December in Review

Honestly, I don't have much to say about 2021 because, in many ways, it feels like it didn't even happen. It was often objectively better than the year before, but frequently, it just felt like a reboot of 2020. I'm not sad to see it go and I don't think anyone else is either.

As I've mentioned a couple of times on here throughout the year, my overall sense of burnout spread to movie watching. In 2020, I watched 200 movies or short films for the first time, a truly insane feat that would not have been possible had I not been stuck inside my home for most of the year. 

In 2021, it often felt difficult to do anything, even watching movies, one of my favorite things to do. In 2021, I watched 81 films for the first time – the least amount since I started keeping track around eight years ago. 

Here are the two I watched in December:

Single All The Way

A delight! I laughed out loud many times and spent the whole movie with a goofy grin on my face. Pure Christmas cheer.

Love Hard

Meh, it's fine. It has a very rocky start – I almost shut it off about three times – but it does what it can to stick the landing. Harry Shum Jr. is very fun as the male lead's douchey brother. I love to see Glee kids thrive. Also, the title is horrible even though I get what they were trying to do.

I also rewatched Home Alone, Home Alone 2 and pieces of Die Hard, Christmas Vacation, The Year Without a Santa Claus, etc. because duh, Christmas.

The best TV I watched in December was The Sex Lives of College Girls. The TV show I watched most often was Selling Sunset.

Best of 2021

Of the 81 movies I watched for the first time this year, the best was Nomadland (sometimes the Academy gets it right). Nine other standouts were: Promising Young Woman, Private Benjamin, The Descent, The Sparks Brothers, The Mitchells vs. the Machines, Dog Day Afternoon, Inglorious Basterds, Bo Burnham: Inside and Malignant. Honorable mention: Another Round.

I did a terrible job of keeping track of the TV shows I watched this year, so I don't really have a good recap of what was best. But I can say, as always, that you should watch Sex Education.

I read 20 books for the first time this year. The one that had the biggest impact on me was How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell. Five other favorites were You Play The Girl: On Playboy Bunnies, Stepford Wives, Train Wrecks, & Other Mixed Messages by Carina Chocano, The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole, We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix and The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.