Took last year off from this thread for whatever reason, but I figured I would bring it back for 2023.

Movies I saw in the theater

1) Violent Night
2) The Fablemans
3) M3GAN
4) Skinamarink

Home viewing (DVDs and Blu-rays are from my own personal collection unless otherwise stated)

1) Halloween 6 Producer's Cut (Blu-ray)
2) The Call of the Wild (2020) (Disney Plus)
3) Air Force One (Netflix)
4) Clerks III (Redbox DVD rental)
5) One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Netflix DVD)
6) Summer of Sam (DVD)
7) What We Do in the Shadows (library DVD)

Completed seasons of television: (all of these were completed in 2023 but started in December)

1) Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 3 (Paramount Plus)
2) Stranger Things Season 3 (Netflix)
3) Star Trek: Enterprise Season 2 (Paramount Plus)
4) You Season 1 (Netflix)
5) The Simpsons Season 2 (DVD)
6) Law & Order Season 13 (Netflix DVD)

The Menu.

That's it. Just The Menu.

Carry on.

Fun! I'll start keeping a list.

I'm going to update my list soon, maybe this week or perhaps at the end of next week when I can include Star Trek: Picard on my list of completed TV seasons.

But for now, I'm going to say that tonight I did something for the first time ever and walked out of a movie at the theater. And it was Avatar: The Way of Water.

Just was not connecting with it at all, which I guess shouldn't be surprising because I didn't connect with the original film at all either. But I at least could understand and follow it. This isn't entirely the movie's fault...I meant to rewatch the original before seeing the sequel but I never did, and I just really couldn't track with anything that was happening and felt zero connection to the material. It was so beautiful to look at but I just didn't care about anything or anyone on the screen. My own inability to differentiate between most of the non-human characters didn't help either.

My mind kept wandering, thinking about other movies or about my real-life love interest or even the book I would rather be home reading, and more than once I realized I'd been lost in thought for 5 minutes, and so I decided I wasn't being fair to the film and I didn't have to waste the next hour and a half or so of my time along with the $10 for the ticket, so I finally got up and left.

When I got out to the hallway, I turned my phone on again to check the time, figuring I'd watched at least half the movie and was startled to see that it had only been about 50 minutes.

Never done this before, at least not because I didn't like the movie. I left the adaptation of the Mel Brooks musical The Producers about 20 years ago because it was running longer than I thought and I had to get to work, so I left about 20 minutes before the end. I left a screening of Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders about halfway through because I got sick to my stomach. And I left a screening of the 2018 Halloween about halfway through because it was late at night and I was a lot sleepier than I'd thought I was, so I left early because I'd seen the film 4 or 5 times already anyway.

But Avatar 2 was the one that made me leave early just 'cause I didn't like it. Sorry, Mr. Cameron.

If it helps, I saw the 3-D re-release of Titanic earlier this year 3 times.

The worst I've done is fall asleep in the theater. Never left a film since it was bad. How could I justify that without seeing it all?

Not saying it was the movie's fault for my falling asleep, either - just too tired to watch a movie then.

The only movie I saw in theaters this year so far was Cocaine Bear, on a whim. We wanted to check out this new-ish theater in town that serves food and drinks (not just movie snacks; meals), so went up for a matinee. Movie was silly fun, and the food wasn't really overpriced. The drinks, however...woof. Three sodas cost almost as much as all three meals. Next time we will sneak in some waters.

As far as walking out of a movie or otherwise missing part in the theater, I walked out of Chariots of Fire (too young for it really; I didn't understand what was going on) and fell asleep in Batman Forever. Oh, and I got sick watching Fatal Attraction and had to leave, but it was neither boring nor unwatchable, and I saw it in full another time.

I haven't been to the movies since 2006.

I did watch The Golden Voyage of Sinbad a few days ago. It was dreadful and I loved it.

I haven't been back to the movies since Covid, and even then the last thing I went to see was Wo;lverine with my son. [Edit: No, it must have been one of the Star Wars things - maybe the Last Jedi. Fuck, no wonder I didn't go back...] Once he stopped wanting to go, that was it for me - I don't really enjoy the experience for its own sake, and prefer being able to pause a film while I opnen another bottle of wine or something. The last film I chose to watch in the cinema that WASN'T because my one of my kids wanted to go was Return of the King.

The last movie I watched was Moneyball, the day before yesterday, and as I said in another thread, I loved it - one of the best films I have seen in a long time.
I still watch more TV than movies these days, and some pretty trash TV too. Do you have Married At First Sight in the US?

We don't have that show as far as I know. I watch a lot of British TV... or used to anyway, but I've kind of lost touch with what's out there these days. I watched Spooks, Hustle, Life on Mars and the sequel show, and currently we're watching the British version of Ghosts, which is much funnier than the US one.

