2013: a year of movies, books & music ♥
Time to look back at the cultural side (what I watched/listened/read) of the past year:
In 2013 I've watched 65 movies and read 22 books.
Not bad at all, I couldn't keep the pace of 10 movies a month, but I tried to watch as many as I could between the ones I've always wanted to watch and the new releases. I also tried a 30 books a year challenge on Goodreads but I couldn't fulfill it >A< I'm satisfied anyway though!
Clicking on the links you can read my full lists of movies, books and albums ^^
My 2013 best movies are:
Les Miserables
Anna Karenina
Midnight's Children
Ruby Sparks
Django Unchained
I must say that 2013 was a great movies year for my personal tastes. It was difficult to choose only five works to mention, and those are almost all historical movies too. As a musicals sucker I've loved LesMis so much, the soundtrack is still in my mp3 player and this Christmas I received the DVD as present :3 I don't think I've ever cried that much for a movie, this masterpiece knocked me out and I still tear a little everytime I see bits of it. Being all sung it may not be for everyone, but please give it a chance if you haven't seen it yet. Anna Karenina is a beauty for the eye, the colors, the sceneries, the cinematography and the costumes, everything is amazing. I think the story is well-known but it never gets boring and I was in complete awe for the whole movie (plus I can't stand Keira Knightley but all the cast was perfect so I was able to bear her lack of expressions lol). Midnight's Children is not a blockbuster and I'm pretty sure few people heard of it. It's an adaptation of the novel by Salman Rushdie, he's my favourite novelist and this novel is one of his most popular works. The production is British and Indian, the writer followed the production so the movie is very accurate and it caught the sparkling and colorful atmosphere of the book and also its darker, unsettling parts. Ruby Spark s is probably the most easily recommended movie in my To p5, it comes from the same authors of Little Miss Sunshine and it's a love story between a young writer and his ideal girl creation. It's funny, adorable and interesting, catchy until the end. Really, watch it. Django Unchained is well, the big number. Great actors, great story, great direction...I'm really surprised when I hear people didn't like it, to me it's one of the best Tarantino's movies because it follows its personal epic, pulp style but at the same time it introduces a social/historic deeper meaning that was lacking in his other works.
Special mention goes to 100% entertaining movies like Mogura no Uta (I talked about it a little here) and Now You See Me.
The appearance of an ebook reader in my life definitely changed my way to read books, I've been against those tools for long time but now I'm addicted to it. It's just so comfortable to download a lot of books and read everything that catches your attention without having to worry about money :D Anyway in 2013 I read 6 books by Japanese authors, between them there were my thesis books and of course, Shige's Senkou Scramble (that I reviewed here). I completed reading The Lord of The Rings and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy sagas, and read some evergreen classics. The more modern books I loved were Joseph Anton , a memoir of Salman Rushdie and Doctor Sleep, the sequel to Shining by Stephen King.
About my favorite music of the year you can read a review post on my Tumblr :D
I hope this was interesting to any of you, if you have questions about anything in my lists feel free to ask! *w*
Happy New Year btw!