I watched a lot of documentaries this year and many of them were biographies of actors. I think these types of films were suggested to me by the streaming services and I took the bait. It is interesting to learn about the lives of these famous and sometimes legendary people. I also rewatched a lot of films this year. Many of these (like Conan, Pet Sematary, Blade Runner, etc) are old favorites that I watched with my son or that I just wanted to watch again after a long time to see how they stood the test of time. I’ve put some favorites in bold.
The Truman Show (1998)
Nosferatu (2024)
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara (2024)
Quincy (2018)
Unforgiven (1992)
12 Angry Men (1957)
Scavengers Reign (2023) – this is a great animated series that really felt like something original while also evoking memories of reading Heavy Metal magazine as a kid
Tickled (2016)
Dìdi (弟弟) (2024)
The Shining (1980)
Remembering Gene Wilder (2023)
Happy Death Day 2U (2019)
Happy Death Day (2017)
They Live (1988)
Longlegs (2024)
MaXXXine (2024)
Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery (2024)
Fly (2024)
Starship Troopers (1997)
Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
Inside Out 2 (2024)
I Saw the TV Glow (2024)
Challengers (2024)
The Watchers (2024)
Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1 (2024)
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)
Alien: Romulus (2024)
Civil War (2024)
Immaculate (2024)
I Am: Celine Dion (2024)
Outland (1981)
梟の城 Castle of Owls (1963)
Gattaca (1997)
The First Omen (2024)
Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
The Birds (1963)
Blade Runner (1982)
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
The Muppet Movie (1979)
The Boys in the Boat (2023)
Uncut Gems (2019)
Pet Sematary (1989)
American Fiction (2023)
MoviePass, MovieCrash (2024)
The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
The Truth vs. Alex Jones (2024)
An American Bombing: The Road to April 19th (2024)
Labyrinth (1986)
The Whale (2022)
The Iron Claw (2023)
Ethel (2012)
Anna Nicole Smith: You Don’t Know Me (2023)
WHAM! (2023)
Mute (2018)
Baby Reindeer (2024)
Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind (2020)
The Help (2011)
The Royal Hotel (2023)
The Dead Zone (1983)
Patriots Day (2016)
Arrival (2016)
Anatomy of a Fall (2023)
The Booksellers (2019)
Dream Scenario (2023)
The Zone of Interest (2023)
It’s Quieter in the Twilight (2022)
Late Night with the Devil (2023)
Priscilla (2023)
Poor Things (2023)
Dune: Part Two (2024) – The changes from the novel completely changed the tone of the overall story and kind of ruined the whole film for me.
Due to my job change, I had a lot of free time in the early months of the year so I got a lot of films in during this time. I wasn’t a huge fan of most of the “blockbusters” that were released this year – I wasn’t impressed by Oppenheimer or Barbie and the last Indiana Jones film wasn’t great either (although it was probably better than I had expected). I’ve put some favorites in bold type.
Lamb (2021)
Saltburn (2023)
The Creator (2023)
Becoming Cousteau (2021)
Elf (2003)
No Hard Feelings (2023)
The Color Purple (1985)
No Time to Die (2021)
The Pope’s Exorcist (2023)
Throne of Blood (1957)
The Karate Kid (1984)
The Fabelmans (2022)
Alien: Covenant (2017)
Reality (2023)
Ghost Story (1981)
Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
Pearl (2022)
X (2022)
Past Lives (2023)
The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023)
Asteroid City Asteroid City (2023)
True Romance (1993)
You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah (2023)
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)
Talk to Me (2022)
RoboCop (1987)
Barbie (2023)
The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
Oppenheimer (2023)
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)
The French Dispatch (2021)
Scarface (1983)
District 9 (2009)
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)
The Road (2009)
Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
A Tree of Life: The Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting (2022)
Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022)
Air (2023)
Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989)
The Beatles: Get Back (2021)
Man on Fire (2004)
Jacob’s Ladder (1990)
Bama Rush (2023)
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
Cool Hand Luke (1967)
Beau Is Afraid (2023)
Project X (2012)
The Last Duel (2021)
Friday (1995)
Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)
Caddyshack (1980)
After Hours (1985)
The Menu (2022)
Eye of the Beholder: The Art of Dungeons & Dragons (2018)
This year I re-watched a lot of older films that I had seen before. Time and maturity really gives one a different perspective on some of those stories. I also continued watching as many of Yasujirō Ozu’s films as I could find on the streaming platforms – always great stuff from him. I’ve put my new and old favorites in bold type.
