2013: A Year in GIFS (Part 2)

Behold - Part 2 of 2013: A Year in Gifs. July to December saw sledgehammer licking, award shows, Samsung deals, and the (pop)stars align in the attempt of delivering flawfree song after flawfree song...to which they kinda failed. Oh well. On to: 

July
Jay-Z released his latest, 'Magna Carta...Holy Grail' as a rap world first. Striking a $20,000,000 (£12, 200,000) with Samsung, MCHG was made available for Samsung Galaxy users for free on the 4th. The deal helped the album move over 1,000,000 copies by the 9th alone. While the album took influence from high culture, Jay took a bollocking over the technological collab. Issues arose over the amount of royalties going to Jay, while others questioned the albums certification and eligibility to chart on the Billboard Hot 200. The album was good I guess, but myself and others around me couldn't help but cry "we get it, Shawn... 

...you're rich".

August
I have to scroll down a bit as I write this as that Big Ang gif as actually really distracting. 
August was a musical shamble. It was the month that Katy Perry and Lady Gaga dropped both of their singles. While 'Roar' was delivered on the 10th, 'Applause' was originally planned a week later, but found itself leaked by Gaga obsessed hackers and "rush released" for the 12th. If anyone remembers, Stefani was furious. It became an impromtu battle between stanbases for who would end up on top.  

vs.

Sadly for me, it was the former who ended up winning at the time. 'Roar' found itself at #1 in around 15 countries and later grabbed two Grammy nominations, while 'Applause' reached the top spot in the official charts in 4 territories. I don't think I've read the term "but sales aren't everything" as much as I have in the last 5 months.

On the 25th the MTV Video Music Awards took place but I don't wanna go into that. I've done it done already. 

September

September was claimed almost entirely by Little Miss Miley , who dropped the video for 'Wrecking Ball' on the 9th. The second single off her emancipation LP 'Bangerz' became the fastest music video to reach 100,000,000 views on Vevo since the sites inception. 

The song was so emotional charged she cried, no wept all through it, shot by the ever creepy Terry Richardson. 

She was also nekkid.

It's turned out to be one of the most gif-able videos of the year. Mostly due to this:

mmmmmmmmmmm.

 Also some genius also decided to photoshop Nicholas Cage's face on her body:

Best.

A seemingly endless stream of open letters were written, mostly to or from Miley Cyrus and Sinead O'Connor. What appeared to be moderately interesting in the beginning just went on, and on, and on, and on...urgh. 


Also Justin Timberlake released 'The 20/20 Experience Part 2 of 2' and despite being mildly underwhelming, it was still better than 3 quarters of the utter feces that was shipped to radio this year.  

You know it's true. 

October
The fourth season of The Walking Dead premiered on the 13th, delivering 16.1 million live viewers - the highest audience for a cable network show in US History. Trumping TV juggernauts such as Modern Family, Big Bang Theory and CSI, the show saw the largest audience of the shows lifespan. Incredibly and undoubtedly well deserved.

Justin Bieber started releasing precocious bedroom jams every Monday, dubbed "Music Mondays". Recorded in hotel rooms, tour buses or anywhere he could find, Bieber started laying down depressing tracks about how sad he was and how much he missed Selena Gomez or whatever. All songs were compiled into what's now known as his ~journals and to be honest, they're not shit. Not shit at all. 

Look how sad they both are as she slowly slides down his body.

November
Way back in April-ish, I mentioned to a friend that Thor: The Dark World "will be my main November jam", and it really was. But still it was Loki-this, Loki-that, can't-wait-for-Avengers-2 and so on. As with Happy Endings, get your acts together and start liking the right things people. 'ARTPOP' dropped, and while many had the pitchforks out ready to proclaim the album as a flop, it ended up doing well. "Not as well as 'Born This Way'" you say, but when you sell an album on Amazon for 99 cents in its opening week people are obviously gonna it all up. If you'd like to glance down a few centimetres you'll see an image of Lady Gaga dressed as an Ultraman/sex doll/toaster hybrid while she performs Artpop's opening track, 'Aura' at her ArtRave event in New York.

