

I just watched a video game called 'Hardcore Henry'

I honestly knew exactly what I was getting into with this one, having seen the trailers several times and being warned by multiple people that the trailers really didn't lie (and honestly, how could they?) but I braved the storm anyway and walk away feeling about as indifferent as I always imagined.

Best Episodes of Rick And Morty (#15)

#15
'Ricksy Business'
Season 1, Episode 11

Jerry and Beth leave for a romantic Titanic-themed evening, giving Rick a chance to prove how effective he can be as a babysitter. So, naturally, they throw a massive party inviting all of Summer's school friends and Rick's alien buddies, who proceed to trash the house and transport themselves to a different planet/dimension. Morty has to brave the new environment to find crystals that will send them back to Earth.

Best Episodes of Rick And Morty (#16)

#16
'Anatomy Park'
Season 1, Episode 3

Rick takes Morty into the garage to be shrunk down to see what's going on inside a homeless man's body, where Rick along with a business partner have created an amusement park for human diseases. On Christmas, Jerry demands the family put away their electronics in the hopes of experiencing a "human holiday" for when his parents come to visit. They bring along a special friend whose presence shocks and disturbs Jerry.

Best Episodes of Rick And Morty (#17)

#17
'Something Ricked This Way Comes'
Season 1, Episode 9

Summer gets a part-time job working for the Devil in a Needful Things-inspired shop that gives cursed items away to unsuspecting customers. Rick catches wind of this, and chooses to deliberately irritate the Devil by de-cursing the items through science. Meanwhile, Jerry and Morty work on a science project together and get transported to Pluto over a debate on whether or not Pluto is actually a planet.