Emma's favourite songs, 2020

1. Homecoming (Kanye West ft. Chris Martin)
2. Son of a Preacher Man (Dusty Springfield)
3. Alison (Elvis Costello)
4. Truth Hurts (Lizzo)
5. Off to the Races (Lana del Rey)
6. That’s Life (Frank Sinatra)
7. Sinnerman (Nina Simone)
8. Rocky Raccoon (The Beatles)
9. Hallelujah (Rufus Wainwright)
10. Sexy! No No No… (Girls Aloud)
11. Talk Show Host (Radiohead)
12. Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie (Joanna Newsom)
13. What Makes You Beautiful (One Direction)
14. Fancy (Iggy Azalea ft. Charli XCX)
15. November Has Come (Gorillaz)
16. Samson (Regina Spektor)
17. Romeo and Juliet (Dire Straits)
18. Stuck in the Middle with You (Stealers Wheel)
19. Run this Town (Rihanna, Jay-Z and Kanye West)
20. Power (Kanye West)
21. Untouchable (Girls Aloud)
22. Paper Planes (M.I.A.)
23. Make Me Feel (Janelle Monáe)
24. All These Things that I've Done (The Killers)
25. Control (Janet Jackson)

26. Wild Boys (Duran Duran)
27. Love the Way You Lie Part II (Rihanna ft. Eminem)
28. I Knew You Were Trouble (Taylor Swift)
29. Head over Heels (Tears for Fears)
30. Boys Don't Cry (The Cure)
31. Na Na Na Na Hey Hey Goodbye (Steam)
32. Problem (Ariana Grande ft. Iggy Azalea)
33. Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy (Queen)
34. New Rules (Dua Lipa)
35. Million Dollar Man (Lana del Rey)
36. We Are Never Getting Back Together (Taylor Swift)
37. Glory Box (Portishead)
38. Empire State of Mind: Broken Down (Alicia Keys)
39. How Do You Like Me Now? (The Heavy)
40. Tiny Dancer (Elton John)
41. Baba O'Riley (The Who)
42. The Loving Kind (Girls Aloud)
43. Thank U, Next (Ariana Grande)
44. California Dreamin' (The Mamas and the Papas)
45. Cat People (Putting Out Fire) (David Bowie)
46. Chelsea Dagger (The Fratellis)
47. My Father's Gun (Elton John)
48. You’re Such A (Hailee Steinfeld)
49. Magnets (Disclosure ft Lorde)
50. What I Go to School for (Busted)

51. Bang Bang (Jessie J ft. Ariana Grande & Nicki Minaj)
52. When She Loved Me (Sarah McLachlan)
53. Royals (Lorde)
54. Cell Block Tango (Chicago OST)
55. 2am (The Saturdays)
56. Rewrite the Stars (The Greatest Showman OST)
57. Hey Jude (The Beatles)
58. Can’t Hold Us Down (Christina Aguilera ft Lil’ Kim)
59. Brandy Alexander (Feist)
60. Let it Go (Idina Menzel)
61. Girls Like You (Maroon 5 ft. Cardi B)
62. Defying Gravity (Idina Menzel)
63. Sueños (Diego Torres)
64. Love Affair (Regina Spektor)
65. Video Games (Lana del Rey)
66. I Don't Want to Go to Chelsea (Elvis Costello)
67. Juice (Lizzo)
68. Under Pressure (Queen ft. David Bowie)
69. Adia (Sarah McLachlan)
70. Brown Eyes (Lady Gaga)
71. See You Again (Wiz Khalifa ft. Charlie Puth)
72. It Wouldn’t Have Made Any Difference (Todd Rundgren)
73. Everybody Wants to Rule the World (Tears for Fears)
74. Good As Hell (Lizzo)
75. Underneath Your Clothes (Shakira)

76. Blank Space (Taylor Swift)
77. Lovely Head (Goldfrapp)
78. Bad Girls (M.I.A.)
79. Shape of You (Ed Sheeran)
80. I Wish I Knew How it Feels to Be Free (Nina Simone)
81. Shout (Tears for Fears)
82. Gaston (Beauty and the Beast OST)
83. She (Elvis Costello)
84. Fighter (Christina Aguilera)
85. Vincent (Don McLean)
86. Lullaby (The Cure)
87. Born to Die (Lana del Rey)
88. The Other Side (The Greatest Showman OST)
89. Ay Vamos (J. Balvin)
90. Kill 'em with Kindness (Selena Gomez)
91. Pennies in my Pocket (Emilio Estefan)
92. Airplanes part 2 (B.o.B, Hayley Williams & Eminem)
93. All That Jazz (Chicago OST)
94. Skyfall (Adele)
95. Hey Mama (Kanye West)
96. O Saya (A.R. Rahman ft. M.I.A)
97. Work (Kelly Rowland)
98. Notorious (Duran Duran)
99. This is What Makes Us Girls (Lana del Rey)
100. We Are the Champions (Queen)

My attempt at writing a BBFC report for BEAST (2018)

It was William Shakespeare who remarked ‘brevity is the soul of wit’, and with regards to that quote in many walks of life (for example, intolerable guys who’s arrogance would make Gaston from Beauty and the Beast appear modest droning on about how oh-so-clever they are for having passed their CFA exams), The Bard was not wrong.