As to movies this year, discounting old stuff we've watched or rewatched:

Operation Fortune - Guy Ritchie with Jason Statham is usually can't-miss entertainment, but this one is a lesser effort. Still decent, but well below the standard.
M3GAN -absolutely silly horror/comedy (I hope? ) with a lifelike doll robot that goes on a murder spree.
Missing - a kidnapping thriller with heavy social media commentary. The entire film takes place through a girls social media accounts and live streams. Interesting concept.
Nope - Silly alien movie, pretty much what I expected it to be.
A Man Called Otto - Tom Hanks as a crotchety old man who opens his heart to a little girl next door. By the numbers and predictable, but Hanks is enjoyable.
Your Place or Mine - Ashton Kutcher and Reese Witherspoon have a long distance friendship that turns into romance. Silly fun, only for those who don't mind low grade romantic comedies.
Knock at the Cabin - Apocalyptic thriller, quite liked it.
Plane - Gerard Butler does Gerard Butler things after being forced to land his passenger plane on an island full of militant rebels.
Where the Crawdads Sing - book adaptation my fiancée wanted to watch. It was ok.

That's it; we too mostly watch TV shows these days, albeit streaming and not on broadcast or cable anymore.

Just last night, in a discussion with a friend about the parlous state of British comedy now, she insisted that I watch Ghosts, and i had to admit that I had never heard of it - which just undermines any credentials I might have claimed as "Opinionated TV Critic" of course!


Started watching this - got about half way in and realised that my attention was wandering far too much, so gave up.

I've never even heard of this British version.

It's the original. Generally speaking (apart from arguably the Office), the original Brit shows are better than their Americanized versions.

Cracker sure was.

Sadly, I never cared for the Office, and if it's the superior one, I'd probably hate the British one even more.

I wonder how many TV shows I've seen that had British versions first I was aware of, or unaware of.

There is probably no way to watch the British versions for free, anyway, so maybe it's best to not worry about it. Even the DVDs I might affordably buy are region 2.

The worst thing they ever tried was adapting Life on Mars. The original series deals with a police officer from the early 2000s who somehow winds up in the early 1970s. Everyone somehow accepts this as if he was always there, and there are unique, memorable characters throughout as he tries to muddle his way through and get back to his old life.

In the US one, the people were literally on a mission to Mars, in suspended animation. It was absurd and got canceled after one season.

I saw the American version of that. They stupidly changed its time slot, IIRC, and its following dried up after that, so its premature death wasn't just due to poor quality.

I recall it was watchable, but thought the ending was stupid, particularly as they had Malia Obama as president of the US in 2035. That meant she had to be elected in 2032 before she was even 35 years old and eligible to run for the office.

Coupling would like a word. We think the British original is hysterical, with several classic episodes. The US version? Good lord, it couldn't have been worse. The first episode was almost word-for-word the same as the first British episode, and it was pathetically unfunny. The Jeff character was horribly miscast - in the UK version, he's a lovable goofball who comes across as not the brightest bulb. The guy in the US version came across as a creepy pervert. Not a funny pervert - the kind you'd find exposing himself on public transport. I think we watched two episodes then waited for the cancellation article in the paper.

I need to get back to updating my list on this thread. I suck...I don't even know if I can remember everything I've watched this year, especially home viewing.

But I'm going to post anyway, just to share my unique, frustrating, and uniquely frustrating experience at the movies last night. I went to go see the horror movie The Boogeyman. It wasn't a particularly crowded showing. My local theaters are the kind with reclining seats, which of course are quite comfortable but take up more space so it means fewer seats. Even so, it was far from full. I sat on the first row above the floor, with one couple sitting together a few seats down from me. The rows in front of and directly behind me were empty, and then there were about 8-10 people in the last 2 rows, something I always find a little baffling because up that high you are looking DOWN at the screen instead of looking up at it (best) or at least looking across at it (adequate) but whatevs.

About a half hour into the movie, some sketchy guy wandered into the theater and sat down in a seat in the row in front of me. I admit, this kind of thing always makes me a little bit anxious when some solitary figure (always a guy) comes into a movie so long after it started. It's annoying enough when it's a group of people doing so, usually kids or teens wandering from theater to theater at the multiplex, but when it's just one guy by himself, especially a guy acting kind of odd, I worry a little bit that he's about to start shooting up the place, after the Dark Knight Rises shootings a decade back combined with all the mass shootings around the country in various public places since then.

I'm serious. I still remember going to see The Conjuring 2 back in 2016 and having a similar thing happen. Despite it being a hot summer night, some weird guy in a trenchcoat came in to the movie about halfway through and sat down in a seat right next to the entrance. He sat for about a half hour and then got up and left, never to return, but while he was there I was watching him as much as I was watching the movie, wondering if he was going to do anything.

Anyway, the guy last night sat silently for about 5 minutes, then turned around and loudly asked me, "Hey, man, what's the name of this movie?" even though the display outside this particular theater in the multiplex prominently displayed the title. I whispered back, "The Boogeyman", but he couldn't hear me so I had to repeat myself louder, which I abhorred because I myself tend to want to murder people who talk during movies or light up their phones or somesuch.