I watched some classics that I had never seen before, rewatched a few of my favorites, saw a few new films (even went back to the theater for the first time in a while!) and had a little festival with several of Yasujirō Ozu’s films. I’ve put my favorites in bold type.
It’s hard to believe but Peter Jackson’s first Lord of the Rings film was released way back in December, 2001. As with all things memory-related, it’s hard to believe it’s been that long but it also seems a life-time ago when I think back to the events of 9/11 that had taken place just prior to this.
From the first announcement I had been following the production of these movies on the Internet, mostly from the breathless daily commentary to be found on aintitcoolnews (when it was still relevant and interesting) and then on theonering.net. The casting sounded like it was going to be spot-on and it seemed like Jackson was preparing to unleash something really special on the world.
I was not disappointed. As expected, the casting was perfect and so many shots were exactly as I had pictured them while reading the books (particularly the representation of the Argonath and the scenes at Amon Hen toward the end). There were call-backs to Bakshi’s 1970s animated version of the story, there was humor and the stunning special effects were almost seamless. Oh, and the musical score was great, too! Of course, the story itself was what made the film really work. Jackson and his crew had carefully and lovingly adapted the book for the screen.
I went to see The Fellowship of the Ring for the first time with my buddies Chris and George and we all loved it. I think I went to see the movie at least two more times in the theater and I bought the DVDs when they came out. Then came the second installment in 2002 and when The Return of the King was released in December 2003, the three of us went to see the all-day extended edition marathon followed by the first showing of the final film. Although I don’t think the other films lived up to the perfection of the first one, seeing the whole story on the big screen was amazing.
I’ve watched these movies many times in the years since they were released (on DVD, on Blu-ray and in UHD and streaming) but honestly, they are an undertaking so I probably haven’t watched them as half as much as they deserve (see what I did there?) to be seen. I recently watched the extended version of Fellowship (which I much prefer to the original release) with my son and although I still loved it, he wasn’t as into the movie as I was which made me a bit sad but maybe I oversold it a bit in my excitement.
“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
I was 7 years old in early 1979. I guess that would have put me in second grade. My interests were probably limited to Star Wars – drawing Star Wars spaceships, playing with Star Wars action figures, reading Star Wars books and listening to the “movie on tape” version of Star Wars. When not doing any of those things, I was probably reading about space exploration or drawing pictures of fighter planes and tanks. Although I can’t recall many details from that time, I am sure about the Star Wars stuff. I was obsessed. And from the sales figures, I wasn’t the only one. Action figures and toys from Lucasfilm were selling like crazy and Hollywood was trying to follow the success of Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind with a spate of sci-fi films to be released within the year. Battlestar: Galactica, The Black Hole, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and Moonraker were all soon to be relatively well-received in theaters.
For most kids my age, straight up science fiction films were one thing but most of my peers weren’t seeing horror movies yet. I guess I wasn’t most kids because I was pretty preoccupied by shit that scared me. I LOVED watching those black and white horror movies on Saturday’s Creature Double Feature even though they sometimes gave me nightmares. In the summer of 1979 my mother even took me to see Prophecy in the theater (more about that in a bit)!
