In addition to not doing anything useful or productive for another entire year (just kidding!), I watched a bunch of movies! 197 movies, to be exact, not counting ones I re-watched. Here’s a collage of them all!
Some of my favorites include:
Jackie Chan’s 1985 Police Story, which I had been meaning to watch for a while. The story is fun, but its wild stunt-filled action sequences are fantastic. And it’s all without shaky cam, frantic cuts, or CGI so typical in today’s movies.
The biographical film One Life, starring Anthony Hopkins, tells the true story of a British stockbroker who helps save the lives of Jewish children by placing them with British foster families. He later appeared on a British TV program, which became an early viral video on YouTube:
I also really enjoyed Reagan. Dennis Quaid does a great impersonation of the old president (and it was refreshing to see him playing something other than an overbearing or abusive father in a cheesy Christian film). It’s admittedly got some weaknesses story and pacing-wise, but works nicely as a positive overview of his presidency.
Speaking of politics, Matt Walsh’s Am I Racist? offers a hilarious satirical look at the race-relation “anti-racist” industry grift. It’s perhaps too facetious and satirical to actually change anyone’s mind on the issue, but it successfully lampoons much of the mainstream media’s positions, pointing out absurdities and offering a sane alternative view.
We finally got a Beetlejuice sequel in 2024 with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, which I really enjoyed. It didn’t quite capture the tone of the original, and was perhaps a little more frenetic with too many plotlines, but I still really enjoyed seeing the cast return, and seeing more of Burton’s darkly whimsical view of the afterlife. I wouldn’t mind seeing yet another! Make it trilogy, Tim Burton!
I enjoyed the horror movie Oddity, an odd but fun and suspenseful little ghost story. It was weird, but not in one of those ambiguous artsy ways; it’s weirdness still told a pretty traditional story.
Also enjoyed Speak No Evil, a remake of a foreign thriller. It’s admittedly a bit slow at the beginning, but eventually creepily descends into a thrilling fight for escape. James McAvoy does a great job as a charismatic but ultimately creepy and horrible character who you want to see defeated.
Another thrilling horror movie I really enjoyed was Alien: Romulus, which I thought successfully captured a lot of the creepy dark horror vibe of the original. (As opposed to the more action-oriented sequels.)
And then, finally, of course, there’s Wicked: Part One, which I thought did a fantastic job of capturing the spirit of the musical. Rather than trying to rush through the story for the sake of runtime and cutting or shortening songs (which composer/lyricist Stephen Schwartz already made pretty succinct, in my opinion), the film takes its time with the source material and cuts nothing; instead it actually expands some material. This is the sort of musical adaptation fans of musicals actually want. I love the 2012 film adaptation of Les Miserables, but it was so annoying to see it cut verses all over the place, and 2007’s Sweeney Todd cut way too much. I also loved that Wicked was in 3D! It looked great! I’m definitely looking forward to the second part.