I saw a bunch of movies, read around fifty books, and found time to watch a few different TV series this year. I’ve collated the best of that I can remember – and presumably sticking in the mind is one criterion for good – and laid it out here:
Movies
Mad Max: Fury Road
Anyone who reads my site knows full well my delirious adoration for this 175 million dollar meth-fuelled arthouse masterpiece. As I said in my review, Mad Max Fury Road: the Sistine Chapel of the Apocalypse:
“To say Miller has made a hyperkinetic masterpiece is to understate the achievements of this film. It is 
not simply a gonzo revelation of the genre, not just a primal scream of raw originality and insane inventiveness, nor only a masterclass in the choreographed virtuosity required to make the sublime action scene.
It’s a movie that reminds you what cinema is meant to be: visual, visceral, a pure and riotous sensory experience unlike any other medium is capable of offering.
Whiplash
If you’d told me a movie about a kid going to jazz school to play the drums would be riveting, I would have changed the subject and started talking about Fury Road. But there you have it, Whiplash had me holding my breath at each tirade from tyrannical jazz teacher (JK Simmons, who won best supporting 
actor for this role) and at each subsequent performance from his obsessive student. Brilliant.
Ex Machina
Smart direction and scripting from Alex Garland, great acting from the three leads. An intelligent film that reflects on how the creation can come to mirror the creator.
Honourable Mentions: The Martian, Predestination. Oh and I re-watched Blade Runner and Casablanca. Classics both.
Books
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel: Heart-breaking, moving, and beautifully written. An intricate and strangely uplifting story of the post apocalypse.
Lexicon by Max Barry: I did not read enough Australian authors this year. This was a thrilling, clever, and worthy stand-out in the genre scene Down Under.
The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh: One of those rare books that made me see the world in a different way (as we get older, more cynical, more set in our ways, it becomes harder and harder for books to do this). The Sorrow of War, in my view, has structural and thematic parallels to Slaughterhouse Five. It opened up my eyes to the nature of Vietnamese suffering after the war with the Americans.
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Le Guin: Took me too long to get around to this classic. Glad I did. PKDickian in parts.
The Martian by Andy Weir: A funny, thrilling, un-put-down-able hard science fiction novel.
Last Call by Tim Powers: Never understood or enjoyed ‘contemporary fantasy’ until I read this. Superior to Neil Gaiman’s ‘American Gods’.
Honourable Mentions: Digger’s Game by George V Higgins, and The Master of Go by Yasunari Kawabata.
Biggest Disappointment:
The Three Body Problem came wandering into my hands with a long trail of adulation and award behind it. Largely, as it turns out, underserved. Cardboard cut-out characters, terrible dialogue, massive chunks of exposition worked inelegantly into character speech bubbles. In some ways it was reminiscent of a science fiction novel from the 50s. The Chinese cultural aspects were by far the most interesting elements, as was the occasionally wonderful inventiveness of the Three Body Problem game within the story.
An adequate novel that didn’t live up to the hype.
TV
Mr Robot
Oh man, I love it when the revolution is so well written. A subversive screed against corporate greed and the 1%.
The Americans
Due to a terrible advertising campaign suggesting this was some quirky dress-up show for actress Keri Russell, I avoided it like the plague. When my partner finally harangued me into watching it, I binge watched all three seasons in a few weeks. Well written (the best in my view, after Mr Robot), great music, and two superbly acted anti-heroes as leads.
Season 4, Person of Interest
This show just gets better and better. I love the rapport that has built up between the main characters, the development of minor characters into individuals you love (I’m talking to you, Fosco), and – oh yeah – warring, god-like artificial intelligences.
TV that sucked:
I tried watching Continuum and The 100. Both were shithouse. Continuum was a butt-gush of bad writing and mediocre actors. It’s an impressive brand of odious garbage that stops me watching a program about time travel at the second episode. The 100 sent me into fits of outrage by saying ’12 space stations from 
all over the world’ had connected together to form a single space station after the world had ended. Cool, I thought, there must be stations from China and Japan and Europe and Russia, maybe even a Brazilian or Indonesian station. But no, oh fucking no. Apparently the 12 space stations from all over the world were all American, containing an unlimited supply of hair product, makeup, and 18-year old ivy-league skincare models.
Ok all, have a good 2016. Be healthy. Buy and read a few books, be good to people, chrome your lips, and re-watch Fury Road.