So, into my world comes this trailer:
Spooky, right? Imagine me watching Diff’rent Strokes with my sister and that comes on…. I thought something was coming out of that egg and whatever it was, it was going to scare the crap out of me. Eventually, I was trained to just cover my eyes and yell “lalalalalalalalalalalala!” at the top of my lungs every time that commercial aired.
Fast forward to May or June of that year when my older-by-a-decade sister tells me that she went to see Alien. Now, this was a long time ago so I don’t remember her exact words but it was probably something like “scariest thing I’ve ever seen”. The sentence “I almost tossed my cookies” may have also been uttered. She assured me that there were spaceships in the story but it was nothing like Star Wars. After putting up with my repeated asking, my mother made the wise decision not to take me to see Alien. However, as I mentioned above, she did take me to see Prophecy. I think she thought the movie poster bore some resemblance to the egg in the trailer for Alien and as anyone who has kids knows, if you can’t get exactly what the kids want, you settle for the next best thing. I got about 4 sleepless nights out of that experience and my mom got several hours of sitting on my bed while I tried to fall asleep.
Sometime not long after, I ran across the novelization of Alien and I guess I figured, since I couldn’t see the movie, I could at least read the story.
You have to remember, these were the days before everyone had VCRs and if you missed a movie during its theatrical release, your next chance to see it was probably going to be the “television network premiere” about 5 years later. I couldn’t wait so I got the book. This was a serious undertaking and probably the longest book I had attempted. Somehow I managed to take the book with me to school so I could read it during quiet time or indoor recess when it was raining. Not wanting to dissuade a student from reading, my teacher glossed over the potentially inappropriate content. The story was slow and I’m sure I didn’t really understand most of what I was reading. I just kept wondering when the scary stuff was going to happen and I never did finish the novel.
During this time, I was also a big fan of the sci-fi and horror movie magazines that were out at the time – Starlog, Fangoria, Fantastic Films, Cinefantastique. I used to go to the comic book dealer who set up shop at the Auburn Flea Market and read through all of them to while away the time as my mother, grandmother and great-aunt tried to sell all our old stuff. These magazines all had advertisements for mail-order (remember, this was way before the Internet!) companies selling books and other movie memorabilia. At some point, I don’t recall whether it in one of these magazines or in person at our local Beacon pharmacy that sold comic books and magazines, I ran across this:
The comic adaptation of the movie looked amazing. Printed on heavy gloss paper, the art was pretty stunning for the time. Googling for this will turn up lots of pages to get an idea of the quality. The dialog was straight from the movie and I think it even included some scenes that were cut from the final release. Finally, the plot of the film was clear to me! On top of that, I got to see the artist’s rendition of the Nostromo and the refinery and all the technology that appeared in the background and added so mcuh realism to the whole movie. I read the graphic novel over and over until I took the next steps down the road to my Alien obsession.
I’m not sure if I got the Alien Film Novel from a book store or if I convinced my mom to order it for me from a mail order company but when I got it I was fascinated. With over 1,000 color frames from the movie, this really was almost as good as seeing it in the theater. Looking at the stills, I could see what the characters look like and really get a feel for the atmosphere of the film.
My next acquisition was the Book of Alien which is basically an “art of…” book by today’s standards. There is some background on the formulation of the story and the creation of the film but it doesn’t go into much detail. The coolest thing from my perspective was the conceptual art – especially Ron Cobb’s amazingly detailed and technical designs that I have already seen from books like The Star Wars Sketchbook. I can recall looking at the photos of the bridge of the Nostromo in this book and the film novel and being inspired by the level of detail.
There were other tie-ins too: alien action figures, trading cards, patches and hats, shirts, etc. Although not as heavily merchandised as the Star Wars franchise, Alien was a pretty big hit and it also struck a chord with me from many perspectives.
