December in Review

Alright, y'all: we did it! We made it through 2020! I'm taking a few days to not dwell on the insane amount of work we still need to do in 2021 because it's ok to take a second to just be glad we made it through.

I watched 200 movies and short films in 2020, the most ever since I started keeping track. I've got a list of the ones I liked best, but first, the eight from December:

Yes, God, Yes

This was a short-and-sweet little indie film that made me laugh out loud several times. It was also an ordeal to behold as someone who grew up in a conservative small town, received an abstinence-only "education" and attended not one but two Christian retreats in junior high because it was the thing to do.

Uncle Frank

Meh, it's fine. I went into it with mid-level expectations and it was exactly adequate. I do feel like we should be able to do better than this by now, but Wally, at least, was good.

Sound of Metal

This is a movie movie. A compassionate look at replacing one fix with another, chasing something that is lost and accepting that sometimes things just change. It's very good. Riz Ahmed gives a great performance and also has a great face.

Rewatch: Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York double-feature. Theme: Tim Curry, Christmas Movie Villain.

Freaky

Fun! I don't always like Vince Vaughn, but he was great in this (though I do wish Kathryn Newton got to do more). I was also very surprised – and impressed – by how hardcore the kills were. One of the best things about horror comedies is that they can be over-the-top with their horror elements because in a setting where you’re anxious but on the verge of laughter, sometimes something horrific can get the biggest laugh. Freaky gets this.

Rewatch: Batman Returns, The Muppets Christmas Carol, Wonder Woman. Christmas movies + 1984 prep.

The Shop Around the Corner

Having recently rewatched You've Got Mail, I decided to give the original a try. It was charming, but it definitely lacked that Ephron crackle. I do love that everyman Jimmy Stewart was succeeded by everyman Tom Hanks, and it made me vow to watch The Philadelphia Story in 2021.

Rewatch: Let It Snow, Die Hard, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Four Christmases, Gremlins, Sleepless in Seattle, Santa Claus is Comin' to Town, The Year Without a Santa Claus, Elf. I didn't go home for Christmas, OK?

Wonder Woman 1984

Hm, well. It isn't good. It isn't all bad – Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig and Pedro Pascal put in the work on what they were given – but it's mostly bad. The writing is a mess, but the thing I couldn't get over was how particularly awful it looked during moments of superheroism. Not great for a...superhero movie. There's also almost no indication it's set in the '80s, a Choice for a movie with "1984" in the title.

Soul

Now this is a good movie. It isn't perfect: there's the Princess and the Frog Problem™ and I'm also not totally sure it's actually appealing to children. But it's an original idea that goes unexpected places. I was genuinely engaged and affected in ways I wasn't by a lot of "grown up" movies I watched in 2020.

Rewatch: the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Highly recommend spending 12 hours in your bed, only leaving it for food.

Attempt: Mother (2009). I'm sure Mother is very good and I plan to revisit it at some point, but I just couldn't focus on it. It was taking too long to get to where I might be interested enough to keep going. It would've been cool to bookend my year with Bong Joon Ho movies, but alas.

Terror Train

I did end up with a different kind of bookend. While researching what Tim and I should watch on New Year's Eve, I discovered this 1980 Jamie Lee Curtis movie about, you guessed it, people getting murdered on a train. It wasn't great, obviously, but it was pretty fun and watching it allowed me to start and end my year with movies about trains you don't want to be on.

Also in December, Tim and I started watching Dark, which is one of the wildest things I've ever seen. We are both obsessed with it. We also watched more Community, and I decided to give Mad Men another shot. Seems like it's going to stick this time because I'm more than halfway through with season five of seven.

In December, I read Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare (absolutely bananas), Rainbow Rowell's short story collection Almost Midnight (cute) and The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin, the best book I read all year. I also reread Landline by Rainbow Rowell because it's a Christmas book. It's still great.

2020 in Review

Time for some year in review!

My 15 favorite movies I saw this year were A Single Man, Bad Education, Beginners, Bernie, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror, Little Shop of Horrors, Memories of Murder, The Old Guard, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Sound of Metal, The Stylist, The Thing, Unpregnant and Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Runners up were First Reformed, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and House. And, bonus, my five favorite shorts I saw this year were Blocks, Jack and Jo Don't Want to Die, Please Hold, Milk Teeth and Stuck.

In addition to great new seasons of shows I already liked (in particular Dead to Me and Sex Education), 2020 also provided some great new and new-to-me shows. The Queen's Gambit was the best new one, but Never Have I Ever was also great. And as for new-to-me, Schitt's Creek and Dark were my faves, but Batman: The Animated Series and Scream: The TV Series were also bright spots.

Finally, I read 23 new books this year and, as mentioned, The Immortalists was the best one. The four others that made the greatest impact on me were How We Fight for Our Lives by Saeed Jones, The Transcriptionist by Amy Rowland, And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie and Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare. Runner up: The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager.

I didn't see any ~real~ shows this year, but I watched livestream concerts from Betty Who and The Dirty Nil, a Britny pair if there ever was one.

Here's to more books and more bingeing this year, but also hopefully some movie theaters and visits to places beyond our couches? A gal can dream.