Do you?

One person who didn't release an album that month was *twist*, Rihanna. The island princess has popped off with a new LP every November for the past 4 years ('Rated R' in 2009, 'Loud' in 2010, 'Talk That Talk' in 2011 and 'Unapologetic' in 2012), yet opted not to go for a fifth outing in 2013. She did however release more singles from 'Unapologetic', including the dark stripper anthem 'Pour It Up'. The video featured her doing this:

I'll never get over it.

At the American Music Awards on the 24th, Alicia Silverstone was asked who she was most looking forward to meeting. Her answer?

I can't tell if she was taking the piss or if she genuinely thinks that's their name but either way this is hilarious. Rihanna was given the first ever 'ICON' Award at the show, which basically awarded her for having a vast number of Twitter and Instagram followers. Seriously. 

Also one of the most important music videos of the decade dropped on the 19th. It needs no introduction:

I have so much time for all things Bound 2. Sadly, Kanye didn't have time for much else as he descended further into madness on Sway's radio show 'Sway in the Morning'. While the host and MTV presenter named West "one of the most clever people to manipulate the internet", Kanye berated Sway for not having "the answers". To what you say? I'm still unsure. It's frustrating to me that on occasions, Kanye opens his mouth and lil' nuggets of gold come out, but those golden nuggets are surrounded by so much hot air and nothingness you can't take them in. 

December
Part of the reason I waited until the new year to finish this was due to the fact I could give December the same amount as respect as the previous months. I don't get these people who do year reviews half way through December. There's still half of the month left. Sadly for them, those that did missed out on one of the most unprecedented musical events of the year. Which as we all know how as:

Bey day. 

Friday 13th 2013. 

Instead of describing how well Beyoncé's album did is doing, let this gif of Kirby illustrate what went down:

For those who don't get it, Beyoncé is obviously Kirby. The food represents the music industry, people's minds, their wallets and the lessers who couldn't get it together in 2013. The self titled album came after 11 and a half months of teasing, false starts and scrapped material, but left everyone in a frenzy minutes after the whole album and it's 17 music videos dropped out of nowhere. She really broke the internet that day and it still hasn't fully recovered.

I didn't even like Beyoncé thaaaat much before but you couldn't deny.
It was a Christmas M I R A C L E.

But before that on the 2nd, Britney Spears 8th album, 'Britney Jean' was released so somewhat minimal fanfare. After teasing that her next project would be her "most personal album to date" time, and time and time again, the first single which dropped in the crowded month of September sounded anything but. 

So personal.

Whether or not it was her "most personal" became irrelevant, as the words were quickly replaced with "least successful", as the album only managed to reach #4 in the US and 34 in the UK. 

But sales aren't everything.

She also began her much hyped 2 year Las Vegas Residency on the 27th, reportedly raking in $15,000,000 (£9,140,000) a year for the set of shows. I wish someone would pay ME $300,000 a night (yes, three hundred thousand dollars a NIGHT) to do this:

At least she looks good.

So there it is, 2013s guide to pop culture for dummies. I wonder what great and terrible things await us next year? Will Azealia Banks and Iggy Azalea release their long awaited debut LPs in '14? Will Lana Del Rey's second official album 'Ultraviolence' dazzle us or send us to sleep? And will Leo finally get that Oscar he's been pining for his whole career? Only time will tell. All I know is that I never wanna hear the terms "this is my most personal album to date" "open letter" or "twerking" again. Especially by those who can't even do it. 

It's just insulting.

Gubbye.