I don’t really remember when I finally did see Alien. It may have been on VHS in the mid 80s. I’m not even sure if I had seen Alien prior to seeing Aliens in the theater. It may have been when the Alien Collector’s Edition laserdisc set was released in the early 90s. I really can’t recall. Obviously, I was not let down by the film’s presentation since I have seen it many times since and I still enjoy that the first installment more than any of the others in the series. I even enjoy multiple viewings of the making-of and behind-the-scenes supplemental material on the DVD and recent Blu-ray sets and Dennis Lowe’s very cool Alien Makers series.
There was some unique magic that was created with this film that sparked something within me as a child and still remains as an adult. I’m still obsessed!
Ain’t It Cool News has been posting a series of articles in honor of their 10th anniversary. These articles are focusing on the films from 1982 that made a difference in contributors’ lives.
This is so spot on. I too cried like a little girl as [b]E.T.[/b] was dying and Elliott was perking up. Okay, you can call me a pussy, but there was not a dry eye in the theater when I saw this the first time…or the second time…or the third. I won’t go into the whole story of the first time I saw this film since it so closely parallels the story above. But there are a few things that I recall so well. First, I saw this with my cousin Scott after my last day of 5th grade. This was the last day of school before the long summer and in September would come my adventure that was middle school (Scott is a couple years older than me). For me, this was sort of an “end of the innocence” moment that I think actually added to the lasting effect that E.T. had on my life.
Like Nordling, I too had seen Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Raiders of the Lost Ark and fallen in love with the films that Spielberg had created. And of course, we were all waiting for the third Star Wars movie that we knew would cap the trilogy and blow us away, but this was a whole summer away…forever in the eyes of an 11 year old.
I too was nuts about movies – crazy about the places they could take me and the things they could make me feel. This was also a time in my life when my understanding of the world around me was expanding. I was able to make some sense of politics and comprehend that we were on the edge of nuclear war – something that would really hit home the following year when War Games came to theaters and The Day After was aired on network TV – so the escape from reality was welcome.
Here’s a list of some of the films that I saw in 1982 and a short note about some of the more memorable ones:
Blade Runner – I didn’t get it at the time, but this is now one of my favorites
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
The World According To Garp – for some reason, I asked my mom to take me to see this but it was way over my head.
The Elephant Man – I was obsesses with the Elephant Man, too
Fast Times At Ridgemont High – My main thought was “Do kids really act like this?” Oh, and “what did Stacey have done at the clinic?”
Poltergeist – this could be a separate posting in and of itself
The Secret Of Nimh
Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan – still the best of the Trek films
Conan The Barbarian – My mom fell asleep at this one, but I loved every minute of it
Creepshow – this started my Stephen King obsession
The Dark Crystal – who doesn’t love Muppets?
The Secret Policeman’s Other Ball – Monty Python did live shows?
The Thing – who doesn’t love aliens that take over peoples’ bodies?
First Blood
Firefox
Night Shift
Pink Floyd: The Wall
Tron – another obsession
Enter The Ninja – this would be an obsession a few years later
Young Doctors in Love
Cellar Dwellers
Airplane 2: The Sequel
Android
Beastmaster
The Challenge
Friday The 13th Part 3 – my sister brought Scott and I to see this and then she had the bright idea to take us out fishing at 11 o’clock at night
Halloween 3
Hear No Evil
The Last American Virgin – I went with my sister to see this one too
Rocky III
The Slayer
Swamp Thing
I could probably write something substantial about each of these, but I just don’t have the time. What an amazing year that was for movies!
Okay, it’s been a while since I put anything new on this page. I know, I know, I am a slacker! Well, school has been really hectic (I am almost done!!) and wedding planning and work have been keeping me busy as well.
A couple of co-workers and myself were talking about movies the other day and we each put together a top 10 list. Here’s mine and my reasons for these picks. Note that the order can change – this is my first go at an ordered list.
UPDATE: I’ve set up a list on [url=http://www.ymdb.com/user_top20_view.asp?usersid=1276&ce=y]YMDB[/url] to keep track of my favorite and least favorite films. You should set one up, too! It’s cool.
