November in Review

November was a doozy, but in a good way. This month, Tim and I celebrated two years of dating (!), he visited for a week, we roadtripped to spend Thanksgiving with my family (his first time meeting them because LOL long-distance, LOL pandemic) and we got the keys to our apartment (!!). 

It was a very cup-filling month. Now my life consists exclusively of taking one million trips from one apartment to the other until all of my stuff is moved, then waiting for Tim and his parents to arrive with all of his stuff. I will breathe again in January.

Because of all of that ^ – and continuing this year's trend, apparently – I watched very few movies in November. I'm at 79 for the year so far, which means for the first time since I started keeping track, I'm nowhere near cracking 100. It feels weird, but it's ok.

Serendipity

It is Rom-Com Season so I decided to finally give this one a shot after years of algorithms suggesting it to me. Much like While You Were Sleeping, my main takeaway is that everyone in this movie is certifiably insane. Definitely an example of a movie I would've liked more if I had seen it when I was younger.

Rewatch: The Holiday. The GOAT of Christmas rom-coms and one of the best rom-coms in general. 

Spencer*

This movie answers the question, "What if The Crown, but with a touch of Black Swan?" It's unusual and striking, intriguing in its format of being a fictionalized account of a real scenario. Kristen is very good and one of the few happy moments in the film was the one that made me saddest. I left it feeling very melancholy about Princess Diana, like many a woman before me. Also, spoiler-y PSA: This is very much an eating disorder movie.

Rewatch: Love Actually. I made Tim watch this exclusively to roast it. It remains questionable at best and horrifying at worst. The only good parts, in order, are: Bill Nighy's storyline, the Liam Neeson/Thomas Brodie-Sangster storyline, Emma Thompson and specifically the line about the first lobster in the nativity play, Hugh Grant dancing to The Pointer Sisters.

Last Night in Soho*

Hm. I really love Edgar Wright's films and I've enjoyed everything I've seen both Anya Taylor Joy and Thomasin McKenzie in – until now. I really, really wanted to love this movie. The trailers made it seem made for me. But I didn't like it. Anya's outfits were wonderful and some of the film is stylish, but much of it just felt like a mess. There were full moments I found myself thinking, "Surely this isn't really the movie?" Unfortunate.

Also this month, I rewatched all of season one of Love Life, followed by season two. Season one is still very good, but unfortunately, season two didn't really hit for me. It definitely picked up toward the end and obviously we all love William Jackson Harper, but it never seemed to really go anywhere. 

I've also been watching a lot of Kim Possible because we deal with life in our own ways. See also: Selling Sunset.

Oh, and I convinced Tim to start watching Breaking Bad after repeating several times over the last two years that, for once, everyone is right and it really is one of the best shows ever made.

I also finally admitted that I'm not going to finish Something Wicked This Way Comes right now. Alas, maybe next spooky season. So I'm not reading anything right now and if I do read anything in December, it'll likely be Landline by Rainbow Rowell, one of my favorites and a Christmas Book™.

Finally, obviously, the primary thing I listened to in November was Red: Taylor's Version. But here are the non-Red songs I liked on Spotify in Fall 2021. The playlist is only nine songs long and somehow one of them is a bilingual '90s country song and two of them are by One Direction. I am who I am.