Happy New Year: 2017 Review!

Greetings and welcome to the last blog update of the year. With 2017 coming to a close, it is time for me to highlight my favourite pieces of entertainment as is tradition on the 31st December. As always, the categories consist of my personal favourite film, book, television show and video game but the winners were not necessarily released in this year. I only had to experience them in 2017 for one to be a contender. I haven’t written as many reviews as I would have liked due to some recent changes to my blog and as such I shall have to add in winners that haven’t been the focus of an update. Next year will mark the 10th anniversary of my blog and I intend to reorganize it at some stage by writing smaller reviews but having two topics per one blog entry.

Television Show of the Year: Stranger Things Season 2

Stranger Things returned to our screens in 2017 with its highly anticipated second season. It is set one year after the original and continues with the same cast as well as introduces some new characters with mixed success. The two new characters that impressed me the most were Bob Newby, the nerdy love interest of Joyce Byers, played by Sean Astin and Sadie Sink as new kid on the block, Maxine ‘Max’ Mayfield. The series successfully explores interesting new ground with bigger paranormal threats and still has a similar feel to the original series. I also liked how the storyline revolving around Barb was resolved in this second instalment after being left untied in the first entry. I am looking forward to see what the Duffer Brothers have planned for the next series.

Book of the Year: Dark Tower

The Dark Tower has recently been brought back into the main stream culture in 2017 with the universally panned film starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey but the concluding novel in this series is my book of the year. It is one of the weaker instalments in the series in my opinion but provides an ending, of sorts, to the long, sprawling and downright strange adventure as Roland attempts to reach the Dark Tower. It is also worth noting that Stephen King attempts to tie his other non-related novels together into this series by mentioning characters in an offhand comment or by giving them an important role in the finale. King produced an interesting conclusion to his major set of works that will not have gone down well with all fans of the Dark Tower.

Game of the Year: South Park: Stick of Truth

The Stick of Truth is an RPG title which was released in 2014 and was written by the show’s writers, Trey Parker and Matt Stone. The adventures takes place in the small mountain town of South Park and follows the adventures of New Kid, a customizable character, as he becomes involved in a fantasy role playing game with the local residents. Stick of Truth provides many references to the show and in true South Park fashion, this game contains toilet humour and comedic offensive content that fans of the television series will appreciate. There is also a sequel to Stick of Truth were Cartman, Kenny, Kyle, Stan and the rest of the gang decide to trade the fantasy role playing game for a superhero one.

Film of the Year: Baby Driver

Baby Driver had me hooked from the moment it began and was definitely my favourite movie from 2017. Similar to another one of my favourites, La La Land, Baby Driver is stylistic, has a great cast and has memorable music as a main component of the film. The plot revolves around a young getaway driver by the nickname of Baby and his attempts to leave his life of crime behind him. The cast, consisting of well accomplished actors and actresses such as Ansel Elgort, Jon Hamm and Eiza González, give excellent performances for this spectacular movie. I’ll be sure to check out future works by director Edgar Wright after the fun I had watching this film.

So, that is it for my personal favourites for 2017 and for my blog for the rest of this year. What were your favourite pieces of entertainment? Feel free to add in the comment section below. I’ll be back soon with my thoughts on Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. Have a happy New Year and all the best for 2018!

Quote of the Day

Well, here's to us.

Jaws

Moonraker