Credit to: Gifatron, Weheartit, Mrwgifs, Hitfix, and the tumblrs, Happy Endings gifs, elloscambiaron-mivida, middlechildswag, hotnewsgator, realitytvgifs, districtMTV
& Pinkisthenewblog

Thor: The Dark World (Film)

Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Christopher Eccleston,  Idris Elba, Kat Dennings, Anthony Hopkins, Stellan Skarsgaard, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje

At long last. Although it feels like a lifetime has passed since the God of Thunder's original outing, it's been a mere two years. Crazy that. I'm also pretty sure I'm one of about 17 people that feels that way, as 2011's Thor seems to be the most underrated adaptation taken on by the Marvel Cinematic Universe so far.

Although the first instalment managed to gross almost $450 million and achieve a 77% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, for some reason, the character still hasn't been able to resonate with viewers the way say, Iron Man, Hulk and maybe even Captain America have. But fear not Thor fans, as that's sure to change after one viewing of Thor: The Dark World.

The film picks up after the events of The Avengers, with Thor comfortably back home in Asgard, and Jane, Selvig and Darcy (Portman, Skarsgaard and Dennings respectively) taking residency in London. Doing their sciencey stuff or whatever. Our hero is brought back to our world after Jane is possessed by the Aether – an omniscient force sought after by the dark elf, Malekith (Ecclestone) who wants to inhabit the Aether for himself . Thor is forced to band with adopted brother and current outlaw Loki (Hiddelston) to free Jane, crush Malekith and keep Asgard in check. Easy.  

Kenneth Brannagh's out and Game of Thrones director, Alan Taylor's in. So in. Taylor's used his days on Thrones to his full advantage, as Asgard has never gleamed with such prestige. The battle scenes do bite from Lord of the Rings in part, but that’s to be expected. Mother Frigga (Rene Russo), Jane and the other earthlings are utilised much more than in the previous instalment, while screenwriters Christopher Yost, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have paid special attention to how much Loki is adored in the real world, without overdoing it. 

Alas, The Dark World is not without it's problems, as a few pivotal plot points are almost blink-and-you'll-miss-it fast while The Warriors Three might as well have been left out completely. Oh, and it may be a bit too Star Wars-y for it's own good. Other than that, the film is a strong yet emotionally raw addition to the franchise, and features many more surprises and teasers of what the Marvel team have in store over the next couple of years.

Hopefully we'll get another sequel. 

B+ 

The Avengers (film)

My second film review in a row and second piece by Joss Whedon is Super-Superhero flick The Avengers, or Avengers Assembled (depending on your terrority to avoid confusion with the Spy fiction series-turned lacklustre movie of the same name). The film sees previous Marvel Studios headliners Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) Thor (Chris Hemsworth) Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) and Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) joined by Natasha Romanov/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) who appear in Iron Man 2 and Thor respectively, to take on mad man and Thor antagonist, Loki (Tom Hiddlesworth) from, you guessed it- taking over the world.

The Avengers, which has been in the pipeline for Marvel for some years now, since the first Iron Man film in 2008, lived up to my expectations as a stellar two hour story/action piece, as every wonderfully over the top fight scene is met with a gut-wrenching drama or plan of action scene. At first meeting the group wastes no time butting heads with one another, letting their egos get the better of them in a “my power and abilities are better than yours” cockfight-esque manner, but ultimately find themselves united as New York finds itself on the brink of complete and utter destruction.

It should be said, probably most importantly that even though Downey Jr., Renner, Hemsworth and Johansson and therefore Stark, Barton, Thor and Romanov give great performances action as well as dialogue-wise, the ultimate pleasant surprise is in the hands of Captain America, who remained mostly unutilised in his own mediocre movie Captain America: The First Avenger. However, it must be noted that the smashing Hulk himself manages to yank the limelight off of his teammates and place it solely on himself as an incredible character, which has been overshadowed by two lukewarmly received films and a messy communicational breakdown between Edward Norton and Marvel Studios.

Ultimately, The Avengers is the incredible Superhero epic we’ve all been waiting for.

Oh, and of course, stay for the bonus scene during the credits.

A