When the swarm of literally tens of thousands of films nesting inside a dedicated movie buff’s head reaches critical mass and the buzz becomes too busy to ignore, there’s but one thing to do – compile a top 100 list.

This ‘hive’ has been organized according to time period – nominating ten loved films from each of the decades from the 1940’s through to the 2010’s. That will total eighty films. Twenty selections have been included each for the 1970’s and 80’s – ‘my‘ decades – rounding out the list to 100 titles.

The 2010’s was the decade that saw the smartphone become widespread. It also gave rise to the ME TOO movement.

Digital music sales topped CD sales for the time ever in 2012. The best-selling book of this decade was FIFETY SHADES OF GREY.  DRAKE was named the top music artist of the decade in the US by Billboard.

MUAMMAR GADDAFI leader of Libya, was shot to death in 2011. In 2013, KIM JONG-NAM, eldest son of the late KIM JONG-ILwas assassinated by two women in Malayasia with a VX nerve agent.

2019 saw the release of the very first black hole image. In the world of film, 2019’s JOKER became the first R rated movie to gross over $1 billion.

BEST PICTURE winners for the decade were –

And so to my pick of TEN FAVOURITE MOVIES from the 2010’s…

I can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying reading YELLOWFACE, published last year. Actually I CAN tell how much I’m enjoying it and I’m GOING to tell you how much I’m enjoying it, very soon. In detail.

Click HERE to get your HAPPY DAYS hit.

Don’t you even think about forgetting about (do ya like that?) the SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK short story competition. For details go HERE 

Up until very recently, the closest I’d ever come to going on an ocean cruise was sitting through three hours of the movie TITANIC.

All that changed last week when I travelled aboard Carnival Cruise Lines LUMINOSA ship all the way from Brisbane to Airlie Beach (1126km).

This floating city with an onboard crew of 926 (that’s crew, not guests!) was party headquarters for four celestial days and nights.

Before we roll the highlights, here’s some interior pics to set the scene –

Snow White may not have been around but something even more beautiful was – stunning, soul-tugging daily sunsets and sunrises. Seas the day!

On the 2nd night I went on a lolly search, cause…well… I ‘needed’ some. I found my lollies alight. They were being sold at a counter next to one of the lower deck cafes.

The person doing the selling was impressive to say the least. 6ft-3 inches tall, this 25 year old blonde Amazonian wearing a newly-starched white captain’s uniform complete with shoulder epaulettes and decorated officer’s cap was friendly and also not in a small way skilled with a plastic hand scoop. A little overdressed I thought for the role but, ok, this is ship life and this is, at least in part, show biz.

The lollies were in individual containers and you had to request one by one what you wanted, which further added to the spectacle of the occasion – not unlike this Jerry Lewis clip, though thankfully she was tall enough she didn’t need a ladder to reach.

We saw a total of four stand-up comedy shows during our high seas adventure. One of the performers mentioned how whenever he drives down to the Gold Coast and passes Movie World his kids ask if they can visit.

Because he doesn’t want to pay hundreds of dollars in entry fees he tries to convince them Movieworld is a place where little children are tortured.

When his kids say they don’t believe him, he winds down the car window and let’s them hear the screams coming from the rides in the park. Alright, it was funny when he told it.

Ok, the skull image above is a little dramatic but seriously… after a night of heavy drinkin’ and freakin’ by the serious merrymakers on board, walking around deck the next morning at 6am (on the way to visit my mate Gym) it may as well have been a ghost ship.

Just about no other human is around, apart from some workers mopping decks and polishing glass panels. Almost eerie when you consider there were over 2000 passengers on board.

Equal parts safety briefing and stand-up comedy routine, the daily schedule run-down delivered over the ship’s loud-speaker system in the sexy Spanish accent of our super-flamboyant Activities Officer ‘Rainer’ was never less than high-grade entertainment in itself.

There we were at breakfast innocently eating our custard-filled croissants and honeydew melon slices when magic entered the room.

At the table opposite ours was a family with two young children – a two-year-old and a five-year-old, both girls.

In an impromptu moment that left us open-mouthed, I watched as the waiter converted a table napkin with a couple of nimbly-executed folds into a come-alive finger puppet that completely floored the kids for the next minute and a half.

Table service like that you don’t see every day.

See that sign? Our ship was covered in ones just like it. Our room suite was covered in ones just like it. Only the ones decorating the LUMINOSA said DO NOT THROW ANYTHING OVERBOARD.

Wanna know a secret? I did. Throw something overboard, that is. I admit it. Not one, not two but three orange pips. Flicked ’em between my fingers and over the rail they went. Under the cover of night.

Wanna know something else? That’s only the thing I’m admitting to. There was something else. Bigger. Much bigger. Whoopsie! It did a 50 meter high plunge over the side as well. But what that thing was is best kept to myself. I will say it was bio-degradable. But still naughty, right? Can you guess what it was? Five guesses and you’d still be wrong.

See how wide those carpeted hotel corridors are from the 1980 movie THE SHINING? Halve that and then minus a few more inches and you will start to get an idea of how narrow the ships room corridors are. Think train corridors but with way more sway.

Looking over the balcony at night into a sea of black for some strange reason floods my mind with all types of weird survival scenarios.

How long could I survive if right now I was headed for that freezing cold water? Would I try to swim or just float? If I swam, what direction would I head? How long would it be ’till someone noticed I was missing? Why am I thinking these thoughts? God, is that an albatross flying past in the inky black sky? Sniff** Sniff** Oh-oh! Someone’s smoking on their balcony again!

It’s lucky I like this 1975 song. Across the four days of our cruise it was pretty much on loop across multiple decks. It kind of summarizes the ‘Carnival’ vibe that lived on board for the time my wife, daughter and I were there. As the saying goes, the disease you’re most likely to catch on cruise ships is party fever.

Thankyou Carnival for a wonderful four days. Hope to see you again in the near future.

So what did we REALLY think? Taking a leaf out of the book of the folk on the show ‘Travel Guides’, my wife rated the experience a 6 and a half out of 10. I gave it a nautical 8. My 13-year-old daughter refused to rate it (because, you know… moody teenager – and if she ever reads that description I may be in a spot of bother).

Didn’t know exactly where to put this so is it alright if it goes here?

Ready to get your competition groove on? Then DETAILS are what you need…