This is not just a photoshoot. This is an M&S photoshoot.

Happy Hump Day, readers! The World Cup starts tomorrow, and I am officially pumped.

Despite me supporting France in the 2018 World Cup as I did in the 2016 Euros (with my second teams being South Korea, Japan and Croatia), and me following the England national team with the same emotional whiplashing (not-so-subtle plug of a sick Miles Teller film, there) of love and hate that I had for them in the 2016 Euros (because of that racist Vardy), I will of course be keeping a beady eye on the exploits of my national team. How can I not, when Gary Baehill is in the squad?

The team had their official photoshoot yesterday, kitted out in a rather dapper, and more than a little tight Marks and Spencer three-piece-suits:

Couple thoughts on this photo:

Professor Marston and the Small Screen.

I'm very excited about Professor Marston and the Wonder Women. Luke Evans aka Gaston plays the title character, a psych professor who created the Wonder Woman character, who was inspired by two women: his wife, and his wife's girlfriend. 

His missus is played by the fierce Cambridge alumni Rebecca Hall, and their lover is played by Bella Heathcote, who's striking good looks were one of the few redeeming factors of that trashy The Neon Demon.

The film opens in UK cinemas this Friday, and in booking my seat, at one of Leicester Square Odeon's studios, I was struck by how tiny the cinema (and thus, the screen) was!

5 x 6 = 30, + 3 = 33.

A cinema which seats merely 33 people!

Is that the smallest cinema you've seen, or can you go even lower?

My Seven Favourite Songs from Disney Musicals

I’ve restricted the options to just songs from Disney musicals, as opposed to songs that appeared in Disney non-musicals, such as ‘When She Loved Me’ from Toy Story 2, otherwise it would have made a hard task even harder (I love ‘Le Festin’ from Ratatouille)!

07. Hellfire – The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

A left-field shout, given the crux of this song is about the sexual frustration a pious priest feels towards the beguiling gypsy Esmeralda. But I had to nominate Hellfire because it’s memorable, taboo, and tonally, so recherché (what other Disney film features the line ‘he made the Devil so much stronger than the man’?)

Essentially, the message of Hellfire is ‘if I can’t have her, no-one can’. It’s every possessive ex-boyfriend, immortalised in a Disney song, and fits in neatly with the plot, as dastard Claude Frollo’s unsatisfied urges are his motivation for a Domino effect that leads to Paris burning. The religious imagery employed in Hellfire only go to compound Frollo’s sense of sinful lust for a woman he both despises, yet will do anything to possess.

I like songs which shine a torch onto the hypocrisy of religion, and Hellfire offers an insight to this holier-than-thou priest’s mindset. Turns out, his thoughts aren’t so holy, and the choir-like vocals accompanying Frollo’s disturbing soliloquy underscores this irony nicely.

(On a slight film ratings tangent, the likes of fluffy Frozen and Tangled getting rated PG when The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by far one of their darkest films, was only a U, is mighty misleading. It ought to be at least a 12 for the creepy overtones in this song alone).

06. Prince Ali – Aladdin (1992)

Statistical Analysis of Usage of My Odeon Limitless Card

I went on a 4-hour R course last year, and since then, I’ve just been fixated with adapting the code they gave us to draw pretty graphs with, in order to nerd out over my personal interests (chiefly, films and football).

This post will be much like the one I did six months ago when I analysed my film-watching habit of 2016 across all mediums, only here, I’m just analysing the 69 titles I saw on my Odeon Limitless card with some attempts at ~science behind the graphs I present.

My five favourite songs from FROZEN (2013).

A good musical has to have more than just one big marquee song. Frozen has several great ones, so I thought I’d do a top 5 of the ones that I liked the most. After all, it's a musical who's soundtrack I'm fairly well acquainted with, shall we say!

For there's no club in town quite as manly...

Four months on from seeing Beauty and the Beast at the cinema, I'm still absolutely obsessed with the 'Gaston' song. Even the most tenuous thing, such as the club photographed above, gets me breaking out in song. It might just be my second-ever favourite Disney song (second only to 'Let it Go', obviously).

Oh, and say hello to what will almost certainly be one of the worst films of 2017:

Tale as old as time... (that Emma Watson can't act)

Out of tune singing is out of tune, and clunky guitar-playing is clunky, but at least it's not quite as questionable as the other two Emma's, Watson and Stone.

That was the first take, so a bit rubbish. I preferred this audio recording, but annoyingly, couldn't upload it as a video, so if you're not too bored, give that superior version a listen. 😎

I saw Beauty and the Beast on Thursday, and whilst being predictably bored by Emma Watson's blank, passionless face in all her scenes, actually quite enjoyed it. Some of the musical numbers were very entertaining, especially 'Gaston', a song which aptly sums up the mentality of the vast majority of clown guys who I've had the misfortune of having gone on dates with in London.

Only difference is Gaston has more humility.