This week, Daily Bruin A&E is counting down to the new year by looking back at the best and worst events in the arts and entertainment world of 2015.

Arcade machines, intricate game pieces and a plethora of digital, multimedia and board games will inhabit the Hammer Museum on Wednesday. Among them, something bigger will be at play.

I sat in the casino bar with my partner, listening to a wildly intoxicated Julian babble on about his secret plan. I knew I didn’t have much time.

In 1970, Zakir Hussain took the Royce Hall stage for the first time, and has since performed hundreds of shows across the world.
Hussain is a Grammy Award-winning tabla player and composer best known for his influence on world music and fusion between Indian and Western styles.

In some ways, “Straight Outta Compton” is what its titular album was almost 30 years ago.
The film is loud, raw and uncompromising; a street epic weaving together a dramatic, violent fantasy from what many South Central Angelinos knew to be a harsh reality.

For Daniela Arguello, inspiration for her short film “Time” came from an unexpected place.
“It was just as if a brick fell from the sky and hit me in the head, and I was like ‘Wow, I want to do this,’” said Arguello, a first-year film student.

From center stage of Schoenberg Hall emanates a voice which holds a calming, single note, then glides through a musical scale before returning back.
The singer, UCLA alumna Gaayatri Kaundinya, sits cross-legged on the stage leading the performance.

Eight years ago, computer scientist, software engineer and UCLA adjunct professor Carey Nachenberg began his longest project yet. Today, he has some advice he said he wishes he’d known from the start.

“Ex Machina”
Directed by Alex Garland
Universal Pictures
4.0 paws
Even before its premiere in the South by Southwest film festival, sci-fi thriller “Ex Machina” picked up some early attention.

With the new series “arTistic Attention,” A&E; will feature the very people whose office hours we really should go to more and explore their arts & entertainment-geared interests to find out what really makes them tick.