Then he asked some follow-up question that I couldn't hear. Since I didn't want to encourage further conversation, since I was there to watch a film in my favorite genre, I just ignored him. He asked again, but I again ignored him, and then after a minute or so he realized I wasn't going to respond, so he turned back around. He sat in silence for another 5 minutes or so and then left. Never came back.

That was the first thing.

The second, admittedly minor, thing, is that the couple sitting down the row from me got up together and left about 5 minutes after that. Not a big deal, but it baffled me a little bit just in the sense that it wasn't the kind of movie you walk out on. It was perfectly fine, not great, but not terrible at all, and no violence up to that point. There are some movies, especially in the horror genre, that I can understand walking out on....when I went to see Skinamarink back in January, half the audience had gotten up and left in the first 20 minutes because of the frustrating way it tells its story. But The Boogeyman just isn't the kind of movie you walk out on, IMO. But then again, I'm the guy who walked out on Avatar 2 so I shouldn't judge.

All the same, I got mentally distracted a little bit just trying to figure out why they left. My own weakness, I know, but admittedly if I weren't already mentally distracted by the weird guy from 5-10 minutes earlier, I probably would have just observed it, shrugged it off, and forgot about it.

And then, about 5-10 minutes after that, a female employee with a flashlight came into the theater and walked up the steps towards the back rows. I have no idea why, couldn't hear her say anything. Usually when such a thing happens, it's due to a customer complaint that some asshole is being too noisy and disruptive or anything, but aside from the weird guy from earlier, this audience was perfectly fine. Believe me, I'm the first person to get irritated when people in the movie theater are talking or in some other way causing a distraction, and I heard nothing from the rows behind me. I also never saw anybody leave to go complain about anything before the gal came in (unless it was the couple who left, but if they were distracted from noise behind them, why didn't I hear it?), so if nobody complained, why did she come in with a flashlight? I dunno.

She left about 2 minutes later, only for a different female employee, also bearing a flashlight, to come in a few minutes after that, doing the same thing. Walked up the stairs right past me towards the upper rows, then left a couple minutes later. I didn't turn around to look because I was still trying to salvage my scary movie experience, but by that point it was pretty much too late. I was "out" of the movie and couldn't really find my way back in and watched the last half hour or so from kind of a detached viewpoint.

It was a bummer...I do blame myself somewhat for my ability to be too mentally distracted at times, but all the same, I love scary movies and while this was far, far from a classic, the best ones rely on tension and atmosphere to work, so they demand a higher level of immersion from the audience than other genres do, in my opinion, and when something breaks that, it just sucks. If the same things had happened at the new Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse movie (which is incredible!) or The Little Mermaid (good!), it would have bothered me about 10% as much and I would have shrugged them all off and just got back to the movie. But for horror movies, I guess I just can't have that spell broken.

Well...I recently watched The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou and enjoyed it.

I've ordered the DVD of Bucakroo Banzai and intend to watch that as soon as it arrives.

I don't watch nearly as many movies as I once did.

I am watching a fair amount of movies lately. My last watch was Burt Lancaster in The Swimmer (1968). A unique film, it details a day with Lancaster's character swimming home across his neighbourhood utilizing his neighbours' pools. Is it meant to be taken literally? Metaphorically? Both? Really cool movie, and Lancaster is great in it. Has a brief but memorable appearance by Joan Rivers in her first film acting role.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HRISNPM/?tag=imwan-20



There is also this edition (the one I have) that includes a CD with Marvin Hamlisch's score (his first film score):

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08Q6NGRT2/?tag=imwan-20

Last night I watched Steve McQueen in Bullitt (1968). Excellent crime drama. Great cast including Simon Oakland (I kept expecting him to yell "Kolchak, what do you think you're doing!"), Jacqueline Bissett, Robert Vaughn, and a Robert Duvall who was so young I didn't recognize him and had to look him up to see what role he played. Of course, it's a classic, but I had never seen it before. The famous car chase did not let me down. It was better than I'd heard.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0008ENHTE/?tag=imwan-20



Also watched Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) a Roger Corman production hoping to grab some Star Wars money. It has a Bullitt connection as Robert Vaughn is in this one too. James Cameron did art direction and special effects work. Starring Richard (John-boy Walton) Thomas in the Luke Skywalker role. George Peppard chews the scenery and his cigar in the roguish Han Solo-type role. It looked surprisingly good for its low budget, but was still a bit of a bore.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004VT9JLM/?tag=imwan-20

We rewatched The Hunt (2020) - which was fun.

We watched Nobody (2021) - a fine film we enjoyed. Odenkirk is great.

We just watched Starship Troopers (1997) and plan to watch the two sequels. The brother says it was much better than he recalled. I enjoyed it, but IIRC, the book was better.

Starship Trooper 2 (2004) is a fairly different kind of movie than the first film. This has more of a horror story feelings to it. Frankly, it's not as good as others of its kind, and not as good as the first movie, either. But it's part of the Starship Trooper Universe, so it's watchable in that way.

Tomorrow, the third installment.