If you had told me a year ago that the movie I would watch most frequently this year would be White Christmas (1954), I would have said you were crazy, and you would have been, but here we are. That I actually enjoyed it would have been a real I really would have thought that I would have been spending a good part of June on an endless cycle of The Flash, but instead I spent most of that month marveling that the state of Oklahoma has an economy entirely dependent on the energy industry, but still struggle to keep the lights on*.
Now, I could have seen White Christmas a lot more after helping to host nine screenings of the film at Circle Cinema, but that’s been the strange new delight of the year. I’ve not only been spending a lot more time there as my new theater of choice, but I also started volunteering at the theater, and vocationally there may not be a better joy than being an usher. Taking out their trash is a close second. Writing is still up there. And all of it wouldn’t even have occurred to me one year ago.
I did this not for Bing Crosby, or Irving Berlin, or even for Jesus Christ. I do it for my true savior, the moving picture and the smell of popcorn.
That’s what I hope for in 2024. That when I come back down to write the next end-of-year blog, the big theme of the year is something that hasn’t even occurred to me yet. I hope that for you as well. Let’s have a year of gently pleasant surprises if we can swing it.
Sure, there are a few stumbling blocks to that one. I have a very particular preference for how the presidential election should go, but there’s not a whole hell of a lot to be done about that from right here and now. Also, also: I’ll be turning 40. Not a lot I can do about that one, either.
Anywho, some stuff from the year: I managed to write 237,461 words. It didn’t feel like I was writing more than last year, but here we are. Once I can get this whole grad school monkey off my back, who knows how much I can get done?
I hesitated to make a top-five movies list last year, but now I feel like some movies need to be defended a little bit. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse sat on the list for a while, I mentioned in my review of the film that I had a hard time not imagining it on the list this year, and even was on the list during the Beyond the Cabin in the Woods end-of-the-year episode, but then number 3 finished the year out strong.
You’ll notice The Flash didn’t make the list and I don’t want to talk about that anymore. I’m just as surprised as you are that Tetris was as good as it was.
Finally, I come to my reading list for the year. Wound up way short of last year’s miracle 100-book run, but I still hit my goal. (a) indicates an audiobook or books Lora might have read to me, because yes it does count, and (c) indicates a graphic novel, because, sure, they count too. Deal with it.
Ego and Other Tails (c)
Jacked (a)
A Beautiful Mind (a)
Batman: The Man Who Laughs (c)
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (a)
Bug Hunt (a)
Emissary - Novelization
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (a)
The Thin Man (a)
Cinema Speculation
The Lego Story (a)
Save the Cat (a)
Life, the Universe, and Everything (a)
Relics
So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish (a)
Interview with the Vampire
Mostly Harmless (a)
Zorro, Year One (c)
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing (a)
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. 1 (a)
The Illyrian Enigma (c)
Twenty-six Seconds (a)
Good Omens (a)
American Prometheus (a)
The Last Ronin (c)
The Bat-Man of Gotham (c)
The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, Vol. 1
Star Trek: Resurgence (c)
The High Country (a)
The Complete Frank Miller Robocop Omnibus (c)
Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Book Store (a)
Flashpoint (c)
Batman 89 (c)
Ayoade on Ayoade (a)
1984
This is a Book
The Death of Superman (c)
On 1984
11-22-63 (a)
Halloween ‘78 (novelization)
A Horrible Experience of Unbearable Length
The Last Action Heroes (a)
Essentials of Children’s Literature
The Primate Directive (c)
Avid Reader (a)
The Exorcist
Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper - Case Closed (a)
Rosemary’s Baby
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
Killers of the Flower Moon (a)
The Andromeda Strain (a)
Front Desk
Misery
Mister Orange
The Ocean at the End of the Lane (a)
Knights of the Kitchen Table
The Girl Who Drank The Moon
The Not-So-Jolly Roger
Black Brother, Black Brother
A Stitch in Time (a)
Where The Sidewalk Ends
MMPR, Vol. 1 (c)
Opposable Thumbs (a)
Superman ‘78 Vol. 1 (c)
A Wrinkle in Time (a)
The Wells Bequest (a)
The Invention of Hugo Cabret (a)
Dog Of War (c)
Godshock (c)
The Giggle
Legion (a)
An Unearthly Child
The Monster’s Bones (a)
*Also, Clooney. That footnote can fit almost anywhere in this blog, now that I think about it.