Jonners' Canterbury Tales » Awards http://jonners.org A journey through marriage, publishing, motorracing and gaming... The adventures of Lofty and Stumpy Thu, 15 Jul 2010 06:20:32 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Film of the decade http://jonners.org/b/1155 http://jonners.org/b/1155#comments Sat, 16 Jan 2010 14:36:12 +0000 jonners99 http://jonners.org/?p=1155 The votes are in. Four of the nine shortlisted films failed to garner a single vote, these were:

  • Juno
  • Atonement
  • Wall-E
  • In Brugges

The Dark Knight and The Bourne Trilogy were next receiving just 9.5% of the vote each. This leaves the top 3 films of the ‘noughties’ as voted for by you.

We have a tie for second place:

Pirates of the Caribbean and Avatar each received 24% of the votes to get an equal second place in the standings. Pirates received a lot of late votes. The Pirates film in question was Curse of the Black Pearl which would almost certainly not have been as popular or received as many votes had it not contained Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow. With the often flat Orlando Bloom and the pouty Keira Knightley Johnny stole the show and made this franchise what it was. Meanwhile Avatar coming out at the end of the decade showed the true power of modern 3d techniques by using the technology constantly but subtly to create a masterpiece. Certainly the story could not have been better but there wasn’t a moment during the two and a half hour running time where the viewer got bored. Also at no time in the running did something obviously designed to get an audience response take place ie nothing came flying at the screen to show off. Both of these films are very enjoyable and deserve their places here.

And the winner is…

The Lord of the Rings was one heck of an ambitious project for Peter Jackson to take on as his first big budget movie. When he largely filled the cast with a bunch of small time actors there were doubts about how good the trilogy would be. These doubts turned out to be daft when the films came out though and the story and dynamic shone through the screen. The three films grossed almost $3 billion worldwide at box office which needless to say is more than any other trilogy. These are films which will not easily become dated and will be enjoyed for years to come. They are the jonners.org and talote.com films of the decade voted for by you lot and they truly deserve their title.

It wouldn’t be my analysis without a chart…

the proportions of votes received for each film are displayed in the chart.

Thank you folks. This blog will hopefully be seeing more action this year and I hope that you visit again soon.

]]> http://jonners.org/b/1155/feed 0 Best of the decade – Films http://jonners.org/b/1096 http://jonners.org/b/1096#comments Mon, 11 Jan 2010 14:00:22 +0000 jonners99 http://jonners.org/?p=1096 This last decade saw us grow up, when it started I was 12, this means my memories of the previous decade are slim, the ‘noughties’ then will be the decade that film took over my life. The last ten years saw Cathy and I doing degrees in the subject, neither of us are now working with anything to do with the industry but we both still have a love for the medium. Certainly the overblown special effects that have come in this decade have often come at the expense of plot but that is not to say that there have not been some great films. Film is an entertainment medium and the fact that 8 of the top 10 highest grossing films of all time came out in this decade shows that audiences have been entertained. Our lists are not ordered by preference but chronologically. My wife could not pick 10 and so has 11 instead and the nominees for film of the decade will be voted for by you from that shortlist.

Jonathan’s list:
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-03)
Bourne Trilogy (2002-07)
The Incredibles (2004)
Downfall (2004)
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
Juno (2007)
Atonement (2007)
In Bruges (2008)
The Dark Knight (2008)
Wall-E (2008)

Cathy’s list:
Moulin Rouge! (2001)
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-03)
The Bourne Trilogy (2002-07)
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Atonement (2007)
The Dark Knight (2008)
In Bruges (2008)
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Avatar (2009)

Beth’s list:
Lord of the Rings (2001-03)
Spiderman (2002)
Pirates of the Caribbean (2003)
Napolean Dynamite (2004)
Phantom of the Opera (2004)
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
Lady in the water (2006)
Juno (2007)
Mamma Mia (2008)
Wall-e (2008)
Avatar (2009)

So now we come to the films which received more than a vote from us:
Lord of the Rings (2001-03)
The Bourne Trilogy (2002-07)
Pirates of the Caribbean (2003)
Juno (2007)
Atonement (2007)
The Dark Knight (2008)
Wall-e (2008)
In Bruges (2008)
Avatar (2009)

Which one of these 9 is the film of the decade though?

You decide, comment either on facebook, twitter or this blog by Friday 15 January, votes will then be tallied and the winner announced on Saturday 16 January!

Votes not for one of these 9 films will be ignored

]]> http://jonners.org/b/1096/feed 2 Sporting achievements of the decade http://jonners.org/b/1137 http://jonners.org/b/1137#comments Wed, 06 Jan 2010 09:38:32 +0000 jonners99 http://jonners.org/?p=1137 So to the list of sporting achievements of the decade. Again by Trefor Little and again in no particular order here are the athletes who shone in their chosen fields.

  • Tiger Woods (USA – 12 Majors, 56 Other PGA Event wins)
  • Roger Federer (Switzerland – 15 Grand Slams)
  • Ricky Ponting (Australia – 9,458 Test Runs (including 32 centuries) at an average of 58.4)
  • Michael Schumacher (5 world titles in the noughties)
  • Joe Calzaghe (19 Defences of the World Super Middleweight Title – All won)

Jonathan:
If I were to pick I would obviously go for Michael Schumacher. Ross Brawn has probably been the brains behind that success and also led Brawn to both titles last year but chubby genisuses do not tend to get sporting awards.

]]> http://jonners.org/b/1137/feed 0 Top 5 games of 2009 http://jonners.org/b/1088 http://jonners.org/b/1088#comments Sun, 03 Jan 2010 08:38:01 +0000 jonners99 http://jonners.org/?p=1088 2009 has not been the best of years for video games in my opinion. Modern Warfare 2 seems largely to blame for this in that it gave developers an excuse to postpone and tighten their news games. Therefore the first three months of 2010 are going to be pretty manic. That being said though, there have been plenty of very good games this year and now that I have an Xbox 360 I have experienced my first taste of HD gaming… and it is good.

Top 5 games of 2009:
5. Metroid Prime Trilogy – Wii
4. Batmand Arkham Asylum – Xbox 360
3. Fifa 10 – Xbox 360
2. Professor Layton and Pandoras Box – DS

Game of the Year:
Colin Mcrae: Dirt 2 – Xbox 360

As usual there were also games which should have been better. Scribblenauts is the best example of this. After strong E3 hype the final product did little but let me down with terrible controls really putting me off from what is still a really strong idea. The other big let down this year was F1 2009 for wii, certainly my expectations were not high for this product. But it did nothing to even remotely impress me with its controls or damage model. Sure it looked good and faithfully had all the tracks but it was not good enough…

Heres to 2010′s games.

]]> http://jonners.org/b/1088/feed 0 Sporting achievements 2009 http://jonners.org/b/1134 http://jonners.org/b/1134#comments Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:10:41 +0000 jonners99 http://jonners.org/?p=1134 I asked my resident king of sports knowledge (I say king meaning he knows more than me) Trefor Little (aka my dad) to write down the top 5 sporting achievements of 2009. In no particular order then:

  • England winning the ashes
  • Andy Murray reaching Number 2 in the world rankings
  • Jenson Button winning the world championship
  • Usain Bolt breaking the 100m and 200m world records again
  • Manny Pacquiao becoming the first man to win seven different titles at seven different weights

Come back on the 4th for his list of the top 5 achievements of the decade. What do you think?

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